Sassafras and I burst into my mom’s office. She jumped and quickly hid the photo under a pile of papers before smiling at us.
“Mom! Sassafras found a billion rolypolies under a rock in our yard. And I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but then I used my Thinking Goggles. And we made a circus! With a tightrope and everything. Can you come see? Please?”
“That sounds wonderful, Zoey. I’m almost finished getting ready for this trip. Give me five more minutes?”
I shrugged and leaned on her desk while Sassafras wove through my legs. I was trying to act like I didn’t mind her leaving for a trip. But maybe I felt a little nervous about not seeing her for a whole week.
I was also curious about that photo she’d stashed away so quickly. As she packed, I poked at her papers and scootched them around. Whoa. What was that? A purple glow came from under a pile of papers. I pushed the top papers aside and gasped. In the photo was my mom when she was around my age. She was grinning with two missing teeth. With a purple frog on her head. That was glowing. I almost dropped the photo.
Mom glanced over her shoulder. “What is it?”
I held out the photo with a trembling hand. “This . . . photo . . . the frog . . . it’s glowing. How?”
My mom spun around so fast that some of the papers she was holding fell and scattered on the ground.
“You see Pip?”
Pip? Who was Pip? What on earth was going on?
