We were sitting around the counter drinking orange juice and ignoring the dishes when there was a knock at the back door. It was Abby, looking happy, and Alex, carrying an enormous pan of cinnamon rolls.
“Morning,” said Alex, setting the pan on the counter. “Sorry for just dropping by like this, Karen. I brought some treats.”
“Hi, Alex,” said my mom. “It’s fine. And thank you!”
“Maggie,” said Alex, “I was hoping to have a private talk with your mom. Would you and Abby mind giving us some space for a bit?”
I looked to my mom, who nodded, so Abby and I helped ourselves to cinnamon rolls and clambered up on the roof.
“So, what happened with your dad?” I asked, turning my back on the pine tree and diving into the frosting. Holy turtle poop, it was good. It was the greatest thing I’d had since guacamole lasagna.
“He was waiting up,” said Abby. “I thought he would be really mad, but he said when he got back from his date and all of us were gone he knew we must be together, and that meant we were safe. He still wanted a complete explanation of where we’d been, though.”
“Whoa! What did you tell him?”
“Everything. Well, the twins did. Matt explained how I couldn’t say anything now that the emergency was over, not without getting us all in trouble with the Council, so they told him as much as they knew.”
I wiped some frosting off my chin. “And did he believe them?”
“He went really quiet and sort of thought for a while, then he said he wanted to sleep on it. But this morning when I woke up he didn’t even mention it. He just called me into the kitchen and asked if I wanted to help him try out this new cinnamon roll recipe he got from Tamal.”
“I think I might be in love with Tamal,” I said, shoving another piece of cinnamon roll into my mouth.
“Aww, poor Murray,” Abby said.
I elbowed her in the ribs.
“So you’re not in trouble with your dad anymore, then? Everything’s all right?”
“Yup,” said Abby. “While we were making the cinnamon rolls, he told me he’d rather believe his kids were telling the truth. And anyway, it was a great story and he really hoped it was true.” She looked around. “Okay, I’m going to need a napkin here.”
Alex came out the back door as we were climbing down off the roof.
“Have a good day, kids,” he called. “Sounds like you’ll be hanging out here for a while. Bring the pan back when you come home, okay, Abby?”
Abby gave a sticky thumbs-up. Back in the kitchen my mom was wolfing down a cinnamon roll of her own.
“Oh, my purple scrubs,” she said with her mouth full. “These are incredible!”
“Right?” I said. “What did you and Alex talk about?”
She swallowed. “Mr. Hernandez wanted to check in with me about what happened last night. It sounds like he knew a bit already from the boys, but he still had a lot of questions.”
“And you answered them?”
“I told him the truth, yes.”
Ugh. The idea of our parents talking about the forts on their own made me incredibly nervous. They didn’t know enough. What if they jumped to some weird, grown-up conclusions about what should happen next? What if they decided they should take the forts away from us? Or worse, what if they wanted to get involved?
“So . . . what do you think?” I asked, bracing for the worst.
“I think I really need this cinnamon roll recipe,” said my mom, turning her attention back to her plate.
Abby looked over at the clock and nudged me. “When do you think we’ll hear from the Council? I wish they’d just let us know already and get it over with.”
“I haven’t checked my fort for messages since you got here,” I said. “Maybe they already have.”
But there were no silver envelopes or Council members waiting for us in Fort McForterson, just Samson stretched out in the link between our houses, purring like he didn’t have a care in the world.
The phone in the kitchen blared. My mom answered it, and I heard her let out a whoop.
“Kids! Get in here—it’s Joe!” We ran back to the kitchen as my mom put the phone on speaker.
Uncle Joe sounded great. He said the doctors up in Alaska were baffled by the disappearance of “that weird tourist family,” but he was claiming ignorance across the board as a result of his concussion. He was already using his hospital time to sketch out a paper on Orpheus and his tremendous scientific discovery, and his doctors were already sick of hearing about it. At one point my mom tried to explain why and how we’d left him all alone at the hospital, but Uncle Joe stubbornly la-la-ed over her until she stopped, and she had to let it go.
By the time we hung up the phone Abby and I were feeling pretty good about everything, even if the Council was taking forever to vote. My mom, however, turned out to have a bone to pick with us.
“Okay, you two,” she said, leaning against the counter and folding her arms. “Now that we know everyone is okay, I’m sorry to say, this is where I step in.” Abby shot me a glance. “I want to acknowledge that what you two have discovered is extraordinary, in the literal sense of the word, but here’s the thing, and Mr. Hernandez agrees with me on this: Now that I know, I can’t—as a parent, doctor, grown-up, any of it—let you keep having free access to your forts, even if those Council kids decide to let you join their club.”
Our jaws crashed right through the floor.
“It’s a question of safety and responsibility,” said my mom, ignoring our stunned faces. “Not to mention academics. You’re starting middle school in the fall, and you’ll need to focus on work, not running in and
