A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(17)

“Good morning, Ms. Campbell,” Mrs. Peters said.

“Good morning, everyone,” Bree said with a yawn. She even yawned cooler than everyone else, Conner thought.

“Let’s go inside and get checked in,” Mrs. Peters instructed, and they followed her with their luggage. One by one they showed their passports to the lady behind the counter and checked in to their flight.

Conner was standing in line right behind Bree. He couldn’t explain the anxiety she caused him. He was so excited to be near her, yet terrified at the same time.

She’s just a girl, not a python, he said to himself over and over in his head. Be cool. Don’t try to be funny. Just act normal. And when you get back home you need to see a doctor about this.

“Mindy, Cindy, Lindy, and Wendy are in row thirty-one, seats A, B, C, and D,” Mrs. Peters said as she passed out their plane tickets. “And Conner and Bree are in row thirty-two, seats A and B.”

Conner’s heart was doing cartwheels. I’m sitting next to Bree! I’m sitting next to Bree! Woo-hoo! he thought. But why does that seem like the best news of my life?

He got a glimpse of Bree’s passport photo—which was, to no surprise, far better than his—and Bree caught him staring at it. Conner had to think fast so he didn’t seem like the creeper that he was.

“Your passport picture is much better than mine,” he said. “I got mine over the summer and made the mistake of asking if I was supposed to smile right as they took it.”

He flipped his passport open so she could get a glimpse of it.

“It kind of looks like you sneezed and it scared you,” Bree said blankly. There was no trace of judgment or mockery in her voice. It was a perfectly honest description.

“Would you like to check your bag, sir?” the lady at the counter asked. It took Conner a second to realize she was talking to him; no one had ever called him sir before.

“Oh, please! Take her!” Conner said and handed Betsy over to be tagged. The lady gave him a strange look, hearing that his suitcase had a gender. “I mean take it. Take the suitcase.”

Betsy was loaded onto the conveyor belt and slowly traveled farther and farther away from him. The next time he’d see her would be in Germany. Conner and the girls went through the security line and their group was boarding the plane within the hour.

The plane was massive. Conner couldn’t wrap his head around how something so big could get into the air. Even after witnessing all the magical things he had seen in the Land of Stories, it was still fascinating to him. They walked down the aisle and found their seats. Conner gulped when he realized how long he would have to spend in such a small area.

“Where is your seat, Mrs. Peters?” Mindy asked. All the seats around them were filling up fast.

“I’ll be in first class,” Mrs. Peters said. “But don’t worry; if any of you need me, just have a flight attendant notify me. I’ll be in row one, seat A. It’s going to be a long flight, so get comfortable.”

And with that said, Mrs. Peters promptly turned on her heel and pushed her way past the oncoming travelers to the front of the plane. Conner sat down in his seat by the window and Bree sat next to him. He stared at the back of the seat in front of him for a moment; he had no idea how to start a conversation with her.

“Are you okay by the window?” Conner asked her.

Bree looked confused. “But you’re by the window,” she said.

Conner wanted to smack his head against the stupid window—they weren’t off to a good start. “Oh, right, what I meant to ask was if you wanted to sit by the window,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind switching seats.”

“I’ll be fine,” Bree said. “I’m just going to read for most of the flight.” She gestured to her bag and Conner saw it was full of thick murder-mystery novels. Bree kept getting cooler by the second.

“Great. Let me know if you change your mind,” Conner said, and returned to staring at the seat in front of him until he thought of something else to say. “So, Mrs. Peters was telling me you like to write, too.”

“Uh-huh.” Bree nodded. “Short stories mostly. I read some of yours when I TA’d for Ms. York last year—they’re cute. They remind me of classic fairy tales.”

Conner couldn’t believe his ears. “You’ve read my stories?”

“Yup,” Bree said. “I liked them a lot—especially the one about the Curvy Tree and the Walking Fish. Those were very clever.”

“Thanks,” Conner said, and blushed a deep shade of red. Not only had she read them but she also remembered them. “Those were originally called the Curvy Giraffe and the Flying Frog, but I changed the titles to sound more… um… realistic. What kind of stories do you write?”

“I just finished one called ‘Cemetery of the Undead,’ ” Bree said. “It’s pretty self-explanatory.”

Conner nodded a little too much to seem normal. “Sounds lovely.”

He felt like an idiot talking about his fairy tales knowing that she wrote about things like cemeteries and zombies. How was he going to convince her he was cool when she was obviously the coolest person that ever lived?

“I’ve thought about changing up my genre,” Conner said. “I think it’d be fun to write darker stories about things like that. Stories with vampires and werewolves, but no love triangles or anything—”