A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(18)

“Oh, Conner—I forgot I had something I was going to ask you,” Bree said.

“Ask me anything,” he said.

“Do you have a crush on me or something?” Bree asked him point-blank.

Conner was positive everything in his body came to a complete stop, starting with his brain. He could feel his cheeks filling with so much blood he was worried his head would explode.

“What?” he asked, as if she had asked him if he was a leprechaun. “No! Of course not! Why would you think that?”

“Because you turn bright red and ramble whenever I’m around you,” Bree said. She was neither accusatory nor suspicious; she was just stating the facts calmly as ever.

Conner forced a laugh that was too loud to be genuine. “Oh, that? That’s nothing. That’s just my sodium allergy.” He was as surprised to say it as she was to hear it.

“Sodium allergy?” Bree asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s very rare,” Conner said. “Makes me ramble and turn bright red for no apparent reason.… So that explains all that.…”

He wasn’t sure how far he was planning to go with this. He could tell she wasn’t convinced.

“Sorry, I just thought since we’re going to be sitting next to each other for half a day on this plane I would ask,” Bree said.

“I appreciate you asking,” Conner said. “That would have been totally awkward.… Just sitting here… for hours and hours… one of us crushing on the other… glad that’s not the case…”

Conner wanted to die. He fantasized about crawling out the window and curling up in the plane’s propeller. He couldn’t decide what was more mortifying: giving the impression that he had a crush on her or that there may have been some truth to her suspicion. Conner had never had a crush before; he wouldn’t have known if he had. But after being accused of having one, it slowly dawned on him that that must have been his problem—he had a crush on Bree!

He looked out the window, too horrified to look at anything else. What was he supposed to do now that he had been diagnosed with a crush? Was there an anti-crush pill he could take? Was there a gland on his heart that could be removed? Was it terminal?

Soon the plane pulled away from the gate and proceeded to the runway. It took off with a jolt and Conner watched in amazement as the airport below them became smaller and smaller.

“Amazing,” Conner said under his breath.

“Have you ever flown before?” Bree asked him.

“Not on a plane,” Conner said without thinking.

Bree squinted. “Then what did you fly on? A magic carpet?” she asked.

It took Conner a moment to realize she was being sarcastic. “I’ve been—um—ballooning before. It was really neat but nothing like this. Technology is almost like magic these days.”

“You know, Arthur C. Clarke said that magic is just science we don’t understand yet,” Bree quoted.

Conner smiled. “Not always,” he said to himself.

“Pardon?” Bree asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Conner said. “That’s a great quote.”

Bree narrowed her eyes and stared at him suspiciously. “Where did you go ballooning?” she asked.

“It’s a long story.” Conner shrugged it off. “It was with my sister in my grandmother’s—um—state. But this is my first time being on a plane.”

“Looks like you’re having all kinds of first experiences,” Bree said with a smile of her own. Luckily for Conner, she then popped an earbud into her other ear and began reading one of her books before he could panic or respond with something else embarrassing.

If this was just the beginning of the trip, he didn’t want to think about what the rest of it would entail. Conner wanted to crawl out of his skin but Bree didn’t seem at all affected by their conversation. She just kept turning the pages of her murder-mystery novel, completely immersed in every word.

An hour or so into the flight Conner got up to use the restroom. When he exited the shoebox-size stall he was accosted by Mindy, Cindy, Lindy, and Wendy. They stood right in front of him, blocking his way back to his seat.

“Can I help you?” Conner asked.

“We need to talk to you,” Mindy said. They all scowled at him with the same serious eyes. They looked like a pack of hungry cats.

“Here?” Conner asked. “At the bathroom on a moving plane?”

The girls nodded. “We figured it was the best place to talk to you privately,” Cindy said. “And so you couldn’t get away.”

Conner looked for help but the closest flight attendant was serving drinks on the other side of the cabin.

“Have you been planning this ambush?” Conner asked.

Wendy nodded.

“Since the end of the last school year,” Lindy said.

“Okay…,” Conner said. “What’s up?”

All the girls looked to one another, excited to finally interrogate him.

“How’s Alex doing, Conner?” Lindy said. She crossed her arms. Her left eyebrow was raised so high it almost touched the ceiling.

“She’s fine,” Conner said. “She’s going to school and living with my grandma in Vermont. Why do you ask?”