by Zach King
know what I’m doing now.”
“If you say so.” Aaron’s gaze drifted toward the snack
table. A speculative expression came over his face.
“Hmm—”
“Forget it.” Zach could guess what was going through
his friend’s brain. “Don’t even think about that ranch
dressing.”
“What about Tabasco sauce?”
“No! We turned back time, and we’re just going with
the glasses. We’re good.”
“Okay, okay,” Aaron muttered. “For now.”
Zach maneuvered over to a quiet corner of the gym,
away from the roaming students and chaperones, where
he slipped the glasses on and turned invisible. He glanced
down to make sure that both his body and his clothes had
completely disappeared from sight.
“Yikes!” Aaron yelped as Zach vanished before his
eyes. He reached for the seemingly empty air. A sweaty
hand groped Zach’s face. “Zach? Is that you?”
“Who else?” Zach peeled Aaron’s fingers away.
“I knew what to expect,” Aaron said, “but it’s still pret-
ty freaky when somebody disappears right in front of
you. It’s like you’re not really real anymore.”
“That’s the idea,” Zach whispered to Aaron. “Hogan
won’t see me coming . . . literally.”
Aaron nodded and got his camera ready. “Just make it
YouTube-friendly.”
“Trust me, everyone’s going to want to see this again.”
Zach wound invisibly through the crowd, taking care
not to get in anyone’s way, until he reached the circle of
kids and teachers watching Hogan’s rope tricks. He el-
bowed his way past Tricia, who yelped in surprise as an
unseen force bumped her aside.
“Hey!” she blurted. “Who did that?”
Zach bit down on his lip to keep from laughing. The
baffled look on Tricia’s face nearly made this whole stunt
worthwhile.
Now for Hogan, he thought.
The crowd had cleared a space to give Hogan room to
twirl his lasso around. He jumped in and out of a spin-
ning flat loop with both feet. Zach had to admit that his
moves were pretty slick—but not for long.
Like a ghost, Zach crept up on Hogan. He planned to
grab the lasso and throw it back over Hogan, so that it
would look like he’d accidentally roped himself.
Zach glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Aaron
was getting this all on video. Then he darted forward and
reached for the lasso.
And missed.
Frowning, he tried to snag it again.
And missed.
Invisible fingers caught only empty air. The problem,
Zach realized, was that he couldn’t see what he was doing.
Apparently, hand-eye coordination really suffered when
the eye couldn’t locate the hand.
No wonder Sophie had warned him that he’d need more
practice!
Hogan twirled the lariat behind his back, drawing ap-
plause from the spectators, including Rachel and Princi-
pal Riggs. Frustrated, Zach lunged for the lasso one more
time—and finally caught hold of it.
Then his touch turned the rope invisible, too.
Startled, Hogan let go of the rope, causing Zach to tum-
ble backward. He tried to get control of the unseen las-
so, but it whipped around him, tangling up his legs. Zach
stumbled through the audience toward the refreshments.
Uh-oh . . .
Zach saw the jumbo-size plastic punchbowl filled to the
brim with disaster coming a second before he slammed
into the table. Gallons of cold lemonade splashed down
on him, drenching him completely. Ice cubes and lemon
slices skittered across the dance floor. The bowl rest-
ed on Zach’s head like a hat, and the impact knocked
Sophie’s glasses off, causing Zach to turn visible again.
Aaron dropped his camera and dived after the glasses
before they could be stomped on.
“Watch your step, everyone!” Aaron shouted. “Run-
away glasses!”
Sprawled on the gym floor, soaked to the skin, Zach
watched as Principal Riggs marched across the floor to-
ward him. Hogan’s soggy lasso was still tangled around
Zach’s legs. Lemonade dripped down his face.
There was no getting out of this tough spot.
“Zach King!” Principal Riggs stomped toward him,
red-faced and fuming. “I should have known you’d be
behind all this!” He scratched his shiny bald head, ob-
viously trying to make sense of it all. “Let me guess.
You were hiding beneath the table . . . in order to pull
off another of your ridiculous magic tricks?”
“Um, something like that,” Zach said lamely. He
couldn’t explain what had really happened without giv-
ing away his family’s long-held secrets. As far as Prin-
cipal Riggs and the rest of the world was concerned,
Zach’s “magic” was all just tricks and illusions.
“One more year,” Principal Riggs sighed, and turned
his gaze upward. “All I wanted was to get through my
last year without any trouble. Just one year. And I’d
go off, bait my lures, catch some fish, enjoy the quiet
breezes in the Gulf of Mexico . . . but then you came
along, Zach King.” He buried his face in his hands.
“What did I ever do to deserve this?”
Zach couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the prin-
cipal. He’d just wanted make things go right for Ra-
chel this time, not make Principal Riggs cry.
Untangling himself from the wet rope, Zach looked
sheepishly at the principal. “Want to talk about fish-
ing instead?”
“What I want,” Riggs said, “is to see you in my of-
fice—again!—bright and early Monday morning. But
in the meantime, you are hereby banished from this
dance and these premises for the rest of the evening,
effective immediately.” His stern gaze swung toward
Aaron. “And that goes for you, too, young man!”
“Me?” Aaron hastily hid the hot-pink glasses behind
his back. “What did I do?”
“Don’t play innocent with me,” Riggs said. “You
two are thick as thieves.” He pointed toward the exit.
“Make tracks, both of you, unless you want Saturday
detention—again!”
Zach’s heart sank. If he and Aaron were kicked out
of the dance, how were they going to keep Rachel from
being sabotaged again?
Zach scrambled to his feet, trying to not to slip in the
spilled lemonade. He took the punch bowl off his head,
and a stray lemon slice fell out of his hair and onto the
floor. Peering past Riggs, he saw Rachel standing next to
Hogan, looking embarrassed. He tried to make eye con-
tact with her, but she shook her head and looked away.
Zach couldn’t blame her. He realized just how bad this
must look from her perspective. He opened his mouth to
warn her, but what was he supposed to say?
Rachel, don’t dance with Hogan? Make sure you’re
wearing a life
preserver?
He knew just how crazy that would sound, but he
needed to say something, to try to warn her.
“Rachel,” he began. “Don’t dance—”
But Riggs didn’t give him a chance to explain. “You
heard me, Zach.” He took Zach by the arm and led him
firmly toward the door, while making sure that Aaron
got the message as well. “Get moving.”
The last thing Zach saw, before the principal escorted
him out the door, was Hogan leading Rachel out onto
the dance floor.
After all that, they hadn’t changed anything!
“Well, that sucks,” Aaron said outside. He handed So-
phie’s glasses back to Zach for safekeeping. “What are
we going to do now?”
A stubborn look came over Zach’s face. “There’s only
one thing we can do.”
“What’s that?”
Zach looked at his magic watch.
“Try again.”
Chapter 10
“Wait—another do-over?” Aaron asked. “Are you seri-
ous?”
The boys were walking home from the dance through
a quiet suburban neighborhood. Neither of them wanted
to call their parents for a ride, not after being expelled
from the dance by the principal. Zach got his jacket
from the coat closet. His soggy clothes hung heavily on
him. His socks and shoes squished with every step.
“It’s the only way,” he said. “All we did this time
was make things worse. To undo all that, we have to
try it one more time.”
Aaron looked doubtful. “Don’t you think that might
be pushing our luck?”
“Look at it this way,” Zach said. “Do you really want
to report to the principal’s office on Monday?”
“No way!” Aaron shuddered at the thought. “We just
got over doing detention for the alligator mess. Riggs is
going to throw the book at us for sure.”
“And then some,” Zach agreed. “And honestly, we’d
also be doing Riggs a favor by undoing everything that
just happened. He looked like he was practically ready
to retire on the spot. We need another do-over . . . for
everyone’s sake.”
“Like restarting a video game after you get killed?”
“Exactly!” Zach thought that was a perfect compari-
son. “We didn’t make it to the end of Pumpkin Zombies
IV: The Final Carving the first time through, but we
beat the final level eventually.”
“Yeah, after seventeen tries,” Aaron pointed out.
Zach glanced nervously at the duplicate watch, all
too aware that the magical copy came with an expira-
tion date. Was the bronze casing already looking a little
worn and duller? Zach couldn’t tell for sure. He could
only hope that it would last long enough for them to get
one more do-over dance.
They were getting nearer to Zach’s house. He wasn’t
looking forward to explaining to his parents why he was
soaked in lemonade, but if the next do-over fixed things,
that wouldn’t matter in the long run. His epic fail with
the punch bowl would never happen—and nobody but
he and Aaron would ever remember it.
“But what exactly are we going to do differently next
time?” Aaron asked.
Zach wasn’t entirely sure, but he knew one thing for
certain.
“No more invisibility. That’s just asking for trouble.”
He resolved to give Sophie her glasses back as soon as
he got home. “I’m going to need another kind of magic.”
“Like what?” Aaron asked.
“I’m still working on that part,” Zach admitted, “so
let’s take the night, come up with a plan, and then we’ll
get together tomorrow, same place, same time, and fig-
ure that out.”
Aaron groaned. “Ugh, I already feel dizzy again.”
Chapter 11
The next day the boys rewound time again for what
would be their third chance at a happy ending to the big
dance.
By now, Zach barely noticed the music and decora-
tions at the dance. Been there, done that. He was keep-
ing his eye on the prize.
“You know what they say: third time’s the charm,” he
told Aaron as they worked their way to the dance floor.
“Who says that exactly?” Aaron asked.
Zach wasn’t sure. “Um, ‘they’?”
“That’s what I thought,” Aaron said. As ever, he had
his camera ready to record the operation for posterity
and/or social media. “You sure you know what you’re
doing?”
“Don’t worry.” Zach reached into his jacket and took
out a very special deck of playing cards. “I’ve got it—
this time.”
Thanks to Gwen’s computer wizardry and the mod-
ern miracle of long-distance video conferencing, Zach
had borrowed the magic playing cards from yet another
of his many cousins, Kristi, who had dazzled everyone
with her amazing card tricks at Great-Grandpa King’s
birthday party.
Forget invisibility, Zach thought. This kind of magic
I can handle.
Zach moved across the dance floor, slipping between
friends and chaperones, to get to where Hogan and Ra-
chel were before Hogan could start showing off his rope
tricks. Zach pushed his way through a group of kids
who were square dancing energetically just in time to
see Hogan lift a lasso from a saddle that was conve-
niently mounted on one of the stationary horses near
where they were.
“Love the decorations,” Hogan told Rachel. “Makes
me feel right at home.” He toyed with the rope for a
moment as if he were getting the feel of it. “You know,”
he said, as though the idea had just occurred to him, “I
happen to know a few tricks I could—”
“Tricks?” Zach interrupted, barging in. “Did some-
body mention tricks?”
Rachel looked surprised to see him—and a little wor-
ried. “Zach?”
“You know me,” Zach said to everyone in earshot.
“Tricks are my middle name. Check this out!”
He fanned the cards out in his hands like a profession-
al. Magic made it easy. The cards practically moved un-
der their own power. He collapsed the deck with a dra-
matic flourish, then fanned them out again. This time all
fifty-two cards were the king of clubs. He streamed the
cards from one hand to another, back and forth, then
revealed that they were all now the queen of hearts.
A second later, they were all jokers.
“Uh-oh!” Zach said, hamming it up. “Somebody bet-
ter call Batman!”
Gasps and applause greeted the magic tricks as Ho-
gan scowled. He was left on the sidelines with nothing
but a boring piece of rope to twirl. Even Principal Riggs
watched Zach show off his card tricks. Rachel applaud-
ed as Zach pulled a card from Principal Riggs’s jacket. It
was the same card he was holding at the bottom of the
deck. Rachel even winked at Zach.
&nbs
p; He could tell she was happy for him.
Things were finally going his way. Why try to sabo-
tage Hogan when he could just upstage him instead?
“Keep your eyes on the cards,” Zach told the crowd.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
He collected the cards into the deck, then flung them
upward with a flick of his wrist. The cards shot into the
air like a geyser, streaming all the way to the ceiling.
Wide-eyed kids and teachers craned their necks back to
watch the cards climb a whole lot higher than a mere fif-
ty-two cards could possibly reach. It was like the cards
were multiplying before their eyes.
Which was exactly what they were doing.
Top that, Zach thought. He smirked at Hogan, who was
giving Zach some serious stink eye by now. I’m on to you.
“Anybody up for a game of fifty-two pickup?”
He held out his hand, expecting the cards to do a
U-turn in midair and dive straight back into his palm,
just like they had done for Kristi at the birthday party.
But instead the cards started spraying out in all direc-
tions while multiplying at a ridiculous rate. An endless
flurry of clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds swarmed
the gym, swooping and soaring wildly through the air.
The cards zipped through streamers, shredding ribbons,
and careened into balloons, popping them on contact.
The oohs and aahs turned into “Yikes!” and “Run for
your life!” as people ducked for cover. Even the Buckeye
Barn Razors stopped playing as the cards swarmed their
instruments like bees. The banjo player got so freaked
out, he swung his instrument at the swarm and acciden-
tally whacked the fiddler in the head. Zach heard a loud
twang over the screaming and shouting and thought,
“Oh, that can’t be good.”
“Zach!” Rachel screamed, batting a jack of diamonds
away from her face. “Do something! Get these crazy
cards of yours under control!”
“I’m trying!”
He ran after the cards, waving his arms to try to get
their attention.
“Come back here!” he called out. “Get back in the