Weird.
"So, I’m planning to sneak out of the house on the Fourth of July and go to Orlando to see the fireworks at Disney with Zane and his cousin in high school who just got his driver’s license," she continued, and all those warm feelings plummeted from my heart to the top of my head, where they exploded.
I picked up my phone. "Tess? Do you want to tell me about any side effects of that magical truth-telling pin thingy?"
"Funny you asked," she said, sounding surprised. "I just talked to the seller, and after I pushed him for five minutes, he admitted that the truth-telling magic can last for hours after you take off the pin."
"And?"
"And he claims that if someone else put the pin on you, that person also gets the truth-telling whammy."
"I see. Well, guess what?"
"What?"
"He wasn’t lying."
Shelley narrowed her eyes at me. "You'd better not tell her what I just said, or I’m going to tell everybody about the cow, Uncle Jack."
I gave her my best "terrify the evil vampires" scowl, but she stuck her tongue out at me.
"Jack? What did Shelley say about a cow?"
"Never mind. I’ll call you later."
"Okay," she said slowly. "Love you. Talk to you later."
"Love you, too."
"Mwah, mwah!" Shelley said, making kissing noises. "You guys are so sappy."
"You and I are going to have a talk, young lady. You are definitelynotgoing to Orlando with some kid who just learned how to drive."
She clapped her hands over her mouth and groaned. "I can’t believe I told you that!"
"It’s a side effect of the pin."
"Great! Just great. This is why I need to go to magic school."
"We’ll talk about that later, too. For now, we’re here. Try not to tell anybody any other secrets, okay?"
We pulled into the parking lot of the Swamp Commando Airboat Rides, and Shelley cheered. "Yay! Can I go on the boat?"
"You’ll have to ask Lucky and the guys, but we have time if you want to go for a ride."
She was out of the truck almost before I finished my sentence, racing toward a group of tourists waiting to board the airboat. I shook my head, which was a mistake, and then I dug in the glove compartment for some headache medicine. Even a shapeshifter metabolism wasn't curing this headache quickly.
"Did we ever have that kind of energy?" Lucky asked, ambling over to meet me when I climbed out of the truck with the bags of food. "What happened to you?"
"A cow kicked me in the head. And I doubt it." I watched Shelley jump up and down with excitement, chattering away a mile a minute to Mickey Young and Darius Jones. "Do you have room for her to go on the boat with that group? I need to talk to the Fox twins about something. As you can see, I brought lunch."
"I'm not even going to ask about the cow. What you get up to in your weird tiger ways isn't for the likes of me to know," he said solemnly, his lips quirking against the grin trying to surface. "For Shelley, anything."
He grabbed the drinks and followed me over to the picnic table. "But this isn’t a group going out. This group just came back, and they’re all whining because no gators showed up, so they didn’t get the selfies they wanted."
Lucky Tremaine, former soldier, amateur guitarist, and unofficial head of the airboat business, looked like a blond, blue-eyed surfer. His eyes held darkness, though, from what he’d seen in combat. He’d become a good friend and someone I could count on since I’d moved home to Dead End.
"Really? No gators? That’s unusual."
