Sometimes I’m sure Mom and I are from different planets, but there’s no denying I’m her daughter. Where Lily has Dad’s buttercream skin and Gram’s green eyes, I’ve got Mom’s much darker complexion and curtains of inky hair. But while Mom’s hair falls in silky plumes around her face, mine is more like a knotted nest. I usually pull it back into a ponytail so I don’t have to deal with it.

“What’s the treat?”

“You’ll see,” she answers helpfully. “Get up and get dressed.”

Mom has felt bad about yelling at me after Gram’s funeral, so I think maybe she’s taking me to the movies or something.

But no. Once I’m in the car, I find out she has kidnapped me to go back-to-school clothes shopping.

In other words, I’ve been had.

“But I’ve already got clothes,” I plead.

“I think we’ve established that you need new tights. And a backpack. Your winter jacket will definitely be too small now, so we’ll need to get a new coat, too.”

I cross my arms over my chest.

Mom sighs. “And we’ll go to the bookstore when we’re finished.”

“Bookstore first,” I say hopefully.

“Fine, fine,” Mom says, shooting me a little you win smile.

We park a few blocks from the bookstore. The streets are jammed with people running errands or licking ice cream cones and soaking up the last days of summer.

We pass a man making dollar bills disappear and re-appear again in strange places. I want to stop and watch—see if I can figure out his trick—but Mom pulls me right past the big church, past the gallery where Gram used to sell some of her paintings, down to the quiet part of the street, where we duck into the bookshop.

I take a deep breath through my nose. I love the smell of bookshops—all those pages waiting to be turned. I speed past Mom, heading toward the kids’ section.

As usual, I go straight to the place where I know The World at the End of the Tunnel will be. I always look there, just in case R. M. Wildsmith has suddenly decided, after fifty years, to write a sequel.

As always, he hasn’t.

I know it’s silly to hope that he would write a sequel after all this time, but I can’t help it. I don’t want the story to be over.

I pull out one of the copies on the shelf and turn to a random page.