Maddie watched as Danny ran figure eights with his spoon through his cereal milk. “I’m not so sure. I mean . . .” She made a show of checking if the coast was clear, glancing through the arched kitchen doorway to the hundred-year-old front door to the freshly wallpapered staircase. “Well, maybe I better not say . . .”

Danny tucked his feet underneath him, and Maddie’s hand instinctually reached to steady the stool. He leaned across the marble counter. “You can trust me.”

Maddie raised an eyebrow. “Hmm . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Maddie.”

“Danny.”

Her brother sucked in his cheeks, folding his bottom lip into a pout that never failed to achieve its desired effect.

“Okay,” she said, “but it’s gotta stay under your hat.”

“I’m not wearing a hat.”

Maddie lifted her hand above her brother’s red hair. Though empty of her stylus, her fingers automatically curled into position, and with a flourish she drew an invisible top hat above his head. “There.”

He looked up and pretended to knock it off his head. “It’s brown,” he said matter-of-factly. “Green’s my favorite color.”

“How silly of me.” With a fervent air scribble, Maddie abided by the wishes of her little brother. “There. Now, about those pterodactyls . . . my theory, and again, you didn’t hear this from me, but I think they’re the smartest dinosaurs in all of cereal land.”

Danny’s eyes widened, and a pang of sadness stole her breath. Five weeks. She wouldn’t see him for five whole weeks.

She cleared her throat, lowered her voice, and pointed to the cereal box. “These guys . . . they’re not going to become extinct. Not ever again. So each and every one waits and waits and waits and then flaps its wings a million miles an hour and zooms out of the box right before the factory glues it shut, and now they’re all living together on a tiny island off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.”

Danny cocked his head. “That’d be nice.” A wistfulness gleamed in his eyes, but not long enough. Growing up too fast was Danny’s thing. Maddie’s was hitting pause, whenever and however she could.

He slowly sat back on his heels and dunked his spoon in his bowl. “But it’s just a story.” His fingers swirled in the milk, and out came a tiny pterodactyl. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “Gonna miss your stories.”

Maddie’s phone dinged with a text from ValleyStart. She flipped it over on the counter. But not before Danny saw it too.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m proud of you, Mads.”

A hard lump formed in Maddie’s throat, and she tried for the millionth time to convince herself that this was the right thing.