Gretel starts laughing. “A house made out of cake? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“No, it’s the YUMMIEST thing you’ve heard,” Jonah says.

Gretel rolls her eyes. “No, I definitely mean the dumbest. Come on.”

“It’s not dumb,” I say. Humph. One minute, Gretel is nice, and the next she’s … not exactly sugar sweet.

“Trust me,” Gretel says, flipping her wavy brown hair behind her shoulders. “If there was a house made out of cake in these woods, my brother and I would have eaten it a long time ago.”

“There would be nothing left,” Hansel adds. “Not a crumb.”

“We’re telling you, there’s a cake house,” Jonah says. “Let me just give the tree a quick climb to see if I can find it.” He jumps up on the tree and looks out.

“Well?” I ask.

“Don’t see it,” Jonah says.

“Maybe you’ve climbed a few too many trees and fallen on your head,” Gretel snaps.

Nope, she’s not that sweet at all. More like sour.

Although, maybe I’d be like that, too, if my parents abandoned me in the forest. Twice.

“It’s going to get dark soon,” Gretel says.

I look at the setting sun. Hmm. Maybe that’s the problem. In the original story, the bird only came to them in the middle of the night. And the sun here is still setting. It’s about 8 P.M. We’re too early. Who knows where the bird is right now? He could be on the other side of the forest! I glance at my watch again. It’s four at home. We have only ninety minutes here before our parents wake us up back home. What are we going to do?

If only I had super-vision and could see through the trees. Or super-smell. Then I could smell the cake.

Wait a second.

I don’t have super-smell. But I know someone who does.

“Prince?” I say.

Ruff! Ruff!

“Jonah, take the lollipop out of your pocket and give it to Prince.”

“But I’m saving it!”

“Jonah! Do it!”

“Fine,” he grumbles, and takes it out. He puts it under Prince’s nose.

“Smell it, Prince. Take a good sniff.”

He gives it a lick.

“Good enough. Now, do you smell anything like that out here? Do you smell candy?”

He cocks his little head to the side. Then he sniffs the air. Once. Twice. Three times. He gives out a bark and sets off between two trees.

“He caught the scent!” I exclaim. “Follow that dog!”

“Gimme back that lollipop,” Jonah hollers. “It’s still good!”

“Jonah, Prince licked it.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You’re disgusting,” I say, but toss it to him as I run.

We’ve been chasing Prince for about fifteen minutes, and it’s now four thirty at home. Four thirty! At this point, I can only hope that the portal home is at the cake house. Because if it’s not, we’re never going to make it home in time.