“I don’t believe you,” Gretel says suspiciously.

“It’s true,” I say. “Your stepmom is gone, and the witch and her bird are going to jail. And veggies will be available to everyone in Vegetopia.”

“And your dad has a new girlfriend,” Jonah adds. “She has a slingshot!”

“Huh?” they ask.

“Not important,” I say with a wave of my hand. “But it’s definitely safe to go home.”

“Thanks,” Gretel says. “We really are sorry we pretended to be you. But it was fun. School was fun! And your friends are nice. I really like Penny. I volunteered the two of us to clean out the fish tank tomorrow at recess.”

Huh? “What? Penny? Recess?”

“The teacher asked for two volunteers to clean the fish tank, so I volunteered me and Penny! It’s a mess. I thought it would be nice for Penny and me to spend some quality time together.”

“Um …” I’m speechless.

“Oh, and you had a surprise math test today,” Gretel says. “You did not know most of the answers unfortunately. Sorry.”

Great. Just great. “Do I have any homework?” I spit out.

“Not that much,” she says. “Although Ms. Masserman said I have something called detention.”

What?! Detention? I’ve never had detention. EVER! “For what?”

“I’m not sure exactly. She kept telling me I had to raise my hand to talk, which I told her was absolutely ridiculous. Who raises their hand to talk? Their head maybe, but hand? I don’t talk with my hands!”

I take a deep breath. A very, very deep breath. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I wasn’t,” she says with a shrug.

Hmph.

“I kind of have something of yours,” Hansel says sheepishly.

“What?” Jonah asks nervously. I don’t blame him for being nervous after hearing what Gretel did to my life.

Hansel reaches into the sailboat-dotted cardigan and pulls out Jonah’s golden ball. “Your mom gave it to me. For eating so much spinach. And saying ‘thank you’ a lot.”

Jonah takes the ball and holds it close to him. Then he takes a deep breath … and tosses it back to Hansel. “You can keep it.”

“Really?”

Really?

“Really,” Jonah says. “It probably belongs on your side of the mirror. It keeps breaking things on this side.”

“It only broke one lamp,” I say.

“And the polka-dot salad bowl,” Jonah says with a laugh. “That’s how it got chipped. Oh, and maybe a glass figurine or two. It doesn’t matter. Not important!”

“So how do we get home?” Gretel asks, looking around the room. “Is there another swirly purple tree in your room that will take us back? Or do we go through your window, maybe?”

After everything they put us through, I’m tempted to tell them to try jumping out the window, but I don’t. “There’s a magic mirror in our basement,” I say. “The one you came through.”

“Hey,” Jonah asks. “Did you guys meet Maryrose? The magic fairy in the mirror?”

“No,” Gretel says. “We came through the mirror, landed in the basement, and just kind of walked around until we figured out which were your rooms. I can’t believe this entire house is yours.”