Penny doesn’t have a pet unicorn, that’s for sure.

Although I would never be able to sneak a unicorn past my parents. Especially considering how strict they’ve been lately.

“Abby,” Jonah complains, tugging my arm, “my knee hurts. I skinned it at recess today. How much longer do we have to walk?”

I realize I’ve been spacing out, my mind on unicorn pets. Prince, my real pet, barks up at me, as if he can tell I’ve been cheating on him.

“Sorry,” I say, snapping to attention. I take in our surroundings. There’s just tree trunk after tree trunk. Rocks and dirt crunch beneath our sneakers. Birds twitter in the trees.

I see no unicorns. Or dragons. Or talking lions. Or even bears.

Or any sign of where we might be.

I step onto a huge rock and strain my neck to look around.

“Hey, there’s another farm field with a fence around it,” I say, pointing. “I think those are red peppers.”

Jonah jumps on another rock. “And the sign says ‘Property of Me. No Peppers for You.’”

I climb onto his rock and look for myself. The sign really does say that.

“Like I’d want a pepper,” Jonah says, shaking his head. “Who steals red peppers? It’s not red velvet cake. Or red licorice. Oh! Speaking of which, guess what I have?”

“What?”

He digs into his jeans pocket and pulls out an unwrapped crusty-looking lollipop. “A lollipop!”

“That looks gross, Jonah.”

Prince barks. I hope he won’t try to eat it.

“It’s perfectly fine!” Jonah protests. “I found it in my sock drawer. And since we didn’t have dessert, I thought we might want something sweet.”

“I’ll pass. Thanks.”

“Okay, fancy-pants. Your lollipops always have to have wrappers? Do you also refuse to eat food off the floor?”

“Yes, I do.”

He shrugs. “Your loss.”

“Let’s keep walking,” I say with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll spot a castle.”

“Or a beanstalk.”

“Or a beanstalk,” I say. It’s not looking totally unlikely at this point. “I’m sure we’ll find something eventually.”

There have to be houses or a town or people somewhere in Vegetopia. Someone wrote those signs. The peppers don’t know how to use a pen.

We jump off the rock and zigzag around more trees. Prince begins to whine, so Jonah scoops him up.

“Um, Abby?” Jonah says. “What if we never find our way out?”

“It hasn’t been that long,” I say. “We only got here around an hour ago.” I glance at my watch to check. Hmm. It’s 2:00 A.M. back in Smithville. We left at midnight. That means we’ve been gone for two Smithville hours. But time always moves faster in fairy tales than it does back home. Or at least it moves at the same pace. Until now?

“Time might be slower here,” I say, suddenly worried. “We need to figure out why we’re here quickly and then get home.”

“What do you mean, figure out why we’re here?” Jonah asks. “We’re here because you were mad at Mom and Dad and wanted to go through the mirror.”