Murray pulled out his phone and did a quick search. “Interesting—the voting age used to be twenty-one. But the majority of countries use eighteen as their voting age now. A few countries have even older voting ages: twenty in Taiwan and twenty-one in Samoa. So we should argue that world opinion is that eighteen is the right age.” He reread his notes. “Okay . . . how about Cassie and I work on the arguments that support our proposition, and Ali works on ways we could tear apart their counterarguments? We’ll review it at school on Wednesday, okay?”

Ali nodded. She wouldn’t forget this time.

They went through the same exercise with the second debate topic. Ali was still terrified, but it was to fun to brainstorm ideas with Murray and Cassie.

“One more thing,” Cassie said to Ali as they got up to join the other debaters. “You have to control yourself on Saturday. No changing.”

“I wouldn’t change!” Ali protested.

Murray rolled his eyes. “Hello, C. S. Lewis’s hands. Keep it together, Sloane. We can’t afford to be disqualified because one of our members turns into a Toastmaster.”

Ali was in such a hurry to get home and practice for the next day’s presentation that she forgot to wait for Alfie. She was startled when he called her name and ran to catch up with her.

“You don’t want to debate, do you?” he asked.

“Debating in front of strangers scares me to death.”

Alfie smiled. “I think it’s scary too, which makes me want to do it.”

“You know that doesn’t make any sense, right?” Ali picked at a piece of lint on her jacket so she didn’t have to look at Alfie when she said, “The more I think about your dad’s death, the angrier I am at Digger.”

Alfie’s shoulders drooped. “My mom says that’s why they call them accidents; people don’t mean for them to happen. And there are boat tours at the Reversing Falls all the time. But yeah, I think your dad and mine were stupid. They should have known better.”

It was more than just stupidity. Ali wished she could tell Alfie that Digger was a Copycat. Then he’d understand. Digger should have turned into a giant eagle and plucked Teddy from the water. Why didn’t he?

“I’m sorry I couldn’t convince your grandfather to come to the party.”

“You did your best. I just wish . . .”

“That you could meet Digger and Gigi,” finished Ali.

“Yeah. I keep trying to figure out how I can, but I don’t want to go against my mom and my grandfather. They’re all I have.”

“I know. I wish I had a magic wand; I’d turn back the clock so none of this awful stuff would happen.”

“I wish you could. Hey . . . I heard you’re doing your science presentation tomorrow. So are Murray and Cassie.”