But when Danny showed up at the house, and the door opened at his knock, he knew he’d been had. His friends were all there—the girls, Laurette, Sin, Pat, Xena, and the boys, Hal and Wheeler. But a big banner high on the wall, plainly visible from the front door, said nothing about birthdays or Xena.

It said “Intervention,” and Danny knew at once that he was the target, the patsy, the subject.

“What am I supposedly addicted to?” he asked.

“He doesn’t even get the How I Met Your Mother reference,” said Sin.

“He doesn’t watch television,” said Hal.

“Wow, we should have intervened about that,” said Xena.

“When are you going to intervene with Laurette about always showing off her cleavage?” said Danny. “It scares the teachers. They think they’re going to fall in and get lost.”

“Let’s stick to the plan,” said Laurette.

“It’s not my plan,” said Danny.

“You’re not going to dodge this one,” said Sin.

“You still haven’t told me what you’re intervening about,” said Danny. “Maybe I’ll agree with you and we can move on to the party portion of the evening.”

“We want you to stop hiding who you are,” said Hal.

Danny turned to him. “I’m President Obama’s love child with a Chicago waitress. I’m actually black, but I act super-white and it fools everybody.”

“We know you have powers,” said Sin.

“You’re a fairy,” said Xena. “The Tolkien kind.”

“‘Elf’ is a better word,” said Pat.

“No, it’s definitely ‘fairy,’” said Xena, “because it’s more fun to say.”

“I’m not an elf and I’m not a fairy,” said Danny. “These days I’m on the track team. I’m going to get a letter and be an athlete and then I’ll be too cool to hang out with you.”

“We know you healed us,” said Pat. “My complexion has cleared up totally, and Sin’s infected piercings got uninfected.”

“You didn’t do anything for my weight problem,” said Xena, “which wasn’t very nice.”

“Maybe he likes you the way you are,” said Wheeler.

“I’m trying to think how I did this magical stuff,” said Danny.

“It all started happening after you got here, that’s point A,” said Xena.

“Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” said Danny.

“He’s talking Logic,” said Hal. “I wish Ms. Schrader hadn’t done that unit on fallacies.”

“Point B,” said Xena, “is the tripping place.”

“So I heal people and I make them clumsy,” said Danny. “Sounds like a contradiction.”

“And there’s that flying thing with the rope climb,” said Hal. “You’re the one who set it up. You told me to move my hands as if I was climbing. That means you thought I’d somehow get up there without actually climbing.”

“Is that how you remember it?” asked Danny.