“Thanks, your majesty,” said Héctor, and even if he didn’t understand this, even if it was weird to thank a spider, he let the strangeness of all of this guide him to his homeroom. When he glanced up at the clock, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

8:14 a.m.

In the midst of his morning English class, Héctor struggled to focus on anything that Mrs. Torres said. He wanted to text Tim and Sophia. He pulled his phone out quickly between his first and second classes. Once he glanced at his mostly ignored group chat, though, he put it back. No, he’d left too much unsaid with them lately. How would they ever believe this?

He had wanted to be more social with the Table of Misfits at lunch, but he fell into silence because he didn’t know how to have a normal conversation. Not with the closet on his mind! He kept worrying that he’d blurt it out randomly. Hey, y’all, do any of you have Mr. Harris for pre-algebra? Just asking, because there’s a magical closet on campus, and I totally took a nap in it and traveled through time. You guys ever do that?

Aishah nudged him as they walked to Mrs. Caroline’s class. “You lost in there?”

“Huh?” he said.

“You just seem so quiet lately,” she said. “My mom always says that when people get like that, it’s because the world inside is more interesting than the one outside.”

He couldn’t help chuckling at that. “I guess you could say that,” he said, and then he smiled at Aishah. “Sorry, I’m just figuring stuff out.”

She smiled back. “It’s okay.”

Héctor entered art class with a lightness in his step because of that. “How was your morning?” Mrs. Caroline asked him.

He grinned from ear to ear. “Unique,” he said.

Mrs. Caroline twirled. “That’s what I want to hear!” she exclaimed. “Now let’s put that energy toward some new art.”

As he sat down and pulled out his sketch pad, he found a small plastic bag tucked into his backpack. He examined it . . . and discovered that Mami had snuck him some alfajores. His heart swelled . . . and then beat furiously.

His parents.

There was no chance he could tell Mami or Papi. After that look they’d exchanged the other day, they definitely knew Héctor wasn’t having an easy time. How would they react to him telling them . . . well, what would he even say? That he’d found a magical room on campus that appeared to bend to his desire?

Right. That was believable.

So Héctor began to sketch out the shapes Mrs. Caroline had drawn on the whiteboard at the front of class. He also decided that he would keep this to himself.

Chapter Thirteen