Her blue eyes slowly sank into rising puddles of tears.

“Don’t, Brianna,” Henry pleaded. “Please?”

Too late. She inhaled deeply, and Henry knew he was in for a good one. He often thought of her as a volcano, gathering steam below the surface and …

“WAAA!”

There she blows.

“Henry!” his mother yelled from the bottom of the staircase.

“You brat!” he hissed, which served only to crank up her volume even higher.

Heavy footsteps tromped up the stairs toward Henry’s room. They were not the footsteps of a small woman. Henry shoved the wand into his pocket.

“What’s going on in here?” their father asked sternly from the doorway.

“Daddy!” Brianna squeezed out a few fresh tears before running to him. “Henry won’t share.” She flipped her long chestnut hair back and fluttered her eyes at him—the full look-at-poor-little-me treatment.

Henry cringed and braced for the worst.

Their father didn’t say anything for a long moment, though. Instead, he sniffed the air from the doorway and gave Henry a curious look before finally turning his attention to Brianna. “Okay, Breezie. Why don’t you go see Mommy for a minute?”

Brianna blinked. Henry could just about imagine her bewilderment—her time-tested tactic of getting him into trouble hadn’t worked! Even stranger, no one had called her Breezie since she had come home from school in first grade and said it made her sound like a baby.

“Go on,” their father urged. “Mommy has something for you.” If he had mentioned what the “something” was, she might not have gone. But Brianna never could contain her curiosity. She left without another whimper, sticking out her tongue at Henry as she turned the corner.

Henry prepared to plead his defense. “Dad, she—”

“I know,” his father said calmly. He grabbed a comic book from Henry’s dresser and casually flipped through it as he looked around Henry’s room. His nose twitched and continued to sniff the air. As he sat on the edge of the bed, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, something Henry had noticed him doing a lot lately—as if he were constantly tired. “Come here, Henry,” he said, patting a place on the bed next to him.

There were times when Henry imagined he had a sixth sense like Spider-Man and could tell when something bad was about to happen. Not this time—his Spidey-Sense wasn’t tingling.

But he wasn’t quite ready to let his guard down. Brianna’s tears had always brought him misery.

Seeing Henry’s hesitation, his father smiled. “No lecture tonight. We just need to talk for a minute.”