Not that it would ever be in the cards for the Foleys. His dad had been killed by a drunk driver when Chance was twelve, and his mother was newly recovered from a bout with cancer that had dumped the family into medical debt they weren’t likely to ever crawl out from under. But Chance didn’t care about the money. He was just glad his mom was okay. Hell, if he had to work his part-time job at the boatyard for the rest of his life to help pay off her medical bills, he would.

“Mrs. Barclay is such a weirdo,” Logan said.

“I think she’s nice,” Chance told him. “Not many rich old ladies would invite a bunch of fifteen-year-olds to a house like this.”

Then again, Chance and his friends—and all the other fifteen-year-olds at the party tonight—weren’t just any fifteen-year-olds. They’d all been born the last year Bob came around. In Endicott, you didn’t get much more prestige than being born in a year of the comet. Too bad it didn’t bring riches, too.

It could, though. Maybe. A lot of folklore had risen up around Comet Bob over the years. Like the bit about making wishes. Legend had it that if someone in Endicott was born in a year of the comet, and if that person made a wish when Bob came back, then that wish would come true when Bob returned next time. So late last night, when the comet was directly overhead, Chance had sent his wish skyward—a wish for a million dollars. He didn’t care if it took fifteen years for it to come true. His mom would have barely made a dent in her medical bills by then. A million bucks, he was sure, could pay off whatever was left. Then he and his mom and his brother could put the whole terrible ordeal of her illness behind them forever.

“Hey, did you guys make a wish last night?” he asked his friends. “I did.”

His friends exchanged an anxious glance.

“Um, yeah. Okay. I guess I did, too,” Felix confessed.

Max exhaled a defeated sound. “All right. Fine. I did, too.”

“Wishes?” Logan asked incredulously. “You guys actually made wishes when Bob passed overhead?”

“Shh,” Max shot back. “Will you please keep it down? The wishes may not come true if other people hear, even if we were all born in the last year of the comet.”

Logan shook his head at the three younger guys. “Incredible. Just what the hell did you wish for?”

Max dropped his glance to his lap. “I wished Marcy Hanlon would see me as something other than the lawn boy.”