Page 56 of The Haunting Plot

“Sure. So what do you really want for dinner?”

“Mac and cheese is fine.”

I shake my head. “That’s what Jonah wants. What do you want?”

“Mom says she’s not a short-order cook and she doesn’t have time to make two dinners.”

“Good thing I’m not your mom.”

“Yeah, your face is hairier.”

I laugh. “You have your mom’s sense of humor, I see. She’s a busy lady. I get why she might feel that way, but I have all night. So what do you want for dinner?”

She taps her chin as she considers her answer. “I want breakfast for dinner.”

“I like the way you think. Are we talking pancakes or waffles?”

“Pancakes. Pumpkin pancakes!” she says as her eyes get big. “And crunchy bacon. I don’t like when it’s floppy.”

“Yeah, floppy bacon’s the worst. You go to pick it up, thinking it’s gonna be amazing, and then it just hangs there like a wet noodle.”

McKenna giggles. “It does!”

I pull up a recipe on my phone and dig through the pantry for what I need. “So why pumpkin pancakes?”

“Jonah doesn’t like pancakes because they never look the same.”

“Makes sense.” I hold up my phone to show her the recipe, asking for silent approval.

She grabs my phone and starts typing into it. I like that she’s taking charge like her mom, and I smile to myself. “This one,” she says, pointing the phone back to me.

“Vegan pumpkin pancakes?”

“Yeah. There’s a boy in my class who has an egg allergy, and I figure if these taste good, I can share the leftovers with him at lunch tomorrow.”

“A boy, huh?”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s just a friend.”

I navigate around the kitchen, pulling out a pan and setting it on the stove.

“I thought you didn’t know where anything was?” McKenna eyes me suspiciously.

“I just said that to get you in here so I could find out what you really wanted to eat, but I didn’t want to upset Jonah just in case.”

She nods sagely. “How come I’ve never met you until you started working on our house?”

“Jane’s mom usually plans playdates. I’m terrible at keeping up with that stuff.”

“But you’re good at fixing houses.”

I drop a pat of butter into the pan as she walks over to join me. “Am I?”

“Yeah. Jane said you built her a bunk bed, and my friend Logan with the allergy said you built a giant bookshelf in his house with a rolling ladder.”

“That’s true, I did.”

McKenna drops her eyes to the floor. “If it’s not too much trouble, can you build something for me?” she asks softly.