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The stale garage air filled with angst as everyone stewed in their emotions. None had yet hit an age when the idea of handsiness seemed remotely appealing, and the thought of it coming from someone as gross as a Winston, especially when it was unwanted, was completely egregious. So much so, it took a breath for Eli to relay the rest of Greer’s message.

“They’re on their way back,” he said, finally snapping out of his brotherly rage. “Greer said they left ten minutes ago on their bikes.”

That was enough to force Jack out of his own murderous thoughts. “But they only live like three miles away from the high school.”

“Which means they’ll be here any second,” said Carter.

Jack leapt upright, abandoning the box he’d been crouched beside. As leader of the You Agains, it was up to him to keep his men safe, even the ones who weren’t men, and even if it meant changing plans.

“We’re moving on to phase two,” he ordered, prompting the others to their feet. Carter grabbed his wagon by the handle, trying to yank its heft out onto the driveway, but it was too heavy for him to pull alone. Jack nodded at Dale, who got behind the wagon and pushed as the two maneuvered it out of the garage, down the small, sloping driveway, and onto the sidewalk before vanishing into the night.

Eli grabbed for his own wagon, but before he’d made it over the garage’s threshold, the night air tick-tick-ticked with the sound of spinning bike spokes. Eli cast wild eyes over at Jack. Jack knew that look. It wasn’t the fear of being caught in his friend’s expression, it was the look of a boy who was about to do something reckless.

“Dude, no,” Jack hissed as two pairs of heavy footsteps approached the garage.

“That bastard freaked out Greer,” Eli growled. He didn’t turn to look at Jack even as Jack’s hand grabbed his shoulder. To Eli, Jack knew, there was no one else there but him and, at any moment, Roy Winston, grabber of sisters. If their years of friendship were any indication, this was about to end very badly, mostly for Eli. Roy would pummel him to within an inch of his life, leaving a curly-haired pulp stain on the garage floor. It wasn’t that Eli couldn’t fight, it was just that the Winston brothers would require a tag team of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock before they could accurately be described as picking on someone their own size.

The garage door, which had only been left half-open as the You Agains found it, creaked upward. Jack could feel the muscles in Eli’s sinewy shoulder tensing as he began to pull away, primed to dart headfirst into the meaty fists of danger. But before he had a chance, something bolted past them. Like a purple-and-khaki-clad bullet, Jules shot across the garage and out the steadily opening door, barreling directly between the Winstons and sprinting down the road, the whole while shrieking a battle cry that verged on a yodel. The brothers, still oblivious to the existence of anyone else in their garage, took off after her on foot, and with only a look between them, Jack and Eli hopped on the discarded bikes, Jack quickly fastening the handle of the second wagon to the bicycle seat with a stray piece of rope from one of the boxes in the garage, and they were off.

It took them only minutes to catch up to Jules, who ran track, and the Winstons, who were as muscled as they were lumbering. They bypassed the brothers and Jack slowed down just enough for Jules to hop into the wagon before they sailed on to their final destination, as per phase two of the plan, losing the brothers in the loose gravel kicked up by the tires of the stolen bikes.

Jack and Eli parked in a ditch just down from the park. Jules hopped out of the wagon and untied it from the bike, and together the trio climbed the little hill to the playground at the top. Despite the late hour and the indigo sky, the park was overrun with kids. Carter and Dale stood atop the slide like kings, having somehow dragged their wagon onto the climbing structure. Jack and the others ascended the ladder and joined them as the assembled kids swarmed closer. Toward the back of the crowd, a sandy-blond head bobbed above the others, making its way through the throng.

Dale stepped aside and ushered Jack to the makeshift stage at the top of the slide. “My fellow students of West District Middle School,” Jack declared over the chattering crowd. “We have your shit.”

Everyone erupted in applause as Carter and Eli rolled the wagons forward. Jules dug the lined paper with the list of stolen goods out of one of her cargo pants pockets and began reading the items aloud. It was like an auction, if an auction was held on a playground and no one actually spent any money. Jules would announce a stolen good, someone would raise their hand, and Dale would send it down the slide to be collected by its rightful owner. Jack looked on as the fruits of his labor unfolded before him, kids leaping over each other, occasionally in tears, as they clutched beloved toys and games to their chests. But despite his best efforts, his eyes kept being pulled back to the gawky teenager in the sparkly dress standing at the front of the crowd, looking up at him with, if he let himself believe it, something akin to admiration.

Eventually the park cleared out and all that remained were the You Agains and their empty wagons. Jack and the others slid down to meet Greer in the Band-Aid- and candy-wrapper-littered sand encircling the play structure.

“You okay?” he asked Greer as soon as he’d landed in front of her. “Did Roy hurt you?”

“He touched my knee,” Greer said. “And wouldn’t move his stupid sweaty hand when I told him to.”

“I should’ve bitten him when I had the chance,” Jules rued.

“It’s fine.” Greer lifted her dress just enough to reveal the combat boots peeking out under the hem. “These did the trick.”

“Think the Winstons will know it was us that took the stuff?” Carter said.

The Winston brothers were many things, but clever wasn’t on the list, and without seeing the faces of their adversaries, Jack had his doubts. “We’ll just have to make sure we stay out of their way from now on,” he said.

Dale nodded. “No worries there. If I never see another Winston in my whole life, I’ll die happy.”

31

Formerly Rich Ian lived in a tasteful beige town house with a salmon pink garage door and freshly mowed lawn. It was the kind of place Jack had cycled past on his hand-me-down bike many times growing up, knowing he’d never see the inside by legal means. Of course, he had never expected to end up in a house like Margaret’s. Or in a body like Margaret’s. But there was still a part of him that felt out of place in this tastefully beige neighborhood, and he couldn’t wait to get out of here and back to the mini mansion that, at the very least, his soul’s new home felt at home in.

Greer shifted from foot to foot on the front step. She tossed a look toward the side of the house, where Jack and Carter waited for her to gain entry. Carter had already examined the house’s blueprints as well as the layout on Google Street View, finding a dog door leading from the kitchen to the fenced backyard. Once Greer had Ian distracted, she’d peek out the living room window facing the side of the house, ostensibly to take in the breathtaking views of suburbia. This was the signal that set the rest of the plan in motion. From there, Jack would use his newfound diminutive size to crawl through the dog door before unlocking the back door for Carter. From the kitchen, it was a straight shot down the hall and up the stairs to the primary bedroom and home office, where anything worth hiding was likely kept. The plan was simple. Foolproof, even. Jack could have done it in his sleep.

He gave Greer a double thumbs-up from his hiding spot, but the look on her face told him that any hesitation she had on that doorstep didn’t come from waiting for the official go-ahead. After Operation Sports Banquet, Jack had promised Greer he’d never use her as a honeypot again. She hated being reduced to a pretty distraction, and Jack hated using her as one. And until now he’d been true to his word, even going so far as to dress in drag in a failed attempt to honeypot himself during senior year. He’d make this up to her by getting the money she needed for her daughter; that was the whole point of all this. They both just needed to get through the next twenty, maybe thirty minutes.

Jack offered an apologetic smile and Greer deflated in a sigh. She readjusted her tank top so it sat a little lower on her chest, looking appalled with herself, and then she knocked. A few more foot shifts later and the door clicked open. Jack couldn’t see past the front step, but Ian’s voice seeped out of the house just loud enough to catch.

“Can I help you?”

“I— Wait, is that Ian Grant?” Greer was all surprise and forced cleavage. When it came down to it, this was what Greer did best. Not the cleavage part, she usually kept that out of the equation, but from the day she’d burst into tears on Mrs. Sullivan’s doorstep the first time they met, Greer was forever locked in Jack’s heart as the girl who could play any role. In another life, he was convinced she’d be a movie star, but he preferred her in this one, where her stage was sticky club floors or police station lobbies, and her biggest fan was him.

“Holy shit, Greer? Greer Abrams?”