A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #4) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,18

And all for the sake of my parents, who had caused me nothing but grief for the last six months.

I turned to Miss Peregrine. “It’s too complicated,” I said. “You should just wipe their memories.”

“If you want to try telling them the truth, I think you should,” she replied. “I find it’s nearly always worth the effort.”

“Really?” I said. “Are you sure?”

“If it looks like it could work, I’ll seek council approval retroactively. If it doesn’t, I have a feeling we’ll know rather quickly.”

“Fantastic!” said Emma. “And now that we’ve got that sorted . . .” She pulled me by the arm toward the water—“It’s time to swim!”—and I was caught so off guard that I couldn’t stop her.

“Wait—no—my phone!”

I rescued it from my jeans pocket just before I fell chest-high into the water, then tossed it to Horace back on the shore.

* * *

• • •

Emma splashed me and swam away, and I paddled after her, laughing. I was suddenly wildly happy. Happy to be among friends, my eyes dazzled by the sun, paddling after a beautiful girl who liked me. Loved me, she’d said once.

Bliss.

Up ahead, Emma had found a sandbar. She stood in waist-high water despite being far from shore. It was a trick of these friendly tides that I had always loved.

“Why, hello!” I said, slightly out of breath as I planted my feet on the sandbar.

“Do you always go swimming in blue jeans?” she said, grinning.

“Oh yeah. Everyone does. It’s the latest thing.”

“It is not,” she said.

“Seriously. It’s called nano-denim, and it dries five seconds after you get out of the water.”

“Really. That’s astounding.”

“It folds itself, too.”

She squinted at me. “You’re serious?”

“And it makes you breakfast.”

She splashed me. “It’s not nice, playing tricks on girls from past centuries!”

“You make it too easy!” I said, ducking and then splashing her back.

“Actually, I was expecting more in the way of flying cars and robot assistants and such. Robot pants at the very least.”

“Sorry about that. We made the internet instead.”

“Very disappointing.”

“I know. I’d rather have flying cars.”

“I mean it’s disappointing that you’ve turned out to be such a liar. I really had high hopes for us. Ah, well.”

“I just had to get it out of my system. No more tricking, I promise!”

“You promise promise?”

“Ask me something else. I promise promise to tell you the truth.”

“Okay.” She grinned, raked wet bangs away from her eyes, and crossed her arms. “Tell me about your first kiss.”

I felt myself blush and tried sinking into the water to hide it—but of course I couldn’t really because I had to breathe.

“I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

“You know practically every nook and cranny of my romantic history. How is it fair that I don’t know anything about yours?”

“Because there’s nothing worth knowing.”

“Oh, bunkum. Not even a kiss?”

I glanced around, hoping for some distraction that might interrupt her line of questioning.

“Um . . .” I let my mouth sink below the waterline and mumbled something that came out as bubbles.

She lay her palms on the surface of the water. After a moment it began to hiss and steam. “Tell me or I’ll boil you!”

I bobbed upward. “Okay, okay, I confess! I dated a supermodel rocket scientist. And a pair of twins who won a grant for their humanitarian work and exotic lovemaking skills. But you’re better than any of them!”

The steam had briefly obscured her, and when it cleared, she was no longer there.

“Emma?” I panicked, searching the water. “Emma!”

Then a splash came from behind me, and I spun around and got a face full of water. There she was, laughing at me.

“I said no tricks!”

“You freaked me out!” I said, wiping my eyes.

“You can’t expect me to believe that such a handsome young lad never had a single kiss before I came along.”

“Okay, one,” I admitted, “but it’s hardly worth mentioning. I think the girl was, like, experimenting on me.”

“Oh my. Now, that does sound interesting.”

“Her name was Janine Wilkins. She kissed me behind the bleachers during Mehlanie Shah’s birthday party at the Stardust Skate Center. She said she was tired of being a ‘kiss virgin’ and wanted to see what it felt like. Then she swore me to secrecy, and said if I told anyone about it she’d spread a rumor that I still wet the bed.”

“Goodness. What a trollop.”

“And that’s my whole exciting history.”

Her eyes got wide, then she lay back in the water and let herself float. The happy chatter of our friends rose and fell beneath the gentle