Page 56 of Orc Me, Maybe

I grunt. “Pretty sure that’s how I justified hiring Renault.”

She ignores me. “I need another anchor rock. And bait.”

“Bait?”

“Duh. What do frogs love?”

“Water?”

“No. Snacks.”

“What kind of snack?”

“Marshmallows, obviously.” I blink. “We’re luring a potentially magical frog with campfire sugar bombs.”

“Exactly. Can you go get some while I reinforce the perimeter?” I open my mouth. Close it again.

“Are you giving me an assignment?”

“You said you had time.”

Dammit. I did.

Twenty minutes later, I’m crouched beside her, elbow-deep in mud, applying marshmallow ‘fences’ around the trap while she sings some kind of summoning chant that sounds suspiciously like a pop song from the camp talent show.

She waves a twig wand over the bait. “Now we wait.”

“For what?”

“The frog!” she exclaims with exhaustion.

“Right.” I lean back. “What if we catch something else?”

She shrugs. “Then we interview it and release it.”

“Interview it.”

She nods. “All creatures have rights.”

I stare at her for a beat. “You’ve been hanging out with Julie too much.”

She grins. “Julie says imagination is the key to empathy.”

“She would.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the bait.

Nothing happens, obviously, but she leans against my side like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“Did you have imagination when you were little?” she asks.

I glance at her. “I used to pretend I was a mountain.”

She snorts. “That’s not imaginative.”

“I was very committed. I didn’t move for three hours. My mother thought I’d been cursed.”

Lillian laughs so hard she almost knocks over the trap.

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