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or hit whatever you say. He actually wanted an answer. “How could I not go?” I said. “It’s time travel. And there’s something about a baby. I think I’m supposed to save it. It was—it was hidden in the walls. Like someone killed it and hid it there. With a note asking me for help.”
    Jimmy shook his head. “Man, that’s crazy. I mean, you’re lucky it was us here. This old place—technically, my folks rent it from Rick’s dad, but he doesn’t come out here much. All kinds of stuff goes on here. I’m not even allowed to be here. Kids with wild parties. Pete Masterson’s crew gets drunk here sometimes. Like if it was a Friday or a Saturday night, and you came out of there—no way.”
    “That’s why he’s got us,” said Rick. His gaze still hadn’t left my face.
    Jimmy swallowed. “Sure, Rick, sure. But he should just stay home is all I’m saying. You know? I could even—we could give him back his stuff, too. We could give it back and just push him back through and—that’s it. Too dangerous, you know?”
    “Jimmy, shut up a minute, will you?” Rick said it without any inflection. He scratched his chin and kept looking at me. “What about it? Is that what you’re going to do? Never come back?” He waved his hand impatiently when I hesitated. “Not what you think I want you to say. The truth. Are you coming back?”
    A long moment stretched between us. Jimmy cleared his throat. “Uh, Rick? My dad? He could wake up any time. He don’t find me in the house, he’ll come looking, you know?”
    “Fine.” Rick didn’t even look at him, just kept his gaze fixed on me. I realized I had gotten it wrong. There was still baby fat in his face, still a kid in there. “Get out of here, then. Leave the kid’s stuff here.”
    Jimmy hesitated briefly at the door to give me a look that might have been an apology. Then he was gone.
    Rick let another long moment of silence follow the click of the carriage house door. “How old are you, kid?” he said at last.
    “Fifteen.” He looked at me dubiously, and I amended, “In a couple of months.” Still a lie. My birthday wasn’t for half a year.
    “You can take your backpack,” he said.
    “Thanks,” I said. Wondering if he might change his mind, I got up and went to pick it up.
    “Can you believe it?” he said. “Eight years ago, I found a diary. Most of it makes no sense. But it talked about the mirror. About when the guy was a kid and he went through it and met his own mother before she was his mother. Crazy stuff. He said how the mirror was unbreakable, how it chose one kid every ten years to get to go back in time.”
    “And you waited,” I said.
    “Not at first. Didn’t believe it. But the idea was cool.” I nodded. I had felt the same way about my list. “Last year Jimmy tells me about this mirror. He’s up here one day fooling around, and he throws a baseball right at it. For kicks. Doesn’t break. He brings me in to see it. Man, I couldn’t lay a scratch on that thing.” Rick scratched his chin and looked at me.
    “You’re too old, aren’t you?”
    His eyes narrowed. “Is that it? The diary didn’t say anything about age. There’s a rule?”
    “I got a note,” I said. “I mean—I sent it, I think. To the girl twenty years later. It says the mirror never takes anyone older than sixteen.”
    Rick closed his eyes and shook his head. “Found that goddamn diary when I was nine years old underneath an old floorboard. Too old.”
    “But not Jimmy.”
    His eyes were still screwed shut. “Jimmy goddamn Hayes,” he said. “Kid’s got the guts of a bed-wetting chipmunk. January second.” He shook his head. “I let him stick around while I was going to go in, right? I didn’t even tell him about the diary. I just wanted to amaze him. Stole some smokes from my dad, brought Jimmy in here, and just casually leaned against the mirror. Nothing. I got so mad, I pushed him into it.” He opened his eyes for the first time in a