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living room unsure about what to do next.
    “You can go ahead and start,” Anya said. “I’ll just watch.”
    Watch us brew potions? Not going to happen.
    I looked to Finn for help.
    “Let’s get started then,” he said. “We’ve been setting up at the kitchen table.” We walked to the kitchen and Dr. Finnegan sat on the far side of the table. Anya pulled out a chair right across from him. The better to ogle him from. I sat next to her.
    “We’ll start by reviewing the periodic table. Why don’t you run through the Dubnium facts?” Dr. Finnegan kept his eyes on mine, probably to avoid the looks Anya was shooting him.
    Nicely done. Bore her with chemistry. “Atomic number 105. Symbol Db. A radioactive synthetic metal,” I began.
    Fifteen elements later, I glanced at Anya. She should have been screaming and running for the door. Apparently, the view was worth the boring chatter. She continued to stare dreamily at Dr. Finnegan.
    Anya’s mom finally got there to pick her up just as my mother got home from aerobics class. Anya’s mom honked like usual.
    “See you soon, Finn,” Anya called flirtatiously as she left the kitchen. “I’m here a lot.”
    Not until Thursday, I thought, but I couldn’t take even one more day like this. I had to stop her from coming.
     
    Mom came rushing in as soon as Anya was out the door. “We forgot all about Anya seeing Dr. Finnegan!” She set her purse on the counter by the fridge and came over to us.
    “How we did that I’ll never know,” I muttered.
    “I’m so sorry, Dr. Finnegan,” Mom said.
    He held up his hand. “These things happen. Although I must admit it was a little unnerving to have someone young enough to be my great-granddaughter leering at me.” He laughed. “Yet another unforeseen effect of my selfish transformation.”
    “We haven’t even started yet,” I told my mother. “What a waste.”
    “I don’t have any pressing engagements, Zoe,” Dr. Finnegan said. “I’ll be happy to stay until we complete today’s lesson.”
    “Really? Thanks!”
    “And start calling me Finn, even in private. We don’t want to raise anymore eyebrows than we have to.”
    “Gotcha. Finn.”
    “Finn,” my mother mumbled. “Got it.” She gave me a tired smile. “I’ll let you two get to work. I’ll be in the library if you need me.”
     
    “You are so lucky!” Anya said at my locker on Wednesday morning.
    “Good morning, Anya.” I hoped she wasn’t going to spread the news about my tutor all over the whole school.
    “Finn’ll be there tomorrow, right?” Anya clutched her science book to her chest.
    I nodded.
    “I am so lucky that Mom is making me get to stay with you after school!”
    I was so lucky she had no clue about Dr. Finnegan coming to my house on Saturdays. She’d move in if she found out.
     
    Wednesday lasted forever. Anya kept pestering me about Finn which made Jake more and more annoyed. I wanted nothing more than to dive in and start working with Finn.
    I couldn’t concentrate on my classwork because I had a big decision to make. I might not be able to continue with the toad slime, but I had a long list of potion ingredients that needed low cost, edible substitutions. Tomorrow night, I was going to convince Dr. Finnegan, Finn, that we should work on either unicorn horn or eye of newt. Unicorn horn would be tough. I only had a few ideas of where to start. Eye of newt shouldn’t be too bad because I already had a long list of possibilities. Whatever gut instinct I had that helped me find the toad slime substitution was working a lot better on the eye of newt. But unicorn horn was the rarest of all the potion ingredients. I had sixty-four ounces of it saved up because I’d been asking for it as a gift for special occasions for years.
    Newts might be happy about keeping their eyes, and yes, my substitution would make a difference in getting by the FDA. But to find a replacement for unicorn horn would be epic. The scholars like Dr.