“My point is that nothing is unstoppable, and the T. rex wasn’t as great as he thought he was. I mean, what were those little arms for?” Marcy pulled her arms back into her sleeves, so her hands made short imitation T. rex arms, and she wiggled them back and forth. “What an idiot.”

“The dinosaurs weren’t as smart as they thought they were.” Harper leaned forward on the desk. “Maybe that’s it.”

“If he fell over, how did he get back up?” Marcy continued to wiggle her hands. “Those little arms weren’t doing anything.”

“Maybe we can’t kill them,” Harper said, ignoring Marcy’s dinosaur impersonation. “But maybe we can outsmart them.”

“How?” Marcy asked, and finally pushed her arms all the way out of her sleeves.

“I don’t know. But they’re still partially human.” She turned to face Marcy. “Maybe we can reason with them and work something out.”

“Hey, anything’s possible.” Marcy shrugged. “Except for a T. rex doing push-ups. That just isn’t happening.”

“Oh, my gosh, Marcy, you have a one-track mind,” Harper said, and got up from the desk to find some actual work to do.

“I have a one-track mind?” Marcy scoffed. “We spend every day talking about sirens, but I want to spend an afternoon talking about the T. rex and his ridiculous appendages, and I have a one-track mind?”

“You’re right.” Harper paused, unable to tell if Marcy was actually annoyed or just pretending. “I’m sorry. We can go back to talking about the T. rex.”

“Good. Because yesterday I read 1001 Exciting Facts About Dinosaurs while you were gone,” Marcy said. “And today I plan on sharing all of them with you.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Fireworks

It still didn’t feel right. Gemma had reassured Harper a hundred times that she’d be fine, and Harper had talked to Alex, who told her he’d be right next door keeping watch on the house. Plus, Brian was in the living room, watching an Indiana Jones marathon on TV.

So it wasn’t like Harper was leaving Gemma unguarded. Still, when Daniel knocked on the door, Harper almost told him that she couldn’t go. But Gemma all but pushed her out of the house, insisting that Harper have a nice time on her date.

Most of the Fourth of July festivities were being held in the park in the center of town, but the fireworks were shot off over the bay. So as the day drew to a close, most of the activity moved over to the beach. The grassy area that ran along next to it was filled with concession stands that sold alcohol, food, and glow sticks and bracelets.

Parking anywhere near the beach would be impossible, so Daniel and Harper had decided to walk from her house down toward Anthemusa Bay. The sun was setting when Daniel arrived to retrieve her, and the fireworks were set to go off at twilight.

“So,” Daniel said as they walked down the street.

Neither of them had said much since they’d left her house. In fact, Harper hadn’t really said anything to him, other than “Hello” and “Yes” when he asked if she was ready to go.

“Yep.” Harper smiled up at him, then quickly looked away.

“You wore your hair down today.”

“Yeah.” She self-consciously ran her hand through her long dark hair. “I wanted to do something different.”

“It looks nice,” Daniel assured her. “You look nice.”

“Thank you.” She smiled.

“How did you wanna do this?” he asked.

“What?” Harper lifted her head, instantly afraid she’d misunderstood something.

“Watching the fireworks,” Daniel said. “I thought maybe we could take my boat out and watch them from there.”

“Like out in the water?” Harper asked.

“That’s generally where I take my boat,” Daniel said. “In fact, my boat spends most of the time in water. But I was thinking we’d take it a bit farther out in the bay.”

“Won’t that be all crowded with other boats doing the same thing?” she asked.

“Probably,” he allowed. “But not quite as crowded as the beach.”

They were still a couple blocks from the bay, and they could already hear the noise of the crowd. Every year, while the fireworks went off, a small orchestra played instrumental music. They’d apparently started, and the works of John Williams were echoing through the town. Even still, Harper could hear people laughing and talking over the music. The crowd was going to be intense.

“I don’t know.” Harper stared down at her flip-flops as she and Daniel continued toward the bay. “I think I’d rather stay on land.”

“Are you afraid to be alone on my boat with me?” Daniel asked. “Because I promise to be on my best behavior. Scout’s honor.”

“No, that’s not it,” she said with a laugh, but that was part of it.

The larger part, however, was that she wanted to be closer to her sister if something happened. Being way out on the water, in a boat that had stalled out on her once before, didn’t sound ideal.

“Well, this is your date,” Daniel said. “So if you want to watch fireworks from the beach, then the beach it is.”

“This is my date?” Harper asked. “Not ours? Just mine?”

“Yep.” He grinned down at her. “I’m all yours for the night.”