Con Quest!

And suddenly, like a beacon of hope, there was the inflatable sheep, in the not-too-distant distance. It was just a few more aisles ahead. Fi kept her eyes on the sheep as she surged forward. The twins were there and so was her future. Just two more aisles to go. Just one—

Wham. Fi had made the worst mistake you can make at GeekiCon—she’d stopped watching the crowd directly in front of her and had slammed into another attendee. Fi’d been moving so fast that the collision landed her straight on her butt.

“Watch where you’re going—” said the stranger.

“Oh, I’m so sorry—” started Fi.

Both Fi and the person she’d smacked into started talking at the same time. Fi stopped mid-accusation while rubbing her head when she saw a hand with rainbow-painted nails outstretched in front of her. Fi followed the line of the hand up its arm, past the bright-blue printed shirt, to land on the face of its owner. A face with heavy eyeliner and bright-orange lips topped off with a shock of purple hair. A face Fi recognized.

Rowan Reyes. Fi was shocked to see she’d actually run into someone she actually knew.

Mortifying.

Completely horrifying.

If Rowan told anyone at their school that she’d seen Fi here this weekend—

But then, Fi remembered, nobody going on the totally chaperoned camping trip even knew Rowan. She was their class loner, always wearing stuff like boys’ suits from thrift shops and dyeing her hair random colors, usually skateboarding around with giant headphones on instead of talking to people. Though the hair color thing was pretty cute and the purple did suit her. Her parents were Filipino, and Fi heard she even spoke fluent Tagalog. Rowan had just started school this past year—Fi’d heard a rumor that Rowan had been in a cult before this.

And she certainly looked the part now. Rowan was wearing a denim vest over her blue button-down and a fanny pack shaped like a stuffed bear—both of which, Fi realized in abject sadness, she recognized from Star Worlds. I mean, sure, Rowan looked better in the vest than, like, 90 percent of the other costumed dorks here. But still. Would Fi never be free of this weirdness?

Well, she wasn’t going to be rude for no reason. Fi grabbed the offered hand, and Rowan helped haul Fi to her feet.

“Oh, dude,” Rowan said surprised. “Fiorella, right? From third period.”

“Fi,” she answered quickly. Nobody called her by her full name except teachers. “Yeah, third period. Rowan?”

“Yeah.” The girl smiled, yanking off her ever-present headphones and resting them around her neck. “So rad to see you here. This is the best place on Earth, isn’t it? All your people in one place. I didn’t think you were into this stuff.”

Oh no, thought Fi in a panic. “Oh, I’m definitely not,” she said, wanting to correct Rowan before the wrong word started to get around. “I’m babysitting my sister and brother. I’d never be into something like Star Worlds; I actually have friends.”

Fi realized she’d probably been unnecessarily harsh in her rush to retain the appearance of coolness. She tried so hard to be different from the rest of her family, to be cool. But Fi saw Rowan’s expression change in an instant, regardless.

“Right,” Rowan said dryly, dropping Fi’s hand like it was on fire. “At least I’m not cosplaying a Real Housewife of San Diego.”

Fi looked down at her mother’s coffee-stained leopard shirt. Suddenly she wasn’t so sorry for being harsh. “This is my mom’s shirt, actually, and even if she does have terrible Slovakian style, she’s still kind of nerd famous!” Take that, nerd.

“Riiiight,” Rowan said, the sarcasm dripping off every extended syllable. Rowan started to look around Fi, searching for an easy way to join the crowd around her and move on.

“I swear,” Fi shot back, indignant. “You can Google her. She and my dad invented Ducky McFowl.”

Now that got Rowan’s attention. Her eyes snapped back to focus on Fi through her purple bangs. “No way.” Rowan got out her phone, and Fi could see her immediately opening her internet browser.

Fi smirked. “Yes way. So—” Suddenly, behind Rowan’s bent head, Fi saw the inflatable sheep hanging in the air again. They were almost directly beneath it. But … “Shoot. Shoot, shoot!”

“Dude.” Rowan was still deep in her phone. “Your mom’s Anna Gallo? She’s, like, a cult hero; I love that show; what the heck—?”

“I gotta go,” Fi said in a rush. There were no twins here. No twins to be found. No twins of any kind anywhere in any sort of proximity to here. Fi was still totally screwed. And she’d gotten so distracted and forgotten …

“Wait, where?” Rowan asked, tucking her phone into her vest pocket.

Fi groaned. She didn’t have time for this. “I told you, I’m babysitting two monstrous nerds, and I can’t find them anywhere, and my parents are going to kill me, and if I’m dead they’re never going to let me go to Kumeyaay Lake—”

Rowan snorted. It was totally gross and not even a little bit cute. “You’re going to that? I heard it isn’t even going to be chaperoned—”

“Yes, it is!” Fi snapped back while unlocking her phone. Back to desperately combing social media.

“You need to chill—”