“Aren’t you a little young for Epic?” Steven J. Rhys laughed.
“It’s—” Alex’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, his face going all blotchy and red again as he attempted to actually make coherent sense. “It’s the most brilliant space opera I’ve ever seen. It’s Romeo and Juliet, but if they were both aliens in an intergalactic conflict. It’s the most human story ever, even though none of the characters are human. It’s helped me understand a lot about people and how to interact with people and feelings, and I just … really love it,” Alex said, his words tumbling out in a rush, knowing that if he stopped he would never be able to start again. It was maybe the longest sentence he’d said out loud in ages. And Adrianna Tack was looking right at him.
With a smile, Steven shook his head. “You know what, who am I to turn down a fan? Let me sign one of these for you,” he said, bending over an issue of Epic.
“Can you write ‘Team DoubleTrouble’ on there, too?” Alex heard Cat whisper to Steven from beside him.
“Hey, can I keep this?” asked Adrianna. She was holding one of Alex’s sketches.
“You … want my art?” asked Alex, his shock overcoming his nerves.
“Only if you’ll sign it for me!” She smiled back.
Yep, he had definitely ascended. With a shaking hand, Alex reached out and grabbed the Sharpie Adrianna offered him, scribbling his signature onto the bottom of the paper. When he gave back the Sharpie, she handed him back his Epic, also signed.
“Keep drawing,” Adrianna said, looking Alex right in the eye. “One day, you’ll be sitting in my seat.”
And with that, the lead volunteer pulled them away from the line and back into the crowd with some quick thank-yous and goodbyes. Alex barely looked up from his shiny new signature even for a moment, his heart so full of elation that he completely forgot where he was, just for a moment.
“You okay?” Cat asked.
Alex tore his eyes away from his signed comic to look at his sister. “Are you kidding?”
Cat pulled out her phone again, snapped a pic of the signatures, and uploaded it to the Quest app. She looked up at Alex with a triumphant grin before, suddenly, the expression on Cat’s face changed to one of pure terror.
“James M., down the hall!”
It was time to run again.
But not before Alex carefully tucked the Epic comic back into its bag and board and put it safely away in his messenger bag. He had his priorities straight, after all.
16. Get a real-life comic-book artist to sign your team name in their own comic. (76 points)
23. High-five another Quest team. How high can you go, actually? (30 points)
15
Fi
Fi would never say she was having a good time. Not out loud. Maybe, if someone were to threaten Fi with the worst thing imaginable—like, say, never being allowed to go camping unchaperoned again—then maybe. But under any other circumstances, she would never, ever admit it.
But internally, totally secretly, between Fi and Fi … she was maybe, just maybe, having a good time completing Quest items with Rowan.
Ugh. It was gross. But it was true.
Fi had tried to convince a cosplayer she knew who they were even though she obviously had no idea (item twenty-eight, twenty-four points). Rowan got a good laugh out of that one. But Fi had gotten her cool vibe back by impressively bouncing her always-handy soccer ball knee to knee while ascending the con’s big main escalator (item eighteen, twenty points). Now they were sitting on the con floor—they’d found a booth with super-plush comfy carpets for their butts—and were working on item eleven: Write a poem for someone you see on the con floor who looks like they could use a pick-me-up. Rowan, feet flat on the floor, was digging through her fanny pack for a pen. They were planning on giving their poem to a very tired-looking AC Comics volunteer.
Fi, exhausted, leaned her head onto Rowan’s shoulder. She had determined the nice smell was Rowan’s hair and was happy to use it to mask what Rowan called the “con funk” whenever she could. Fi sighed deeply and took a second to relax.
“You know,” Rowan said with a small smile, coming up triumphantly with the pen, “you can admit you’re having fun.”
“I am not!” protested Fi, lifting her head up again and trying to snatch away the pen unsuccessfully. She couldn’t help but laugh as she said it, though.
“You are!” Rowan jabbed Fi with her pen, and her purple bangs covered her eyes. “You are and you know it. So what’s the deal?”
“There’s no deal.” Fi brushed her off, still smiling despite herself.
“I’m serious, dude.” Rowan turned to face Fi. “Be real with me. I’ll be real with you.”