Georgia's Greatness by Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page A

or two, but then she started moving faster until she was running down the street, racing away from us.
    " God, you're wonderful, Mr. Pete!" Jackie cried, throwing herself at him and giving him a mighty hug.
    Then we were all hugging Pete. The McG looked as though she would like to, but she hung back.
    "C'mon, Eights," Pete said once we'd all hugged for long enough. "It's time to get you lot home. You've got school in the morning."
    " School? " Rebecca said. "After what we've just been through? Don't you think we deserve a day off?"
    "I'm sure your teacher won't be missing school tomorrow," Pete said, glancing at the McG, "will she?"
    "Oh, I'll be there," the McG said with a firm nod of her head.
    "You see? " Pete said. "Now, what kind of an uncle would I beif I let you scarper off school?"
    We couldn't very well argue with that.
    So we all, including the McG, climbed into the bed of Pete's pickup truck; Pete said we would drop off the McG first.
    As we drove through the night, the cool wind whipping our hair, the McG had a question for us. In fact, she had more than one question.
    "What happened back there?" she asked. "How did Georgia manage to disappear and then appear again? And what exactly is going on?"
    After all she'd been through, we felt we owed her an explanation, but as we opened our mouths, she cut us off.
    "No," she said. "Come to think of it, I don't think I want to know. In fact, I'm going to pretend none of it happened."
    But she couldn't stop herself from asking one more question.
    "I'm grateful, of course," she said, "to your uncle for chasing Crazy Serena out of town. But why didn't he call the police? Why didn't he have her arrested?"
    It was Georgia who answered, honestly, looking the McG square in the eye. "Because then the Proper Authorities would know about us," she said. "And then they would come split us all up because we are eight little girls living at home alone."
    It was hard to catch all the expressions that raced across the McG's face: shock, sadness, understanding.
    At last she spoke. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that either," she said, "because if I had, I'd have to do something, like report it." Then: "But thank you, Eights. Thank you for finding me in that room and for keeping me company and for everything else you did. Thank you."
    ***
    We dropped off the McG, with promises to see her at school bright and early the next morning, and then went back to our own house.
    Pete came inside with us.
    We fed the cats, made some cocoa, and then filled Pete in on all our latest news, about how we'd tricked Crazy Serena by using Georgia's disappearing act and all the rest.
    "So Georgia can really disappear now?" Pete said.
    "Oh, yes," Georgia said.
    "Show me," Pete said, crossing his arms.
    We couldn't understand why he'd doubt us now. After all, hadn't everything we'd ever told him turned out to be true, like refrigerators who could talk and fall in love, and like Durinda being able to make everyone except Zinnia freeze? Well, we figured, maybe, like everybody else in the world, Pete just enjoyed a good show.
    So Georgia twitched her nose two times and disappeared.
    A moment later, Pete put his big hand to his own cheek.
    "Georgia," he said, wonder in his voice, "did you just kiss me?"
    "I did, Mr. Pete," Georgia said shyly after she'd twitched herself back into view. "It was to thank you for everything you do for us."
    "This is all very sweet, " Rebecca said, interrupting the tender moment. "But earlier in the night, I asked Georgia how she had known that Crazy Serena really was A Bad Person after all, and I'm still waiting for my answer."
    "I don't know," Georgia said, sounding puzzled. "Maybe in the same way she recognized that I was the one she needed to keep a special eye on, that I'd cause the most trouble? You were right about that, by the way. Or maybe because I'm so awful myself, I guess I just know evil when I see it."
    "I don't think you're awful," Pete said to Georgia, "and I don't