1A bird began to sing.

2Jack opened his eyes. He was still pointing at the picture of the Frog Creek woods.

3He peeked out the tree house window. Outside he saw the exact same view.

4“We’re home,” whispered Annie.

5The woods were lit with a golden late-afternoon light. The sun was about to set.

6No time had passed since they’d left.

7“Ja-ack! An-nie!” a voice called from the distance.

8“That’s Mom,” said Annie, pointing.

9Jack saw their mother far away. She was standing in front of their house. She looked very tiny.

10“An-nie! Ja-ack!” she called.

11Annie stuck her head out the window and shouted, “Come-ing!” Jack still felt dazed. He just stared at Annie.

12“What happened to us?” he said.

13“We took a trip in a magic tree house,” said Annie simply.

14“But it’s the same time as when we left,” said Jack.

15Annie shrugged.

16“And how did it take us so far away?” said Jack. “And so long ago?” “You just looked at a book and said you wished we could go there,” said Annie.

17“And the magic tree house took us there.” “But how?” said Jack. “And who built this magic tree house? Who put all these books here?”

18“A magic person, I guess,” said Annie.

19A magic person?

20“Oh, look,” said Jack. “I almost forgot about this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold medallion. “Someone lost this back there?…?in dinosaur land. Look, there’s a letter M on it.”

21Annie’s eyes got round. “You think M stands for magic person?” she said.

22“I don’t know,” said Jack. “I just know someone went to that place before us.” “Ja-ack! An-nie!” came the distant cry again.

23Annie poked her head out the window. “Come-ing!” she shouted.

24Jack put the gold medallion back in his pocket.

25He pulled the dinosaur book out of his pack. And put it back with all the other books.

26Then he and Annie took one last look around the tree house.

27“Good-bye, house,” whispered Annie.

28Jack slung his backpack over his shoulder. He pointed at the ladder.

29Annie started down. Jack followed.

30Seconds later they hopped onto the ground and started walking out of the woods.

31“No one’s going to believe our story,” said Jack.

32“So let’s not tell anyone,” said Annie.

33“Dad won’t believe it,” said Jack.

34“He’ll say it was a dream,” said Annie.

35“Mom won’t believe it,” said Jack.

36“She’ll say it was pretend.”

37“My teacher won’t believe it,” said Jack.

38“She’ll say you’re nuts,” said Annie.

39“We better not tell anyone,” said Jack.

40“I already said that,” said Annie.

41Jack sighed. “I think I’m starting to not believe it myself,” he said.

42They left the woods and started up the road toward their house.

43As they walked past all the houses on their street, the trip to dinosaur time did seem more and more like a dream.

44Only this world and this time seemed real.

45Jack reached into his pocket. He clasped the gold medallion.

46He felt the engraving of the letter M. It made Jack’s fingers tingle.

47Jack laughed. Suddenly he felt very happy.

48He couldn’t explain what had happened today. But he knew for sure that their trip in the magic tree house had been real.

49Absolutely real.

50“Tomorrow,” Jack said softly, “we’ll go back to the woods.” “Of course,” said Annie.

51“And we’ll climb up to the tree house,” said Jack.

52“Of course,” said Annie.

53“And we’ll see what happens next,” said Jack.

54“Of course,” said Annie. “Race you!”

55And they took off together, running for home.