Out of Sight by Amanda Ashby

me, I just wish that you had been hanging with me when Patrick had turned up rather than talking about clothes with Melissa Tait.”
    â€œI told you, the only reason I was there was because my mom made me babysit. I would’ve much rather been at the mall with you,” Sophie assured her friend before shooting her a hopeful look. “So are we cool?”
    â€œOf course we are.” Kara instantly gave a watery sniff. “I was just being a doofus.”
    â€œNo, you weren’t. If anyone was being a doofus, I was,” Sophie countered.
    â€œWell, personally, I think the pair of you are pretty doofy to be worried over a dress,” Harvey pointed out, but before either of the girls could comment Malik appeared in the middle of the room. Today he was wearing a black T-shirt and gray trousers, and his Zac-like hair was spiked up like a hedgehog.
    But Sophie hardly noticed. Instead, her heart started to hammer in her chest as she jumped to her feet, causing the turquoise dress to fall into a heap on the floor. She ignored it as she clutched her hands together and stared at him.
    â€œSo? How did it go? Did you find anything out?”
    â€œOh, yes, I most certainly did,” Malik announced as he made his way over to Sophie’s bookshelf and produced a packet of M&M’s from behind her collection of books on positive thinking. “And I would’ve told you about it sooner if I could’ve found you. I mean, seriously, I was looking everywhere for you yesterday. I even tried the school auditorium, and you have no idea how much of a racket they were making in there. Where have you been?”
    â€œI was babysitting at Mr. Rivers’s house, but I was home by six.”
    â€œMr. Rivers’s house?” Malik was immediately distracted as he paused from ripping open the M&M’s with his teeth. “As in the basement where I was stuck in an ugly red vase for what seemed like an eternity? That place is evil.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what we tried to tell her,” Harvey added.
    â€œ
And
she had to spend all afternoon with Melissa ‘she thinks she’s so great’ Tait,” Kara chimed in.
    â€œLook, like I told Kara and Harvey, Mr. Rivers is fine. He’s actually been really kind to my mom lately, especially with her pottery business.”
    â€œOh, and I haven’t?” Malik wanted to know. “I mean, the other day on Facebook your mom wanted to know if she should cook hamburgers or pasta, and I totally helped her.”
    Sophie blinked at him for a moment before deciding that it was better to just ignore that last statement.
    â€œOkay, back to my dad. How did it go?” she asked as she tried not to focus on the way her pulse was wildly fluttering.
    â€œWell, my young friends, I finally managed to catch up with Manny the Moody, in a very unsavory bar, and let’s just say that he’s not what I would call the most congenial of djinns.
However,
” he quickly added, obviously catching Sophie’s frustrated expression, “the important thing is that he’s a talker, and in half an hour he told me everything we need to know.”
    â€œReally?” Sophie’s hands felt clammy as she let go of the breath that she hadn’t known she was holding. “You’ve really found him?”
    â€œI really found him,” Malik confirmed with a nod of his head. “I’m not going to say that it was easy. Or cheap—if a certain camel loses in next month’s All Sahara Invitational Challenge, then there’s going to be one cranky djinn.”
    â€œSo tell me everything. Has Manny seen my dad? Is he okay? What is he bound to? Will it be hard for us to find him?” Sophie inquired as a bubble of happiness started to swell up inside her. Being a positive thinker, she had always known that this moment would arrive, but she hadn’t expected it to feel quite so...amazing.
    â€œLast time Manny