Pinky Swear
“Finn,” you say, “if I show you the most amazing thing in Volume Three — in every volume — you have to pinky-swear it never goes in the encyclopedia. Not even in code.”
Finn considers this. You can see the war in him: fame versus wonder. “Can I see it whenever I want?”
“If she says yes.”
“She.” He's already climbing the fence. “Pinky swear,” he says, and means it — whatever else Finn is (loud, nosy, banned from the library for asking too many questions during story hour), he is a boy whose pinky swears are granite.
In the cellar, Finn meets Sera, and something you didn't expect happens: he doesn't yell, doesn't grab his pencil, doesn't even speak. He takes off his hat — you didn't know Finn knew that manners existed — and stands there while two fat tears run down his dusty face. “I knew it,” he whispers. “I knew the world was like this. Everyone kept saying it wasn't, and it is.” Sera looks at this small weeping haystack of a boy, and touches her nose to his forehead, and that is that: Finn would now follow her into a volcano.