Now officially registered in the Unteachables, Kiana shows up eager to see her friends and Mr. Kermit, but Mr. Kermit never shows. Since the kids are scheduled to go to Terranova Motors that afternoon, Jake Terranova covers their class for the morning and tells them about Mr. Kermit’s firing. When he explains that Kiana’s high score didn’t count because she wasn’t a registered student, Kiana realizes that her short-timer attitude, which she didn’t think mattered to anyone but her, is “making a pretty big difference now” (227).

Kiana remembers a conversation she overheard between Mr. Kermit and Ms. Fountain about the science fair—that the winning class gets ten points added to their science test scores, which would be enough to nullify Dr. Thaddeus’s numbers. The kids decide to enter the science fair and keep the whole thing a secret from Mr. Kermit. That afternoon, they go to Terranova Motors, where Mr. Kermit’s dead car sits on a tow truck. The car reminds Mateo of the one in Harry Potter that Mr. Weasley enchanted to fly, and he comes up with an idea for their project. All they need is the old car and “a little magic” (234).