The clock blinked 7:02 a.m. again. Same gray light on the curtains, same five kids in the same sleeping bags, same syrup on the same five plates. The pancakes tasted like wet cardboard, just like before. Pip counted on her fingers. "Guys," she whispered, "this is the fourth morning. The fourth time. We keep starting over." Mara dropped her fork. "Okay. So how do we make it stop?"

"The clock," Pip said. "Every reset happens when it hits 7:02. Maybe if we mess with the clock, we mess with the loop." The five of them crowded around the little alarm clock on Mara's dresser. It hummed softly, way too warm to touch.

Mara yanked the clock's plug out of the wall. The numbers stayed lit anyway. 7:01. The hum got louder, filling the whole room. "It's not even using the wall," Theo breathed. "Then what's powering it?" The clock ticked toward 7:02 all on its own.

Mara grabbed the note from inside the clock and read it again. "It says the morning only lets you go if you give it back what it gave you." She turned the note over. On the back was one word: pancakes. They all looked at the plates.

They scraped every pancake off every plate and laid them on the doorstep, like a gift. "Here," Mara said to the quiet house. "We give it back." The plates turned to gray dust. The clock let out one long breath and rolled to a normal 7:03. Real morning. They cheered and hugged.