"I'll do an easy jog and save the hard jog for when you give up, then." Cally grins at him. "Out the door by the cafeteria, after school? Or meet me somewhere else later?"

"Out the door," he picks, grinning back.

"Try to wear exercise clothes then. See ya later, Sadde."

"See you."

Cally's father is barely any more forthcoming than her mother.

She ultimately decides that her parents' secrecy is more paranoia than actually useful. And Sadde - is probably not 'best friend' material, there's a bit of a personality clash, but they can work together.

She writes down everything she remembers about the garden, everything she overhears her parents mention about magic, in her own notebook, and proceeds to take photos of some of their notes with her cell phone when she gets the chance to.

Sadde gets all this information.

There are a wide variety of magical plants, in various parts of the world. You can identify a magical plant by it being the only one of its kind of part of a small colony of such, with very visible, unusual features for similar plants in the area. Bright blue flowers that grow from a tree stem. Moss with exceedingly tiny leaves.

Tasting a magical plant lets it tell you what it does. How she never made the connection, given that when you eat sneakfruit you know you are being sneakier and more cowardly than usual, is a bit of a facepalm moment. And tasting random plants is potentially dangerous, yes, but all the magic plants she knows are reasonably friendly, so you'd better be sure it's magic. Magical plants are a lot more finicky about their growing requirements than regular plants.

Magical animals are even rarer and much more evasive than magical plants. The story of a magically giant boar - which her mother supposedly shot to death - seems to be legitimate, but it's the only example of aggressive magical wildlife in her parents' notes.

Cally... Grows a lot more distant from her parents, pretty quickly. A couple of weeks after handing over all this info she suggests starting a greenhouse or garden together with Sadde. Cally is much better suited to get more magic plants than Sadde is, experience and fitness wise, but Sadde is the one with grand ideas about magic. Though she never really gets any closer than 'friendly' with Sadde, 'friendly' is probably enough.

Sadde is so! Excited!! About!!! Magic!!!! And questions Cally about it extensively, and studies it intensively, and experiments with it cautiously. It's a whole new world out there, and they've only got around eighty years to explore it and exploit it. More or less. They haven't got their actuarial tables with them there.

And friendly is enough.