Second-grader Andrew Marcus desperately wants to have freckles like his classmate Nicky Lane, just so that his mother will never notice when his neck is dirty. Nicky Lane had freckles. He had a million freckles (around eighty six million of them). Andrew tried to count Nicky's eighty six million freckles (since he had eighty six million). Andrew counted them, but when he got to 86, Mrs. Kelly (Andrew's teacher) asked him if he was paying attention. Nicky had freckles but Andrew did not. So he buys a recipe from a classmate named Sharon for a horrible (and false) concoction (potion) for getting freckles called freckle juice.