Now You See Me ... (9 page)

“So what's the big surprise?” Lena asked, sliding onto a stool next to Abby at Saywell's Soda Fountain the following Saturday.

Abby looked like she was about to burst but remained silent as she pointed to the swinging door.

“Someone's coming?” Lena guessed.

Abby shook her head.

“There's something outside?” Lena tried again, attempting to squelch her frustration. She wasn't much of a guesser.

Abby shook her head.

“I give,” Lena said. She could tell her best friend was seriously excited, and she wanted to be excited, too. But she still wasn't sleeping much. She'd
tried her best to convince herself that she had washed her hands of Robbie, that she had done everything she could to help him. But the image of the ring and the boy's desperate refrain were still troubling her.

You don't have a hundred and fifty dollars!
she told herself. And stealing the ring was out of the question — her thieving days were over, not to mention the high security at Don's Pawn. She had to let it go.

“The contest! The contest!” Abby finally erupted with the news she'd been dying to share. She pointed to the flyer on the door. “You won the contest!”

Lena stared at her friend in shock, her mouth hanging open. “That's impossible. I didn't even enter.”

“Oh yes, you did,” Abby corrected. “I entered one of your photos on the first day of school, and it was chosen. You won!”

Lena was still for a moment, trying to let this information sink in. The prize money for the contest was two hundred dollars — serious cash. It was more money than Lena had ever had at once. More money than she had ever spent.

More than enough to do what she needed to do.

Even though she was expecting it, the sound of the buzzer made Lena jump. She staggered into the dimly lit pawnshop, out of breath from biking all the way home to bargain with her dad, then turning around and biking all the way back to town. But she was also elated, because after seeing the contest winner announcement Abby gave her, her dad had agreed to loan her the prize money in advance, which meant she had exactly two hundred dollars in her pocket.

“I'd like to buy that ring in the window,” she said.

The woman looked up, surprised. “You're going to spend a hundred and fifty bucks on that bug ring?” she asked with a skeptical squint.

Lena's smile stretched from ear to ear. “Well, I didn't say that….”

“There it is! There it is!” Abby tugged on Lena's arm, dragging her over to where her prizewinning picture was hanging. This wasn't easy since the gallery was crowded with folks eating tiny appetizers and sipping wine and sparkling water from little plastic glasses.

Dazed, Lena allowed herself to be led through the crowded room.

Suddenly, Abby stopped in her tracks. “Act natural,” she said, smiling at an elderly couple who were also moving in the direction of the winning photo.

Lena bit her lip and tried to look like an artist — creative, cool, and appropriately aloof. She felt anything but.

“She's the winner!” Abby blurted to the passing couple.

“Congratulations,” the white-haired woman said. “I just love that photo. So moving, so real. Tell me, did your subject have to sit for long?”

Lena smiled graciously at the lady. “No, it was just candid, actually. A moment I felt compelled to capture on film.”

“Well, it's wonderful,” the man agreed as the couple moved away.

“Come on, the coast is relatively clear,” Abby said, tugging Lena over to her photo. The poignant moment of Mrs. Henson's anguish was no longer a floppy Polaroid image. It had been blown up and framed, and now hung proudly on the gallery wall.

Lena looked at the photo and smiled despite the sad subject matter. It was, she knew at once, the best photograph she'd ever taken — the photo of a woman hiding behind her wizened hands. She felt proud — proud of the photo, and proud of helping Robbie at last. Finally, that great weight had been lifted.

Still, as she gazed at the photo, Lena couldn't ignore a pang of sadness that stemmed from
knowing that the camera she'd captured it with, Robbie's Impulse, was gone forever.

“Don't worry, we'll get another one,” Abby said, reading her mind. “I just saw one on eBay last night for forty bucks, and according to my calculations that's just about what you have left over after buying that ring … which, by the way, was totally nuts.”

Lena smiled slyly. “Actually, I have a little more than that.”

“No.” Abby looked dumbfounded. “You haggled? At Don's?” Her smile grew as she spoke. Her eyes sparkled and she beamed at Lena with newfound respect. “How much?”

“One twenty-five,” Lena replied proudly.

Abby laughed. “Looks like my reign as haggle queen might be ov —!”

“Hold it right there.” A gravelly voice interrupted, freezing Abby and Lena in their tracks. “Now, say cheese.”

They turned slowly to see Mrs. Henson, all dressed up and holding the Impulse — Robbie's Impulse — up to her eye. On her finger she wore her butterfly ring. On her face she wore a smile.

Lena grinned back as the old woman pushed the
button. Mrs. Henson had obviously found the gift Lena had left on her front porch the night before, the one she'd carefully wrapped in a flyer for the gallery event.

As soon as the picture had popped out of the Impulse, Mrs. Henson lifted the strap from behind her neck and placed it over Lena's head. “Robbie would want you to have this,” she said warmly. As she stepped back, she smiled and twisted her ring around her finger.

“And he would have wanted you to have that,” Lena said, gesturing to the butterfly. The pearlescent jewel gleamed in the gallery light, throwing off sparks of color. “I don't think he meant to take it, really. He just wanted to keep it safe, and then …”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Mrs. Henson said, her eyes glistening with tears. Lena understood. Mrs. Henson was happy to have the ring back, but would give it up in a flash for just another moment with her beloved grandson — a moment to tell him that she forgave him for taking the ring, that she loved him no matter what.

Lena reached out and took Mrs. Henson's hand. “He knows,” she said softly. “He knows how much you love him.”

“Of course he does,” Mrs. Henson agreed with a sniffle. “And I can't thank you enough for helping him. For helping us.”

“You're welcome.” Lena felt the familiar weight of the Impulse around her neck, and noted that the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach had melted away. She felt warm all over.

Beside her, Abby bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet, looking from the old woman to Lena and back. “So, Robbie's Impulse is yours to keep?” she babbled.

Lena recognized the crazed look in Abby's eyes right away. She had seen it hundreds of times before.

“Does this mean what I think it means?” Abby asked, clearly unable to contain her excitement.

Lena grinned and patted her pocket. “Yes, indeedy,” she declared. “Cash in pocket.”

“Time to hit the thrift!” Abby hopped up and down.

“I can offer you a twenty percent discount at my store,” Mrs. Henson said with a laugh.

“We'll take it!” Abby said. She held out her hand and they shook on the deal.

Lena looked down at the just-developed photo in
her hand. There she stood with Abby, both of them grinning from ear to ear. And in the reflection of the glass of her now prizewinning picture was another, familiar face — Robbie's. But instead of a scowl, her unhappy ghost wore the biggest smile of all.

BITE INTO THE NEXT POISON APPLE,
IF YOU DARE….

 

HERE'S A
SPINE-TINGLING SNEAK PEEK!

Midnight Howl by Clare Hutton

“You are going to
die,”
my best friend, Tasha, said. Her brown eyes were wide with horror.

I laughed. “You're being ridiculous.”

Tasha made a face. “You'll be lost out there. And I won't survive here without you.”

We were sitting under a big oak tree on the grounds of our school, eating sandwiches. The sky was blue, the sun was sunny, and warm breezes
lifted strands of curly brown hair from my ponytail. It was a perfect September day.

School had been back in session for two weeks, and it seemed like Tasha and I had spent most of that time having the same conversation. Tomorrow, I was leaving Austin for three months, and I couldn't wait.

“You love Austin!” Tasha insisted, tucking her chin-length black hair behind her ear and making a sad face at me. “And seventh grade has already started! We need to be study partners! And plan the Halloween Dance together!” She crumpled up her empty chip bag and looked at me, lips trembling. “Marisol, you
can't
leave. You won't be able to make it out in the middle of nowhere.”

Tasha is very,
very
dramatic. One day last year, she called me crying so hard she couldn't talk. I thought she was sick, or that something had happened to her family. I rushed over to her house on my bike, but it turned out she had just gotten a bad haircut. And it wasn't even that awful!

Tasha being her dramatic self made me reluctant to show any nerves at all: If I was the level-headed one, I wasn't going to admit to any doubts about leaving town. And it's true I love
Austin. My hometown is the best city in the world — you can walk or bike pretty much everywhere; it's beautiful; and there are terrific restaurants, funky coffee houses, great hiking trails, and cool music. And I wasn't leaving forever — I'd be back in just three months.

But sitting on the lawn looking at my best friend's sad face, I knew she wasn't going to be able to even pretend to get excited for me. I also knew that admitting even the smallest case of nerves would totally set Tasha off on another rant, which would only make me more anxious. I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich and reached out to squeeze her arm confidently. “Tasha, I'll be back before Christmas.”

Tasha sighed and looked at me sadly. “I'm going to miss you.”

Of course, I knew that was what she'd really been saying all along. Still, it was nice to hear it. I hugged her. “I'll miss you, too, Tash,” I said. “But we'll both be fine. We'll talk and text and e-mail. Just think of it as if I'm on a really long vacation.”

I went to sleep that night with my bags packed, gazing up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling
and trying to think of it just that way: like a vacation. But Tasha's words had affected me more than I thought they had. As I lay in bed listening to the footsteps and laughter of passersby outside my building, I felt a cold shiver of anxiety. I'd pretended I was one hundred percent excited about going to Montana in front of Tasha, but I
was
a little nervous. I mean, who wouldn't be? Sure, stepping into the unknown might be an awesome adventure, but it was also
scary.
I drifted off to sleep uneasily, an anxious knot in my stomach.

A minute later, I was outdoors. The air was crisp and clear. I was walking along a wooded mountain path, brushing easily past the branches of wind-twisted trees. Dry leaves crunched under my feet. Above me, the sky darkened, but I wasn't worried about getting lost. I knew, in the way you always know things in dreams, that I was in Montana, exploring, and my heart was beating fast with excitement, not fear.

I reached a clearing in the woods and gazed upwards. Cygnus, Aquila, and Ursa Major — familiar constellations — shone overhead, seeming so near I almost believed I could reach up and touch them. Just above the top of the trees a huge yellow full moon drifted in the sky.

Behind me, leaves rustled. I turned in time to see something disappearing into the undergrowth. Was it a cat?

I took a few steps forward. Yellow eyes gleamed at me from the bushes. A coyote? I crouched to peek beneath the bush. Whatever was in there whined — a thin, lost sound.

The breeze was rising, turning into a wind. On the wind, I heard, faint but clear, Tasha's voice again, much more ominous than her joking tone earlier: “You're going to die.”

Suddenly, I was afraid.

I started to run, and, as I ran, I could hear something coming behind me. I didn't want to look back.

The path ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff. I wobbled at the brink, catching a dizzying glimpse of rocks and water far below, before turning and looking back. I had to see what had been chasing me.

There was nothing there. And then I fell.