“Didn’t it really start a few days ago when you stole Danny’s phone?” Ajay asks his sister.
Zoey turns to me. “Does Natalie know that Asha sort of orchestrated this whole thing?”
“Not exactly,” I say.
Zoey stares at me without speaking.
“Not at all,” I clarify.
“When are you going to tell her?”
“Why does he have to tell her?” says Asha.
“Remember what I told you about rom-com complications?” asks Zoey.
“This is not a complication,” I say.
“It’s definitely comedy,” says Ajay.
“It might be romance,” offers Asha.
Ajay laughs at me. “I hope there’s some romance if five or seven children are in your future.”
“Danny,” says Zoey, “lies are always complications.”
I pick up one of the cardboard helmets that Natalie and I made together. “I haven’t lied to anybody.”
Once again, Zoey replies with silence.
“The only people that know the real story are you, me, Asha, and Ajay,” I add.
“That’s all?” says Zoey.
“And my grandmother.”
“And your mom,” adds Asha.
“Are you the one that told her?” I ask.
Asha shrugs. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”
Zoey counts everybody out on her fingers. “That’s just enough for a volleyball team but too many to keep a secret.”
“Zoey’s right,” Ajay tells me. “Just let Natalie know how it happened.”
I study the cardboard helmet in my hands. Natalie showed me how to use duct tape and metallic spray paint to make the thing look fantastic. So far, the whole day’s been kind of fantastic. Why risk ruining it with information that’s not important?
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“You’re about to make a classic mistake,” Zoey tells me. “You think this is a story that’s just about you. But Natalie wants something too. Actually, I think it’s even more than that. She didn’t come all the way to Cuper Cove just for the fun of it. That girl needs something, Danny.”
I look up and study the giant unicorn staring down at me from her spot against the wall. “What could Natalie Flores Griffin possibly need?”
“I have no idea,” says Zoey, “but keeping secrets is not going to help you find out.”
A couple hours later, I step into the kitchen just in time to see a tall pot of boiling water bubble and spill onto our stovetop. While I turn off the burner, Mom opens and closes the oven door like a giant fan. She’s trying to clear a cloud of black smoke coming from two garlic bread loaves that are still on fire. Before I can speak, the smoke alarm on the ceiling starts to squeal. It appears that my perfect day is over.
“What are you doing?” I ask my mother. I try—and fail—to keep the panic out of my voice.
“I’m cooking,” Mom snaps.
“You can’t cook!” I remind her.
“You might have mentioned that before I planned a dinner party.”
“I thought you knew.”
Mom closes the oven door, grabs a broom, and uses the handle to stab the smoke alarm, which finally snaps off the ceiling and falls to the floor. Unfortunately, the alarm continues to sound. “Would you please?” Mom yells at me.
“Please what?”
She points at the screaming alarm. “Help me deal with this!”
I grab the remains of the alarm and yank out the battery. At the same time, Mom pulls a small red extinguisher from beneath the sink and blasts it into the oven. Once the fire is out, she removes the smoking bread and tosses it into the pot on the stove.
“What do you think about bread soup?” says Mom.
“What do you think about eating out?” I say.
Mom hands me the broom. “You clean up. I’m going to make a couple calls.”
By the time Natalie and Mrs. Griffin arrive, Mom’s wearing a fresh floral-print dress, the kitchen is clean, and I’m covered in dish soap, fire extinguisher chemicals, and scouring powder. “Change of plans,” Mom announces when we gather in the living room. “We’re meeting everybody in town.”
“Everybody?” Natalie, Mrs. Griffin, and I all say at the same time.
“I’ve phoned ahead,” Mom says. “My friend Benny has a table for us. I promise you’ll love it.”
Benny’s is a fancy seafood restaurant where we go when Mom sells an especially big house, but I’m still wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and an apron that says KISS ME! I’M ITALIAN! Not only that, I smell like charcoal, garlic, and lemon-scented bleach. “I can’t go to Benny’s like this.”
Mom shoots me a strained smile. “Then hurry up and change.”
I turn and head straight to the upstairs bathroom, where I toss the apron and dirty clothes into the tub and then clean up as best as possible. It doesn’t make sense to put smelly clothes back on, so I wrap myself in a towel and make a dash for my bedroom. Unfortunately, I find Natalie just inside my bedroom door.
“Don’t turn around!” I say.
Natalie turns around. When she sees that I’m wearing almost nothing, she quickly spins away and continues to examine the comic book pages and hand-drawn artwork on my walls. “I am going to pretend that you’re just getting back from a swimming pool, and you’re wearing a bathing suit beneath that towel,” she tells me.
“Great,” I say. “Because I am going to pretend that this isn’t happening at all.”
She laughs, then nods toward some of the heroes and villains and monsters pasted all over my room. “Do you like comics?”
“What makes you think that?”
Natalie points at the picture of a giant green creature at eye level. “That’s Fin Fang Foom, giant alien dragon from the planet Kakaranathara who sleeps in a secret cave somewhere deep beneath the surface of China.”
“You know Fin Fang Foom?”
“I was supposed to get a part in Mandarin Dragon: The Fin Fang Foom Story, but then the movie never happened.”
“Because it’s kind of racist?” I ask.
She nods. “I think that had something to do with it.”
“What was your part?” I ask.
“Girl that gets eaten by Fin Fang Foom.” Natalie taps a finger on a picture of Wonder Woman. “I was up for this movie too, but then they cast someone else.”
I point at my sketch of the Incredible Hulk. “Hulk smash movie people!”
Natalie smiles, then stands on tiptoe to get a better look at a Superman drawing I’ve tacked just below the ceiling. “Did you make that? It’s really good.” She leans forward and reads the Superman quote I’ve jotted above the Man of Steel’s head. “There is a superhero in all of us, we just need the courage to put on the cape.” She pauses. “I bet you wish you had a cape right now.”
“I am a little chilly,” I admit.
“I came upstairs to use the bathroom,” she tells me.
“It’s across the hall.”
The two of us slide around each other without making eye contact. A few minutes later, we’re both downstairs again. I’m wearing clean clothes and hoping I no longer smell like a bakery fire. I also hope that Natalie isn’t secretly comparing my Popsicle-stick body to the twenty-nine-year-old supermodels and bodybuilders who play teenagers on TV and in the movies.
With Mom hustling us along, we quickly move from living room to driveway to car. Natalie and Mrs. Griffin decide to drive separately, so I volunteer to join them. “I can show them the way,” I offer.
“There’s only one turn between here and there,” Mom tells Mrs. Griffin. “Just follow us. You can’t miss it.” She grabs my arm and drags me toward her Volvo.
“Or I could come with you,” I say to Mom.
“Listen,” she says while I buckle
my seat belt. “I’m going to invite Natalie to be our Halloween queen. You better not derail this.”
“But—”
“No,” Mom says. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”
“She’s going to say no,” I warn my mother.
“We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 14
but that’s not all!
A set of Halloween scarecrows dressed like fishermen stand in front of Benny’s Restaurant. They wear hip waders, floppy hats, and fishing vests covered in neon lures and feathered flies. One holds a pole bent nearly double because it’s hooked something that looks like a great white shark made out of hay bales.
“Excuse me,” says Natalie. She points at a huge plastic lobster mounted above the restaurant’s front door. “Is this a seafood restaurant?”
“Benny’s is the best,” Mom promises. “Whatever you order tonight was swimming in the Atlantic this morning.”
“My mother is allergic to seafood,” Natalie tells us.
Mom dismisses this with a wave. “Not to worry. They have plenty of other things on the menu.”
“It’s not a problem,” Mrs. Griffin adds. “I know how to be careful.”
Natalie and I exchange a quick look. Our mothers are determined to be invincible even if it kills them.
We step inside the restaurant, where Mom appears to know just about everybody. A waitress leads us to the center of the room. A long table is already half-filled with people familiar to me as well. Maddie’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. MacSweeney, are at one end. Billy Bennet’s dad, who looks like a supersized version of Billy, sits near Mr. Maggio from school. I recognize Mr. Gilbert Wall, a tall, elderly man who sits on Cuper Cove’s city council. And that’s when I realize that all these people are on the Cuper Cove Halloween festival committee. Some of them are Missy for Mayor volunteers too.
“What’s going on?” I whisper to my mother.
“I told you,” she says. “I made some calls.”
Before I can say anything else, she raises both hands in the air. The signal brings every person in the restaurant to their feet. The whole place turns to Natalie and starts to cheer.
“Welcome!” Mom says into a wireless microphone that’s somehow appeared in her hand. “Please join me in welcoming Natalie Flores Griffin home to Cuper Cove!”
The applause grows louder while Natalie and Mrs. Flores Griffin, who both look kind of stunned, make their way to their seats. Natalie takes the chair next to mine. She smiles, waves at the crowd, and whispers to me through gritted teeth, “Did you know anything about this?”
“No,” I promise.
“Are there going to be any more surprises?”
Before I can reply, Mom raises her hands and uses the microphone once again. “But wait,” she says. “There’s more!”
“There might be more,” I warn Natalie.
“If you serve on my campaign committee,” Mom says into the mic, “you know that we’d planned to meet later this evening for dessert.”
Natalie shoots me a look.
I shake my head. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”
“But then I set my kitchen on fire,” Mom explains.
The crowd laughs. They think she’s kidding. Suddenly I wonder if the fire was an accident.
“I swear it was just an accident,” Mom says as if she can read my mind. “Either way, thank you for coming out a little earlier than planned. Our host, Benny Sergiyenko and his daughter, Mira, have prepared a very special Halloween treat, but instead of making that treat just for us, I’ve asked Benny to make a few changes so we can take this opportunity to honor our favorite Hollywood movie star and our hometown hero, Natalie Flores Griffin.”
Now everybody is clapping again. “Benny,” Mom shouts above the applause. “Show us what you’ve got!”
Suddenly, the lights go dim. Two double doors leading from the kitchen pop open, and Mr. Sergiyenko pushes a rolling cart into the restaurant. On the cart, a giant three-tiered Halloween cake features pumpkin-orange icing, chocolate-drizzle spiderwebs, and candy-corn highlights. Not only that, flaming sparklers stick out of the top of the cake and illuminate the room in a flickering glow. Even without a signal from Mom, the crowd bursts into another round of applause. At the same time Mira, wearing a black cape across her shoulders and a pointy witch’s hat on her head, follows the Halloween cake into the room.
“That’s the little redheaded girl that I told you about,” I whisper to Natalie.
“The one who’s praying for me?”
I nod. “That’s the one.”
“You didn’t tell me she was a witch.”
“I’m having a hard time keeping up with it all.”
Mira’s dad, a thick-necked, bald-headed man, brings the cake to our end of the table. He gives a nod to Mom, Natalie, and Mrs. Griffin, then turns to his daughter. “Mira, you’re up.”
The room goes silent as Mira steps around the cake and approaches Natalie. Mira’s hands are shaking, and her voice quivers when she speaks. “H-h-hi, Natalie.”
Natalie stands to greet the girl. “Hello, Mira,” she says kindly. “Danny’s told me all about you.”
Mira’s eyes go wide. “He has?”
Natalie nods. “Thank you for the cake.”
“But that’s not all,” Mira says softly.
“Oh?” Natalie moves her foot slightly so that it’s on top of mine. Slowly but surely, she starts to increase her weight on my toes.
Mira leans forward. “Would you—”
Mom shoves the microphone closer to Mira’s face. “You’ll have to speak up, honey.”
Mira nods and starts again. “Natalie Flores Griffin, will you be our Cuper Cove Halloween queen this year?”
Suddenly, my foot feels like an elephant’s standing on it, which I suppose is only fair since Natalie must be feeling the exact same weight right now.
“I . . .” Natalie pauses, then reaches for the microphone that’s still in my mother’s hand.
Mom moves the mic away. “Congratulations!” she hollers to the crowd. “To all of us!”
Again, the room fills with applause while waiters and waitresses rush appetizer plates onto every table.
“Thank you!” Mira says to Natalie over the din.
Natalie offers a painful grin. “My pleasure.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Natalie.
“I’m going to kill you,” she replies.
“This is not my fault!” I protest.
“I don’t care,” says Natalie. “Somebody has to die, and it might as well be you.”
“Before you kill Danny,” says Mrs. Griffin, who’s been following the exchange between her daughter and me, “I have a question.”
“What?” Natalie and I say at the same time.
Mrs. Griffin licks her lips, then points at a plate on the table in front of us. “Are those fried onion rings?”
I shake my head. “That’s calamari.”
“Uh-oh,” says Mrs. Griffin.
“What’s calamari?” Natalie asks.
“Fried squid,” I tell her.
Quickly, Natalie turns, grabs her mother’s purse, and dumps the whole thing into my lap. Out of the pile of keys, hairbrushes, credit cards, and Post-it notes, she grabs a plastic tube labeled EPI-PEN.
“What’s happening?” I say.
“Maybe nothing,” says Natalie. “Or maybe anaphylactic shock.”
“I think it might be a mild case of the second thing,” says Mrs. Griffin, whose face is turning bright red.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“She’s having an allergic reaction to the squid.” Natalie reaches beneath the table, hikes up her mother’s skirt, and stabs the pen into Mrs. Griffin’s thigh. Somehow, she manages to do all this so calmly and smoothly that nobod
y even notices. “Whose dumb idea was it to turn squid into food?” Natalie asks in an angry whisper.
“It’s very good,” I tell her. “You should try it.”
“It is surprisingly tasty,” Mrs. Griffin agrees a little breathlessly.
Natalie closes her eyes. “I am not eating a squid.”
I glance at Mrs. Griffin. “Are you going to be okay?”
She nods. “I’ll be fine, but we should probably go.”
Natalie glances at my lap. “Put that stuff back into my mom’s purse.”
I move everything back into the bag as Natalie stands up.
“Excuse me!” she says. Even without the microphone, Natalie’s voice fills the room, and the buzz of laughter and conversation dies down immediately. “Thank you.” She pauses and scans the room like a general preparing to address her troops. “Thank you,” she says again. “Thank you so much for this lovely get-together. This is all so unexpected. I am very surprised and incredibly honored that I can be this year’s Cuper Cove Halloween festival queen. I still think of Cuper Cove as my true home.”
Mom starts to clap, but Natalie holds up a hand and puts a stop to that.
“Of course,” Natalie continues, “we do live in California now. My mom and I only got back to Cuper Cove this morning. It’s been a very long day, and I’m afraid that the travel and the jet lag are catching up with both of us. I hope you’ll forgive us for stepping out a little early, but I look forward to seeing you all again soon.”
This time, she accepts a polite round of applause before leaning over and whispering into my ear, “Help me get my mother to the car.”
I stand and offer Mrs. Griffin my arm. “Were you telling the truth just now?” I say to Natalie. “Are you really honored to be Cuper Cove’s Halloween queen?”
“Danny,” says Natalie, “that’s called acting.”
“You’re very good,” I say.
“Shut up,” Natalie tells me.
We make our way to the parking lot, where the fresh air seems to be helping Mrs. Griffin clear her head. “Can you drive?” I ask her.
She nods. “I’m feeling much better. Plus I grew up in Cuper Cove. I could find my way around here with my eyes closed.”
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