Graceful

by Wendy Mass

  I make it through the afternoon, but just barely. As often as I can risk it, I get a bathroom pass and hide out in a stall. By the time I’m back on the bus, I’m completely, utterly exhausted. Since Bailey’s mom picked her up, I use our two-seater to curl up and cover my head with the extra sweatshirt I keep in my backpack. Connor has to wake me up when we get to our bus stop.

  I stumble groggily down the bus steps while Connor leaps from the top step and is already on our lawn by the time the bus driver scolds him for jumping. This happens every day.

  “Isn’t life grand?” he asks, tossing me my backpack, which apparently I’d left on my seat. “Sun is shining, parents are still normal — or as normal as parents can be — and I’m working on a top secret invention that’s going to change the way the world sees 3-D movies!”

  “Huh?” is pretty much all I can think of to say. Now that I’m home, the quiet in my head is blissful. I think I’m still half-asleep.

  Mom meets us at the door with a smile. “Greetings, offspring. How was school today?”

  I want to tell her everything, and I can’t! That’s been the one downside to the whole forgetting thing. Instead, I fall into her arms and hang on. She hugs me back, and I don’t let go.

  “Now that’s the best greeting I’ve had in months!” she says. “Everything okay, sweetie?”

  I nod, relieved that the protective bubble is keeping her mind blank to me. “Just happy to see you!”

  She gives me a last squeeze and pulls away. Connor has already disappeared. “Snack? Homework?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you could drop me at the phone store? I’m supposed to meet Rory there. She’s going to help me work on a project at the library afterward.”

  “Rory? Oh, that’s David Goldberg’s friend, right? She was in the play with you.”

  I swallow past the lump that is forming in my throat. Another hazard of the forgetting spell — Mom no longer remembers how important Team Grace is in my life. Or even that there is a Team Grace, even though she was the one who named the group. “Yes,” I choke out. “She’s great.”

  “Okay. Grab a snack, and I’ll meet you outside.”

  I probably won’t be hungry for a week after the lunch I had, but I don’t want to make her suspicious, so I grab a bag of mini-muffins and a juice pouch and wait out in the driveway.

  Connor is tinkering away in the garage, the door up to let in the air. I peek in while sipping the juice. “Are those my old costumes?” I ask.

  “No,” he says, grabbing the muffins from my hand.

  I point to the side of the plastic crate next to his work bench. “Then why does it say GRACE’S COSTUMES in big black letters?”

  “Oh, those!” he jokes. “Yes, they’re your costumes.”

  I sift through the pieces of old lace scarves and half-broken masks. Bailey and I have pulled apart most of this stuff to make new stuff over the years, so it’s not usable for much.

  “What do you need these things for?” I ask, slipping on a pair of oversized, pink plastic sunglasses. I strike a pose like a movie star. “No autographs, please.”

  “Those would be perfect!” he says, grabbing them off my face and taking a few hairs in the process.

  “Ouch!” I rub my temple. “You could have just asked.”

  “Sorry.” He holds the glasses up next to a sketch he’s made, then he puts them down and starts taking notes. I back away to let him work.

  Mom drops me off in front of the phone store where Rory is waiting. I introduce them.

  “Of course!” Mom says. “Now I remember you from the bar mitzvah party.”

  “Yes,” Rory says after a second’s hesitation. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  They chat for a minute about how wonderful a job David did, and Mom says how proud of him she was, and how he’s been such a wonderful friend to Connor all these years, and Rory talks about how hard he practiced.

  Mom finally says good-bye, and we watch the car pull away without talking. “That was a powerful spell you cast,” Rory finally says. “I doubt Angelina herself could have done it any better. She really thinks you guys were at the whole bar mitzvah.”

  I nod and swallow the lump in my throat.

  We walk into the phone store, and everyone starts clapping and cheering and calling Rory’s name. I feel like she should be wearing those huge, pink, movie star sunglasses! Rory waves them off, laughing. I’ve heard it’s like this when she comes here but have never seen it with my own eyes.

  She hands them her cracked phone, and I stand off to the side, listening to their thoughts. Mostly they are trying to figure out which one of them just won the twenty-dollar bet they’d placed on how many days it would be until Rory came in again.

  In a few minutes, she’s all set. They’d transferred all her data to a new phone and wiped the old one clean. “Wow, that was fast,” I say as we head down the street to the library.

  “We’ve got it down,” Rory says.

  “Do you know they place bets on you?”

  She laughs. “Yup. I think it’s funny. Sometimes I go in there even when I don’t have to, just to mess with them.”

  I nod in approval. “Nice.”

  We stop outside the library. “Hey, how did it go at the nurse’s?” she asks.

  “Apparently I was invisible. She couldn’t hear or see me, so I got about an hour before someone else needed the room.”

  “Nice!” she says, holding up her hand for a high five. “So, what exactly are we looking for in here?”

  “I really don’t know,” I admit. “Angelina was a little vague on that part.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” she says. “What exactly did she tell you?”

  I glance around to make sure no one can hear us. “All she said when I asked how to increase and focus my powers was that I should look in the library.”

  To Rory’s credit, she doesn’t ask me when Angelina told me this. That’s the kind of person she is. All she says is, “Well, all right, then. Maybe it’s a ‘know it when we see it’ kind of thing.”

  We slowly climb the few steps to the library door. “We should check the V section first,” she suggests. “For vortex.”

  “Good idea,” I reply. “Bailey thinks we should look for a secret room hidden in the basement with lanterns lining the halls.”

  Rory laughs. “That might only be in the movies. Let’s look for something a little less obvious.”

  She swings open the door and we step inside. I point ahead of us. “Something like THAT?”

  Not more than five feet in front of us is a big sign that says:

  Angelina’s Tea Party

  Willow Falls Library Storage Room B

  4:30 today

  Hosted by Rory Swenson and Grace A. Kelly

  BYOT (Bring your own tea)

  Latecomers will not be admitted.

  Clearly Angelina knew exactly when I’d be here and who’d be with me, even if I didn’t know it myself. Rory peels the sign off the wall and rolls it up. “Gotta hand it to her. Just when you think she’s going to zig, she zags.”

  “We don’t have any tea,” I point out as we go in search of Storage Room B. It’s not hard to find, seeing as every three feet there’s a sign that reads TEA PARTY THIS WAY with an arrow. I tear those down as we go.

  “I think the tea is optional,” Rory says. She stops in front of a solid wooden door with two masks painted in fading colors — one happy face, one sad. I’ve seen that symbol before — it was on the playbill for the show Tara produced over the summer.

  Rory reaches out to touch the drawing. “I think this used to be the break room where the actors would wait, back when this building was the old playhouse.” She pulls out her new phone and checks the time. “Four twenty-nine. Right on time.”

  I take a deep breath and push open the door. I half expect to see Angelina in there, calmly sipping a cup of tea in a rocking chair, maybe with a ball of yarn on her lap, ready to knit. Isn’t that what p
eople do at tea parties?

  But the room is completely empty. The only light comes from one flickering lightbulb hanging on a chain from the ceiling. For a storage room, it’s not storing anything but dust. Crumbling brick walls surround a cracked gray cement floor. It smells damp. Hopefully it was nicer when the actors used it. Rory and I exchange a glance, then step inside. The door closes behind us and the room bursts into life.

  We instinctively huddle close to each other as row after row of bookshelves appear on the now-spotless white walls. The air is filled with the scent of flowers, although I don’t see any. Small tables rise up out of the now-gleaming wooden floor, and one by one strange objects appear on their surfaces: a glass ball, a drum, a notebook, a deck of cards, a bowl of what looks like ashes, two metal rods with handles at the ends, six bowls of colored rice, a box of tinfoil, a large purple crystal, a plastic bald head! Rory and I turn in circles, trying to absorb it all.

  Only one tabletop remains empty. A second later, a tray appears with two teacups and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Standing up on the tray is a picture of ancient ruins surrounded by mountains. We head over to the table, and I pick up the photo. It’s a postcard. Why am I not surprised?

  Greetings from … Machu Picchu!

  I flip the card over.

  Hello, girls! I’m sorry to miss my own party, but please, help yourselves to tea and cookies. Go on, I’ll wait.

  The rest of the card is blank. Rory sighs. “Guess we’re having tea.”

  “And cookies!” I add, already biting into one. “It’s still warm!”

  Rory sips from one of the cups and makes a face. “Needs sugar.”

  As soon as I take my own sip, words fly across the empty space on the card.

  You asked how to increase your energy and control your powers. One of the methods in this room will call to you. I cannot predict which. Listen to it, and it will lead you where you want to go.

  “That’s all there is,” I tell Rory. I’m about to place the card back on the table when more words begin to appear.

  Rory Swenson, I’m proud of you. Stay away from those drainpipes.

  Rory blushes and chuckles at the same time.

  More words appear.

  Give Amanda a SpongeBob SquarePants cupcake from the bakery case at the Willow Falls Diner. Tell her you love her. She’s having a hard time.

  “We will,” Rory promises.

  I look up from the postcard. “Do you think Angelina can hear us?”

  “Who knows?” She bites into her second cookie.

  “More is coming,” I say, holding it up.

  Grace, send Tara into the store. There’s something in there she needs. Now get to work. You’re running out of time.

  The postcard is full. I slide it into my back pocket to add to my collection. “By ‘running out of time’ does she mean right now? Like, in this room? Or in a larger, more sinister sense?”

  “Hard to say,” Rory replies.

  I haven’t forgotten about that feeling I had a few weeks ago, that something big was coming. I don’t want to freak Rory out, though, so I change the subject. “And how am I supposed to let Tara in the store when the key doesn’t work?”

  “Maybe it will now.”

  “Do you really think so?” I ask. I’d pretty much given up.

  “Let’s focus on this room first,” Rory says. “Where do we start?”

  I close my eyes. The table with the plastic head begins to pulse with a white glow. I open my eyes and point to it. “That one.”

  We position ourselves on either side of the table. Rory waits for me to make the first move.

  I lift the head up off the table and take a closer look. Lines and words crisscross the top. “I’m supposed to read the bumps on your head,” I say in surprise.

  Rory’s hands fly to her head. “I have bumps on my head?”

  I lean over and feel around her skull. “Hmm … your favorite color is purple…. You like tomato soup but not tomatoes…. You look cute in an eye patch…. You —”

  “All right, all right,” she says, pushing my hands away. “Very funny. We need to take this seriously. Plus, I have no problem with tomatoes.”

  “How about this one?” I ask, moving over to the tarot cards. I pick up the deck and admire the pastel drawings of various scenes: a boat, a woman with a wand, a sunset. As I watch, the sun in the picture dips lower in the sky, throwing more pink into the scene. I almost drop the card in surprise but manage to hold on.

  “Do you see the sun moving?” I ask Rory, holding it out.

  She shakes her head.

  I hurriedly replace it in the deck. That’s just weird.

  “What are you supposed to do with these?” Rory asks, holding up the bowl with what looks like burned paper in it.

  I dip my fingers into the bowl and close my eyes. “I think I’m supposed to scatter them and then read them.”

  “Read them?”

  “The way they fall is supposed to tell us something.” I toss the ashes into the air while saying, “Oh, mysterious ashes, please guide us toward what we seek.” The ashes flutter around us. A few land on the table, but most fall to the floor.

  “Um, you’re sure that’s right?” Rory asks, sliding a few out of her hair. “Kinda just looks like a mess.”

  I examine the ones at my feet. They almost look like they’re forming a line, or an arrow. I circle around the pile. Yes, definitely an arrow. Only it’s pointing directly between two of the tables, one with the metal rods on it and the other with the box of tinfoil.

  “It’s one of those two,” I tell Rory. “Or maybe it’s both.”

  “Let’s try the tinfoil first,” she suggests.

  I pick up the box and see directions printed on it. “It says we’re supposed to make tinfoil hats to help us tune into the energy around us better. Cool!”

  Rory looks doubtful about its coolness, but says, “Luckily, I’m an expert tinfoil hat maker. Sawyer has a whole collection. Pirate hat? Top hat? Chef’s hat? I can do ’em all.”

  “How about a pointy hat?”

  “Like a witch?”

  “Sort of …” I examine the picture more carefully. “More like a traffic cone.”

  “Those orange ones?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she says, getting to work.

  I leave her to the hats and move onto the rods. They look like skinny, oversized candy canes, except the handle at the top is straight so it looks like an uppercase L. When I pick one up by the handle, the rod swings gently side to side, while the handle stays firmly in my hand.

  Dowsing rods. The name comes to me from some ancient place. A tool to find hidden water, treasure, or energy sources.

  “Energy sources!” I say out loud.

  “Hmm?” Rory asks, busy with her sheets of foil.

  I hold up the rods. “I’m supposed to find the vortex,” I announce. “With these!”

  The moment I wave the rods in the air, the room goes back to the way it was before. “Ouch,” Rory says, bonking her head on the swinging lightbulb that has reappeared directly above her head. “Was that always so low?”

  I laugh. “You must be getting taller.”

  “Doubtful,” she mutters.

  I turn in a circle. “Everything’s gone. And all those books! We didn’t even get a chance to look at them.”

  “Not everything. I’ve still got these.” She holds up her hands to reveal two perfect cone-shaped tinfoil hats.

  “How did you do that so fast?”

  “It wasn’t that fast,” she replies. “You were swinging those rods for a while.”

  I was? It didn’t feel like more than a few seconds.

  She plops one of the hats on my head and gamely puts on the other. As soon as the hat settles on my head, I know that something’s different. All the while we’ve been in the room, I’d been hearing the muffled thoughts of the other people in the library. It had been so low, I’d been able to ignore it. Bu
t now it was completely gone.

  I start jumping up and down. “No more voices!” I shout.

  “Except yours!” Rory says. “Library, ya know!”

  Oops!

  “But totes awesomesauce for you!” she says. “Is that how you say it?”

  I laugh. “Yup.” Grinning like I’ve just won the lottery, I stick the dowsing rods in my back pocket the way Amanda carries her drumsticks. We make our way out of the library, turning many heads as we go. I check the time on my phone. It’s almost six. “I better text my mom. She’s supposed to pick me up in five minutes.”

  “Tell her to meet you at the diner,” Rory suggests. “I’ll go with you so I can get Amanda’s cupcake.”

  I send Mom the message, and we head down the street. Every single person stares at us. It doesn’t take a mind reader to know they’re wondering why we’re wearing pointy tinfoil hats. It feels like it did before the forgetting spell when everyone was staring at me all the time, but at least now I’m not alone.

  “Just hold your head high,” Rory whispers. “Sometimes I’d rather duck and hide, like when an article comes out about Jake. But you have to act like it doesn’t bother you. I’m hoping if I pretend long enough, one day it won’t.”

  I nod and do my best to tell myself I don’t have a silver cone on my head. Once it’s off, no one will point at me again, but Rory won’t be so lucky. You can’t live in a small town and escape unnoticed when you’re friends with a movie star.

  “Do you have any idea where the vortex actually is?” she asks.

  I shake my head. The hat almost falls off, and I have to straighten it. “Angelina never told me. In fact, I don’t really know anything about the vortex at all.”

  “Bucky told us a little about it,” she says, “that night when Amanda and Leo went back to Angelina’s eighteenth birthday party. I don’t remember the details, though. He may have said the vortex is on the outskirts of town somewhere? We should get Amanda and Leo together, and Tara, too. Maybe one of them remembers something.”