The Last Present

by Wendy Mass

  “So that’s how they do that trick!” Leo says, leaning up to touch the brim of the magician’s hat. You can’t even tell it’s really two hats anymore. There must be some kind of spring inside that releases the top of the smaller hat so the bunny can be pulled out.

  “Shh,” the magician says, batting his hand away. “Trade secret. Pretend you didn’t see that.”

  I have to believe he’s joking about leaving the bunny in the woods. “We’re serious,” I tell him. “You won’t want to pick the red-haired boy to do any tricks.”

  He tips his hat at us and wheels his podium from the room.

  “Plan C,” Leo says. I nod, not happy about it. Plan C is my least favorite.

  Grace’s guests are now all sitting in rows, waiting for him to start, including Connor. We go all the way into the back to watch, careful not to block the tripod that holds up Mr. Kelly’s video camera. The magician sets up his props in front of a banner that reads: THE AMAZING ZORO. He jumps right into his routine, making the kids laugh and clap. He calls Grace up to help with a disappearing milk trick. It’s so weird watching her get tinier and tinier each year. Seven now, she could easily be mistaken for a five-year-old. She is still full of personality, though, laughing and joking.

  “He’s good,” I whisper to Leo as the milk disappears as soon as Grace pours it into the jug.

  Leo shrugs. “Not as good as Marvin the Magnificent.”

  “Who?”

  “The magician we had for our fourth birthday party! Anyone can pull a rabbit from a hat. Marvin had a bird! Those things are unpredictable.”

  I smile, touched by the fact that he still remembers our fourth birthday.

  The magician gets a round of applause for cutting a rope in half and then making it whole again. We know from the video that the rabbit trick comes up pretty quickly in the routine. Now that I saw how the trick is done, I’m glad he doesn’t wait too long. I didn’t see any holes poked in that hat.

  I lean close to Leo and whisper, “Do you think that he was serious about letting her go in the woods?”

  “I’m sure he was kidding.”

  “But what if he wasn’t? She could starve in the woods.”

  “That bunny looked like she could miss a few meals and still be fine.”

  “What if she got eaten by wolves?”

  “No wolves in Willow Falls. Get ready, the trick is up next.”

  The magician finishes pulling a dozen colored scarves out of a giggling girl’s ear and asks if there are any volunteers to help him pull a rabbit from his hat. According to Plan C, this is when we’re supposed to wave our hands wildly in the air and beg for him to pick one of us. It occurs to me that if we just let Connor steal the bunny, at least she would be safe. But as much as I don’t want to leave the bunny with the magician, I want to heal Grace a lot more. So I join Leo as we wave our hands wildly. “Pick me! Pick me!” we shout.

  I hear a few whispers of “Who are those people?” but we keep it up. Conner gets picked anyway. We watch him bound up to the front, all smiles and anticipation. It might be my imagination, but I think the magician winked in our direction.

  “All right, young man,” the magician says, “I’m going to wave my magic wand three times over this hat, which you can see is empty, correct?”

  “Sure is,” Connor says, peeking in.

  “And then you’re going to say abracadabra and pull out the cutest little bunny you ever did see. Are you ready?”

  “Ready!”

  The magician waves his wand three times and then points it at Connor.

  “Abracadabra!” Connor shouts. He reaches in and pulls out the bunny. Everybody claps as he lifts her high with both hands. The bunny doesn’t even squirm. She just hangs there, wiggling her nose, her belly swaying gently. The magician holds out his hat for Connor to place the bunny back inside. Connor lowers the bunny halfway, then pauses, a look of mild confusion on his face.

  “Just drop her on in, son,” the magician says. But Connor doesn’t let go. In fact, he lifts the rabbit back up and brings her close to his chest.

  Mr. Kelly steps forward from the crowd. He tries to keep his voice light. “Put the rabbit back in the hat, Connor.” When Connor refuses, Mr. Kelly grits his teeth. “Connor, you are being rude. Give the man his rabbit back.”

  “No,” Connor says, first softly, then louder. “No! I’m not giving her back!” Then, as he did in the video, he runs right out the front door of Mr. McAllister’s Magic Castle Birthday Party Palace, with his mom at his heels. Mr. Kelly hands the magician a twenty-dollar bill and tells him to keep going with the show. The magician tucks the bill into his pocket, looking not entirely unpleased. I shake my head at him as Leo and I slip out behind Mrs. Kelly.

  “We simply can’t keep her, Connor,” Mrs. Kelly is saying when we get outside. We step a few feet away, checking our watches as though we are waiting for a ride.

  “Grace is allergic to rabbit hair,” she says. “Plus, since when did you become such a lover of rabbits? You didn’t seem very interested at the county fair last spring.”

  “I just couldn’t put her back in there,” Connor says, still snuggling the bunny in his arms. “I don’t trust him. And she’s so roly-poly and cute, and her ears match my hair.” He holds the bunny up next to his head. “See?”

  While they argue over whether their hair is actually orange or red, Connor’s grandfather gets out of a nearby car and sizes up the situation. “Kid stole the bunny, eh?” He speaks with a cool accent, like Irish maybe. I think Connor’s family is from Ireland.

  We nod. Leo says, “His dad tried to stop him, but he didn’t listen.”

  “Cute little guy,” the old man says, peering at the bunny.

  “Actually,” I say, “I think it’s a girl.”

  He goes over to Connor and says, “I’m headed to the mall after this, and since you can’t keep him, I can bring her to the pet shop for you.”

  Mrs. Kelly looks at Connor. “Is that okay, honey? Then the bunny will go to a good home.”

  “I guess so,” Connor says, handing over the bunny.

  His grandfather takes off his hat — which is brown and soft — and places the bunny inside. “I don’t think this gal’s fat. I’d bet she’s in the family way.”

  “That means she’s preggo,” Leo whispers to me.

  “I know what it means.”

  Mrs. Kelly leads Connor back inside and we watch as their grandfather heads to his car. The bunny peeks out from the top of the hat. She wiggles her nose, then opens her mouth wide and chomps down on the edge of the hat with surprising strength. When she sees us watching, she squints, almost like she’s trying to wink, then dives in again for another bite.

  “Okay, that bunny’s a little weird,” Leo says when we’re alone in the parking lot. “So what do we do now? We don’t really need to go back in. I don’t even need to open the notebook to know we got a big X today.”

  I frown and then try to look on the positive side. “Hey, we helped save a bunny’s life today. And a bunch of soon-to-be-born baby bunnies.”

  “I’m pretty sure that won’t impress Angelina.” He looks at his watch. “We still have an hour.”

  “And we have our bikes.”

  “We could go spy on ourselves,” he suggests.

  I try to remember what I’d most likely be doing right now, about a month after our fight started. Probably banging on my drums in the basement, feeling sorry for myself. No one needs to see that. I shake my head. “It’s probably too risky. But what if we go scout out tomorrow’s party? It’s at the Creative Kids pottery studio where you and I had our fifth birthday. This is where Angelina enchanted the candles, but Connor blew them out before the benediction had enough time to work. We could try to figure out how we’re going to stop it.”

  “I wish we could just ask Connor why he keeps messing everything up,” Leo mutters.

  “I know, it’s very weird.”

  We’re silent for a moment, and then Leo s
ays, “Hey, we could get those trick candles that are really hard to blow out! Then when Connor tries, he won’t be able to! That might buy us enough time for the benediction to work!”

  We high-five. “Excellent thinking, Leon!”

  “You, too, Amy!”

  It takes only ten minutes to ride our bikes to the pottery store. It’s funny seeing old ads in store windows and even some stores that don’t exist anymore. The movie showing at the theater is three years old, which I know shouldn’t surprise me, yet somehow still does.

  The pottery store is empty except for a woman wiping down the tables. “Pick any piece from the shelf,” she tells us. “The prices are on the bottom. Then you can choose your paint colors from the back.”

  “Oh, we’re not …” Leo begins.

  “Thanks,” I say. “We’ll look around.” I lead him toward the pottery-filled shelves and whisper, “We can’t just hang out without painting something. It would look suspicious.”

  He nods, then scans the shelves, picking up pieces and putting them back down. “This stuff is pricey.”

  I pick up one of a dancer. “We can make this one for Grace. It reminds me of her dancing in the play last week.”

  “I think she was mostly running in circles,” Leo says. “How about this for Connor?” He holds up a rabbit with a carrot in its mouth.

  “Perfect. Even though we can’t tell him why we got it for him!” We set ourselves up at a table and go to the back to get the paint. While we’re there we find a bathroom and a small supply room, with a back entrance. That could come in handy.

  We set to work. I give my dancer Grace’s red hair, and Leo gives the bunny orange ears so she looks like the one Connor rescued.

  “As you know,” Leo says, dabbing some pink on the nose, “I wrote my first poem about a bunny. ‘Bunny, bunny, hop hop hop. White and soft like a little mop.’”

  “Wow, that’s bad.”

  “Hopefully I’ve gotten better.” He checks his watch. “We better hurry. Getting stuck in the past would be a huge inconvenience.”

  We finish up and bring them to the counter. “We’re done,” Leo announces.

  “That was fast,” she says, ringing us up. Leo pays. She hands him the receipt and says, “Just bring this back with you in a few days and your pieces will be ready.”

  “Um, we can’t take them with us?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “We have to glaze them and fire ’em in the kiln.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot.” We reluctantly hand them over. At least they served as a good cover.

  She consults a chart on the counter and says to herself, “Let’s see, McKenna will be in tomorrow, Angelina’s back in Thursday, then —”

  “Wait, did you say Angelina?”

  “Yes. Angelina D’Angelo. Do you know her?”

  Leo and I exchange a look. “I only thought she pretended to work here for our party!”

  “Me, too!” Leo turns back to the woman. “She actually works here?”

  She nods. “Twice a week, going on five years now. She’d be here today, but she takes off for her birthday each year.”

  It’s a good thing we’re standing on the other side of the room from the shelves of fragile pottery, because both of us stagger backward. “Today is Angelina’s birthday? Like, today, July fourteenth?”

  She nods, giving us a strange look. “Are you friends of hers?”

  “Yes,” Leo says before I can even recover. He slaps his forehead. “But we forgot to get her a gift! Do you know if she still lives in those apartments on Maple?”

  The woman shakes her head. “No, she’s on Elm. Been there forever, I think. Never actually been invited there myself.”

  “Oh, right, Elm,” Leo says. “I knew it was one of the trees. C’mon, Amy, we better hurry.”

  I let him drag me out of the store. We hop on our bikes and ride till we’re out of earshot. “Something’s not right,” he says.

  “I know! Angelina just forgets to mention that she and Grace have the same birthday? Angelina is ALL ABOUT BIRTHDAYS! Do you think it could just be a coincidence?”

  But as soon as I say it, I know of course that it isn’t. At the same time we both say, “There are no coincidences in Willow Falls.”

  We arrive back at Mr. McAllister’s Magic Castle Birthday Party Palace with only a few minutes to spare. When the cars fade away and the music inside cuts off, we pedal at top speed back to the diner. Tara and Rory are waiting for us right in front. When they see us approaching, they run up. “Guess what?” the four of us shout at the same time. Then we laugh. “You first,” I offer.

  “Angelina’s birthday is the same as Grace’s!” Tara says.

  “That’s what we were going to tell you! How’d you find out?”

  She waves a red envelope in her hand. “I found this by Angelina’s chair after the bar mitzvah. When Rory and I went looking for her, I remembered I had it.” She slips the card out of the envelope. “It was already opened, so I thought it would be okay to peek, like maybe it would give us some kind of clue as to where she went.”

  She hands it across to us. Leo takes it and I lean over to read it. On the front is a heart with the words BE MY VALENTINE on it. “Just open it,” Tara says before I can question the fact that it’s clearly a Valentine’s Day card.

  Leo opens it and reads, “Happy birthday to my dearest Angelina, you get more beautiful with each passing year.” His eyebrows rise at that one, but he continues reading. “Today is the day we’ve been waiting for. I know you’ll do the right thing. Our time is now.” He looks up. “I don’t get it.”

  I take the card from him and turn it over. “It’s not signed. If we knew who it was from, we could try to find him.”

  “We do know who it’s from!” Rory says.

  “Bucky Whitehead gave it to her!” Tara shouts.

  “Bucky?” Leo and I exclaim at the same time. I drop the card in surprise. Tara picks it up and slips it back in the envelope.

  “Our Bucky, who we hang out with at the community center?” Leo asks.

  “Bucky who was the fiddler in the play?” I ask. “Tall, white hair, that Bucky?”

  Tara laughs. “Is there any other Bucky?”

  “Bucky has a thing for Angelina? Seriously? How do you know it’s from him?”

  “Remember how I had to promise to run errands for him in exchange for him giving us his violin for Angelina’s list?”

  I nod.

  “Well, one of the errands was to pick up this card! Correct me if I’m wrong, but if the magical stuff you guys went through with Angelina was on your eleventh birthday, and Rory’s was on her twelfth, and mine was on my thirteenth, then having Grace turn ten the same day that Angelina has her own birthday — well, as one wise girl named Rory once told me, there are no coincidences in Willow Falls.”

  Rory laughs. “It was Leo who told me that.”

  “It’s becoming more true every day,” I say.

  “I guess you didn’t find Angelina?” Leo asks.

  Rory shakes her head. “After Tara remembered the card, we went looking for Bucky, too. Apparently half the senior citizens in town went to a bridge tournament. They’ll be back the day after tomorrow. We checked for Angelina everywhere that we could think of. We have no idea where she lives, though.”

  I grab her arm in excitement. “We do now!” I’d nearly forgotten that Leo had managed to uncover her address! “She lives somewhere on Elm!”

  “No way!” Tara and Rory exclaim. “Angelina actually lives somewhere! Like a normal person! So weird!”

  “I know! I think I’ve seen that street out by the mall. It’s too far to ride on our bikes, though.”

  “We can ask Ray to take us in the morning,” Tara suggests.

  “Hey, you didn’t say how it went at the party today,” Rory says. “Two down, one to go?”

  Leo and I shake our heads. “Big red X,” Leo says. “We did get to scout out tomorrow’s place, though, and we already have a plan
.”

  “Which one’s tomorrow?” Rory asks.

  “It’s at the paint-your-own-pottery place,” I reply. “Connor blows out the candles and ruins the party.”

  “Conner, again?” Tara asks. “I didn’t want to say it before, but seriously, maybe you should ask him why he messed up all his sister’s birthday parties.”

  “I know,” I say, “but how could we do that without him getting suspicious?”

  “I’m pretty sure that his first guess wouldn’t be that you’re going back in time and watching them happen,” Rory says.

  “But what if he figures out I stole the videos then?” Leo asks.

  “I’m sure he won’t,” Tara says.

  “You’re right,” Leo says proudly. “I’m too good at my job.”

  I roll my eyes. “All right, if I can work it into the conversation, I will.”

  “So what did you find at the pottery store?” Rory asks.

  “We found a back room where they’ll probably keep the cake. There won’t be any place for us to stay during the party, so we’ll have to watch from outside. And we painted some pottery for Connor and Grace.”

  “Too bad we’ll never see those pieces again,” Leo says. “And mine was pretty good. Sort of good. Okay, it was pretty bad.”

  “Why won’t you see them again?” Rory asks.

  “Because we had to leave them in the past to get glazed,” I explain. “We can’t go back to the same year twice.”

  “You don’t need to go back in time,” she says. “The store’s right around the corner.”

  “What do you … oh! You think they might still have them? After three years?”

  She shrugs. “It’s worth a try.”

  All our phones ding with texts at the same time. (Well, not Rory’s. Her phone is so basic that it takes forever for her to write back, so no one texts her unless they don’t mind waiting forever for an answer. She actually has to press each key a certain number of times per letter. It’s barbaric.) The text is from Connor, telling us that Grace is ready for visitors now if we want to stop by.