Vanishing Acts

by Leslie Margolis

  “I’ll take the boxer peeing on that stroller,” Milo said, pointing toward the playground.

  “Okay, cool. See you in a bit.”

  I headed in the opposite direction, pausing so dog-Milo could relieve himself in the grass. Once he finished, I walked up to Jane, a full-time dog walker. She walks about eighteen dogs over the course of a day, but at the moment, she had only three.

  “Hey, Maggie,” she said. “And hi, little Milo.” She bent down to pet Milo, and I pet her three dogs—Clover, Scout, and Eminem.

  Jane used to be pretty hostile toward me—afraid I’d take away all her business, even though I’d always assured her I’m a small operation. But she warmed up to me after she heard about last month’s rescue mission.

  “Hey, have you heard anything about this weekend’s egg attacks?” I asked.

  “Heard about them?” asked Jane. “Clover was a victim on Sunday morning. She’d just treed a squirrel when she got egged in the face.”

  “Any idea who threw it?”

  “Nope,” said Jane. “It’s like it came from nowhere.”

  “Did you happen to hear any noise?” I asked.

  “You mean besides the slap of the egg and poor Clover’s yelp?”

  Just hearing that brought tears to my eyes. What kind of jerk would attack an innocent dog? I sniffed and blinked hard, knowing I needed to remain calm. Detectives have got to keep their cool, act rationally, and think clearly, without letting their emotions get in the way. That’s what I read somewhere, anyway.

  “I only ask because the same thing happened to Cassie’s dog, and she heard laughter.”

  Jane shook her head. “There was no laughter.”

  “Interesting,” I replied, taking down some notes. “And what is Clover? A chocolate Lab?”

  “Yes,” said Jane. “That’s exactly what she is.”

  I wrote that down, too. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a woman walking her two beagles. I said goodbye to Jane and ran to catch up with her.

  Turns out the woman’s dogs hadn’t been hit. And she had no idea what I was talking about. But the guy standing next to her overheard me and wanted to talk. His name was Milton. He had a purple mohawk and a black and white springer spaniel named David, and he was still fuming over his dog’s egg attack from this morning.

  “It happened at eight a.m. The craziest thing. And I swear I saw a guy in a black T-shirt appear from nowhere and then run for the woods.”

  “What do you mean he appeared from nowhere?” I asked.

  “Just that—it’s like he was magical.”

  “But that’s impossible,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” said Milton. He wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes. “Totally trippy.”

  “Well, what did he look like?” I asked.

  “Like someone I wanted to pummel for egging my dog!” Milton replied, not very helpfully.

  It was already five o’clock by the time we finished talking—dangerously close to my weeknight curfew. And I still had one more dog to walk. I found boy-Milo and told him I had to go. “Did you find any other victims?” I asked.

  “Yup,” he said. “You?”

  “Yeah—a couple.”

  Milo handed me a piece of paper.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “An incident report,” he said. “I’m not quite done, but here’s what I have so far.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome. It’s no biggie,” he replied with a shrug.

  Then he turned around and jogged off without even saying good-bye. Which is strange, because usually he walks me home.

  I looked down at the page. Milo’s writing started out neat and boxy; then halfway through his report it morphed into sloppy cursive, like he had to struggle to keep up with the interviewees.

  I squinted at the note, really wanting to make sure I made out those final words properly. Because it looked like Milo had not merely collected evidence—he’d also asked me on a date.

  Chapter 5

  Dog-Milo and I ran home as fast as his little puggle legs would carry him. After checking his water bowl and locking up at Parminder’s place, I took my landlady’s dog, Preston, for a quick spin around the block. Then I headed straight upstairs to my apartment.

  At my desk in my room I studied my notes, looking for patterns or connections or clues, or, ideally, all three.

  Except my eyes kept narrowing in on the bottom of Milo’s note, making it hard to focus on the eggings. I wondered if maybe this would finally happen. Milo and me, I mean. I pictured us strolling through the park, holding hands. Slipping notes into each other’s lockers. Sharing one bucket of popcorn at the movies. Sledding in the park after the first snowstorm, and later that night sipping hot cocoa by the fire. (Not that either of us has a fireplace. But let’s not get too caught up on the details.)

  How perfect and romantic and spontaneous to finally ask me out on one of my doggie deets!

  At least that’s what I thought before the doubt crept in.

  Maybe when Milo said, “Want to hang out?” he meant it in a completely non-romantic, strictly “we’re just friends” kind of way.

  Hanging out doesn’t have to be a date. I hang out with my friends all the time.

  I put Milo’s note aside, because I didn’t want to spend all night analyzing its true meaning. Not when I had a mystery to solve. I needed to focus on the egg attacks. And since my notes weren’t getting me very far, I needed a new place to look.

  One thing about Brooklyn is, a lot of writers live here. And where there are a lot of writers, there are lots and lots of blogs. I figured someone must be documenting the egg attacks. And a quick Google search told me a few people were.

  I found a whole blog devoted to the attacks.

  I read up on Paco, the Great Dane who was egged on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock. His owner, Jed, reported three eggs fired. The first one missed; the second Jed managed to deflect with his hand; the third they tried to dodge, but in the end, Paco got hit in the back. Like the attacks I already knew about, the eggs seemed to come from nowhere, with no warning.

  Then there was Hemingway, a big white husky, egged at seven thirty on Thursday morning. “Just a single egg seemed to drop from the sky,” the owner reported. “No one got hurt, but I got egg all over my new wingtips.”

  Pretty’s spiked leather collar was now encrusted in egg, thanks to an attack on Friday at 7:14 a.m. His owner, Harry, spotted someone leaping out of a tree and running for the woods. He chased this person, but lost him or her.

  I tried to make sense of my notes, to find some sort of pattern, either in the style of attack, the dog breed, or the time of day. Sure, Harry described his dog’s attack in the same way Milton had, but other than that, there weren’t many similarities.

  However, all of the eggings took place on the weekend or early in the morning or late in the day—so I could at least conclude that the egger had a traditional nine-to-five type of job. Or maybe he or she or they were in school. Or maybe the egger had nothing to do all day and just waited until the park was most populated with dogs, since most dog owners do have jobs or go to school.

  This person liked to climb trees. Or at least, he or she was good at it. Also, the egger ran fast.

  Lots of people go to school or have jobs or don’t and can run fast and climb trees, so I wasn’t really narrowing my suspects down very far.

  I drew a map of that section of the park: playground on the right, Long Meadow straight ahead, lots of trees and lots of brush. In other words, plenty of places to hide.

  When I heard my mom’s voice a few minutes later, I jumped.

  I turned to find her standing in my doorway, still in her navy blue suit from work. She’d changed her shoes though, unless she’d started wearing bunny slippers to the office and I just hadn’t noticed.

  “How’s your homework?” she asked.

  “Great,” I said. And I wasn’t lying. Not really. My
homework was great—and sitting untouched in my notebook. Pristine, with no fingerprints, wrinkles, or wrong answers. Only, there weren’t any right answers, either. I hadn’t begun.

  Not that I was about to admit this to my mom. She’s cool, but strict when it comes to schoolwork. One of those moms who wants to know what Finn and I learned each day. And she’s way into scheduling our free time, too. I’m lucky she lets me walk dogs, and I’m only allowed to keep it up if I make it home by five thirty every night and keep my grades up.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” I said.

  “You must be concentrating pretty hard, because you forgot to set the table.”

  “Is it already time for dinner?” I checked my watch.

  “It’s okay. I did it, and everyone else is already sitting down.”

  I closed my notebook and followed my mom into the dining room. Finn and our dad had already started in on the turkey meatloaf.

  “Hi, Mags,” said my dad. “Finn was just telling me about your strange morning.”

  “Huh?” I asked, since I hadn’t told him about Charlotte and the new dog-egger case.

  “I mean the blow-up dolls,” said Finn.

  “Oh, that. I almost forgot.” Sometimes it amazes me how much can happen in a single day.

  “Did you say blow-up doll?” asked our mom with a look of alarm.

  I told her all about the inflatable crowd. “It was supposed to be a part of the new Seth Ryan movie. They’re filming on Second Street starting tomorrow.”

  My father grinned. “I was wondering how long it would be before you found out about that.”

  “You mean you knew?” I asked.

  “Sure. Jenna Beasely came around with a petition trying to get the location moved last month,” he explained.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You know Jenna,” said my mom. “She’s my friend from law school. We all had brunch at that great place on Vanderbilt last summer.”

  “There’s no such thing as a great brunch place,” said Finn. “Which is exactly what I tried to tell you last week at Rio Nadres.”

  “It got amazing reviews online,” said Mom.

  “Did they mention that you have to wait for over an hour before being served a lousy plate of runny eggs and cold potatoes?”

  Making Finn wait around for food when he’s hungry is pretty much the worst thing you can do to my brother, which is why he was still grumpy about the brunch—and brunch as a category in general—a week later.

  I turned back to my dad. “Wait, did you say she was trying to move the location?”

  “Yup. She wanted to get the entire production banned from Brooklyn.”

  I gasped. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “If you lived on Second Street, you’d understand. They film things all the time there,” Mom said. “And it’s plenty inconvenient. Basically, they take over the entire block, roping off both sides so you can’t even park on your own street. Besides the noise, you have to deal with the bright lights, and sometimes they shoot in the middle of the night, making sleep impossible. That’s what Jenna says, anyway. We’re lucky we’ve never had to find out for ourselves.”

  My mom was right—no one had filmed anything on Garfield that I could remember, but I wished they would. It seemed so cool.

  “Who wouldn’t want to be inconvenienced if it meant possibly running into Seth Ryan?” I asked.

  “I think you have your answer in Jenna,” said my dad. “But you don’t need to worry about it, because she wasn’t able to stop them.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because they need extras, and I was hoping to sign up.”

  I pulled the release form out of my back pocket, unfolded it, and gave it to my dad.

  I’d decided that my friends were right—this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it was worth juggling homework and dog walking for. Somehow I’d make it work. If I was allowed to, that is. I figured I had a better shot of getting permission from my dad, since he works in film. Kind of. He doesn’t do anything cool like make Seth Ryan movies—he just films documentaries: movies about stuff that’s true, which are very different from reality television (according to him).

  “Let me see that before you sign it,” said my mom, holding out her hand.

  “Oh, I’m not planning on signing anything yet,” said my dad.

  “You’re not?” I asked.

  Yes, this afternoon I wasn’t sure if I had time to be an extra, but now that my parents might not let me—suddenly it was all I wanted to do.

  “Not until we both take a good look at it.” My dad took his reading glasses out of his pocket and slipped them on. “This looks pretty standard,” he said after a few moments, handing it over to my mom. “I have no problem with it.”

  “Will you promise this won’t interfere with your schoolwork?” asked my mom, predictably.

  “It won’t,” I replied with a sigh.

  “And what about your business?” she asked. “You did make a commitment. Lots of people depend on you.”

  “And animals do, too. I know that. There’s time for both. Anyway, how can I pass this up? How many times in my life will I get the chance to meet Seth Ryan?”

  My father laughed. “I know this is exciting, and hopefully it’ll be fun, too, but I don’t think you’re actually going to meet Seth Ryan. These superstars exist in a different reality. He’s not going to be hanging around the extras tent.”

  “I’ll get to stay in a tent? How cool!”

  “It’s not actually a tent,” my dad said. “Just an expression.”

  “Well, it’s still cool,” I said. “Want me to do the dishes?”

  My mom stared at me. “You really want this, huh?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” I replied, standing up and grabbing her plate. “Or perhaps I’m just being extra helpful.”

  Back in my room that night, I studied Milo’s note. I was 90 percent sure he actually wanted to hang out, and there was only one way to find out for sure. I picked up the phone and started dialing his number. I made it about halfway through before freezing.

  Suddenly the image of Jasper Michaelson flashed into my mind. Jasper was a perfectly nice girl who moved to New Jersey last summer. She was pretty, too: straight blond hair, heavy bangs, green eyes, invisible braces. Before she moved, she called here looking for Finn, and not just once—three times in the same night. Finn was out for the first call, so I ended up speaking to her.

  When he got home, I gave him the message, and he grunted something that might’ve been “thanks,” but I wasn’t listening that closely. Then he went into the kitchen and had some chips. When the phone rang a little later, I answered it. “Hey, Jasper,” I’d said. And Finn began gesticulating wildly—eyes wide and arms waving.

  “Are you choking?” I whispered to him.

  “I’m not here,” he whispered back.

  “But you are,” I said.

  “Tell her I’m not!” he insisted.

  “But she can probably hear you,” I replied.

  Finn covered his ears with his hands and walked out of the room, forcing me to lie, something I can’t stand doing.

  “He’s still not back,” I said. “But I’ll have him call you when he is.”

  Once I hung up, Finn raced back into the room, asking, “Why did you do that?”

  “What do you mean? I did exactly what you asked me to do.”

  “Not exactly. Why’d you tell her I’d call her back?”

  “Because I’m a nice, normal person.”

  Finn just shook his head and walked away. I don’t know why Jasper called that day, and neither does Finn, because he never called her back. Not even after she called the third time later that night and I had to lie for him all over again. Finn and I never talked about it, and I certainly didn’t ask him. I didn’t have to. I could tell by the way Jasper smiled at me the next day at school—sheepish and embarrassed. When I found out she moved away, my first thought was she probably left Brooklyn because sh
e couldn’t stand the humiliation.

  I felt so bad for her at the time. But more powerful than that was the desire to never be like her.

  That’s why I didn’t call Milo. He only just asked me. I could wait a day. Maybe two days. I didn’t want to seem desperate. And anyway, what if I was totally wrong? Perhaps he didn’t want me to call at all. We were investigating the dog-egging case together, so maybe I’d misunderstood. It’s entirely possible that he’d been in the middle of taking notes about a dog named “Call me.”

  Chapter 6

  Not only did my parents sign the release form for me later that night, they also signed a copy for Finn.

  Yes, Finn, my brother.

  The same brother who thinks Seth Ryan and all Seth Ryan fans are super dorky had volunteered to be an extra in the new Seth Ryan movie.

  I asked him why, but “I have my reasons” is all he’d tell me; totally mysterious. I could not figure it out. Not until I found him waiting for me at Lucy’s locker after school the next day.

  “This is some elaborate plan to make fun of me and my friends, right?” I asked. “You’re just hanging around so you can gather material. Make teasing us that much more authentic.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Finn.

  “Just admit it.” I punched him in the arm for even thinking the thought.

  “Ow!” said Finn, backing away from me. “Cut it out.”

  “I think he really wants to be an extra,” said Lucy, sneaking up from behind. Her hair was freshly brushed, lips shiny with gloss. She’d changed into her favorite black pants and purple hoodie.

  “Oh, you got dressed up for Seth Ryan?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” Lucy replied. “Let’s go.”

  “What about Beatrix and Sonya?” asked Finn.

  “Their plan was to sprint to Second Street as soon as the bell rang,” Lucy explained. “So they’re probably already there.”

  As we headed over, Finn asked Lucy, “How was your math test?”

  “Good,” she replied. “I think. Although last time I thought I did well on a test I barely got a B minus, so who knows.”