Eye Sore

by Melanie Jackson

  I ran back up the hill to the Eye. It was tough going. The rain was so thick I couldn’t see where sidewalk ended and road started.

  By the Eye’s gate, I thought I saw a figure. “Dad?” I shouted.

  The figure drew back, blurred into shadow. Or maybe there hadn’t been a figure at all. Maybe it was a trick of the gushing rain and wind.

  The gate was open. Maybe Moe had decided to come back and wait out the rain.

  Then I noticed the lock on the gate. It had been smashed. Someone had broken in.

  I ran to the office. It was empty.

  All at once—

  Can you believe, baby, how good it feels

  Falling in love on a Ferris wheel?

  Dad’s phone.

  The music was coming from the Eye. I ran toward it, thinking Dad was calling his own number because he couldn’t remember where he’d left his phone. He was hoping somebody would pick up. This would be my chance to tell him about the snow orchid.

  I jumped up onto the platform. The door to the control booth stood open, its glass window smashed. Whoever had broken through the gate had got into the booth too. Some Eye fanatic who just couldn’t wait for a ride?

  I didn’t see anyone. Maybe they’d been and gone.

  The phone was on a seat inside the first gondola. I stepped inside. I bent to reach for it.

  Then someone was gripping my T-shirt collar, twisting it tight so I couldn’t breathe. He placed his other hand on the back of my head. Lightning fast, he pushed me forward. Smashed my forehead into the window.

  I slid from the seat to the floor. Black speckled my vision. The speckles were melding together. I was going to pass out.

  Something stopped me. A loud noise. The gondola door, slamming shut. I sat up.

  I felt the gondola move. It was gliding backward and up.

  The Eye was turning.

  I tried to pull myself up to the seat. I couldn’t. I was weaker than a baby. I couldn’t even make my hands into fists.

  I felt in my jeans pocket for my phone. It wasn’t there. I tried all the pockets. I looked around the gondola for it.

  It was gone. The person who tackled me had taken it.

  Dad’s phone!

  I looked around. It, too, was gone.

  This person did not want me calling for help.

  My hands still felt like marshmallows. I pressed my elbows into the seat. I put all of my weight on them. It practically killed me, but I pushed myself up.

  I landed sideways on the seat. A dancer? I was more like a beached whale.

  I lay there, heaving in big ragged breaths. I was able to think again. Sort of.

  Who would do this to me?

  Brody. He’d followed me from his house. If the Eye deal went through, it meant a lot of money for his family. He wanted to stop me from warning Dad.

  But why take both phones? The Eye would complete its first revolution. The gondola would swing back down to the platform. I’d get out. I’d get help.

  It didn’t make sense. Neither, I realized suddenly, did the idea of Brody following me. I’d seen a figure in the rain, but the figure had been ahead of me, not behind.

  Then something else bothered me. Big-time.

  The Eye stopped moving.

  I hadn’t looked out the window before. I’d figured a bashed-up forehead was enough without getting dizzy.

  Now I struggled to sitting position. I took a deep breath. I looked out.

  The Eye had halted at its halfway point. I was at the top.

  The rain had eased off. The air was clearing. The clouds were melting into blue sky.

  If only I could keep looking at the sky, I’d be fine. But I had to look down. I had to see what was going on. I pressed my palms against the window. I felt the all-too-familiar stomach lurch. But I forced my gaze to drop.

  By the office, Dad was standing beside his car. He had his head down, his hands shoved in his pockets.

  Another car pulled up. Jonas Bilk got out.

  The deal was going to go through. Trapped up here, I couldn’t stop it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I opened my mouth to yell. What came out instead was my lunch.

  In frustration I pounded the window. That did no good. Dad couldn’t hear. The glass was too thick.

  He wouldn’t have heard even if I’d yelled.

  I shut my eyes. It helped that the Eye wasn’t moving. My stomach, which had been preparing for another liftoff, had settled. I was able to think.

  The glass was too thick. To attract Dad’s attention, I’d have to have to open the gondola door.

  And then—the earth would spin up at me. I’d lose all sense of balance. I might even fall out of the gondola.

  My old enemy, vertigo. It got me every time.

  Rage filled me. I hated the hold vertigo had over me. I hated being its victim. Most of all, I hated that it was going to cost Dad the Eye.

  I staggered to the door. Closing my eyes, I heaved the door open.

  Fresh, cool air rushed in. Gripping the sides of the doorway, I glanced down. Dad and Jonas were walking to the office. Jonas was talking. Gloating, I guessed. Dad still had his head down.

  The vertigo started. The Eye grounds, the trees, surged up at me. They fell back. They surged again.

  I tried to shout but, sure enough, I puked. I swayed back inside the gondola. It was useless. I didn’t know what to do.

  More cool air floated in. The breeze swished around me. I heard a voice whispering, You don’t know what to do. So what do you do?

  I…I dance, I thought. When things are awkward and I don’t know what to do, I dance.

  But that was on the ground. On solid earth. I couldn’t do that here. No way.

  Just dance!

  I knew there was no voice. It was just the breeze.

  Still—

  Okay, I thought. I’ll try.

  I stuffed seat cushions into the bottom half of the doorway. If my feet hit them, I’d know to back up.

  Clenching my fists, I stood. I looked straight ahead, into blue sky. I began to punch the air. Pow! Pow! I punched harder. There was no dancer-like grace to my punches. They were clumsy. I was using my rage, like I’d done the other night.

  But rage was good. Rage took concentration.

  Slowly the sickness ebbed away. I was able to think. I had to make Dad hear me. I opened my mouth. Words, not barf, came out. “Dad! Up here!”

  I shouted about the snow orchid. About the man with the glasses. About Jonas and his lies.

  I got my beat back. I jumped up and down. I sidestepped. I even spun. I, not vertigo, owned the space. I owned me.

  I roared like a madman. I lost track of what I was saying. All I knew was that I had to make noise.

  And then the Eye began to move.

  Like a beach ball, the Eye rolled down the sky. It dipped into the dark, green woods. It sloped past the ferns, the wildflowers.

  It drew back into the clearing. Sun filled the gondola again. The ground spun up at me. I sank to my knees. I clutched my stomach.

  No one was by the office. Were they inside? Was Dad signing the deal?

  The Eye slowed. The gondola eased onto the platform. It slid alongside the control booth. It rested.

  I saw a pair of feet in patent-leather shoes.

  I raised my eyes. Dad was smiling. He held out a hand to me. I took it. He helped me up.

  I looked around. The Bilks’ car was gone.

  Had he signed? I was too scared to ask.

  Dad put his arm around my shoulders. “Snow orchid, huh?”

  Dad and I were sitting on the edge of the Eye platform. After the storm, the day had become blistering hot. We were working our way through a pitcher of lemonade.

  In the woods, a botany prof from the University of British Columbia was examining the snow orchids. People from the city parks department hovered nearby.

  A crowd pressed against the Eye fence. Reporters, photographers, TV crews. Curious neighbors. Police st
ood by to make sure nobody got out of hand.

  But it wasn’t like that first day. People weren’t mad. They were excited. They were quiet—it was like they were all holding their breath. This rare breed of snow orchid was a big deal, a BC legend you could find only in paintings and old photos. So people had thought.

  The mayor, who’d jammed out on us that first day, kept phoning Dad. Suddenly he was Dad’s best friend. The city would take care of protecting the precious patch of snow orchids, he said. The city would handle twenty-four/seven security for the whole Eye grounds.

  Moreover, they would pay Dad to let them set up a nature center at the Eye. People who came to ride the Eye would be able to visit the center. They could view the snow orchids through a telescope.

  “Get ready for lots of visitors,” the mayor had boomed through the phone. “You have the only Eye in the world sharing space with a rare flower, I’d say. Or rather, Eye’d say!” He yelped with laughter.

  The gate opened. Our first visitor since the news of the snow orchid had gone public.

  Well, not a visitor exactly.

  The person who’d waited for me at the Eye. Who’d broken through the gate and into the control booth. Following me into the gondola, he’d bashed my forehead against the window. Then he’d set the Eye to go halfway up.

  The person who’d tried to stop me from telling Dad about the snow orchid.

  I wanted to punch his face in.

  But all those people were watching. I had to stay calm. Play it cool.

  I walked up to the smiling gray-haired man with the gold-rimmed glasses. “Why’d you do it, Hans?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hans von Driezel shrugged. One bashed skull, more or less, didn’t matter to him, I guessed.

  He handed me the canvas bag he was carrying. He murmured, “Inside, you’ll find the snow orchid Brody dug up. With all the publicity, I don’t dare keep it. But I don’t want it to die. Please replant it for me.”

  “Aren’t you skipping a minor detail?” I hissed. “You just—”

  Hans waved me off. “You have to understand, Chaz. I am a collector. Rare flowers are my passion. They are my life.”

  I was still fuming. But I was also fascinated, in a numb kind of way. I listened.

  “When you are a collector, the object you long to own is the one just out of reach. For me, it was this breed of snow orchid. No longer in existence, all the experts said.

  “I visited a Vancouver flower show. Jonas Bilk interviewed me for his newspaper. I told him about the snow orchid. I showed him photos. He did what you call a ‘double take.’ He brought me to see his grandmother’s portrait. There it was, the elusive orchid!

  “On a media visit to the Eye, Jonas slipped into the woods. He found the orchids—just where they’d been when his grandmother was a girl! But your father owned the land. And legally, it was protected. To dig the orchids up in secret, Jonas would have to get hold of the land himself.

  “So Jonas carried out a little plan. He’d get people to protest the Eye. He’d vandalize it. Force your father to sell.”

  Hans turned to go. But I was rewinding what he’d said. There was something—someone—missing.

  I caught him by the arm. “You said Jonas carried out a little plan. But he didn’t do it on his own. He got Brody to help him.”

  “Oh, Brody,” Hans scoffed, as if the name wasn’t worth the oxygen to say. “Brody dug up the orchid. But that was it. He wouldn’t have anything else to do with Jonas’s plan. He wasn’t comfortable with it. He was too busy with his practicing.”

  I recalled what the security guard had said. He’d glimpsed someone tall and big-shouldered cutting the fence. I’d assumed it was Brody. But Jonas was tall and big-shouldered too.

  Besides, Brody had been at a lesson, like Lauren said.

  Hans was watching me with a sad little smile. “Ah, Chaz. You are so young. So eager for justice. But I admit nothing. You see, you have no proof.”

  I spluttered, “Sure I do. I’m going to tell the police that you bashed me on the head.”

  Hans held up his hands. They were gloved. “What is it you say? ‘Look, Ma, no fingerprints.’” He chuckled at his little joke.

  He walked away.

  I didn’t know if he’d get away with it. I hoped not. After all, I had his letter.

  But Hans was right about one thing. The snow orchid needed to be replanted, without delay.

  I carried the bag into the woods.

  Later that week, I gave Lauren a ride in the Eye. I thought it might cheer her up. I thought it might cheer me up. The Bilks were sending her home to Maple Ridge.

  Having lost their chance at a fortune, the Bilks had put their house up for sale. They were selling off furniture, carpets, art. They were too busy for houseguests.

  “At least, that’s what they told me,” Lauren said glumly, as the Eye lifted into the trees. “I think they’re punishing me. They know I like you, and you’re the person who spoiled things for them. Not that I blame you,” she added quickly. “You did the right thing.”

  “I like you too,” I told her. “A lot. And Maple Ridge isn’t that far away. Not for a hoofer with a transit pass.”

  She smiled. I smiled too. I wasn’t dizzy. I was vertigo-free.

  The Eye rolled higher. I pointed out Lions Gate Bridge, curving over Burrard Inlet like a shiny bracelet. I pointed out the misty ridge on the horizon that just might be Vancouver Island. And, city side, the giant steel golf ball that was the science center.

  The Eye sailed by the sun. For an instant the gondola was filled with gold.

  Out of barf mode, I finally got it. I understood Dad’s dream.

  We floated down, into the bright blue, back into the trees.

  When the gondola reached the platform, I took Lauren’s hand. We stepped out together.

  She said, “Thank you, Chaz. Wow! One thing I don’t understand though…”

  I waited.

  “The whole time we were in the Eye, you kept dancing!”

  The talent-show coordinator gave me a puzzled look over the top of her glasses. “You’re not set to go on for another two hours.”

  “I’m here to wish somebody luck.”

  The woman went back to comforting a ballerina. The kid would be performing for the judges in a short while. If she could stop bawling from stage fright.

  From the men’s washroom, I heard retching sounds. I guessed it was another contestant with a case of the nerves. No surprise. The talent show was high-stress.

  I did a few moonwalk steps to try to cheer the ballerina up. She only wept harder.

  I went down the hall and through the stage door.

  The next performer, a singer, was waiting in the wings. Judges sat at a table in front of the stage. Once they gave the guy the high sign, he’d go on.

  I tapped the singer on the shoulder. “Hey, Brody.”

  Jonas’s son jumped. “What is it with you and surprise entrances? You trying to freak me out?”

  “Nope. To wish you luck. That’s one powerful voice you have.”

  Brody glanced at the judges. They were still conferring over their notes.

  A pianist waited onstage, ready to accompany Brody. The slim book was propped on the piano. Brody’s music book.

  Brody whispered angrily, “Did Lauren tell you? She promised she’d—”

  “You told me,” I interrupted. “With your screams that carried through the neighborhood. That made me think someone was in trouble. You were doing voice exercises.”

  Brody stared at me. Some of the anger left his face. “My dad hates that I take voice lessons. Me, the jock. The star football player. Mom hates it too.”

  I grinned. I remembered the woman’s voice, begging Brody to stop with the screams. Mrs. Bilk must have misplaced her earbuds that day.

  Brody sighed. “You don’t know how lucky you are. Your dad’s okay with your dancing. I gotta tell you, I’ve envied that.”

  I nodded. It made sense
now, Brody’s hostility. The wistful look he’d shot Dad and me. The clumsy joke he’d made to cover up his singing lessons.

  His parents had made him feel singing was something to be ashamed of.

  Brody brightened. “So, uh, you really think my voice is powerful?”

  “Megawatt.”

  “Brody Bilk?” called one of the judges.

  I held out my hand. “Good luck.”

  Brody shook it but said, “I was pretty rotten to you. Why are you telling me this?”

  I wasn’t sure. Maybe because I was impressed that he kept singing even though his parents dumped all over it. Or because he was stuck with a rotten dad and I had a decent one.

  Or because I’d suspected him of vandalism.

  I couldn’t say this. All I could think of was a wisecrack. A lame one at that.

  Lame but true. So I said it:

  “Because there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

  Melanie Jackson is the author of numerous mysteries for youth, including The Big Dip and Fast Slide in the Orca Currents series, as well as the popular Dinah Galloway Mystery series. Melanie lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

  Titles in the Series

  orca currents

  * * *

  121 Express

  Monique Polak

  Ace’s Basement

  Ted Staunton

  Agent Angus

  K.L. Denman

  Alibi

  Kristin Butcher

  Bear Market

  Michele Martin Bossley

  Benched

  Cristy Watson

  Beyond Repair

  Lois Peterson

  The Big Apple Effect

  Christy Goerzen

  The Big Dip

  Melanie Jackson

  Bio-pirate

  Michele Martin Bossley