Now You See Me ...

by Jane B. Mason

  “Holy moley. You swiped the sketchbook?” Abby whispered, gathering up a few more raspberries in her red-stained fingers.

  “Um. Yeah. I think Robbie wanted me to,” Lena replied defensively. It sounded nuts, even to her. “I think it might help us,” she said.

  Abby sighed and kept munching while Lena thumbed through the pages, hoping something would jump out at her. Anything. Nothing did. It was mostly a bunch of scrawled notes — ideas Robbie had jotted down for his pictures, and lots of drawings.

  After a few minutes Abby stopped eating and got strangely quiet. Lena tried to tune out her friend’s irritation and focus on the book. She was running out of time. And Abby would forgive her as soon as she unpuzzled this puzzle, wouldn’t she?

  The book smelled faintly musty and the pages were stiff but filled with notes and drawings. From what Lena could tell, though, Robbie was a great photographer and a pretty decent artist. He mostly drew fantasy stuff — dragons and castles — not really Lena’s thing. But even so, the scenes were detailed and evocative and she found herself turning the pages eagerly to see what else she could find. Further in, the pages were covered with tiny still lifes — images of trinkets, like the colored bottles, miniature vases, and figurines — little things.

  Near the back of the book, Lena found a couple of postcards. “Look.” She handed them to Abby. “From his dad.” Abby took them with a heavy sigh.

  The truck-stop postcards were signed, “Love, Dad,” and that was all. There were no messages, no information about where he might be headed.

  Abby licked a lingering bit of berry off her fingers and leaned in to take a closer look at the book, interested in spite of herself. “Wow. He was pretty good at drawing,” she noted.

  Lena nodded. “And check this out.” She flipped back to a page where she had been keeping her thumb. There was a charcoal sketch there that she kept returning to — a picture of a knight on a rearing horse in front of a stone tower decorated with triangular designs, angled like the legs of the water tower. A dragon was emerging from the other side of the page, breathing fire. It was an exciting scene if you were into that kind of thing. But what kept Lena looking was the tower window. Where you might expect to see a damsel in distress, there was only a small chest — a larger version of the tin box they’d seen inside the duffel. The drawing was signed at the bottom, and titled: SAFE IN THE TOWER.

  Reading the slanted scrawl, and remembering her awful dream, Lena felt anything but safe.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lena rolled over. Robbie’s fantasy drawing flashed in her head, mixing together with whirling images — the actual tower, his grandmother with her head in her hands, the row of little bottles on the scruffy guy’s dashboard, and the photos in the scrapbook. She felt like she had dumped a 1,000-piece puzzle out on a table. The number of pieces was overwhelming. She knew they went together, but at the moment it was just a jumble.

  The pictures of Robbie in younger, happier days were troubling Lena the most. Robbie certainly looked like a pretty cheerful kid when he was little. It made Lena wonder how it would feel to have one of your parents up and leave. Of course it would feel awful. Horrible. And for a loner like Robbie, probably worse than that.

  Just go to sleep, Lena told herself as she rolled onto her other side and closed her eyes. Time’s up. You start school tomorrow!

  On any normal night before the first day of school, Lena would be lying awake thinking about what she was going to wear and who she was going to see. Not this year.

  This year, Lena’s mind was a tangled mess, and none of the strands had anything to do with first-day jitters. A hopeless feeling came over her in the darkness. Helping Robbie seemed impossible. So far she’d only succeeded in getting more questions, and if Abby stuck to her word, which she usually did, Lena couldn’t count on her to help anymore. She was on her own. And that was assuming she could keep Abby from taking away the Impulse.

  When the morning sun finally spilled its light onto Lena’s bed, she threw off the covers and got to her feet. Her head throbbed dully and her body was tired and achy — she felt like she had the flu. She stepped around the library printouts and photos she had spread on the floor before going to bed and pulled some clothes off a chair next to the closet. As she glanced in the mirror, she noted that she didn’t look any better than she felt. Her wide-set green eyes had dark circles under them and even her freckles seemed pale.

  “Too bad it’s not Halloween,” she said grimly. “I could go as a raccoon.” Maybe she should call Abby and request a quick makeover before school…. She could really use her best friend right now.

  Right on cue Lena’s door burst open, revealing none other than Abby herself. “Ready for our first day of sev — yikes, Lena,” she blurted, interrupting herself. “You look like you’ve been up all night!”

  Lena tried to smile but grimaced instead. “I’m all right,” she said feebly.

  “No, you’re not. But if I have anything to say about it, you will be. Pronto.” Springing into action, Abby whirled around the room, retrieving everything that had anything to do with Robbie Henson — the photos, the sketchbook, and the library printouts.

  Panic rose inside Lena, squeezing her lungs and making it hard to breathe. Time’s up, she repeated to herself.

  When Abby had gathered everything Robbie-related, she stuffed it unceremoniously into her bag and gave Lena a long, hard look. “I am hereby forbidding you to even think about anything that has anything to do with this spooky Robbie business,” she announced. “You hear that, Rob?” she called to the ceiling. “I am exorcising you!” Then she cracked a smile. “You don’t want to flunk out of seventh grade over the ghost of some dead kid, do you?”

  “Definitely not,” Lena replied honestly. But she was also pretty certain that it wasn’t up to her! Abby was a force to be reckoned with, but Robbie was a ghost — a ghost capable of haunting someone and making her do all kinds of crazy things, like steal sketchbooks!

  Abby planted one hand on her hip and extended the other one expectantly.

  “What?” Lena asked, widening her eyes innocently. If she pretended to have forgotten the details of the deal they made, she might be off the hook.

  “Um, the Impulse?” she said, as if it should be obvious. “The one you promised you’d hand over?”

  Lena held her hands over the Impulse protectively. Funny … she hadn’t even remembered putting it on. “This old thing?” Her voice cracked.

  “Here.” Abby retrieved Lena’s digital from her desk and offered it in trade. “You can still take pictures, just not, you know, his pictures.”

  “But, I …” Lena racked her brain for something to say … a reasonable argument for keeping the camera. Only there wasn’t any, because nothing about being haunted was reasonable.

  Feeling a simultaneous flash of resentment and frustration, she forced her hands to lift the strap over her head. She must have looked tortured, because before she got it all the way off, Abby gave in. A little.

  “Oh, forget it,” she said, putting the digital back on the dresser. “I guess I can’t deprive you of your art. But no more talk about towers or helping ghosts. And no taking the camera to school. Deal?”

  Lena gulped. “Deal,” she said quietly as she set the camera on her dresser. She felt odd and shaky without it, and for five full seconds neither girl said anything.

  Then, with a quick glance at Lena’s clock, Abby was back in action. “Wowza. We’d better get moving. Horace Brighton Middle waits for no one.”

  Lena pulled on her backpack and started to follow Abby out of the room. Then, at the last second, something made her turn and grab the camera off her dresser.

  “Thanks, Robbie,” she whispered. At least they agreed about one thing — the Impulse belonged with her. She stuffed it deep in her pack and promised herself she wouldn’t take pictures.

  In the kitchen Abby forced a banana into Lena’s hands. “Eat this,” she said, grimacing at Lena’s exhaus
ted face. “Maybe a little potassium will help.” She opened the fridge and poked around, finally emerging with a bagel and a package of cream cheese. “No time for toasting.” She sliced the soft bagel in half and spread it with a generous amount of cream cheese. “Breakfast of champions,” she said, handing it over.

  Lena raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay, maybe not. But it will get you through your first homeroom of the year, and if you’re lucky, all the way to lunch.”

  Lena forced a laugh and took the bagel. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’re welcome, dear,” Abby replied, leading her friend out the door.

  The air was still cool and the girls decided to walk fast, so that Lena could have time to eat. They waved to a group of girls up ahead and did their best to avoid being run down by Josh Windham and his skater crew as they flew past on their boards.

  When they finally stepped onto the school yard the place was in a state of first-day chaos, which meant that things weren’t as crazy as usual. The sixth graders were totally new, and looked sort of confused and worried. The seventh and eighth graders were clustered in small groups, talking and laughing with quiet excitement. Even Josh and the other skaters were holding their boards instead of riding them.

  “Two weeks from now this scene will be totally different,” Lena noted as the first bell rang.

  “Indeed,” Abby confirmed in her best Principal Cohen voice. The two girls started up the stairs with the orderly throng of middle schoolers. “None of these children will be following the yard rules, pandemonium will ensue, and detention will be given appropriately.”

  Lena giggled and slipped inside the door, passing a pack of sixth graders who had no idea where to go.

  Thank goodness this isn’t my first day at Horace Brighton, she thought gratefully, remembering how nervous she had been when she’d started middle school. That, on top of being haunted, would definitely put me over the edge.

  “Hurry up,” Abby said, waving a piece of paper in the air. It was the letter the school had sent the week before with her class schedule and locker assignment. “I need to find locker 218!”

  Since locker assignment was alphabetical at HB Middle, Lena and Abby would never have lockers right next to each other. Still, they were dying to know where they’d end up.

  “I’m 242,” Lena said. They made their way down the hall with the rest of the students, hunting for their lockers.

  “I’m over here!” Abby called, stepping to the side of the hall.

  Lena tracked the numbers on the other side. 238, 239, 240, 241 …

  “We’re right across from each other!” Lena half shouted through the throng. Total score!

  After pulling out her locker assignment sheet, Lena twirled her combination dial, and was struck by the happy realization that since she’d left her house she’d felt fairly normal. She looked around the hallway and smiled. Maybe school was the answer to her haunting problems. Maybe Robbie would disappear right along with summer. The guy couldn’t fault her for paying attention to her teachers, could he? Reaching into her pack, Lena toyed with the idea of leaving the Impulse in her locker. She started to pull it out, then decided not to mess with a good thing. She felt okay, didn’t she?

  “You ready, or what?” Abby leaned next to Lena and eyed the swarms of passing kids. “What’s the holdup? You can’t be finishing your homework,” she joked.

  Laughing nervously, Lena pulled her hand from her bag. Her thumb tangled in the Impulse’s strap and it flopped out, too. Her secret was revealed!

  Biting her lip, Lena waited for Abby to say something.

  The bell rang. They had to get to class. Abby was silent.

  “See you at lunch?” Lena mumbled.

  “Yeah, see you.” Abby disappeared into a cluster of kids. Lena slammed her locker closed and made a beeline for class, trying to ignore the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t sure which was worse — being haunted or getting caught lying to her best friend.

  All things considered, Lena did a decent job keeping her mind on her schoolwork. It helped quite a bit that Miss Jones seemed to be the best English teacher ever, and that they were starting to read Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech, one of her favorite authors. And that Mr. Greene, her science teacher, had some interesting plans for learning about cells.

  But by the time she got to lunch, all Lena could think about was the look on Abby’s face when she’d seen the camera strap. Scanning the crowded room for her friend, she stepped into the lunch line. She was digging around for change in the bottom of her bag when her fingers brushed across the smooth, familiar surface of one of her Polaroid photographs. Before she could stop herself, she’d pulled the photo out of the bag.

  Glancing down at the image, she was instantly irritated to see that it was the shot she took of the window of Don’s Pawn. And there was Robbie, reflected in the corner of the window, looking intense as usual. Lena felt anger rise in her stomach at the sight of him. Hadn’t Abby given him the brush-off? Why couldn’t he go haunt someone else? The sun glinted off the glass storefront in the picture, making most of the dusty junk on display almost impossible to see while highlighting a gaudy row of jewelry. What was that weird-looking thing in the center, anyway? Some kind of insect?

  Lena was about to chuck the photo into the nearest trash can when everything kind of shifted and her blood ran cold. No, it wasn’t an insect. It was a butterfly. A butterfly ring. The same butterfly ring that had shown up on Mrs. Henson’s hand in the photo she took at the old woman’s house — the one with the giant opal in the middle.

  Jerking her head up, Lena scanned the lunchroom for Abby a second time before she realized that even if Abby were standing right next to her she couldn’t talk to her about the ring. All things Robbie were off-limits.

  There was only one thing to do, and she would have to do it alone. Lena left her tray on a nearby table and darted out of the lunchroom.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The buzzer sounded as Lena entered the pawnshop and she shuddered as she stepped inside. It wasn’t hard to remember why she didn’t like the place. It smelled like cats and mildew and hard times, and before the door even closed behind her the shopkeeper was giving her an unfriendly once-over.

  “What do you want?” the skinny lady croaked from a stool in the corner.

  Lena shoved her hands in her jeans pockets and stepped sideways, craning her neck to see the tray of rings in the dusty window. Sure enough, the butterfly ring was there, resting between a pewter-and-pearl number and the biggest (and ugliest) fake diamond ring Lena had ever seen. The butterfly’s body was a long opal, and even under a layer of dust Lena could see the pearly stone’s strange patterns and multicolored hues. She had always loved the way opals seemed to glow — like they had rainbows trapped inside. The wings of the insect were rimmed with gold and littered with colorful, inlaid gems.

  Nine out of ten people would have called the ring tacky, but Lena could not take her eyes off it. It had a beauty all its own and it made her feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy because the ring was actually here. It existed, and she knew it was special. And sad because even though she wasn’t sure how or why this ring was so important, Mrs. Henson had obviously been missing it for a long time.

  “How much is that one?” Lena asked, pointing to the butterfly ring.

  The woman grunted and reluctantly came out from her perch behind the counter. She looked Lena up and down a second time and seemed to come to the conclusion that the girl didn’t have enough money to buy it. With a bored expression she reached into the window, pulled out the ring, and examined the tiny tag.

  “One hundred and fifty,” she announced. She eyed the ring scornfully for a moment before putting it back — without giving Lena a chance to take a closer look.

  Lena felt a flash of irritation. She wanted to hold the ring, if only for a few seconds. But she didn’t protest. What was the use? A hundred and fifty dollars was more than she had. A lot more. “Tha
nks,” she said a little sarcastically. Lena could hear her mother in her head telling her not to be rude, but she couldn’t help it. She was disappointed, frustrated, and exhausted. Besides, the store clerk wasn’t exactly friendly.

  Lena turned to go.

  “I told my husband we’d never sell that thing,” the woman said to Lena’s retreating back. “I told him that when he bought it.”

  Lena pulled her hand off the door handle. She hadn’t even thought to ask where it came from, or how long it had been here!

  “Do you remember who he bought it from?” she asked, suddenly feeling a little breathless. “Was it a boy, around my age … only a long time ago?” She couldn’t imagine Robbie selling his grandmother’s ring, but knew that desperate people did desperate things. Maybe he needed some cash really, really badly.

  “It was a while ago, all right,” the woman confirmed. “Only it wasn’t a boy. It was a bunch of boys. And they were older than you. They had a heap of funny things to sell, right around the time we bought the place. Late nineties, I guess. I thought the stuff might be stolen, but they claimed they found it in some demolition site over in Phelps. Sounded fishy, but it’s not my job to investigate the history of every little item that comes through here. Everything but the ring sold that first year. That insect has been sitting in the window collecting dust for a decade. Probably be here until we retire, because nobody’s ever gonna buy it.”

  The woman had turned around and was talking to herself now as much as to Lena. “That’s why I do the buying now,” she groused. “That’s how it should have been from the beginning….” She settled onto her stool in the corner and an orange-and-white cat jumped onto her lap. The woman waited for the feline to settle and began to stroke her back.

  Lena reached for the door handle, pulled, and stepped into fresh air. Whew, that was better. She checked her watch. There were twelve more minutes of lunch — she’d have to hurry to get back in time.