Aleca Zamm Fools Them All

by Ginger Rue

  “And you understand why I couldn’t tell you?”

  “Absolutely! You were too modest to tell me the truth. And also, you wanted to protect Ford.”

  “Well, it wasn’t really modesty,” I said. “I mean, I totally wanted to tell you, but . . .” Then I wondered, Wow! How does she know about Ford, too? That girl was good!

  “You’re so wonderful, Aleca,” Maria reassured me. “And I’m sorry that I got angry with you about missing the meeting. You hadn’t forgotten about the Secret Pals Club at all—you were already starting it!”

  Suddenly I got the idea that maybe Maria and I weren’t talking about the same thing. “I was?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she replied. “You missed the meeting because you were being a pal to Ford, because you could tell when we saw him at the skating rink how much he needed a friend. That’s why you met with him this morning. But you didn’t want to embarrass him by telling me you were helping him or make him feel like you were just being his friend because you felt sorry for him. And then I pushed and pushed, and you came up with that wacky Whoop-Dee-Doos story just to protect Ford and to keep from bragging about your good deed. You took public humiliation instead! That is so amazing of you!”

  “Oh.” I grimaced. Well, now I had to roll with it. “So I guess you figured it all out, then.” I felt kind of sad that Maria had it all wrong. Because not only did I still have to keep my real secret from her, but she was also giving me credit for being a lot nicer than I actually was. Which made me feel guilty.

  “That was so nice of you to reach out to Ford,” Maria said.

  “Don’t give me too much credit, Maria,” I cautioned. “I’m not exactly doing Ford any favors. I like him. He’s very interesting. And he’s a nice kid.”

  Once I said it out loud, I realized I meant it.

  12

  Aunt Zephyr’s Wonky Wonder-ing

  I’d sort of solved my problems at school, but when I left to go home, other problems were just beginning.

  As it turned out, Aunt Zephyr had not been napping while I’d been at school, and she knew all about how I’d stopped time to get revenge on Brett. She knew, and she was not happy.

  She was in the car with Mom at pickup time. Mom asked, “What’d you do at school today, sweetie?” and Aunt Zephyr said, “Yes, do tell.”

  So I had no choice but to spill it—all of it. Except for the part about Ford, because Aunt Zephyr and I had kind of not mentioned to Mom and Dad that there was another Wonder in town. It wasn’t that we were trying to keep secrets from them. But Aunt Zephyr felt that Mom was about two more shocks away from a nervous breakdown, so we were trying to freak her out as little as possible. Or at least freak her out in small doses. Even without the Ford part of the story, Mom got all upset and nervous again. Mainly because of the time-stopping thing, but also I think because she was kind of embarrassed for people to think her husband was a Whoop-Dee-Doo.

  “Aleca, you were expressly forbidden to stop time again!” Mom said.

  “But I had to defend Dad’s honor!” I protested.

  “Aunt Zephyr, why didn’t you just teleport to the school and make her behave?” Mom asked.

  “I can’t time-police her forever, Harmony,” Aunt Zephyr announced. “She’s got to learn some self-control on her own.”

  But when we got home, I found out that that wasn’t the real reason.

  Mom dropped us off and went to pick up Dylan. She wanted Aunt Zephyr to have time alone with me so that Aunt Zephyr could really give me the business, I guess.

  “I wish you had showed up at school when I stopped time,” I told her. “Something happened that I’ve been dying to tell you about. Ford saw this bridge. And he took me to see it, but I couldn’t see it. So I talked him into touching it, and he did. But when I tried to touch it too, all I felt was air.”

  “I wish I had been there too,” Aunt Zephyr said.

  She didn’t sound all that excited about the bridge thing, though. Instead she sounded sort of quiet and frightened.

  “If you knew I’d stopped time again,” I said, “why didn’t you just teleport to my classroom?”

  “Not for lack of trying, I’m afraid,” Aunt Zephyr claimed.

  “You mean you tried but you couldn’t get there?”

  “Yes,” Aunt Zephyr replied. “I concentrated very hard. I just couldn’t do it.”

  “So all that stuff you said in the car, about not policing me—”

  “A cover-up. I was trying not to burden your mother. I didn’t want her to know of my failure.”

  “Did you think yourself somewhere that you didn’t intend to go?” I asked. “Is that what happened?”

  “No. Worse than that. I stayed put. I didn’t move an inch.” Aunt Zephyr sat on the bed and put her head in her hands. “I’ve lost it, Aleca. It’s all gone.”

  I sat down beside Aunt Zephyr and patted her. I mumbled, “There, there,” like I’ve seen people do on TV when someone is upset.

  “Maybe you ought to try again?” I said.

  “Oh, what’s the use?”

  “Well, the use is not giving up so easily. Just because you couldn’t do it today doesn’t mean you can’t ever do it again.”

  “Hmmm,” Aunt Zephyr conceded. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I guess I was throwing a pity party a bit prematurely.”

  “I’m sure you just had an off day,” I suggested. “You can try again tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” she scoffed. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘There’s no time like the present’? You wait here. I’m going to take a quick jaunt to Riviera Maya. It’s a gorgeous spot on the Caribbean coast.” She opened up the closet and pulled out a big floppy hat and some sunglasses. “Here goes nothing,” she said.

  I watched while Aunt Zephyr took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  Then I heard the door open downstairs. “Aleca?” my mom called.

  “I’ll be right back,” I promised Aunt Zephyr.

  I went downstairs and answered Mom’s questions about my homework, what I wanted in my lunch for the next day, and whether I thought I ought to wash my hair again that night even though I had just washed it the night before.

  Then I ran back upstairs to check on Aunt Zephyr.

  Good news! She was gone.

  13

  Someone Is on Our Roof, and It Isn’t Santa

  I expected Aunt Zephyr to come right back. Exactly how long was a “quick jaunt” anyway? I wasn’t sure. But at least ten minutes, maybe twenty, had passed, and Aunt Zephyr hadn’t returned.

  The phone rang. We were one of the last families on earth to have a landline, so I yelled, “I’ll get it!”

  I didn’t recognize the number, but I answered right away. “Hello?”

  “Aleca, it is I,” said Aunt Zephyr. I thought I heard country music playing faintly in the background.

  “Thank goodness!” I whispered so Mom couldn’t hear. “How’s Riviera Maya?”

  “Not at all like I remembered it,” Aunt Zephyr complained.

  “It’s not?” I asked.

  “I’m nowhere near Riviera Maya,” Aunt Zephyr said. “From the best I can tell, I am currently in an extremely small town in Wyoming.”

  “Wyoming!” I squeaked. “What’d you go there for?”

  “Chalk it up to bad aim,” Aunt Zephyr speculated. “I told you my ability was on the fritz. When I opened my eyes, here I was, in the middle of nowhere, standing on the side of a highway. A truck driver gave me a lift. I’m at a trading post of sorts.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “I’m not sure,” she lamented. “I’ll keep trying to concentrate. Don’t say anything to your parents yet.”

  After we hung up, I went downstairs to help Mom make tacos for dinner. I tried to act like nothing was wrong. Mom didn’t ask what Aunt Zephyr was doing or anything, so I guess she thought Aunt Zephyr was upstairs because she was bunking with me during her visit.

  Dad came in from
work. He kissed my mom on the cheek and said, “How was your day?”

  “Fine,” my mom replied. “By the way, if anyone asks, you’re secretly a Whoop-Dee-Doo.”

  “A what?” he asked. Before Mom could explain, we heard a loud noise on the roof. Dylan came running downstairs.

  “What in the world was that?” Mom shouted.

  Dad looked at me. “Where’s your great-aunt?”

  But he didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead he went running outside. Mom, Dylan, and I followed.

  “Aunt Zephyr!” Dad yelled. “Are you all right?”

  Aunt Zephyr was lying on her stomach on the part of the roof that juts out past my window.

  “What in the world are you doing on the roof?” Mom called.

  “Just help me down,” Aunt Zephyr replied.

  Once Dad got the ladder and carefully helped Aunt Zephyr to the ground, Mom scolded her. “You could’ve fallen off and gotten hurt!”

  “What were you even on the roof for ?” Dylan asked.

  Aunt Zephyr looked at me like she could use a little help. I had to think fast. “Were you trying to get a tan?” I asked. (Notice I didn’t lie; I just asked a question.)

  “A suntan . . . yes! A suntan!” Aunt Zephyr answered. “My foolish vanity got the better of me.” She gave me a wink that nobody else saw. “The roof seemed like a good place to catch a few rays.”

  “Aunt Zephyr, I’m surprised at you,” said Mom. “Endangering yourself to get a suntan?”

  “Yeah. That’s, like, totally bad for your skin,” said Dylan.

  “And for breaking your neck,” added Mom, “which could have easily happened! Honestly, Aunt Zephyr, can’t I leave you alone for one minute without your courting mischief?”

  “A little mischief keeps life interesting, Harmony,” she replied, patting Mom’s shoulder. “You ought to try it sometime.”

  Mom shook her head and went back into the house. Dad and Dylan followed her.

  Once they were gone, I told Aunt Zephyr, “Hey, at least you made it back here, even if you did land on the roof.”

  “Yes, at least,” she said. “Although there were a few detours between here and Wyoming.”

  “Detours?”

  “From Wyoming, I teleported to the middle of a vineyard in Sonoma. From there I wound up in Cancún, and I don’t mind telling you, I was pretty tempted to stay put, after the day I’ve had. But nevertheless I tried again. Only this time I landed in Barcelona.”

  “I guess we’ll have to keep working on things,” I said. “In the meantime, what about Ford’s bridge? Isn’t there some kind of way that you and I could see it too?”

  “I’m in no frame of mind right now to even think about Ford’s bridge.”

  “How can you say that? This is the opportunity of a lifetime!”

  “I doubt that,” Aunt Zephyr said. “I doubt I will ever be able to see that bridge. After all, I was never able to hear the animals talk to my brother Alec. It all just sounded like animal noises to me. And I certainly couldn’t hear people’s thoughts when Zander read minds.”

  “And I guess you couldn’t take either of them with you on your trips?” I asked.

  Aunt Zephyr cocked her head to the side the way dogs do when you make a weird noise. “You know, come to think of it, I never even tried.”

  “Ooh! Ooh!” I exclaimed. “Try now! Take me!”

  “I don’t think that would be the wisest course of action, given my difficulties of late. Suppose I were able to take you with me somewhere, and then we couldn’t get back? Your mother would blow a gasket.”

  Even though I didn’t know what gaskets were and how they blew up, I figured Aunt Zephyr was probably right.

  “Can we try tomorrow?” I asked. “When you’re all rested up?”

  “We’ll see,” Aunt Zephyr said. “To tell you the truth, Aleca, I wouldn’t mind seeing Ford’s bridge myself, if we can find a way.”

  14

  I’ve Never Been This Excited about Research in My Whole Life

  The next day, though, Aunt Zephyr wasn’t in the mood to try teleporting me or seeing Ford’s bridge. Unfortunately, she was still down in the dumps about accidentally winding up in Wyoming and then landing on the roof when she got back.

  “Do you want to meet me and Ford after school?” I asked her that morning. “Or really, during school, if you want. I could stop time whenever, and we could give it a go about seeing his bridge and finding out what’s on the other side.”

  “I don’t think so, Aleca. It’s probably for the best if I don’t take any unnecessary risks,” she replied. “I’ll be lucky if I can hang on to the shred of my ability that I still have. I can’t try to tack on anything else! And besides, you’re not supposed to be stopping time, remember?”

  “But this wouldn’t be stopping time just to do it,” I said. “It would be for . . . research!”

  “No research for me, thanks,” said Aunt Zephyr. I think she meant it to be sort of funny, like she was turning down a slice of pie. But I couldn’t help noticing that she’d said, No research FOR ME. Which was almost permission for Ford and me to do research FOR US. I doubted that was what she actually meant, but I figured I could still make a good case for misunderstanding her later when I got in trouble for what I was pretty sure I was about to do.

  As eager as I was to see Ford, I was still kind of nervous about going to school that day, seeing as how everyone thought my dad was a Whoop-Dee-Doo. Turns out I worried for nothing. Maria met me at the door. She was wearing sunglasses, which was not something she usually did. She was also wearing a big grin.

  “What’s with the shades?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. I brought some for you, too.” She handed me an oversize pair.

  I put them on. “What are these for?”

  “If your dad’s a celebrity, then that makes you a celebrity. And as your bestie, that makes me a celebrity.”

  “But I already told you, my dad’s not really BeepBopBoop,” I whispered.

  “I know that, and you know that.” Maria grinned and gestured to a group of kindergartners behind her. “But they don’t know that.”

  We tried not to giggle as we walked past them like we were movie stars on a red carpet. The kindergartners whispered and pointed, but they were too intimidated to talk to us. After all, I was practically a legend in their eyes: BeepBopBoop’s daughter, at their own school. Some of them took pictures of Maria and me with their phones as we walked past. I tried not to think about the fact that even some kindergartners had phones and I still didn’t.

  Maria and I took off our shades before we got into Mrs. Floberg’s room. Being BeepBopBoop’s daughter (supposedly) didn’t make me cool to fourth graders, but at least I wasn’t hassled. No one in my class wanted to tease me about it anymore because Brett had threatened to give a real beat-down to the first person who breathed a word about the Whoop-Dee-Doos ever again. And for the rest of the day, if anyone so much as looked at him, Brett said, “What’re you looking at?” So nobody—not even Madison or Jordan—said anything to me or anyone else about the Whoop-Dee-Doos.

  I was glad that the whole thing had blown over, because I had bigger fish to fry. And by “fish” I mean Ford, although I wasn’t going to fry him, just talk to him.

  But it is actually pretty hard for a fourth grader to get a little time with a third grader, because our grades never did anything on the same schedule. We ate lunch at different times, and we went to the playground at different times. This meant that if I wanted to talk to Ford, I was going to have to be sneaky. So that is why when I saw Ford’s class pass by our door on their way to the playground, I started coughing.

  Cough, cough, cough. Mrs. Floberg looked up from her desk. We were all supposed to be in silent work time. When I stopped coughing, she looked back down. Then I did it again. Cough, cough, cough. She looked up again, then back down again. Cough, cough, cough, I did again, but this time I added a really big blech onto the end, like I was going to
cough up a lizard that was stuck in my throat. It was the grossest blech I’d ever heard, and I felt proud. But I remembered not to smile, because no one smiles when they are coughing up a lizard.

  “Aleca!” Mrs. Floberg barked. “Must you disrupt the entire class? Go get a drink of water from the fountain.”

  I coughed a few more times to really sell it, and then I was out the door. I even coughed as I was walking out. I was good.

  I saw Ford at the end of the line. I grabbed his arm and pulled. “Hey!” he whimpered.

  “Shhh!” I said. “Come with me!”

  “I can’t,” he cried. “I’ll get in trouble.”

  “Oh, fladoodlecakes!” I told him. “Come on!”

  I pulled Ford into the empty choir classroom. “Listen up,” I said. “We’ve got to do some research.” I told him all about Aunt Zephyr’s wonky Wonder-ing and how she was in no mood to help us with the bridge project. “But she didn’t exactly say we couldn’t try to figure it out ourselves.”

  “A loophole,” Ford said. “It might be unwise.”

  “It also might be awesome,” I suggested.

  “Very well. When do you want to do this research?”

  “Why not right now?”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re extremely impatient?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But can we talk about that later? I want to stop time right now.”

  “Okay,” Ford sighed. “Go ahead.”

  I was so excited, I could hardly keep from yelling . . . “Aleca Zamm!”

  15

  “Walking on Air” Isn’t Just an Expression

  You might think that stopping time would get old after you’ve done it a few times.

  But you’d be wrong. Stopping time never gets old. It is the coolest. Every time, there is something new and interesting to see.

  Like on this particular day, a kid in the hallway had sneezed just a half second before I’d said my name. And so his little snot particles were just sitting there in the air. It was very educational. And gross, of course—but mostly educational. Because, you know how they tell you to sneeze into your elbow because your sneeze germs go everywhere? Well, they aren’t kidding. That kid had a trail of yuck all the way to the other side of the hallway. “I am not walking through that!” I told Ford. We went around the other side, because otherwise it would have been like walking through a snot spiderweb, which would have been not at all pleasant.