Shattered

by Amanda Valentino

  Without a word, they followed me out. Hal struggled with the combination on his bike lock. Meanwhile, I urged him to go faster, almost tempted to abandon our bikes and hightail it out of there on foot.

  “What happened?” Callie asked, sensing my distress.

  “You took that folder, didn’t you?” Hal said.

  “Hurry up,” I insisted, my knees about to buckle from nerves.

  Finally, Hal managed to get his lock open on the third try. But he was still struggling with the one connecting Callie’s and my bikes. Callie leaned down and helped wrestle the U-lock off our tires, and pop—we were free to ride. I grabbed my bike, hopped right on, and took one last look through the agency window.

  The man whose folder I’d taken had returned from the back office. And he looked every bit as desperate as I felt. He tossed books and brochures from the corner desk, obviously looking for the folder. I placed my hand over its bulk in my coat, feeling my heart beat even faster than before.

  With each second I watched, the man grew more frustrated. A couple of agents came over to help him. Finally he cleared the desktop entirely with one brush of his arm. He shook his head, perhaps second-guessing himself. But then he turned in our direction, spotting us by chance.

  And saw me watching.

  Our eyes locked. And in that moment he knew.

  “Let’s go!” I shouted.

  Hal and Callie leapt onto their bikes, and we all started riding furiously away, just as the agency door swung open.

  “Stop!” he called out. He ran, much faster than I’d anticipated, just inches from Callie’s back wheel. He managed to grab it, but she was able to keep on pulling away, losing his grip in an instant.

  Before I knew it, he’d jumped into a car at the end of the street. I heard the ignition turn over.

  The muscles in my legs ached as we went uphill toward a park, where I figured we could lose him. I pedaled hard, seeing Callie fly ahead of me.

  The car’s tires peeled out on the pavement just behind us. Still sweating, I moved onto the sidewalk, focused on the park.

  Seconds later, I heard his car come to a screeching halt.

  “Hold up!” Hal shouted.

  I turned and saw that the guy wasn’t chasing us anymore. He was out of his car, scurrying around on the street, retrieving papers that were blowing all around. It took me a moment to realize the papers were from the folder, and that the folder was no longer in my coat.

  I’d dropped it.

  “Let’s go,” Callie said, taking the lead. She headed toward a bike trail by the park. Hal and I followed. None of us looked back during the entire ride home. Nor did we speak a word.

  CHAPTER 10

  We didn’t stop until we reached the center of Orion—only then could I catch my breath.

  “I think we’re good,” Callie said, barely out of breath.

  I looked over my shoulder, scanning for the man’s car, still feeling like we were being followed. For a second I thought I’d spotted it—a dark sedan parked by the post office—but when I blinked, I saw that the so-called car was no more than a newspaper stand, and I knew that I needed a break.

  “So, what just happened?” Hal asked, his pale blue eyes focused hard on me.

  “That guy in the agency,” I began. “Didn’t you recognize him?”

  “Not really,” Callie said. “But then again, I was too busy collecting travel brochures.” She pulled a thick stack from her pocket.

  “He was at the hospital the day we tried to see Mr. Thornhill,” I explained, still rubbing my eyes after the newspaper stand hallucination.

  “You recognized him?” Hal asked.

  I nodded, frustrated that they didn’t remember, but also aware that they probably hadn’t even noticed him that day. I wouldn’t have either, except my eyes had remained locked on Dr. Plummer as he’d scurried through a set of double doors with the security guard close at his heels. Dr. Plummer had been just a couple of steps away from an elevator when a man—the one from the travel agency—had stopped him, and they all glared back at us. That same man had been in the waiting area when we’d first arrived in the critical care unit. He’d been barking at the head nurse, but as soon as he’d spotted us he left out an emergency exit door.

  “And you didn’t think it was important enough to fill us in about Creepy Guy sooner?” Hal asked, once I’d filled them in.

  “What, an arbitrary man with a scar?” I asked. “Par-don me, but between managing theamandaproject.com, investigating all these disparate clues, stealing top-secret folders, and breaking into the private offices of police chiefs’ wives, this little detail slipped my mind. Plus, shall we even begin to rehash the list of things that you failed to tell us right away?”

  “Yeah, well, moving on . . . ,” he said, his proverbial tail stuck between his knees.

  “It’s just really weird,” Callie said. “I mean, what do you think the guy at the travel agency was doing at the hospital in the first place? And why did you steal the folder?”

  I proceeded to tell them about the folder, the charts and graphs inside, all with cryptic coding that I didn’t understand. “If only I had been able to fit it into my bag . . .”

  “Well, you tried. And the coding sounds similar to those lists I found on Thornhill’s desktop,” Hal said, referring to a file he’d discovered that disappeared before he could show it to us. When he clicked on it, he saw not only columns of data and rows of numbers but also a long list of people’s names: our names, our parents’ names, other students at school, as well as the names of people we didn’t know.

  “I also saw a plot plan for a place called Casteel Airstrip,” I continued. “It’s in Saint Claude.”

  “Saint Claude?” Hal said, surprise in his voice. “I think I might’ve seen a map of Saint Claude in Mrs. Bragg’s office. At least, I’m pretty sure that was the name of the town. There was a giant X marked over an area.”

  “What area?” I asked.

  Callie paused from fanning her face with a brochure. “Maybe Casteel Airstrip.”

  “We should definitely pursue that,” I told them. Still suspicious that we were being followed, I gazed over both shoulders to check, but I didn’t see anything that looked weird.

  “Did you find anything else?” Hal asked.

  I nodded. “The necklace.”

  “What necklace?” he asked.

  “Amanda’s . . . the key she used to wear . . .”

  “Um, what?” Callie took a step back, completely unnerved. “Amanda never takes that necklace off.”

  “She’d never be without it,” Hal agreed.

  “I know. It was in that guy’s folder,” I said. “It dropped out, and I picked it up.”

  “Are you sure it was the same one?” Hal asked.

  “Definitely sure. I touched it. I held it.”

  “And?” he persisted.

  I swallowed hard. “And I had . . . well, what I can only really describe as a vision.”

  “A what?” Hal asked, his faced crinkled up.

  “I know it sounds peculiar, but it was as if I could picture everywhere the key had been—on a key ring, inserted into a lock, being shoved beneath a mattress . . . and gripped in the hand of a car accident victim.”

  I knew that last bit would shock them, because we had recently gotten a newspaper clipping on theamanda-project.com about Annie Beckendorf, aka Amanda’s mother, who was killed in a car accident. The article mentioned that when the officials discovered her body, Annie was clutching an antique silver key—just like the one Amanda always wore around her neck.

  “Are you sure?” Callie whispered, clasping a hand over her mouth, her eyes tearing up.

  I swallowed hard. “The same thing happened when I touched Heidi’s iPhone—that’s how I knew what she’d texted about Traci. It happened when I touched the Ariel book too: I could see everywhere it’d been—from an all-girls boarding school to the used bookshop where I think Amanda bought it.”

  “That�
��s crazy,” Callie whispered.

  “I know.”

  “And we should definitely talk about it more,” she said. “I mean, right?”

  “Right. Sure. Let’s talk. I just don’t have any answers right now.” I sighed.

  “But first, why do you think that guy had Amanda’s necklace?” Hal asked. “Or, more importantly, why does Amanda no longer have it?”

  “He obviously knows something,” I said. “He is somehow in league with someone. The question is, who? And why?”

  “Even more reason to go check out that airstrip,” Hal said.

  “Are you both free after school tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Count me in,” Hal said. “I’ll tell my parents I’m practicing with the band.”

  “I’m in, too,” Callie agreed. “I have a sneaking suspicion there might be an emergency mathlete meeting I have to attend.”

  “Great,” I said, glancing up at the digital clock on the bank. It was 4:25. Hal still had enough time to make it to the music shop before it closed, and I had just enough of a window to stop by Play It Again, Sam’s before dinner. With any luck, Louise would have some answers.

  As soon as I left Callie and Hal, I realized that I’d failed to tell them about the serpent-and-bowl markings and the significance of the onyx eye. I’d have to call them both later.

  I pedaled my bike feverishly, passing by the Villa en route to Play It Again, Sam’s. Amanda and I had gone to the theater one Saturday afternoon for a screening of The Wizard of Oz. It was Amanda’s idea to see it, and afterward we took a walk through Broadskill Park.

  Amanda’s face was aglow, and she was chatting on about how much she appreciated the Golden Age of Cinema and Victor Fleming’s work as a director.

  “You have to admit,” she said, dipping into her bag of popcorn, “The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . . . that man was a true genius.”

  “Well, I would not exactly argue. Victor Fleming, what can I say? Although, let the record show that I stand in awe of George Cukor, without whom the great screen goddesses could never have expressed themselves.”

  “Too true. Too true. So, then, tell me, what was your most favorite scene in this groundbreaking epic? In Kansas? In Oz?”

  “I’m not really sure. On the ninety-seventh viewing, the scenes tend to blur together.” I was joking, naturally. Judy Garland is, was, and will forever remain one of my very favorite entertainers. When I was twelve, I discovered the movie A Star Is Born. I’d liked it so much that my mother bought me the sound track. I’d lock myself in my room, grab a hairbrush for my mic, and pretend to be Esther Blodgett, singing about lost love.

  “Ha! I’ll get you, my pretty . . . ,” Amanda said, calling my bluff.

  “Okay, fine,” I admitted. “It’s not easy to choose, but I believe my favorite scene is when Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow go through the Haunted Forest, climb up to the witch’s lair, and then manage to steal her broom for the great and powerful Oz, saving Dorothy from those evil monkeys.”

  “Because they were so brave, right?” she asked. “You like that scene because those characters exemplify bravery and heroism. They’d have done anything to help their friend, even if it cost them their lives. The Scarecrow, especially. He was torn to pieces and his arm got burned, but still . . . he does what he believes to be just. He actually does that throughout the movie . . . stands up for what he believes in.”

  “Are we still talking about flying houses, talking animals, witches, and broomsticks here?”

  Instead of answering, Amanda stopped walking and turned abruptly to me. “You know you’re the Scarecrow, right?”

  “Not last I checked. I like to think I am dressing a lot more like Vivien Leigh in Waterloo Bridge now . . .”

  “Okay, confession time.” She sighed. “Because open and honest confession is abundant for the soul, right? Despite how much it pangs?”

  “Wait, is that a proverb?”

  “That instance in the library, when we were gawking at the Sylvia Plath book, that wasn’t just a chance meeting. I’d planned it. I’d plotted it. Because I’d so desperately wanted to meet you.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “About a week or so before we’d met at the library, I was in the school office. You were there, too. You didn’t see me, standing at the back, but I heard you confront Thornhill, even after he’d threatened you with suspension for raising your voice.”

  I bit my lip, remembering the incident well. I’d been sent to Thornhill’s office by Mr. Chinski, my English teacher, because I’d chosen to defend Peter Drake, a shy, reluctant student in the class.

  Mr. Chinski clearly hated Peter, and he let him know it constantly, openly ridiculing his essays, mocking excerpts from his reading response journal, and calling on him more than anyone else, even though Peter rarely volunteered any answers. The final straw came when Chinski moved Peter’s desk to the corner of the room, away from everyone else’s, because Peter had been talking to Maria Katty. We were a little too old for the “time out” corner.

  I honestly couldn’t witness this behavior another moment, and so I stood up and told Chinski exactly what I thought: that he was a coward for having to resort to bullying those much younger and weaker than he was; that his abuse of power for his own egotistical benefit was appalling; and that he belonged in that corner, not Peter.

  Jaws dropped. The room got quiet. Peter sat a little taller. And Mr. Chinski turned purple with anger. He ordered me to the office, where I told Thornhill exactly what I thought of my quote-unquote teacher and demanded that he do something about the situation himself, or else I’d take matters to the superintendent and the PTA.

  “I knew that was great and powerful,” Amanda continued, feeding the remainder of her popcorn to a family of ducks. “It was then that I knew I had to meet you—someone who’d stick up for what she believed in, whether or not it would benefit her in the end.”

  CHAPTER 11

  A car on the street honked at me, disturbing my reminiscence, just as I rounded the corner by Play It Again, Sam’s.

  The shop had become my fashion oasis ever since my eye-opening trip there with Amanda. Usually fairly busy around this time of day—when people were getting out of work—the shop was surprisingly deserted when I entered. I even had to call Louise’s name a couple of times before she finally appeared.

  “Hey there,” she said, emerging from behind a doorway of hanging glass beads. Her chocolate skin was glistening with a layer of peach-colored body glitter. “Like it?” she asked, referring to her most recent acquisition: a pair of creamy leather jeans, paired with a matching fuzzy sweater.

  “Love it,” I said, noticing how she glowed.

  “I’m not sure yet if it’ll stay on me, or go back on the rack, but sometimes I need to play dress-up, especially when the designer stuff comes in my size. So, are you here to play, too?”

  “Not today,” I said, taking a seat at the jewelry bar. “Today I just want to talk.”

  “Sounds serious.” She slid a pile of flower-adorned headbands my way. Trying things on was her version of therapy.

  My relationship with Louise had unexpectedly blossomed during my past several visits to her store. Another unexpected gift from Amanda. Even though it was obvious she had a secret side, Louise was the one adult I didn’t feel so guarded around; she didn’t expect me to be brilliant all the time. It was sort of ironic though. The first time I met Louise, I thought she was way too hard-boiled—thus not worth putting up with—for a conversation that lasted more than two minutes. But now, every time I saw her, it seemed like our conversations were never quite long enough.

  “I’m glad you stopped by,” she said. “It’s such a refreshing change from all the, shall we say, ‘interesting’ characters I’ve had in and out of here the last couple days.”

  “Interesting characters?” I asked, checking out a headband adorned with a series of little stars.

  “People buying handbags and t
hen returning them a day later; and then quizzing me on what a girl your age would like . . . One woman didn’t just want to know what I had for sale, but where it had come from in the first place, as if the Queen of England might’ve had it on her back . . .” Louise waved her hand in the air, as if whisking all that away. “Never mind my embittered prattling,” she said. “What would you like to chat about? Fashion? Politics? Intriguing young men? Personally, I vote for the last, but I’m not just talking tragic heroes in literature and classic movie heartthrobs—not this time, anyway.”

  “I need to know about Robin,” I said, with my usual tact and delicacy.

  “Robin?”

  “Amanda’s sister,” I explained.

  “Amanda has a sister?” She raised her voice, feigning sincerity.

  “You know that she does,” I ventured, attempting to meet her big amber eyes.

  But Louise looked away, fussing with the tag of her sweater. “This darn thing is making me so itchy. I’m thinking it is not mine to keep.”

  “Have you met her?” I asked.

  Finally, Louise sat down next to me at the bar. She smelled like leather and lilacs. “Maybe once or twice.”

  “And you never thought to mention it?” I asked. “Do you know where she is? Because we obviously want to talk to her.”

  “Geez, Louise,” she said, unable to get the sweater tag from digging into the back of her neck.

  You may try to ignore me, I thought, but I am known for my persistence.

  “Apparently Robin has custody of Amanda,” I continued. “Amanda could be with her right now.”

  She stopped struggling and looked directly at me.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  Instead of answering, Louise swiveled on her stool to grab a beret off a mannequin. “Here, try this on. I just got it in and I bet it’d look sharp with one of the shift dresses you bought last week. Long and lanky . . . that’s the key.” She winked.