Lizzie’s favorite color.
The window isn’t quite closed all the way, and through the screen, I can hear some voices and laughter. A loud, sharp laugh that is definitely not Lizzie but sounds so familiar.
I hear it again, then Lizzie’s much softer giggle and some talking, so I strain to make out the words.
“Oh, my God. Carla Nicholas, you are such a dork!”
The laugh again. Who’s Carla Nicholas?
Could it be Courtney Nicholas? Nickel-ass! I remember that she’s in Lizzie’s Facebook profile picture—not really looking like the most popular girl in school. Maybe she doesn’t have the same cool name, either.
Of course. Realization dawns, and I reel with it because this is another one of the universe’s little jokes on me. Courtney/Carla is my replacement in this life. She’s Lizzie’s bestie, spending the night and sharing inside jokes and probably watching old SpongeBob reruns and sucking on watermelon Jolly Ranchers, because life doesn’t get any better than that.
Why didn’t I realize that when I had it? Why did I want to be popular and pretty and rich and cool?
I step up to the window, empowered by my thoughts. Near the window is one of those giant trash bins that they made everyone in the South Hills switch to, big enough that if I climb onto the kick bar, I might be able to see inside.
I get up and peek in.
There’s my old room, in different colors, but the bed and dresser are in the same place. Courtney (or Carla, but she’ll always be Courtney to me) and Lizzie are curled on the bed, a laptop open, a TV on without sound. Yep. It’s the episode where Squidward moves to another town. But they’re not watching. They’re talking, heads close, pajamas on, a half-empty candy bag on the bed.
Longing to be part of it, I pull myself up higher, accidentally rolling the trash can. It smashes into the side of the house, and I gasp, dropping off the bar and ducking into the bushes. Dang!
The smell of garbage roils my stomach a little, and I cringe, crouching into the shadows and trying to be small and silent.
“Did you hear that?” The window squeaks as someone pushes it up. “Is someone out there?”
Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, please don’t let me get caught.
“Maybe it’s Shane Matthews!”
An explosion of giggles makes my head spin. Lizzie’s crushed out on Shane Matthews in this universe, too?
“Hey, Shane! You’re cute!” More laughter.
Oh, what I could tell them about Shane Matthews … or Ryder Bransford … or any of those guys. Don’t waste your time, girls.
They’re still at the window, so I stay completely frozen, holding my breath, closing my eyes, praying for this nightmare to be over.
“Probably an animal,” I hear Courtney say. “A squirrel or raccoon. C’mon. Let’s finish watching the video.”
“I don’t know.” There’s another grunt of wood against wood as the window goes up higher. “I’m still spooked by that creepster girl who used me on Facebook to get to my dad.”
Oh, God.
“Maybe she’s a stalker,” Lizzie adds.
“Just forget her, Liz. She’s nobody.”
I hear Lizzie sigh. “She’s not a nobody, but …”
“But what?”
“I don’t know, Carla. I just had this funny feeling about her. Like I wanted to trust her. Like I knew her.”
You do! I almost pop up, but fight the urge with everything I have.
“Well, you Facebooked with her, so that’s normal.”
“It was more than that. It was …” Her voice fades out as she closes the window.
A stalker. A nobody.
What should I do? Tell Lizzie the truth? Or just stay hidden and sneak away? I wait a full five, ten seconds trying to decide, just as the clouds break enough for a three-quarter moon to beam down on me like a spotlight.
I stand, holding the trash bin for support, but my handbag gets caught on the handle on the side and gets knocked off my shoulder. The motion almost makes me push the bin over. With a soft cry, I grab the top-heavy container to keep it from tumbling, and my bag slides off completely. It spills everywhere with a clatter that sounds deafening in the quiet of the night.
I bite my lip and cringe, just waiting for someone to come running up to me, accusing me of even more heinous crimes against the Kauffman-soon-to-be-Nutter family.
But no one does. There’s just silence, and my shaky breath. I bend to retrieve my stuff, blinking at a flash of light.
The mirror. The broken mirror Jimbo gave me is on the grass, faceup, capturing the moonlight and reflecting it right back into my face. I blink at the sharp beam, blinded for a fraction of a second.
In that split second of time, everything changes. It’s like the world shifts under me. My ears buzz and my arms and legs feel heavy and tingly.
“Oh, my God!”
I hear the words, but I’m not sure if I’ve said them or someone else has. I force my head up, looking away from the light, but I can’t see anything but sparkles and flashes, like I just had my picture taken by fifteen different cameras at once.
“She is a stalker!”
It’s Lizzie and Courtney, and one of them is shining a flashlight into my face and onto the mirror. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t. Everything is just paralyzed, white sparks of light everywhere.
Then I realize what’s happening. I’m leaving this universe! The moment I figure it out, I can see again, just for a second, just long enough to catch a glimpse of Lizzie charging toward me. I don’t know if she’s going to push me or hit me or run past me. I don’t know anything, but I’m floating and sparking, and everything is hot and cold and terrifying.
The flashes are blinding, and Lizzie comes in and out of my vision like someone is turning a light switch on and off sixty jillion times, so I can see her, then nothing. In one flash of light I see her drop to her knees.
She’s reaching for the mirror. She’s going to look at it. She’s going to get transported with me. She’s going to lose everything and end up somewhere …
“No!” I lunge toward her and pull her to the ground. “Don’t touch it!”
And then everything goes complete black and I have no idea where I’ll wake up or who I’ll be when I do.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“What in the name of Sam Adams are you doing?”
I open my eyes, vaguely aware that grass is tickling my nose. I smell earth and a scent of burned grass. The voice is muffled, coming from above, and something is pressing down on me.
No, not something. Someone.
“Should I call the police or get your mom, Liz?”
“No, wait,” the voice says. Lizzie is what’s pressing down on me, I realize. “If I get up, are you going to kill me, Ayla?” she asks.
Ayla. I’m still Ayla?
“So, nothing’s changed?” I manage to ask into the grass. I don’t know whether to be crushed or totally relieved. I go with relief. “We’re still here?”
“If by ‘here’ you mean my backyard at midnight with you hiding in the trash, then, yes, we’re here.”
“And you’re still Lizzie Kauffman whose mom is getting married tomorrow, and I’m still Ayla Monroe with the money and the dad from hell?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Then, no, I’m not going to kill you.”
Very slowly Lizzie gets up, releasing me. “You better have a really good explanation.”
I lift my head and look around, half-terrified to find out where I am. But it’s still the same yard. The same house. The same moonlight. The same Courtney Nicholas (so not hot in this universe) and the same … mirror.
The mirror!
Lizzie has picked it up, and Courtney shines the light onto it.
“Don’t!” I warn her, pushing the flashlight away. “You could … end up somewhere you don’t want to be.”
Lizzie holds the mirror shard. “Someone could get hurt with this, you know.”
“I
know.” I swallow and swipe some hair from my face. “Lizzie, I have to talk to you.”
“Let me get your mom, Lizzie,” Courtney says icily. “This girl is totally unstable.”
“No.” Lizzie and I say it together, exactly like we used to answer questions in unison all the time.
“Please,” I say to her. “Give me a chance to explain. I can. It’s a long and complicated story.”
“Why would we care about your story?” Courtney asks.
I look up at her with a smile. “Because, in it, you’re the most popular girl at school.”
She lifts a brow that seriously needs a wax.
“And you,” I say to Lizzie, “are my best friend.”
Lizzie doesn’t reply, but searches my face like the answers could be there.
“And in this story,” I add slowly, “your new dad is my old dad.”
Her eyes widen.
“Give me a chance, Zie,” I whisper. At the use of my private nickname, her eyes flicker. Not really recognition but curiosity. And something else. Something that lets me know that telling Lizzie the truth is the only way to go.
“I want to tell you everything.”
“And Carla, too,” she says, as though she’s negotiating. “This is my friend Carla Nicholas.”
“Of course,” I agree, forcing myself to think of Courtney as Carla.
“Let’s go into my room,” Lizzie says.
“Actually, it’s my room.”
I love Lizzie for a lot of reasons, but mostly because she doesn’t argue and leads the way.
“Nickel-ass?” Carla clicks a Jolly Rancher indignantly around in her mouth. “You guys called me Nickel-ass?”
Lizzie smacks her with a pillow. “That whole story, that whole blasted story with the mirror and the money and the boy taped into a box, and all you care about is being called Nickel-ass? I can’t believe I didn’t think of that years ago.”
Carla laughs sheepishly, showing braces she never needed when I knew her in my old life.
“You deserved it in that universe,” I tell her from my corner of the bed, my arms wrapped around one of Lizzie’s pillows. “But not in this one,” I add. “You seem much nicer than in the real world.”
Lizzie shakes her head, studying me. “This is the real world, Ayla.”
“Annie,” I say softly. “And, yeah, I guess it is. I mean, do you believe me?”
They look at each other, and Carla’s full of doubt, but Lizzie bites her lip and nods. “Only because I felt something outside. Something weird. It was all numb and warm and sparky for a second, but I thought that was just terror because I was jumping a virtual stranger behind the trash cans in my yard.”
“You were almost transported to another universe.”
“Where I’m popular,” Carla interjects. “So I’m not sure if I buy the story, but I like it.”
“Believe me, Carla, being popular is not all it’s cracked up to be.” I move the pillow and lean forward. “All I want to do is go back to my old life.”
“What happens if you leave this world?” Lizzie asks. “Does the old Ayla come back to Miami?”
“Honestly, nobody has any idea. Maybe I’ll be the same as I was or as I am or some whole new version of me. We have no way of knowing.”
“Yeah, no email between universes,” Carla says with a laugh.
“Speaking of email,” I say, and reach for my bag. “Let me get your phone numbers right now. No matter what happens, we have to text.” I press my iPhone, but nothing happens. “Oh, no. This can’t be good. Did we fry it with the mirror?”
Lizzie puts her hand over mine. “Don’t worry. We have Facebook. But what if you do go back? Should I try to stay in touch with Ayla? Will she still be you?”
Carla laughs. “I’m confused.”
“It’s confusing,” I acknowledge, throwing my fried phone back into my bag. “I don’t even know if I can go back. I mean, I can try, but …”
“But what?” Lizzie prompts.
“I told you about Charlie.”
“That’s your boyfriend?” she asks. “Charlie with the sick sister?”
“I really like him. Like, really.” I pluck at a candy wrapper as déjà vu vibrates through me. How many times in my life have I sat on a bed with Lizzie and talked about boys? Many. And she always, always knows the right thing to say. I look up at her and she’s playing with the mirror.
“Be careful, Zie,” I say softly. “You could blast into a million electrons and go flying through time and space.”
She sets it down quickly. “I like my life. I don’t want to live another.”
“Well, somewhere, you probably are living a lot of them. Maybe an infinite amount of them.”
She makes a classic Lizzie face of disgust and confusion, crinkling her nose so that a zillion tiny freckles smoosh together. “I don’t know about those lives. I only know about this one. And I really like it.”
“I know,” I say. “Your mom’s marrying a good guy and you have a nice BFF and it’s good.”
“Even if I am a nobody.”
“Being an invisible nobody is not the second level of hell. At least not the only one. The price for popularity is high.”
Lizzie regards me for a long moment, then leans forward, her voice a whisper. “You know what I think, Ayla? I think you have to figure out why you were sent to this universe. I think there’s a reason you’re here.”
Her words resonate. She’s so smart, always right about deep things like this.
“Maybe it’s to give those popular girls what for,” Carla suggests. “Look what you did in that bathroom. You are, like, the hero of invisibles and nobodies everywhere.”
“You think?” I ask.
But Lizzie is shaking her head, carefully touching the rough edges of the mirror as she thinks.
“You can’t change those people, Annie,” she finally says. “Oh, you might be able to embarrass them or get them momentarily off their high horse or even get them to share their precious bathroom with the band geeks. But they are programmed to be mean girls, and they aren’t going to magically change just because one of their own develops a conscience.”
I marvel at the overall smartness of that observation. “You’re always so right, Zie. In any world.”
She smiles, but her eyes are very serious. “I think there’s a bigger, more important reason you were sent here.”
A fine chill tickles my skin as I wait for her to tell me what it is. Even though I kind of already know. “Charlie?” I ask.
“Missy.”
For a moment, nobody talks.
“You’re here to help Missy.”
“How?” I barely breathe the word, because she is right. I know it in my gut, deep in my soul. “How can I help her?”
“Well, for one thing, you have a whole boatload of money.”
That’s true. Millions that could be used for even more research, and a better place to live, a tutor, music. And no strings attached that say Charlie has to go to Crap Academy. “I could help her. That is if she and her brother and mother haven’t gone off to a better universe.”
“Do you think they have?” Lizzie asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t think that mirror works, except to kill phones. I’m here for good.”
“And for a reason,” Lizzie says again. “There’s a reason you traveled across the universe and got to keep the same good soul. And that’s to make sure Missy Zelinsky has the best life possible.”
I get a little flutter in my stomach and more goose bumps. “You think?”
She nods.
“Ah, Zie. You’re the smartest girl I know. In any universe.”
“I am,” she agrees in her inimitable Lizzie way. “And if I don’t get to bed, I’m going to be the tiredest-looking maid of honor in wedding history.”
“You’re the maid of honor?”
“Of course.”
A bittersweet pang squeezes my chest. “That’s nice. And I’m really sorry about Jim
and the mirror. You know I wasn’t behind that.”
“I’m glad I know that, but, really, don’t sweat it.”
“How could I not? I mean, that mirror is a cool idea, and Jim just destroyed it.”
She waves a hand. “Dad’s got two more at his office at Process Engineering, and spent the afternoon filing patents. No one is worried.”
More relief floods me. “I’m glad I came, then. Just to find that out. But now I guess I better go.”
She stands slowly, and offers a hand. “I’m glad you came, too, Ayla. All the way across time and space.”
I smile at her, then impulsively give her a hug, which she gives right back in true Lizzie fashion.
“Hey, don’t forget Nickel-ass,” Carla says, joining the hug.
When I leave, Lizzie gives me the piece of mirror and a kiss on the cheek for luck. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The flight home late Saturday afternoon is way worse than the one up. The closer we get to Miami, the more storms there are. All I can do is stay buckled in my seat behind Jim and stare at the flashes of lightning through the rain-spattered window.
I have to talk to Charlie. I have to talk to Charlie so bad, it actually hurts every cell in my body to think about it, and my phone is truly dead. And as spoiled as I am, Jimbo refused to let me take one minute out of the grand opening schedule to get a new one.
So Charlie doesn’t even know what happened to me in Pittsburgh. For all he knows, I teleported across the galaxy.
And for all I know, so did he.
I close my eyes as the plane drops through the rain, the runway lights of the executive airport in sight.
Things don’t improve when we land, as Jimbo insists on heading straight home. I broach the subject of a side trip to Hialeah and get shot down instantly. In this weather, he’s taking the limo out tonight, and I can stay home for a change.
Like that’s going to happen.
I have to wait until Dad leaves, and while I do, I email Charlie, but he doesn’t write back. No one I know would have his cell phone number. Maybe Facebook.
But he’s not on Facebook.
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