“Max, wait, I need you.”
He stops. “Huh?”
“I know sometimes I say and do things I shouldn’t before my brain pulls the brakes. I’m working on it. I go to a doctor and everything. But listen—”
“You go to a doctor in this place?”
“Why would I go to a doctor here?! What am I, ninety?” I hunch over, suck my lips over my teeth like I’m toothless. “Hello, sonny…”
Max’s lips form a hint of a smile. “I have no clue what’s going on with you, but I have stuff to do for, what was it you said? My life of glitz and glamour. Yeah, that was it.” He starts to leave again.
“Max, please!” I go after him. “Don’t be like this.” I stop, suddenly tired of this back-and-forth game with him. I grab the back of his shirt.
“Whoa, personal space,” he says, turning around.
I let go. “Haven’t you ever given someone another chance even if they’ve done something to hurt you? Caitlin hurts my feelings all the time, but I don’t throw her away.”
That gets to him. He looks like he’s thinking hard.
I need to tell him about Simon already. “Here’s the sitch. I lost a man out here.”
“What do you mean you lost a man? Like, killed him?”
“Shhhh!” My eyes dart around to make sure the coast is clear. “No, I took him for a walk. One minute he was sleeping in his wheelchair, and the next minute he disappeared.”
Max grins. Then laughs. “I’ll have to find out how he does that. Maybe I could use it in my act.”
For once I’m not happy someone is laughing at my shenanigans. “Max, stop.” But he’s laughing his head off. “I have this feeling you can help me find Simon. It sounds crazy, I know.”
“No, what’s crazy is that you lost a whole human being and a wheelchair.” He cracks up all over again. “I’ll help you find him on one condition.” He looks down at me, the sun hitting him like a spotlight. His eyes are the lightest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, the color of baby Bambi, or a gym floor.
“Anything.”
“Do a magic show with me.”
I have a vision of myself standing in an aisle at Costco, holding a rabbit, surrounded by moms chomping on food samples. Max is there too, waving a magic wand at crying brats in shopping carts. He and I look like the world’s biggest doofuses.
I can’t do it.
Max reads my face, shakes his head.
Simon.
“Okay!” I shout. “I’ll do it!”
We retrace the brick-lined path down to the duck pond, even checking the bushes. Where is he? Please let Simon be okay.
I plop down on the bench, feeling my heart sink with failure and fear. What if something terrible happened to Simon because of me? Max is somewhere behind me, walking on a patch of grass around the big banyan tree. I stand back up and brace myself to go tell Bonnie.
“Wait a sec,” Max says. “Did you know that the most important part of being an illusionist is distracting the audience so they don’t notice what trick you’re really pulling?” Max’s eyes are fixed on the tree.
“Thanks, David Blaine, but what does that have to do with—” He reaches up near my ear and plucks a small twig from the space where my shoulder meets my neck. “A good illusionist makes you think he’s doing one thing while he’s really doing something else, and before you know it…” This time his fingers lightly brush my ear. A tingly feeling travels down my neck. He brings his hand back, opens it up, and shows me a pink hibiscus flower in the center of his palm.
I snatch the flower from him and flick his forehead with it. Simon could be rolling down the highway by now, and Max is wasting my time with magic? “Nice trick, but I have to report Simon missing. Thanks for your help.” I guess my idea that Max would find Simon was wishful thinking. I start up the path.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Max says.
“Well, you’re not me. You didn’t lose a person, okay?”
“I know where he is,” Max says.
I turn around. Max juts his chin toward the tree. Then I follow him as he leads me around the trunk to the other side, where there’s an enormous teardrop-shaped opening in it the size of a door.
Max points for me to walk through it, so I do. I’m inside the hollow trunk. It would almost feel like a dark closet if it weren’t for the ray of sunlight streaming through, shining on Simon, fully awake and sitting comfortably in the wheelchair.
Simon!
“He wasn’t sleeping,” Max explains.
Simon has been here the whole time! In a tree. I want to fall to my knees and bawl like a baby, I’m so relieved. Simon points at me with his long, ET-ish finger. “Gotcha! You kept passing by me, over and over.”
Another flood of relief rushes through me.
Quickly followed by anger. Because as much as I want to hug Simon for being okay, I also want to rip his furry eyebrows off. “Why did you do that?!” I shout. “Here I was, thinking you might be dead, and it was a prank? How was I supposed to find you IN A TREE?”
“What? This is a tree?” he asks, serious all of a sudden. “I’m not in a tree.” His eyes roam up, down, disoriented. “Where am I? What are you talking about?”
Think and respond. Don’t react. Maybe Simon is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, only I didn’t realize it before. “Where do you think you are?” I ask him carefully.
He scratches his head. “Uh…in a nutshell…”
“Yes?”
His eyes twinkle. “That’s it. I’m in a nutshell.” He laughs. Well, wheezes, really. “Gotcha! Again!”
“Not funny,” I say. It figures that out of all the patients here, I get assigned the one-man show. I’ll probably be like him when I’m old. Why don’t his children visit him? What if one day he’s really gone for good, and he never got to see his kids? I’m going to ask Bonnie if she’ll let me get in touch with them and ask them to visit.
“I thought it was funny,” Max says as I wheel Simon out of the tree trunk.
“Oh, so now suddenly you can take a joke?” I ask him.
“Sure, when it’s not on me.” He grabs the handles of the wheelchair and pushes Simon for me. We start making our way up the path.
Simon looks at Max. “Who are you?”
“I’m Max,” he answers with a wave.
“You can call him Magic Max,” I say to Simon. I guess my feeling was right after all, about Max being here to help me out. “I owe you one,” I say to Max. I give him a quick hug.
I’ll have to do a magic show with him now. I don’t want to, but what choice do I have?
After what he did for me today, it’s only fair.
Tony lifts a tote bag from behind his desk and hands it to me. “Abby, please collect the book donations. Thank you.”
Max drops The Secret Life of Houdini in the tote. “Did you read those magic articles I gave you?” he asks.
“I lost them,” I admit. “Can you give them to me again?”
“Sure. You can read them online. I’ll get you the links.” He’s so eager for me to be his assistant. It racks me with guilt. I Googled Penn and Teller. How can Max like them? They are lunatics. Magic isn’t my thing. I have to get out of this, but I don’t know how.
Max’s light brown eyes are peering at me, all hopeful and puppy-like. “Yeah, send me the links,” I say. I open my backpack and take out the book I’m donating, Miles to Go by Miley Cyrus.
Max palms his forehead. “Miley Cyrus? You actually read that?” His blue braces make a rare appearance in a two-foot-wide grin. “That’s hilarious.”
“I was curious,” I say sheepishly. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like Hannah Montana, once upon a time.”
“Never,” Max says.
“I did,” Amy whispers.
“I never watched Hannah Montana,” Trina says. “I mean, I know who she is from seeing her on lunch boxes and T-shirts, but I wasn’t allowed to have a TV until this year.”
“I’m still not allowed
to have a TV in my room,” Max says.
“Me either,” Amy and I say together.
“No…” Trina rolls her hair into a bun, then sticks two pencils in it. “I didn’t have a TV at all. Like, I never watched TV until this year.”
“WHAAAAT?” comes out of my mouth.
The pencils in the back of Trina’s head look like antennae. “My parents have a TV in their bedroom for emergencies, but they don’t watch it. I was allowed to start watching when I started seventh grade, but to be honest, I still don’t watch.”
Max, Amy, and I give each other knowing glances. That explains a lot about Trina.
I go around the room collecting books. Trina hands in one about an artist lady from Mexico with braids on her head and a mustache. Amy has one about Kate Middleton and the British royals. Sofia and her friends offer books in Spanish, while Kelvin’s quad gives Harry Potter or picture books. Every single student remembered to bring in a donation. Pretty cool.
“I like celebrity biographies the best,” I say, reading the back cover of the Kate Middleton book before handing over the bag to Tony.
“Me too,” Amy says. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what I read her lips say.
“I like the ones about actresses,” I tell her, dropping the Kate book back in the bag. “That’s why I got the Miley Cyrus book. She was once a funny actress with a show, so I figured, why not check it out?”
I wait, but Amy doesn’t say anything else.
“I like celeb magazines too, like Entertainment Weekly,” I add.
“Teen Vogue,” she says.
“I get those sometimes.”
“And Us Weekly.”
“My mother loves that one,” I tell her.
“Mine too.” She smiles. And then says nothing.
“Was that an actual conversation with Amy?” Max whispers in my ear.
“I think so,” I whisper back.
Who knew I could have something in common with Amy? We both like celebrity books and magazines.
What would Caitlin say?
It’s eleven-thirty p.m. I’ve been in bed for over two hours, tossing and turning, wide awake. I might as well be a parked car with the engine left on, revved up and trapped.
I get up, stand in front of my mirror, and practice my red-carpet pose, smiling for the cameras in my imaginary glitzy dress. You’re a star, not a meteor. Are Trina and Amy right?
Someday it’s going to happen for me. It has to. My insides ache when I imagine my future on the stage, the big screen, the small screen, the everywhere-and-everything-in-between screen.
I scrounge in my closet and find hats from my Halloween collection. Perfect for characters. I do them in the mirror: police officer making an arrest, international assassin targeting her hit, blind skier reaching the summit. I sit at my desk, interviewing Tina Fey in my mind.
I’m in the mood to talk to a real person. I wish I had a friend to call.
Trina?
No. Trina may live in her own world, but I’m sure she knows, like I do, that this is a temporary summer school acquaintance situation. It’s not a let’s-text-each-other-and-be-best-buds scenario. I don’t even have her number. It’s not that kind of friendship.
But could it be?
Because, really, what do I have to lose if I text or call Trina? Or Max? Or Amy, even, although that would be a short conversation. Still. One of them might be awake like me, wondering if they should call.
I look up Trina’s number in the summer school directory, enter it into my phone, and then plug in Max’s and Amy’s numbers too.
I stare at my phone. Then put it down.
The only person I’m comfortable calling is Caitlin, who is probably too busy pulling a prank with all her new, talented friends to talk to me.
I text her.
Me: How did ur monologue go? Did u get cast in the show?
Two seconds later, my phone dings. She’s up.
Caitlin: Brett made it.
Me: You and Brett made it?
Caitlin: Just Brett
Me: Sorry
Caitlin: Auditioning 4 Legally Blonde. How’s scrison (school+prison)?
Me: Hangin w/Max, Amy & Trina.
Caitlin: LOL! OK geek. Amy talks?
Me: Whispers. Laughs. Silently, natch.
I feel lousy writing that because Amy and I sort of connected today.
Caitlin: LOL Amy is a lump.
I don’t answer her. Can’t Caitlin say anything nice?
Caitlin: They r all losers.
I’m not telling her about Max and our upcoming magic show.
Me: What happened w/ur Kool-Aid prank?
Caitlin: The 2 who did it got kicked out
Me: But I thought u did it 2
Caitlin: Just watched
So Caitlin egged them on, then slithered out of it. Sounds familiar. Texting Caitlin was a mistake. She’s even more venomous at camp than at home. Or am I just finally seeing the real her?
Caitlin: How’s home life?
Me: Parentals go 2 CHADD meetings now. They r all up in my biz these days but I’m not as grounded as b4. Can do HW in room w/laptop
Caitlin: CHADD?
Me: Support group 4 parents of kids w/ADHD. They r all Ur phone is a privilege not a right. They keep taking phone away
Caitlin: Total child abuse. U NEED ur phone! GTG. We’re sneaking out 2 boys cabin.
I wonder if Brett is up.
Hey Brett, how r u? Congratz on talent showcase! Text when u get a chance. Abby
No answer. I look at my clock. It’s midnight. Time for bed.
Has Tony gone beyond the cliffs of insanity? He just picked Amy to read the part of Hermia. Hasn’t he noticed she can barely say her name at roll call? Amy looks like she wants to crawl under our table. She freezes, pencil in hand, her blue eyes terrified. I raise my hand and open my mouth to protest. It’s cruel to put her through this.
Tony taps his chin twice. “Amy hasn’t read a part yet,” Tony says, looking straight at me, as if he’s reading my mind.
I lower my hand. Tony acknowledges me with a tilt of his head.
“Go ahead, Amy,” Tony says soothingly. “Stand up, and remember to speak loudly. You’ll be fine.” Trina gives her a thumbs-up, so Max and I do too.
Amy stands and opens her book. Her hands tremble. “ ‘Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed, for I upon this bank will rest my head. For my sake, my dear, lie further off yet, do not lie so near.’ ” Max, Trina, and I swap shocked, relieved expressions. Amy got through it fine, like Tony said she would.
So why is Amy so scared to open her mouth? Maybe it’s only when she’s using her own words that she clams up. When Amy sits back down, the three of us whisper “Good job” and “You did great” to her and stuff like that.
After class Tony calls me up to his desk. “You’ve showed good self-control lately, Abby. So…we’re back on for your stand-up comedy performance. How does this Friday sound?”
A surge of happiness swells up in me. Now I’ll get to show who I really am.
Wednesday afternoons are the worst because it’s not Friday yet, and comprehension questions are due every Thursday. I wish homework was something I could zip through, like Drew does. At least Mom let me go back to doing homework in my room with my laptop, but she won’t give me the Wi-Fi password, so no Internet. Our class started this book called King of Shadows, which is a nice change from the play, but it’s more work. Comprehension questions are so dumb.
Plus, I need to write jokes for my comedy routine Friday, except I can’t think of any. On top of it all, we have our first big test next week. I don’t know what to work on first.
I’m stuck. I pick up my pencil, smack it against my forehead, and break it in half. I can hear Drew and Dad outside, which doesn’t help.
“OUCH!” Drew yells. I get off my bed and spy out the window. He’s in the fetal position in the grass, the football next to him. Dad is standing over him.
“I’m having an ast
hma attack,” Drew huffs. “I need my inhaler.” Drew is close to tears. My heart aches for him.
Dad helps him up, gives him a comforting pat, and catches sight of me at the window. I fall back on my bed. It should be me out there, not my brother. But I’m not allowed to go outside until I’m finished with my homework.
I decide to take my chances. I go out to the backyard.
“Are you done?” Dad asks. I shake my head. “You can come back out when you’ve done all your work.”
“Just ten minutes,” I plead. “I have to get my wiggles out. Come on, Dad.”
He stops, tosses the ball up, and catches it. “At CHADD, they said short, timed breaks are good for you to push the reset button before you get back to work,” Dad says. “So. Ten minutes only.” Drew goes inside.
Ten minutes turn into twenty, then thirty. We end up playing for an hour. I chase Dad into the bushes, getting my two-hand touch in just as he falls.
“Out of bounds,” Dad says, grinning.
“No way, that was in! I got you!” I shout, catching my breath. I love the feel of my beating heart, the burn in my legs, my sweat-soaked skin. Free at last. “Howard,” Mom calls from the patio. “She still has homework. It’s time to come in.”
“One more play,” I say.
Mom shakes her head.
“Come on, Mom. Most parents want their kids outside. Do you know how lucky you are? Just one more play. Just one. Justonejustonejustonejustone.”
Dad says, “Just one, Rachel. It’s okay.”
Mom throws up her hands and marches into the house.
I want my last kick to be earth-shatteringly awesome. Dad backs up all the way to the end of our yard. I run a few steps, pull my leg back, and kick the ball with all my strength, as if my life depends on it.
But something happens. Just as my toes make contact with the ball, my foot turns at a strange angle. The ball flies way away from Dad, high over his head, toward the house.
This Is Not the Abby Show Page 9