To my sons, Jordan and Dylan, who have shown me the meaning of true magic.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE: Surf’s Up!
CHAPTER TWO: The Unexpected Guest
CHAPTER THREE: Florida Comes to Stay
CHAPTER FOUR: Call the Doctor!
CHAPTER FIVE: The Magic Fanny Pack
CHAPTER SIX: Treasures in the Trunk
CHAPTER SEVEN: Miracle Movers
CHAPTER EIGHT: Riptide to the Rescue
CHAPTER NINE: Rosalie Claire
CHAPTER TEN: Astral Airlines
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Flying Deathtrap
CHAPTER TWELVE: Into the Amazon
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Hot on the Trail
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Baby Troubles
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Into the MegaPix
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Truth or Consequences, 1994
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Grandma Daisy
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: My Kid-Mom
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Mom’s Florida Problems
CHAPTER TWENTY: Mike
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Outfoxing Walter Brinker
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Let’s Make a Deal
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Hatching a Plan
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Scavenger Hunt
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Grandpa Jack’s Key
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Mysterious Ring
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Grandma Daisy’s Fanny Pack
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: The Rules of Magic
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: The Not-So-Great Stake Out
CHAPTER THIRTY: Missing
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Searching for Mom
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: The Attic
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Finding Mom
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Violet
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Walter Brinker
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: The Fiesta Parade
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Chasing Down Leroy
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Back to Costa Rica
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: Miracle Movers
CHAPTER FORTY: The Miracles of Magic
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: Surf’s Up!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
About the Author
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
Surf’s Up!
I paddled my surfboard hard past the churning whitecaps as Leroy yowled on the beach. My dog went bonkers when I surfed. Maybe he was worried something bad would happen, but I’d been riding the waves every day since early June when I arrived here in Costa Rica. All I’d ever gotten was one nasty cut on my foot from a piece of spiky orange coral.
“Ride that one! It’s perfect!” my best friend Violet shouted from the shore.
“Not perfect enough!” I yelled back as I let the wave roll by.
My friend Noah crouched on the hot-cinnamon sand. His messy brown hair flopped over his freckled forehead as he held Leroy back by his collar. Whenever I surfed, my dog had a habit of plunging into the ocean in his noble attempts to “save” me.
Leroy and I were spending the summer in Jacó, Costa Rica, with Rosalie Claire and her husband, Thomas. Most afternoons, Thomas took a break from his work at the inn and taught me to surf.
Violet and Noah had arrived late yesterday in San José. Rosalie Claire and I drove an hour and a half through the electric-green countryside along a narrow, twisty highway to pick them up at the airport. My friends were joining me for the last two weeks of my summer vacation. It can be tricky mixing friends from different parts of your life, but so far they were getting along great. And number one on their to-do lists? Learning to surf.
I wasn’t exactly an expert myself, but most of the time I could make it to shore without wiping out. If only the perfect wave would show up so I wouldn’t look like a total dork. I cupped my hand around my firebird necklace, hoping it would bring me luck, and let the wimpy waves pass by.
Violet sprung to her feet. “You can do it, Madison! Holy schnikies, go for it already!” Violet always had the craziest expressions.
When a four-foot wave finally surged behind me, I counted one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi. I popped onto my feet and spread my arms, imagining I was a red-winged firebird. Then I shot to shore under a cloudless blue sky.
Surfing is the closest thing I’ve ever felt to flying.
“Yes!” Violet lifted her fist in victory.
“Awesome!” shouted Noah, giving me two thumbs up.
Leroy barked his applause and wriggled free to bombard my salty legs with soft dog licks.
I peeled off the Velcro surf leash tethering my ankle to the board. Leroy hopped on, standing as still and regal as the Statue of Liberty.
“Move it, Leroy. I have next dibs.” Violet motioned to him to skedaddle off the surfboard.
Leroy stayed put.
“Looks like he’s trying to protect you, Violet,” Noah said. “Maybe he’s worried you’ll get hurt.”
“I can take care of myself, thank you very much. Besides, I’ve been looking forward to doing this all summer.” Violet nudged Leroy’s butt. He slinked off, his tail tucked between his legs.
Noah and I watched from the beach while Violet paddled beyond the waves. I stroked Leroy’s wiry white fur until he wriggled away to snuffle for crabs in the sand.
Noah had just turned thirteen—a year older than me. I’d met him last summer when we were both contestants on the reality TV show Stranded in the Amazon. Since then his voice had turned scratchy as sandpaper. We’d video chatted all year from his new house in Denver where he lived with his dad. When he stepped off the plane, I nearly gasped. He’d grown almost five inches.
“Pretty decent for her first day,” he said as we watched Violet teeter onto her knees, wobble to her feet, and then hold her stance for a few seconds before pitching into the surf.
Better than I did my first time.
“Good one!” I shouted. “Now try it without resting on your knees. Just pop straight onto your feet!”
Violet gave me the A-OK sign and kept at it until the shadows from the palm trees edging the beach grew long, and the sun sank low in the sky.
“Sorry. Looks like you’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” I told Noah. When Violet got super excited about something, sometimes she could forget to take turns.
He shrugged. “No worries. After all, we have two whole weeks.”
At least that’s what we thought at the time.
After Violet dragged herself from the water, she dropped the surfboard onto the sand and toweled off her long blond hair. It instantly sprang back into a zillion corkscrew curls. It was exactly the kind of hair my grandmother, Florida, wished I had, but didn’t. Mine was nut brown and stick-straight, just like my mom’s used to be. I liked it that way.
Leroy abandoned his crab hunt and jumped onto the surfboard again, repeating his Statue of Liberty imitation.
“That’s it for the day, boy. Come on.”
I patted my leg and Leroy followed us up the beach. We wound our way through a thicket of towering palm trees filled with songbirds and chattering white-faced capuchin monkeys. On the other side of the trees was La Posada Encantada, the five-room waterfront inn and café that Rosalie Claire and Thomas owned. Ever since I’d arrived, I’d been staying with them in their saffron-yellow bungalow on the far edge of the hotel.
The whole year, I’d counted the days until I’d be reunited with Rosalie Claire. Until she married Thomas last year, she’d been my next-door neighbor in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. That’s where I live with my sometimes-crazy grandmother, Florida Brown, who I’d moved in with after my mom died. At the time I thought my life was of
ficially over, but thanks to Rosalie Claire, a mysterious TV—not to mention a little magic—my grandmother and I had learned to cut each other some slack. Until recently, that is, when Florida fell back on her old nagging ways. If only my mom could magically appear and tell her to cut it out.
Even though she’d been gone a year and a half, I still found myself thinking about my mom at least every other minute of every single day. Each night before I fell asleep, I double-wished I could see her just one more time. Whenever I had a spare moment, I drew pictures of her in my sketchbook, trying to cement all of the memories I had of her in my brain.
“You’re such a lucky duck,” Violet said as we walked the winding stone pathway through the inn’s tropical garden, blooming with orchids and passionflowers. “You got to be here the whole dang summer!” She picked a purple orchid and tucked it behind her ear.
Given what’s happened to me in my life, I didn’t exactly feel a hundred percent lucky, but staying here for three whole months qualified as being pretty darn cool.
“I really needed a break from Florida,” I admitted. “She started bugging me again about so much stuff, like wanting me to wear makeup and curl my hair. Ugh. I think her biggest dream in life is for me to be Miss Teenage America.”
“You’re only twelve,” Noah pointed out.
“Tell that to my grandmother.” When Florida put her mind to something, her will was stronger than a Category Five hurricane. You’d better give in or get out of her way.
“Like you said, sometimes your grandmother can be the absolute worst.” Violet gave one of her eye-rolls.
Violet and I had been best friends forever. Since the first day of first grade on Bainbridge Island in Washington State. That’s where I used to live with my mom. Violet is the only friend I wanted to be with after my mom died because everyone else suddenly started treating me like I was a different kid. From the minute we met, we’d told each other practically everything, except of course for the stuff that might hurt her feelings. But I knew for a fact I’d never told her that Florida was the worst. I’d only said she’d been super crabby. Way more than usual. And that I’d hoped it was just a temporary setback.
“It’s on account of my teensy headaches,” my grandmother would say after she’d scream at me or send me to my room for something tiny, like accidentally letting Leroy track dust into the house. Then she’d lie down on her bed with the curtains drawn shut.
I worried maybe something was wrong because until her headaches started, Florida had tried to be a better grandmother. She came to at least half of my afterschool soccer games, and for the longest time she’d laid off trying to turn me into a girly-girl. Which, for the record, would be about as easy as getting my dog to sprout wings and fly to Jupiter. I made her promise she’d go to the doctor while I was gone. I figured she must have been getting better because during our Sunday morning phone calls, she sounded as if she was almost back to her old self.
Violet, Noah, Leroy, and I wound our way past the tiki bar next to the hotel swimming pool. A man in a swimsuit and a woman wrapped in a flowery sarong shared a chaise lounge. They gazed at each other all lovey-dovey as they sipped a drink through two bendy straws stuck in the hole of a coconut shell.
“Newlyweds,” I whispered. “Hope they last longer than the couple that stayed here in July. They got married on the beach at sunset, then kept everyone up all night, fighting. The next morning they asked Rosalie Claire to recommend a good divorce lawyer.”
“Sounds like Florida and your Grandpa Jack,” Violet said.
True. Except my grandparents never officially divorced. They just lived in two different places and saved their fighting for when they were together.
As we climbed the steps to the whitewashed verandah outside the lobby, we noticed a foul odor drifting through the door.
“Wow. Smells like the boys’ gym,” Noah said.
“Or something dead.” Violet scrunched her nose.
“Or both,” I said.
Here’s one thing I’ve learned about living in a hotel: you never knew who or what you’d to bump into. One whiff and my nose told me exactly who was inside.
CHAPTER TWO
The Unexpected Guest
Surfers. I recognized the no-deodorant rotten compost smell I’ve come to know and not love in Jacó. La Posada Encantada was a favorite with the surfers since it’s right smack on the beach. Two guys in their twenties stood in front of the desk. A stringy scraggly-haired one and the other shaved bald as a soccer ball.
Usually Sofia, the front desk clerk, checked in guests, but today was her day off. Rosalie Claire was behind the counter, her fingers flying on the ancient computer keyboard. Her coffee-colored skin was shiny with sweat from the Costa Rican heat and her braided black hair was partly covered with a red bandana.
“Dude, you’ve got like, a dinosaur computer from the Ice Age. Does it run on electricity or does it eat meat?” The scraggly-haired guy snorted at his own joke.
“A new computer’s on our list.” Rosalie Claire’s sparkly brown eyes crinkled with a grin. “You must be Riptide Atkins. Welcome.”
“That’s me. In the flesh.”
“The gross and smelly flesh,” Violet whispered.
Rosalie Claire handed Riptide a key to Room Five.
“Dude, we need two. One for me and one for Wingnut.” He motioned to his buddy.
She unzipped the battered tan leather fanny pack she always wore around her waist, fished inside, and pulled out another key.
“Cool.” Riptide stuffed it in his pocket.
But he had no idea just how cool Rosalie Claire’s fanny pack really was. It was magic. She kept regular things in there like anybody would, although if she needed something to help somebody out, then presto, it would just show up.
“Madison, would you kids kindly show Mr. Atkins and his friend to their room?” Rosalie Claire smiled her secret smile, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking about their stinky armpits.
The two surfer guys grabbed their surfboards and their bags, and followed us outside down the open breezeway. We passed Room Two where a pile of fresh white folded sheets sat by the door.
“Lady in White’s staying there. She’s terrified of dirt, only wears white, and changes her own sheets three times a day. She won’t let us touch them,” I whispered to my friends.
“Looney tunes.” Violet made the “crazy” sign, her finger twirling circles beside her ear.
“Pretty much. We sometimes have the strangest guests checking in. OK, here we are. Room Five.”
“Thanks, dudes.” Riptide unlocked the door. As soon as he opened it, Wingnut left his surfboard outside and lugged in his suitcase.
Riptide patted his shoulder bag. “Well, gotta go chill and play me some Battle Wizards.”
“Awesome game.” Noah gave Riptide the thumbs up.
“You know it, dude.” Riptide leaned his board next to Wingnut’s and dragged his duffle through the door.
We headed back down the breezeway toward the lobby. A pile of trays with dirty dishes now sat in front of Room Three.
“The old guy in there must have just put them out,” I whispered. “He says he’s a travel writer. He showed up the day after I did and nobody’s seen him leave his room since.”
“How can anyone write about travel if they never go outside?” Noah wondered.
“My thoughts exactly. Unless he’s writing a book about room service.”
Violet, Noah, and I carried the trays back to Thomas’s Café. Leroy trotted behind us, probably hoping the leftovers would miraculously fly to the floor.
The inn’s kitchen was a beehive of busyness with Thomas bustling alongside his employees, Miguel, Arturo, and Rose, as they prepared for the dinner crowd. His white apron looked like a painting I might have done in preschool. It was splattered with black from beans, red from salsa, and bits of something green. Thomas always whistled while he cooked, either theme songs from cartoons or the tunes from his childhood in the
Dominican Republic. That’s where he’d lived until he moved to New Orleans with his family when he was ten. Today it was the theme song from Scooby Doo.
When Thomas noticed us with the trays, his licorice black eyes lit up.
“You kids are hired! How’d you like to stay here all year and help out? I’ll pay you in compliments and all the food you can eat,” he joked.
“Will. Work. For. Food.” Violet’s eyes shone at the thought.
I giggled. “She’d do it. She’s a bottomless pit!” More than once I’d watched Violet eat an entire large pepperoni pizza. All by herself. Never ever does she gain a single ounce.
And me? I would have loved to stay all year, but soon I’d be going back to Truth or Consequences. Only two weeks left of my summer vacation before I’d be reunited with my cranky grandmother.
“There you are!” Rosalie Claire scurried into the kitchen. “Since you three have been on the beach all afternoon, you must be starving. What do you say we spoil your appetites with a backwards dinner? Dessert first?”
“Yes, please,” I said, because I knew what was in store.
We pulled up stools at a narrow wooden table in the corner of the big industrial kitchen, its chrome counters polished to a shine. Rosalie Claire served us three fat slices of her famous blueberry pie. Then she unzipped her fanny pack and pulled out a jumbo Milk Bone for Leroy. He sniffed it and hung his head.
“Tired of Milk Bones? Who can blame you, boy? They are a little on the dry side.”
Leroy thumped his tail in agreement.
She dropped the Milk Bone into the trash and poked around in her pack. Out came a gigantic juicy bone.
“Try this,” she said, and Leroy snatched it.
“Holy guacamole!” Violet’s eyes went wide. “That thing is huge!”
“How’d you do that? How did it even fit?” Noah stared at the fanny pack.
Rosalie Claire smiled. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”
“But how does it work scientifically?” Noah asked.
Rosalie Claire shrugged. “Honestly? I’d tell you if I knew, but I don’t. There actually might be a good scientific explanation, although I’ve always chocked it up to one of life’s great mysteries.”
Hello There, Do You Still Know Me? Page 1