Walter’s eyes bulged as wide as two desert full moons.
“Gimme that.” He stuck out his hand.
Wow. He sure was rude, but I handed it to him anyway. I thought about telling him that saying “thank you” would’ve been nice, except Walter looked as if he was about to cry. He opened the lid. A diamond ring shimmered in the sun.
His eyes filled with tears, although he wiped them away with his sleeve before they could escape. In a flash, he bolted to his van and slammed the door.
“Where are you going?” I shouted.
“What about the amber? We had a deal!” Noah raced after the van as it sped from the lot, its tires squealing on the asphalt.
“What a stinking skunk.” Violet plunked herself down in the beat-up red chair. “That guy has some serious issues.”
Why did he take off like that? Was he too upset about that ring, or did he do it because he never planned to live up to his promise? I didn’t have a clue. I did know one thing, though. No way in a million years were we giving up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Grandma Daisy’s Fanny Pack
“Mother of Pearl, who wants to bet that diamond ring was stolen?” Violet said as we shoved Walter’s stuff back into the storage unit. “I mean, we already know the guy’s a thief.”
“Did you see how upset he got when he talked about his mother?” Noah asked. “Maybe the ring belonged to her.”
“Or to someone he bumped off with his gun.” Violet propped old Paw-Paw in the storage bin and slammed the door.
“You might be jumping to conclusions.” Noah bit back a smile.
I had no idea if either one of them was right. At this point anything was possible. I snapped the padlock shut and dropped Walter’s key into my backpack.
We walked twelve blocks back to town. When we turned onto Broadway, a long banner had been strung across the street. In bright red letters it said: 42nd Annual Fiesta & Parade! Under the Big Top!
Now that Walter had slipped away with the amber, there was a good chance we’d be staying for Fiesta. At least it gave me more time to make a plan to bring my mom back to Costa Rica.
At the Wildflower, Leroy blissfully chewed on a bone while Grandma Daisy helped a lady pick out healing herbs.
“Success?” she asked us once her customer had paid and left.
I shook my head and we told her everything.
“Personally, I think we should go back to the stinking liar’s house right now and take the amber, fair and square,” Violet said.
I knew better than that. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I reminded her that Walter had to give it up willingly for the magic to work.
“Maybe we won’t need the amber after all. Look what I got back today!” Grandma Daisy patted a fanny pack strapped around her tiny waist. It was sandy brown like Rosalie Claire’s. Stamped into the leather was the image of a white and yellow daisy.
Violet practically jumped up and down. “Now we never have to see that creep-ola Walter again. You can come back to Costa Rica with us and cure Florida!”
An impish smile spread across Grandma Daisy’s face. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, Violet. And you know what? I’ve always dreamed about visiting the future.”
I wasn’t nearly as excited as Violet. “Rosalie Claire’s fanny pack still needs to get recharged,” I said. And what about taking my mom back to Costa Rica with me? I thought because I didn’t dare say it out loud.
“Good point, Madison. I have an idea. What if we all zipped or zapped, or whatever you call it, to the future to help Florida? Then we could come back here so you kids can track down the amber. The sooner we see if the magic in my fanny pack is strong enough to set your grandmother on the road to recovery, the better, don’t you think?”
Given the way MegaPix-time worked, I knew we hadn’t been gone from Costa Rica for even an hour and Florida probably wasn’t a whole lot worse. But it was a good idea to see if the magic would be strong enough to cure her. Besides, returning to the future would give me a chance to talk with Rosalie Claire about my plan to bring back my mom.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Grandma Daisy looked as excited as a kid on the first day of summer vacation.
“OK, let’s do it.” I fished the remote control out of my backpack.
“Hold your horses. Not yet. Come with me.” Grandma Daisy walked double-fast toward the storeroom.
I whistled for Leroy and we all followed Grandma Daisy, pushing past a curtain of colorful beads. The woodsy aroma of musky incense and dried herbs filled my nostrils. The place was three times as big as Florida’s living room and crammed with all sorts of things: towers of neatly labeled boxes, a family of old cloth dummies, and ginormous jars of tinctures and dried herbs. Mike was busy pouring dried lavender into a glass container.
“Could you do me a favor and be on customer duty for a spell? The kids and I need a few minutes of privacy.”
“You got it.” Mike twisted the jar lid shut and headed out through the bead curtain.
“Everybody ready?” I asked once he was gone.
Grandma Daisy rubbed her palms together like she was warming them up for the ride. “My stars, let’s get on with it!”
I reached for her small knobby hand and she gripped mine tight. On her other side was Violet, and then Noah. Noah held onto Leroy’s collar.
“Ready to go to the future?” I asked.
“Am I ever!” Grandma Daisy grinned.
I pushed the buttons on the remote.
Ping!
I felt the familiar icy cold sparking through my body, but then something peculiar happened. Like a thunderbolt, fiery heat exploded and rushed through my veins. The five of us twisted and turned through a kaleidoscope of swirling colors that quickly turned smoky black as I clung to Grandma Daisy’s hand. At first our hands pulsed with electricity, and then the sparks began to fade away.
So did Grandma Daisy. Through her translucent body I saw candy-pink clouds drifting along a turquoise sky. She was dissolving right before my eyes. I could feel her slowly letting go of my hand.
Something was going horribly wrong. We had to go back!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Rules of Magic
I jammed my thumb on the purple button and the enter button on the remote and watched Grandma Daisy’s body return to solid. Once again that familiar icy feeling ran through my veins.
The next thing I knew we were back in the storeroom at the Wildflower. We gasped for breath. Even Leroy sprawled on the floor, panting hard.
“Son of a cheeseball! What just happened?” Violet’s eyes searched the room as if she might find the answer hidden up in the rafters.
“No clue,” I said. I’d never felt so dog-tired.
“I think I know.” Noah’s shoulders slumped as he stared at the dusty wood floor.
“Me too.” Grandma Daisy’s eyes took on a faraway look, like her thoughts were a zillion miles away. “I didn’t live to see 2014, did I?”
My voice dissolved into a whisper. “Sorry,” I said.
“There’s no reason to be sorry, Madison. I should have thought about that. I’d be over one hundred by then for Pete’s sake. It makes so much sense. And you know what? It’s exciting to understand something more about life and magic.”
Her eyes shone like the starry heavens, which seemed kind of strange since she’d just found out she’d be dead. “What we’ve discovered today is a doozy, kids.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“If something has already happened in the future, it can’t be undone. You can’t travel forward to a time if you’ve already died. It would undo the dying and the whole order of things. The magic only allows you to go to a time when you already exist, or to the past before you were born.”
“You did live a really long time,” I assured her, maybe because I felt worse about her dying in the future than she did. “Rosalie Claire said you died in …”
Grandma Daisy held up her hand. �
�Shush, child. That’s information no one needs to know. In my book, life still needs a dollop of mystery.”
Then it dawned on me. This meant that I wouldn’t be able to bring my mom back with me into the future. My chest ached and I bit my bottom lip. I stared off at nothing in particular, listening to the muffled jingle-jangle-jingle of Mike ringing up the cash register in the next room.
“What’s the matter?” Grandma Daisy’s twinkly brown eyes turned soft.
“I shouldn’t say.” I was pretty sure that my mom dying at such a young age was something else Grandma Daisy would prefer to keep locked up in the vault of future mysteries.
I don’t know if she could read my mind, or just my mood, but she got quiet.
“How is Angela? Your mom? In the future, I mean.”
Violet and Noah flinched.
Then I couldn’t help it. A heavy tear rolled down my cheek. Pretty soon a whole bunch of them fell a mile a minute. For the record, that hadn’t happened in a long, long time. I thought my eyes had been all cried out.
Stupid me.
“It was her heart,” I said. “A year and a half ago it just stopped. Or a year and a half ago about twenty years in the future.”
Grandma Daisy wrapped her arms around me, warm as a blanket.
“Maybe she could go to a doctor now and get fixed, so, you know …” My sobs wouldn’t let me finish my words.
Grandma Daisy took my face in her hands and tears streamed down her cheeks too.
“Child, there are just some things you can’t undo once they’ve been done. The time you’ve lived since your mom passed can’t be erased. It’s just the way of things.”
Deep down I knew she was right. I thought about Rosalie Claire, Noah, Thomas, and Leroy. If my mom hadn’t died, none of them would be in my life. And I never would have learned about magic. It didn’t make sense that everything that had happened to me in the last year and a half could just poof away.
“My advice? Always keep your mom close to your heart. If your love for her stays strong, she’ll live as long as you do.”
If that was the case, then I planned to live until I turned at least 103. That way I’d keep my mom alive for practically ever.
“And now you have an extra gift. Not too many kids get a chance to know their mom when she’s still a teenager.”
Boy, that was the truth. And for that I knew I was lucky.
Violet wiped away her tears and put her arm around me.
Grandma Daisy dug into her fanny pack and found four Kleenexes—one for each of us.
“It’s been quite an afternoon. Shall we all go back to my place for a little lemon balm lavender iced tea?”
As tempting as Grandma Daisy’s iced tea sounded, I had other things on my mind. When I realized I couldn’t take my mom back with me to Costa Rica, it almost felt as if I’d lost her a second time. Then an image of Florida popped into my head, lying in a starched white hospital bed, all hot, sick, and sweaty. She was on the verge of dying. No way was I going to let that happen. It was time to confront Walter, whether he wanted to see us or not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Not-So-Great Stake Out
We begged Mike to drive us out to the old Shell station even though the sky had turned to dusk. When we got there, we watched a pick-up truck peel onto the road. Walter pumped gas into a fancy convertible. It looked as if business had picked up, maybe because of all the tourists coming into town for Fiesta.
“Call if you need me.” Mike dropped some coins into my hand and the three of us climbed out of the car. Leroy hung his head, resigned to spend the rest of the day away from me.
We waited until the convertible took off and that’s when Walter spotted us. “What do you scum-monkeys want?”
“I think you know,” I said. “You made a deal with us.”
He spat a wet loogie on the ground.
“Look, Mr. Brinker, a promise is a promise. You said if we gave you the key, you’d loan us the amber. We only need it for one night.” I figured that’s all it would take to recharge Rosalie Claire’s fanny pack. Then the magic would last for another thirty years.
“How do I know you won’t run off with it?” He glared at us, all squinty-eyed.
“Some people run off with things, Mr. Brinker. Not us,” Noah said.
“Besides, you don’t want somebody’s death to be on your conscience, do you?” Violet threw him one of her championship poison dart stares.
Walter stood silent for a moment, like he might actually be considering living up to his word. Then he stuck out his grease-stained hand. “What do you say you gimme your pouch? I’ll do the chargin’ and you can pick it up in the mornin’.”
At first I didn’t answer because I had a hunch something wasn’t quite right. Noah and Violet shot me quick looks of warning. I could tell we were all thinking the same thing.
Did we have a choice?
Then as if she’d been struck by divine inspiration, Violet’s eyes lit up and she whispered in my ear. “Do it. I just came up with a genius idea.”
Some of Violet’s ideas turned out to be genius, although not always. Like the time she tried to keep her little brother out of her room by stretching a wire along the floor of her bedroom door. He tripped over it, fell, and sprained his wrist. But at least she had one idea when I had zero.
“Do we have ourselves a deal?” Walter folded his arms, waiting for our answer.
“Deal,” I finally said, hoping this time Violet had cooked up something brilliant. I unzipped my backpack, hoping everything would turn out OK. When I handed Rosalie Claire’s fanny pack to Walter he inspected it, inside and out.
“You ankle-biters come back first thing in the morning. Your pack will be charged up and waiting.” He clomped back into the gas station office, taking it with him.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked Violet.
“OK, we know the guy is a Lying Luigi, right? So we wait here all night and keep a lookout in case he tries to take off with the fanny pack.”
“What if he does? Are we going to run fifty miles an hour behind his van?” asked Noah.
“I don’t know. We could call 9-1-1 from the phone booth, right?”
That was Violet’s plan? To stay here all night? By ourselves? OK, it’s not like I was scared, except it seemed kind of risky and not exactly “genius.” After all, Walter had a getaway car and a gun. We had a few quarters and my nearly empty backpack.
“Look guys, I’ve thought it all out. Or most of it. We’ll take turns on lookout duty. It’ll be just like camping out.”
That was the magic word Noah needed to hear. Camping. “I’m in,” he said.
Since Noah and his dad used to camp every summer before they bought their house, he was an expert. “We’ll find a place where he can’t see us, but we can still keep an eye on him.”
It was two against one. What could I do? Besides, I didn’t exactly have a better idea. “I’ll let Grandma Daisy know we won’t be back tonight.”
I called her from the pay phone. She fretted that we hadn’t eaten dinner so I assured her we’d be A-OK. She told me to stay safe and to call her or Mike if we needed anything at all.
We stayed out of sight until dark when Walter put up the closed sign and went back to his trailer. The night had turned inky black, lit only by the stars and a sliver moon. Noah went searching for something to use as a shelter.
Violet and I were getting hungry. I checked my backpack and found zero-zippo-zilch. Not even a packet of Monkey Poop. Our stomachs growled in unison. It was going to be a long night.
When Noah returned with a sheet of plywood he’d found near an abandoned ramshackle shed next door, we propped it at an angle against the gas station’s side wall to make a cozy lean-to. Then we crawled in and craned out our necks. We had a pretty good angle on Walter’s place. The blue flicker of his TV lit up his bedroom window.
“After his lights go out, we’ll take turns keeping an eye on that two-faced worm. One hour shi
fts. Then we can also take turns getting some sleep.” Violet yawned and her stomach made gurgly noises.
“Too bad we didn’t bring food,” Noah said.
“I’m starving,” Violet groaned. “By morning we could all be a pile of bones.”
We listened to the night sounds and played a game, trying to distract ourselves from our growling bellies. We counted up all the notes in the symphony of coyote yips and cricket chirps. When we’d tallied 213, we heard a different sound. Car tires rolling along the pavement.
“Is Walter leaving?” Noah asked. We peeked out from our lean-to. The copper van was still parked outside and the TV blazed blue through the window.
Headlights lit up the gas station as bright as sunrise. We scooted back undercover and held our breath.
“Maybe someone stopped for gas,” I whispered.
“Or maybe Walter has an accomplice and they’re going to steal the fanny pack together,” Violet said.
The car door clicked open and shut. We heard the crunch, crunch, crunch of boots, circling the gas station. The sound edged closer.
“Ingenious hiding place, kids!” Mike grinned. “I hope you’re hungry.” He held up a big woven picnic basket. “Courtesy of Grandma Daisy.”
“Tell Grandma Daisy she’s my favorite person in the entire universe.” Violet grabbed the basket.
“What am I? Burnt toast?” Mike’s bottom lip stuck out in a jokey pout.
“You’re both our favorites,” I said, and he winked.
After Mike left, we dug into our midnight picnic under the shelter of our plywood hiding place. Grandma Daisy had packed turkey and avocado sandwiches, a thermos of lavender lemonade, and a whole blueberry pie. We stuffed ourselves silly, eating every last crumb. The three of us stretched out for a quick rest, waiting for our stomachaches to go away, our yawns to quit, and for Walter’s lights to switch off for the night.
Noah fell asleep before we could decide on our shifts, so I took the first one. Violet stayed awake to keep me company and caught me up on everyone we knew on Bainbridge Island. Whiny Molly Cooper was dating some fourteen-year-old guy who’d just moved to the island from Seattle, which I thought was super weird since she was only twelve. Our friend Mikayla Jackson had won the Washington State Middle School Inventor’s Fair by making a butter spreader out of an empty glue stick container crammed with butter. I wasn’t at all surprised since Mikayla was way more clever than your average genius. And for the third year in a row, Pavel Dhailwal scored the winning goal in the Island Cup soccer tournament. Even though I’d made new friends in Truth or Consequences, I still missed my old ones. Hearing about everyone almost helped me feel as if I’d never left.
Hello There, Do You Still Know Me? Page 11