by A. E. Cannon
She looks down. Clears her throat. Throws back her head.
She is shining. Her hair, her face, her skin. Right before our very eyes, she has transformed into someone else—someone wonderful and otherworldly. She opens her beautiful mouth and releases the first notes of a song as though they were birds. The sound of them is so rich and full, it almost breaks my heart.
This thought comes to me as I stand there watching and listening to Ellie—that a voice like hers, giving sound and shape to a songwriter’s dreams, is the purest form of earthly magic.
Ellie’s voice continues to weave itself around us all, and as I keep on listening, I realize my impression of a moment ago—that Ellie has turned into someone other than herself—was dead wrong. The real truth is that when Ellie sings, she is her deepest, truest self.
The crowd in Ali’s backyard stands hypnotized. No one moves.
Except for Quark.
From where I am, I can see him frantically ripping the bandages from his face so that he can see better and hear better too. His mouth is wide open and his handsome eyes (they are handsome, even if they aren’t my type of handsome) are as wide as skies.
At last (but too soon!) Ellie finishes.
The crowd erupts into cheers, and Ellie surveys us, blushing with pride and pleasure.
And then…
She sees the Quark beneath the bandages.
Their eyes lock and ZAP!
Okay. I am here to bear witness. The charge of electricity that flies between those two is so potent and so real it absolutely singes the hair of those of us standing in its path.
Ellie is still throwing off sparks when she rejoins me.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” she asks, her skin glowing beneath the lights.
I think about this. “I believe it’s possible to see someone familiar with fresh eyes, which is like seeing them for the first time. Does that count?”
“Yes,” she says as she looks at Quark. “That counts.”
Ellie smiles and gives my arm a quick squeeze, then walks confidently toward Quark. For a split second I feel really and truly afraid for her heart. What if she gets hurt all over again? Let’s be honest here. Her romance track record does not exactly inspire confidence.
I glance at Quark, who looks like one of those people from Pompeii who got frozen in time when Vesuvius erupted. The expression on his face is half terrified, half hopeful.
I know exactly how he feels.
And suddenly I feel better.
FROM THE LAB BOOK OF QUENTIN ANDREWS O’ROURKE
WHEN FIRST I HEARD HER
By Quentin Andrews O’Rourke
When first I heard her
It was as though the moon
Had called out my name
At last.
She was bright above us
And it was as though
I had come home
At last.
(NOTE: It is acceptable for poems not to rhyme.)
The Letter Ellie Wrote
Dear Mom and Grandma,
I have never been happier. Details to follow!
Love from Ellie (who is over the moon)
THE EMAIL ELLIE WANTED TO SEND
(Um. There isn’t one….)
ED’S TURN
OUCH!
Whoa! Whatever current just passed between Quark and Elli practically blasts me off my feet. In fact, I sort of feel the way I did that time I plugged in the Christmas tree lights and blew them all out. Quark heads straight for me like a heat-seeking missile.
“Ed!” He yodels. “Did you hear that?”
I nod.
“Who is she?”
I grin as I explain. Frankly it doesn’t take a genius to see that as far as Quentin Andrews O’Rourke is concerned, Scout (who prefers short men) is ancient Egyptian history.
Yes!
Not that I deserve this kind of help from the universe, but, yes again!
“Go talk to her,” I say to Quark, who is suddenly suffering from an acute case of rigor mortis. I give him a little shove. “You can do it.”
Without any particular plan of attack in mind, I thread my way through the crowd toward Scout.
“I’m back,” I say.
“So I see.”
“I have something to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
I clear my throat. “I am tired of disguises. I am tired of deceptions.”
“Me too.”
“And besides that, I can’t breathe.”
Scout laughs as I lift the mask off my head and come face-to-face with her.
“I am not Sergio who surfs off the coast of Australia,” I say.
“Or hunts big game in Canada with Canadian Mounties,” she says.
“Or races Formula One cars and frolics with topless princesses in Monaco,” I say.
“Or rides camels in Egypt.”
“Or hikes in the Himalayas,” I say. “I’m Ed. Who sweats.”
The two of us look straight at each other and laugh again, and this time we cannot stop laughing, even when everyone around us starts to dance.
I’m not kidding. They’re all dancing. The kids and the ladies with the dogs, the Goths, the skaters, the guy with the snake, the moms in the sweatsuits, T. Monroe, Rick and Mary, Quark and Ellie, Ali and the Warrior Princess. Dancing and spinning and swirling, they sweep us through Ali’s house with them out onto Fourth Avenue and across the street into the old Salt Lake Cemetery, where beneath a bright moon, shadows leap happily out of the ground to join us.
“Look at all these people,” breathes Scout, “dancing on graves.”
“Dancing on graves?” I say. “What a great cliché!”
Then I pull Scout tight against me and we join them—hand in hand we dance by the light of the moon.
Scout’s Take
You are NOT going to believe what just happened!
As Ed and I were dancing, we accidentally collided with an older couple dancing next to us.
“Sorry about that!” Ed apologized immediately.
I recognized the woman. She comes into Reel Life with her two little granddaughters, Maria and Rosa, whom Ali entertains with magic tricks.
“No problem,” her partner said. He gave us a gentle smile and held out a calloused hand—a strong hand that has known years of hard work—and said, “I’m Sergio and this is Pilar, my good wife of forty summers and counting. Pleased to meet you.”
I gasped. Ed practically swallowed his own teeth. “You’re Sergio?”
He nods.
“Did you ever work at Reel Life?”
Again, the true Sergio nods.
“Dude! I’ve been wearing your badge, like, forever!”
The true Sergio laughed. “I worked there a long time ago. Ali hired me when Pilar was ill and I was between jobs. Ali is a good friend, is he not?”
Ed nodded slowly, then clasped Sergio’s outheld hand. “I’m Ed McIff, and this is Aurora Aurelia Arrington.” He turned to me with a dazzling smile. “My girlfriend of one summer evening…and counting.”
JUNE 22
EPILOGUE
The next day at work Ali says, “I got something for you, McIff. Here.”
He drops a brand-new badge on the counter in front of me. It says “Ed.”
I pick up my name tag and turn it over a couple of times in my hands. “Finally.”
Ali shoots me a wicked grin. “Had to make you earn it first.”
Carefully he removes the name tag that says “Sergio” from my frilly shirt and banks that baby straight into the garbage can.
“So long, farewell, auf Weidersehen, good-bye,” I say, channeling Maria von Trapp.
He watches as I put on the new one, after which he gives me a casual salute. I snap to attention like John Wayne in an old war movie and start to sing loudly. “Silver wings upon their chest! These are men, America’s best!”
Ali immediately puts me in a choke hold. “You one crazy mother, McIff. You know that?”
/> “I know that,” I say, happy that I am a crazy mother.
Ali releases me, plants a friendly slug on my arm, and strolls toward his office.
Had to make you earn it first. Ali’s words run suddenly through my head like the lyrics of a song so good it gives you goose bumps.
I call him out just before he steps into his office. “ALI!”
He turns around slowly, folding his great thick arms across his great thick chest. The hoops in his ears gleam gold.
“Yeah?”
I try to put into words the brand-new, incredibly insane thought that I’m thinking. “Did you—did you set me up? Did you give me Sergio’s name on purpose?”
Ali throws back his head and roars out a huge laugh that hangs in the air above us like the smile of a crescent moon.
Then he turns around and disappears into his office without saying a word.
Poof!
About the Author
A.E. Cannon is the author of numerous books for young people, including CAL CAMERON BY DAY, SPIDERMAN BY NIGHT, winner of the Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel; THE SHADOW BROTHERS, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an American Bookseller Pick of the List; and AMAZING GRACIE, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an ALA 100 Best of the Best Young Adult Books of the Past 25 Years. A. E. Cannon currently writes a weekly humor column for the Deseret Morning News. She has five sons and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, a parrot, two cats, and a dog that doesn’t like her much. You can visit her online at www.aecannon.com.
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Credits
Jacket photograph by PhotoAlto Photography/Veer Dragonfly photograph by Stockbyte/Veer
Jacket design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
Goodnight Moon © 1947 by Harper & Row.
Text © renewed 1975 by Roberta Brown Rauch.
Illustrations © renewed 1975 by Edith Hurd, Clement Hurd, John Thatcher Hurd and George Hellyer, as Trustees of the Edith & Clement Hurd 1982 Trust. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE LOSER’S GUIDE TO LIFE AND LOVE. Copyright © 2008 by A.E. Cannon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-191922-0
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