“Then you get on in there and have some fun,” he said. “If you need a ride home, I can take you back. Have to get there myself, after all.”
I hugged him. Just like that. I threw my good arm around his neck and hugged him. “Thank you, but I’ll have a ride by then.” At least, I hoped I would.
Chuckling to himself again, he hopped back onto the bicycle seat. “I’ll stop by and check before I head home, just in case.”
He waved and pedaled off. When all I could see of the rickshaw was the Toot and I’ll Pedal Slower bumper sticker, I turned and headed for the huge iron gates that led into the park.
There were only a few cars in the lot. They had to belong to my new family. Maybe they had carpooled or were running late. A thought niggled at my nerves. What if the get-together had been canceled because of the weather, or they had all gone home before I even arrived?
Before I could worry too much, a car pulled into the lot behind me.
A police cruiser. Nickel’s dad’s cruiser, in fact.
Adrenaline made a dash through my veins, although I wasn’t sure if it was from fear or excitement. I stood there in the middle of the lagoon parking lot with dust and used tickets blowing into my hair, staring as my former best friend and future husband climbed out of his dad’s car. He had on a pair of baggy swim shorts with an even baggier T-shirt, and his towel was draped around his neck.
“I’ll be back at five,” his dad said, waving as he reversed the car to drive away.
One moment I was numb with shock, and the next…
I screamed.
Because sometimes your best friend turns up when you need him the very most, and the only thing that makes sense is to holler at the top of your lungs.
Nickel froze. He said something, but I couldn’t hear over my own noise.
I ran at him and threw my arms around his neck, clocking him on the back of the head with my cast as I did. I had hugged more males in the past ten minutes than in the whole rest of my life. “You’re here!”
He let me hug him for a bit before he pulled away. “Okay. Enough. Whatever.”
I stepped back, grinning. “Thank you. And I truly am sorry.”
Nickel shrugged, but his mouth looked tight, like he wanted to keep a smile from slipping out. “Me too. I wasn’t very nice about your dad. Would have been here sooner, but I thought you were hitchhiking. We drove around looking for you.”
“You’re here—that’s what matters.”
“Yeah, you might not think so when I tell you the rest.” He grimaced. “Your grandma kind of knows you’re not at my house like you said you were.”
I stopped breathing and froze.
“Don’t panic. She doesn’t know about your dad. We stopped by to pick you up, but you were already gone. Your grandma said you were headed to our place, so Dad told her we’d find you and he’d bring you home tonight. Dad thinks I told you I’d be here this weekend, and that you probably came here to find me.”
I breathed a little bit. “Will he tell Mom and Grandma that I’m here?”
He shrugged. “Probably. You know parents.”
When Mom found out I’d come all the way to Densdale on my own, I would not be leaving my room for the rest of my life. There would be no more chances to find Benjamin O’Malley. Today was all I had.
I nudged Nickel’s shoulder and pointed toward the entrance gate. “We should get inside. Come on.”
“I don’t like the look of this. Shouldn’t there be more cars?” he asked.
I counted the cars I could see. “Two sedans and a station wagon. That’s enough to transport at least some of my family.”
The closer we got to the gate, the less likely it seemed that those cars belonged to anyone but maintenance workers. Only the wind made any noise. There was no splashing. No happy squeals. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.
“I dunno. What are you thinking?”
A big shiver rumbled through me. “Zombie apocalypse.”
Nickel laughed. “I am so not thinking what you’re thinking.”
By the time we reached the entrance, we both were thinking exactly the same thing.
The wrought-iron gates were locked shut. Hanging from the padlocked chain was a big sign that read CLOSED DUE TO BAD WEATHER.
I took the bars in my hands and pressed my face against them, trying to see inside. Fake palm trees swished back and forth like on a hurricane news report. The surfaces of the water in the pools rippled and rolled. I’d only worried about whether Mr. Bones would be open for business, not whether the lagoon would be.
“I hate everything,” I said, letting the bars press the frames of my glasses into my cheeks and stripe me like a pink-and-white zebra.
“Sorry, kids. Park’s closed,” said someone with a deep but cheerful voice from somewhere nearby. I jumped back and saw a man walking toward us on the other side of the bars. He wore a security guard’s uniform and carried a gigantic flashlight, even though it wasn’t dark, just gloomy.
“Yeah, we read the sign,” said Nickel.
“You got a ride home?” the guard asked.
Nickel looked at me. “Dad’s coming for us later,” he said.
Someday maybe I could say the same words. Not that day, though. Again.
“I can call your dad now,” the guard said. He sure was a lot more help than the guard who had kept everyone trapped in the theater.
A little ray of hope shone inside me. “Nickel, I could use the money I saved for the entrance fee to hire a cab and ride to the What’s Current offices. The reporter talked to my family in the news story. She might have a phone number or address.”
Nickel screwed up his nose. “They’ll be closed on a Saturday.”
That stupid little ray of hope fizzled out. “Oh.” I gave the security guard a miserable smile. “I guess you better call his dad. Thank you,” I said.
The guard took Officer Bugden’s number and walked away. I slid down the gate to sit on the hard concrete.
Nickel sat beside me. “I’m sorry.”
“I hoped, that’s all.” That horrible prickling started up in my nostrils until I had to stare very hard at a pebble on the ground to make the feeling go away. “No swimming. No lagoon. No brothers and sisters. And no—” I stopped before saying “dad,” because just thinking it made the prickling worse.
“You couldn’t swim anyway with a cast.”
I looked down at it. “I was only going to wade at the edges, not get wet. I was here to find Dad.”
“He’s probably a jerky turkey anyway,” Nickel said, nudging me with his elbow.
“I wouldn’t care if he was,” I said. Although I probably would.
“I bet he steals the TV remote and never lets you watch cartoons. Probably picks his teeth with his pinky nail.” Nickel pretended to gag and choked out a laugh. “Like Uncle Mal.”
Nickel always could make me giggle, even when I didn’t want to. All I had to do was think about the barbecue at Nickel’s house the past summer, when his uncle Mal had turned up in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, with greasy hair and a soggy-looking baseball cap. He made Mr. Bones look downright adorable. If I imagined my father like that, it made things a bit easier.
A satellite was still on its way to squash my house, probably with me in it. People would laugh when they read the story in the newspaper, because of my stupid, embarrassing name. I had no father to help me change it or to remember me. In fact, I had no father at all. I did have Nickel back, though, and that mattered almost as much.
Fat drops of rain splashed onto the concrete around us. Nickel pulled his towel over his head, and I got mine from my bag and did the same.
“Mrs. Cuthbert and Mrs. Humphries and Mr. Bones all know about my father. I just know it. But they won’t say anything,” I said.
; “Not their story to tell, I guess,” Nickel said, and it was irritatingly true.
“It is my story, though. I just don’t know it.”
Nickel shrugged. “Whatever. I’m just saying. Your mom seems kinda…breakable. Maybe they don’t want to upset her. She might lose it and cover the whole town in glitter.”
“My mom’s as tough as anyone else’s mother,” I muttered. No one in Calliope was normal. Mom was a bit less normal than most, maybe. I didn’t think she could change. I didn’t think I wanted her to.
The rain beat down harder every second, which was a good thing. It washed away the heat in my cheeks, and even I couldn’t tell whether any tears sneaked out of my eyeballs.
We heard a car, wipers beating furiously, driving across the parking lot toward us before we could see it through the rain. “Dad was fast getting back,” said Nickel.
The car drove straight up to the gate and stopped. It was an ordinary station wagon, not a police cruiser. The driver’s window rolled down, and inside I saw the mom I had met at the theater. The same one who had given me the note. Alyssa.
“I thought you might be here,” she said.
Alyssa climbed out of the car into the miserable rain of the Densdale Lagoon parking lot. Smiling, she opened the hatch door of her station wagon so we could sit under it, out of the rain. It mostly helped.
“We had to change the meet-up to next week because the park closed. I had no idea how to get hold of you.” She gestured at the boy hunched over his phone in the backseat. “This is my son, Mikey.”
I closed my eyes and hoped it would be a different Michael, but when I opened them, the first thing I saw was him. White hair. White eyelashes. Big jerk. Michael didn’t even peel his nose away from his phone or say hello when his mom mentioned him. By the sound of the beeps and explosions, I guessed he was playing some army game.
“Not Mikey. Michael! How many times?” He shouted it loud enough that we all jumped a little.
“Tell me more about your story,” Alyssa said, ignoring her kid. “Why don’t you ask your mom about your dad?”
Michael lifted his knuckles to his eyes and screwed them around like he was rubbing at fake tears. “Wah, wah. I want my daddy.” He reminded me more of Dameon Swenson than of someone I could be related to.
If I told Alyssa that Mom never spoke about Dad, she probably wouldn’t tell me anything either. Moms always stuck together.
“I—I only found out about him recently,” I lied. Again. And again. “I haven’t had a chance to ask her since.”
Alyssa frowned. I hoped that meant she disapproved of unhelpful mothers and not my terrible acting.
“Her mom is away for work right now,” Nickel said. He thought on his feet way better than I did.
“I need to know. For my peace of mind and all that,” I said. It came out sounding a lot more sincere than it probably should have. At least it made Alyssa look thoughtful as she rummaged around in the junk behind the backseat.
She found a frayed old towel and handed it to us to dry off some of the rain, since our towels were even wetter than we were. “What’s the hurry?”
“The satellite.” I blurted it right out.
She laughed. “Satellite? You’re not panicking about that, are you?”
That was it. My words dried up. I shot Nickel a desperate look.
“She has good reason,” he said. “Long story. But if you have time, maybe you could take us to meet Benjamin O’Malley? We’re free right now, since my dad won’t be here for a while.”
Go see him now? My heart jumped into my throat and half strangled me. Was I ready? My hair needed drying and some emergency treatment to fix the weird clumpy thing it was doing from being rained on. But it wasn’t like I had another chance.
“That would be great!” I said.
Alyssa stared straight ahead. “No, no, no. Slow down a bit. Ben, he—well, he’s just my best guess if your dad is a member of our family. He hasn’t been the same since he went to Iraq. How old are you?”
“I’m almost twelve.”
She made a humming sound. “I guess—that could add up about right. Ben had a girlfriend before he left, but they broke up. We never met her. Wow, this would just be so bizarre. But I’ll need to talk to him first. He wouldn’t cope well with something like this being sprung on him. I mean, who would?”
I crossed my arms to hold myself together and keep from panicking. “You don’t understand. This is my only chance.”
She waved a hand at me. “Trust me. He’s not going anywhere. He barely leaves the house.”
Nickel opened his mouth and shut it again, turning to look at me. I gestured to encourage him to keep talking. “Robyn can’t get back to Densdale. People in Calliope don’t like coming here.”
Alyssa laughed. “So I heard. What’s with that? They are here!”
Outside Calliope, it did sound pretty weird.
“We know,” Nickel and I said at once.
Alyssa said, “Look, kids, I’m sorry. I can’t just drive you away without your mom’s permission, much less introduce you to a man who might be your father. I’d be furious if someone did that to me and my kid.” Michael cursed loudly from the backseat, and Alyssa groaned. “Unless they promised not to bring him back, anyway. Look, talk to her this week, and if she agrees, have her call me. Then, if Ben is okay with it, I’ll pick you up next weekend.”
That was a great offer, but Mom would never give me permission. Not in a million weekends. Alyssa didn’t say anything else except to ask for my phone number. I pretended we didn’t have one and gave her my email instead.
I almost blurted out the truth. About Mom’s sneakiness when it came to Dad. About how I needed to change my name and have someone take me for ice cream and buy me an iguana, and about a million other things that couldn’t wait for even another week. But what then? She still wouldn’t help without talking to Mom, and all my secrets would be out.
Luckily, Officer Bugden’s car rolled into the lot, windshield wipers thumping.
“That’s my dad,” Nickel said.
Alyssa looked a bit sorry when she smiled at me. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk again next weekend. I promise. It’s only a week.”
Nodding, I stood up and wrapped my arms around myself. How could a day that had started with a rickshaw ride, full of hope, have gone so wrong?
“Mikey, say goodbye, at least,” Alyssa said.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Goodbye, at least,” he said, and went right back to his game.
That did it. Family was overrated. I could definitely do without them. Or most of them. Not that I had a choice.
“Thanks for everything.” I straightened out my clothes and waved.
* * *
• • •
It took all my Focus Pocus breath training to get through the drive home without crying. The last thing I needed was for Officer Bugden to escort me inside. I’d have enough explaining to do as it was.
“You be home by eight, son,” Officer Bugden said as he pulled up outside my house.
“Yessir.”
“You’re coming too?” I whispered as we got out of the car.
“Of course,” he said.
Before he could change his mind, I dragged him inside after me and slammed the door. Almost right away, someone knocked on the other side.
“Dad?” Nickel whispered as we stared at the closed front door.
Another knock. A bit louder this time. I pressed my hands against the wood, hoping it would absorb some of the noise. Then I peeked through the peephole.
A woman with brown hair. “It’s Alyssa,” I hissed. Had she followed us home just so she could blab to Mom?
“She knows we’re in here. Maybe we should let her in?” Nickel whispered.
Desperately, I looked from the door t
o him and back. “Mom will find out about Benjamin O’Malley. I’ll be done for.”
Shrugging, Nickel joined me in pushing on the door.
Mom hurried down the hall from the party bathroom, dragging a small girl in a tutu by the hand. “What on earth are you doing? Who’s there?”
I spun around and pressed my back to the door. “It’s a wrong number.”
“And I’m the one that people around here call eccentric.” Mom rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb in the air. “Hop it.”
Nickel got out of the way, but I stayed there with fists and teeth clenched. “I can’t. It’s a…political protest.”
My extra couple of inches since the new year meant she could not lift me off my feet anymore. She knew plenty of other tricks, though—the sort that involved tickles and vicious goosing. In a few seconds, she had the door open.
But I was wrong.
It wasn’t Alyssa. A family-sized station wagon was parked in our driveway outside, and a woman stood at the door with her arms folded and a great big frown line between her eyes.
“Nice of you to answer,” she said.
“I’m sorry. My daughter has lost her tiny mind,” Mom said, handing the small girl over to her mom.
“I’m very sorry,” I said.
“We thought you were a vacuum cleaner salesperson,” Nickel said.
Mom scowled at us. “From now on, I will be in charge of opening the door.”
I sighed with relief.
From then on, it wouldn’t matter. Unless Alyssa showed up again.
Nickel was at my house. On purpose.
The last time that happened, he went home with two small handprints in green frosting on the back of his brother’s real leather jacket. It would not have been so bad, except his brother had warned him he would string him up by his shorts if he ever touched that jacket. It earned Nickel a near-fatal wedgie, and he had not visited since.
That was probably why his face was screwed up like he was in terrible pain.
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