by Liz Kessler
I didn’t want to be rude, so I gave an awkward wave in return. “Hi,” I called back.
It happened again on the next road.
“Hi there, Ms. Windsnap!” a boy called as he biked past me.
I didn’t have time to reply that time, as he was gone before I’d gotten over the shock. Why on earth was everyone calling me “Ms. Windsnap”? And how come they knew me but I didn’t recognize them?
What was going on? Had I bumped my head in that chasm? I remembered feeling as though I’d blacked out at one point. Had I been knocked unconscious and lost my memory? It was possible. It made more sense than anything else I could come up with. I’d be home soon and Mom would help me figure it out. I picked up my pace.
I hurried to the end of the road.
I darted around the corner.
And then I stopped dead.
I knew this road really well. The pier was on the other side. This was one of the roads full of rundown shops.
Except . . . it wasn’t.
I looked down the length of the street, my heart pounding hard as I searched for something I might recognize.
The shops that had needed a paint job were nowhere to be seen. There were no boards across closed doors.
Instead there was just one building. A very large, gleaming, glitzy hotel, with its name in huge shining letters that spread half the length of the street.
THE BRIGHTPORT MIDAS.
I stopped dead in my tracks. My jaw fell open as I felt the blood drain from my face.
The . . . ?
The Brightport Midas?
What was this?
I looked around, half expecting someone to jump out of the bushes with a TV crew and shout, “Got you!”
I mean, it had to be a joke. A prank. A . . .
But it couldn’t be. You don’t demolish an entire street and put up a hotel in a matter of hours, joke or not. It just wasn’t possible.
And yet here it was, right in front of my eyes.
I walked down the road, staring and staring. The hotel filled the entire length of one side of the street. A massive circular driveway led to an ornate foyer with two men dressed in long gray coats and top hats. Beyond the foyer, I could see a patio filled with exotic plants.
The hotel stretched on and on. I came to a row of tall windows and stood on tiptoes to see what was inside.
A swimming pool! Two Jacuzzis at one end, a big curly slide at the other, and lounge chairs all around.
I turned away, shaking my head. What was going on? What was this place? Brightport had never had a hotel like this.
I glanced across the road. There used to be a few shops and a park on that side. The park was still there. Well, a park was there. It was nothing like the park I knew. The one I knew about had a few swings, a squeaky merry-go-round, and an old slide. That was about it. To be honest, I never went there much. It was mostly used by teenagers to zip around on their skateboards and spray-paint the walls. The grass was worn and the sidewalk was cracked. Plus, half the swings were broken and the slide was bent.
Not anymore.
The grass was so green it looked as if someone had put a supersaturated filter on it. Trees lined a perfectly paved path through the middle of the park. To the left, the play area had a brand-new slide, a brand-new merry-go-round and swings, and a brand-new multicolored climbing structure that seemed to stretch halfway up to the clouds.
A cold feeling snaked through my body, wiggling like the rope on the climbing structure. A young child was climbing on it. Her mom was standing close by.
As I stared, the mom turned in my direction. She smiled and waved. “Hey, Emily,” she called.
Who on earth was she? How did she know my name?
“Hi there,” I called back, raising my hand in a wave that felt as wooden and forced as the smile I plastered on my face.
I turned away from the park. I had to get somewhere familiar. I had to get to the pier.
Once I got home it would all make sense, I told myself as I walked so fast I was almost running. I’d get back to our boat, tell Mom what I’d seen, and she’d — she’d what? How on earth would she explain any of this to me?
There was no explanation. Unless . . . maybe I was asleep. Yes! That was it. I was dreaming. I’d wake up soon. I just had to jolt myself awake.
I pinched my arm as I sped up even more. Ow! It hurt.
I couldn’t be asleep, then. Someone once told me that you can’t feel pain in a dream.
So it was real.
I went up to the crosswalk opposite the pier — the one where you just crossed when you could because the traffic lights were broken.
Except they weren’t. They’d been replaced by a gleaming raised crossing with a sparkling machine on each side. I looked for a button, but there wasn’t one. There was just a weird blank screen.
I bent down to look at it.
A second later, the screen beeped at me and the green man appeared. I walked across the road to the pier.
Even that was different.
The first thing I noticed was the theme park. The one with the broken rides at the end of the pier? It now stretched halfway along the pier. There were rides and stalls and stands advertising hot dogs and doughnuts.
Where had it all come from?
There were people everywhere: on the rides, buying hot dogs, walking around in warm winter coats and hats, all of them smiling and laughing.
The Rushtons didn’t usually open their theme park until the spring.
I turned away from the rides and picked up my pace. I wanted to get home so badly it hurt. By the time I’d reached our jetty, I was practically running.
I stopped short when I got there.
No!
NO!
It couldn’t be.
It was gone! The jetty I’d lived on my entire life. The wooden jetty with planks missing here and there, and a few little speedboats and a couple of beaten-up dinghies on it, and our boat, Fortuna, moored at the end.
The jetty wasn’t there.
In its place was a wrought-iron structure with a barred and bolted gate at the end of it. Moored up along the wrought-iron pier were about ten brand-new boats. Some cruisers, some yachts — all extremely fancy. The one at the end was even fancier and bigger than all the others.
Fortuna was nowhere to be seen.
Everything I knew and loved was gone. My home, my life — all snatched from under my eyes. I was standing in the place I had lived for my entire life, and I had never felt so lost, confused, and alone.
So I did the only thing I could do. I sat on a bench, put my head in my hands, and cried.
I had no idea how long I’d been sitting there. A few minutes? An hour? Time had pretty much lost any meaning for me. But I knew I had to pull myself together. I couldn’t just sit there and cry all day.
I looked around. Almost everything I could see was unfamiliar, but then my eyes landed on something. The building where Mandy lived. Yes, it had all been done up to look sparkly and bright and brand-new, like everything else, but the door at the end of the building was still there. Mandy’s front door.
Maybe she was home.
Maybe she could help me.
Fueled by the hope of making some kind of sense of this nightmare, I got up from the bench, wiped my eyes, and practically ran to Mandy’s front door.
“Can I help you?”
A girl I didn’t recognize had opened the door and was squinting into the sunlight.
She looked to be a few years older than me. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a yellow hoodie with midas enterprises written across it.
“I . . . um . . .”
“Oh!” The girl looked at me again. “It’s you. Ms. Windsnap, I’m so sorry. Do you want to come in?”
“Er . . .” I said. I wasn’t doing very well at forming words. The girl was holding the door open. “Yeah, sure,” I said eventually. “Why not?”
I followed her inside. We walked through the Rushtons’ living ro
om.
Except it wasn’t the Rushtons’ living room. It was an office. There were three desks with computers on them, papers piled up everywhere, and an armchair in the corner.
“Sorry,” the girl said. “It’s a mess.”
“I just came to see Mandy,” I replied. “Is she around?”
The girl screwed up her nose as she thought. “Mandy?” she asked. “I don’t think we have a Mandy, do we?”
I swallowed. “Mandy Rushton,” I said. My voice came out in a tiny squeak.
“Oh, of course. Ms. Rushton,” she said. She looked at me strangely, as if asking for Mandy in her own home were unusual in some way. “She’s still at school.”
“Really? It’s so late.”
“Yeah. Try telling her that. She’s a workaholic. Honestly, I don’t think that place would survive without her — and you, of course!”
I couldn’t take much more of this. I was starting to feel claustrophobic. The room felt small, as if it were closing in on me by the second. “Can I use the bathroom?” I asked.
“Sure,” the girl replied. “Do you know where it is?”
As long as it was where it had always been, I did.
“I’ll find it,” I replied.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
I stumbled to the bathroom. Yes, it was in the same place. At least one thing hadn’t changed. It had been redecorated, though. It was all black and white tiles and a walk-in shower now. But it was still a bathroom.
The sink was at the far end.
My legs wobbled as I crossed the room. Looking at the floor, I stood in front of the mirror. Everything I knew had changed beyond recognition. What if I had done the same thing? My breath caught in my chest as I hesitated.
Come on. It can’t hurt you, I told myself.
I took a deep breath, tilted my head up, and looked in the mirror. And then the breath burst out of me in a horrified gasp.
NO! Please, no.
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then I opened them again. It was still there. The face in front of me.
The face that looked about thirty years old!
I moved my mouth, and so did the face in the mirror. I reached out to touch the glass with my hand. The hand in the mirror reached out to touch mine.
It was me. And at the same time, not me at all. I recognized my eyes. Maybe my mouth, the shape of my nose. My hair was roughly the same length, but darker.
I had lines at the edges of my eyes.
Lines!
I leaned forward to look more closely. Tracing a finger over my face, I felt the tiny lines.
I looked down at my body. I remembered when I’d transformed earlier I’d thought my jeans had felt tight. I hadn’t given it much thought at the time, but now it made sense.
I didn’t have the body of a thirteen-year-old anymore. I was — how old was I?
What was going on?
My mind felt completely empty and jammed full at the same time.
I had to get out of here.
I stumbled to the door and pulled it open. “Thanks, I’ll see you later!” I called from the hallway.
The girl came hurrying out. “Are you OK, Ms. Windsnap?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I don’t feel well. I have to go,” I said.
Before she could say another word, I somehow made it to the front door, stumbled out of it, and stood on the pier, gulping down fresh air as if my life depended on it.
I was standing outside the gates of what used to be Brightport Junior High and now had the appearance of a medium-security prison.
I looked all around the large metal gates, trying to find instructions on how to get them open.
There weren’t any.
I peered into a screen by the side of the gate in case that gave me any clues. Two seconds later the screen bounced to life. A photo smiled up at me. I guessed it was me. It looked like the reflection I’d seen in Mandy’s bathroom, anyway.
A speaker above the screen made a buzzing sound before a chirpy voice crackled through it. “Welcome, Ms. Windsnap. Come right in.” A moment later, the gates opened.
I walked into the schoolyard. The gates closed behind me.
The same thing happened at the main entrance — a locked door, a screen that knew who I was better than I did, and a minute later I was inside the building that despite everything else still looked, smelled, and felt like Brightport Junior High. At last, something familiar.
The only problem was that the entire school was deserted. Every hallway echoed and squeaked with my footsteps. Every classroom door I opened led to a shiny, clean — and empty — room.
The girl must have been wrong. There was no one here. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the idea was. Mandy at school late, on a Monday evening? No way.
That’s if it was still a Monday evening. It could be any day or time by now.
I was about to leave when I had a thought.
I could use the school’s computers to go online and see if I could find anything that would help me figure out what was going on.
I hurried down the hallway to the IT room.
It was locked. And this time, there was no facial recognition screen at the top.
OK, what now?
Wait. The teachers’ lounge was in the next hallway. I was pretty sure they had a computer in there. I’d never known that door to be locked. Closed, yes, but never locked. If none of the teachers were around, I could sneak in there to see if I could use the computer.
It was a plan. It was the only plan I could come up with.
So I made my way to the teachers’ lounge and silently turned the handle. Yes, it was open!
I poked my head around the door. Empty. A table in the middle of the room was scattered with newspapers and books. Mugs were sitting upside down on a drying rack by the sink in the corner. The door at the far end of the room was closed. That was the principal’s office. Luckily, I had never been called in there. Just seeing the door freaked me out, even when it was closed.
On the other side of the room, a computer was sitting on a small desk. At least, I guessed it was a computer. It was pretty much just a massive screen, and I couldn’t see a keyboard anywhere. But it was the only thing resembling a computer, so I went over to it and sat down.
As I did, a superimposed image of a keyboard lit up on the desk.
Whoa.
The screen came to life with a bright-blue box asking for my username and password.
That was the end of that, then. I didn’t have either.
Except, two seconds later, an oval shape formed on the screen, turning around and around — until that same photo of me appeared! A moment later, the computer was up and running.
I stared at the empty screen. What exactly should I do? Find Google and type in What the heck has happened to my life and to Brightport and how did I suddenly get old?
Yeah, I wasn’t sure that would work.
So, instead, fumbling with my fingers on the weird keyboard thing, I typed:
History of Brightport.
Then I hit ENTER.
In less than a second, a list of links filled the page. I scanned them. Half of them were advertising books for sale. The rest seemed mostly about medieval times.
Then I saw one that looked encouraging. It was a link to a newspaper article.
The Fall and Rise of Brightport:
How Everything Turned to Gold in a Small Seaside Town.
I clicked on the link.
Twenty years ago, the seaside town of Brightport was on the verge of collapse. Shops sat empty, and many houses were shabby — others were derelict. Even the historic pier was beginning to look as if it were nearing the end of its life span.
Then Midas Enterprises moved into town, and, just like the king they were named after, they turned everything they touched to gold.
Now our pier is visited by thousand
s of people throughout the year. Our beaches are packed full of happy tourists in the summer, and our businesses are booming.
And of course, the flagship hotel, Brightport Midas, has turned us into a vacation hot spot.
As we celebrate twenty years of Midas in Brightport, we at the Brightport Times could not be prouder of our town.
To everyone at Midas Enterprises, led by the talented, generous, and brilliant chief executive officer Mr. Whittaker, THANK YOU! You have given our humble seaside town a new lease on life.
I stared at the words so hard they started to blur. I couldn’t make sense of them.
I scrolled down to a photo below the text, scanning the faces to see if there were any that I recognized. I remembered the name Mr. Whittaker. That’s who Mr. Beeston had told me about. The guy who was holding a meeting about investing in Brightport. Was it the same guy? I wouldn’t know. I’d never met him.
All I saw on the photo was a bunch of men in suits. I didn’t know any of them.
Except . . . wait. The one in the middle, shaking hands with another guy and turning to smile at the camera. I knew him. Even though he looked older, I’d always recognize those eyes, that crooked smile, the way he buttoned up his jacket.
Mr. Beeston!
What was he doing there? And who was he shaking hands with? Was it the Mr. Whittaker guy?
I was about to go back to the search results to see what else I could find out when I heard a noise behind me.
I looked to see where the noise had come from and saw the principal’s door was opening. No! I was going to get caught sneaking into the teachers’ lounge.
I glanced around to see if there was anywhere I could hide — but I was too late. The door had opened and a woman was walking out of it.
“Emily? What are you doing here?”
I stared at the woman. “I . . .” I began. “I . . .”
“Everything OK?” she asked as she crossed the room.
The woman was kind of familiar and kind of not. Almost like someone I knew — but at the same time I knew I’d never met her before. Her voice was familiar, too.
How did she know my name?
As she came closer, I realized I did recognize her. Kind of.