The Last Present Read online

  “I’ll get it,” Leo says, already reaching for my phone. I examine it to make sure nothing broke while he gets the other stuff.

  Rory elbows me. “I can get you a discount on a new one if you need it. I have friends in high places.”

  Rory usually breaks or loses her phone every few months. She’s a legend at the phone store in town. “I’m good,” I tell her as the screen lights up. “But thanks!”

  She runs off to find Tara, and Leo and I meet our parents outside the theatre as we’d arranged. Mom gives me a big hug. “Let’s go celebrate! Ice cream for everyone!”

  I shake my head. “Leo and I have a summer job that starts tomorrow,” I say, looking just to the left of my mom’s eyes.

  She looks surprised. “What kind of job? You didn’t mention it before.”

  “We’ll be helping out at little kids’ birthday parties,” Leo explains. “Like a bowling party one day, the beach the next, that sort of thing.”

  Leo’s mom raises her eyebrow. “And they know you’re only thirteen?”

  Leo nods. “I think they wanted someone close enough to the kids’ ages.”

  They nod, as though that makes some sort of sense. Now I can’t meet anyone’s eyes.

  “Ray said he’d drive us each day,” Leo continues.

  “Who?” his mom asks.

  “Roger St. Claire’s assistant,” my mom explains. “You know, the good-looking Australian?”

  “Mom!”

  “Oh, right!” Leo’s mom says. “Now I know who you mean. He’s a cutie!”

  “What are we, chopped liver?” my dad asks, pointing at himself and then at Leo’s father, who puffs out his chest.

  “Remind me never to try chopped liver,” Leo whispers.

  “No problem.”

  “So where’s tomorrow’s party?” my mom asks.

  “Bowling,” I reply. “I think we need to be there by noon.”

  “Why don’t we take you?” my dad says. “I haven’t been bowling in ages.”

  “Let’s double-date!” Leo’s mom suggests.

  Leo and I listen in horror as my dad brags about having his own bowling ball and Leo’s dad brags about once having performed a gig at the bowling alley with his high school band that people in Willow Falls still talk about.

  “Funny, I hadn’t heard about it,” my dad says.

  “You must not travel in the right social circles,” he replies, as though my dad travels in any social circles. They’re having way too much fun ruining our plans.

  Tara and Rory and their families join us. Rory’s dad and Tara’s dad are laughing and slapping each other on the back. Tara’s dad makes fun of Rory’s dad for having an orange stripe in his otherwise blond hair, and Rory’s dad explains that it’s some kind of bet gone wrong, but that it pays the cable bill. This explanation doesn’t make any sense to me, but Tara’s dad roars with laughter. I watch them and can’t help thinking what it must be like to see an old friend after nearly half your life has passed. I can’t imagine losing touch with my friends for that long. I look around again for Stephanie, but if she’s here, I don’t see her.

  “Hey,” Rory’s dad calls to Leo’s dad. “You remember Molly and Jimmy Brennan? They were a few years behind you in school.”

  “Of course!” Leo’s dad says, pumping Tara’s father’s hand up and down and giving Tara’s mother a hug. “Our bands played against each other in the battle of the bands one year!”

  Tara’s dad laughs. “You’re right!”

  “Welcome back to town!” Leo’s dad says. “Come bowling with us tomorrow afternoon. We can catch up!”

  “Sounds fun!” Mrs. Brennan says. “It will give me a chance to get to know Tara’s new friends.”

  Tara grins weakly. “Um, I think Amanda and Leo have to work. Right? Maybe we should all go somewhere else?”

  “Bowling sounds good to me,” Rory’s dad says.

  “Bowling!” Sawyer shouts.

  “But …” Leo begins.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” his mother says, putting her arm around his shoulder. “We won’t embarrass you two on your first day of work.”

  “We’ll wait for the second day for that,” my dad adds. “The beach, you said, right? My tan could use some work.”

  “Fab,” I mutter under my breath. My phone dings with a text, so I turn away and pull it out of my bag. I can’t imagine who it could be, since we’re all standing right here.

  HOPE YOUR ARM ISN’T TOO TIRED FROM SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS.

  “It’s from Kylie!” I say out loud, holding the phone out for everyone to see. I don’t know who’s more surprised, me or Mom.

  Tara smiles. “Maybe you won’t have to wait till you’re grown up.”

  I text Kylie to thank her. As I slip my phone back into my bag, I get a nagging feeling that I’m missing something. While the parents coordinate plans for meeting tomorrow, I pull Leo aside. “Did you pick up the flash drive from the floor? It was in my pocketbook and now I don’t see it.”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t see it on the floor.”

  “Leo and I have to run back inside,” I tell our parents. “I left something at our seats.”

  I grab his arm and we go against the flow of people to get back in. We run down the aisle to where we were sitting and peer under each seat. The ushers are starting to sweep up, but it doesn’t look like they’ve gotten to our section yet. I spot three quarters, a glove that must have been there since last winter, and a tube of lip gloss, but no flash drive. It would be awful if we came so close to being able to see what went on at the parties and then blew it.

  “Found it!” Leo cries. He’s on his knees two rows in front of where we’d been sitting. I run over in time to watch him pry it free from a wad of freshly chewed grape gum.

  He reaches up to hand it to me but I back away. “No, thanks! Do you know how many germs are on that thing now?”

  I can see the gears turning in his head. Does he try to chase me with it, like we were little kids and he had a spider? After what’s clearly an internal struggle, he sighs and says, “All right, I’ll get a napkin from the concession stand to wipe it off.”

  And my heart swells.

  The ride to the bowling alley is quiet. Or rather, the backseat is quiet. My parents are talking up a storm in the front. You’d think they never went out and had fun with their friends. And really, these aren’t even their friends; they’re an extension of my friends. Although now that I think of it, they rarely do go out unless it’s family stuff. As I get older I’m starting to sense that being a grown-up isn’t nearly as much fun as children want to believe.

  Leo and I tried to figure out a way to convince them to stay home, but came up blank. The best we could come up with is to have Rory and Tara keep all the parents distracted so they don’t notice that we’re not actually in the building, even though we actually are in the building, just a year earlier. Sooo confusing.

  Around six this morning it dawned on me that even though we know we weren’t at Grace’s parties in the past, we could still run into someone we know. Especially at some of the outdoor places, like the beach, where anyone could go. I texted Leo and we both ran around our houses trying to find whatever disguises we could. Sadly, all I came up with was a pair of plastic glasses with bushy eyebrows and a big nose attached that my dad used to wear when he wanted to make me and my sister laugh. I tucked it into my pocket just in case.

  I’d downloaded all of the birthday videos last night and emailed the first one to everyone, including myself. I’ve been watching them on my phone with the volume off the whole ride. They are totally amazing. Mr. Kelly set up a video camera at every party! We can see exactly what went wrong each time. I don’t know what we would have done without this. Oddly, most of the time it looks like Connor was directly involved. Like the one today, at the bowling alley, he walks away with the goody bags right before the end of the party and the kids leave empty-handed. Why would he do that? I wish we could just ask him wi
thout risking the collapse of the whole space-time continuum or whatever.

  The others are already waiting outside the bowling alley when we arrive. The parents are comparing bowling balls and laughing about even having bowling balls while the kids huddle as far away as possible in the mostly empty parking lot. I don’t see Rory even though her parents are here with Sawyer. We still have a few minutes before … well, before we do something I would have said is totally impossible. And maybe it is.

  “Are you freaking out?” Tara whispers when I join the huddle.

  Yes. But instead I say, “Nah. What’s a little trip back in time?”

  “Well, I’m freaking out for you,” she says. “I’ll do my best to keep the parents distracted so they don’t try to find you.”

  “Knowing my mom,” Leo says, “she’ll try to get a picture of me working my first job.”

  The front door of the bowling alley opens and Rory runs out. “It’s worse than we thought,” she says breathlessly.

  Our shoulders sag. “How could it be worse?” I ask.

  “They don’t have any kids’ parties scheduled for today!”

  We hadn’t even thought about that.

  “And almost all the lanes are open,” she says. “Guess it’s just too nice a summer day for people to think of bowling.”

  I glance at my watch hopelessly. “We only have two minutes left before the party starts and we disappear or something. You guys better get everyone inside.”

  Tara and Rory put on brave faces. “Good luck!” Tara says, hugging me. Her parents come up beside us. Her mother beams at me, which makes Tara blush. “You’ll have to forgive my mom. She’s never seen me hanging out with friends before.”

  “That’s not true, honey,” her mom says. “Well, it’s been a long time, that’s all.”

  “Have fun,” my mom says, kissing me on the head.

  “Try not to get fired in the first five minutes,” Leo’s dad tells him. “You tend to daydream.”

  “Thanks for the support, Dad,” Leo grumbles.

  “You all better get inside,” I say hurriedly. “We’re supposed to meet the party organizers out here and it would be really embarrassing to have all of you guys watching.” I wince at having to tell them even a small lie like that.

  Tara and Rory usher them inside and mouth, “Good luck,” before the door closes behind them.

  Leo and I hold up our synchronized watches. “Three … two … one,” he says. I close my eyes. When I open them, I expect to find us in the same place, but with different cars around us.

  Nope. Same place, same cars.

  “Did we do something wrong?”

  “Maybe we’re supposed to go inside,” Leo says.

  “Okay.”

  He opens the door and reaches for my hand. But it happens too fast! He’s gone! I stare at the empty space in front of me, then hurry through, heart pounding. What if Angelina’s “tweaking” with our old curse didn’t work right? What if we land somewhere else entirely? Or our atoms wind up in a billion different places, in a billion different times? What if we get stuck between here and there? Then and now?

  A split second later I’m bumping into Leo’s back. I look behind me through the glass portion of the front door. The window is streaked with rain. The mostly empty parking lot is suddenly full. My legs feel wobbly but otherwise I seem to be okay. Guess I shouldn’t doubt Angelina’s skills.

  “Wow,” Leo says, feeling his arms and legs, then touching my head and arm. “That really happened. And we’re in one piece, so … bonus!”

  All I can do is blink.

  The bowling alley looks just like it always does. Twenty lanes, rows of balls on shelves, pinball and gum-ball machines, shoe rentals. It’s crowded, though, and hard to hear very well over the constant balls rolling and pins falling. Still, I can hear Connor laughing. I follow the sound to the lanes farthest to the left, where I spot him helping a group of little girls lace up their bowling shoes. A big sign strung across the lanes reads, GRACE IS NINE!! WE’RE BOWLED OVER!! He looks a little shorter and a little thinner than our Connor. So weird.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” Leo says, starting to walk in the direction of the party.

  I grab his arm. “We have to fix this thing with our parents first. If we mess up on the first day, they’ll never let us out the rest of the week.”

  “But we tried for hours last night and couldn’t think of anything.”

  I let out a long breath and look around. “I wish Rory had come back out with better news.”

  “Too bad it’s such a nice day,” Leo says. “In our present, I mean. It’s raining here, and there’s, like, one lane open. If our parents came today, they’d have had to go someplace else.”

  I grab his arm. “That’s it! We can ensure they WILL have to leave. C’mon!” I pull him toward the front desk. The woman behind the desk is spraying something into a pair of bowling shoes. Without even looking up she says, “Shoe size?”

  “We aren’t here to bowl,” I tell her. “We just need to book a party.”

  “We do?” Leo whispers.

  The woman flips open a large notebook and picks up a well-chewed pencil. “When and for how many people?”

  “A year from now. I mean today, a year from now. And the whole place.”

  She finally looks up. “All twenty lanes?”

  I nod. “It’s a big birthday party. We’ll need the whole thing to ourselves.”

  “What time?” she says.

  “Um …” We both glance at the clock. It’s 12:06. If Angelina was right, and the past influences the future at the same time in both places, we’ll need to build in a little time.

  “How about twelve fifteen?” I suggest. “Till three.”

  The woman writes it down. “Last name?”

  At the same time Leo and I reply, “D’Angelo.”

  She scribbles the info on a business card and hands it to me. “If you need to cancel, please do it at least twenty-four hours ahead.”

  “We won’t need to,” I promise. She’s already back to spraying shoes. We hurry away.

  “Brilliant!” Leo says.

  “Do you think it will really appear in the book now? Like, in the future?”

  “It’s our best shot. Hopefully they’ll see it and shoo everyone out, including our parents. C’mon, let’s focus on what we came here to do.” He strides off in the direction of the party.

  “Wait, Connor is going to recognize us. I don’t think my disguise is going to be very helpful.” I pull out the glasses with the fake nose.

  He laughs. “Let’s save those for an emergency.”

  “What have you got?” I stare meaningfully at his empty pockets.

  He scans the room. “Watch and be amazed.” Reaching over to a shelf next to the counter, he grabs a Willow Falls Bowling Alley baseball cap and yanks it as far down as it will go, which basically just covers his eyes. “So? Can you tell it’s me?”

  “Seriously? Of course I can te —”

  I stop talking because we’re no longer alone. Connor has appeared right behind Leo. He taps his shoulder. “Hey, you work here?”

  Leo, seeing my horrified expression turns slowly, keeping his eyes down. “Um, no?”

  Okay, wow. We’ve been here ten minutes and have already broken Angelina’s rule about talking to someone we know. Even though this time, last year, we didn’t know Connor that well, we’ve still had classes together for years. He must not notice that we look a year older! But if he thinks Leo works here, this could be our chance to get closer to the party.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Connor says, and turns to find someone else.

  “Connor, wait, he does work here,” I say, stopping him. “We both do, actually. He was just kidding.”

  Connor looks down at his blue T-shirt. “How do you know my name? I’m not wearing a name tag, am I? Sometimes my sister likes to put a sticker with a name on my chest, and then people come up to me and are like, ‘Oh, hi, Hortense,’ o
r ‘Hi, Octavio.’”

  “Um, no name tag. But we were in the same Spanish class all year.”

  He laughs. “Sorry, you must have me confused with the other red-haired kid in town. There were only fifteen people in Señorita Smith’s class. I’m sure I would have noticed you.”

  Why is he acting like he doesn’t know us? I turn to Leo to see if he’s following this conversation, but he’s not paying any attention. He’s staring at his reflection in a glass case full of bowling trophies with a mirror in the back. Or rather, he’s staring at the reflection of two strangers talking to Connor Kelly.

  My jaw drops open. The jaw of the girl in the mirror drops open. I lift my hand to my mouth. So does she. I look at Leo, who totally looks like Leo, then I look at his reflection, and he looks completely different. The boy in the mirror has straight, shaggy hair instead of Leo’s short curls. And he’s wearing glasses and a preppy yellow shirt with a collar. I’m sure Leo doesn’t own any yellow shirts. Or collars. I make a mental note to have a long talk with Angelina when we get back. She always leaves out the most important details.

  “Are you all right?” Connor asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or have my dashing good looks left you speechless?”

  “It’s the ghost,” Leo assures him, slowly turning away from the mirror. “So what did you need help with? Ball stuck in the gutter?”

  “We just need some help getting the kids’ names up on the screen,” Connor says. “Usually I’m good at that techie stuff, but I think it might be broken. Sure you guys are okay? You look kinda pale.”

  I can’t seem to break away. The girl in the mirror doesn’t look anything like me. She has curly hair, a pink flowery shirt, and are those … BRACES?? I force myself to turn away and answer Connor. “Sorry, I’m fine. We’ll help you with the screen. I’m Aman … I mean Amy, and this is … Leon. It’s our job to help at birthday parties.”

  “Great, thanks, c’mon.”

  “Amy and Leon?” Leo whispers to me as we follow Connor across the length of the room. “That’s the best you could come up with?”

  “Hey, you’re much more likely to answer if someone calls you something close to your real name. Say, later Connor needs you and he’d be like, ‘Hey, Doug, can I see ya for a sec?’ And you’re like, ‘Who’s Doug?’ so you don’t answer and you blow our cover because now he knows you told him a fake name.”