The Last Present Read online

Tara shakes her head. “I texted Connor while you were gone. He said that Grace seems peaceful, but it would be better if we came tomorrow, instead. They’re still getting her settled at home.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I’m always relieved when, even if the report isn’t much better, it’s not any worse.

  When Rory comes back in, no one even teases her because she looks so bummed. “When will you see him again?” I ask.

  She brightens a little. “Tonight, actually. We’re going to video chat when his plane lands.”

  “Why did he have to leave so suddenly?” Tara asks. I’m glad she asked because I wanted to know but didn’t want to seem nosy.

  She frowns. “It’s Madison. She’s making him go to this event tomorrow for the movie. She was supposed to go alone but now she said it wouldn’t look good if her ‘boyfriend’ wasn’t there.”

  “I know what will make you feel better,” Leo says. He whips out Angelina’s notebook and shows her the page with the check mark on it. “We did it this time! And we managed not to change anything else in the process!”

  She smiles. “I’m glad.”

  I elbow him. “That’s not going to help her feel better.”

  “You can’t blame a guy for trying!”

  “I know,” Tara says, “we’ll hang out tonight, and we’ll do something really girly, like paint our nails all different colors or straighten our hair. We’ll invite Annabelle and Sari. You know, your normal friends? They can bring all their makeup and hair stuff. It’ll be fun.”

  Even though she doesn’t have much experience with having friends, Tara is a fast learner. She’s totally not the nail-painting, hair-straightening, hang-with-a-group-of-girls-she-doesn’t-know type, but she knows what would keep Rory distracted.

  “So I take it we’re the ‘not normal’ friends?” Leo asks.

  “Definitely,” Tara says.

  He nods. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Are you in, Amanda?” she asks.

  “I can’t. Kylie is coming home from her summer program. We’re going out to dinner.”

  “I feel left out of this plan,” Ray says, glancing in the rearview mirror at Leo. “How ’bout you?”

  Leo holds up his sand-filled fingernails and pretends to admire them. “I don’t need to go. My nails are already perfect.”

  Rory laughs, which I take as a good sign that we’re cheering her up.

  “So what did you do at the party after taping the balloons?” Tara asks. “You still had a lot of time left, right?”

  Leo and I avoid each other’s eyes. “Um, we didn’t do much, really,” he says. “Played cards, swam in the ocean, the usual beach stuff.”

  “It was really hot there,” I add. I want to tell them (well, not Ray!) about what happened on the sandbar, but I want to keep it to myself a little longer. Luckily Tara asks Ray to tell us about his job as the head of the new Willow Falls Community Theatre and I can lean back and just think. I’m very aware of Leo breathing next to me. I feel the corners of my mouth turn up. Without looking, I can feel him smiling, too.

  Dinner with my parents and Kylie goes on much longer than I’d like it to. Normally I love going out to dinner since we don’t do it very often, but I really want to get home and call Stephanie. After seeing the eleven-year-old version of her today, I’m really missing her. Kylie spends the first half hour talking about what she learned at her two-week-long performing arts camp. Then I have to spend the next half hour telling her about the play on Friday and the bar mitzvah and the premiere.

  “Wow,” she says. “I missed a lot in a week! I promise I’ll be the first to buy a ticket when the movie opens next month.”

  “Look at our girls,” Mom says, beaming at us across the table. “Getting along so well, talking like friends.”

  Kylie and I force smiles. We both know it won’t last long.

  It lasts, in fact, just until we get back home.

  “Why is my blue dress in a heap on the floor of my room?” she asks.

  Oops! I had meant to hang it back up before she noticed I took it.

  “And it has a stain right here.” She holds up the sleeve. “Did you wear this?”

  “No,” I reply honestly. “But my friend Tara didn’t have anything to wear to the bar mitzvah and I didn’t think you’d mind.” Okay, I knew she’d mind. “I couldn’t let Tara go in shorts and a T-shirt, which was pretty much all she had.”

  Kylie sighs. “Fine, whatever. Owen says I get angry too easily. I’m trying to work on that.”

  I don’t know who this Owen is, but I like him already. “What happened to that guy Will? Wasn’t he your boyfriend when you left for camp?”

  She shakes her head and tosses the dress into her hamper. “Will was, like, two months ago. And Brett was the one right before Owen.”

  “So you broke up with Brett for Owen?”

  She flips open her suitcase and nods. “I felt bad about it at first, but Owen and I are, like, soul mates.”

  “Soul mates? How do you know?”

  She shrugs. “When you know, you know.”

  “Oh.” I turn to go.

  “Amanda,” she says, “I know it’s not my business, but I think Leo is holding you back.”

  I slowly turn around. “What do you mean?”

  “Having a boy as a best friend is going to keep other boys from asking you out.”

  I have no idea what to say to that. Kylie’s never talked to me about boys. Ever.

  “Um, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “It’s just that you’re thirteen now, and you’ve never even mentioned liking anyone. I had my first boyfriend when I was your age. Remember? That kid Jonathan?”

  I nod. I definitely remember Jonathan. “Why did you stop going out with him? He was nice.”

  “Oh, Amanda,” she says, shaking her head. “No one stays with their first boyfriend!”

  I really don’t want to have this conversation. “I’m sorry I borrowed your dress,” I say instead. “Tara really appreciated it, though.”

  She shrugs. “Just ask next time.”

  “Okay,” I say, and hurry to my room. I see the journal Kylie gave me a few years ago sitting, still unused, on my dresser. I wonder if I’d taken her advice and used it, it would be easier to sort out my feelings. I close my door and fish my phone out of my pocket. I might not be able to sort out the Leo thing yet, but I can sort out something at least.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” I tell Stephanie as soon as she picks up.

  “No, I’m really sorry,” she says. “I should’ve come see you after the movie. I was in the back with Mina and Ruby, and they wanted to go to the diner right after to meet the other girls from the team. But you were great. I mean, it was really fun seeing you up there on, like, a ten-foot-tall screen. Why are you sorry?”

  “For not being a better friend. For ditching you when Leo and I made up.”

  She laughs. “That was over two years ago. And you didn’t ditch me. I got busy with other stuff, too. And whenever we do get to hang out, it’s like no time has passed.”

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  “Hey, you’re stuck with me. No one knows me like you do.”

  “Same here,” I say, my throat tightening. “Thank you for doing the play on Friday. You were great.”

  She laughs again. “I totally blew my lines and started doing last year’s tumbling routine onstage! I’m pretty sure there are no cartwheels in Fiddler on the Roof.”

  “There are now!”

  “Hey, how was David’s bar mitzvah?” she asks.

  “He did great, but there’s something else I want to tell you about first.” I take a deep breath. “Leo kissed me.”

  “What?” she shouts into the phone. “Holy smokes! Finally!!”

  I smile, glad I decided to tell her.

  “Well? How was it? I’m dying here!”

  “It was … salty.”

  “Salty?!”

  So I tell her the story of our ocean k
iss. We never do get around to talking about the bar mitzvah.

  I wake up to a text from Leo. We’d emailed last night to go over the plan for today’s party at Mr. McAllister’s Magic Castle Birthday Party Palace, so I didn’t expect to hear from him this early.

  I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT YESTERDAY WAS PERFECT. THANK YOU.

  I smile and bring the phone back to bed.

  YOU MEAN THE PART WHERE WE KEPT THE BALLOONS FROM BEING UNTIED?

  LOL. NO, NOT THAT PART.

  SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN? IT REALLY WAS REFRESHING. HOT DAY.

  YES, THE OCEAN. I AM THANKING YOU FOR THE OCEAN.

  YOU’RE VERY WELCOME.

  FINE, I GET IT. YOU DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. WHAT TIME ARE WE MEETING RORY AND TARA AT THE DINER?

  11.

  I’LL COME OVER AND WE CAN RIDE TOGETHER.

  OK.

  I’m about to set down the phone when another text comes in.

  HEY … DID YOU TELL ANYONE? YOU KNOW, ABOUT THE REFRESHING WATER?

  I hesitate before writing back.

  STEPHANIE.

  He doesn’t reply right away and I start to worry that maybe he didn’t want me to tell anyone. Finally my phone dings.

  I TOLD SOMEONE, TOO.

  WHO?

  MY MOM. I COULDN’T HELP IT! SHE KNEW SOMETHING WAS UP THE SECOND I WALKED IN.

  I groan and lean back on the pillow. I’m never going to be able to look Mrs. Fitzpatrick in the eye again. When Leo arrives on his bike, I don’t even let him get close to the house in case he decides he can’t keep secrets from my parents! I grab my backpack and meet him on the driveway. “We have one job today,” I say, slipping on my helmet. “Keep Connor occupied while the magician pulls the rabbit from his hat and we’re golden.” I can’t imagine why Angelina decided to enchant the magician’s bunny or why our video showed Connor leaving with it, but we’ll soon find out.

  “I’m kind of looking forward to going back to Mr. McAllister’s,” Leo says, riding in circles around me while I strap my backpack to my bike. “Do you think he’ll remember us?”

  I laugh. “From when we turned one? He must have had a thousand birthday parties there since ours.”

  “Yeah, but I bet we were the cutest birthday kids.”

  “We were pretty cute,” I admit, thinking of the picture in my album of the two of us taking our first steps together. All these years later, we’re still taking first steps together. I wonder if Mr. McAllister would have foreseen that.

  When we arrive at the diner, Tara and Rory are pacing outside. Leo and I pull off our helmets and lean the bikes against the window. “What’s wrong? Is it closed?” I’ve never seen the diner closed in my whole life.

  They shake their heads. “You’ll never guess what’s inside.”

  “What?” I ask.

  They swing open the doors and push us into the small waiting area. Everything looks the same to me. And then I spot it. “No!”

  “Yes!” Tara says, lifting the cane with the handle shaped like a duck’s bill out of the umbrella stand. “It’s back!”

  “How? You returned it to Angelina after the play, right?”

  “Yes!”

  “And it wasn’t here on Sunday, right? When we came with our families?”

  “It definitely wasn’t,” Rory says. “You know how Sawyer always used to quack when he saw it? Well, he noticed right away that it was missing and I had to tell him it had been returned to the woman who owned it.”

  “But Angelina’s out of town,” Leo argues. “She couldn’t have left it here again.”

  The door to the kitchen swings open and Annie, the diner owner’s daughter, comes out. She grabs four menus. “You guys ready to try something other than chocolate chip pancakes this time? Something healthier for growing bones?”

  Tara rushes up to her with the cane in her hand. “Annie, remember last month when you gave me this cane in exchange for us helping your daughter sell all those cookies?”

  Annie looks at Tara like she’s suddenly sprouted six more heads. Then she looks at us. “Is your friend okay?”

  “You really don’t remember?” Leo asks. “We dressed up in those Sunshine Kids uniforms that totally didn’t fit any of us? I still have nightmares about it.”

  Annie shakes her head slowly. “That cane’s been here since before I was born.”

  “But … I … we … it …” Tara stumbles over her words. I gently reach for the cane and slip it back in the umbrella stand.

  “Sorry, Annie,” I tell her. “We were just confused. We’ll see you later.”

  “We only have a half hour to get to the party,” Leo says as the four of stumble back out to the sidewalk. “We’ll have to figure this all out later.”

  “There’s only one explanation I can see,” Rory says. “Angelina must have gone back in time herself.”

  “But if she could do that,” I ask, “why is she sending us?”

  Rory shakes her head. “As usual, Angelina only tells us half the story.”

  “Not even!” Tara scoffs.

  “Why don’t you guys go try to find her,” I suggest. “Check the store, the historical society, all her usual haunts. Leo and I can handle this one alone.”

  “What do you have to do at today’s party?” Rory asks. We hadn’t gotten a chance to show them the video yet.

  “You’d love it,” Leo says. “We have to make sure Connor doesn’t steal the rabbit from the magician’s hat!”

  Rory shudders. After an incident with a pet rabbit, she is no longer a fan of bunnies. “You’re on your own, then. Good luck!” She drags Tara away from the diner window, where she’s staring at the cane. “C’mon, you’re starting to make the customers nervous.”

  Mr. McAllister’s Magic Castle Birthday Party Palace is a very popular place in town for parties. It’s only closed on Tuesdays, which means that whatever day of the week it was for Grace’s seventh birthday, it wasn’t a Tuesday. Leo tries the front door. It’s locked. We sit on our bikes and wait.

  “Let’s go over the plan,” I suggest. For some reason I feel the need to keep talking. I think I’m afraid of it being awkward otherwise.

  “We don’t have time,” he says. “It’s starting. Look.”

  I look up and almost fall off the bike. The empty parking lot is suddenly full of cars. The sound of kids laughing and running around reaches us from inside. “Well, let’s go. We’ve got a rabbit to protect.”

  Leo chuckles and says, “Hey, we just brought our bikes back in time three years.”

  I look down. “You’re right! I hadn’t even thought of that!” We lock them up to a skinny tree and push through the door. Inside, kids are running everywhere. It looks like there are two parties going on at once. A whole group of toddlers is playing on the inflatable slides and the castle-shaped bouncy house, while Grace’s guests are gathered on the other side, dancing around and waiting for the magician to start.

  “We have to blend in,” Leo whispers. “Hopefully each party will think we’re with the other one.”

  “Good idea.” Neither of us has any idea how to do that, though, so we wind up standing in the middle of the room, slouching.

  “Can I help you?” Mr. McAllister asks, coming out from behind the counter. He’s wearing that same floppy hat that he’s worn every time I’ve been here over the years.

  “Um, we’re looking for the magician?” Leo says.

  Mr. McAllister points to a door marked PARTY ROOM where they usually serve the pizza and cake. “He’s getting ready in there.”

  “Thanks,” we say, and hurry toward the room before he can ask us any questions.

  “Guess he didn’t recognize us,” Leo says.

  “Amy and Leon, remember?”

  “Right! Let’s check on them.”

  He pulls me off to the side and I giggle when I realize where he’s taking me. Next to the clown-shaped trampoline is a row of carnival mirrors. One makes you look tall and skinny, the other short and wide. We stand
in front, expecting to see warped images of Leon and Amy. Only this time, two other strangers are reflected back at us! We both whirl around to look behind us, but we’re alone in the hallway. I now have olive skin, long, shiny black hair, and am wearing cutoff shorts MUCH shorter than my mom would ever allow me out of the house in. I instinctively try to pull them down, but wind up grabbing my own jeans. The shorts do get a little longer, though. I move to check out Leo. He is now a bit plump with very short brown hair. If we look like this now, I wonder what — or who — we looked like at the beach! I run my hand over my new silky hair, only I still feel my own puffy hair instead. Not fair.

  Suddenly I’m not alone in my mirror. “Funny!” Connor says, tugging at the corners of his mouth with his fingers. His reflection stretches two feet wide. Leo and I step to the side so he can have the whole mirror to himself. He wiggles and dances around in the mirror. That kid is not shy.

  “Hey,” Leo says, forcing his eyes away from his reflection, “I know it’s your sister’s birthday, but I have these really cool new video games. Do you want to play them? You can go sit over there if you want.” He points to a bench on the other side of the room from Grace’s party.

  “Thanks, man,” ten-year-old Connor says, “but there’s a magician! They rock!”

  I guess video games can’t compare to a real live magician.

  “Plan B,” Leo says.

  We leave Connor at the mirrors and hurry over to the party room. The magician is your typical party magician — black cape, top hat, podium with various tricks piled on it. When he hears us come in, he looks up from detangling three metal rings. “I’ll be ready in five,” he says.

  “That’s okay,” Leo says. “We just wanted to tell you that the brother of the birthday girl is going to try to steal your rabbit.”

  He looks amused. “Is that so? He can have her as far as I’m concerned.”

  “What?” I ask, sure I’d heard him wrong.

  He gestures under the podium at a pudgy bunny curled up in another slightly larger top hat. “She might look cute, but she’s a little terror, that one.”

  The bunny’s orange ears sway with each sleepy breath. “She doesn’t look very scary.”

  “That’s how they suck you in,” he explains. “I’ve got another show tomorrow, but I might set her free in the woods afterward.” Then, so quickly I almost miss it, he pulls off his hat and slips the bunny right inside the larger one. Then he puts the whole thing back on his head. The bunny is now hidden between the smaller hat and the bigger one. And this isn’t a tiny bunny.