13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1)

PARTY: WHERE DODOS GO IN BUT THEY NEVER COME OUT.

  So I do what Adrianne says, like the dodo I am. Chills race from my cold, barefoot belly-dancer feet to my even colder belly-dancer tummy. I suck in my stomach all of a sudden when I see Ally knife punch hers with her fingers.

  Adrianne stares at the blue bottle. That’s all she does and everyone in the circle gets quiet. The more Adrianne stares, the more the bottle glows and the bluer it gets. The room gets colder and Adrianne looks paler and when the first finger of the first light of the full moon streams through the one small attic window––the one that is always propped open, no matter how cold or how hot the attic is––and casts a speck of light over the bottle, it shatters.

  I mean freaking explodes from the inside out. Broken glass lays everywhere and shimmers like big and little diamonds in the moonlight that creeps in through the always-open window. Adrianne stares at what was my ex-present, the ex-bottle. And I jump two feet in the air and my heart races like Mitch and Brian caught me and Hayden kissing or something, not like that would ever happen because I would totally see them coming with my night light on.

  And I get mad too. I mean, it was my birthday present and little perfect-peacock-hearty-swirly girl just blew it up. Adrianne bends over, seated in her same spot, like she’s just collapsed after running a marathon. Ferdinand grabs a long, rolled-up piece of white paper out of the pile of broken glass.

  “This is for you,” he says, handing the paper to me.

  And I’m like, really? If there is a heart on there I’m going to freaking kill somebody. And I lean over the pile of shattered glass to take the paper out of Ferdinand’s hands but my foot slides out from under me and pieces of glass get stuck in my foot. I yelp. Like all wounded animals do. Every wild animal except peacocks, that is. But I don’t want to look like a baby. Not in front of the peacocks. Even if they were peacocks who just exploded my birthday present.

  I unroll the rolled-up paper and put it up to my face so I can read it but, it’s blank. I hold it closer and examine every inch before I flip it over to make sure I don’t miss something. My foot is hemorrhaging. For nothing. Great. I hate peacocks.

  I roll my eyes and hand the paper to Ally.

  “Hold it in the moonlight,” Adrianne says out of breath like I should’ve known that to begin with. Ferdinand gives me a hand, with a look in his eye like this is some kind of ritual he’s been through before.

  “What the freak is going on here? Seriously. What the...” I say.

  “Just, do it,” Hayden says, wincing like he’s about to open his first present on Christmas Day.

  “There’s nothing on it,” I say.

  Ally passes the thick paper back to me and whispers, “Why don’t you do what they say.” She pokes her stomach with her fingers again. So I walk over to the small, always-open attic window and unroll the paper, half-looking at it, half-looking at Ally and the peacocks. I hold the paper up to the moonlight. And there, on the page in front of me seven words write themselves, only they’re written in a language I don’t understand. Then a map draws itself below the words. I hiccup and drop the paper to the floor. I double over in anguished embarrassment and shiver from my pinkies to my little fingers. And as I sort of hang there all doubled-over on myself, I come face-to-face with the paper laying on the ground, in the moonlight.

  “What does it say?” Ally asks.

  “No idea.” I mean it’s obvious they’re pulling my leg. Trying to get a rise out of me with some trick they bought at a magic store in town somewhere. Brian was into magic when we were little. He used his whole allowance to buy this trick that turned pennies into dimes. It cost like ten whole dollars. I wonder how much this trick cost. That’s another thing about peacocks. They never worry about money.

  “What do you think it says?” Adrianne says, putting her hands on her hips. But I’m not in the mood for her smuggy I-should-just-know-everything-in-her-little-peacock-world attitude. It’s my freaking birthday. I can do what I want.

  I stand up straight and say, “Really, ok, it says you must think I’m an idiot for falling for some stupid magic trick.”

  “It’s no trick,” Hayden says with a face so straight he should be in Mr. Post’s plays at school, not me.

  “Right, and I’m stupid to think that you would just come to my birthday because you like me when you just want to mess with me,” I say, hobbling to the attic door. The glass pushes into the bottom of my foot, deeper and deeper, with every step I take. And I get the hiccups. I try not to think about how freakishly dodo-sounding, repulsive, OMG-how-could-a-peacock-ever-make-that-kind-of-squeak I make when I hiccup.

  “We need you,” Ferdinand says.

  Need. Me? Really. I stop walking and turn to face the peacocks.

  “Do you think I’d be here if we didn’t?” Adrianne says.

  “Need me for what? A little Techno tutorial?” I say.

  “We need you to tell us what you see,” Hayden says.

  Why, because you guys are blind? I hobble back to the window where the paper lays in the moonlight right under the small window that’s open no matter what time of year it is. “You tell me? It’s seven weird words, like another language, and a map with an X,” I say.

  “A map? Tell me about the map. What’s on the map and where is the X?” Adrianne says.

  “What are you guys like blind to mysterious messages that appear in blue glass bottles that Adrianne blows up with her mind?”

  “Yes,” Adrianne says so dead-pan it’s the scariest moment of my life.

  I pick up the paper and walk back into the moonlight. I try to make sense of the marks. Wanting to know why I can see this but no one else can. Wanting to know why they need me. Of all the kids at Oakdale Middle School, they need me. “It’s an island, I can’t tell where,” I say. Hayden’s stare and Adrianne’s creepiness and the dark attic and my sore foot all make it hard to breathe.

  Everyone smiles. Everyone except me and Ally.

  “You’ve been there?” I ask. I can’t help myself I’m an idiot.

  “Yes, but...” Adrianne’s eyes shift from peacock to peacock before she continues, “We can’t get back. And now we have the map. You have the map. Now you’ll be able to save us.”

  “Save you?” Save is an epic word. I swallow hard. They so have the wrong girl. The wrong peacock. This girl-pretending-to-be-a-peacock would get lost on her way to school if not for Ally. Hayden and I exchange a quick glance, only because he looks away.

  I’m not in the mood for going out in the rain and getting all dripping wet for the little joke they’re undoubtedly going to spring on me. The one where I’m the punchline at school tomorrow. Where they have their older brother or sister drive me out to the forest somewhere and I have to hitch home or something. Maybe Mitch and Lola are in on it. Now it makes sense. Mitch loves to torture me.

  “Don’t worry. We travel in our minds,” Adrianne says.

  Oh, because that makes everything better. And Hayden holds my hand. He freaking holds my hand. I hiccup. Because I am peacock repellant.

  Loads of twelve-year-olds-about-to-become-thirteen-year-olds have been kissed by now, or have held hands with a boy and some have done way more by now. But I, on the other hand, am a hand-holding virgin and I suck in my stomach so Hayden won’t see how big it is now that he’s holding my hand and standing right next to me.

  They. Travel. In. Their. Minds. The whole hiccup-and-hand-holding thing makes it take a while for me to focus on what Adrianne, the Peacock Queen, actually said. I don’t even know what to say. So I do what I usually do when the people around me are insane or so smart that anything I might say will sound so completely dodo––I keep quiet. By the time I can concentrate again everyone in the circle is standing and holding hands, including me. Hayden holding my hand feels special anyway and sends tingles marching down the left side of my body, to my left hand, the hand Hayden holds. And I sort of miss the part where we stood up.

  The garage door squeak
s its way open over metal tracks. Everyone steps back just a little.

  The peacocks could have included a gift card in there at least, you know like one with a balance at Best Buy so I can get a little bit of my investment in my party back. I mean it’s cute that they want to be creepy on Halloween, but it goes from creepy to lame in a hot second. And I wonder what will happen if my parents find us all up here. And I wonder what Mitch and Brian and Lola might do if it’s them that just pulled into the garage. And I wonder what Emily Post might say about the etiquette of blowing up birthday presents. It’s unbelievable how I channel my mom when I’m stressed out.

  I blink and blink again, and then sunshine warms my back. I’m not in my attic anymore.