The Last Present

  “This whole thing. We’re locked in a bathroom by an old man who thinks, what, that we’re going to steal a five-year-old’s birthday presents? In a few short minutes we’ll either be arrested, stuck five years in the past, ripped to pieces, or, option number four, wind up sitting on some unsuspecting person’s lap while they go to the bathroom. We’re going to need a vacation from our summer vacation!”

  He chuckles, but says, “I’ll laugh about it when you’re home safe.”

  “What about when you’re home safe?”

  He pauses before answering. “I care more about what happens to you.”

  I don’t know what to say. So I clear my throat. “Is Mrs. Kelly still trying to put the cake back together?”

  He peers back out the window. “Yup. Connor just got sent to his room. That means less than a minute to go.”

  I pull on the back of his shirt. “You should come down. We should stand as close as possible to the door in case option four happens. You don’t want to be standing on anyone’s lap! Or in the toilet if no one’s on it and someone left the seat up!”

  He scrambles off and we huddle together by the door. “Look on the bright side,” I whisper. “Only a few seconds left, which means we didn’t get arrested.”

  “True. And this room is much too small for a trampoline.” He starts counting down the seconds. “Three … please let Tara have gotten our email…. Two … I promise to be a better person and clean my room the first time Mom asks. … One!”

  White. Everywhere white. “Leo?” I call out, pawing my way through soft white air. Pieces of the air come off in my hand and stick to my face. “What’s going on? Are we in heaven? Is this a cloud?”

  “I’m here, Amanda!” he shouts, flailing his arms. The feathery strands begin to fall to the ground and I finally figure out what they are. The soft white air is actually toilet paper hung from the ceiling. From every square inch of the ceiling. I can’t even see the door.

  “Very funny, guys!” I call out, too relieved to be too annoyed. “Are you gonna blame this one on Ray, too?”

  Rory and Tara burst into the bathroom, nearly knocking us over. They can only shake their heads because they’re laughing too hard. Leo starts draping the long strands of toilet paper on their shoulders until they’re nearly as covered with it as we are. It takes them that long to recover.

  I sigh. “So I’m assuming you got my email?”

  “Yes!” Rory says. “We ran over here as soon as it came through on Tara’s phone. I’m sure Connor’s parents thought there was something seriously wrong with us when we locked ourselves in the bathroom.”

  “There is something seriously wrong with you,” Leo says, gesturing to the mess all around us.

  “Hey, you’re lucky Rory talked me out of the first idea,” Tara says. “Water balloons.”

  “We’ve already been soaked once today with a surprise sprinkler attack. Where’s Connor?”

  “He’s keeping guard by the kitchen door,” Rory says. “He thinks Leo ate a bad burrito for lunch and is telling everyone to stay far away.”

  I nod approvingly. “Nice.”

  Leo groans.

  We spend the next five minutes stuffing the last pieces of toilet paper into a big garbage bag and planning our next move. “The next party is the hardest one so far,” I tell them. “It’s about an hour away from Willow Falls at a relative’s house. Connor sits down on top of one of the birthday gifts. The one Angelina enchanted, of course. Crushes it to bits. We’re going to need Ray to drive us again.”

  “And an excuse to be in a stranger’s living room,” Leo adds. “We had today’s party totally under control. We should be upstairs celebrating with Grace right now.”

  Rory checks her watch. “Bucky should be back from his trip by now. Let’s go over there and see if he knows where Angelina is. If there’s something she’s not telling us, maybe he can. No offense, but you’re kinda running out of days.”

  Since the Kellys live so close to town, it takes only a few minutes until we get to the community center. And then only a few seconds to find Bucky, due to the fact that he’s currently onstage, playing his violin for the usual bridge and poker crowd that hangs out here in the middle of the day. A yoga class just got out and a few of the women are watching, too. Judging by his lopsided grin, Bucky is thoroughly enjoying the attention.

  When he’s done playing, we wait for his adoring fans to clear before we join him.

  “How nice of you kids to visit on this fine summer day,” he says, slipping his violin into a case.

  “Hey,” Tara says, pointing to the case. “Did you have to buy that? Did I forget to give you your blanket back? I’m really sorry. Things got kind of crazy after the play ended. I can get it back for you, or pay you for the case, or —”

  He pats his new case lovingly. “No need to worry, dear. An anonymous benefactor had it delivered right here to the community center. The ladies can’t help falling in love with me once they hear me play. Happens all the time.” He winks.

  Tara holds up the red envelope. “Speaking of ladies and love. Spill.”

  He squints at it, then shakes his head. “Never saw that before in my life.”

  “Bucky Whitehead!” Tara says.

  “Oh, fine. What do you want to know?”

  Leo nudges him in the arm. “So, you and Angelina, eh?”

  “Leo!” the three of us girls say.

  “What?” Leo asks innocently. “No use pretending we didn’t read it.”

  Bucky sighs. “So we’re having this conversation.”

  “We really don’t mean to be nosy,” I promise him. “We’re just hoping you can help us with something.”

  “Come on, then,” he says, leading us over to his favorite couch. He settles into his usual seat and we pull up chairs around him. “You know, my memory works a lot better with a full belly.” He points to the desk at the front, which is currently set up for tea time. “All that playin’ works up an appetite.”

  Rory jumps up. “I’m on it.”

  We wait for him to start talking, but he just hums along to the background music the community center pipes into the main room. I try not to show my frustration. Leo is not trying quite as hard. I have to kick him until he stops tugging at the loose threads on his armchair. The thing already looks like its best days were decades ago.

  Rory returns and hands Bucky a plate piled high with crustless cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches. “Hope this is all right.”

  “Just fine, thank you.” He rests the plate on his lap. “A drink would be nice, too.”

  Rory turns back around without a word. We watch as Bucky happily chomps on the sandwiches. Leo starts tapping his foot, which is at least less destructive to private property. Rory returns with a pink plastic cup of tea. There’s nowhere to put it, so she winds up holding it awkwardly on her knee.

  “So what can I help you with?” Bucky finally asks.

  Tara hands him the card. “I found this last week near Angelina’s seat at the bar mitzvah. It’s the one I bought for you at the drugstore, so we know you sent it. Sorry we read it.”

  “We weren’t planning to,” Rory adds. “We thought maybe it would help us figure out where Angelina is. Somehow I don’t think she’s really gone fishing.”

  “Oh, but she has,” he says, reaching for a sip of the tea. He hands it back to Rory. “A family reunion upstate. Lake, fishing, canoeing, the works.”

  Somehow I can’t picture Angelina in a canoe! “And she’ll be gone all week?” I ask, my hopes deflating.

  “That’s the plan,” he says. “But you know the saying, ‘Man plans, God laughs.’ That’ll no doubt make more sense to you when you’re older and have seen how life works out much different than you expect.” He looks off into the distance and it takes Rory offering him some more tea to bring his focus back to us.

  “I hope this isn’t too personal, Bucky,” I say, “but we really have a lot of questions for Angelina. Judging from your card,
it seems, well, have you known her a long time?” I ask.

  “You could say that.” He leans back and takes a sip of tea. “Angelina was my babysitter.”

  “Your babysitter?” we shriek.

  “Oh, yes, indeed she was,” Bucky says calmly. “Although in truth I didn’t need a sitter. Angelina was only a month older than me. My parents didn’t think a boy with free run of the farmhouse could be trusted without female supervision.” He chuckles. “I’d have probably gotten in less trouble on my own!”

  I have to shake my head to clear it of the impossible image of Bucky and Angelina as children. “How come you never mentioned this before? All the times you told us about your childhood?”

  He shrugs. “Those days are ancient history.”

  “But you obviously still care about her,” Tara says. “You sent her this birthday card.”

  He wipes some crumbs off his lap. “Relationships are complicated.”

  At the same time we all mutter, “Tell me about it.”

  He chuckles. “Looks like I’m preaching to the choir on that one. Relationships are hard enough, but a relationship with Angelina is near impossible. She’s … how shall I put it … special.”

  We exchange looks. “How special would you say she is?” I ask cautiously.

  When he doesn’t reply right away, I add, “I mean, like, would you say she’s able to do things that … um … other people can’t?”

  He lays down his last sandwich with only a bite left to go. “I might,” he says after a short hesitation. “What are you getting at?”

  There’s so much to ask about, where do we even start? We’d decided on the way over that we weren’t going to give away any of Angelina’s secrets — at least the few of them that we know. “Well, she has a thing about birthdays….” Tara says.

  “Yeah,” Leo chimes in. “What’s up with that?”

  Bucky looks down at his sandwich, and I’m afraid he’s going to start eating again and ignore the question. But instead he says, “You’re going to have to ask her yourself.”

  “We would,” I reply, “but, like you said, she’s on vacation. And this is kind of urgent.”

  “It’s about Grace,” Tara blurts out. “Grace Kelly.”

  He perks up. “The movie star?”

  “Huh?” Tara says.

  “Grace Kelly was a famous movie actress in her day,” Bucky says, smiling at the memory. “Quite the lovely lady.”

  “This is a different Grace,” Tara says. “She’s only ten.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Don’t know her, then.”

  “She was in Fiddler with us last week. Red hair? Big personality? Short?”

  “Not so short anymore, actually,” Leo says under his breath.

  Bucky taps his chin, deep in thought. “Oh, yes, I remember her. Cute kid. What does she have to do with Angelina?”

  “Well …” Tara begins, clearly not sure how much she should reveal. She looks over at me. “Amanda?”

  “It’s like this,” I begin, not really sure what’s going to come out of my mouth. “Angelina’s trying to help Grace, who went into this weird comalike state on her tenth birthday. And we’re not sure if she’s sick, like, physically or mentally, but it’s pretty bad. And then we found out that Angelina and Grace have the same birthday and since, well, you know Angelina and the birthday thing, and —”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Bucky says, “but is there a question in there somewhere? I’m old. I might not make it to the end.”

  “Sorry!”

  Rory pats my knee encouragingly.

  I try again. “Okay, since you know her so well, here’s a question, then. Is there anything you could tell us that might help us figure out a way to heal Grace? Like, maybe Angelina didn’t tell us the whole picture?”

  “When did Angelina ever give anyone the whole picture?” he asks. “She has her own reasons for doing things. You’d need a time machine to go back a long ways to understand her.”

  I don’t dare look at Leo right now. He and I are a sort of time machine. I can’t very well tell Bucky that, though. I lean forward. “Do you think there’s a connection between their birthdays? Or is it just a coincidence?” As soon as I say the word, I want to bite it back.

  “Come now, Miss Ellerby. You know there are no coincidences in Willow Falls, especially not if Angelina is involved, as you say she is.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “And a tenth birthday, well, that’s something special. It’s a doorway between one world and the next. Between your past and your future. Childhood and what comes beyond.”

  “Now you sound like Angelina,” Tara teases.

  “I wonder what Angelina’s tenth birthday was like,” Leo says.

  Bucky chuckles. “As I recall, she told her little brother she’d turn him into a turtle if he didn’t do her chores for her. Now, I’m not saying she did it, but that boy was always a little slow after that.”

  “Sounds like Angelina,” Rory says. “When exactly was that? Like, how old is she?”

  He laughs. “I know better than to reveal a woman’s age.”

  “Then how old are you?” Leo asks.

  Bucky shakes his head. “Old enough not to fall for that. Let’s just say we’ve both seen a lot of birthdays. Back then people didn’t celebrate birthdays the way they do now. The only one of Angelina’s that stood out was her eighteenth.” His smile slowly fades as his face clouds over. “That was the last time I saw her truly happy and carefree. So beautiful — glowing, really, and ready to face the world head-on. Dancing with the gas lamps flickering all around her, the moon high above. Oh, what a night that was!”

  When he drifts off into silence, I ask, “But what happened?”

  He shrugs. “Things change. People change. You make some choices you can never take back.” He stands up abruptly, not even noticing that he’s knocked his empty sandwich plate to the floor. “The future is all possibilities, but the past is set in stone. All those ghosts of ourselves, our youth, still alive inside us, but out of our reach forever. We meet them when we close our eyes, when we let our memories come alive.” He shakes his head. “But that’s all they are. Memories. No more real than a dream.”

  Before we can ask him what he means, he drags a nearby folding chair up to one of the card tables and says, “Deal me in.” We take that as our signal to leave.

  Outside, we lean against the wall of the community center. We don’t know much more than when we went in. Not anything that’s going to help us with Grace, at least. The skies have clouded over, and the thick gray air suits our mood. I go over Bucky’s parting words in my head until an idea starts to form. I push myself off the wall and face the others.

  “Hey, what Bucky said in there, about the ghosts of ourselves still living? I think he’s right. But not about the part where he said they’re not real. We know that’s not true. We can reach them, back in the past. Maybe not our own ghosts, but the ones inside other people. Angelina told us she tweaked the curse so we can keep going back to July fourteenth of different years, right? Maybe those years don’t have to be the ones she listed in her notebook. Maybe it can be July fourteenth of any year. Including Angelina’s eighteenth birthday!”

  “Wouldn’t she have told you if that was possible?” Tara asks. “Wait, never mind. Of course she wouldn’t have.”

  “But how would you do it?” Rory asks. “We don’t know where Angelina’s party was, or even what year it was.”

  “Well, what did Bucky say?” I ask. “Dancing in the moonlight or something? With gas lamps?”

  “It must have been a long time ago if there were gas lamps,” Rory says.

  “I bet it was Apple Grove,” Tara says. “Didn’t you guys say they used to have dances there?”

  Yes! Where else could it be? I turn to Leo. “How long has it been since we’ve had a camping trip at the grove?”

  “At least a year.” He grins. “I’d say we’re long overdue.”

  “My mom
wanted you to have these,” Connor says, stepping out onto his porch. He hands us each a waffle wrapped in a napkin. Tara and I had ridden our bikes over to see if we could get any information on the best way to get into Grace’s party today.

  Tara tries to take a bite, then pulls it back out of her mouth. “I think it’s still frozen.”

  “I know. My mom’s kind of out of it. I don’t think she’s slept since Saturday.”

  It’s now Friday morning. That’s a long time.

  I watch Tara trying to politely gnaw on her waffle. She was quiet on the way over here. Even though she doesn’t say it, I know she’s sad about not hearing from David very much.

  “How’s Leo’s stomach?” Connor asks.

  “What do you mean?” I ask between hard bites.

  “He was stuck in our bathroom for, like, an hour yesterday? My mom said he went through three rolls of toilet paper! Must have been a pretty bad burrito!”

  Tara giggles and I elbow her, although I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face, too. “He’s fine now. Thanks for keeping everyone away. I’ll let him know you asked.”

  “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

  I answer while Tara chews. “Rory’s friend Annabelle dragged her to the mall, and Leo’s helping his mom build some kind of compost heap in their backyard.”

  “My mom tried that once,” Tara says, swallowing. “It’s pretty much like putting a pile of garbage in your backyard. Good for the plants, bad for the nose.”

  “Maybe it would be good for the new trees at Apple Grove,” I suggest.

  “You heard what I said about the smell, right?”

  “So how’s Grace this morning?” I ask, changing the subject from garbage.

  “Same,” Connor says. “My grandparents flew in last night, so they’ll be here soon to see her.”

  At the mention of his grandparents, the memory of his grandfather locking me and Leo in the bathroom pops into my head. I’m not so sure I want to see him again!

  “Where do they live?” Tara asks.

  “Down south. We only see them every few years.”

  I tilt my head at that. “Really? But doesn’t your grandfather go to all your birthday parties? I mean, I thought I remembered Grace having a birthday party on the beach once when I was there with my friends. Old guy with really red hair?”