11 Birthdays (16 page)

“But that’s not possible!” I cry.

“You’re right,” Leo says, leaning back against the locked door. “There’s definitely something going on here.”

For the first time since I knew I wasn’t alone in this, a feeling of dread and hopelessness comes over me. It almost knocks me over.

“Are you okay?” Leo says, holding on to my arm. “You look like you’re going to faint or something.”

I slide down onto the sidewalk, and Leo joins me, our backs against the door. “It’s just, I don’t know. I feel like she was our last hope.”

“I know what you mean.”

“And what if she was lying? Maybe that journal didn’t really burn in a fire, and she just wants to keep it from us?”

Leo doesn’t answer. Then he jumps up and says, “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” I stand up and hurry after him. He ducks around the side of the old house and into the alley separating it from the dress shop next door. “Leo, wait. What are you doing?”

He keeps going. “We’re going to get that journal.”

“How? It’s closed!”

“Like this,” he says, pointing to a window in the back of the house. I glance around us, but no one is nearby. Trees and bushes make things pretty private. Still, there’s a tiny parking lot back here, and at any minute someone could pull in. Leo reaches up and pushes up on the window. I
had totally expected it to be locked, but it slides up smoothly. “Ready?” He laces his hands together and bends down for me to step on his hands. “Me? I have to go in first?”

He looks up at me. “Would you rather give me the boost?”

I shake my head. I’m not that strong. With one last glance around me, I put my hands on his shoulders for balance, and step up. He practically catapults me through the window. It’s a good thing there wasn’t any furniture on the other side or I definitely would have broken it. As it was, the floor could have been a little softer. I’m gonna have bruises for sure. I brush myself off and lean out the window. Leo is jumping and trying to grab onto the ledge. His hands keep slipping off. I watch his efforts for a few minutes, then call down, “Um, Leo? How about I go open the front door and let you in?”

“Oh, good idea!”

A minute later we start searching the place. I open all the drawers — nightstands, desks, file cabinets. Leo checks the bookshelves and the back room. He even opens the mini-fridge but only finds a half-eaten salami sandwich.
He comes back out, his hair a mess from sticking his head under the rugs. I’m in the process of checking the drawers of his great-great-grandfather’s desk.

“Nothing, huh?” he asks, joining me at the desk.

I shake my head. “It’s empty.” But when I go to close the bottom drawer, it doesn’t line up evenly with the rest. I push on it with all my strength, but it still doesn’t close all the way. This isn’t good. Angelina’s bound to notice. I wiggle it around, thinking maybe it’s caught on something. Hey, maybe it’s CAUGHT ON SOMETHING.

“I’m gonna try taking it all the way out instead,” I tell Leo excitedly. “I think something’s jammed back there!” I pull it as far as it will go, but it won’t come all the way out.

“I have an idea,” Leo says. I step away. Leo pulls on the drawer above mine and it slides out easily. Now we can easily reach behind the bottom one!

“You can do the honors,” Leo says.

I take a deep breath and stick my hand down there. At first all I feel is a thick layer of dust. Then my fingers land on something smooth. I feel around until I find edges that I can grab.

“What is it? What is it?” Leo is bouncing around like a little kid.

I brush off the dust and find myself holding a small black notepad.

“Is it the founder’s journal?” he shouts, then covers his mouth with his hands.

Able to read the words on the cover now, I slowly shake my head. “Even better, it’s your great-great-grandfather’s journal!”

He gasps and reaches for it. I place it in his hands.
“It must have been stuck back there all this time. I bet you jarred it loose when you opened the drawers.”

I sit next to him as he rubs his fingers over the embossed letters. They’re very faded, but the words
PROPERTY OF LEONARD FITZPATRICK
are still legible.

Suddenly there’s a banging on the front door. We jump up so fast I instantly get dizzy. The Girl Scouts have arrived for their tour. Guess they didn’t know the place was closed on Fridays, either! “Duck,” Leo says, pulling me down behind the desk. “I don’t think they saw us.”

We stay crouched while the knocking continues. Then the phone rings. The answering machine clicks on and we
hear, “Thank you for calling the Willow Falls Historical Society. We are closed every Friday until further notice. Please try us again at another date.” The Girl Scout troop leader leaves a not very nice message about how hard it is to coordinate such visits.

The scouts finally leave. We get up and move over to the couch, which is well hidden from the front door. “Here goes,” Leo says, opening the small book. The ink is faded to a dull blue. I lean over and he moves the notebook between us. The first few pages are filled with rows of numbers. Then there’s a long list of items to get at the shop — tools, wood, milk. Leo flips through the rest until he finds a few pages filled with tiny block letters. He finds the beginning and reads out loud:
“I do not scare easily. I did not act when the strange woman darkened my door with her threats of consequences if Rex Ellerby and I did not end our feud. He and I have never seen eye to eye and I did not imagine we ever would. This is not the place to list my grievances against the man. Suffice to say they are long and varied. It was Harvest Day and I had bigger things on my mind. I have started to record these words many times, only to have them disappear the next day. I have
learned to keep them on my person. It is only that way they survive.”

I gasp when Leo reads that part. “That’s like us! How we have to keep things on us when we sleep or else we lose them!”

“Do you really think that’s what he means?”

“I don’t know, keep reading!”

He turns back to the book.
“For endless days now, I have been harvesting my apples. Each time Harvest Day ends, it starts again.”

“I knew it!” I shout, not caring who hears me. “I knew it!”

Leo keeps reading, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.
“It’s always the same. Josephine fixes my eggs, the buggies arrive with the baskets, the men line up in the fields. Why does no one else realize this is happening? It is enough to drive a man mad. And of all people, it seems Ellerby is involved in this thing, too! It took five days until we understood what happened to us. It was that strange old woman. She did this to us. Some kind of enchantment. We searched high and low. She has disappeared. Our mutual situation has forced us to mend our fences. We spent the day helping the townsfolk undo what our ridiculous feud
did to the town. We undammed the river so others’ land will no longer suffer, told the local businesses we would no longer boycott their goods if they took apples from the other. One hour ago we shook hands like gentlemen and raised our glasses to a successful harvest. Josephine and Amanda were witnesses to it. Almost knocked ’em over, it did.”

A new section starts on the next page.
“It happened! It is now the day AFTER Harvest Day. Ellerby and I ran from our houses and embraced by the river. We jumped around like children while our wives and the townsfolk stared in amazement. We have agreed never to speak of this to anyone.”

Leo flips the rest of the pages, but they’re blank. He lets the book fall closed on the floor. When he looks up, his eyes are bright. “Now we know why this happened to us!”

“We do?”

“Don’t you see? They ignored the old woman’s warning and kept fighting, then after the one-year-mark passed, they got stuck in the loop. You and me got into a fight last
year on our birthday, so this year on our birthday the
enchantment or whatever it was, kicked in. I guess ’cause we’re related to them?”

I jump up, almost hitting my head on a low shelf. “You’re right!” Relief floods through me. The pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together.

“Okay, so somehow we’re reliving the same thing our great-great-grandfathers did,” Leo says, starting to pace. “We know they eventually broke out of the loop. What we don’t know is
how
.”

“Yes, we do.” I pick up the small book and wave it in the air. “Leonard told us.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wrote about how he and Rex made up, and then how they helped the townspeople and made everyone happy, right? So that’s what we have to do!”

“But we made up a week ago,” he points out, “and it’s still happening. And I tried to fix things with Vinnie, but nothing changed. You tried to help your mother and she still got fired.”

“That’s true,” I admit, my hope deflating.

“Then again … you did help that kid with his science project, and your sister with hers, and those worked out, right?”

I nod. “Yeah. Maybe some things you can change, and some you can’t.”

“So tomorrow we help everyone we come across, whether we think we can make a difference or not.”

“Deal.” We shake on it. “I have a really good feeling about this.”

“Me too,” he says.

Then the two of us look at each other, let out a whoop, and bounce around just like old Rex and Leonard did. We’re so busy high-fiving and whooping and jumping on the couches, we don’t hear the knock on the door until it turns into more of a pounding. We were supposed to meet Leo’s mom at the dress shop, but we must have lost track of time. We hurry over to the door and unlock it. She points to the sign.

“How come it says closed on Fridays if you’re inside? And why was the door locked?”

I have to catch my breath from all the jumping before coming up with an answer. “The lady who worked here? She had to um, step out, so she locked the door behind us so no one could come in.”

Leo nods in agreement.

“Oh,” his mom says. “Well, did you find what you were looking for?”

“And more!” replies Leo. “I just need to put a book
back.” While he re-hides the journal, I keep Mrs. Fitzpatrick occupied by showing her the stuffed raccoon, which grosses her out as much as it does me.

As we walk to the car Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s eyes fill with tears. She looks from Leo to me and back again. Leo’s eyes narrow. “Mom,” he warns, “you’re not going to cry because Amanda and I are friends again, are you?”

“I might,” she says, laying her hand on her chest. “It’s just so wonderful. Does your mother know yet, Amanda?”

It honestly takes me a few seconds to remember if, in this version of our birthday, my mother knows or not. I shake my head. “Not yet.”

“She will when I bring you home!” she says, linking her arm in mine.

“She won’t be there. Big day at work.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “Well, we’ll all get together tomorrow and talk about old times.”

“Tomorrow, definitely!” I say as sincerely as I can muster. I have to kick Leo to keep him from laughing.

When we get to the car Leo starts to open the front door. “In the back, kiddo.”

Leo groans and mutters, “It’s up to us to save the world
from repeating the same day over and over, but we’re still not allowed to sit in the front seat.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” I whisper as he slides in next to me. “Saving the world or saving ourselves?”

“Maybe it’s the same thing,” he whispers back.

I think about that while Mrs. Fitzpatrick rambles on and on about how we need to celebrate the renewal of our friendship. Could we actually be saving the world? I never thought turning eleven would bring such responsibility. I would have stayed ten!

I turn off my alarm with a new sense of purpose.
Today I must pay close attention to what’s going on around me. I don’t want to miss a single opportunity to help anyone. I grab an extra notebook from my desk and title the first page:
THINGS I DID TODAY THAT HELPED PEOPLE
. By first period, this is what my list looks like:

1. Untwisted one of SpongeBob’s streamer arms. He looked uncomfortable. I’m sure he would have thanked me if he wasn’t. you know, a balloon.

2. Brought Dad a goody bag full of sick-person stuff — tissues, lozenges, bags
of tea, a
Peanuts
anthology (he loves Charlie Brown and I heard laughing when you’re sick helps you get better), and pink eye-shades. He was very grateful and said I was an excellent daughter.

3. Exchanged posters between Mom and Kylie. Mom hugged me, and Kylie grunted. I’m pretty sure I heard a “thank you” embedded in the grunt. I told Mom that I hope her presentation goes well, but that she’s a great person and her job is not a measure of her worth. (I came up with that after looking online last night for “things to say when someone you love gets fired.”)

4. When Ruby climbs on the bus I offer to help her with her large duffel. She does not accept my help.

5. When Stephanie gets on the bus I offer to help her, too, and she says, “sure,” and then gives me a birthday hug.

6. When I get to my locker I pick up the lollipop and ask everyone in the vicinity if it is theirs. Vinnie Prinz says it’s his! I give it to him and he says, “Sucka!” so I guess it really wasn’t his after all.

7. When Suzanne Griggs announces she doesn’t have a pen for the test, both Leo and I jump up to give her one instead of letting Ms. Gottlieb do it, which is what has happened every other time.

I’m about to stick the notebook back in my bag and start the quiz when Ms. Gottlieb appears at my side. She holds out her hand. “The rest of the class removed their belongings from their desk for the pop quiz when I asked. Yet still you scribble. What are you writing so
intently, Miss Ellerby? Not planning on cheating on the quiz, are you?”