13 Gifts (10 page)

There are no sidewalks in the alley, and I can’t ride on the broken cobblestones. No other choice but to push the bike. The watch-repair store is closed, as are all the others I pass. When I reach the last one on the right, I lean my bike against the wall and peer into the circle David had wiped off. Angelina’s Sweet Repeats and Collectibles is as full of stuff — and devoid of people — as it was yesterday. I check the times on the door. The sign only says
OPEN WEEKDAYS
, but doesn’t give any specific hours. Well, I have nowhere else to go, so I reach around for my backpack and settle down next to the door to wait.

I drum my fingers on my legs. I wish I had something to read. Something other than
The Fantastic Four,
sealed up tight in its protective bag. According to the cover, they meet the Hulk in this one. I guess he didn’t become
incredible
until later.

Not much to look at in this alley. None of the colorful awnings of Main Street, no flags waving from flagpoles, no life of any kind really, not even a breeze. And David was right — it does sort of smell like feet.

Hunger is starting to creep in, and I wonder if I should have accepted Ray’s offer of brekkie. Still, refusing to eat anything I don’t recognize has served me well up to this point. I pull the backpack onto my lap and unzip the outside pocket. Success! One of the granola bars Mom packed me for the train is still mostly intact. I inhale it, then look up and down the alley for a garbage can. Nope, none of those, either. I shove the wrapper back inside my bag, where my hand lands on a piece of folded
paper. My homework! I’d forgotten I stashed it there. At least it will be something to read.

I expect to see a list of questions on some boring topic or another, but instead, Mrs. Schafer, my English teacher, has written me a letter.

Tara,

Principal Murphy filled us in on what happened last week (although some of the details are a bit unclear). Obviously you are going through a difficult time right now, and the other teachers and I don’t want anything to derail your progress at the camp. Our experiences are what shape our lives, and as the great philosopher Socrates once said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” Therefore, we have agreed that if you write an essay at the end of your program, reflecting upon what you have learned from your experiences, we will accept that in place of individual final exams. You will not be graded on your words, only the effort made to complete the assignment. The choice is yours, of course. Please e-mail me back and let me know what you decide.

All our best to you in your time of struggle,

Mrs. Schafer

I grip the paper tight and reread it through twice more.
Progress at the camp. My time of struggle.
My teachers are picturing me at this camp for troubled teens, probably alone in my bunk, crying because no one understands me. I’m not sure life in Willow Falls is quite that bleak. Okay, so maybe right
this very minute, I’m sitting alone in a deserted alley trying to sell a stolen comic book so I’ll have even the slightest chance of fitting in with the kids in this town, but I don’t think that’s really the same thing.

If I tell Mrs. Schafer the truth — that my mom made up the whole camp thing so she could leave earlier on her trip — well, Mom would look really bad. So basically, I’d be a much better daughter by taking the offer.

“How long have you been sitting there?” a woman’s voice booms from behind me.

I jump to my feet. My backpack goes flying from my lap, and the letter drifts to the ground beside it. A short, old woman with white hair fills the open doorway. Her raised eyes and pressed lips manage to convey both annoyance and amusement at the same time.

“Um, a while I guess.”

“Did you think to knock?” she asks. “Or try the doorknob?”

I shake my head. “The store looked closed.” I swoop down to grab my backpack, and stuff the letter in my pocket.

She sighs and mutters something about needing to get better lighting. “So what are you looking for? Some vintage blue jeans? I have a mood ring from the eighties that turns green when you’re happy and black when you’re mad. All the teenage girls love ’em.”

I shake my head and am about to tell her about the comic, when I’m momentarily distracted by a large brown birthmark on her cheek. It looks like a chicken. Or no, more like a duck. And it kind of wiggles when she talks.

“No? Well, come on in, then,” she says, propping the door open. “Take your time and look around; I’ve got plenty of everything.”

I glance at my bike on the sidewalk. I guess it should be okay to leave it. No one has walked by in all the time I’ve been here. I follow the woman inside. The store reminds me of Uncle Roger’s room, except a lot less organized. But where his room has a layer of dust on everything, I can’t see even a speck in here. I barely have time to think about how odd that is because the shelves are so full of hats, toys, dishes, old clothes, costumes and scout uniforms, books, art,
everything,
that it’s hard to maneuver through the aisles without bumping into things.

“You break it, you bought it,” the woman warns as she walks up to the front counter.

I steady a foot-tall ceramic figurine of a ballet dancer that I definitely don’t want to have to buy, and clear my throat. “Actually, I’m hoping you’d buy something from me.”

She gestures to the shelves. “Sorry, but I’m focusing on more selling these days, less buying. Gotta clear out some inventory.”

My shoulders sag. “Oh.”

She pulls a large calculator out from under the counter and starts going through a stack of receipts. Is that it? Am I supposed to leave? If she doesn’t buy it, I can’t imagine anyplace else in town that would.

After a minute of standing there awkwardly, I pull out the comic book and rest it on the glass counter. “Um, do you know where else I can go? I really need to sell this.”

With an exasperated sigh, she turns away from the calculator and picks up the comic.
“Fantastic Four
#12, eh?” Her eyes flicker to my face. “Let me take a closer look.” She grabs a pair of rubber gloves from a box next to the register and puts them on. I figure this is a good sign. Then she carefully pulls the comic out of the clear cover and holds it up to her face, tilting it slightly to catch the overhead light.

“No sign of rust on the staples, corners not blunted, ink is bright, good reflectivity.” She ticks these qualities off matter-of-factly, then lays the book back on the counter and lifts up the front cover. She gently rubs her fingers across a few of the pages, nodding with satisfaction. “Supple paper, no brittle edges, minor signs of wear at the spine.”

She closes the book and pats the cover. “Near mint condition,” she declares as she slides it back into the covering.

I lean forward eagerly.

“But I can’t buy it from you.”

My face falls. “Why not?”

“Because I’d have to sell everything in the store to come up with enough money.”

I frown. “All I really need is two hundred dollars. Will you take it for that?”

She scoffs. “First of all, I can’t give you two hundred dollars for a comic that’s worth fifty times that. I have my reputation to uphold as proprietor of this fine establishment.”

Ugh. If it weren’t for Emily’s bladder, I would have had time to choose more wisely.

“And second,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her
ample chest, “I’m fairly certain Roger St. Claire isn’t ready to sell it.”

My mouth suddenly goes dry. “How … how do you know it’s his?”

The duck wiggles as she says, “Simple. I sold it to him.”

Chapter Ten

 

Horrified, I reach out for the comic book. But
Angelina is faster. She snatches it off the counter and takes a step back. Holding it over her head, she asks, “So what are we going to do about this?”

I take a few seconds to size up the situation. She’s not much taller than a kid. My arms are long, and the distance between me and the other side of the counter is short. I could easily lean over the counter and grab the comic and run out of the store. But besides not having the nerve to do that in a million years, where would it get me? She obviously knows my uncle.

I sigh in defeat. “Are you going to tell on me?”

She narrows her eyes. “The theft of such a valuable item is a serious crime. If I had bought it from you, I would have been an accessory to that crime. Don’t you think there should be consequences to all this? As an adult of, shall we say, advanced years, isn’t it my duty to teach you a valuable life lesson?”

Perhaps I should have thought this whole thing through a little more. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that as such a big collector, Uncle Roger would obviously have a relationship with the woman who ran the town’s only collectibles shop? I haven’t been very successful at talking my way out of things in recent
days, but I have to try. I take a deep breath and try to look as repentant as possible. “I already know stealing is wrong, and I promise I’ll never do it again. Please, don’t tell my uncle. He’s been so nice to me, welcoming me into his home when my parents are gone and everything. I’d feel really bad if he found out.”

She lowers the comic until it’s hanging by her side. “Your parents are gone? Where are they?”

“My parents …” I pause, taking note of the concern in her voice. Maybe she’s starting to feel sorry for me. “They left me on my own for the summer while they’re on the other side of the world.”

Her face softens. Encouraged by this, I keep going. “And I don’t have any money, and I didn’t want Uncle Roger to have to pay for everything for me, and I have to get this boy, David, a bar mitzvah gift, and honestly, there are two or three copies of each comic and I didn’t think he’d miss this one.” Everything I said this time was true, although not the whole story.

“What did you say your name was?” she asks, placing the comic on the counter between us. I still don’t dare take it.

“Tara Brennan.”

She tilts her head at me, in that same way Rory and Amanda did yesterday, like she’s trying to figure me out. I do my best to keep eye contact, to show that she can trust me. I notice that while she is clearly very old, there’s something different about her eyes. Like they belong in someone else’s face. Which, of course, is a totally crazy thing to think about someone’s eyes, but right now they’re looking straight into me and it’s making me even more nervous.

Finally she gives a quick nod and says, “Well, Tara. Let’s make a deal, shall we? You’re asking me not to tell your uncle you were about to sell off one of the most valuable comic books in his collection, correct?”

I nod, a bit worried about where this is heading.

“In exchange for my silence, are you willing to work for me?”

“Work — like here in the store?” I look around. It wouldn’t be so terrible to come in here for an afternoon or two. Maybe organize the merchandise a little better. Or take inventory or something.

But she shakes her head. “Not in the store. I’ve had my eye on a few items around town. Nothing valuable, some trinkets. Bric-a-brac really. It would be your job to obtain these items for me.”

“You want me to get you bricks? Like, from the side of a
building
?”

“Not bricks.
Bric-a-brac.
The kind of things you see here in the store. A little of this, a little of that. I’ll give you the list.”

“Okay.” That’s not so bad. So I’ll do a few errands for her. It will give me a chance to get to know the layout of the town better.

“And to prove I’m not the world’s meanest boss, I’m going to give you the two hundred dollars you were looking for, in exchange for doing this job for me.”

My eyes open wide in surprise. I’m going to get the money after all, just for picking up some stuff! And I can return the comic to the Collectibles Room, without anyone in the family
even knowing it was gone. I’m so relieved I could squeal. Although, like Emily, I’m not a fan of squealing girls.

“I wouldn’t spend that money too quickly if I were you,” Angelina warns. “Not everyone is going to hand over their belongings just because you ask. You might need to pay for them.”

I knew it was too good to be true. “You mean the stuff hasn’t been paid for yet?”

She shakes her head.

I get a sinking feeling. “Do these people even know you
want
their things?”

She shakes her head again. “Nope. That’s where you come in. You get to convince them to hand over the goods.” “How am I supposed to do that?”

She shrugs. “You’ll have to offer them money, or charm them with your winning personality. Stealing the goods, I feel the need to point out, is
not
an option.”

She bends down and rummages under the counter. All I can see is the top of her shoulders. I assume she’s digging around for the money to give me, but when she resurfaces, she plunks an old-fashioned tape recorder on the counter instead. “I don’t trust making lists on paper,” she says, sliding the tape recorder closer to me. “Paper burns, it drifts away. These babies will last forever.”

Honestly, the thing must be forty years old. Inside the scratched window lies a single cassette tape. Whatever words had been written on the label faded into blue smudges long ago. “What do I do with
this
?”

She rolls her eyes. “You take it home and listen to it. The list
of objects is on there. I’d start tracking them down right away if I were you. It might take you some time to find them.”

My jaw drops. “You mean you’re not going to tell me who has them?”

“Don’t know myself. They’re here in town somewhere.” She waves her arms around as if that’s helpful in any way.

I grip the edges of the counter. “But what if I can’t find everything?”

She leans over the counter and puts her hand on mine. It is surprisingly comforting. “If you can’t get everything on that list, you will simply return the money. Oh, and either you’ll tell your uncle about the comic or I will.”

I yank my hand away. Obviously I’ll have spent all the money by that time. Where would I get another two hundred to pay her back? I couldn’t. And of course I don’t want Uncle Roger to know about the comic. Which means I have no choice but to find everything on that list.

Quick as a flash, she presses a combination of buttons on her cash register and the drawer shoots open. She counts out ten twenty-dollar bills and hands them to me. I zip them up into my bag, then check the zipper twice. There’s no way I’m losing ANY money this time.

“Um, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” I say, forcing myself to make direct eye contact, “but maybe there’s something I can do here instead? I’m really good at organizing things. Or I could sweep or dust. I mean, no one knows me in Willow Falls, so wouldn’t it just be easier if
you
asked them for these items, instead?”

“Believe it or not,” she says, “some people have been known to lock their doors when they see me coming.”

“Why? Because you’re always asking for their stuff?”

“Sure, we’ll go with that explanation. And now that you mention it, you’d be best off not telling them it’s for me.”

“But people must sell you stuff all the time, the shelves are full of—”

“No need to come back until you have everything on the list,” she says, cutting me off. “I’ll see you here in a month, let’s say July thirteenth.”

“But that’s my thirteenth birthday,” I blurt out, although saying it makes me sound like I’m about two years old. And it’s not like I have other plans that day.

She peers closer at me. “You know what happens when you turn thirteen, don’t you?”

“You become a teenager?”

She scoffs. “Much more than that. At thirteen your soul becomes settled in your body. You become the core of the person you will be for the rest of your life. And thanks to me, you’ll have paid off your debt to society by completing this job. You can enter your teen years free and clear.”

I’ve had pretty much enough of this. “Honestly, isn’t ‘debt to society’ a bit much? Selling the comic book would only have affected one person. If he even noticed.”

“You truly believe that?” she asks.

I nod, more confidently than I feel.

She shakes her head. “Our actions have long-lasting consequences, of which we often have no knowledge. They ripple far out into the universe.”

“I know that.” After all, me being sent to Willow Falls is proof of how well I know that. “But trust me, I’m a sit-this-one-out kind of girl. I don’t get involved for that exact reason. I don’t want to ripple anyone’s universe.”

She puts her hand on mine again and, again, I relax a tiny bit. “Well, you’re off the sidelines now, kid. Welcome to the game.”

Then she steps into her office and closes the door behind her.

I rock back on my heels. This is
sooooo
not how I thought my morning would go. My brain is swirling. Souls solidifying? Me, in the game? How can I be in the game when I don’t know any of the rules?

After five minutes of her not returning, I see no other choice but to accept her terms. I slide the comic into my backpack and reach for the tape recorder. I can barely lift it! It must weigh thirty pounds! How did Angelina make it look so effortless? She must be stronger than she looks. I lug the old machine out of the store, clutching it to my chest with both arms. There’s gotta be a dozen better ways to make a list of something.

By the time I get back to the house, I’m exhausted from the effort of balancing the tape recorder on top of Emily’s wicker basket, which I’ll now have to replace due to it being totally squashed. I’d had to keep a hand on the machine at all times, which meant leaning over the handlebars and riding at a really awkward angle.

Thankfully no one else is home or else it would have been hard to explain the sudden appearance of a giant tape recorder from the days before people walked on the moon. I can tell that
Aunt Bethany has come and gone again, because there are shopping bags piled up on the stairs.

The first thing I see when I get up to the bedroom is a large red and white shopping bag on my bed. I rest the tape recorder on the desk and peek inside the bag. Clothes. A lot of very colorful clothes that are way too big for Emily. I dump out the bag until it looks like a rainbow exploded on my bed. Had Emily told her mom about my lack of wardrobe? Or maybe Aunt Bethany saw it for herself when she put me to bed that first night. It was really nice of her to do this, but everything’s so … bright.

Leaving the clothes where they are, I return to the task at hand — returning the comic. Even though I didn’t see any cars, I still put my ear up to the door of the Collectibles Room. Satisfied that all I hear is the hum of the central air-conditioning, I turn the knob and push. But the door doesn’t budge.

It’s locked! How could it be locked? I feel the panic rise up in me. Uncle Roger would have had to lock it sometime between midnight last night and now. Why would he do that? Did he know someone had been there? Did he know it was me?

I feel way too obvious standing here in the hall. Someone could come home at any minute and see me holding it. I need to hide the comic somewhere really good. It can’t be in my suitcase, since both Emily and Aunt Bethany seem to have no hesitations about going in there. I stare down the hall. The lab! All those piles of magazines that couldn’t have been looked at in five years. If I slipped it in between them, it would blend right in.

So I listen at the lab door, then push it open. Everything looks just as it did that first night when I stumbled into the
room by mistake. I head right for the magazines and slip the comic inside an issue of
Inventors Digest
from seven years ago. I stack a few more issues on top of it, then stand back. Looks good. And if Uncle Roger
did
happen to come across it, maybe he’d think he left it there himself by mistake. Until I can get that other door open, this will have to be a good enough option.

Now, on to the tape recorder. I sit at Emily’s desk and examine it from all sides. I press the little button that’s supposed to release the tape cover, but nothing happens. I try to wrench it open to get at the tape underneath, but it won’t let me lift it enough to get my fingers in there. It would help if there were a button that actually said
PLAY SO
I could tell if the tape still worked. I rub my finger over the large black buttons and can feel the symbols carved into them that must have been white once. I choose the one with the triangle on it and press it down. Nothing but a click as it releases back up. I try the one with the circle. Then the one with the arrows pointing right. Then pointing left. Finally, the square. Why would Angelina have given me a broken tape recorder?

“You should check the batteries,” Uncle Roger suggests from the doorway. I jump up so quickly that my knee bangs against the underside of the desk. The pain shoots through my leg, but I’m too busy trying to block his view of the tape recorder to pay it much attention. Darn that plush carpet that I had been so thankful for when it was ME sneaking around!

“Sorry to startle you. Just got home and wanted to see if you’d had lunch.” He steps over to the desk and peers around me. “Is that one of my old tape recorders?”

“Um, I …” How can I lie to him after everything that happened today? But how can I tell him the truth? So I compromise and say, “Actually, I got it in town today.”

He lights up. “You like old machines, too, eh? Wait’ll you see all the junk I’ve got. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

So I follow him back to the lab, where I have to pretend I’ve never been before. “Wow, you sure have a lot of stuff.”

He nods, grinning like a little kid. “You never know when you’ll need a little knob or a tiny piece of wire, or when two totally different objects will inspire a brand-new invention. That’s how the Sand-Free Beach Towel came to be.” To my horror, he goes over to the piles of magazines and says, “You’re welcome to look through any of these for inspiration of your own. Some of them go back from before Emily was born.” He is literally standing six inches away from where I hid the comic. The universe is seriously playing games with me.