Lost and Found (10 page)

Mom clapped, and they both started running toward the front door. Phin was there, with his curlicue tail wagging as fast as his little bottom could shake.

“Phinnie!”
Madison screeched. She threw her arms around him and buried her teary face in his coarse fur. “He came home!”

“Thank goodness,” Mom said.

Madison lifted Phin up and carried him inside while Mom hurried to call the Gillespies and everyone else who had helped them look for Phin around the neighborhood.

“Nice dog breath, Phin!” Madison said, pulling her head away from his nonstop kisses. They headed upstairs, where Madison could towel him off (he’d been out in the cold for so long!). Together they curled up on her comforter for a reunion snooze.

Phin just wheezed and wheezed, happy to be warm—and happier than happy to be home.

That night, Mom made soup and sandwiches for dinner. Madison wasn’t all that hungry from the day’s excitement, but she joined Mom at the table, anyway.

“While you and the runaway dog were napping, your father called,” Mom said with a smile.

“What did Dad want?” Madison asked.

“He’s trying to get a flight home Monday or Tuesday. The airport in Denver is still messed up. The storms are in Colorado and out west now. It’s a travel nightmare, Dad said.”

Madison missed Dad. He’d been gone for almost a week now.

“So he’s coming over when he gets back?” Madison asked.

“Yes, honey bear. He’ll be here. He promised.”

Madison yawned. “I’m so tired, Mom,” she said. “I think I’m going to go upstairs and go to bed for real.”

“Well, it’s been some day, Maddie. I don’t blame you. And I’m sure Phinnie is tired, too.”

They kissed good night, and Madison headed back up to her room.

She went to crawl into bed but stopped herself on the way. Her laptop was sitting open on her desk but she hadn’t checked her e-mail since the power outage the night before.

In the half darkness of her bedroom, she logged on to TweenBlurt.com.

Phin curled up at her feet.

From: MadFinn


To: Bigwheels


Subject: Hello


Date: Thurs 18 Jan 7:23
PM


How are you???? I just checked the site to see if I could message you, but you aren’t online. Today was without a doubt the strangest EVER. I went skating, but that wasn’t everything. So much happened! Phin ran away, Ivy got hit with a snowball, and way more than that. I’ll tell you all about it the next time we chat. I’m too tired to repeat it all right now. I’m going to bed and it isn’t even eight o’clock at night!


Please write back sooner than soon. I miss you, Bigwheels!


Yours till the snow drifts,


MadFinn


p.s. I’m putting another picture of Phinnie on here. Mom took this during the blizzard. Yikes! Snow dog!


Attachment: PHINSTORM.jpg


Madison yawned again. Her eyes felt droopy. But she could see that she had some e-mail, and she was too curious not to look.

From: Wetwins


To: The Skates


Subject: Cocoa Party SUNDAY


Date: Thurs 18 Jan 7:01
PM


Hello everybody, the hot choc party is ON!!!!!!!!!!! This is where Chet and Fiona live: 23 Ridge Road (near intersection of Walker Avenue). Be there at one o’clock. We are making food and hot chocolate, and we’ll be doing something fun like playing videos or games. SO B there or B a loser!!!! LOL L8R 4 U!


Madison scanned the e-mail to see if she could figure out the list of people who had been invited. She remembered that Ivy hadn’t been standing around when Chet told everyone else about the party. Maybe that meant Ivy wouldn’t be asked? Maybe she wouldn’t show up?

Madison hoped as hard as she possibly could that Ivy was left off the list. She hoped so hard, she crossed her fingers, toes,
and
eyes.

But then she saw a second e-mail in her box with the same subject line. Unfortunately it was from Ivy! She’d hit REPLY ALL when she got Chet’s message. This meant she
had
been invited.

From: Flowr99


To: Wetwins


Cc: The Skates


Subject: Re: Cocoa Party SUNDAY


Date: Thurs 18 Jan 7:31
PM


Fab! I will TOTALLY see you there, Chet. Thank you again for inviting me. TTFN.


:>) Ivy


Why was Madison so haunted this week by letters from Ivy? Some she could open…and some she couldn’t open, but the letters followed her
everywhere.

Madison wanted to screech.

She opened up a new file instead.

Lost and Found


I thought the real snow that falls from the sky was bad enough, but boy, was I ever WRONG! There are worse storms in my life like I-V-Y. How come she acts so superior to everyone else? And how come she keeps showing up wherever I am? I really doubt if Fiona would have invited the enemy over! Chet is a chucklehead.


Skating was a disaster. I felt invisible. And Hart pretended to be all nice, but I think he sees me more like a friend and nothing else. At least I hope he sees me like a friend! Aimee whispered to me today that he is always looking at me and asked if I liked him. I could have swallowed my gum! No way, I said. NO ONE LIKES HART except for Poison Ivy. I hate lying to Aimee, but she can’t know. I would die of embarrassment if everyone knew that I liked the same person as Poison Ivy.


Just when I think I’m done finding out everything I can about Ivy, she somehow makes my life miserable AGAIN. Like now I STILL have this sealed letter that I found. I keep trying to blow it off—and it keeps coming back to bug me!!! The new plan is that I will show it to her at the party and that will be the end of it. She thinks she knows everything, but I will show her a few things. HA!


Rude Awakening:
No one likes a snow-it-all.


Ivy’s the real blizzard around here. Just when I think she’s gone, she slams me harder than before.


But she better watch out.


This weekend, I’m ready to slam back.


“Y
OU LOOK SOOOOOO GOOD!”
Aimee squealed as she and Madison walked into the Waterses’ house together.

It was a half hour before Sunday’s party’s official “start time.” They wanted to arrive early and hang out with Fiona alone for a while.

“I missed you guys so much!” Fiona cooed. She coughed a little. “You shouldn’t get too close, though. Just in case I’m still contagious or something.”

“I missed you, too, Fiona!” Madison leaned in for a squeeze. “And I don’t care if I catch your flu. Being sick would be better than everything that’s been happening to me.”

“I heard that Phin ran away,” Fiona said. “But he’s okay now, right?”

“Yeah,” Madison said. “He had me so scared.”

They walked into the kitchen, where Mr. and Mrs. Waters were both putting food out on trays. They had prepared a fondue pot with melted chocolate, marshmallow crispy treats, and other fun munchies.

“Have some!” Mrs. Waters handed Aimee a brownie, but she refused.

“I’m on a diet,” she said.

Madison rolled her eyes and took the brownie. “I’ll try it,” she said, smiling.

“You know there are like a thousand calories in just one brownie,” Aimee said. Madison ate it, anyway.

In the living room, a VCR was set up with movies so kids could watch TV if they wanted. In the downstairs family room, another area was set up so everyone could hang out and listen to music.

“This is a real party,” Aimee said, impressed. “I thought we’d just be hanging out talking and eating and drinking cocoa. This is serious, Fiona.”

“Well, my parents like to overdo everything,” Fiona admitted. “They always want us to have a good time.”

Madison and Aimee giggled.

Madison loved being at Fiona’s house before the party started…before Ivy Daly came.

She felt around inside her jacket just to make sure the letter was still there. As soon as she got rid of the letter, she’d lose all memories of her enemy.

Dingdong.

Egg and Drew arrived and went into the living room with Chet. They hooked up the PlayStation and started to play without saying hello to Mr. and Mrs. Waters or the girls.

Fiona grabbed a potato chip and took a seat in the dining room. She wanted to be filled in on all the gossip from ice skating.

Who skated with whom? What happened on the ice?

Most important, she wanted to know…what was
Egg
doing the whole time? Her major crush on Egg didn’t go away even when she hadn’t seen him in days.

Dingdong. Dingdong.

Ivy and Hart, by coincidence, arrived at the exact same time.

Madison hated coincidences. It was the superstitious side of her acting up. She figured that this coincidence meant Ivy would be sitting next to Hart the whole time they were at Fiona’s (when not surrounded by her drones, of course).

Madison kept a hawk’s eye on her enemy during the start of the party. She had to find the right time to bring out the letter.

But when?

She almost followed Ivy into the bathroom once, until Ivy shot her a look.

“I think I was here first,” Ivy said, shutting the door. “You’ll have to wait.”

There was another moment in the middle of eating when Madison found herself in the kitchen alone with Ivy. But all she could do was stare. She had a total speech block.

“Do you have a problem?” Ivy asked.

Madison took a mouthful of chips. “No,” she said, chewing. “I was just zoning out. Sorry.”

“Whatever,” Ivy grunted.

As Ivy walked away, Madison fingered the letter inside her pocket. Why couldn’t she let go? Why couldn’t she just tell her the truth? The longer Madison waited to share the sealed letter…the bigger deal it became.

After everyone had eaten plates of food from the kitchen, Chet gathered the group in the family room with Twister. But no one really felt like playing a game where you had to bend and crouch.

“We just ate,” Dan said. “My stomach is way too full.”

He burped for emphasis.

“How gross,” Aimee said.

He burped again.

“I know! Let’s play truth or dare instead,” Ivy suggested.

Fiona started to say, “I don’t really want to—”

But Egg interrupted. “Totally!” he said. “Excellent idea. Truth or dare.”

The group sat on the floor in a circle. Ivy sat next to Hart, just as Madison had predicted. Everyone else sat mostly boy-girl, boy-girl.

“We should actually play spin the bottle truth or dare,” Ivy said, amending her original suggestion.

“What’s
that
?” Madison asked.

Ivy demonstrated.

“You spin the bottle and it lands on someone like this.” She grabbed a soda bottle from the table and spun it around on the floor. “So in this case it landed on Rose. Now, I ask Rose, ‘Truth or dare?’”

“Dare!” Rose blurted.

“Okay.” Ivy laughed. “So now I think up a really, really good dare. Like, spin the bottle again and you have to kiss the person it lands on.”

“Kiss?” Aimee exclaimed.

“I don’t want to play this game, Ivy,” Fiona said.

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Chet said to his sister. “It’ll be really fun.”

Aimee leaned over to Fiona. “Maybe it won’t be terrible. Let’s try.”

“Okay, so who’s going to start?” Ivy asked. She handed the bottle to her left to Drew. He smiled as he took it.

Drew spun. It pointed back to himself, and everyone in the room laughed.

He spun again, and it landed on Hart’s friend Susie.

“So what do I do?” Drew asked.

“Truth or dare?” Ivy reminded him.

He asked Susie which she wanted.

“Truth,” Susie said, without missing a beat. “Absolutely.”

“Okay.” Drew thought for a minute. “Have you ever been to a foreign country?”

“Wait, wait!” Ivy blurted. “What kind of a question is
that
?”

“You didn’t say there was a special kind of question I was supposed to ask,” Drew said.

“Well, everyone knows that you’re supposed to ask better ones than that,” Ivy said. “No one cares if she went to a foreign country.”

“I do,” Madison said.

“I have a better question!” Egg said. He whispered it to Drew.

“Okay.” Drew changed his question. “What’s the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?”

Susie smiled. She thought for a moment.

Hart cracked up. “I know that one, Susie. Don’t lie!”

“Hart, be quiet!” Susie said. “Let me see…”

Ivy made a face. “What are you talking about, Hart?”

“Let Susie answer,” Madison said to Ivy. Of course she was curiouser than curious about what Susie and Hart had meant by that comment, too.

“Well, I guess you’re right, Hart,” Susie said, looking over at Hart again. “That
was
the most embarrassing thing ever. Well, this summer…Hart saw me naked.”