11 Birthdays (17 page)

“No, of course not,” I reply shakily. I’ve never been accused of cheating before.

“I’ll be watching you,” she says. She walks away slowly, her eyes never leaving mine.

“Yikes,” Leo mouths from across the room. I sink into my chair. Just to be on the safe side, I get a few answers wrong.

Bee Boy is as happy today as yesterday when I give him the periodic table. Happier even, because this time I drew it in black pen. At lunch I make sure to do a better job of cutting the cupcake so it doesn’t crumble. A small thing, I know, but I’m not taking any chances. After the last bell rings I force myself to go to the gym and change back into my gym clothes. I know that if I made the team, it would be helping out Stephanie, so I have to do this for her. When I see Ruby in the locker room and she asks me in that snide way of hers if I’m excited about tryouts, I answer honestly that I’m not likely to make it, but that I’m sure she will. Instead of telling me about other girls freezing up like she did in the past, this time she actually gives me a small smile.

As I’m standing up there with Stephanie cheering me on, I suddenly understand something. I
can
do a back handspring. And not only because I’ve practiced over the past few days. I probably could have done it the first time. I was just scared. But it would take a lot more to scare me now, after everything I’ve been through. So I swing my arms a few times to get momentum, and then fly backward, my hands landing perfectly behind me. Well, not perfectly, exactly, but at least they land and I don’t fall. Stephanie and some of the other girls clap for me, and I return to the bench with a spring in my step.

“That was amazing!” Stephanie squeals, grabbing my arm. “I’ve never seen you do that before!”

“Oh, I’ve been doing that for years,” I reply, laughing. Instead of running out to wait for her mom to pick us up, I sit with the other girls. Coach Lyons consults her clipboard for a few minutes while we grasp hands. Mena, Heather, Jess, and the other girls who are already on the team stand with her while she reads off the list of the girls who made it. Ruby’s name is called first, then two other girls who I don’t know very well, then the transfer student Jana Morling, then Stephanie, and then last of all, me! I made
it! I’m kind of stunned. I used to love gymnastics. Maybe this will be a good thing? Stephanie’s really happy and on the way home her mom takes us all for ice cream.

When I get home I tiptoe in so I don’t wake Dad on the couch. He’s wearing the pink eye-shades I gave him this morning. I carefully tuck his blanket around him. Instead of hiding up in my room, I finish setting up the basement for the party. If all goes according to plan, this will be the last time I have to do this.

Instead of only eight kids, this time thirteen show up! All the other kids who made the gymnastics team are here! They came with Stephanie. Everyone’s having a good time dancing (I replaced Dad’s CD selection) when the phone rings. It’s too early for Mom to get her bad news, so I can’t imagine who it could be.

“It’s Leo!” Mom says excitedly, shoving the phone at me. She motions for my dad to turn off the CD player. Everyone crowds around. Leo and I had kept our distance all day so as not to complicate things. Now I’m going to have to pretend this is our first conversation in a year.

“Um, hello?” I say.

“I’m not on speaker, am I?” Leo says quickly.

“No, but everyone’s hanging on to my every word,” I warn. My friends grin and move even closer. I cup my hand over the phone. “So, um, what’s up?”

“I think we better have our parties together,” he says. “The journal says they celebrated the harvest together. Maybe we have to do that, too, or it won’t work!”

Loudly, I reply, “You say you’re really sorry for everything you said? You have a big present for me and want me to bring everyone over?” The crowd squeals in delight.

On the other end of the phone Leo groans. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Just get everyone over here.”

“Okay, I’ll try. Happy birthday to you, too!”

“Oh, right, happy birthday.” He hangs up and I hand the phone back to Mom who looks like she’s going to burst.

Everyone’s watching me expectantly. “Um, how would you all like to see a really great band?”

It’s unanimous. Everyone wants to go. I suggest to Mom that she invite Mrs. Grayson, who is surprised but seems excited to come. Between the three cars we’re able to fit everyone.

On the way there Stephanie keeps pestering me. “So
exactly what did he say? Are you guys friends now?” I give her my standard reply, “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Then I realize if this works, I’ll actually have to make good on that promise!

“Nice shoes,” Leo says as soon as I step out of the car.

“You haven’t spoken to me in a year, and that’s the first thing you say?”

He looks around at the crowd surrounding us. “Um, sorry, I mean, hey, great costume!”

I look past him and can’t stifle my gasp. Tiki torches line the path from the driveway to the whole backyard, where a huge tent has been set up, complete with hanging strobe lights. I even spot a cotton candy machine! I grab Leo by the sleeve and tell the group, “Go have fun, Leo and I have a few things to talk about in private.” I drag him to the far side of the yard.

“A
tent?
Cotton
candy?
I think you left out a few details about your party. You could have just told me. I’d have found out anyway.”

Before he can answer, a boy holding cotton candy in one hand and a snow cone in the other calls out, “Great party!”

I grit my teeth. Leo gives a halfhearted wave in return and says, “I figured if tomorrow never came, no one would tell you about it.”

I watch as some huge guy in an orange-and-black football uniform — who could only be Paul the Ball — teaches a group of adoring boys how to properly hold a football. I know it shouldn’t matter after everything we’ve been through, but it does. To think that this is how he was celebrating his birthday without me really hurts.

“Look,” he says quietly, “I told you I didn’t ask for this. It only made me feel worse, not better, that you weren’t here.”

I kick at the grass with my red shoe. I wish I’d gone upstairs to change before coming over.

Leo steps a little closer. “You’re here now, right? So this is OUR party, not my party.”

At that moment Bobby Simon walks by. “Cluck, cluck!” he says with a wave.

I can’t help but smile. “Guess I missed the hypnotist?”

Leo nods. “Yup, poor Bobby. He doesn’t have a clue. The hypnotist said it will wear off by tomorrow.”

I watch Bobby greet Mena, Heather, and Jess with
clucks. They laugh at him. He slinks away, confused. “If we can’t make tomorrow come, he’ll be clucking for the rest of his life!”

“There you are,” my mom says, reaching out her arms and giving Leo a big hug. “I’ve missed you, you little rascal!”

Leo grins and lets my mom ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks. My mom’s not usually the cheek-pinching type. Dad comes up from behind and slaps Leo on the back. He might have been a little over enthusiastic because he almost knocks Leo over. Dad starts to apologize but ends up in one of his sneezing fits. Across the yard the band is starting up. Raising his voice over the twang of the electric banjo, Leo says, “Run, save yourselves. Trust me, you don’t want to hear this.”

“Nonsense,” my dad says, swinging my mom around to the dance floor. “This is knee-slappin’ music!” Mom giggles and lets herself be twirled around.

Leo leans in closer and shouts, “I guess she didn’t get fired yet?”

I shake my head and shout, “I took her cell phone out of her purse before we came!”

Leo nods appreciatively. “Nice!”

“Let’s go inside,” I shout.

We make our way through the crowd of laughing kids — many holding their hands over their ears — and stumble into the kitchen. Piles of plastic cups line the countertop, along with soda and juices of every kind. Leo pours us each a cup of lemonade and says, “A hundred years ago, our great-great-grandfathers made a toast to their friendship, so I thought we should, too.”

He raises his cup into the air, but I lower mine. “Are we just doing this because they did it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Having our party together, and this toast. Are we doing it to break the enchantment, or because we want to?”

He lowers his own cup. “Well, if all this wasn’t happening to us, wouldn’t you still want to have our parties together?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “And if I had to be stuck in time with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.”

“Me too.” He raises his cup again and I tap mine to it. We both drink and then grab our throats. He chokes out the words, “Real lemons, no sugar.”

Stephanie walks in, arm in arm with Mena. “Hey, Leo!” she says. “Great party! Really bad band!” Mena just looks bored. But that’s how she usually looks.

“Nice ears,” Leo says, pointing at Stephanie’s elf ears.

Stephanie unlinks her arm and reaches up. When she feels them, her face reddens and she tugs them off.

“So, Amanda,” Mena says, digging through a bowl of chips. “You’ll have to work on that back handspring over the summer if you want to be ready to compete.”

“Compete?” Leo asks, turning to me.

“Oh, yeah. I made the gymnastics team!” I say with more excitement than I feel. I hadn’t thought at all about the competing part.

“You
did
?” Leo couldn’t be more shocked. “Wow, you’ve been busy today.”

“C’mon, Steph,” Mena says, “let’s go find the bathroom.” They link their arms together again, and Steph waves as Mena pulls her down the hall.

“I only tried out because I thought it would help Stephanie, you know, to have me with her on the team.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to do it.”

“I just want this birthday to end. I wasn’t really thinking about the consequences. It doesn’t really matter. I’m the worst person on the team, I’ll probably never have to compete.”

Kids are starting to make their way inside, away from the band. Jimmy Dawson calls out, “Hey, Dorothy, how’s Oz these days?” but he says it in a nice way.

Before we’re completely surrounded, Leo whispers, “If we did everything right today, then you’ll have the whole summer to practice. And if we didn’t, you’ll just have to try out again tomorrow.”

“We did,” I whisper confidently. “I know we did. What more could we have done?”

Leo’s mom sticks her head in the room. “Amanda! You’re wanted on the dance floor!”

I put any doubts out of my mind as I let Mrs. Fitzpatrick drag me onto the dance floor where I finally get to kick off my shoes. The band is playing some kind of jig that’s totally impossible to dance to, but I’m having fun. I finally feel right where I’m supposed to be — celebrating my birthday with Leo and all our friends and families. For a split second I think I catch sight of Angelina by the snow cone machine. Does she know about the break-in? Is she going to tell our parents? But when I look closer, it’s just a crowd of kids jostling to scoop out cups of purple ice. I shake my head to clear it of the image of a waddling duck. After all, Leo put the
journal back behind the drawer, and we closed the back window. At least I’m pretty sure we closed the back window.

If we forgot, we’ll just go tomorrow and apologize. Maybe even volunteer for a couple of hours answering visitors’ questions about Willow Falls’s history. Somehow Angelina is involved in all this. And someday I’d like to know how. But for now it’s enough that it’s over. Tomorrow I’m going to sleep for a long, long time. And then I’m going to open my presents.

Nothing in the whole entire world sounds worse
than the
beep beep beep
of my alarm clock. When I hear it this morning I lie still at first, in utter disbelief. Then I calmly get out of bed, unplug the alarm clock, and throw it out the window with all my might. It tangles in the tree branches then falls with a satisfying crash onto the dirt below. I’m about to kick the SpongeBob balloon, but before my foot strikes his yellow sponge belly, I make myself stop. It’s not his fault he’s still here.

Like a zombie, I get dressed and scribble the periodic table that I hadn’t made last night because I didn’t think I’d need it. Before Kylie gets back from her run I duck into her room to use the phone she got installed last month for her thirteenth birthday.

Leo’s dad answers on the first ring. Instead of a simple hello, he says, “Top of the morning to you,” when he picks up.

“Um, this is Amanda, can I speak to Leo?”

“Amanda!” he thunders happily. “So wonderful to hear your voice! Happy birthday!”

“It’s not that happy,” I mutter.

“Leo’s going to be thrilled to hear from you,” he continues. “He’s been moping around all morning. He feels terrible about what happened last year, you know.”

“I know.”

“Let me put him on. I hope we’ll see you tonight?”

I sigh. “Pretty sure you will.”

Leo gets on the phone. His dad must still be standing there because Leo says, “Amanda! So great to hear from you. I’m so sorry about our fight. I was a total jerk. Let’s make up. What’s that? You forgive me? You’re the best! I’ll meet you when your bus pulls into school and we’ll talk.”

When he finally pauses to take a breath, I ask, “Leo, what did we do wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, “but we’re going to find out.” His voice muffles a bit and I figure he’s got his hand over
the mouthpiece. “Keep doing what the journal said. Help whoever you can.”

“What are you doing?” Kylie demands, walking in on me.

“Gotta go,” I tell Leo. “See you at the bus stop.”

“I’m sorry for using your phone,” I tell her, not up for a fight right now. “I needed to call Leo.”

“Leo?” she asks, clearly caught off guard. “Why? Shouldn’t he be the one to call you after all this time?”

I want to point out that she’s the one who’s planning on asking a boy out today, but that wouldn’t go over very well. I answer honestly. “This is a really hard day for me. I woke up this morning and really needed to talk to him.”

Grabbing her clean clothes from her drawers, she says, “Why is this such a hard day for you? It’s only your eleventh birthday. Try turning thirteen, that’s MUCH harder.”