Henry & Eva and the Famous People Ghosts

by Andrea Portes

  Great. Just like the others. So very helpful.

  22

  “NOT EVERYTHING IS exactly what it seems,” Henry repeats the words of wisdom.

  Zeb looks at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Not everything is exactly what it seems. That’s what he told us, Humphrey Bogart,” Henry explains.

  “Oh! Right. Yeah, that’s just like the time Elvis Presley told me, ‘You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas,’ or when Abraham Lincoln advised, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ or when Martin Luther King Jr. took me aside at my friend’s bar mitzvah and told me never to count my chickens before they’re hatched. . . .” Zeb jokes.

  “Eva, what do you think it means?” Henry turns to me.

  “I have no idea.”

  Zeb jumps in. “One time, Mohandas Gandhi said, ‘Eat your broccoli.’”

  That burning hot sensation is back in my face. There is a terrible feeling oozing through my veins that I still don’t understand. I try to tamp it down as I seethe. “Gandhi is famous for using hunger strikes as a form of protest, so I very much doubt he said that at all!”

  Henry and Zeb stare at me.

  “Sorry, I just. Look, I’m a little bit concerned about Binky. Remember? The one who is over there being kidnapped? Your would-be stepmother?!”

  We all look back at the loading dock. Binky is, indeed, being escorted, now by one of the lesser tweedle minions, to a black SUV near the back of the dock. I bet that must belong to the Midwestern Mastermind. Huh. I wouldn’t have pegged him as a Cadillac type. But maybe that is exactly who he is.

  Poor Binky. I can see the mascara smears from crying on the sides of her cheeks. That’s the thing about wedding makeup. They really pile it on. It’s like, “Hi, I’m your bride and I am also a cake face! Marry me!” I wonder who set the heavy makeup rule as the wedding norm. I mean, why doesn’t the groom have to wear all that stuff? He’s probably the one that needs it more.

  “Okay, we have to think of a plan. Henry?” Zeb turns to him, expectantly.

  “I take it you mean I have to think of a plan?” Henry quips.

  “Well, yes,” Zeb admits. “I mean, you’re so awesome at it.”

  I fight the sudden lurch in my stomach. It feels like I’m going to hurl.

  “All right, let’s see . . .” Henry thinks.

  SCCRRRTTTCHHH. SCCRRRTTTCHHH.

  The walkie-talkie has a plan of its own. The three of us lean in, waiting to hear the next dispatch.

  “Where the heck are you nitwits? We’re behind schedule enough as it is!” The nasal tones of the Midwestern Mastermind puncture the airwaves.

  “What?” The tweedle voice answers.

  “I said, where the heck are you! I told you to meet me down here twenty minutes ago!”

  “Down where?” Tweedle sounds confused.

  “DOWN HERE! The loading dock, you meathead!”

  “No, boss, you said to stay where we are and wait for your next order. I remember and so do the guys. . . . You guys remember that right? Right? . . . Yeah, the guys remember it, too. You told us to stay put.”

  “What are you talking about?! Have you lost your mind?! I told you to get the heck down to the loading dock RIGHT AWAY because we were already behind and now we are even MORE BEHIND, you dipstick!”

  “You also said you would work on your abusiveness,” the tweedle-guard replies.

  “What?! What did you just say?”

  “You actually apologized for being so disrespectful and said you would work on it—”

  “I did no such thing! Why would I do such a thing! If I want to be disrespectful I am damn right going to be as disrespectful, mean, abusive, horrible as I want!”

  “That’s your choice, dude,” Tweedle answers.

  “Dude?! Did you just call me DUDE?! Now, listen to me. If you want this job, and you want the money, and you don’t want to spend your whole life in prison, then you and your band of noodle-brains will get your butts over to the loading dock tout suite!”

  “Tout what?”

  “Tout. Sweet! It’s French! Meaning RIGHT NOW!”

  The Midwestern Mastermind hangs up. There’s a blip as he switches off his walkie.

  The three of us look at one another.

  Zeb shrugs and picks up the walkie-talkie.

  SCCCRTTTCCHH. SCCCRTTTCCHH.

  “Hey, guys?” Zeb’s Midwestern Mastermind voice is spot-on.

  “Uh, yeah, boss?” Tweedle answers hesitantly.

  “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Um . . .” Tweedle doesn’t know what to say.

  “It’s just, I need to work on my impulse control. It’s a process. You know what I mean?” Zeb winks at us.

  “Uh, yeah, boss, sure.” I can hear the squiggle in tweedle- guard’s squiggly mouth.

  “Probably something to do with my blood sugar. Anyway, I’ve got it in under control here so you guys just meet me at the west gate,” Zeb orders them as the Midwestern Mastermind.

  “Uh, but you just said—”

  “I know what I just said. But I changed my mind. The plan is more efficient this way. Think of it as a plan B. Go to the west gate. And I’ll meet you guys there.” Zeb is enjoying this.

  “Uhhmmm. Okaaaay. We’ll just be at the . . . west gate, then. Till you meet us,” Tweedle answers.

  “Nice. I really enjoy working with you guys. Teamwork. It makes the dream work.” Zeb hangs up.

  The three of us look at one another. Then we hear, over the walkie-talkie, the tweedle-guard talking to the other guards.

  “Dude, this guy’s a psychopath.”

  23

  THERE ARE THINGS to be thankful for and there are things to be less thankful for.

  Things to be thankful for:

  1. Henry’s brain.

  2. Zeb’s Midwestern accent.

  3. Ghosts.

  Things to be less thankful for:

  1. This heist.

  2. The Midwestern Mastermind.

  3. Binky being kidnapped.

  4. This strange grumbly feeling I get whenever Henry and Zeb are all you’re so awesome with each other.

  Basically, this is one of those moments in life where I feel extremely rich on the experience side but extremely poor on the relaxation side.

  “I think the priority should be liberating Binky,” Henry decides.

  “I agree,” I add.

  “Totally.” Zeb nods.

  “Perhaps if one of us goes down there, creates some sort of distraction, while the other two slip behind the SUV and free her,” Henry suggests.

  “Well, maybe it should be Zeb. He can convince them all to give up like he did with that Redondo guard,” I reply.

  “Interesting. But I doubt it will work. Zeb struck a chord of one-on-one connection with our man from Redondo. One can hardly assume he will be able to fire up that same kind of camaraderie with a group,” Henry assesses.

  “That’s true,” I admit.

  “Logically, it should be Eva. No one is looking for her. They don’t even know she exists,” Henry adds. “They’re looking for two boys. One with blue hair.”

  Zeb and I nod. Yes, that’s reasonable.

  “Eva, can you think of something? Anything you can do to distract them?”

  “Not really. I mean . . . maybe I could sing a song or something?” I offer.

  Henry and Zeb are not convinced.

  “What about a poem?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I know, what about a musical number? The old song and dance. In costume. I bet I can really knock their socks off!” I suggest.

  “Eva, they don’t exactly strike me as Broadway folks,” Zeb breaks it to me.

  Grumbly feeling increasing. Though I have to admit he’s right.

  “Okay, well, let me just feel it out. I’m sure I can come up with something. . . .”

  “Right. But there is a time issue here, so perhaps don’t take quite so long to ‘feel it out,’” Henry
suggests.

  “Like maybe just ‘feel it out’ super quick,” Zeb adds.

  And this is me, with zero ideas in my head, trying to “feel it out” on the fly . . . trying come up with something, anything, to distract a band of lethal, Broadway-averse ruffians.

  24

  THREE OF THE trucks have already departed the loading dock, and are sitting in a position behind the castle waiting for what I can only imagine is the all clear to take off. The other two trucks are still being loaded, the backs of the trucks open, looking like a grand bazaar of masterpieces waiting to be shipped off to faraway climes.

  That leaves two trucks here. With two truck drivers. The guys I’m really worried about, though, are the two guarding the trucks and the one guarding the SUV. These guys are the great concern. They are heavily armed. Straps and holsters and rounds of ammunition hang off every possible part of their torsos (and some parts of their arms and legs).

  Also, they’re not exactly the hapless-looking tweedles we’ve run into thus far. These guys have a mean look about them—their mouths curled in what must be permanent snarls. Like, if they were dogs, instead of going in for an ear scratch or a belly rub, you’d absolutely cross the street to avoid them.

  Henry and Zeb have run off to a passageway that spills out behind the truck, waiting for my signal.

  I’m still figuring out the ins and outs of my epic distraction but so far all I have is a fake wound, the idea of hollering about a massacre inside the wedding chapel, and the hopes that all of this will add up to such a frightening sight that the guards will immediately run into the chapel and away from us.

  I know, it’s not perfect. But I am honing it as we speak. In the meantime, I have secured some ketchup packets from a discarded fast-food sack left abandoned in the loading dock. I will pour this ketchup all over myself in an effort to seem like I’m covered in blood and freak these guys out enough to believe my tale of woe.

  There’s a little window here, tucked into the gray stone, which is serving as a mirror, my reflection in the glass. It’s perfect for practicing my act.

  “Help! Help! You must come, it’s chaos! Help, oh, no, the horror! My words cannot describe the terrors mine eyes have seen!”

  Maybe that last one is going a bit too far. But you get the idea.

  Using my teeth, I tear open the ketchup packets. I am about to squirt them into my hair (nothing is as terrifying, and bloody, as a head injury. I know. I am forever scarred by the time I knocked over Henry’s rocket experiment and instead of launching into space it careened straight into his cranium.) when I see something strange in the little looking glass. There, off to the side. A sloping shadow in the corner of the reflection, probably just some illusion caused by the refraction of light in the rain.

  Except that when I look closer I see it is not just a sliding shadow but an actual figure, an actual figure getting bigger and bigger in the reflection. Closer and closer. Coming toward me.

  The hair on the back of my neck is standing at attention and I am frozen in panic as I realize what the almost imaginary figure is and where, exactly, it is heading to.

  I turn around before it can reach me, willing myself to be strong, willing myself to never give up. I turn around even though every cell in my body is telling me to crouch down and skitter off like a scared little kitten and run deep into the downpour far, far down the hill and away from this place. I turn around and just in time, I see the walking shadow, the lurching figure reflected in the glass.

  The Midwestern Mastermind.

  25

  DO YOU KNOW that moment? The moment on the roller coaster ride just before it’s about to plunge into the abyss? Or, let’s say, if you’ve ever been on one of the newer rides . . . when they tell you to cross your ankles and suddenly the ride starts and you’re wondering why they were so insistent about your ankles?

  But by then it’s too late.

  Well, that is this moment. Except there is no ride, no strapping in, and no insurance policies. There are no ride monitors, information desks, or theme park managers. No, sir. There is only little ol’ me here, in the middle of the pouring rain, looking square in the face of a certain diabolical mastermind who has already made his intentions clear.

  No witnesses.

  Think fast, Eva!

  This close to the Midwestern Mastermind, it’s a little difficult to tell if he’s annoyed, filled with hatred, surprised, or possibly just exhausted. I don’t blame him. It’s been a long day of heisting. If I were him, I’d just want to go home, sit back, Netflix, and binge. I would want to just take it easy.

  That’s it.

  Make it easy.

  He’s looking at me like I am a problem to be solved. He’s calculating. What do I do about this problem? Where do I put this problem?

  Make it easy.

  “Oh, hi. Um . . . bride or groom?”

  “What?!”

  “Bride or groom? Are you a guest of the bride or the groom?”

  He looks at me, trying to stack up these Legos.

  “Sorry, to be honest, I actually fell asleep in the reading room. Weddings are so boring and I just got back from white-water rafting with my dad, so I’m just like really tuckered out. How’s the reception been going? Did they cheap out with a cash bar? I doubt it, knowing Binky, but people do that, you know? Fancy that . . . you make all the effort to go to a wedding and then you have to pay for your own soda?!”

  I’m just repeating a conversation I heard at one of Terri’s cocktail parties. I really have no idea what I’m talking about but I’m just trying to make the problem, i.e., the problem of me existing in this particular place and time, go away for ye ol’ Mastermind.

  “Kid . . .” He looks at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Daffodil!”

  (I don’t know why I shout it out like that. Or why I choose Daffodil. It just sort of blurts out.)

  “Daffodil?”

  He looks at me.

  I nod.

  “God, I hate California.”

  “Really? I have to say I think we have a lot of things to recommend ourselves. For instance, there’s the weather. The foliage. Do you like bougainvillea? A lot of people really love bougainvillea. Fun fact: bougainvillea is actually a huge attraction for . . . wait for it . . . RATS! Can you believe it? I know I couldn’t but—”

  “Lookit, Daffodil.” He strains through his stained crooked teeth. “This is a very . . . complicated catering operation. Everything has to be just perfect. You know how brides are.” He winks.

  Okay, so he’s pretending, too. He’s pretending to be the caterer.

  (Let’s just be honest, that’s a stretch.)

  But this is great. We’re both pretending.

  “Oh yeah, brides. I mean. Wow. I totally get it.” I roll my eyes, pretending to commiserate.

  “Right. Exactly. And that’s why we can’t really have any little kids back here, messing with perfection. So . . . what you’re gonna do is, you’re going to turn around and go back to the wedding chapel like a good little girl. Got it? Daffodil?”

  “Oh, I got it.”

  He stays looking at me.

  “Why am I still looking at you?”

  “What?”

  “Why am I still looking at your face? What did I. Just. Say?” He tries to keep a lid on it.

  “Turn around and go back to the wedding chapel,” I repeat back.

  “Yes. Good.” I’m definitely draining his last ounce of his patience here but I’m assuming he’s going easy, trying to just pretend everything is normal, it’s just catering, and get me out of here.

  “Okay, cool, caterer guy. So, I’ll just uh . . . get out of your way . . . and um . . . let you get back to creating the culinary magic, food magic, that is.”

  “That’s right. Food magic.” He nods, waiting for me to go.

  I step back, first one step, then the next, then the next. Then the next. Until I make an oh-so-awkward “casual” turn around and do a brisk-walk-but-not
-run-because-a-run-would-be-too-suspicious out to the end of the passageway.

  Behind me, I can feel him boring a hole through my back with his eyes, making sure this problem is solved. This problem, i.e., me. The solution being that I am back with the others. Back with the other problems. All the problems left in the wedding chapel.

  The witnesses.

  I could take this time to contemplate the fate of everyone in the wedding chapel, or the fate of Binky, or the fate of all the people stuck down in the town below. I could take on all of their fates at this very moment and sink into the abyss trying to unwind this, trying to piece together this puzzle in a way that ends in a peaceful super-happy smiley way with nothing involving “no witnesses.”

  But that’s not what is happening right now. Instead, as I turn the corner, out of the piercing gaze of the Mastermind, I collapse against the wall breathing so heavy, I feel like every statue in here is about to turn to me, put their finger to their marble mouth, and say, “Shhh.”

  Whatever is pouring down on me, it’s not rain. It’s sweat. Buckets of post-Mastermind perspiration, reminding me of how close I just came to almost getting hauled away to God knows where.

  Maybe hauled away with Binky.

  Oh God.

  Henry and Zeb were on their way to rescue Binky.

  And I was supposed to be the distraction.

  Welp.

  That was an epic fail.

  26

  LITTLE BY LITTLE, I start to take stock of where I have landed, winded, panting from the interaction with the Midwestern Mastermind. As if the leaves themselves are reaching out to me, reviving me, I begin to realize that I’m in a kind of garden, a mini garden near the back entrance to the chapel. A secret garden!

  My mom had a secret garden, hidden between our house on the cliff and the cliff itself. You could walk past the edge of it a thousand times and not have any idea it was there. A row of hedges and willow acacia, behind it, a labyrinth of roses, hydrangea, and azaleas. There was a wooden bench in the middle and even a swing tied to a branch fifty feet above. That was my favorite thing to do, whiling away the afternoon, daydreaming on that swing.