Springback

by Jana Miller

  “It’s because she looks up to me as her favorite cousin,” Jake said.

  I gave Leah another look, and she groaned a little and pulled at her phone. “Yeah, yeah, I’m calling,” she said as she navigated to her mom’s contact info and placed the call.

  We’d decided that we needed to at least find out where she’d ended up—and Leah was just really curious about what she thought now that the Ring was closed.

  “Voicemail,” she said after a minute, and hung up. Then her face brightened. “Grandpa!” she exclaimed, and scrolled to another number.

  “Your grandpa has a phone?” Jake asked as she listened to the Ringing.

  She rolled her eyes. “The house phone,” she said, then perked up and exclaimed, “Grandpa Gene!?” She listened for a moment and her eyes got teary. “Are you okay?”

  I faintly heard a hearty laugh coming from the other end and I sat up straight.

  “Yes, we fixed it! Well, we closed it anyway. No thanks to you and your horrible clue!” But she was smiling bigger than I’d ever seen her smile before as another laugh came from Grandpa Gene on the other end of the line, firmly in his right mind and enjoying himself immensely.

  * * *

  I’d been hoping that we could wait for Rob and Jake to be discharged before we went home, but when I realized how late we’d be, I knew that no excuse could be enough to stave off the wrath of my parents. Plus it was looking like they might keep Jake overnight just to be safe. They mentioned brain scans, and I actually perked up, hoping it would show something good.

  So it was just the three girls driving home, and it took us ten minutes to come up with a story for my parents that would satisfy them but not scare them to death.

  “Hi Mom, I’m so sorry we’re late, but we saw my friend Leah at the movie, and she was feeling really sick.”

  “And why were you at the movie on a school night in the first place?” she asked pointedly. “I certainly never gave you permission.”

  “I know, that was really dumb. I’m sorry. We were just having so much fun together . . .”

  “It’s ten thirty on a school night, Chloe! Who drove you to the movie, anyway?”

  I’d forgotten about that. The first name that came to mind was Jake, but any love she still had for Jake would be absolutely decimated if I implicated him for that one.

  “We ran into some friends at Mama Burger,” I said vaguely. “Janie and I were getting shakes. They were all going, and we just jumped in with them. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  She sighed. “Anyway, what were you saying about a sick friend?”

  Flashing lights lit up behind us, and I turned around to see a police car. Leah pulled over to let them pass, but instead they pulled over behind us.

  “Uh...sorry, mom, I think my phone is about to die. I’ll tell you everything when we get back. Her—her mom will give us a ride when she gets here.”

  I hung up and watched the officer behind us get out of his car and approach Leah’s window.

  “Leah Moore?” he asked when she rolled down her window.

  “Y-yes?”

  How did he know her name already?

  “We got a report with your name and license plate number. Please step out of the vehicle.”

  “What?”

  He consulted a notebook. “We got a report that you and four others stole an artifact from the Pinetop-Lakeside Historical Society Museum.”

  * * *

  The officer allowed us to drive ourselves back to the museum, where we could talk to the curator there. But when we arrived, it was Lillian’s car I noticed first.

  “She’s still here?” Leah nearly shouted. “Unbelievable.” As we got out of the car, she added in an angry mutter, “I am so moving out as soon as I get home.”

  We went inside with the officer, where we were met by an older woman who introduced herself as Stella, head curator of the museum. She looked from us to the officer and back to Lillian, who sat perched on a stool next to the front counter, looking fiercely satisfied.

  “Hi, Mom,” Leah said, poison in her voice.

  “Mom?” The officer repeated. “This is your mother?”

  “Yes,” Leah said, still glaring at Lillian. “And she’s mad at me.”

  “Where are the others?” Lillian demanded, then she turned to the officer. “Weren’t Rob Jensen and his son with them when you pulled them over?”

  “Nope, it was just these three.”

  “Did they have the amulet?” Stella asked.

  “They say they don’t, but I haven’t searched them.”

  My stomach clenched at the idea of being searched. “We don’t have it,” I insisted, then pressed my lips together, afraid of saying more.

  “Well, it was here today,” Stella said with the air of a disappointed grandmother, “and now it’s not.”

  “Call Gene Moore,” Leah said suddenly. “It belongs to him.”

  All eyes turned to Leah—Lillian with her eyes narrowed, Janie and I with a surprise and uncertainty. What could Gene say to get us out of this?

  Then Stella looked at the officer, a question in her eyes.

  “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “Go ahead and call him.”

  He plopped down in a chair and Stella consulted a list in a binder she had out on the counter. “Lot four two six,” she said to herself. “Emerald and copper, Gene Moore. There it is.”

  As she dialed the number, Lillian hissed, “What did you do?”

  Leah looked at her evenly. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” she whispered fiercely. “The ring. The amulet. What did you do?”

  Leah glanced at the officer, who was obviously listening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, turning away from her. “And don’t talk to me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “I canNOT believe that worked,” Janie gushed as we got back into Leah’s car ten minutes later.

  “My grandpa must be a pretty smooth talker,” Leah agreed with a grin.

  Stella had informed us that Grandpa Gene had let her in on the very private, very urgent family emergency that had prompted the “reclamation” of our family’s heirloom. Whatever story he’d told her, he had told it so convincingly that Stella had tears in her eyes as she’d told the officer, “These girls have been through enough. The museum won’t be pressing charges.” She’d looked at us like we were her own granddaughters as she’d said, “Just let these sweet things go home.”

  And just like that, we’d left Lillian behind, looking outraged and bereft.

  A little over two hours later, Janie and I didn’t mind at all that we were informed, upon arriving home, that we were grounded for a month.

  Because we both knew that nothing like this would ever happen again.

  * * *

  I was surprised to see Jake at lunch the next day, but he told me he’d just gotten to school. He’d been discharged first thing this morning, and his dad had driven him home in a rental car.

  “Is your dad going back home?” I asked.

  Jake shrugged. “I think he’s trying to convince my mom that it wouldn’t be horrible if he stuck around for a while.”

  “And…what do you think?” I asked.

  He shrugged again, but I could see the smile in his eyes.

  “So you’re okay?” I asked, eyeing the bump on his head.

  “Good as new,” he answered, then his eyes widened. “Oh! And my brain is totally normal.”

  “What? They scanned you?”

  “Yup. They said they could tell that there was something going on there, but no more ‘abnormal activity.’ They said it looks fine.”

  He was fine. The ring was gone, and we wouldn’t be causing any more abnormal activity in our brains, so I was sure they would go back to normal.

  I wanted to cry with relief, but I settled for just pressing my hands to my cheeks.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Anything exciting other
than getting grounded for the first time ever?”

  “Hey,” I said, folding my arms. “It’s sort of the second time. The first one just happened to get rewound.”

  He laughed.

  “And they both were pretty much your fault, by the way. And both in the middle of the night.”

  “I’d say that means it was meant to happen,” he said easily.

  “But no, nothing else exciting, really,” I said. “I mean, we almost got arrested for breaking and entering—”

  “WHAT?”

  “—though I’d say that was definitely your dad’s crime—”

  “You didn’t really almost get arrested, did you?”

  “No, we really did. Leah got pulled over because Lillian actually called the cops on us.”

  “And?”

  He laughed when I told him about how Gene had saved the day. “That guy is seriously my new best friend,” he said, then looked at me closely. “Anything else I should know about?”

  I tapped my lips as I considered. “Yes,” I said after a moment. “I broke a plate this morning.”

  “Ah,” he said drily. “Shocking.”

  “No, it kind of is,” I said. “I mean, I’ve broken dishes before, but for the last seven years, I’ve always been able to rewind it. It was so weird to just—see it fall and break and…nothing.”

  “Did you try?” he asked.

  “To rewind? Almost.” I’d started to close my eyes, but I’d remembered and stopped myself before I could encounter that strangely quiet part of my mind where the strands used to live. “I sort of stared at it for a minute before Janie reminded me to just clean it up.” I laughed. “At least she kind of gets it.”

  Jake grinned. “Well, congrats on your first broken plate,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I spotted Maya heading to our table. “Hey,” I said. “Can Maya and I eat with you guys today? If she wants to?”

  “Sure.”

  “K, I’ll be right back.”

  I’d never been so nervous to approach Maya before, and I was glad she was alone at our table.

  “Hey,” I said timidly, leaning on one of the chairs.

  She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised. “Hi.”

  “Do you”—I gestured over my shoulder—“do you want to go eat with Jake and his friends? With me?”

  She pressed her lips together and looked around. “What about Nikki and Jordyn?”

  “They can come too if they want to, but…I mean—” I pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “I wouldn’t mind if they…didn’t come. I just, I don’t really…get them,” I confessed.

  Maya stared across the room for a moment before answering, “Yeah…me neither.”

  A small laugh of relief escaped me, and I waited a few more seconds before blurting, “I’m sorry, Maya. Seriously, I know I’ve been the worst. But I’m doing a lot better now, and I really do want you to meet Jake, because he’s my friend, but you were my friend first, so if you want to stay here and eat, I’ll stay with you. Even with Nikki and Jordyn.”

  Maya lifted one corner of her mouth. “You’d do that for me?” she teased.

  I put a hand to my heart. “Absolutely,” I vowed. “So…will you come? Tessa from orchestra eats with them, and she said you should—”

  “Yeah, I’ll come,” she said, obviously holding back a smile. “As long as you promise not to be a lame brain anymore.”

  I snorted. “I can actually promise you that my brain is no longer lame.”

  * * *

  It was like déja vu when I walked into creative writing that day.

  Groups were listed on the board, and I was just as freaked out this time about reading my story out loud as I had been the day I’d discovered Jake could manipulate time.

  Only this time, it was because I’d had absolutely no idea we were supposed to have a story ready.

  For at least a week, maybe two—I’d lost track—I’d been completely absent from most of my classes, not just mentally speaking, but often physically as well. I shot Jake a terrified look, but he just leaned back in his seat as if he wasn’t worried. I glared at him. There was no way he could have a story ready.

  “Okay, guys,” Mrs. Barton announced. “Remember the final draft of your memoir will be due exactly one week from today. And please, people, write more than five words on your critique forms?” She gave us all a stern-teacher look and then released us to find our groups.

  A memoir. I was supposed to have a memoir written. I vaguely recalled thinking of an idea, maybe outlining it, but I had no idea how far I’d gotten on it. I dug through my backpack, hoping to find something, but all I found was an old apron, a few yellowed journal pages, my math notebook, and snack wrappers from the trip home last night. Maybe I had only worked on the assignment before Leah’s big rewind and hadn’t bothered to do it again.

  I’d been ridiculously unprepared all day, but this was the first time I’d felt a need to panic about it. I certainly couldn’t write an entire rough draft now—not when I was supposed to be listening to my group members read theirs. I just needed an hour or so. I closed my eyes to access the strands.

  But of course they weren’t there. How long would it take me to stop expecting them to be there?

  I was on my own, and I had nothing. I’d just have to hope Mrs. Barton didn’t notice that I didn’t read anything out loud, and take the hit to my grade when there were no critiques turned in for my story.

  “Chloe.”

  I opened my eyes in time to see Jake toss something to me. I fumbled to catch it, and when I opened my hands I found his amethyst stone. I gave him a wry like-this-is-gonna-help-me-now eyebrow lift, but the humor and encouragement in his face, coupled with my gratitude for his Jake-ness in that moment, added an amused half-smile to my expression. He walked away as I pulled out a pencil—and nothing else—from my bag.

  As I found where my group was gathering, I gripped the amethyst and smirked, remembering when Leah had looked up the healing properties of amethyst and learned that its name came from the Greek amethystos, a word referencing its supposed ability to prevent drunkenness.

  “Ooh, Greek,” Jake had said. “I wonder if Apollonius used it.”

  I’d snorted, my migraine making me feel half-drunk myself as I’d lain on the floor of his living room. “I’ll bet people assumed he was drunk when he spouted off stuff about alchemy.”

  “Or maybe he really was hitting the bottle too much.”

  I pocketed the amethyst and sat down in my group, making a mental note to ask Jake later if he was trying to send me a message about my non-existent drinking habits.

  I’d filled out two critique forms and was vaguely wondering just how low my grade in this class had dropped when I heard Jake’s voice directly behind me. “I don’t have a title for it yet, but—well, here goes.” He cleared his throat. “I never thought a trip to the ER could put my family back together, but that’s just what happened last year. I’d never met my dad before that. My mom says he visited me once when I was five, but I don’t remember it.” I scowled. Last year? What was he talking about? ”The day I got home, my dad showed up my door, claiming that my mom had called him.”

  He was talking about just a few days ago! When had he had a chance to write about this? I turned around to see him leaning back in his chair as usual, holding up a blank sheet of paper—blocked from his group by the textbook he had it on—which he was “reading” from. “I wasn’t even sure if it was really him when he showed up, but he told me my mom was afraid I had a neurological disease and wanted to know if he had a family history of it.”

  He was making it up as he went along! Did he really think his group wouldn’t notice that his paper was completely blank? I turned back around with a good-natured huff, for the first time not annoyed at the way he floated through life with no worries, but impressed by it.

  Except that now I knew Jake didn’t float through life, and he had plenty of worries. I smiled to myself about how open he
was being about them—even if he was trying to fake everybody out by coming up with it on the fly—and reached into my pocket, to grip the amethyst, the crystal whose actual healing properties were said to be inner strength and an ability to rely on your intuition.

  As the third person in my group finished, I thought about my own worries, so different now than they had been just a couple months ago. I pulled out my math notebook and turned it to a blank page, summoning my intuition, and in my head I started composing my own memoir.

  The End

  * * *