The Not-So-Boring Letters of Private Nobody

by Matthew Landis

  “She practices a lot.”

  “Wanna try making something with actual footage?”

  “Sure.”

  Ella took out her iPhone and connected it to the MacBook with a white cord. “I’ve got some footage we can use.”

  She imported it and pressed PLAY.

  It was a video of an open hand holding a playing card—a queen of diamonds. The hand was up close, really really close to the camera. It was Ella’s hand, Oliver figured, because in the background was a fluffy bed and some posters on the wall.

  “So what am I looking at?” Oliver asked. He didn’t get it. The video hand was moving a tiny bit, up and down in a rhythm, almost like a handshake.

  And then the card disappeared.

  “What the—”

  Oliver pushed his face closer to the computer.

  “What just happened?”

  Behind her tangled hair, Ella snorted.

  —CHAPTER TEN—

  THE GIRL WHO DOES MAGIC AND LISTENS TO MOZART

  “What just happened?” he asked again.

  Ella laughed. “It’s a magic trick.”

  “You edited the footage already,” Oliver said. “You’re messing with me.”

  There was no other possible explanation.

  He grabbed the mouse and dragged the playhead back to the beginning and pressed the space bar. He watched the card disappear again.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I practiced. A lot.”

  “Show me.”

  Ella reached in her bag and took out a worn deck. “It’s better on camera because you can’t see the trick of it.”

  Taking a card at random, Ella sat on the coffee table so her hand faced Oliver like on the video. She relaxed her wrist, then began moving it up and down. “Moving my arm helps distract your eye from when the card disappears. That’s what the guy in the YouTube video says, anyway.”

  Suddenly, there was a flash of the white card. And it was gone.

  Ella waved her palm gently for a second or two, and then the card reappeared.

  “HOLY! CRAP!” Oliver yelled. He stood up. He laughed. “That is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Twelve more times Oliver watched her do the disappearing/reappearing trick. Each time it got better, and each time her smile widened until it took over her face. Obviously Oliver knew the card was hiding behind her palm, but that wasn’t the point. The trick was super simple, but super deceptive.

  “That is the coolest thing I have ever seen,” he told her for the hundredth time. “I’m serious. Ella. That’s amazing. Are you allowed to tell me how you do it? Or is there a magician code or something?”

  “It’s right here the whole time,” she said, doing the trick and then flipping her hand over to show him. She grinned. “Then you just bring it back.”

  “Everything okay?” his mom called down.

  “Mom,” Oliver yelled back. The piano had stopped too. “Come down here. You have to see this.”

  “See what?” Addie called out. She tromped overhead and then down the steps, her bushy red ponytail bouncing the whole way, with their mom trailing behind.

  “Watch this,” Oliver said. “It’s a card trick. Watch.”

  Ella did the trick—her best one yet.

  “It’s behind her hand,” Addie said. It was more like an accusation, really. She pushed past Oliver to see for herself, but Ella had already turned her hand over sheepishly.

  “Yeah,” Ella said. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “You just flick it back real quick. It’s not really that good.”

  “I think it’s great,” said Oliver’s mom. “Very clever.”

  “Hmm,” Addie said. She smoothed her blue jumper out and looked Ella up and down. “What’s your name?”

  “Ella.”

  Oliver was realizing this might not have been the best idea—holding a giant reunion of all the girls who had been in his room, cousin Natalie aside. “Okay, we have to get back to work,” he said.

  “Why is your hair so messy?”

  “Addie!” Oliver’s mom said sharply. “That is very rude. Upstairs.”

  Addie’s ears went pink, like they always did when she was in trouble and about to fake-cry her way out of it. “Sorry,” she mumbled, tromping back up.

  “Ella, I’m very sorry,” Oliver’s mom said. “She knows better.”

  Ella twirled some tangled hair between her fingers. “It’s okay.”

  “Oliver’s dad will be home in about twenty minutes. If you like tacos, I can make it up to you.”

  “I like tacos,” Ella said.

  Oliver’s mom looked pleased and relieved. “Good. Do you have to call your parents and let them know?”

  “I’ll text them.”

  Twenty minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table building tacos. Oliver’s parents sat on the short ends, with Oliver and Ella on one long side and Addie on the other. She was doing that “pity me” routine that she always did after being lectured—like it was Oliver’s mom who had done something wrong.

  “So, Ella,” Oliver’s dad said as he loaded his taco with meat. Oliver figured that as someone who sold meat for a living, he should know there’s no way he was going to be able to fit all that ground beef in the taco and still have a chance of closing it. “Are you a Civil War nerd too?”

  Ella’s mouth was full of taco. She chewed for an awkward eternity before answering.

  “No. But I’m learning to like it more than I did before.”

  “Ollie’s obsessed with the Civil War,” Addie declared. Her mom raised a warning eyebrow. “What? It’s true.”

  “I heard your scales today,” Oliver said. “They were pretty bad.”

  Oliver’s mom turned and gave him the Look. “My scales weren’t bad,” Addie protested.

  “Your B-flat was.”

  “It’s the hardest one.”

  Oliver was being a little meaner than usual, and it felt good. A little like he was protecting Ella—like he was getting back at Addie for what she’d said about Ella’s hair.

  Yeah. That was it.

  And it felt like the most perfectly right thing to do.

  “Someone who practices as much as you do should have it down already,” Oliver said.

  “That’s enough,” his mom said.

  Oliver turned away from Addie. “We’re making a documentary,” he told his dad. “It’s about some Union private named Raymond Stone. Every group got assigned a historical person who was alive during the war, and we got him. We’re supposed to research his life and find out how the war impacted him.”

  “And how he impacted the war,” added Ella.

  “You were playing cards when I went down,” Addie muttered.

  “It was a card trick—a really good one. And it’s way cooler than banging out some boring song in a way that would embarrass the guy who wrote it.”

  The burst of anger surprised Oliver. He was out for blood. His sister looked shocked.

  “Son,” Oliver’s dad said in a stop it right now or else voice.

  “Sorry, Addie,” Oliver mumbled. She was actually hurt. Maybe it was time to back off—Ella didn’t need this much protecting.

  “I liked your song,” Ella said, breaking the tension. “Fantasy in D Minor, right?”

  Addie blinked at her. “You know Mozart?”

  “A little.”

  “Do you play?”

  “No, just listen. Is Mozart your favorite?”

  Addie shifted to her knees and pushed her elbows on the table. “No—Bach is my favorite. I really want to play Andante—have you heard of it? It’s for my next recital but my teacher says I’m not ready. It goes like this—”

  She started humming the piece. Oliver dreaded sitting through the whole thing at some future re
cital.

  “I hope you get to learn it soon,” Ella said. “It sounds very pretty.”

  Addie beamed. She looked around the table and shoved a bowl of sour cream toward Ella like a thank-you gift. “Me too. Me too.”

  The house line rang, but Oliver’s parents let it go to the machine. They always said only credit card companies call during dinner time.

  “Mrs. Prichard,” came a hurried voice after the answering machine beep, “this is Denise Fastbender, Principal of Kennesaw Middle Sch—”

  Oliver froze as his mom rushed to the phone. “Hello, hello—Mrs. Fastbender, this is Camille, Oliver’s mom. Is everything all right?”

  Ella set her fork down. Oliver saw her check her phone under the table. His stomach churned. Definitely too much taco in there for something like this.

  “Uh, yes—yes, she’s here. They’ve been working on a social studies project.” Silence. Nodding by Oliver’s mom. He saw that look of flashing worry fade to calm but concerned. “Yes, okay. I understand. Do you have our address to give them? Okay. Great. I apologize for the confusion, I thought she’d told them she would be here.” Silence, more nodding. “Okay. You too, and again we’re very sorry. I’m glad it’s all sorted out. Good night.”

  She hung up and gave Oliver’s dad one of those looks.

  “Addie, come help me work on my B-flat scale,” he said. Addie looked from Ollie to Ella, eyes wide, then followed her dad to the piano.

  “Ella,” Oliver’s mom said. “That was Mrs. Fastbender. She said your parents have been trying to get a hold of you for over an hour. Didn’t you tell them you were here?”

  Ella stared at her food. “I’m sorry, Mrs. P. I guess my text never went through.”

  Oliver couldn’t stand watching her squirm. “Sometimes that happens, remember?” he lied. “Bad reception in the basement.”

  “Hmm,” Oliver’s mom said. He wasn’t sure if she bought it. “Your mom is on her way over and I’m sure she’s relieved. Why don’t you go get your stuff?”

  Oliver paced around the foyer as Ella got her computer and book bag. His mom watched the driveway. Dad butchered scales while Addie corrected him.

  “That’s them,” Oliver’s mom said.

  Oliver peeked out the window and saw a sparkly white SUV pull into the driveway. It made the Prichard family van look even crappier. Ella’s mom stepped out wearing fancy business clothes and high heels.

  “Sorry again, Mrs. P,” Ella said as Oliver’s mom opened the door.

  “It’s okay, honey. I’ll walk out with you.”

  “Bye, Ollie.”

  In the driveway, the parents talked. Oliver saw lots of apologetic hand motions from his mom and lots of worried ones from Ella’s. Ella’s mom hugged her, but she just stood there and took it. It was all kind of off—forced. He wasn’t sure why Ella had lied about texting her mom.

  All he knew was that she wasn’t the girl he’d thought she was.

  She was the girl who did magic tricks and listened to Mozart.

  Who knew.

  —CHAPTER ELEVEN—

  THE FRIEND

  Oliver wasn’t sure where to start, so he just went for it.

  “Why don’t we ever hang out?”

  “We’re hanging out right now,” Kevin said without looking up from his phone.

  “I mean at each other’s houses. Play video games and stuff. Go to the movies.”

  “My parents think movies are too expensive. We Redbox. And you said you hate video games.”

  “You know what I mean.” Oliver picked at his Cheez-Its. He thought about Ella, and how she would’ve annihilated the entire bag already.

  “Are we friends?” Oliver asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Oliver really didn’t. “Are we . . . you know—friends.”

  Kevin put down his phone and shoveled in a big bite of beef bulgogi. “Yeah. Maybe not good friends, but we’re not not friends.”

  “Oh.” Well, that settled it. “Okay.”

  “I never thought you wanted to be good friends.”

  “What?”

  “You never ask me to hang out on the weekends. You never text, except for that one time by accident. And whenever we talk—which is only at lunch—you only talk about the Civil War.”

  “Uh, yeah, but—”

  “It’s okay,” Kevin said. “I’m just telling you what it’s like from my side of the table.”

  “You never ask me to hang out either.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re always telling me about some reenactment you’re doing and how it’s much more awesome than anything else in the world, ever.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t talk about anything but your Wattpad stories.”

  “If I didn’t, we’d only ever talk about the Civil War.”

  They traded blank stares.

  “This is weird,” Oliver said.

  Kevin looked at the other kids at their table, lost in their anime movies and fantasy books. One kid was doing three Rubik’s Cubes at a time. “Compared to what?”

  Oliver laughed.

  “What made you think about this?” Kevin asked, back on his phone.

  Oliver shifted his eyes around the room. He’d never noticed where Ella sat before, and wasn’t really sure where to look. “You know that girl, Ella? She was at my house a couple days ago, working on Mr. Carrow’s social studies project. She asked if you and me were friends.”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “I said no.”

  “That’s fair. What’s her deal, anyway?”

  “I actually have no clue.” There—on the outdoor patio, Oliver spotted her. Sitting at a shaded picnic table with some girls, earbuds in. Probably eating triple her weight in chicken patties. “She’s not dumb, but she’s failing; her parents are rich—you should have seen her mom’s car—but she’s a mess.”

  “She’s skinny but eats like someone who just got off a desert island,” Kevin said. “And she’s pretty, but she looks like she gets to school via tornado.”

  Oliver wasn’t sure where he settled on that pretty point. “I think the hair’s got something to do with her mom.”

  “You should ask her.”

  “I did. She wouldn’t tell me.”

  Kevin made a what do you want from me here? face and took a swig of Gatorade.

  Oliver stomped back and forth over these questions in his head for a minute. “She can do this really amazing card—”

  “Friends don’t always talk, you know. Not even good friends.”

  “Right.”

  It was all kind of new.

  —CHAPTER TWELVE—

  THE RIDE

  “Were your parents mad?” Oliver asked.

  Ella slumped on the curb and picked at her ratty jeans. They were waiting for her mom to give them a ride to the historical society after school.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I got one of those long lectures with lots of hand motions.”

  “I hate those.”

  “Once you learn how to tune it out, it’s not so bad.” Ella checked her phone again. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “Sure.” Oliver knew what she meant. Thanks for covering up my lie about not texting my mom. The question, obviously, was why Ella hadn’t texted her mom in the first place, but Oliver wasn’t sure their social-studies-partner-just-barely-friendship entitled him to ask personal questions.

  “Remember when I came over to your house, and you warned me about your mom?” Ella asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I need to warn you about mine: She’ll probably be on her phone most of the time. And if she’s not, she’ll be asking you stupid questions about things that don’t matter or telling you things about our family that don’t matter. You can just ignore her if you don’t wa
nt to answer. It’s what I do.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  Ella checked her phone again. “She probably got stuck at some house showing.”

  “I don’t really have anything else to do.”

  Ella looked up at a car headed their way. “Predictable.”

  A black Mercedes pulled up to the curb. “Hey baby,” a man called out the window. “Mom’s at a showing. I’m giving you a ride.”

  “Told you,” Ella muttered as she slid into the car.

  Oliver followed.

  Ella’s dad’s phone rang.

  “Give me the good news,” he said.

  “Financing came through.” The faraway voice came through the speakers and made the whole car thump.

  “How’s the rate?”

  “Best you’re gonna get in this economy. You’d almost think those Weller boys don’t want to make money.”

  “I’m not complaining.” Mr. Berry drum-rolled on the steering wheel. “Email me the terms, I’ll review them when I get back to the office.”

  “Done.”

  Mr. Berry hit a button on the steering wheel to hang up. “Sorry, guys. I’ve been waiting for that news all day.”

  Ella stared out the window. Of course. Oliver caught Mr. Berry’s eye in the rearview mirror and wasn’t sure what to do. He waved.

  “Hi. I’m Oliver.”

  “Hey, Oliver. I’m Jonathan.”

  “I’m not allowed to call adults by their first names. My mom’s pretty firm on that.”

  “Okay.”

  “I can call you Mr. B if you want, but that’s about as far as I can go.”

  “. . . Mr. B it is.”

  The streets clogged up the minute they turned off the main road. Construction. Oliver noticed the familiar diamond Weller logo on the corner.

  “Great spot for a gas station, huh?” Mr. Berry said.

  Ella snorted like she was trying to clear out some mucus.

  “My mom always says they should put one there,” Oliver said. “She said there would be one there if it wasn’t for all the yuppies. I don’t really know who they are but apparently there’s a lot of them here.”