Huh. Maybe I dialed wrong. I press to end the call and try again, typing slowly and pressing each of the numbers extra hard, just to make sure. But the same thing happens again. Now I know I’ve dialed correctly, and I hit the keyboard in frustration. What is going on?
“Huh? What was that?” Quinn asks. She sits up, blinking. “Ugh, I’m still here?” She moans.
“Yeah, and I haven’t been able to get through to Uncle Max yet. I think Skype is broken.”
“I’ll do it,” she says. She rises from the bed, as if with great effort, and pushes me aside so she can sit in Trey’s—her—desk chair. I have to tell her Uncle Max’s number, since she doesn’t know it by heart. For a third time, the other line is just ocean sounds. She clicks to end the call and starts typing again.
“It’s not gonna work,” I tell her.
“I’m not calling Uncle Max,” she says. “I’m calling Mom.”
I stand next to her, waiting for ocean sounds again. But the line is ringing, and ringing, and . . .
“Hello?”
“Mom!” Quinn cries. “It’s me! I’m in this weird place with Zack and—”
“It’s not my fault!” I yell. I forget about how she probably can’t see or hear me.
“Be quiet, Zack,” Quinn says.
“Zack, who’s Zack?” Mom says.
“Your son,” Quinn tells her.
“Oh, Quinn,” Mom says. “Enough nonsense.”
Nonsense? Could Mom really have forgotten my entire existence?
“If you have something to tell me, don’t do it over the phone,” Mom continues, to Quinn. “Just walk into the other room.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you! I’m not home! I can’t walk into the other room!”
“Very funny,” Mom says. “But let me go now. I’m still cleaning up from the party—unless you and Madeline want to help.”
“I’m not with Madeline!”
“Honey, I can hear you giggling from the other room. I’ll talk to you later.”
“But, Mom—”
The line goes dead and a message pops up on-screen: Call Ended.
“How can I be there and here at the same time?” Quinn asks.
“How can Mom not remember that she has a son?”
“Maybe she blocked it out,” Quinn tells me. “It’s not like I blame her.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you’re not even the real Quinn,” I say. “Maybe you’re just a copy and I don’t even have to worry about getting you home.”
“Zack, I’m me and I can prove it!” she says. “I know that it took you a year longer than me to be potty trained. And I know that you threw up through your nose on the first day of kindergarten. And I know you couldn’t go to sleep without Ralphie, your stuffed rabbit, until you were nine. Now tell me why this is happening!”
I shrug. “Uncle Max would know.”
“Well, we can’t ask him, can we?” she says. “Because his phone doesn’t work. Even a fake uncle should have a working phone at a time like this!”
“He’s not a fake,” I tell her. “He just let us believe we weren’t related because it was easier, since . . .” Quinn’s glaring at me. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. The point is, I bet the phone not working is something similar, an Official Genie Decision.”
Quinn has taken up the keyboard again and is dialing. “Who are you calling now?” I ask.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m calling Bella. Maybe she can get a message to Mom.”
“Mom’s not going to listen to Bella,” I say. “She thinks you’re home safe and sound right now.”
For a second Quinn’s eyes look shiny. But she blinks and recovers quickly. “Fine, then. I’ll tell her to get a message to Uncle Max. I don’t care who she gets the message to, as long as we get out of here.” She pauses. “Or at least I get out of here. You can stay here if you’d like.”
“You think I want to be here?” I ask. “I want to leave as much as you do—more even.”
“Doubtful.”
“Do you think Bella will actually call Uncle Max without checking with Mom first?” I ask. “I mean, it does sound pretty crazy—Hey, it’s me, Quinn, and pay no attention to the fact there’s another Quinn . . .”
“Well, that’s just great,” Quinn says. Her voice is thick, and the tears start falling, thick ones, plop plop. My bionic genie eyes see the little splashes they make on the carpet.
“Aw, Quinn,” I say, and I reach a hand out, but she bats me away. “Okay,” I say. “You’re mad. But I have another idea. What do you do when you NEED to talk to someone but you can’t get him on the phone?”
“Am I supposed to answer?”
“You go to his house, that’s what.”
“You’re saying we’re going to walk from here to Uncle Max’s?” She looks down at my feet. “Don’t you think it might be too far? Plus, you don’t even have shoes.”
That reminds me: I should borrow a pair of Trey’s. “It’s definitely too far to walk,” I say. “We’re in California, remember? We need to buy plane tickets. Trey—I mean you—you’ve got to have money for those things. Where do you keep it?”
“How would I know?” Quinn asks. But then she opens the desk drawer, and right on top is a black wallet—a really thick one. Quinn unfolds it and there’s a flash of green. She pulls out a stack of twenty-dollar bills and starts counting. “Twenty. Forty. Sixty. Eighty.” And on, and on. I’ve never actually seen so much money in one place.
“Oh my god, it’s a hundred-dollar bill!” she squeals.
I’ve never seen a hundred-dollar bill before, either.
Quinn opens another compartment in the wallet and pulls out a credit card. I didn’t know kids could have credit cards. “We could buy so much stuff with this,” Quinn says. She’s already punching the computer keys. Two tickets from California to Pennsylvania. “Do you know what airport we’re closest to? Do you know what airline is best?”
I shake my head.
She clicks some more keys. “We should definitely fly first class, as long as we have to fly anyway. I saw something on TV once about flying first class—you get big, comfy seats, and you can recline them back so they turn into beds. Plus, the food is really good, and you can watch all the movies you want for free.” She pauses to take a breath. “Aren’t you excited?”
“This isn’t exciting. This is an emergency.”
“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
I grab the credit card from her. She lunges to grab it back, but now I’m holding it over my head and out of her reach. Seven minutes older, and about seven hundredths of an inch taller.
“Zack! Come on! Give it back! It’s my credit card, not yours.”
“It’s not yours, either.”
“It is too mine. I’m Trey. Or he’s me. Whatever. Just give it back.”
“Ha!” I say. “You believe me now, that I’m a genie and I turned Trey into you. Admit it!”
“Never,” Quinn says.
She jumps to grab the card from me, and I push her back with my free hand. “Wait, did you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything. Don’t try to distract me. Just give it back.”
Knock, knock, knock.
This time we both hear it.
Quinn and I look at the door. There’s no peephole. Knock, knock, knock. “Don’t answer it,” I whisper to her.
“I won’t, she says.
But then there’s the unmistakable sound of someone punching numbers in the keypad, and a click when the combination is right and the door unlocks. We watch as the handle turns, almost in slow motion, and then the door swings open. On the other side are two very serious-looking adults, a man and a woman. I quickly shove Trey’s credit card into my pocket.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the man asks Quinn.
“I can’t answer that for fear of incriminating myself,” Quinn tells him. “I need a lawyer.”
“A lawyer?” I ask. “We�
��re just kids. We’re too young to have lawyers.”
“I saw it on TV,” Quinn explains.
“I don’t think there’s a lawyer who can help with this sort of thing,” I say.
“Forget what you saw on TV,” the man tells her. “You’re going to have to come with us.”
“No. I can’t go with strangers,” Quinn tells him.
“Well, then I’ll introduce myself. I’m Mr. Hayden. I’m Trey’s history teacher.” He points to the woman. “This is Ms. Lucas.”
“English department,” she says.
“Trey didn’t show up to either of our classes today. Dawson said he saw a girl acting strangely and inquiring about Trey’s belongings when he was cleaning the chapel. Now you’re trespassing in his room, and I think that’s something the authorities will be interested in.”
“The authorities?” I squeak out. “The police?”
“The police?” Quinn repeats. “But you can’t arrest me. This is all my brother’s fault.”
“Come on, now,” the woman says. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
Ms. Lucas reaches for Quinn’s hand, but Quinn jerks it away. I grab it, and Quinn grabs back, supertight. For a second I can’t tell where my hand ends and hers begins. But then Mr. Hayden and Ms. Lucas each start pulling on one of Quinn’s arms, and her hand seems to go right through mine. We’re separate again.
“Where are you taking her?” I shout. Of course they don’t answer.
“Zack!”
“Don’t you worry, Quinn,” I say. “I’ll get back to Pennsylvania on my own. And when I get there, I’ll make sure Uncle Max gets you back to real life.”
“You better hurry, Zack,” Quinn says as she’s hustled out the door. The door closes behind the three of them, leaving me alone to fix everything.
15
THE MOUTH OF THE ROOF
“Weren’t you scared?” I imagine Drew Listerman asking me, because of course he’ll want to interview me about all this for the Channel 7 news: A Day in the Life of a Ten-Year-Old Genie. I see myself shaking my head as the camera pans in super close.
“There was no time to be scared, Drew,” I tell him in my most serious voice. “There was too much work to do.”
But in real life, I am terrified. I’m alone again, and I have no idea where Mr. Hayden and Ms. Lucas have taken my sister. No one can see or hear me. I can’t get in touch with Uncle Max, and I don’t know where the closest airport is, or the phone number of a cab company to get me there.
And if I figured out where I was going, and I found a cab company to take me there, I couldn’t make a phone call to a cab company because the dispatcher wouldn’t be able to hear my voice. And let’s say I made a reservation online. Even then, when the driver came to pick me up, he wouldn’t be able to see me get into his car, so he certainly wouldn’t take me where I was going. He’d just turn around and go back to the cab company and wait for instructions to take someone else somewhere else.
I suppose I could just get into a random cab and hope it eventually picked up another passenger who had to go to the airport. But that could take all day. That could take all week!
New idea: I’ll take the bus. Buses have to make all their stops, whether they can see and hear their passengers or not.
I sit down in front of Trey’s computer and type “Millings Academy” into Google. Apparently it’s located in Grovestand, California. A little more googling, and I find out the closest airport is Orange County International, and that there’s a flight to Pennsylvania leaving in three hours. Plenty of time.
I don’t click the button to buy a ticket, because I don’t need a ticket. No one will see me to stop me from getting on the plane anyway. But I decide to keep Trey’s credit card in case I need it later.
“And that’s how it’s done, Drew,” I say out loud.
Now to Trey’s closet, because I need shoes and he’s got a rack full of them. Multiple pairs of sneakers and flip-flops, each as clean as if they had just come out of the box. Plus, he has a row of half a dozen pairs of loafers—the kind my dad used to wear to work. Work shoes, Dad called them. He had a pair in black and a pair in brown, and he’d switch them up depending on the color of suit he was wearing. On weekends he wore sandals in the summer and sneakers in the winter.
I haven’t seen Dad’s shoes in a long time and I wonder what happened to all of them.
I’m not wearing a suit, or even khakis like Trey and the Reggs, but I take a pair of work shoes anyway. They are a little big on me, and I know I shouldn’t wear shoes that are too big. Do you know how many people trip and fall when their shoes are too big? And do you know if you have a bad enough fall, you could die?
If something happened to me, I’d never be able to rescue Quinn.
I decide to double up on socks, but just as I’m opening the top dresser drawer, there’s another knock on the door. I freeze in place. “No one’s answering,” I hear a voice say from out in the hall. A voice I know: Buzz Cut’s voice.
“Let’s break it,” another voice answers. Shaggy this time. “Gimme a screwdriver.”
“I don’t have a screwdriver,” Buzz says. “Credit cards work, though. I’ve seen them used on TV.”
“Do you have one of those?”
I finger the credit card in my pocket. Ha ha ha, Reggs.
“Nope. But I have a library card.”
“You have a library card?” Shaggy asks, incredulous.
“Ms. Corson made us sign up on the first day of school. I put it in my bag and forgot about it. May as well be put to good use.”
“The best use.”
There’s no time to barricade the door with chairs or the dresser, so I’m just waiting for them on the other side. But when they come in and I try to shove them away, my hands go through them. I wind up facedown on the floor.
Note to self: Genie hands still get rug burns.
“Oh, man, it looks like a regular dorm room,” Shaggy is saying as I rub my sore palms and get back up on my feet.
“What’d you expect?” Buzz asks him.
“I don’t know . . . maybe a king-size bed and a private bathroom and a terrace. Definitely a terrace.”
“If he had a terrace, we’d be able to see it from outside the building. He still has good stuff, though—look at his computer. It’s way nicer than yours.”
“Should I take it?” Shaggy asks.
“No, moron, we can’t take it if we want to frame him.”
“Oh, right,” Shaggy says.
Buzz moves toward the desk chair. “Do you have the flash drive? I’ll stick it in the side port and load the papers on. When we tell Heddle, Trey won’t be able to deny it. The evidence will be right there. And then who’s the cheater?”
“Brilliant,” Shaggy says. He pulls the flash drive from his pocket and hands it to Buzz.
“Huh, well, look at this.” Shaggy stands and looks over Buzz’s shoulder at the monitor. “Looks like our friend was planning a little trip.”
“I wonder what’s in Pennsylvania.”
“Maybe a twerp convention.”
Shaggy and Buzz break into laughter, like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. I don’t have time for this. I put my hand on the door handle, but just before I turn it, something occurs to me: They can’t see me, but they can see the website I pulled up on the computer.
The inspiration hits me like a flash of lightning: Maybe I can spook them into telling me where the bottle is.
I run over to the desk and reach a hand between them to grab the mouse. I click to pull up a blank page.
“Why’s the screen changing?” Buzz asks.
Then I type. I’m not so fast at typing, but the guys are staring at the screen like it’s the most interesting thing in the world: I have a question.
“Dude, the computer has a question,” Shaggy says.
“Do you think it’s a ghost?”
“No, moron. It’s a computer game.” He reaches to punch Buz
z in the shoulder, and his hand passes through my arm as he does it. Why can I touch some things same as always, like door handles and computers, but then people’s hands go right through me?
But I can’t let this stuff distract me right now. I keep typing. Where’s the bottle?
“The bottle?” Buzz says. “What kind of game asks about a bottle?”
No time for games, I type. Where is Trey’s bottle?
“Whoa,” Buzz says. “I have a question for you.”
I asked you first.
“This computer has an attitude problem,” Shaggy says. “Kind of like its owner.” He hits at the keys to erase my words.
I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
Shaggy is about to press the delete key again, but Buzz stops him. “I don’t like this,” he says quietly.
I type three more words: Tell me, Jake.
Shaggy falls over backward. Buzz is still staring at the screen, mouth hanging open, so I add: You look surprised, Ollie.
At this point, Shaggy has scrambled up from the floor. He and Ollie race out of the room as if they’re afraid the computer will chase them. I bet they spend the rest of the day trying to convince their friends that what they saw really happened and that they’re not crazy. All because of my observational skills. Now that’s noggining.
Noggining. Verb. The act of using your noggin, which is what Dad called my head.
Oh, Dad. I wish you back. I wish you were here right now. It’s the only wish I need.
But of course Dad is not here. I grab a pair of flip-flops from Trey’s closet, the closest kind of shoe to a one-size-fits-all, and then turn back to the computer and pull up a map of Grovestand, California, on Google. I find the closest bus stop to the school—I have to walk to Hollyhock Drive, make a left on Poppy Lane, and walk another block down, then I’ll be there. I’m a little nervous because I’ll have to cross two streets to get there. Not that I haven’t crossed streets by myself before. Because I have. Of course I have—I even did it in New York City the time I got separated from Uncle Max.
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