The Sleepover

by Jen Malone

  The kid with the baton holds his hands out, palms up. “Look, we don’t know anything about any Anna Marie. When we said we had something you’d really want, we meant your cell phone. It was lying in the parking lot in the exact spot Hedgie was stolen from. Must have fallen out of your pocket when you were trying to get the float going. Hey, if I lost mine, my dad would ground me for a month. We kind of figured your parents would too, so it was the perfect bargaining chip.”

  “You mean blackmailing chip,” Jake says with a sneer. Suddenly he looks exactly like the tough guy I always thought he was, and I catch my breath. But he’s on my side, and I’m extra-glad about that. We need Anna Marie back—whatever it takes.

  “Call it what you want. We have our float; you have your phone. All’s well that ends well as far as we’re concerned. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to finish decoupaging Hedgie’s flower headband before showtime!”

  The Hillside Heights kids surround the float and push/pull it out of the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. We stand helplessly by the Dumpster, watching the giant hedgehog disappear from view. Jake holds up my phone, and I slink over to silently take it from him and place it into my pocket. If it is possible to be any more embarrassed today, I really can’t imagine how. Even though I thought that was the case just a few minutes ago when I had banana dripping from my shoulder.

  “I give up,” I say. “Paige, we have to tell Mrs. Guerrero. Anna Marie could be in real trouble, and we’re wasting valuable time.” I put my head in my hands. I’m d-o-n-e, done.

  Jake kicks at some gravel. “I think she’s right. Let’s head home. I can fill you in on everything I remember from last night, though I gotta warn you, I don’t know how helpful it’s gonna be.”

  Paige answers by dropping her shoulders, clipping her helmet buckle under her chin, and swinging a leg over her bike.

  I eye my own (well, technically Jake’s) bike. I know the old expression that you’re supposed to get right back on the horse that throws you and that I had some big epiphany among the trash bags about how much fun it could be to throw caution to the wind, but the very last thing I want to do right now is ride the Bike of Death home. Plus, my knees are throbbing, and I don’t want to think about how much worse pedaling will make them hurt.

  Jake seems to read my mind. “I have an idea,” he says before disappearing behind the Dumpster with his skateboard. He returns empty-handed.

  “I can come back for that later.” He hops onto the dirt bike and motions for me to place my feet on the two wide, round posts sticking out from either side of the back tire. “Jump on!”

  I stare at the bike. Jake says, “It’s what they’re designed for. Hop on and hold tight.”

  Hold tight? Does he mean hold tight to him? Like, put my hands on his shoulders while he pedals?

  Um, no. No, no, no, nope, no. Not gonna happen. He’s a boy!

  And I smell like a trash bag.

  I stand helplessly in the parking lot, debating, when a squawk from the drive-through speaker makes me jump.

  “One mocha latte with two shots of vanilla please.”

  “Thank you. Pull forward.”

  Paige’s eyes widen at something behind me. “Megs, is that . . . ?”

  I only know one person who is addicted to mocha lattes with two shots of vanilla. This? Can’t be good.

  I tuck my face as far into my bike helmet as I can manage and then put my chin next to my armpit. Turning ever so slightly, I peer around my shoulder at the drive-through window and lose my breath. I only know one person who is addicted to mocha lattes with two shots of vanilla and drives a hunter-green Volvo station wagon with a dent in the passenger side from the time she backed into a pump at the gas station.

  My heart whomp-whomps in my ears as I lift my eyes and find my own mother staring back at me! My mother!

  Mom’s eyes narrow, and her head tilts as she squints in my direction. She reaches across the top of the dashboard for her glasses. I know from being in the car with her for a zillion of these drive-through orders that she always tosses them up there while she rummages through her wallet for cash. I am incredibly blessed right now that my mother is too vain for bifocals.

  I spin back to Jake, place one foot and then the other firmly on the metal outposts, and grab on to his shoulders. I have no time to think about this. None at all. We have to get out of here before my mom gets those glasses on.

  “Go!” I scream.

  This is so weird. I have my hands resting on Jake Ribano’s shoulders! We’re safely away from Dunkin’ Donuts now, cruising down a side street that I know for a fact my mom wouldn’t take to get home, and I’m holding on to Jake Ribano for dear life. Yes, I am.

  Okay, so my feelings about boys have changed over the last few years, and I don’t honestly think they have cooties anymore (though the jury is still way out on a few of the guys in my class—like Owen Richardson), but it’s not like I’ve ever been this close to one.

  Much less Jake “Tough Guy” Ribano. How many times have we tried to spy on Jake from Anna Marie’s bedroom? Okay, so he wasn’t often outside, but we always had fun trying. Anna Marie will die when I tell her about this!

  Anna Marie.

  My stomach falls all the way into my shoes. I got so wrapped up in escaping before my mom noticed me and then on the whole hanging-on-to-Jake thing that I haven’t really processed what we’re about to do. How are we going to break the news to Mrs. Guerrero that we don’t know where her daughter is and that we’ve been running around town all morning looking for her instead of confessing right away? Are we horrible people? Is there anything—anything—we’re overlooking?

  I have to know right now. I lean forward a little and speak into Jake’s ear, trying not to blush as I do. “So you’re going to fill us in on everything you remember when we get back?”

  Jake nods and turns his head slightly to answer me. Yikes! Wasn’t expecting that. Way, way too close to Jake’s face for comfort!

  He seems freaked out too, because he whips his head forward pretty fast and settles for calling back to me, “I can tell you some now, if you can hear me okay?”

  I nod but then realize he can’t see me. Whoops. “I can hear you!” I yell.

  Jake angles his face ever so slightly sideways and says, “There’s not that much. I was hanging around the gym after the team’s late practice last night, helping get the place ready for the game today while my dad met with the coach in his office, when you guys came in and scared me half to death. You were on a total mission to take those baby ducks. I tried to talk you out of it, but . . .”

  This surprises me. Like, really, really surprises me. Jake is known for being trouble, so I figured he was the one who tried to talk us into some of the stuff we did last night—not out of it. Jake is a bad boy, isn’t he? Except, if so, why isn’t he acting anything but nice and why did he say he was at school “helping” and not “for detention” and why is he here so willingly now and why did he go to church this morning and why is he wearing corduroys instead of his trademark black hoodie?

  Oh. Wait. The hoodie question I can answer.

  “Then what happened?” I ask. I’m so confused.

  “Okay, so then we brought the ducklings to the basement and got them settled into the bathtub. You wanted to stay and take care of them, but Paige and Anna Marie kept talking about how there could be ‘even more epic,’ and you agreed pretty quickly. Anna Marie had the idea to free other ducklings from captivity, so you guys decided to go to Hillside Heights to see if their science classes were doing the same project. I tried to reason with you, but when I saw you were gonna go either way, I figured I’d go along to make sure you all were safe.”

  That is . . . Well, that is really sweet. I don’t know what to make of it either, so I just say, “And then?”

  “And then we went to Hillside. You guys were pretending you were ninjas, and sneaking up to the doors, but then we turned the corner and saw the parking lot, and Veronica completely flipped
out over the hedgehog float and decided she had to have it. Which you all thought was hilarious and a great idea, by the way. You pretty much forgot about breaking in after that, and I was so happy about it, I helped out with taking Hedgie. We rolled it back to my garage and, um, that was it.”

  “That was it?”

  “Uh, yeah. Pretty much. I mean, uh, the rest isn’t important. Nothing that would help find Anna Marie, for sure.”

  Before I have the chance to puzzle out what he means by “the rest,” we’re pulling into Jake’s driveway. Paige stops in front of us, enters the garage, and props her bike against the wall where it had been to start. I suddenly realize I still have my hands on Jake’s shoulders, even though we’ve stopped moving now. I drop them like he’s on fire and edge backward over the rear tire. Jake glances at me and then unbuckles his helmet. He holds out his hand for my helmet.

  Great. Now, on top of the whole one eyebrow thing, he’s also going to see me with helmet hair. Just perfect.

  I fork it over and busy myself playing with the zipper on Jake’s sweatshirt. He certainly hasn’t told me how I got it last night.

  One mystery at a time, Meghan.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Paige says, and all her trademark happy-go-lucky attitude is wiped from her face. She looks like we’re about to face a firing squad. Maybe we are.

  Jake groans. “I should probably be there cuz she’s gonna want to ask me questions anyway.”

  Jake Ribano is turning out to be not at all what I thought.

  The basement looks significantly de-Silly Stringed when we return, and the Mountain Dew cans are all in a blue plastic recycling bin by the back door. Veronica is busily scrubbing at a spot on the carpet. It looks like the same spot I stepped in on my way to the bathroom this morning. I make a face.

  “What was that?” I ask.

  Veronica shrugs. “Search me. Some kind of green goo. Didn’t taste like anything I’d ever had before.” She peers over my shoulder. “Where’s Anna Marie?”

  Paige doesn’t answer, throwing herself onto the couch and raising a hand to her forehead. Veronica looks between me and Jake, and we quickly fill her in.

  “Oh man” is all she has to say. Then: “I guess it’s a good thing I cleaned up a little. Maybe it will earn us a few brownie points when we tell Anna Marie’s mom we’ve lost her kid.”

  Jake grimaces. “I’m pretty sure when she finds out we waited hours to tell her about her missing daughter, she won’t care one bit if a bomb went off in the basement.”

  I put a hand on Veronica’s shoulder. “But it really does look much better. You did a great job.”

  Veronica puffs out her chest and smiles. It’s almost like no one has ever complimented her before.

  “So, we’re gonna do this?” I ask.

  Paige looks at Veronica, and Veronica looks at Jake, who answers, “We’ll just tell her the truth. As of two o’clock in the morning, Anna Marie was safely back home, and she and Veronica and Paige were brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed.”

  It takes me a second, but then I snap to attention. “And me, right? I was too, wasn’t I?”

  Jake studies his feet. “Well, uh . . . not exactly. You, um . . . you stayed outside on the picnic bench with me. To talk.”

  My jaw drops. “I did?” I’d stayed up waaaaaay late into the night chatting with Jake Ribano? By myself? Was that before or after I went singular on the eyebrow?

  Jake mumbles, “Yeah.”

  Suddenly I wish—really, really wish—there was time to find out more about this mysterious talk. But there isn’t. We have to tell Mrs. Guerrero. We girls join hands and take a deep breath.

  “Now or never. We can do this,” Paige says.

  We squeeze once, then drop hands and follow Jake up the basement steps.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The YouTube Stylings of Madame Mesmer

  Two minutes later we’re back in the basement.

  “I can’t believe her mother’s not home!” Paige says, and her tone makes it obvious she’s super-annoyed.

  The house had been extra quiet when we stepped into the hallway. We explored the downstairs, ending in the kitchen, where a scribbled message on I HEART NEW YORK notepaper read Good morning, sleepyheads! I’ll be back in an hour. Grabbing the cake for the family birthday celebration tonight. When I get home, we’ll do breakfast!

  The note takes away all our resolve and courage, and we practically slump downstairs. There’s nothing to do now but wait.

  We all plop down on the giant sectional, except for Veronica, who snags a spot lying down on the floor. She puts her feet on the couch. “Can I just say something? It might sound weird.”

  Paige and I exchange yet another look—maybe our thousandth since Veronica arrived last night. Does she ever say anything that isn’t weird?

  “Sure,” I answer.

  “Except for the whole losing AM part,” Veronica whispers, “last night was the most fun I ever had.”

  I straighten up and stare at her. “Wait, so you remember last night now?”

  Veronica looks confused. “No!”

  I squint. “But you just said it was the most fun you ever had. How do you know that if—”

  “I know in my heart it must have been. We were all together. You guys are, like, my very best friends now.”

  I feel terrible. Veronica is weird, for sure, but also mostly sweet. Except, how could she think I’m her best friend when I don’t even know her last name? But before I can find the exact right thing to say, Paige surprises the heck out of me by saying, “You’re pretty cool, V. There’s never a dull moment when you’re around.”

  Veronica’s smile could power the annual Hillside Carnival, and I can’t help but smile too.

  “Welp, let’s finish cleaning,” she says, as if we all didn’t just totally have “a moment.”

  Yup, she’s sweet . . . but most definitely strange.

  And also right. I stand up and take the sticky pizza box out to the trash can on the back porch. Veronica offers to scrub the duckling poop from the bottom of the bathtub and, obviously, none of us are going to fight her for that job. Paige picks each individual M&M from the carpet while I concentrate on the Doritos bits.

  Jake doesn’t seem all that eager to clean (who could blame him?), but he finds his own way to help. “I’m gonna research hypnosis. Maybe if we find out more about how it works, we can figure out how to get your memory back and you might remember something helpful.”

  As we scrub and pick, Jake pulls out his phone and reads us facts.

  “Hypnotists can’t make you do anything you don’t want to. You’re just more susceptible to suggestions.”

  “Yeah, Madame Mesmer told us that,” I reply.

  “Do you know it stems from ancient rituals of the Orient?”

  “Do you know that’s not at all helpful to our current situation?” Paige answers, grinning to soften her sarcasm.

  “I knew that,” calls Veronica from the bathroom.

  We work in silence for a few minutes, until Jake speaks again. “I found something. There’s a Wikipedia page on posthypnotic amnesia. Here’s what it says: ‘Posthypnotic amnesia is the inability to recall events that took place while under hypnosis. This can be achieved by giving individuals a suggestion during hypnosis to forget what they have learned before or during hypnosis. Memories may return when these individuals are presented with a prearranged cue.’ ”

  I stop picking up Doritos crumbs and poke at the small pile of them in my hand while I try to rearrange those sentences into regular words I can understand. “So, Madame Mesmer could have done this on purpose? Told us not to remember anything we did under hypnosis until someone says the right word to snap us out of it?”

  Jake nods. “Kind of seems like that, yeah.”

  Veronica appears in the bathroom door to gape along with Paige and me. “But why would she have done that? Why? That’s so . . . so mean!”

  “No offense, Veroni
ca, but you did find her on the Internet. She might not be that reputable,” I say, giving her a sympathetic look.

  “Okay, so we just need to call her and find out what the cue is. What’s the website?” Jake asks. Veronica tells him, and he bends over his phone for a few minutes, staring at his screen. “Got a customer service number!” he finally says.

  Jake presses send on the call.

  He’s quiet for a bit, and I’m just starting to worry that no one will be there on a Saturday morning, when Jake speaks.

  “Hello? Um, hi. We had a party last night and one of your hypnotists came and put my friends under and now they can’t remember anything that happened between then and this morning. We need to know the cue to snap them out of it. . . . Uh-huh . . . No . . . Yes . . . No . . .”

  “What are they saying?” asks Paige, pulling on Jake’s sleeve. He swats her away and holds a finger to his lips.

  “Yes, okay. Hold on.”

  He asks us, “What was the name of the woman again?”

  “Madame Mesmer,” we all blurt at once.

  Jake repeats into his phone. “Madame Mesmer.”

  He holds it away from him to peer at the handset and then hits a button. The phone switches to speakerphone, and easy listening music plays into the basement. “I’m on hold,” he whispers.

  None of us say a word as we wait, but I pick at a loose thread on my shirt and make promises to the universe about all the good deeds I’ll do if we can figure this out and find Anna Marie.

  Finally there’s a click. “Hello?”

  “Yeah, we’re here,” Jake says.

  “Okay, thank you for holding. I reached Madame Mesmer and, as I suspected, she said she would never in a million years have instructed you to forget the night. It is regrettable that she did not bring you out of the hypnosis herself and she will be on probation for that offense, but she says she did give you very clear instructions that you were to snap out of the hypnosis as soon as you heard the words New York. She says she called two hours after she left and spoke the words into the phone when one of you answered. Someone named Paige. She gave clear instructions for this Paige person to repeat it to the remainder of the guests and got assurances it would be done. I’m sorry, but there is no other cue or trigger word.”