by Jen Malone
“Okay, then . . . party down!”
As she heads for the basement stairs, the camera swings away from her and shakily captures the basement steps as the person recording runs up them.
No need to guess who that was.
“I’m gonna kill Madame Mesmer,” Paige says, as the video ends and the screen goes black.
“Not if I get to her first,” I murmur. I am scarred for life over that fake phone call to Jake. For life. Not to mention all the rest of the chaos the whole hypnosis thing caused. Anna Marie missing, obviously. But all the other crazy things we did last night too. Just . . . everything.
Jake frowns and drums his fingers on his leg. “This doesn’t really explain the amnesia, though. If she did call and say, ‘New York,’ which makes sense since it doesn’t seem like you’re under hypnosis now or you’d still be partying instead of trying to find Anna Marie, you’d have your memories of the whole night, right? She didn’t make any mention of not remembering things. So I don’t get it.”
We’re all quiet for a second, considering. He’s right. Ever since waking up this morning, I’ve felt and acted like my regular self. Well, no. That’s not true. My regular self would never run through the boys’ locker room or sneak into my school when it wasn’t open. My regular self would never be part of a blackmailing scheme or escort a hedgehog float through town or ride behind Jake Ribano on a dirt bike. Definitely, definitely not. But I have to say, I didn’t feel like I was under any influence when I chose to do those things. It just felt like I did what needed to be done in the moment to get our friend back safely. And I would do all those things again. Even if regular Meghan wouldn’t.
Or maybe . . . maybe, this is regular Meghan. Just a new kind of regular.
Everyone else is quiet, trying to figure out the hypnosis stuff, but I’m quietly trying to figure out the Meghan stuff. Is this a new me? I’ve always been so good and followed every rule my parents or school or anyone else laid out, but maybe there’s a whole other side of me that’s a little bit of a rebel. Not like a lawbreaker or anything (float stealing aside!) but maybe someone who doesn’t sit back and accept everything exactly as instructed. Maybe someone who lets loose and takes chances and has a little more fun. This is a lot to think about.
Paige scrolls through her cell phone and speaks into the silence. “I definitely don’t remember any phone call. I remember everything from the moment I woke up, but no phone call. Although, this is superweird.” She holds up her phone. “My whole call history has been erased. Why would I have done that?”
She scrunches up her face and shakes her head. Then she adds, “Do you think the hypnosis could have just worn off from sleep?”
Jake considers. I steal tiny glances at him (okay, fine, so I can’t exactly go an entire lifetime without looking at him. Or an entire morning, apparently) until he says, “I don’t think so. Not with what I read anyway. What happened when you woke up? Tell me everything you do remember.”
I stare off into space, trying to re-create my morning. I woke up. No, I was woken up! “I remember rolling over the remote,” I say to Paige.
Paige nods. “Yeah, I remember that too. I woke up when the TV switched on. It was still connected to the Xbox from when we played Summer Dance Party last night and the music was superloud and—”
“What song?” Jake interrupts.
Paige swishes her lips side to side, straining to remember. But I already do.
“ ‘American Boy.’ My mom doesn’t let me listen to hip-hop, and I hadn’t heard it before last night. It’s really catchy.”
“True dat,” adds Veronica.
Should I have just told Jake I’m not allowed to listen to hip-hop music? Will he think I’m a total baby?
He doesn’t seem to have an opinion either way. He just locates the remote and switches on the TV. The game screen appears immediately, and a voice belts out: “Take me on a trip. I’d like to go someday. Take me to New York. I’d like to see LA.”
“New York,” Paige and I say breathlessly in unison.
“New York,” Jake states. “That’s what snapped you out of it. At least that’s one mystery solved.”
Paige high-fives Jake, but Veronica isn’t paying attention to the TV . . . or to us at all. She’s still scrolling through Max-a-Million’s YouTube page.
“Maybe this will solve another,” she says, pointing at the screen.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When He’s Bad, He’s Better
“Adventures in Hypnosis” reads the name of the video. According to the time stamp, the video was posted at nine a.m. Just a few hours ago.
We all exchange looks. Veronica’s mouse hovers over the play arrow. With a click, she starts the recording.
It shows Max sitting at the desk in his room, wearing a bright green I’M WITH STUPID sweatshirt with an arrow that points straight up at his chin. He’s got that right. Behind him, hanging shelves are filled with odd Lego creations like a T. rex whose bottom half is the Millennium Falcon.
Max’s eyes are full of wickedness as he introduces himself to his viewing audience. Ugh. Just . . . ugh.
“Welcome to Max-a-Million’s, where the pranking is good. I’m your host, Max, and my motto is ‘When I’m bad, I’m better!’ Let’s see what fun we have for today’s episode. Many of you know my sister, Anna Marie, from previous episodes.”
The screen cuts to Anna Marie wearing a bathrobe and sporting a giant towel wrapped around her hair, obviously just out of a shower. She’s leaning into a mirror to apply zit cream. She’s going to go mental when she sees this. If she sees this. No, when she sees this. Stay positive, Meghan.
On-screen, Anna Marie screams when she spots the video camera in the reflection. The next shot shows Anna Marie intently playing an air guitar in her room. This time she never even notices the camera because her eyes are closed the whole time. The last clip is Anna Marie’s notebook, which has doodle after doodle of I love Graham Cabot.
Paige sighs. “Who can blame her? Did you guys see Triton? He was so hot in that movie.”
I feel a little (a lot) weird about agreeing in front of Jake (even though I do agree, of course). I make some noncommittal sound in my throat and concentrate on the video instead.
The camera cuts back to a wildly grinning Max. He lifts one eyebrow, and his smile widens. “Yup. She’s a source of endless material. If you’ve been following my channel, you’ve seen my previous videos from Anna Marie’s epic birthday sleepover. We’ve introduced you to the cast of characters: Meghan, Paige, and the classic Veronica. We’ve watched them fall under the spell of hypnosis. We’ve watched their wild and crazy adventures as they’ve stolen everything from baby ducks to giant hedgehogs. And here’s the very best part: They don’t remember any of it! Any of it, people!”
Max rocks back in his chair and laces his fingers behind his head, elbows wide. He continues to grin at the camera. Then he winks. Rocking forward again, he props his arms on the desk and leans close to the camera.
“Wanna know why?”
Veronica hits pause on the video. I gasp as Paige’s fingernails dig into my arm. Jake says a curse word and then immediately says, “Oh. Sorry.”
I can’t believe I can find a voice to talk to him after the embarrassment of basically revealing my crush right in front of him, but I manage. “It’s okay. I’m pretty sure we’re all thinking the same word in our heads.”
“Death is not a kind enough punishment for that little dude. . . . ,” Paige says.
I turn back to the computer. “Let’s see what we’re killing him for first.” At my nod, Veronica hits play again.
Max’s disembodied voice says, “Roll the tape,” and the scene cuts to a spliced-in video, this time of Max, sitting at his desk, wearing a black T-shirt that reads, IT’S MY JOB TO BE ANNOYING, and then pulling a cell phone with a silver glitter case from his pocket and answering in a high-pitched voice. The camera is being held by someone else. Only an arm is visible, but the sleeve matches the shirt Max’
s friend had on last night.
“That’s my phone!” Paige screeches, but we all shush her.
“Oh, halloo, Madame Mesmer! Yes, this is Paige. Yes, we did have so much fun tonight. What? New York? Oooooh, New York. Oh wow. I . . . I feel wide-awake now. That was . . . That was crazy. But in a good way. What? Oh yes, yes, of course I’ll say, New York to the other girls. Thank you again for coming to our party. We had a great time. Okay. G’night!”
Max cackles as he ends the call and addresses his audience.
“And that is how mayhem begins. Now for stage two. Because Sammy and I have been doing some Internet research on hypnosis, we have something a little more fun in mind for the girls downstairs. Follow us.”
Max gestures to the camera. Sammy sets it on the desk next to the computer and aims at the screen where editing software is open.
“Observe,” Max orders. He runs the video he’d taken in the basement of Madame Mesmer hypnotizing us, hitting record on the screen anytime she speaks. He closes out the video portion and concentrates on the audio recording he just made. From Madame Mesmer’s instruction to have fun “until you can’t stay awake anymore,” Max isolates the word “until.” From her reassurance, “I want you to remember that” he gets “remember.”
When he’s finally done, he has a very convincing clip of Madame Mesmer’s voice saying the words, “Okay, girls! One more thing I forgot. I want you girls to have fun like you’ve never had fun before, but even when you snap out of your hypnosis, I don’t want you to remember any of what happened until you hear the next trigger words. You will forget everything until you hear the words Las Vegas. That’s all. Have fun!”
In a few places the editing isn’t perfect—there are short gaps between the words, and it’s clearly Max’s disguised voice saying Las Vegas—but for the most part, it sounds a lot like the hypnotist herself is giving the instructions.
Jake’s mouth is hanging open. “Max is diabolical,” he says, and there’s something that sounds just a little bit like respect, or at the very least awe, in his voice.
But I barely notice. My head is spinning in a thousand directions at once. The second I heard the words Las Vegas on the video, my mind exploded with hundreds of memories from the night before. I remember scooping up the baby ducklings in Miss Shanley’s classroom and tucking them into the hood of Jake’s sweatshirt, which he gave to me for that express purpose. That’s why I had his sweatshirt! I remember tripping in the pitch black and sliding into the dewy grass outside Hillside Heights when we snuck over to “liberate” their ducks. I remember Anna Marie offering me her hand and helping me up, and I remember the two of us giggling our heads off as we pushed Hedgie the Havocking Hedgehog through our neighborhood to Jake’s garage. Jake! I remember hanging out with Jake last night after everyone else had gone to bed. Oh! I remember now.
“I remember!” Veronica says, and she sounds as awestruck as I feel.
“Me too!” Paige says, looking to me for confirmation. I nod at them both and steal a peek at Jake, whose eyes are locked on my face. He smiles.
It only takes about a minute before we lose momentum and flop back onto Veronica’s cot to process everything. I feel kind of dazed.
Paige giggles. “Everything’s rushing back at once. Oh whoa. We prank called Miss Shanley asking for ransom on the ducklings!”
I clap a hand over my mouth to stop my horrified laugh. “We so totally did! Do you think she’ll remember? Or, wow, do you think she can trace the phone number?”
Paige considers for a second and then says, “Nah, we used Anna Marie’s cell. I’m sure the school only has home numbers and parents’ cells in their records.”
Well, thank God for small miracles. At least we couldn’t have called anywhere on my Ladybug phone. Other than my mother, of course, and I’m extremely relieved that my newfound memories don’t include any suicide missions of that nature.
Jake stands behind the cot, tapping his legs again. “Um, guys, not to interrupt the party or anything, but does any of this remembering clue you in to Anna Marie’s whereabouts? You know, since she’s still missing and all.”
I study my lap, ashamed we were laughing and joking about prank calls at a time like this. Paige blows her hair out of her face, and Veronica shrugs sadly. Finally I whisper, “I got nothing.” The other two shake their heads also, and the four of us are silent for a long moment, while I stroke absently at the spot where my eyebrow used to reside. I gasp.
“Oh my God! I did this to myself! I remember now. We were playing Truth or Dare. . . .”
Paige’s lip goes up in one corner. “And you chose truth but then refused to answer.”
Jake looks interested. “What was so secret you’d rather shave off on entire eyebrow before answering?”
I lunge across the couch at Paige, clamping my hand over her mouth before she can answer that. Now that I remember everything, I know exactly the truth I was protecting. Unfortunately, I’m not within arm’s reach of Veronica.
“All she had to do was tell us was her most secret daydream.”
I’m pretty sure I’m stoplight red. Jake looks equal parts embarrassed and sick to his stomach because, obviously, he can guess that one by now. He murmurs, “Oh.”
Veronica shakes her head. “I don’t get what the big deal is. We can all figure out it’s—”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Swings and Pinkies
But this time I’m faster. I stand up the very second Veronica’s mouth opens, and I practically tackle her to the ground before she can finish her sentence.
“A kiss from Jkkkkkk,” comes the muffled word as she rolls out from under me. I squeak and bury my face in the carpet. I mean, I’m sure he guessed that already, but there’s thinking it, and then there’s knowing it. Thanks a lot, Veronica.
Paige, good friend that she is, tries to create a distraction by saying, “Does anyone have paper and pen? I think we should make a list of everything we remember from last night. Maybe we’ll find some clue that will lead to Anna Marie.”
Veronica bounces back up and grabs a pen from her camping table next to the cot. She pushes her sleeve up and aims the pen at her arm. “I can write it. I took a stenography course at summer camp.”
Jake is still studying his shoes. I roll over and rise to a seated position, crossing my legs and practicing deep-breathing techniques as subtly as I can. It doesn’t matter if my social life will be over after my mom finds out about last night, because I will be too busy dying of humiliation to care. I almost wish my mother would show up now instead of forty-five minutes from now when she’s supposed to pick me up.
I’m avoiding looking at Jake (yet again), but I can’t help glancing up when he clears his throat. I bring my eyes up to his face and find him staring straight at me! He jerks his head in the direction of the basement door, raising his eyebrows in question. Wait, is he . . . Does he want me to go outside with him? Outside, like last night. I remember sitting at the picnic table with Jake, after everyone else had gone to bed. When Anna Marie had gone to bed. She’d been safe and sound and tucked into a sleeping bag.
And I’d been outside. With Jake Ribano. Alone.
Slowly, very slowly, I nod and get up from the couch. Paige glances at me and wiggles her eyebrows when I brush past her to weave behind the sofa next to Jake. I ignore her. I murmur, “We’ll be right back,” and follow Jake out the door. I don’t dare glance behind me to see the expressions on Veronica’s and Paige’s faces.
Anna Marie’s basement opens onto a cement patio shaded by a large deck above it. Four thick ropes are bolted to the underneath part of the deck, and they’re used to hang a porch swing. Jake heads directly to it. He holds it steady and motions with a nod for me to hop on. When I’ve pushed myself against the back, letting my legs dangle above the ground, he sits down too. He sits right next to me. His leg brushes mine and makes me shiver just a little. I flash back to the image of him securing the bike helmet around my chin, and shiver again.
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br /> “Are you cold?” he asks. “Want me to grab your sleeping bag from inside or something?”
I’m supernervous now that it’s just Jake and me, especially since he knows about my crush on him, but I manage a tiny laugh. “No, it’s okay. I already have your sweatshirt. I can’t take all your clothes.”
Oh, Meghan, Meghan, Meghan. Why do you say the dumbest things ever? Sheesh. Now it’s Jake’s turn to blush, and I honestly hadn’t even meant anything by that comment. It just . . . came out differently than I’d intended.
What is going on here anyway? Why did Jake want to talk to me outside? I need to get myself under control. I have a best friend to find. Even if we are out of clues and there’s less than an hour until my mom arrives, which means Mrs. Guerrero is definitely going to be home very soon, and there basically isn’t a thing any of us can do besides wait for that to happen.
Oh. He’s looking at me. What? Is it my eyebrow? Did he say something and I was too busy talking to myself in my head to realize it? Because that happens more than I’d like to admit.
But he’s staring at me with a friendly look on his face, like we share a secret or something. Right then and there I decide Anna Marie would totally forgive me if I took a ten-minute time-out from the search party. Anna Marie loves love. Not that this is love, but, um, like. Definite strong like. On my part, at least.
Jake’s knee bumps against mine (on purpose?), and I break eye contact, jumping a little and yanking my leg away in surprise. Settle down, Meghan. You don’t even know what he wants to talk to you about.
His voice is so quiet, I have to strain to hear it over the rumble of a lawn mower in a neighbor’s yard. “So do you really remember everything from last night?”
I remember Jake sitting across the table from me in the pitch dark, and I remember talking. More talking. Talking for what seemed like forever, even when we were so sleepy and there were long pauses between questions and I’d start to wonder if maybe he’d fallen asleep . . . right before he would finally whisper an answer. I remember him being really easy to talk to, and feeling comfortable. It makes it easier to talk to him now.
