by Marilyn Kaye
“Hi, Mom. This is Alyssa Parker.”
One thing I’ll say for my mother, my father too—they’re pretty open-minded about people. Like I said, there weren’t any goth types back at my old school. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever seeing any in Brookdale at all. But Mom didn’t look the least bit startled or disapproving. She might have just been thrilled that I was making a friend. I made a mental note to tell her later that I barely knew Alyssa and that she wasn’t really a friend. I didn’t want her getting any crazy ideas that I might be happy here.
“Hi, Alyssa. It’s nice to meet you.”
Alyssa mumbled something that could have been a “Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m off to another interview with the editor in chief,” my mother told us. “Wish me luck! Oh, and a welcome-to-the-neighborhood lady came by today and left a cake. Help yourselves to it.”
She headed over to the garage, and we went up the stairs.
“What’s she interviewing for?” Alyssa asked.
“To be a reporter at some newspaper.”
“Cool.”
That was the second word of approval I’d received from the glum goth.
Inside the house, Dad passed us. He was on the phone so he just waved as he crossed the entrance hall to his office on the other side.
“My dad,” I told Alyssa.
I didn’t get a “Cool” this time, but she nodded as if he was okay.
“Want some cake?” I asked.
“You said there was something you wanted to show me.”
I was pleased she wanted to get right to it. “Yeah, it’s upstairs.”
She followed me up the stairs and down the hall. I pointed to doors as we passed them. “My parents’ room. That’s my room. Bathroom’s there. And that’s Charlotte’s. There are a couple of other rooms, I don’t know what they’re going to do with them. Probably a guest room. And my mom wants to turn one into a study if she gets this job.”
Alyssa didn’t look particularly interested, so I picked up the pace until we reached the winding metal staircase. She followed me up and I led her into the turret.
Alyssa drew in her breath sharply. Instead of a “Cool,” this time I got a soft “Wow.” And she even elaborated.
“This is amazing. It’s, like, spooky. You could do really fun stuff up here.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Have a séance. Talk to spirits and stuff.”
I looked at her a little nervously. Like I said, my parents are pretty open-minded, but I didn’t think they’d approve of communicating with the dead regularly in the house. Not that I believed in that stuff, of course.
“That’s what I wanted to show you,” I said, pointing.
“A telescope?” she asked.
“Yeah. It was here when we moved in. It’s kind of special.”
She crossed the room and examined it.
“It’s really old,” she said.
“But it still works,” I told her. “Look through it.”
Alyssa was a little taller than me, so she adjusted the angle and peered through the eyepiece.
I held my breath. What would it reveal to Alyssa? Herself, on a broomstick? The yet-to-be-built community center? Goblins and ogres dancing on rooftops?
“You can practically see the whole town,” Alyssa said.
“Anything…unusual?” I pointed to the dial. “That magnifies what you see.”
She fiddled with it. And then, “Huh.”
“What?” I asked eagerly. I came closer. “What is it?”
“My house.” She stepped aside. I took this as an invitation to look at it.
“It’s the low brick one, with the wraparound porch.”
“It’s nice,” I said. “Big.”
“Boring,” she said.
Obviously, she hadn’t seen anything weird. While I had control of the telescope, I did a quick scan of the town, and I was disappointed. There was nothing to see.
“That’s what you wanted to show me?” Alyssa asked. “The telescope?”
I nodded, feeling more than a little embarrassed.
But Alyssa didn’t look too disappointed. “It’s cool. I mean, you could spy on people with this. That’s what it used to be called, you know. A spyglass.”
Spyglass was a more interesting word than telescope, I thought. And I appreciated the word because it was how I’d felt yesterday, when I saw her on the broomstick. Like a spy. But now that Alyssa hadn’t seen anything, I was thinking again that it might have been my imagination. Or maybe the telescope—the spyglass—would only show strange stuff to me.
“Well. I guess I should go.”
I felt like I had to do something to make the trip worthwhile for her. “Want some cake first?”
I got one of her usual shrugs, but I saw her head bob slightly, and I took that as a yes.
Back downstairs, Alyssa paused to look at a framed photo of my family on a table next to the sofa.
“That’s your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a lot older than you.”
“Eighteen.” Recalling Alyssa’s attitude toward her sister—stepsister—I felt like I had to add something to show some solidarity by saying something negative about Charlotte. “She can be bossy.”
Alyssa nodded knowingly.
I found the cake on the counter in the kitchen. A large slice had already been cut from it.
“Looks like my dad helped himself,” I said as I cut two more slices and put them on plates.
“Why is your father home during the day?” Alyssa asked.
“He’s a lawyer. He has his office here. Milk?”
She nodded and I poured two glasses.
“And you said your mom’s a reporter?”
I handed her the glasses and added forks to the plates. “She will be, if she gets this job,” I replied as we set everything on the kitchen table. And as we sat down, I asked, “What about yours?”
“My what?”
“Your family. You know all about mine, now tell me about yours.”
She looked a little surprised, almost annoyed, and I half expected her to tell me it was none of my business. Or maybe no one had ever asked her anything personal before.
But then she shrugged and dug her fork into the cake.
“Yeah, I guess that’s fair.” She took a bite, maybe taking time to consider my request. The cake seemed to give her courage, and she began to speak.
“Okay, here goes. My mom’s a heart surgeon who developed some new technique of doing something with catheters and now she’s famous.”
“Famous?” I asked, hearing the doubt in my voice.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Gina Khatri, MD, cardiac catheter wizard to the stars,” she said sarcastically. She took another large chomp of cake before clarifying. “Not like famous in the whole world, just with other heart surgeons.” She stabbed her fork into the cake again. “And my stepfather’s a big-shot architect, he’s won awards. He’s building the new community center here.”
“I saw it!” I exclaimed.
She looked at me oddly, and I amended that.
“I mean, I saw his plans. Of what it’s going to look like.”
She continued. “My stepsister, Madison, the girl you saw in the cafeteria? She’s a figure skater, she’s won a bunch of competitions, and she wants to go to the Olympics.”
“Wow, that’s amazing!” That slipped out, and I regretted it immediately. Alyssa glared at me, and for a minute I thought she’d get up and leave. But she must have liked the cake, because she just took a deep breath and another bite before going on.
“My stepbrother, Josh, is a senior at Lakeside High. He’s captain of the football team, president of the student body, he’s on the honor roll, and he’s already been accepted to three Ivy League schools.”
I was on the verge of another “Wow” but I managed to hold it back.
“And then there’s my younger real brother, Ethan. He’
s only nine and he’s already a real actor. He’s been in three TV commercials and he’s acted in lots of shows at the Lakeside Playhouse.”
I couldn’t resist any longer. “Wow,” I blurted out. “You live in a house full of stars.”
“No kidding,” she said, but there was no pride in her tone. She actually sounded bitter. “Everyone thinks I must be jealous. But I’m not, because I have my own identity and I’m nothing like any of them.”
I nodded. “Because you…you’re…” I was about to say “a goth” but she beat me to it.
“A goth.”
“What is that, exactly? Is it just the way you dress?”
“No. I’m a socially alienated lost soul who has rejected the mainstream culture.”
She rattled that off in a way that made me suspect she’d memorized it from a dictionary definition.
I was curious. “So, what is your culture?”
“Huh?”
“Well, you said you reject mainstream culture. So what’s the goth culture?”
She stared at me for a few seconds. Then she said, “We don’t smile a lot.”
I gazed at her skeptically. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”
She hesitated. “There’s—there’s music, I think. And video games, maybe.”
“What else?”
“What’s with the third degree?” She glared at me.
I just looked at her. I wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily.
She rolled her eyes. “Look, I just saw some kids who dressed like this when my family went to New York last summer. Everyone else thought they looked awful—I thought they were cool. And the kids looked like they didn’t care what anyone thought about them. So when we got back here, I started wearing the makeup and dressing like them. That’s all.”
I understood. “How does your family feel about it? How you dress, and the way you don’t smile much.”
“I don’t actually care how they feel about it. But, since you asked, they don’t like it.” For one second, a grin crossed her face. “Which is another good reason to do it. And like I said, Madison thinks I’m a witch.”
I considered her thoughtfully. “Do you think you’re a witch?”
There was a moment of silence. She seemed to be having a mental debate with herself.
Then she spoke. “Like I said before, I wouldn’t mind being a witch and having a few magical powers. But I can’t do any of that stuff, like spells and curses. I don’t know any magic, I don’t fly on broomsticks. But I wish I could do magical stuff. Like make some people disappear.”
“Like who? Your family?”
“Not for forever,” she said hastily. “I mean, I don’t want them dead! Just…just to not be there once in a while. When they bug me. And I’d maybe like to curse the mean girls at school. Give them all pimples or something. And…and…make chocolate healthier than vegetables. And make boring teachers more interesting. And be invisible when I want to be!” She sighed. “Yeah, sometimes I wish I could be a witch.”
It was the perfect opening. And I just had to tell her. I took a deep breath. “Alyssa…When I said I had something to show you that didn’t make any sense…it wasn’t just the spyglass. It’s what I saw in the spyglass.”
“What did you see?”
“You know the community center? The one your stepfather’s going to build? I saw it. Like, it was already there—fully constructed. With an outdoor pool and everything.”
I couldn’t tell from her face what Alyssa was thinking. Probably that I was completely crazy. But I continued anyway.
“And then I saw…you.” I took a deep breath. “On a broomstick. Flying.”
She stared at me, with no expression at all on her face. She said nothing. I swallowed, hard. Did she think I was nuts?
Finally, she spoke. “Can we go look through it again?”
We hadn’t finished our cake, but that didn’t matter. We left the table and ran up the two flights of stairs.
“You go first,” Alyssa ordered. “Maybe it only shows the weird stuff to you.”
Slowly, I scanned the town, twisting the magnifier dial so I wouldn’t miss anything.
“See anything?”
“Not really. But I recognize someone.”
“Who?”
“That girl in our English class. The one who wrote the book report Ms. Gonzalez read aloud. She’s walking with some lady.”
I stepped aside and let Alyssa look.
“Oh, yeah. Rachel.” And then she gasped.
“What?” I asked.
“Look!”
I saw the same woman I’d seen a few seconds earlier. And the girl by her side had the same long, curly blond hair. But…
“She’s a little kid!” I exclaimed.
“And she’s holding the woman’s hand, right?” Alyssa asked.
“Yes!”
“Let me see again!” Alyssa begged.
I turned the spyglass over to her.
“She couldn’t be more than five for six years old,” she said. “I don’t get it!” Then she turned to me.
“Now look again.”
I did. There was the same woman, now walking with the Rachel I recognized from class.
“What does this mean?” I wondered out loud.
“Not a clue,” Alyssa whispered. Then she smiled, a real smile.
“But it’s like I told you, right? Nothing here makes sense.”
THE NEXT DAY BEFORE ENGLISH, THERE WERE still five minutes to go before the bell rang. Alyssa and I sat at adjoining desks in the empty classroom, waiting. We’d raced to get there early in hopes of catching Rachel before class started.
“You know,” Alyssa said, watching the door, “when I told you nothing here makes sense, I didn’t mean this town was magical or anything. I was just being my socially alienated self.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I got that. But I don’t think it’s Lakeside that’s magical,” I replied. “It’s the spyglass.”
She nodded back.
“You know what,” I continued, “when I saw the community center, and I found out that it hadn’t even been built yet, I thought maybe the spyglass could show me the future. But then that wouldn’t explain why I saw you on a broomstick.”
Alyssa considered this. “Unless I’m going to turn into a witch someday.”
“Do you believe that could happen?”
“No,” Alyssa admitted. She turned to look at me. “Maybe the spyglass is showing you fantasies, what people want. Like, according to my stepfather, people in Lakeside have been wanting a community center for a long time.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. And you said that sometimes you daydream about being a witch, or having magic powers. But how does that explain what we saw Rachel doing?”
“Maybe she wishes she was a little kid again. I mean, she never looks very happy.”
“You never look very happy,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but not because I wish I was a child. I’m a lost soul, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
Now it was only two minutes till the bell, so people started drifting into the room. The girl who had the desk next to mine came toward us and looked at Alyssa through narrowed eyes.
“You’re in my seat,” she said.
Alyssa did her shrug thing. “Bell hasn’t rung yet.”
“Yeah, well, I just don’t want you leaving your creepy freakazoid cooties all over my chair.”
I was so right in thinking all middle schools were alike. There were girls like her back at Brookdale. I once heard a rumor that some of them vowed to make at least one other girl cry every day.
Alyssa didn’t cry, of course. Given the way she looked and her general attitude, I didn’t doubt that she’d heard worse from kids here at school. Or on the street. Or maybe even from her own family.
She stared right back, unblinking, at the girl. Then she stood up, leaned over, and rubbed her hands all over the top of the desk.
“Now
you’ve got cooties here too,” she said, and sauntered off.
The girl turned to me, with the same pursed lips and squinted eyes. “Is she a friend of yours?” she demanded.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to respond. We were distracted by the entrance of Ms. Gonzalez. Then the bell began to ring. And just before the clanging stopped, Rachel hurried in and managed to get to her desk on time.
From the other side of the room, Alyssa caught my eye and mouthed, “After class.” I nodded.
Ms. Gonzalez addressed the class. “Today we begin our discussion of American poetry.”
This announcement was met with a general groan. Ms. Gonzalez ignored it.
“Yes, my friends, over the next few weeks you will meet the likes of Langston Hughes. Carl Sandburg. Emily Dickinson. Li-Young Lee. And many others whom you may actually appreciate, believe it or not.” She raised an eyebrow, as if daring us to comment further. “Today we’ll begin with the great American literary figure Robert Frost,” she said.
This was all good news to me. I’m not actually a huge poetry fan—I prefer stories that you can read and enjoy without worrying about symbolism and stuff. With poetry, you can’t just appreciate it, you have to think about what it really means. At least, that’s the way it was at Brookdale, so I was pretty sure it would be the same here.
But at least for today, I was pleased that we’d be reading Robert Frost, because I’d already done that, in October back at Brookdale. This meant I wouldn’t have to pay too much attention today. I could think about the spyglass and what it might show me next. Or what it would show us—I was hoping that Alyssa might come home with me again today. And maybe that other girl, Rachel.
Which led me to think about what that mean girl had said. “Is she a friend of yours?” It’s funny—much as I’d planned to be a loner here, I had to admit it was kind of nice having someone to talk with. Especially since there was something to talk about. Alyssa wasn’t the kind of person I’d ever have been friends with back home, but maybe that was a good thing, considering what the friends back home had done to me.
Okay, so I’d pledged to myself that I wouldn’t make any friends here. But Alyssa wasn’t exactly what I’d call a friend, and she was a loner too. So I still wasn’t completely breaking my vow.
