“What?” Nia asked, jerking her head up.
Suddenly I realized that I had not told them about when Cornelia hacked into Thornhill’s computer and that I got to take a longer look at the list of names until someone shut us down. I caught them up on everything I’d seen as quickly as I could.
“Amanda and Beatrice Rossiter were friends?” Nia’s and Callie’s faces wore expressions of the purest shock.
I nodded. “I know. It’s crazy.”
“And you’re sure you saw the name Maude Cooper on that list?” Nia asked.
“Positive,” I said.
Nia stared bullets at me. “Any other earth-shattering developments or secrets you’d like to share at the eleventh hour, Hal Bennett?”
“I think that about covers it.”
Nia shook her head at my attempt at understatement, then studied the pile on the table. “We need some space to put the things in this box that are significant.”
“But everything’s significant.” Callie’s voice was frustrated. “Just because some of it seems insignificant to us doesn’t mean it’s not important.”
Nia opened her mouth, and from the expression on her face, I knew she was about to bite Callie’s head off. “Let’s create a separate pile of stuff we understand the significance of,” I said quickly.
“Oh, you understand the significance of this?” Nia waved the article about Maude Cooper’s book.
“Better than I understand the significance of that.” I pointed at the map of Maryland on the coffee table.
Nia looked down at the pile of papers on her lap, then glanced at her watch and groaned. “We can’t spend ten minutes on every piece of paper or Cisco will be here before we get through a tenth of this.” She took a bunch of papers off the top of the pile on her lap and handed them to Callie. She handed another stack to me. Without moving from our uncomfortable positions on the floor, we all started reading.
On the top of my pile was another map—this one of greater Los Angeles. Again, there was no writing on it anywhere, and I put it on top of the article about Dr. Cole Tobias and the Maryland map—the Mysterious but Probably Really Important pile. The next piece of paper was another newspaper clipping, this one of an obituary. A man named George Chang had fallen to his death while hiking the Appalachian Trail. I skimmed the article. Mr. Chang had been an early investor in Silicon Valley, his own start-up, blah blah blah. Nothing in the article made any sense to me, and I put it on the mystery pile.
“Callie, look!” Nia read aloud from the piece of paper on top of her pile. “Orion’s Dr. Ursula Leary was honored by the National Institute of Science for her work on locating the galaxy Alpha Benton-554.” Callie was leaning over Nia’s shoulder and reading with her. “It’s from the Orion Herald,” Nia explained to me, eyes still on the paper. “And it’s circled.” I crawled over to where they were sitting. The article had a picture of Callie’s mom, and it explained how she’d been honored at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. There was part of another article on the page, too, something about funding for a local animal shelter. But part of it was ripped off, and the bright red circle around the article about Callie’s mom made it clear Amanda hadn’t saved the piece of paper because of her interest in the good work being done by our local ASPCA.
“My mom got this award two years before Amanda came here.” Callie looked up and our eyes met. “Why would Amanda have this?”
“Yeah, and it’s the actual newspaper, not a computer printout.” Nia touched the newsprint lightly.
“She was reading the Orion Herald two years before she came to Orion?” Callie asked, incredulous.
“Apparently,” Nia said, placing the article on top of the clipping about Maude Cooper.
I looked down at the top piece of paper on my lap. In my confusion, it took me a minute to focus on the words, but when I did, I saw it was an official-looking document with the words Medical Examiner’s Office printed in thick black type at the top. It was a death certificate for Annie Beckendorf.
“Wait a minute, that’s the woman in the article, the one who was killed in the car crash!” I said to myself out loud.
“What are you talking about?” Nia and Callie asked together.
“Um, yet another detail I forgot to mention,” I offered, wrinkling my face with guilt.
“Hal!” Nia yelled, and Callie punched me in the arm.
Hard.
“Hey, who wasn’t talking to whom?” I reminded them, matching their irritation with my own. “Anyway, I didn’t know it might be significant. How many hundreds of posts to the website do we get every day? You guys could have read it there yourselves, anyway!” I rubbed my arm where Callie’s fist had slammed into it and told them about the article that had been sent into the website describing the woman who’d died in the car accident in California.
“California,” Callie mused. “Those movie tickets were from California.”
I pointed at the pile of mysteries. “There’s also a map of L.A. there.”
“Guys,” said Nia, eyes on the paper on her lap, “listen.”
Nia started reading aloud, but the document was so thick with legalese it took me a minute to translate what she was saying. “. . . does herewith become the legal guardian of her younger sister, a minor. Robin Beckendorf’s legal rights extend (but are not limited) to choosing an appropriate school for said minor; using funds from the accounts provided by their mother, the deceased Annie Beckendorf (hereinafter referred to simply as “Annie”) for any and all expenses deemed necessary by Robin; signing any necessary legal forms relating to said schooling or expenses—”
Callie interrupted. “I don’t get it. Who are these people?”
“Beckendorf,” Nia said. “That’s the last name of the woman who died in the car crash and her daughters.”
“Do you think they’re friends of Amanda’s?” I asked. “Or relatives?” I’d gotten so used to the idea of Amanda traveling solo it was weird to insert a bunch of cousins where before there had been no one.
Nia and Callie shrugged. “Anything’s possible,” said Callie. She looked back down at the papers in front of her, and there was silence for a moment as we all started reading again. To my amazement, the very next piece of paper on my lap was an envelope addressed to Max and Annie Beckendorf, 451 Lilac Drive, Denver, CO, 56783. There was no return address. Inside the envelope was a card with a stork carrying a pink blanket with a baby in it. I opened the card.
Dearest Annie and Max,
Congratulations on the arrival
of your little one. She chose her parents wisely.
All best, John Joy
I gasped. “Dr. Joy!” I shouted. “Dr. Joy wrote this Annie Beckendorf woman a card when her baby was born.”
I passed the card to Nia and Callie, but after they’d both read it, none of us had any idea what the note meant. I put it on top of the significant pile and went back to looking at the papers on my lap.
I had no clue what to make of a form letter dated September fifth of this school year, signed by Mr. Thornhill and addressed to the parents of Endeavor students. The first page was a schedule of home and away games, and the second was a printout of the statement about the school’s zero tolerance on drinking at school-related events whether or not they took place on school grounds. At the bottom of the page, in handwriting that was definitely Amanda’s, was the word,
MayBe?
Maybe what? Why had she saved this particular letter from Thornhill, written over a month before she even came to Orion? How had she even gotten it, since as far as I knew, she wasn’t living in Orion when the letter was sent. Had someone showed it to her once she moved here? Was she planning to use it in a future article in the Spirit?
Before I could voice my confusion, Callie shouted, “Hey, look at this!”
She gestured for us to come over to where she was sitting, and I found myself looking at a photo of Amanda at the age of eleven or twelve standing next to an older girl whose face was hard to see under the brim of th
e baseball cap she was wearing. Amanda looked more regular than I’d ever seen her—no strange costume or hairstyle, no weird accessories. She wore a pair of jean shorts and a red T-shirt with something I couldn’t read written on it, looking like a totally average twelve-year-old. Next to the two girls stood a woman who was shading her eyes against the sun as she gazed down at them.
Suddenly I thought of how my mom keeps track of everything on all our family photos. “Flip it over. Maybe it says something on the back.”
Nia did. There, on the back of the picture, it said: The Beckendorf Girls.
“But . . .” Callie turned the picture over and looked at the threesome again. No doubt about it, the girl in the middle was definitely Amanda. Which meant . . .
“Oh my god,” Nia breathed. She looked up at me. “Hal, you were right.”
“Amanda Valentino is this Beckendorf girl,” Callie whispered.
“Her mom, Annie, died in that car crash,” Nia added.
“Which means . . .” My heart pounding, I thought back to the paper Nia had read from earlier. “She’s got a sister named Robin.”
“Who’s her guardian,” Nia finished.
“But what about her dad?” I asked. “What about . . .” I remembered Dr. Joy’s card. “Max Beckendorf?”
“Do you think he’s dead, too?” asked Callie.
“Or missing?” offered Nia.
Nia and Callie and I looked at one another, but none of us knew the answer.
Nia dropped her eyes and picked up the next item on her lap. It was a small card that said amanda in bright red letters. Underneath the name, in smaller type, the card read: she who must be loved. Nia flipped over the card. The back was blank except for a small line of print that said the whatsyournamemean company.
“She made up her name,” Nia said quietly, holding the card. “She picked it because of what it means. Nothing she told us was true.” Her voice was sharp as she tossed the card onto the table, where it slid along the glass surface almost to the edge. “Not a word.”
“Yes it was,” I said.
Nia turned to me, her face awash in the deep betrayal she was feeling. “Her mother is dead, Hal, not traveling in Africa or dealing with a divorce. Dead. It was a lie. All of it. Even her name.” She pushed angrily at the papers on her lap as if just touching them was enough to sully her.
I put my hand on Nia’s arm. Callie didn’t say anything, but when I looked over at her, I could see the pain on her face, too.
“She brought us together, and that wasn’t a lie,” I said. “That’s real. And it’s more important than whether her name’s Hayes or Stone or Valentino or who cares what.” I realized I was squeezing Nia’s arm too hard—as if I was going to force her to believe me. I let go.
There was a pause as I contemplated the stupidity of defending this crazy, lying girl I’d thought we all loved.
And then Callie said, “She’s in trouble. Serious trouble. That’s not a lie, either.”
Nia was silent for what seemed like a long, long time. Finally, she, too, spoke. “Something really, really big is going on. Really big and really bad.”
I thought of the doctor at the hospital, the names on Thornhill’s list. “And somehow it involves us.”
When Nia spoke again, I knew she didn’t care anymore that Amanda had lied about her mother or her name. “We have to post this stuff on the site. Maybe whoever sent you the article about her mom knows more.”
“Yeah, and maybe they’re looking for her, too,” Callie said, adding, “Looking in a bad way.”
“Yeah, a Bragg way,” said Nia with a shudder.
“We’ll figure out what we can post. We can do that.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. How could we find Amanda before the other people who were looking for her? They had the chief of police on their side. Doctors. Hospital guards. All the adults I’d been taught to think I could rely on and trust—they were all working for whatever dark, evil people were hunting Amanda.
This was impossible.
No sooner had the horror of what we were up against hit me than I felt Callie’s fingers slip into mine. “We have Amanda,” she said quietly. “They may have a lot on their side, but we have her. We have her, and we have each other.”
Into the silence of Callie’s words, a car horn beeped twice.
Cisco.
Callie squeezed my hand and I squeezed hers. A second later, I felt Nia press her shoulder into mine.
“Come together,” she said.
“Right now,” added Callie.
“Over me,” I finished.
And even though we knew Cisco was waiting for us outside, for a long moment we just sat there in the silence, leaning on one another.
A Big Round of Thanks
You guys should have seen the fireworks when Nia saw my first version of the story. “Finished?! What do you mean, you’re finished? Where’s your list of references?” I looked at her like she was crazy—it’s not like I had written a research paper. Still, as she none-too-gently reminded me, I have to give credit where credit is due. Especially since we couldn’t have gotten this far without everybody at The Amanda Project posting leads, discussing clues, and making sure we never, ever give up. It’s you guys we have to thank for helping us solve the mystery of the secret room at Endeavor (http://www.theamandaproject.com/clues/the-key-to-the-secret-room), which clued us in to the possibility of a secret room at the Braggs’ house, which was where we found Amanda’s box, which had all that stuff about her family, which . . . you get the picture.
Bottom line is, even though we could only do a tiny number of individual shout-outs, we want all of you to know how impressed we are with the community you’ve helped us build on TheAmandaProject.com.
Many thanks to:
Dem_94
Cecile Reeve
Gracie Hayes
urban_hippie
Rachiebaby
AwesomeAnna93
ChelleAtwood
Emily.K
PoppyGloom
Mrs. Hayworth
Wispofacloud
Samthy
Soccerfanatic
The Midnighter
NightmareGirl
Sol Rosa
Stef_Stone
Luvlcx3
Theresaax2
ArtsyFartsy
Willow
Gemma Stone
FASCINATING STORIES AND ARTWORK ABOUT
AMANDA CONTINUE TO FLOOD IN FROM ALL OVER.
HERE ARE TWO TOTALLY AMAZING PIECES! PLEASE
KEEP THEM COMING, AND CHECK OUT THOUSANDS
MORE AT WWW.THEAMANDAPROJECT.COM!
—HAL, CALLIE, AND NIA
Amanda Poem
A trickster in a place that behaves
Once you meet her things are never the same
You blink your eyes and she’s there
You blink your eyes, you see her hair
But it is only a trick of the light
The coyote, after all, is more than bright
So follow the clues
Decide the don’ts and the dos
And after the answers become clear
You find out all along she was here
About the Author: Rowan Knight is a thirteen-year-old from the U.K. She loves to daydream and to play her trumpet, but she hates mushrooms with a passion. She one day hopes to be a surgeon so she can save someone’s life.
Character Screen Name: SquankyDonkey
Member Since: March 24, 2010
She believes Amanda is telling the truth, and finds the need to clean her room before she does her homework.
Mysterious Amanda
About the Artist: Alex Immerman, fifteen, resides in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. She loves art and writing and aspires to become a published author in the future.
Character Screen Name: AlexInvisible
Member Since: May 19, 2010
She sometimes pretends to have a British accent, is completely indifferent to tuna salad, and believes
Amanda is “uNiQuE.”
The Amanda Project Continues with
shattered...
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Amanda, the physical and emotional equivalent of a glass of sparkling champagne. And one day, Amanda dropped into Nia’s life, jumbled it around, shimmered it up, and forced her to look at life from a totally new perspective. Then Amanda disappeared without a word.
And Nia’s fairy tale turned into a nightmare.
Hello, faithful readers, Nia here. It’s finally my turn to take over. Not that I don’t trust Hal and Callie’s accounts, but we all know who’s the most on top of things around here. I thought I would start off with the above. Because it explains exactly what Amanda did. She took my life, upended it, and vanished. To be fair, she did leave me with friends I never expected to have and, well, a ME I never expected to be, but that is all in the story. Shattered. Look for it.
What happens next? I can’t tell you too much more, but the contents of Amanda’s box definitely hold the key to her past. And after our most recent encounters with the menacing, shadowy people chasing her, I can see why she’s gone underground. But fear not. There is no lead we won’t run down. And that, my friends, gets us closer to Amanda every day.
Until then, keep sleuthing, and see you on the site.
—Nia
About the Author
Peter Silsbee has published five young adult novels, including The Big Way Out and Love Among the Hiccups. Peter also has a band, The Haywood Brothers. He lives with his wife and family in Brooklyn.
This is the story of Amanda Valentino. She makes things happen for her own reasons.
For exclusive information on your
favorite authors and artists, visit
www.authortracker.com.
Copyright
Revealed
Text copyright © 2011 by Fourth Story Media
Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Fourth Story Media
Revealed Page 17
