by Ted Staunton
“The very rich are different from you and me,” Toby intones. “The Great Gatsby.”
AmberLea sighs. “Yeah, but still. I mean, Spencer’s grandpa’s cottage has been added to without—” She breaks off. Tina isn’t supposed to know about today’s road trip.
Tina doesn’t seem to notice. She starts asking me about my parents and saying it’s too bad they’re away right now. “And how’s—is it Bunny? How’s he doing where he, uh…” Tina doesn’t want to say Bun’s in jail, I guess.
“Good,” I say. “He’s home for the holidays. Visiting with other people tonight. I’m kind of hoping they’ll call, actually.” On cue comes the Bond theme. I pull out my phone. It’s Deb.
“Spencer!”
“Mom, I’ve got to—stuff has happened.” I look up. Everyone at the table is looking at me, especially Tina.
AmberLea jumps in. “Wow, am I ever hungry. All that shopping, you know?”
Tina turns to AmberLea. “What did you get?”
“Excuse me,” I say to them, then “Just a sec” into the phone. I’ll let AmberLea dig her own way out of the shopping lie. I get up from the table, trying not to bump the Colt around, then hustle through the dining room to the stairs. The wig, or maybe the beard, is poking out of my pocket from when I grabbed my phone. I stuff it back out of sight. “Mom,” I say, “it’s going crazy around here. Bunny’s been—”
“Spence”—Deb has gone into Patient Professor mode—“I told you, I’m on this. Bunny will be fine. This SPCA thing—”
“It’s not a joke,” I break in. “I met one of them.” I blurt out how I met Dusan on the 501 and then I tell her the basics of what happened afterward. Deb mutters patient Uh-huhs for most of it, along with a couple of Oh, for crying out louds. She does perk up at the Aiden Tween part, though. “Aiden Tween? The singer? What’s he got to do with this?” I explain about Gloria Lorraine’s cottage. “He knows about Pianvia too.”
“Well, hon, the Pianvian freedom movement has been getting good press lately. There was a seminar and a rally at the university.”
“Why haven’t I ever heard of it?”
“There are better news sources than Facebook, Spence. Anyway, I’m sure that’s why Bun’s friends have picked up on it.”
“I thought you said SPCA was about animal cruelty to Bunny.”
“I did. Then I remembered this Pianvia thing. You’ve confirmed it.”
“So you still think this is all a goof? What about the music we found?”
“You know what, hon? I remember drawing that picture of flowers for the outhouse, because everyone thought the idea was so funny. Grandpa gave me the piece of paper I used from scraps in the kindling basket. It was probably a travel souvenir he got tired of. If it was really valuable, do you think he’d have had it in there?”
“I guess not.”
“Bingo,” says Deb. “Maybe Bun told them about it to send you on a treasure hunt. You know his sense of humor. Frankly, I still think they’re after his iPod. So how about this: you do whatever it is they want you to do. Play along, if it makes you feel better. Keep me posted. Is Bun answering his phone?”
“No, it got swallowed by an alligator. Or a crocodile.”
“Pardon?”
“It got—never mind. He doesn’t have his phone. They gave me a number to call.” I give it to Deb.
“I’ll try it,” says Deb. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it belongs to that girl we met at Creekside that time.”
“No,” I say, “she’s how I found the alligator.”
“Of course,” Deb says. “Moving right along, how was cottage time with the cousins?”
“It got cut short. We found all this stuff in the wall. Passports, money, disguises, a—”
“Oh, Spencer! That was Grandpa’s espionage game. He used to play that with grown-up guests back in the 60s, when I was little. Why did that cut it short?”
“Well,” I say, “DJ went to England, Adam’s in the Carribean, and Webb went back to Nashville.”
“What?”
Instantly, I know I’ve blown it. I’ve ratted them out. “Don’t tell their moms.”
“Spencer,” Deb asks, “you weren’t all drinking a lot or anything? Were there drugs? Hallucinogens? You can tell me. Dad and I will understand. It’s an age thing—experimenting, pushing boundaries.”
“Are you nuts?” I say. “DJ barely drinks milk.”
“Fine, fine. Where are you now?” I tell her about dinner at Yueh Tung.
“Good,” Deb says. “Stay in touch with them. Call me anytime; keep me up to date. Just relax.”
“You forgot to call Roz,” I say.
“I’m on it,” Deb says. “Promise. Got to run. Love you. ’Bye.”
I walk back to the table. Our food has just arrived.
“Spencer,” Tina says to me, “it’s all decided. Here’s the plan. Tomorrow, you’re coming skiing with us. AmberLea says you’re waiting on a call; you can take it there.”
“I don’t know how to ski,” I say.
“There’s always a first time.”
I’m learning that. I pull out my chair, and my sweater clunks against the leg—the gun. And Deb almost had me convinced. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know I just may be on my own.
EIGHTEEN
After dinner, Toby, AmberLea and Tina are going to a new zombie movie. I beg off. All at once, I’m so out of it that I just want to go home. It also occurs to me that if somehow Mom is right and Bun’s just lost his phone, he might not remember my cell number. That would mean he’d call O’Toole Central.
As we leave, I slip the calendar with the music inside it to AmberLea, to put in the hotel safe. “Oooh, vintage collectible,” says Tina. “You found that at the mall?”
“Little place north of the city,” I say and start for home.
“Ten o’clock tomorrow,” Tina calls. I wave.
I ride the 501 Red Rocket home and shuffle down Tecumseth Street to O’Toole Central. As I turn in at our place, fumbling for my key, there’s a rustling in the bushes. I’m knocked to the ground. I gasp and try to scramble up. A knee, or something, slams into my back, driving me down again. “Stay down and you won’t get hurt.” The weight crushes my back. I can barely breathe. Hands rake my legs, feel under my sweater. One brushes the wig and cell phone in my sweater pocket and moves on. I have the gun jammed painfully under my hip. The hand doesn’t check there. Instead, it grips my head, forcing it down. “Where is it?” The voice is harsh, panting.
“Not…here,” I gasp. “Someplace…safe.” My cheek grinds against the frozen dirt. My glasses are half off. Somewhere close by, a car starts up. It needs to visit one of the Mimico muffler-repair places I passed early this morning. The hands let go. Footsteps slap away. I roll over and fumble my glasses on in time to see the passenger door slam on an old gray Honda Civic. It roars away, one side of the rear bumper sagging. I stagger to the house.
NINETEEN
Inside, I lock the door and sag against it for a minute, until my shaking stops. My palms are raw. The hall mirror shows a scrape on my jaw. My back and hip throb where a knee and the Colt crunched them. I limp to the kitchen and try to clean my hands and face. I’m as much of a mess as the house.
I check the landline for messages. There’s only one: Roz Inbow. “Three fifteen PM. Bernard is now in violation of his terms of release. If he does not check in by five PM this afternoon, a warrant will be issued for his arrest. Don’t let this happen.” CLICK. Well, that’s Deb’s problem, and maybe the least of Bun’s right now. Is kidnapping by terrorists an okay excuse for missing your parole call? If I were Bun, I’d be looking forward to jail right now.
I’m exhausted, but I’m so creeped-out I can’t sit still. So I do something unheard of: I tidy up. A little. With the last of my energy, I clear the kitchen, scrub the mac-and-cheese pot, crank the dishwasher. Then I tidy up the living room. The last thing I do is put the Colt in the cookie jar, with what’s left of Jer’s s
hortbread. I haven’t watched all six seasons of The Rockford Files for nothing. It’s one of the few things Grandpa and I had in common.
By then I’m zonked. I check the door locks, crash on the couch and fire up my laptop. Except for my scraped jaw, I don’t hurt anymore. My cell phone is beside me in case they call, but I need a movie to shut out the craziness for a little while. Maybe I should have gone to the zombie flick. I don’t like to think about AmberLea and Toby snuggled down side by side in the Eaton Centre Cineplex, even if Tina is with them. I’d have made sure to sit between them. Aargh. Now I really need a movie. I’ve already watched the old Bonds and the Austin Powers movies, and of course the Bourne movies and the Mission: Impossibles. I choose a movie with the same title as one of the books I saw in Grandpa’s bedroom: The Ipcress File.
Maybe it’s a bad choice: it starts with a kidnapping. Then I start to get into it. It’s from the 60s, but the main character, Harry Palmer, is nothing like Bond. Harry wears glasses with black frames, like my new ones, and he has a low-class Brit accent. I’ve seen the actor—Michael Caine—before, in newer movies.
When I get to the part where the foreign bad guys kidnap him and try to brainwash him with cheesy whirling lights, I think: he could be in Pianvia. Harry stays focused by grinding his wrists against the restraining straps till he bleeds and secretly jabbing his palm with a piece of wire. Could I do that? Not in a million years. What would Bun say if they interrogated him? He could take it. And Bun thinks differently. He’s smart, but not school smart. Other people don’t always get his answers. Sometimes it gets him into trouble. Sometimes people don’t get it until it’s too late. Now, on-screen, Harry has escaped. He’s on the run in Pianvia or wherever. Then he sees the red bus: LONDON TRANSPORT. He’s been in England all along. What’s real? What’s going on? Who can you trust?
I’m asking myself those questions as the movie ends and I fall asleep.
TWENTY
DECEMBER 29
At ten the next morning, the Cayenne pulls up behind the O’Toolemobile. AmberLea comes to the door. “Have they called? Have you got long underwear on? What happened to your face?”
My first answer to AmberLea is no, the second is yes, the third is “I’ll tell you later.” I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for something I don’t want to do. Skiing is the kind of thing Grandpa loved, not me. Any activity where some part of you is not touching the ground should be against the law. “I don’t know about this,” I say. I shrug on Bun’s sport shell. It’s too large. I take it off and pull on one of Deb’s fleeces first. “Hat,” says AmberLea. All I’ve got is my new one. “We’re twins,” she says.
“Triplets.” I’m thinking of Toby. “Listen, I should stay in case they call.”
“C’mon.” She tugs my arm. “There’s no use hanging around here worrying. If you’ve got your phone, they can call. Hey, you’ve done some tidying up!”
“It felt weird with the chairs upside down.”
It’s cloudy outside, not too cold. I thought we’d go north to ski, but we go east on the 401 to a place called Brimacombe. I keep checking to make sure my phone is turned on. AmberLea rides with me in the back. Toby and Tina are chattering up front. First I tell her how I got jumped last night. AmberLea looks worried and sympathetic. Good. I don’t want too much sympathy, though, or I’ll look wussy. “Anyway, I fought them off.” I shrug. “Had to be SPCA.” Looking out the window, I ask casually, “Do you, uh, hang out with Toby a lot?”
“Yeah. He’s a sweetie. He brings, like, a different perspective to things. Did you know he and his brother sold some software to Apple for three million dollars when he was only fifteen?”
“No, I guess I missed that.” When I was fifteen, I was figuring out Donkey Kong.
We get to Brimacombe in barely an hour. Ski equipment comes out of the bin on the roof rack. “I don’t know about this,” I say again as AmberLea walks me to the equipment rentals to get stuff for me.
“It’s going to be fun,” she says. “Their website said rentals come with a free lesson. Or I can give you one. Which do you want?”
I want to go home, practice my Michael Caine accent, start a romance with AmberLea and later have Bun walk in, saying, “Guess I better call Roz, huh?” Those things aren’t on the table though. “Was Toby on the Olympic ski team?” I ask sourly.
“What? No. His dad was. In ’94, I think.”
“Maybe I could have a hot chocolate in the chalet.”
“Spencer.”
Whatever I was going to say next is drowned out by a car that badly needs a muffler job.
We rent stuff for me. I feel like Frankenstein in the boots, especially after I snap into the ski bindings. A slender guy with a blue jacket, aviator shades and a big black mustache poles up shakily. He looks as if he’s trying to make up his mind about lessons too. “Lesson from you,” I say to AmberLea.
We go to the Baby Bunny hill. AmberLea shows me how to sidestep up the gentle slope. From the top, Baby Bunny seems to have morphed into Mount Everest. “This,” says AmberLea, “is how you snowplow.”
The snowplow actually turns out to be okay. I get down and up the hill a couple of times. I only fall over when I get distracted by AmberLea in her ski stuff, which includes a short yellow jacket and red skinny jeans. I’m a huge fan of skinny jeans on AmberLea—on many girls, in fact—but these red ones make a great combo with my blue ones. It’s another reason we’re perfect for each other and, like I said, the only reason I fall seven times. Really. Anyway, I take her picture on my phone. She videos me skiing. We watch it. Let’s just say I’m not a natural. She shows me what to do differently. I try again, just missing a crash with the black-mustache guy, who has fallen over at the bottom of Baby Bunny. It’s nice to know other people can’t ski either. “Better,” says AmberLea. “Now, point your skis in the same direction.” Uh-oh.
After an hour or so, I graduate to the Bunny hill. There, I get to ride the Magic Carpet to the top instead of sidestepping. I’m moving up in the world, literally. AmberLea leaves me to take some runs on the bigger hills. She waves from the lift. I wave back and almost fall off the Magic Carpet. Hands steady me from behind. It’s black-mustache guy.
“Thanks.” I push my glasses back up my nose.
“No worries.” He coughs, covering his mouth. He’s wearing striped wool gloves I’ve seen before someplace. I stare, then have to turn away. It’s hard enough riding the Magic Carpet without looking backward. At the top I hang back, pretending to fuss with my boots. Black Mustache starts down the hill. I follow. It’s a slow trip. Black Mustache is even worse at skiing than I am. By the time we’re down, I’ve noticed something interesting: a little bundle of blond hair poking out under the back of his pulled-down tuque. I’ve also done some thinking.
Toby’s at the bottom. It’s chalet time. AmberLea is already at a table; Tina is in the washroom. Black Mustache comes in and looks our way before sitting down. “That guy,” I whisper. “I think that’s Dusan, the SPCA guy from the streetcar, in disguise. I need you to decoy him while I check on something.”
“What’s the plan?” says Toby. We all look at each other. There’s a pause, then AmberLea sighs. “I guess I’ll have to take off my clothes.”
TWENTY-ONE
AmberLea jumps up, grabs me by the hand and walks me to the exit, past where Black Mustache is sitting. She nuzzles my neck and whispers, “Follow my lead.”
Outside, she pulls me past where the skis are stacked. Then she turns, throws her arms around me and kisses me. I’m so surprised, I almost inhale my glasses. Still, it’s a great feeling—until I realize she’s not really kissing me, she’s whispering lip to lip. “Hug me back. Turn to the right so I can see. Okay, he’s watching us. Keep hugging me and back me against the wall.” I do my best. Her hands run across my back and up into my hair. We’re against an equipment shed with an open garage door. “Now I pull you in here, and unless he’s a real perv, he’ll leave us alone for a bit while we trade clothes.”
She tugs me into the shed and past a snowmobile and unzips her jacket.
It’s a good thing we’re close to the same size. In fact, AmberLea is a little bigger than me. Her red jeans feel funny. “How do you wear these?” I ask.
“Shut up and dress. And no peeking.”
I snap on the ski boots. My rentals are red; hers are white. Naturally, they’re the only thing that’s too small. I’ll manage. I zip up AmberLea’s jacket. We don’t have to trade hats, but she tucks her hair up. “Glasses.” She snaps her fingers. “I need your glasses.” She jams them on, then swears under her breath. “How do you see in these bleeping things?” I don’t bother to tell her they’re not that strong. “I hope you know you’re the only person in the world I’d do this for.” She bumps into the snowmobile. “Now, stay in here until you see him follow me.” She ducks her chin into my jacket collar and steps out of the shed. I wait one minute, then peek out. A blurry AmberLea has my rental skis on and is joining the line for the chairlift. Black Mustache, or Dusan or whoever he is, is doing his best to hurry after her.
I wait until they’re both in the air, then step out of the shed and Frankenstein-walk to the parking lot. It takes a little longer without my glasses, but I find the car, two rows over from the Cayenne: an old gray Honda Civic with a sagging rear bumper. I peer inside. By O’Toolemobile standards, it’s neat as a pin: a Starbucks Tall cup in the driver’s-side holder, an apple core on the gritty floor mats, a scraper for the windshield, a box of tissues and what I think is a parking ticket. I try the doors; they’re locked. I move to the back of the car. One end of the bumper is attached to the car with a big version of one of those notched plastic fasteners you sometimes get with garbage bags. I try the hatch release and get lucky. It’s unlocked. I lift the hatch and fold back the compartment cover. There’s a container of washer fluid, a set of jumper cables and a leather messenger bag. I open the bag.
