by Ally Condie
“Really?” Leo said. “And what’s the name of this province?”
“It’s Bludge,” I said, in my terrible accent, saying the first even-sort-of-British word that came to mind.
“Oh yeah?” Leo asked. “And what’s the capital city of the province of Bludge?”
Did provinces have capitals? “Bludgeon,” I said.
That made Leo laugh so hard that he almost missed a lady with two teenagers walking past. But then he switched right into the accent and she bought a program and smiled at him.
We were walking back along the sidewalk when some boys on bikes came through. An usher waved at them to stop but they didn’t.
“They’re not supposed to cut through here during festival hours,” Leo said, “but they do it anyway because it’s faster.”
When the boys came closer, I could see that they were about our age. Spiky blond hair on one, baseball hats on all the rest. Tall socks. Shiny shirts made out of fabric that looked like plastic. Coming home from some sports practice, maybe. They were going so fast that I worried they’d slam right into us, so I followed Leo’s lead and stepped over onto the grass.
As they came by, one of them knocked Leo’s hat off his head and they all laughed.
“That’s new,” Leo said. He reached down to pick up his hat. “Usually they just yell stuff at me when they come by.” I could tell he was trying to sound like he didn’t care. It was almost working. “They think they’re so wild, but they’re kids on bikes. It’s not like they’re Hell’s Angels or something.”
“They’re like Hell’s farts,” I said, and that cracked Leo up hard enough that I could see the braces on his back teeth.
I smiled too.
“That’s perfect,” he said. “They’re Hellfarts.”
We walked past the Summerlost Theater, with its flags waving merrily and its dark-painted wood and white stucco. The wooden stairs outside were worn smooth-grooved with decades of people coming to get lost in lives that were not their own.
“Did you hear?” Leo asked, when he saw me looking. “The theater’s coming down at the end of the summer.”
“What?” I said, stunned. Did my mother know? She thought of the theater as part of the town, her childhood.
“They’re remodeling some of the other buildings, but the theater’s too much hassle, so they’re starting over. They’re tearing it down and building a new one across the street,” Leo said. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“I guess I haven’t been over there yet.”
“I’ll show you after our shift,” Leo said.
11.
We rode our bikes over to the east on our way home.
An entire block was missing.
“There it is,” Leo said. “They’re building the new theater here. It’s going to be part of Iron Creek’s new civic center.”
I knew what had been there before. A bunch of small, old houses, some of them beautiful. And a doctor’s office, where I’d been once for strep throat over Christmas break. My uncle Nick ran the pharmacy and so if we ever got sick while we were in Iron Creek he’d flavor the antibiotics and also put a treat from the candy counter in the bag with our medicine.
Now, instead of the houses and the doctor’s office, there was a chain-link fence and construction equipment and workers and some blue Porta Potties lined up in a row. And most of all there was the hole.
It was huge. It would have been a lot of work. Before they dug the hole, they would have had to tear everything down. Remove all the splintered boards, tear up the lawns, break up the fences, take away the glass, pull up the foundations.
And then dig, and dig.
Where did all of it go? I wondered. Everything that used to be here?
“But if they tear the theater down,” I said, “the Summerlost Festival logo won’t make sense. It’s a picture of the theater. And the logo is all over the place. On the bottles, the programs, the signs.”
“I bet they’ll keep the logo the same,” Leo said.
“Even if the theater’s gone?”
“It’s an icon,” he said. “I guess it was around for so long that it doesn’t actually have to be here anymore to have meaning for people.”
“It’s sad,” I said to Leo.
“I know.”
Neither of us used our accents so I knew we both meant it.
12.
It turned out that my mother knew about the theater coming down. She just hadn’t mentioned it to us. I told her about the hole and the Porta Potties, and then about the job. I told her that there was a neighbor kid I could ride to and from the festival with so it would be safe and she wouldn’t even have to worry about that or about dropping me off and picking me up.
I hadn’t actually run any of that past Leo, but I’d ask him as soon as I got to work for the evening shift.
“Maybe next year,” she said. “Twelve is young to have a job.”
“I’m the same age as the other kids,” I said. “And this is the last year that they’ll have the old theater. Next year it won’t be the same.”
She thought for a minute, and then nodded. “All right.”
13.
That night I rode my bike over to the festival and I didn’t forget my sandals. I was in England.
I’d thought Gary was dumb for saying that, but toward the end of the shift it actually felt like we were.
On the Greenshow stage, performers danced and sang and hit tambourines that had green and purple ribbons tied to them. The women had garlands in their hair. The crowd clapped along.
Leo used his accent and the lights twinkled everywhere and my skirt swished around my ankles. The tarts smelled delicious. There were a million stars, and people and music and laughing. Flags waved in the air. The trees were old, the way they were at my house, and I didn’t mind so much when the wind came through and they started talking.
Maybe it didn’t feel like England. I’d never been. But it felt different. Good.
At the end of the shift, a trumpet sounded to tell people it was time to go in to the play, and the spell was broken.
After we counted out the money (I sold fifteen programs, Leo sold fifty-six), I asked him if we could ride our bikes home together. “My mom worries,” I said.
We cut through the festival’s administration building to get to the bike racks on the other side. “They’re making a new display over here,” Leo said, gesturing to the west wing of the building. “It’s called the Costume Hall, and it’s going to have one costume on display for every year the festival has been operating.”
“They’re doing a lot of new things,” I said.
“Yeah,” Leo said. “The idea is that all the improvements will mean more ticket sales. I think they got the idea for the Costume Hall from this.” He pointed to the wing of the administration building that led off to the east.
“The Portrait Hall,” I said.
“Right.”
Leo walked into the Portrait Hall so I followed him. I’d been in the Portrait Hall before. It had a painting of an actor from a play for each year of the festival.
“There she is,” he said, stopping in front of one of the portraits.
I knew without looking at the plaque under the frame who he meant. Lisette Chamberlain. I’d noticed her ever since I was small. Even in the Portrait Hall, full of beautiful and interesting-looking people wearing fancy costumes, Lisette stood out. Not only was she the most gorgeous actor of all, she wore a jeweled crown in her red hair and she was looking off-camera at someone, and you couldn’t tell if she loved or hated the person she saw. All you knew was that she was looking at them significantly. Her dress was deep purple velvet, with black brocade. And she was resting her cheek on her hand, so that you noticed her beautiful fingers and her slender wrist and her jewelry, a golden bracelet woven like a chain, a ring with three white stones
.
“You know about her, right?” Leo asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Go on,” Leo said. “What do you know?”
I tried to remember everything my mom and grandparents had told me. “Lisette was born here in Iron Creek and she worked at the festival. First in the Greenshow, then she became an actor in the plays. She went to Hollywood and was on a soap opera and then in some movies but every summer she’d come back and do a one-night performance at Summerlost, which always sold out almost a full year in advance. Then she died here in Iron Creek in the hotel on Main Street.”
“Right,” Leo said. He seemed to be studying me. He folded his arms across his chest and tipped his head to one side. He had long eyelashes for a boy. For anyone. “I think I can work with you.”
“That’s good,” I said, “because you are.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
“So one time my family went to Washington, DC,” he said. “And when we were there, we went on a lot of tours.”
“That sounds boring,” I said.
“It was awesome. You could do tours that specialized in different famous people and the places they’d lived or worked. I want to do a tour like that about Lisette. It’s the twentieth anniversary of her death this summer. All the old people who came to the festival when she was alive haven’t forgotten her. We could make a ton of money.”
I didn’t know what to say. The anniversary of her death. We had been through the anniversary of my dad’s and Ben’s deaths a few weeks ago and it was horrible. All day long, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had been happening at that time the year before. When they got in the car. When I found out what had happened.
Leo reached into the pocket of his peasant pants and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s a map I’ve made of possible tour sites,” he said, spreading it out. “The trick is that we can’t drive, so everything has to be in walking distance.”
I remembered that Leo didn’t actually know Lisette. She had been gone for a long time.
And this way at least she would be remembered.
It would be horrible if people just forgot you.
“We’re going to wear either our work costumes,” he said, “or all black. I can’t decide. I had the idea for the tour a couple of days ago so I still haven’t worked everything out.”
“Gary won’t be happy if he finds out we’re wearing our costumes outside of the festival,” I said after a second. Was I going to go along with this? I kept talking, like my mouth had decided to go ahead without me.
“You make a good point,” Leo said. “Okay. We’ll wear all black.” He tapped the paper with his finger. “As far as the sites go, we have the theater, of course, where she performed. We also have the hospital where she was born, and the hotel where she died, and the cemetery where she’s buried. It’s too bad that they tore down the house where she grew up.”
“Wait,” I said. “The hospital is new.”
“I’m talking about the old hospital. It’s still around.”
“That’s cool,” I said, picturing something old and overgrown with vines. “Where is it?”
“Two streets away,” he said. “The Everett Building.”
“The insurance office?”
“Yup.”
“That’s all you’ve got?” I said. “Four sites?”
Leo wasn’t paying attention. “What would be great is if we could go through the tunnels.”
“What tunnels?”
“There are tunnels that run under the administration building and go to the theater,” he said, dropping his voice as if he were telling me a secret. I glanced over my shoulder but the only people around were the ones in the portraits. “They built them years ago so the actors could get from the dressing rooms in the basement of the administration building out to the theater without being seen by the people in the courtyards. And there’s some old maintenance tunnels, too, that they don’t even use anymore.”
“Why would we want to go into the tunnels?” I asked.
“Because Lisette would have gone through them all the time,” Leo said. “All the actors use them. They have for decades.But when they tear down the theater, they’re getting rid of those tunnels too. This is our last chance to see them.”
“People aren’t going to let kids into the tunnels.”
“Maybe we can find a way,” Leo said. “For now, we have the other four places. And they’re all within walking distance of each other and of our houses. It’s perfect. I’ve done a lot of research about Lisette so I can fill you in. And I’ve come up with some advertising.” He leaned closer. “That’s another reason I want to do the programs. I can put these flyers inside without Gary or anyone noticing.” He handed me a piece of shiny paper printed with a picture of Lisette Chamberlain. The lettering on the flyer read:
LISETTE CHAMBERLAIN TOUR. FOLLOW IN HER FOOTSTEPS & LEARN ABOUT HER LIFE. FOR MORE INFORMATION
CALL 555-1234 between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m.
$5 per person, cash only.
“This is crazy,” I said.
“We can’t stay out late at night,” Leo went on, “so we’ll have to go early in the morning. Like really early, so we don’t get caught. And then I’ll sit by my phone every morning to make sure no one else answers it. It’ll be easy. That’s when my parents are at work and my brothers are at practice. I’ve thought it all through.”
“I can tell,” I said. “So what made you decide that you want a partner?”
“Meeting you,” he said.
Was he flirting? Teasing? Asking me to do this because he felt sorry for me because of what happened to my family? He had to know. Everyone knew. And over the past year people did nice things for me mostly out of pity.
“I’ll split the money with you,” Leo said. “We’ll meet at my house at six forty-five so we can walk over to the Everett Building together. That’s where the tour is going to start—where she was born.” Lisette stared at me from the flyer and from the portrait on the wall. “What do you think?”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
I wasn’t sure why. But if I had to guess, I would say it was because I liked talking to Leo. He always seemed to be thinking about something. His brain was very busy.
I wanted to go along with him, tag along with his mind like a hitchhiker, so that I could keep my brain busy too.
14.
Two days later, on the evening shift, Leo told me that he’d had three customers sign up for the tour the next day.
We were on.
When I got home, Mom wanted to know all about work and Miles wanted to play Life again and I really needed to make sure I knew where my black T-shirt and jeans were and if I’d even brought them from our other house but I couldn’t tell my mom and Miles that. So I played a game of Life with Miles (he won, again) and then I started to lie to my mom so that I could leave in the morning to meet Leo without her freaking out if she found me gone.
I told her that I was going to go running in the morning sometimes. This was the story Leo and I had come up with.
“Alone?” she asked.
“With my new friend, Leo,” I said. “The one from work. He wants to do the junior high cross-country team next year.”
“You’re spending a lot of time with him,” she said.
“I know,” I told her. “I’m glad I found a friend so fast. It makes everything more fun.”
She smiled. “What’s his last name?”
“Bishop,” I said.
“His mom brought us a lasagna a few days ago,” Mom said. “She seemed nice.”
“Where’s the lasagna?” Miles asked.
“I put it in the freezer,” my mom said. “I’d already started dinner that night. We can eat it tomorrow.”
“Or we could eat it now,” Mile
s said.
We were getting away from the topic. “So you’ll let me do it?”
“All right,” she said. “It’s light outside by then, so you should be safe. But don’t go running by yourself. If Leo’s alarm doesn’t go off or something, come back home.”
“Thanks,” I told her.
When I went upstairs to go to bed and turned on the light in my room, the diamond panes reflected back at me. I found my T-shirt and jeans. I opened the window and looked out. No bird.
Then I saw something on the windowsill. A small screwdriver, the kind of thing Ben would have liked. He never really played with toys but he liked other random things, stuff that was pretty or had a certain weight to it or interested him in some way. A few of his favorites included a wire kitchen whisk, a bracelet with a round, smooth piece of turquoise in it that he’d taken from my mom’s jewelry box, and a folded-up pamphlet from the mountain resort where he did special-needs ski lessons in the winter.
We called the random stuff he liked fidgets. He carried them around and flipped them back and forth in his hands to calm himself when he felt nervous. He took fidgets with him everywhere. I knew he’d probably had some with him in the car when they’d had the accident, but I’d never asked. I didn’t go in his room after to see which ones were missing.
I held the screwdriver for a minute. It had a black handle and a silvery point. How did it get there? Had my mom been fixing my window?
But there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with my window. Not earlier when I’d opened it, and not now.
I climbed into bed and put the screwdriver under the pillow. Outside I heard the wind in the trees and the rasping sound of my mom sanding boards for the deck. I thought about Lisette Chamberlain and the secret tunnels. I tried not to think about Ben but of course I did. For years I had been Ben Lee’s older sister. People always thought they knew Ben but they never really did. That didn’t stop them from talking about him.
“He’s special,” they’d say. “One of those special souls that don’t need to worry about anything they do here on earth, they’re going straight to heaven!”
