Forget Me Not (From the Files of Madison Finn, 21) (10 page)

“Bus,” Madison said. But she quickly added, “Unless …”

“Unless I give you a ride?” Mom said, raising her eyebrows.

Madison nodded, trying to smile. She felt bad asking Mom to drive her to the clinic after everything that had happened. But at the same time, she needed to get there pronto. A ride in the car was the fastest option.

Mom didn’t say much on the way over. That was because Madison wouldn’t let her talk. Every time Mom started to say something, Madison cut her off. They hit all green lights on the way over, so it was only seven minutes from the time of Dan’s call until the moment they pulled up in front of the clinic.

“So, here we are,” Mom announced, gripping the steering wheel.

Madison scanned the street. She saw the large bus with the sign that read:
MR. MOTION PICTURES
, parked next to the clinic.

“What’s
that
doing here?” Madison asked.

Mom exhaled deeply. “I tried telling you,” she said.

“What? You didn’t tell me anything,” Mom said.

Mom looked Madison square in the eye. “Madison, you barely let me say anything to you these days. I give up.”

“Mom,” Madison said meekly. She looked back out of the window. “Why is the film crew here?”

“I set it up with Dan’s mother, Eileen. I heard about the new puppies from her, and Julian thought it would be a great place to show student volunteerism.”

“But Mom, this is
my
special place,” Madison said.

“Other kids volunteer here, too. And Eileen and Dan were thrilled about the idea.”

Madison didn’t know what to say to that. She swallowed her feelings and opened the car door.

“Are you coming, then?” Madison asked Mom. She assumed, of course, that Mom would be involved in the shoot that day.

“No.” Mom shook her head. “Julian is probably inside,” she added.

“I know. Why aren’t you with him?” Madison asked. “You guys were together yesterday. Aren’t you always together?”

“What?” Mom said, looking confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Ha.”

“What’s ‘ha’ supposed to mean?” Mom asked.

“You know,” Madison said, making one of her sour faces. Then she said a polite enough good-bye, but slammed the door.

“Just call me when you need a ride back home,” Mom yelled through the car window.

“Fine,” Madison said, without turning around.

Madison knew that if she’d had eyes in the back of her head she would have seen Mom waving and blowing a kiss. One of Mom’s biggest rules was never to go to bed angry or part ways with someone angry. But in one short day, Madison had done both of those things.

As soon as Madison stepped inside the warm clinic, however, her spirits improved. Something about that place always made her happy, no matter what.

Eileen sat at the front desk, petting a gray Siamese cat.

“Madison’s here!” Eileen cried. “Dan’s been waiting for you, dearie,” she said. “They all have.”

Madison hung down her head. “I know. Sorry.”

Dan raced into the front waiting room from the back of the clinic. He had on a white apron. He’d been cleaning out cages and feeding some of the sick animals inside.

“Where were you?” Dan asked Madison. He lowered his voice. “I almost flipped out when you didn’t show up at ten. Not because of the puppies, though. You won’t believe what happened here this morning. My mom didn’t tell me….”

“I know, I know,” Madison interrupted. “The film crew is here.”

“You know?” Dan smacked the side of his forehead. “Crazy, huh? But kind of cool, too, you know?”

“Not to me,” Madison said. “Dan, you know I’ve been doing everything in my power
not
to get on film.”

“But this is different. This is about the puppies,” Dan said with a grin.

Madison couldn’t help grinning back at him.

“Come and see them,” Dan said, inviting her into the back room by the animal cages.

In one corner, Madison spotted the mommy dog. By her belly were the squirmy pups. There were three light brown ones and four with little spots. One had a black spot on its back that looked a little like a bull’s-eye.

Madison leaned down near the pups and took a deep breath. They were beautiful. The cage smelled like wet dog, but Madison didn’t mind. Their eyes were barely open; paws were curled out trying to make contact with the mommy dog’s belly. The mother looked totally wiped out.

“How cool is this?” Dan asked. He lightly put his arm around Madison’s shoulder and pointed to one of the pups that had whitish fur. “I already named that one. He’s the runt of the litter, but I think he’s going to grow up to be the best puppy of them all. I call him Frosty.”

Madison wondered if maybe Dan had dreamed up the name Frosty because of Lindsay, since her last name was Frost. Maybe he was in the process of crushing on Lindsay, too? Or was that just wishful thinking?

Flash! Zzzzzzt!

Madison turned around to find the bright light of a video camera focused on her and Dan. She could just barely make out a face beyond the glare.

“Julian?”

“Okay, we got that shot. Fantastic,” Julian said. He stood back, hands in his pockets. “What a pleasant surprise,” he said to Madison. “I didn’t know you were a volunteer here.”

Madison did a double take. “You didn’t know? Wait a minute. I thought Mom told you everything. I mean, you guys are close…. Right?”

“Close?” Julian cleared his throat and then said Mom’s name warmly. “Honestly, Francine never mentioned that you were a volunteer, Madison, which is funny, because she knew I was coming here to film today.”

Madison put her hands on her hips. “So, your being here at the place where I just happen to volunteer is a total coincidence?” she asked skeptically.

“It appears so,” Julian said. “Now, for our next shot, I’d like to …”

Madison tuned out as Julian continued talking. He was going on about where to stand and what animals he wanted to get in the shot. Madison was speechless. He
had
to be lying.

“What’s that all about?” Dan whispered in her ear.

“Hmmm?” Madison mumbled. Her head whirred.

Coincidence? Impossible!

Puppies crawled and stretched over each other to get to the mommy dog’s belly. One little one got pushed out of the way, so Madison placed it back in the thick of the action, where it found a place to suckle.

Eileen came up behind Madison. “You can take one home if you want,” she said.

Madison turned around. “Me?” she asked. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?” Julian asked aloud. He’d overheard the exchange. “Your pug would love to have a playmate, I’m sure.”

Madison didn’t like the fact that Julian knew about her dog—or anything else personal about her, for that matter.

“I don’t think Phin would like another dog around the house,” Madison said bluntly.

Dan tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Maddie, but we have some more work to do. Can you come into the back and help me clean out the operating room? Dr. Wing will be back in an hour or so, and he has another surgery this afternoon.”

“Surgery? Well, volunteers have a lot of responsibility here, don’t they?” Julian commented.

Madison smiled politely. “I guess so,” she said. “Dan knows more than me …”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “It gets real busy, especially around the holidays.”

“Why is that?” Julian asked, curious.

“People give other people pets for Christmas and Hanukkah and stuff,” Dan said.

“And it’s really sad,” Madison said.

“Sad? Why?” Julian asked.

“It’s not sad … it’s
mean
!” Dan said. “Here’s what happens. People buy these pets, but then they decide they can’t take care of the animal, so it comes here to be adopted by a new family. Can you imagine getting a little puppy and then giving him back?”

“I hadn’t thought about it before now,” Julian said. “Know what? You kids have inspired me.”

“Inspired?” Madison said.

“Indeed,” Julian said. “I think that I want to explore this more in our film. I want to understand junior-high-school kids who are really out helping the community. Kids like you.”

“Like us? Gee,” Madison said. She was speechless again, but this time it was for a good reason.

“I’m very impressed by you both,” Julian said, grinning.

“No doubt,” Dan said.

From that moment on, Madison couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. And by the time Mom came by with the car to pick her up, Madison had to admit that she was actually starting to
like
Julian.

But just a teeny bit.

F
IONA’S MOTHER, MRS. WATERS
, stood over the sink rinsing her hands. She turned and dropped spoonfuls of brown batter on to a wide cookie sheet.

“Second batch coming right up!” she announced to everyone as she shoved the sheet into the oven.

Fiona, Madison, Aimee, Lindsay, Chet, Drew, Hart, and Dan stood around the island in the middle of the kitchen, drooling. Mrs. Waters made the best chocolate-chunk cookies in the universe. Since the group had munched its way through an entire batch in less than a half hour, Mrs. Waters agreed to make another batch.

“Thanks, Mom,” Fiona said, grabbing the bowl that had held batter to wash it out.

The weather looked dreary that Sunday, so Fiona and Chet had invited everyone over at the last minute. Madison—and everyone else, for that matter—jumped at the chance to hang out together. Usually when the crew was all together like this, it meant a lot of laughs. Today especially, it took Madison’s mind off her problems. This week Madison wanted to take a break from the film and Julian and everything else that had been bugging her.

Egg wasn’t there. He was home, nursing a bug of his own. Somehow he’d caught a stomach virus. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t even drink a glass of water. Fiona had text-messaged him earlier in the day asking him join the midafternoon party, but he had declined. He said he was permanently attached to his parents’ couch.

“At least Egg wasn’t sick for the film shoot,” Chet said.

“I hope he’ll be back in school Monday,” Fiona said. She always worried about him.

“Speaking of the film shoot, did you guys see Ivy on Friday?” Drew asked the group. “I always knew she was a show-off, but this was ridiculous.”

“What happened?” Madison asked, curious.

“I heard she went into her individual interview on Thursday and she talked for, like, twenty minutes more than anyone else,” Drew said. “But then she asked Julian if she could answer some more questions on Friday, too.”

“Figures,” Aimee said. “She always has to do everything better than everyone else.”

Lindsay nodded. “I only talked for ten minutes, tops. What could she possibly have said?”

“Who cares?” Chet said.

Fiona chuckled. “Finally, we agree on something.” She gave him a high five. No one wanted to talk about the enemy or the drones.

Although they all went back to the subject of the cookies baking in the oven, Madison couldn’t stop thinking about Ivy.

What
could
Ivy possibly have talked about for so long?

“Okay, guys,” Hart said. “No offense but I’m getting bored.”

“Me, too,” Lindsay admitted.

“So what else can we do?” Fiona asked.

Chet said they should head outside for a game of touch football, but then everyone decided it was just too cold.

“Let’s just play a game,” Drew suggested.

“Yes!” Chet said. “Spin the bottle.”

“Yeah, right,” Aimee cracked.

“How about a board game?” Madison said.

No one seemed very enthusiastic about the idea of Risk or Monopoly or Pictionary or even cards.

“Okay. What about Truth or Dare?” Fiona asked aloud.

Madison made a face. “With the guys?” she asked.

“Yeah, great idea!” Chet said with a glint in his eye. “I get to make up a dare for Fiona.”

“You wish,” Fiona said.

“No way am I playing Truth or Dare,” Aimee said. “I am not sharing any truths with Chet or any of you boys.”

Madison laughed. She imagined what it would be like to play a tense game of Truth or Dare with this crowd. What if the truth came out about how much Aimee
really
liked Ben Buckley? Or worse—what if the truth came out about how much Madison
really
liked Hart Jones? Even though Madison’s crush was now common knowledge, she didn’t want to have to answer any specific (and embarrassing) questions about it.

“I’m with Aim,” Madison said. “No Truth or Dare.”

“I know what game we can play,” Hart said. “Assassin.”

“Great idea!” Fiona exclaimed. “Okay. So, who’s the assassin?”

“Duh, Fiona,” Chet growled. “You don’t say who the assassin is yet—that’s the whole point of the game.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “I hope
you’re
not,” she said.

Having decided upon a group activity they could all agree upon, the kids shuffled in to the living room to begin playing. The eight of them formed a tight circle. The aroma of fresh-baked chocolate-chunk cookies filled the living room.

Madison sat cross-legged on the floor next to Hart, trying hard not to stare at the side of his head. Every time he leaned back, he touched her arm—just a little, but he made definite contact, and she liked it. Madison kept trying to find new and inconspicuous reasons to adjust her position so that she could bump into him as much as possible.

Drew sat on the left side of Madison, with Aimee on his left. Across from Madison, Fiona sat cross-legged in a big chair. Next to her, Chet sat in a director’s chair he’d pulled in from his Dad’s office.

For some reason, Dan and Lindsay ended up squished together on the love seat. Was it karma? Madison could tell that Lindsay was feeling a little bit self-conscious about that seating arrangement. She had her arms crossed in front of her the way she always did when she was nervous. Any minute now, Madison expected her to start talking nonstop. Lindsay could never shut up when she was nervous.

Chet held a pad of paper, a pen, and his tattered red baseball cap. He carefully tore off eight scraps of paper and scribbled circles on each one. In the center of one circle, he placed a single black
X
.