Out of Bounds (16 page)

Katani and Maeve looked at each other.

“Anna's really mad at Kiki,” Maeve whispered.

Anna almost quit right then, but she didn't.
Eyes on the prize
, she told herself. The prize was herself on video. Now that she knew Kiki's father worked with a lot of famous people, there was no way she could drop out. And Anna figured that once she got the video in her hands, she could have it edited down to just her parts. Her mother told her that she could. It would be good for getting modeling jobs.

No, there was no way Anna was going to quit now. She had come too far and put up with too much of Kiki and Joline's worship of Kiki to quit before the show.

 

The Beacon Street Girls stayed behind after the rehearsal to wait for Katani. They could see Katani's head nodding back and forth, following Ms. Ciara's gestures closely. They wondered whether Katani had overstepped her bounds by organizing the poster list. Some teachers were funny that way. They didn't like you taking charge unless they gave you the formal okay.

Finally, Ms. Ciara turned to leave, and Katani walked back toward her friends.

“Was she mad, Katani?” Maeve asked sympathetically.

“No, she wants me to assist her with the show. She said that it was a really big job with lots of responsibility. I have
to help manage the acts backstage, and if things aren't working, I have to help her figure out what to do.”

“Wow,” said Avery. “That is a really big job. I mean, what if the Hip-Hop Honeys decide to get in a fight or something on opening night?”

“You can handle it, Katani,” Isabel said. “Look how you took charge of getting us organized to make posters.”

“That's different,” Katani laughed. “We all like each other.”

“We better practice our trick before they kick us out of here,” said Charlotte. Katani's new job was set aside as the girls focused on their biggest problem: How to get Avery to disappear!

The girls had already pulled a fast one on the other performers…They had all agreed: It was better to
look
as if they didn't know the trick than to have Kiki and Queens of Mean try to sabotage their act. Only after they were sure Kiki was safely out of the building did they practice the
real
Houdini trick.

Then the girls got into action. They dragged an old mattress out of the prop room.

“Oh, goody,” Kelley said. “Are we having a sleepover?”

“Not today, Kel,” Charlotte said.

Kelley looked disappointed then intrigued as she watched Avery unlatch the door to the orchestra pit. Once the latch was undone, the trapdoor opened inward, which was just what was needed for this trick. Then they rolled the mattress into a tube and shoved it down the hole. It popped out of sight.

Kelley started to clap, thinking this was the real trick. “Good one!” She laughed.

Avery bowed.

Charlotte was examining the trapdoor. There was a little
metal loop on the latch. “Be careful not to trip over the latch,” Charlotte warned.

They closed and relatched the trapdoor, then dragged the magic box on top of it.

“Okay, Kelley, are you ready for the real trick?” Avery asked.

Kelley clapped her hands together in delight.

Charlotte looped scarves around Avery.

“Remember to put your fists together
like this
.” Charlotte clenched her fists to demonstrate, and Avery did the same. “It makes them bigger and then the scarf is looser when you relax your hands again.”

Charlotte turned Avery around full circle and put her in the box.

“Now you have to be able to scooch down really little and open the latch.
Like this
.” Charlotte tried to demonstrate, and fell on top of Avery. “All right, maybe not like that.”

Kelley was laughing hard. “Good one, Charlotte!”

Charlotte giggled and closed the lid on the box, waved her wand and opened the lid. Avery had disappeared completely.

“Yay!” Kelley jumped to her feet. Then when Avery didn't come back, she started to worry. “Where did Avery go?” Kelley's eyes went wide.

Everybody waited…and waited.

Finally, Kelley ran to the stage and looked down the hole.

“Where did she go?” Kelley said urgently. “Avery, you better come back here right now!”

“She's all right,” Katani whispered. “It's just a magic trick.”

There was a long silence, then some crashing around backstage. Finally, a very dusty Avery made her way through the curtains to the front of the stage and took a bow!

“Magic!” Kelley clapped. “Magic!”

“What happened?” Charlotte said.

“We need to remember to clean the pit, and to put on a light or something backstage,” Avery coughed. “It's awfully dark back there.”

Katani made a note on her clipboard.

Except for the dust and lack of lighting, Avery had performed the trick perfectly.

“You really are like a mini Houdini,” Maeve said.

Avery bowed again.

“Let's run through it again,” Katani suggested.

Maeve went backstage and turned on a lamp.

This time Charlotte talked as she helped Avery into the box. She talked about Houdini and how he was a great escape artist. She talked about how Avery was a long-lost relative of Houdini, with all the same talents. Charlotte talked for almost a minute. Then she waved her magic wand and said the magic word: “Abracadabra!” When she opened the box, Avery was gone.

Charlotte feigned surprise as she looked into the box. She waved her wand and took a bow, as Maeve gasped and looked around dramatically.

A minute later, Avery broke through the curtains and took a deep bow.

“Perfect!” Isabel said, clapping.

Kelley was clapping and laughing as if she was just seeing the trick for the first time.

Everyone applauded.

“And they said we didn't have a trick!” Avery said. “We have a trick they're going to talk about for years to come!”

Avery didn't know how right she was about that prediction.

T
he next morning, Charlotte and her father decided to have breakfast together at a small French sidewalk café they'd discovered in Brookline. Although it was getting cool again, the owner hadn't yet taken the tables in for the winter, so they sat outside, pretending they were on the Left Bank, eating crepes and almond croissants with marzipan inside.

“Dad, these croissants are really good. They taste as good as the ones we used to get at Madame Bette's.”

“Good thing she can't hear you say that. Remember how she used to complain about the way Americans eat,” said her dad.

“I know, she called anyone who wanted ketchup with their
oeufs
(eggs) McIdiots.”

“Madame could be quite rude,” Mr. Ramsey laughed.

“Yes, but she also gave me extra of her homemade jam,” Charlotte said. “I miss Paris,” she went on, then immediately wished she hadn't. “I mean to visit, not to live.” Charlotte loved living in Brookline. Before he took the teaching job, Mr. Ramsey's
job as a travel writer had father and daughter living in many different places. Charlotte had wonderful memories, but now she wouldn't leave Brookline for anything. But that was not to say that she didn't love a great vacation somewhere. As long as you knew you had somewhere to come home to, traveling was so exciting. Like the time in Africa when an angry rhino chased the jeep she and her father were riding in, and they had to zigzag across the Serengeti to escape. Charlotte reminded her father of the story, and they both chuckled at the memory of the nervous Dutch lady, who kept wringing her hands, whispering, “goot got.” Neither Charlotte nor her father knew what it meant, but whenever things got difficult, one of them would joke, “goot got.”

“You've caught the travel bug,” her father smiled. “It must be genetic.” He considered for a minute.

“What?” Charlotte asked.

“How about Christmas in Fiji?” Charlotte's father asked. “We'll stay on one of the smaller islands in the Yasawas and sleep in a bure.”

“Is that anything like a hotel?” Charlotte asked. She was smiling because she already knew it wasn't.

“It's a traditional hut with a thatched roof,” he said. “Picture it. Cassava root and mud crab for Christmas dinner.”

“Sounds exotic,” she said.

“Plus, it's full summer there—no snow, no ice.” He knew this one would get her.

The minute he said Fiji, Charlotte had wanted to go. She was only holding out so that he would tell her more of the details. She loved how animated her father got when he talked about travel. “Are you going to write a travel book about Fiji?” Charlotte asked.

“Just an article.
Christmas in Fiji
,” he gestured as if the printed title hung in the air right in front of him.

“I'm in,” she said.

“Good,” he said, “I already made the reservations.”

Charlotte laughed. It didn't surprise her a bit.

Mr. Ramsey ordered another café au lait.

“How's the talent show coming?” he asked. Charlotte hadn't told him much about it lately.

“It's coming along,” she said. “Avery makes a perfect Harry Houdini.”

“What about the hedgehogs? Are they in the show?”

“They're not hedgehogs, they're guinea pigs. They didn't make the cut,” Charlotte said. “But Marty did.”

“Our little Marty?” Mr. Ramsey asked.

“Our little Marty is about to become a gigantic star,” Charlotte said.

Her father laughed.

“I'm serious. Wait ‘til you see him. Avery's pulling him out of a hat. Plus, he's doing another trick that is just so cute! I really think Marty may steal the show.”

Mr. Ramsey laughed. Then he got serious for a minute. “I'm glad you're doing so well here, Charlotte.”

“I am too, Dad.”

“How is your new friend Isabel adjusting?” he asked.

“Pretty well. Oh, that reminds me. Isabel's dad is coming out for the show. Her sister wants to host a breakfast for us the morning after the talent show. Can we go?”

“I wouldn't miss it,” he declared.

“I was hoping you'd say that,” Charlotte smiled.

“By the way,” Mr. Ramsey said, “I've sold a few tickets for you at the college. I've got a couple of students who do magic for kids' parties, and they loved the idea of the talent
show. Of course, I did brag about my daughter, the amazing, multitalented magician.”

“Dad, thanks, but what if I am terrible?” Charlotte pondered. “We could both be really embarrassed.”

“Not me, kiddo, you never embarrass me,” he assured her, and he smiled.

“Dad, I want to give a ticket to Miss Pierce. Not sell her one, give it to her. Since she helped with the Houdini trick and everything. Do you think she'd come?”

“I doubt it,” Mr. Ramsey said. “I'm not trying to be negative, but she doesn't really leave the house, Charlotte.”

“Ever?” Even though Charlotte knew this, she was still having trouble believing it.

“Well, I've not seen her go out since we've been here,” her father said.

“How is that even possible?” Charlotte asked.

Mr. Ramsey shrugged. “That's just the way it is with some people,” he said.

Aren't people strange
? Charlotte thought. And so very different and interesting all at the same time.

 

Isabel went shopping after school with Anna and Joline, looking for costumes. After trying four different stores, they ended up at Filene's Basement in the fancy dress department, where they found three dresses that matched. They were a nice shade of green, flared out at the bottom, but they had a super dorky red bow around the neck. They even had sequins like Kiki's.

“They're not so bad,” Joline said.

“Not so bad? Are you kidding me? We're going to look like a bunch of stupid Christmas trees,” fumed Anna.

It was probably true, Isabel thought. She almost suggested that they change the name of their act from the Hip-Hop Honeys to Kiki and the Dancing Christmas Trees, but she stopped short of saying it out loud. These were not the Beacon Street Girls. Somehow she had a feeling that Anna and Joline would not find the suggestion humorous.

“I think the dresses are fine,” Isabel said. She wasn't being totally truthful. She was trying to break the tie. They had looked everywhere with no luck. In most of the places they'd shopped, even if they
had
found a dress they liked, the store would only have one per size. Since Anna and Joline were close in size, it made things even more difficult than they already were. What made things worse was that Anna and Joline didn't agree on anything, not anymore.

“I'm not so sure,” Joline said, looking at her reflection in the mirror. “They are really kind of ugly.”

“What do you expect? Who wears these kinds of dresses to dance in anyway?” Anna huffed.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Joline asked defensively. She thought Anna might have been insulting her mother's suggestion to come to the basement store.

Finally, the girls settled on the green sequined dresses. They were short enough to dance in, the skirts would flare, and maybe they could cut the dorky bows off. They went to the cashier to pay.

“I still think it would have been better if you had
made
the dresses the way you promised,” Joline said as she pulled out her money.

“I didn't promise anything. I told you, I can't sew,” Isabel said. “Don't you
ever
listen?”

“
Don't you listen
?” mimicked Anna.

Isabel was tired and mad and really annoyed with herself.
If she had been with Avery, Katani, Maeve, and Charlotte, they all would have been laughing and making jokes by now. Instead, she was with the two cranky, spoiled Queens of Mean. How had she allowed herself to get into this mess?

Joline's mother, the chauffeur of the shopping expedition, hadn't been able to find a parking space anywhere near Filene's. So she just kept circling the block, which was getting more and more difficult as rush hour approached. The streets were crowded and tempers were short on all sides.

“Where is she?” Anna asked Joline as they watched for the car. “I have to get home by five thirty or I'll be grounded for life.”

“She's circling,” Joline said defensively. Isabel thought almost fondly of the time, not so long ago, when Anna and Joline had been best friends. They had been annoying then, and mean, too, but they were much worse now. Or maybe they were always like this. Who could tell? It was clear that Kiki and the show were taking their toll on everyone.

Joline called her mother on her cell phone. “Hi Mom,” she said. “We're waiting outside. Where are you?” She listened, then turned to relay the message. “She's just a couple of blocks away.”

When Joline's mother still wasn't there ten minutes later, Anna thrust her dress at Isabel. “You take this,” she said. “I can't wait any longer, I'm taking the T.”

“She's right around the corner,” Joline said, but Anna just gave her a look.

“What's up with her?” Isabel asked when Anna was safely out of sight.

“What isn't?” Joline said.

 

They didn't get home until almost six o'clock. Isabel resisted the urge to call one of her friends and tell them that there was trouble in the ranks of the Queens of Mean. She knew they'd be interested. But it was gossip, and Isabel didn't really feel comfortable gossiping about anyone, not even about Anna and Joline.