Play It Again (18 page)

Soon they were driving through the farm gates. After they parked, Dad led them to the horse cart transporting guests into the pumpkin patches.

Madison, Aimee, and Stephanie posed for a photo op in front of “Megasquash,” a display of enormous zucchinis. Aimee stuck a piece of hay in her mouth and twirled around, working overtime to be the center of attention. Madison laughed hysterically while Dad clicked away.

The greatest thing about Dad’s digital camera was all its cool features. He could eliminate or retake bad pictures right away, of course. But he could also add special effects, turn the photos into a black and white photo strip, or replace Madison and Aimee’s hair with fake neon-colored wig-hair or wacky hats. Later, Madison would download all Dad’s photos as screen savers for her laptop.

The air on the farm smelled more and more like everything fall was supposed to smell like: horses, smoke from a chimney, apples, more hay. Madison took a deep breath of cool air. It was getting duskier outside.

“Look at this one, Maddie! It has boobs!” Aimee screeched when they jumped off the cart into the pumpkin patch. She held up a giant orange pumpkin with two funny-looking bumps on the side.

Madison laughed and ran over to join Aimee. They sorted through plump ones, round ones, flat ones, and even green ones. Stephanie found a teeny patch that had been picked over already by some crows. Dad found a pumpkin so big that it barely fit in the wagon they were using.

At five o’clock, Madison and Aimee ordered cups of cider at one of the farm stands and sat out on a picnic bench, even though it was a little too chilly to sit in one place for very long.

“How did you meet Mr. Finn?” Aimee asked, blowing on the cider before taking her first sip. She was so good at asking the right questions. Madison envied Aimee’s ability to say whatever was on her mind.

Stephanie said that she was a computer sales rep. and met Madison’s dad at a technology conference a few months back. In her head, Madison tried to do the math just to make sure that Dad had started dating Stephanie
after
the big D.

They had.

“Steph—” Dad started to groan. “Do you girls really wanna hear this?”

“Of course we do, Mr. Finn!” Aimee blurted. “Every detail. Like, what were you wearing when you met?”

“I think I had on a gray sweater.” Stephanie chuckled. “And plaid pants.”

“Plaid? Ohhh!” Aimee bristled like plaid was bad. She continued with her questions. “Have you ever been married before?”

Madison couldn’t believe Aimee would ask something so personal.

Stephanie smiled. “Well, not exactly.”

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?” Madison asked.

“Well, here’s the thing. I was engaged,” Stephanie said. “Once. I was engaged, but I didn’t go through with it. Couldn’t go through with it.”

“And am I glad for that,” Dad said, wrapping his arm around Stephanie’s back and leaning in to kiss her head.

Dad looked up just in time to see the expression on Madison’s face. It was a “why did you just do that?” look. It had taken Madison her whole life to get used to Dad kissing Mom. Now she had to get used to Dad kissing someone else?

Eeeeeuuuw.

Madison remembered to grab a jar of Mom’s favorite relish as they left the farm. She triple-checked the label to make sure it was the correct kind: extra spicy, Peterson’s specialty.

Dad paid for all the pumpkins, including the one with boobs, and the relish, and then the foursome headed back to his Far Hills loft. He was preparing a “Finn Feast,” or so he said. Stephanie promised she’d toast pumpkin seeds.

While Madison’s dad and Stephanie cooked dinner, Madison logged on to Dad’s newfangled computer with its slick chrome edges. Aimee just watched at first. Then she sat down and grabbed the cordless mouse.

“Let’s go to that site you were talking about yesterday,” Aimee said. “With Fiona. You know the one.”

“You mean TweenBlurt.com?” Madison asked.

Aimee nodded. “I wanna get a screen name. Can we do it now? Tonight?”

Madison smiled. After all this time, she was so happy to hear that Aimee wanted to log on for real. It meant the three friends could gab on the computer in three-way conversations. Finally. They signed on under Madison’s screen name to start. Madison punched in her secret password.

The home page was a giant advertisement for the Caught in the Web Halloween story contest, with flashing spiders and cobwebs and witches floating past on on-screen broomsticks. If you moved the cursor over one of the fish inside the homepage bowl, you saw its skeleton.

All at once, a shaded green box popped up. The cursor blinked quickly.

ENTER SCREEN NAME

“I don’t know what my name should be, Maddie. Whaddya think? Twinkle toes?” Aimee joked. “Bertha big butt? Ha! You’re good at nicknames. You gave Egg his nickname, didn’t you?”

Madison laughed out loud. “Yeah, right.” She had.

They punched in a perfect screen name for Aimee’s personality.

BALLETGIRL

The screen flashed like a strobe light.

NAME TAKEN. SELECT ANOTHER. MAY WE RECOMMEND BALLETGIRL12?

“That’s lame. What’s the twelve for?” Aimee asked, disappointed. “Are there really eleven other ballerinas on this Web site? I don’t get this.”

“Wait!” Madison exclaimed, punching in a different name without any numbers. She typed “
BALLETGRL
”—without the
I
for a change.

That worked.

At long last, Aimee was an official online member of the TweenBlurt community. She announced her name and her password out loud as she punched it in, like she was ordering something at the deli.

“BALLETGRL! POINTE!”

Aimee had a hard time keeping secrets. Even her own.

After dinner, the duo signed online again to test Aimee’s new membership privileges in chat rooms and beyond. When Madison noticed that Wetwinz was online, she helped Aimee send her first message.

They asked Fiona about soccer practice that day, and Fiona wrote back in an instant:

I can’t believe this is YOU! That is so wow. C u!

“What’s that?” Aimee asked, pointing to the letters C and
U
at the end of the message. She didn’t understand Web talk—yet.

“C U. It’s ‘See you.’ Get it? It’s texting lingo, like computer shorthand. You’ll pick it up after a while.”

Then Madison took her turn logging in. Dad poked his head into the room to say it was time to pack up for home. Madison ran to the bathroom, leaving Aimee to surf the site by herself.

Aimee couldn’t take her eyes off TweenBlurt.com, clicking from screen to screen, searching for an available chat room that she liked. She couldn’t believe the made-up names she saw there: ChuckD4Ever, PrtyGrrl88, and Brbiedoll.

All of a sudden, there was a message up on the screen.

“Hey!” Aimee cried out to Madison. “What’s this?”

“Huh?” Madison asked, walking back in.

“Who is Bigwheels?” Aimee said, eyes locked on the screen.

Buy
Caught in the Web
Now!

Author Laura Dower has a lot in common with Madison Finn: They’re both only children and they both love dogs, the color orange, and books! Laura has written more than ninety kids’ books to date, including twenty-five in the series From the Files of Madison Finn. Her other books include the new Palace Puppies series and
For Girls Only
, a guide to girl stuff. When she’s not writing, Laura loves to garden, sing (loudly), and volunteer as a scout leader for her daughter and two sons. She and her family live in New York. Want to be keypals? Drop her a note at
www.lauradower.com.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE WIZ by William F. Brown and Charlie Smalls

Copyright © 1974 by William F. Brown

Revised and rewritten © 1979 by William F. Brown

Text copyright © 2001 by Laura Dower

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-2254-4

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com