Annie's Adventures (8 page)

"Is this pretty wand and book of potions in our budget?" Zinnia asked.

"'Fraid not today," Annie said gently. "Too bad. I imagine spells and potions would come in handy now." Then she hustled us to the third floor of the store, where they sold mostly boy things and which we thought would be boring but that totally was not.

"I'm thinking something involving bats and balls," Marcia said.

"I'm thinking something that makes lots of noise," Jackie said.

"And I'm thinking," Annie said, "that we need to get him something stupendous."

"But why?" Rebecca asked.

"Because," Annie said, "when he comes to our parties, he always brings us eight presents. He deserves something grand."

"Well, he likes hockey..." Jackie's voice trailed off.

And that's when we saw it.

The Super-Duper Faux-Hockey Mash-'Em Smash-'Em Reality Toy Kit.

"It's perfect!" Annie said.

As we studied the gigantic box with her, we realized that it was. It had everything—its own facemasks and shin guards and hockey sticks—and it even came with its own miniature indoor rink and instructions on how to create a winter wonderland in the basement of any normal-size home.

"It really is perfect!" Durinda said. "Any boy would love one of these."

"Well, Will certainly would," Annie said.

"But who will he play it with?" Durinda asked. "Will's an only child."

Annie shrugged. "I'd be happy to play this with him after school sometimes, wouldn't you?"

We all agreed that would be the best.

But when it came time to go pay for it, we realized the box of the one on display was badly torn, so Annie went to find a salesperson to see if a nicer one could be found.

It was while we were waiting for her to return that disaster struck.

Jackie was investigating the kit for turning enemies into toads when she felt a long finger tap on her shoulder. Turning slowly around, she was horrified to see it was ... the McG!

"Hello, Eight," the McG said to her. "What are you doing here?"

"M-m-m-me?" Jackie said. "What are
you
doing here?"

The McG waved something in her hand.

"Getting a present for Will," the McG said. "His birthday is coming up and I always try to get a little something for my good students."

We could see from the size of the object in her hand, the shape of a deck of cards but not as thick, that it really was a
little
something.

"You never said though," the McG said, "what are you all doing here?"

"Ohhhh." Jackie twisted her fingers together as she strained to think of something, deciding on the truth for once. "We're shopping for Will too."

"How lovely," the McG said. "And where are your poor parents?" The McG scanned the store, looking over the top of Jackie's head.

"They're modeling and in France," Jackie said quickly, sticking to part of the lie we'd tried out on Pete.

"They're both modeling in France?" The McG raised an eyebrow.

"No, of course not." Jackie laughed nervously. "Did I say that? I
meant
to say Daddy's modeling in France while Mommy is ... Mommy is..."

"Mommy is looking for a salesperson to get a better one of these for Will," Rebecca put in, inspiration striking her as she saw Annie walking back. Rebecca indicated the hockey kit.

"My, that is an impressive toy," the McG said coolly while, behind her back, Georgia gestured for Annie to go hide. It wouldn't do for the McG to see Annie disguised as a man with no parents in sight.

"And where is Annie?" the McG asked, looking around again.

"She's ... she's ... she has a dreadful stomach virus," Jackie said, once again relying on the lie we'd told Pete, only this time applying it to a different family member.

"I see," the McG said. "And who is taking care of her if your father is modeling in France and your mother is here with you?"

We couldn't very well say Annie was home alone, could we? Then the McG would question our parents' fitness to parent us. So Jackie said the only thing anyone could say.

"Oh, Annie's here too," Jackie said brightly. "Mommy was going to take her to the bathroom
again
before going off to find that salesperson. Hmm, I wonder what could be keeping them?"

At the mention of Annie being in the store and ill, the McG's lip curled.

"I really have to go pay for this," she said hurriedly, waving the thin deck of cards again. "I've a lot to do today. Please give my best to your poor mother and tell Annie I hope she feels better. And, for God's sake, if she's still feeling badly tomorrow, tell her to stay home from school."

"Oh," Jackie said with a smile, relaxing now that the McG was hurrying away from us, "I'm sure Annie will be better by then."

***

Once the McG was gone, it was safe for Annie to come back. She had secured a nicer hockey kit, and we made our way to the cash registers.

When it came time to actually arrange payment for our purchase, we saw that Annie had thought of everything. She pulled out one of Daddy's credit cards and offered it to the stunned sales clerk.

The woman in her red smock and badly dyed blond hair looked at Annie in her suit, hat, and mustache.

But Annie refused to be stared down.

"What's the matter," Annie said in her Daddy voice, "haven't you ever seen a midget, old chap? You know, it is jolly rude to stare..."

In the end, the embarrassed clerk ran the credit card through the register, apologizing profusely as she handed Annie a pen and the credit card slip, on the bottom of which Annie forged
Robert Huit.

Annie really had thought of everything.

On the way home, she even remembered to stop for kibble for the cats.

CHAPTER SEVEN

When we arrived back home, we decided we should celebrate the success of our first adventure out.

First, we got out many of our own toys and played as we hadn't done since before Mommy and Daddy's disappearance.

"Or death," as Rebecca dourly put in.

Then, when we grew tired of board games and dolls and bouncy boots and Yahtzee—Jackie kept winning—we decided to play dress-up. Raiding the trunk in the tower room again, we emerged with Marcia and Jackie as fairies, Petal and Zinnia as princesses, Georgia as a witch, Rebecca as a jester, and Durinda in one of Mommy's old ball gowns. We all decided that since Annie already had her costume on, she should keep it that way.

But it had been a long day, with lots of pressures and worries, and no sooner were we in costume than we realized we were famished.

"What's for dinner?" Georgia asked Durinda. "Can you make us another one of those turkey things?"

But Annie said it wouldn't be a celebration for Durinda if she had to work. For once, we could eat what we wanted and forget the wretched food pyramid.

The idea of eating what we wanted was almost too good to bear.

"Perhaps," Zinnia offered timidly, "Durinda could be persuaded to work just long enough to pop a frozen pizza into the oven for us?"

Frozen pizza may not sound exciting, but to us, after two weeks of Annie's insisting we eat balanced meals with fruits and veggies, it sounded like heaven.

"Oh, yes, please!" Petal and Jackie cried. "May we? May we?"

Seven of us voted for the pizza, and we got our wish, but one of us wanted something different.

"You did say we could have whatever we wanted, didn't you?" Rebecca said pointedly to Annie. When Annie nodded, Rebecca got a chair, climbed on the counter, and reached for the highest cabinet.

"Ta-da!" she said, producing a can of pink ready-to-spread frosting.

We suspected then that Rebecca had been waiting her whole life for our parents to disappear so that she could eat an entire can of pink frosting. Next thing you know, she'd be doing gymnastics on her bed.

This suspicion deepened when, having eaten more than half of the frosting, Rebecca got a case of the hypers, bouncing all around us as we tried to consume our frozen pizza. She wasn't even using bouncy boots.

Rebecca was flying down the banister of the staircase—she'd already swung from the chandelier in the dining room—when the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be?" Marcia asked. "No one ever rings our doorbell."

Since Rebecca was the only one standing, it was she who went to the door. She peeked through the curtained window, and there was a sight that was enough to put fear into any child.

It was a giant toadstool.

Well, not a real toadstool. It was a person shaped like a toadstool. The person was an adult, but short enough to be a child, with coal black eyes, a fright of spiky yellow hair, a very plump body, and short legs that looked like they couldn't run fast but could kick hard. The person had on khaki pants and a red shirt with polka dots—no coat, despite the cold.

"Oh, no!" Rebecca whispered back at us. "It's the Wicket!"

The Wicket was how we referred amongst ourselves to our next-door neighbor Helena Wicket.

"What should I
do?
" Rebecca hissed.

"I'm afraid you'll have to let her in," Annie said. "Our lights are all on; she must know somebody is home."

So that's what Rebecca did: opened the door and let the Wicket in.

Once she was inside, we could swear she was practically as short as we were. And yet she was somehow very scary too.

"Which one are you, Eight?" the Wicket said to Rebecca.

"I'm Zinnia," Rebecca said.

"I'm Petal," Zinnia said.

"I'm Jackie," Georgia said.

It may not have been nice to fool her, but we had a theory about people like the Wicket: if they couldn't be bothered to get our names straight, treating us as though we weren't each an individual person in her ill own right, we certainly wouldn't help them out any.

"I'm An—" Jackie started to say, but the Wicket cut her off.

"That's enough," she said, raising a palm. "I don't need to know any more. I came to deliver this present to your parents."

For the first time, we noticed something in her other hand: an oblong pan with red and green crinkle wrap covering the top. It looked heavy.

"I have a fruitcake for them," the Wicket said importantly.

It gave off a horrid smell, causing us to try not to inhale.

"Oh," Annie said, then she paused. "My." When she resumed speaking, she spoke brightly. "Well. Here, let me take that from you."

But the Wicket held the pan out of reach.

"I prefer," she said, "to deliver it myself. I have been very concerned. Your parents always attend the Collinses' New Year's Day bash, but I did not see them this year. I've tried calling here, often, to make sure everything is okay, but no one answers the phone, nor is the machine on."

It was true. We'd stopped answering the phone because we'd discovered that most calls were nuisance calls. It was always telemarketers asking us stupid questions or people trying to sell us credit cards, which we really didn't need; we already had plenty of those.

"But what if whoever is connected with Mommy and Daddy's disappearance tries to contact us?" Petal had asked at one point.

To which Annie had replied, "I don't think it'll happen that way. Whoever that person is seems to favor communicating by leaving notes behind that loose stone in the drawing room."

In a house with eight people, it had been odd to hear the phone ring without anyone ever answering it. The phone seemed to get louder and louder sometimes, as though it were screaming,
Pick me up! Pick me up!
But after a while, we'd gotten used to hearing it ring, unanswered. We'd gotten used to our parents disappearing, and after that, we could get used to anything.

"You're so right," Annie said to the Wicket now, "and we're very sorry. We'll be sure to answer next time."

"That will be an improvement"—the Wicket paused, peering closely at Annie as though trying to make out which one of us she was— "
Petal.
" What a mistake to make! "But I'd still like to speak with your parents."

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Annie said quickly.

"How so?" the Wicket demanded just as quickly. "I saw the car drive up a few hours ago and it never left again."