“Plus, it’s my birthday,” I said. “Maybe you can let us off with a warning?” I flashed him a big smile, showing off my dimples.
He paused for a minute. “All right, but don’t let me catch you out here after the bell again. You know the rules.”
“Yes, sir. That won’t be a problem. I’ll make it my business to live up to my name,” I said.
He looked confused. Even the principal forgets who I am.
“Angel,” I reminded him, trying to beam like one.
“Right, right,” he mumbled. “Now both of you get to class.”
As Gabi and I headed to homeroom, I caught our reflections in the window of the trophy case. It’s hard sometimes not to feel like a major slob standing next to her. She always looks so put together with the straightened hair that takes hours to perfect each morning and the designer labels that make her look like she stepped off the set of
Gossip Girl
playing one of the mothers. I’m the opposite. You only have to look at me once to know that my morning routine takes approximately three and a half minutes.
As we walked, I pulled out my ponytail holder and put my hair back up again, trying to get rid of the bumps on top. Gabi handed me a ribbon. “You can have this,” she said.
No way. I did not need anything to up my cute quotient. Adults are always calling me adorable, but what I aspire to be is mysterious-looking. Too bad the only thing that can possibly fall into the exotic category are my eyes. They’re almost translucent. I go back and forth between thinking they’re cool and thinking they’re a little eerie. They pick up the colors around them. There are times when they look super light green and other times almost black. It’s bizarre.
“Earth to Angel,” Gabi said. “Have you even heard a word I said?”
I hadn’t. “Sorry.”
“What I said was,” Gabi paused for suspense, “I have the perfect way for you to talk to Cole.”
She definitely had my attention then.
“Tell him you heard how much he loves Mara’s Daughters and you want to let him borrow your CD with all their songs on it.” She grabbed the disc from my hand and looked at the playlist Max wrote up on the back. “Even the lesser-known ones.”
Max would have flushed his head down the toilet if he knew he’d inspired Gabi’s plan to get me and Cole together. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like it worked for Max.”
“You’re not Max.”
“What if I wind up sounding pathetic?” I grinded on two of my nails at once.
“You won’t. Come on. You have to do it. It’s your birthday. If you don’t have the guts to talk to him today, when will you?”
“Fine,” I said, against my better judgment as she handed back my prop.
When we got to homeroom, Gabi pointed her chin toward the far left side of the room.
Sitting about twenty feet away was the guy I’d been daydreaming about for the past two years—Cole Daniels.
My face turned red.
Let’s be clear. Cole was not just my crush. He was my
obsession
. But he only knew who I was because he had to pass the attendance sheet to me in homeroom. I sat behind him. Thank goodness for alphabetical order.
“Go!” Gabi nudged me.
I took my seat and gave myself a mental pep talk.
It’s just a simple conversation. You can do it. Just pretend he’s Max.
When my nerves were as calm as they were going to get, I tapped Cole on the back. He turned around and looked right at me. He definitely
wasn’t
Max.
I froze. The words weren’t coming. It was the longest four seconds in the history of seconds.
Cole raised an eyebrow at me. “Did you want something?”
I shook my head no. I couldn’t go through with it. Staring at Cole was like staring at a real angel. And I had no idea what you were supposed to say to someone like that.
chapter 5
“Angel!” My mother yelped when I walked in the kitchen door later that afternoon. “What are you doing standing there? Go watch some TV in the living room.”
Something was up. She
hated
it when I watched TV. We only had one because sometimes the History Channel aired documentaries on the occult and religion. She said television was the creation of the devil (although if that’s true, then I say he can’t be
that
bad).
I couldn’t exactly see what she was doing because she had her back toward me, but suddenly a horrible noise came from the sink. It sounded like she was feeding aluminum siding into the garbage disposal. “What are you doing?” I inched closer toward her.
“Nothing.”
She was clearly lying. Her voice had an extra high lilt to it. I tried to peek over her shoulder to get a look, but she did a one-eighty and raced to the living room.
I followed her, and then plopped myself on the couch smack next to her. “I got an A on my English quiz today,” I announced.
“Good girl. Education is the best defense against—”
“The unknown, yeah,” I said, cutting her off. I wasn’t looking for a repeat of her favorite lecture. “Since I did so well,
and
it’s my birthday, can I go with Gabi to the concert?”
She pursed her lips together. “Angel. We are not getting into this again.”
“But, Mom . . .”
“Enough,” she warned. “You’ll understand someday.”
“Not likely,” I muttered, and stood up in preparation of storming to my room in a giant huff.
Mom got up, too. I knew where this was going. She was moving in for a hug like she always did after an argument. She said it got rid of the negative energy permeating the air.
I stood rigid with my arms plastered to my side. She didn’t get to make nice after ruining my birthday and possibly my life.
Then she held her palms about five inches above my head, closed her eyes, and mumbled a bunch of words I didn’t understand. She wasn’t hugging me! She was reciting a blessing in Sanskrit.
“Cut it out,” I said.
But instead of stopping, she wrapped her arms around me and drew me into her chest. Her voice got louder as she continued to pray for me. I put my hands in my pockets and began my own little prayer to make it end. And that’s when I felt the familiar feeling of two smooth pieces of cardboard.
My heart rate sped up as I pulled the tickets out and looked at them.
I did a double-take. That couldn’t have been right. And another take. How was it possible?
I was holding the Mara’s Daughters tickets.
I looked at them, then over at Mom.
Mom.
Tickets.
Tickets.
Mom.
Huh?
Her eyes practically popped out from her sockets when she realized what I was holding.
“Hand them over, Angel.”
“No.”
“Angel,” she warned.
I wasn’t an idiot. I ran for it. “They’re mine,” I shouted as she chased me around the couch.
“You took them from me,” she said. “That doesn’t make them yours.”
We paused, staring at each other from opposite sides of the couch, both of us breathing heavily.
Was she going to go left or right? I couldn’t tell. I needed a getaway plan. I could have made it upstairs, but then what? By the time I got the window open, she’d have had me pinned. I’d have never escaped. “You
gave
them to me.”
“I did no such thing,” she said, hoisting herself over the couch like an Olympic medalist.
I squealed. She nearly grabbed me, but I made a mad beeline for the kitchen. She was right on my tail.
She caught the back of my T-shirt and pulled me toward her. All of a sudden I was on the ground on top of her.
“Are you trying to confuse me to death?” I yelled. “First, you give them to me and then take them back. Then you put them in my pocket and pretend you know nothing about it. And now you’re tackling me for them?”
Mom didn’t answer. Instead, she pried my fingers off the tickets. I held on tight, but I couldn’t take her. She was strong when she wanted to be. I think all that Bible-thumping builds muscle.
She tore up the tickets into tiny little pieces and threw them on the floor.
“Stop!” I shouted, but it didn’t matter. It was too late. “You’re ruining my . . .”
My words got stuck in my throat.
I don’t even know how to tell the next part without seeming destined for a straightjacket or like I have a serious lying problem.
Here goes: The paper shreds were slowly crawling toward each other. When they finally touched, they melded back into tickets. It was like rain drops merging with a puddle. Only that’s something you see all the time. This was different. This was
fuh-reaky
.
“No, no, no, no, no,” my mother said, then snatched up the tickets, raced to the garbage disposal, and stuffed them down as far as they would go.
I heard the grinding, saw the paper disintegrating, then watched as the tickets soared up out of the sink in a perfect arch and landed smack on the counter—fully intact.
What. The. Heck? Events like that don’t occur in real life. I thought my imagination had orbited out of control.
“Not again,” my mother cried. She reached into the cabinet for the mini-torch she used to polish her crystals. “Stand back,” she told me.
Then there was a giant
whoosh
as the tickets caught on fire. A black, streaky scorch mark blazed itself into the countertop, but the tickets wouldn’t burn.
I prayed I had just breathed in too many rubber cement fumes in art class or someone had spiked my Yoo-hoo at lunch. If not, the nuthouse was going to be the next place I called home. But at least I’d have some company. From the way Mom sank down to the floor and wailed, “Make this stop,” over and over, it was clear she was going there with me.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to
think
. So instead, I closed my eyes. And I decided that when I opened them, things would be back to normal. They just had to be. As normal as things could be, anyway.
One.
Two.
Three.
Open.
A dark swirl of smoke formed in my kitchen. My heart sped up and my breathing slowed down. Some way, some how . . . a strange man appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the room.
That was definitely
not
normal.
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chapter 6
My mother stumbled to her feet. “Angel, get behind Buddha now.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I ran to the corner of the kitchen where we had a little table with three chairs and a life-size Buddha where the fourth one should have been. It was supposed to bring luck. It didn’t seem to be working.
I got behind the statue and peered around Buddha’s pudgy belly. The strange man looked a little over six feet tall. With his black fedora hat, three-piece black pinstripe suit, handkerchief out the breast pocket of his jacket, and black-and-white wingtip shoes, I wasn’t sure if he wanted to sell us a used car or perform the opening medley of
Guys and Dolls
for us.
“Get out,” my mom yelled at the man. She pointed the torch at him, pushing him backward until he was pressed up against the fridge.
He laughed. “Come on, Mags. Do you really think a little fire will scare me? As a matter of fact, the flames are making me feel a tad homesick.”
My head was caught in a whirlwind of questions. Did my mom know this guy? Who was he? How did he get in the house? Was he going to hurt her? Was he going to hurt me? When did he get inside, anyway? My eyes weren’t shut for
that
long.
And who in the holy heck is Mags? My mom’s name is Tammi.
“I want you out,” my mom said.
“We all want a lot of things,” he answered. “We don’t always get them.”
“You said you’d stay away.”
“Only until she was an adult,” he answered.
My heart stopped. They were talking about me. They had to be.
“She’s only thirteen,” my mom said. She pulled the trigger on the torch. A flame shot out toward him. “And barely that.”
He waved his hand. The fire went out instantly as though he’d doused it with water. “That’s an adult for some. In the Jewish tradition boys have their bar mitzvahs at thirteen.”
Mom cut him off. “We’re not Jewish or whatever other religion you plan to use as your next example. You knew what I meant when we made our agreement. I was talking about here, in the
United States
, where someone is considered an adult when they turn eighteen!” My mother’s body was shaking, but her voice was firm. She lightly pushed him closer to the back door.
He only moved a few steps. “
Ahh
, the good old USA, where they sometimes charge thirteen-year-olds as
adults
in criminal court. You should know to watch out for loopholes when you make a contract with me.”
“No. You can’t do this now. She isn’t even in high school yet.” Mom opened up the fridge and pulled out one of the concoctions she sells on
aurasrus.com
. I knew by the bottle’s silvery black label that it was from her stash of protection potion.
“Sorry.”
“Then you leave me no choice.” She tossed the liquid right into his face.
“
Ahh
, I’m melting,” he shrieked, covering his face with his well-manicured hands, then laughed manically. “Mags, Mags, Mags. Just as fiery as ever. But you should have known that wouldn’t work. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Look, you can have whatever you want. Take my soul. Just leave her alone,” she pleaded.
He smiled. “If I wanted your soul, I would have taken it a long time ago. What I want is to see my daughter.”
chapter 7
This wasn’t happening. It had to be one of those practical joke shows. The cameras had to have been hidden somewhere. I thought if I could just hold it together for a few more minutes, the host would have to come in to take me out of my misery. Then they’d all have had a good laugh at my expense.