Vanishing Acts (2 page)

“I don't need you to walk Mister Fru Fru,” said Charlotte. “I do that. I just need you to figure out who egged him this morning!”

“Wait, your dog got egged?” I asked.

“Your dog's name is ‘Mister Fru Fru'?” Lucy marveled.

I kicked her under the table.

“What?” she asked with a shrug. “It's a legitimate question.”

As Charlotte glared, her pink lips formed into one thin glossy line of impatience. “Yeah, I named my dog Mister Fru Fru. You want to make something of it?”

“Nope.” Lucy looked down at her spaghetti and twirled another forkful.

“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Like, step by step.” I pulled out my brand-new dog-walking/crime-fighting notepad. It reads “Doggie Deets” across the top, so it's multipurpose.

Charlotte huffed out a small breath. “We were walking into the park before school, as usual, when this small white blur whizzed past me, and the next thing I knew, Mister Fru Fru was whimpering and covered in egg.”

“That's horrible,” I said.

“No kidding,” she replied. “And guess what else—Mister Fru Fru isn't the only victim. I asked around, and it turns out that
lots
of dogs got egged in the park last weekend. It's, like, an epidemic or something.” She pulled her hair up into a loose bun and then changed her mind and dropped it down again. “So, can you figure out who's behind it?”

“I can try,” I said. “Where in the park were you, exactly?”

“I entered at Ninth Street, near where I live.”

“And what time were you there?”

“Seven thirty, I think. No, I had to wait for my manicure to dry before I left the house, so it was probably closer to seven forty-five.” Charlotte looked down at her lavender-with-a-hint-of-sparkle nails. “Although a couple got smudged, so I must have left too early. Maybe at seven forty?”

I appreciated how seriously she was taking this.

“Do you know any of the other victims?” I asked. “Because I'd like to speak to them.”

“To the dogs?” asked Charlotte. She tilted her head and looked at me with wide green eyes. “You can do that?”

I stared at her hard, trying to figure out if she was making fun of me. Amazingly, she didn't seem to be.

“I mean the owners,” I replied, as delicately as possible.

“Oh, yeah, of course. No, I don't. But go to the park and ask around. Everybody's talking about it.”

Charlotte walked away without thanking me. Not that I'd done anything yet, except take notes. I stared down at them, trying to figure out where to begin.

Before I could make sense of anything, Sonya ran over and sat across from me with an excited thump. “We've got news.”

“Big news,” Beatrix added, sliding in right next to her.

“They're filming a Seth Ryan movie here!” yelled Sonya, tapping her hands on the table, drumroll style. “And we're going to be in it!”

If I were the type to travel in a pack, like a wolf or one of those girls with a bunch of best friends, Sonya and Beatrix would be in it, no question. They're in the seventh grade, too, and just as sweet and funny as Lucy. But since I am a one-best-friend type of girl, they're the next best thing.

And that's okay, because I don't think they'd want to be best, best friends with me, either, since I'm not obsessed with Seth Ryan.

Like most kids I know, he's my favorite movie star, for the obvious reasons: cute, a great actor, and he donated the proceeds of his last movie to the ASPCA. In other words, he's a puppy lover with puppy-dog eyes.

I've seen most of his movies. The last two I even went to on opening night.

But it's not like I'd start a Seth Ryan fan club.

Or launch a website devoted to his life and work.

Or design T-shirts with his face on them.

Or have meetings after school twice a week to plan even more Seth Ryan superfan–related activities.

Yet that's exactly what Beatrix and Sonya have been doing.

Beatrix has been into Seth Ryan for over a year. For Sonya, he's a new obsession. She'd only just recently replaced the unicorn posters on her bedroom walls with pinups of him.

“Who's Seth Ryan?” I asked with a straight face.

“Not funny, Maggie,” said Beatrix. “You can't joke about the most famous movie star in the world. He's off-limits!”

“How are you guys going to be in his movie?” asked Lucy.

“Not just Sonya and me,” said Beatrix. “All of us. They're filming in the neighborhood and they need extras, immediately.”

“That sounds amazing,” Lucy said.

“Almost too amazing,” I added.

“That's exactly what I thought,” said Sonya. “But I know it's true, because it's all over the Internet.”

“Isn't that where you read they were tearing down our school to put in a giant cupcake factory?” I asked.

“It wasn't a giant cupcake factory,” Sonya replied. “It was a regular-size factory that specialized in baking giant cupcakes.”

“Obviously,” said Lucy, smiling at me.

“You guys, this is totally legit,” said Sonya as she unpacked her lunch. “I promise. I walked by Second Street on my way to school, and it's already closed to regular traffic. This giant truck rolled up and unloaded six humongous trailers. You know—the kind movie stars use as dressing rooms. And then another truck came, and it was filled with giant lights and movie cameras.”

This wasn't hugely shocking. People film stuff in our neighborhood all the time. Especially on Second Street. In the past six months, they'd roped off the street for a Tom Cruise movie and a Trident gum commercial. But as for the rest of it? It seemed too good to be true.

“If they really needed extras, don't you think they would've figured it out before today?” I asked.

“They had,” said Beatrix. “Or at least they thought they had. They were going to use a crowd in a box.”

“What's that?” asked Lucy.

“It's an inflatable crowd,” Beatrix explained. “It's when they use blow-up people to save money so they don't have to deal with real extras.”

“Inflatable extras are much less complicated,” said Sonya. “Except on days with high winds.”

“They all blew away,” Beatrix said. “And there's no time to get new plastic.”

Suddenly everything clicked into place. “So that
explains that puffy dude that plowed into me this morning.”

“Huh?” asked my friends.

I told them about my run-in with the blow-up doll. “We saw a few, but I had no idea they were part of a whole gang.”

“There were thirty, apparently,” said Beatrix. “Kind of an expensive mistake.”

“So where's the doll?” asked Lucy.

“We stuffed him in a trash can on Garfield,” I explained. “Finn wanted to keep him, but I said no way.”

“Finn is so funny,” said Lucy.

My brother is a lot of things: quiet, smart, and good at soccer and video games and making omelets. Sweet when he wants to be, and, at times, slightly clueless. But funny? I don't think so.

“Think the dummy's still there?” asked Sonya. “He'd be a cool addition to our collection of Seth Ryan memorabilia.”

“I don't think a blow-up doll would fit in the scrapbook,” said Beatrix.

“I mean if we deflated him,” Sonya said. “Obviously.”

“He was huge,” I said. “Taller than me and probably as wide as Finn and me put together, so even flat and folded it would be a stretch.”

“We need to get a third scrapbook anyway,” Sonya said.

“Unless we just move all of the existing stuff to a bigger binder,” said Beatrix. She turned to Lucy and me. “We can't seem to agree.”

Lucy and I grinned at each other, not at all surprised. It seemed like Beatrix and Sonya disagreed about everything relating to Seth Ryan: which movie was his best, how often they should e-mail him, where to hold their next fan club meeting, whether or not they should continue calling themselves a fan club, considering the fact that they were the only two members . . .

“And it's not like we can vote on it,” said Sonya. “We need a third person to break the tie, but there's no way we're going to try asking anyone at school again.”

Last month, Beatrix and Sonya tried recruiting new kids to their club. Lucy and I were obvious choices, but we're both too busy. So they put up a bunch of signs around campus. It seemed like a no-brainer, since every girl here, practically, is in love with Seth Ryan. Boys like him, too. They'd never say so out loud, but their hairstyles prove it.

Of course, it didn't work out so well. Within an hour, their signs got covered with mean graffiti. People drew funny mustaches and devil's horns on his close-ups. They blacked out his eyes and half his teeth and scrawled obnoxious messages like
Seth Ryan Super Nerds
and
Dorks R Us!
and
This is Dum
, which is particularly
insulting, because obviously there is nothing dumber than being called dumb by someone who can't even spell the word “dumb.”

The takeaway being, it's cool to like Seth Ryan—almost everyone at school does—but it's not cool to be in an official fan club. All admiring must be done in an unofficial capacity. Beatrix and Sonya learned that the hard way.

“I'll bet they need guys, too,” said Lucy. “Maybe Finn wants to sign up.”

“They didn't specify, but I'm sure they do. You should definitely ask him,” said Beatrix.

I shook my head. “There's no way. If I even mention the possibility, he'll laugh in my face. Last month after I rented
Vampire's Retreat
he made fun of me for a week.”

“Maybe I'll ask him,” said Lucy. “I don't think he'd laugh at me.”

And before I could stop her, she'd jumped up from the table and was gone, her single braid bouncing on her back as she hurried across the cafeteria.

I turned to my friends. “Have you guys noticed Lucy acting weird lately?”

“Yes,” said Sonya. “But no weirder than usual. So are you in?”

“It sounds fun, but I have to work after school.”

“This is work,” said Beatrix. “I heard they're paying eighty bucks a day just to stand around and be on camera. Filming starts tomorrow. The movie is called
Vanished.
Since we're under eighteen, we've got to get our parents' permission, but I already printed out extra release forms.” She slammed a piece of paper down in front of me. “Here. Have your parents read and sign it. And report to work tomorrow at four p.m. sharp. Don't be late. Who knows how many people are going to show? Hundreds, I'm sure.”

I looked down at the form. It had lots of fine print. I looked back up at my friends. “I don't think I can do it. I'm pretty busy with my dogs, and I didn't even tell you about my new mystery.”

Sonya stared at me, her big brown eyes even wider than usual. “That's really cool, but can't it wait a few days? How many times do you think an opportunity like this is going to come up?”

Beatrix nodded. “Please sign up. It's going to be crazy fun!”

I told them I'd think about it, figuring Beatrix knew what she was talking about. Being an extra did seem like it would be crazy fun.

At least that's what I'd thought at the time.

Turns out we were only half right.