Vanishing Acts (20 page)

Grabbing on to the lowest branch, I hoisted myself up. Or tried to, anyway. On my first two tries, I didn't make it. And once I did, I got stuck on my stomach, but only for a moment. “Oof!” I grunted, trying to maintain my balance as I swung one leg over the branch.

Once I was steady, I dusted my hands off on my jeans and looked around. A thick branch was just overhead, and I grabbed it with both hands and pulled again. Now that I was standing on the lowest branch, I found plenty more within reach. I climbed higher and higher until I finally made it to the structure. Close up, I could see it was merely a house made of wood and covered with a thick layer of straw. Luckily, there was a trap door at the bottom, which I opened pretty easily. Then, after some struggle, I managed to pull myself up inside.

“Hello?” I called, looking around at the messy, dark interior.

I spotted some empty bags of potato chips, discarded candy bar wrappers, three grease-stained pizza boxes, and a large stack of empty egg cartons. Also? One person huddled in the corner, trying to hide under his puffy red sleeping bag. Even though I'd climbed up in search of Jones Reynaldo, and had apparently found him, now
that we were nearly face-to-face, I hesitated. Was confronting a temperamental, bratty director really the best idea? Especially considering the fact that I was alone and we were both about thirty feet in the air. Somehow I doubted it, but it was too late to turn back.

“Jones?” I asked, approaching carefully.

The figure shifted, but did not reveal himself right away.

“There's no point in trying to hide,” I said, unable to keep my voice from wavering. “I know you're in there.”

“Maggie Brooklyn?” he asked. His voice was muffled because of the sleeping bag, but he sounded
nothing
like Jones.

As I stepped closer, he lowered the sleeping bag. And I found myself looking right at Seth Ryan. He looked thin and pale. His shirt was covered in potato chips and his hair was messy. Not fashionably mussed; more like hadn't-been-brushed-in-days mussed.

I glanced from the empty egg cartons to Seth, my mind totally blown. “It was you?” I asked.

“How did you find me?” asked Seth. “And what are you doing here?”

“Um, lucky accident,” I replied, once I recovered from the shock. “I thought you were Jones.”

“My director?” asked Seth.

“He's the only Jones I know.”

“But why would you be looking for him up here?” asked Seth.

“Because he's the egger.”

“The what?”

“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head and trying to think straight. “I'll tell you later. Just as soon as you tell me something: why did you kidnap yourself?”

“All I wanted was to help the polar bears,” Seth blurted out.

I blinked, figuring I must've misheard him. “You didn't just say ‘polar bears,' did you?”

“Yes,” said Seth. “You know how global warming is killing all these polar bears because their ice caps are melting and they're drowning?”

“I've read about that,” I said, still puzzled.

“And have you seen pictures? It's terrible.” Seth drew his knees up into his chest and hugged them, suddenly looking so young. He reminded me of a lost little kid hanging out in mall security, waiting to be rescued.

“You're telling me you wanted to go to Alaska to save these polar bears, and that's why you've been hiding in this tree house?” I asked, not quite following his logic.

“No, I wanted to run the LA Marathon for a charity that raises awareness of global warming,” Seth explained. “But Fiona said I couldn't because of the security risk. I'm too high profile to participate in that kind of thing. She says all my running must be done in private on a treadmill in my own gym. Also, if people saw me sweat, it would be bad for my image.”

“Huh,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

“I think it's the workout clothes she didn't approve of,” Seth went on. “‘Stars and spandex should never mix.' That's what she always said whenever she read about some other celebrity doing any sort of race.”

“Workout clothes
are
pretty funny looking,” I had to admit.

“Right.” Seth nodded. “Anyway, Fiona told me to
donate money instead, which I did happily. And I'm glad I could help. It's just—I wanted to help in a different way, like a regular kid might. But Fiona says I'm a public person and I can't just do normal things. I have more responsibilities. People depend on me, and I must maintain my image.”

This was all very interesting. And weird. But also, confusing. Seth's story simply didn't add up. Yes, he's a bizarre guy, but even this seemed too outlandish. Who runs away because of polar bears? There had to be more to the story.

“So global warming is what made you fake your own kidnapping and camp out in a secret tree house in the middle of a big movie shoot?” I asked, this being the first of my many, many questions.

“It's not just because of the polar bears. Other stuff has been getting to me, too.” Seth shoved his sleeping bag aside, stood up, and stretched. “Things you wouldn't understand.”

“Try me,” I said.

“Well, for one thing, I just found out my dad has replaced me. And not just once.”

“You mean because he had twins?” I asked.

“You knew?” The heartbreak in Seth's eyes was visible. “How did you know? I just found out about it—and not even from him. Jones asked me if my brothers were going to follow in my footsteps, because he needed
babies for his next movie. I truly had no idea what he was talking about. It's crazy that my father didn't even tell me.”

“Maybe he couldn't,” I said. “You know, because of the restraining order.”

“What restraining order?” asked Seth. He sat back down again and crossed his legs.

Did he honestly not know? “The one you filed against your father,” I said gently.

Seth seemed shocked. “I never did that!”

“Someone did, and they signed your name. It's a matter of public record. That's what I read, anyway. Maybe Fiona is responsible? I'm guessing she thought it was necessary because your dad was stealing from you.”

“But my dad never stole from me!” Seth cried.

“Then what was the custody battle all about?” I wondered.

Seth shook his head, a pained expression on his face. “I don't even know anymore; everything got so complicated. We got in a stupid fight. I wanted to do this movie in Japan and my dad wanted me to take a break, to move with him back home to Buffalo.”

“He wanted you to quit acting?” I asked.

“Sort of. For a while, anyway. He thought I should finish sixth grade at a regular school because my tutors weren't teaching me enough.”

“And you didn't want to go?”

“No way. I love acting. It's this incredible adventure, and I just feel like I'm doing what I was born to do.”

“That's cool,” I said, noticing Seth's eyes light up for the very first time.

“And it's fun, for the most part. Also, I know I need to be grateful. There are plenty of talented people out there who haven't gotten the breaks I have. I'm lucky it's worked out, but still, sometimes it all just gets to me. Not being able to walk down the street like everyone else, not getting to run in marathons or save the polar bears. Fiona thinks I'm ridiculous, but my dad understood. He feared I was missing out on too much. He always talked about how disappointed he was when I had to quit Little League to go film my first movie in LA. I never told him I was actually relieved because I can't stand baseball. I'd rather act than compete in sports. And I could never move back to Buffalo and go to a normal junior high school. I'd get beat up, stuffed into lockers. Guys would steal my lunch money.”

Seth spoke so fast and so randomly I could barely follow him.

“Wait, why do you think people would steal your lunch money?”

“Because it happens all the time,” Seth practically shouted.

“Where?” I asked.

“In school. I know what really happens because I starred in
Sixth Grade Confidential
, and I can't handle it.” Seth was emphatic.

The movie he referred to was basically a
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
rip-off, about a nerdy kid who always got picked on. Except it wasn't a reality show or anything—it was a total comedy, very loosely based on middle-school life and exaggerated by at least a hundred times for laughs. In other words, it was a silly movie—at least to everyone else in the world.

It's funny how Isabel had predicted this. Seth really had grown up in the movies, and he had no idea what regular life was like. How there's not this total divide between nerds and jocks, how real life isn't all about being popular and sitting at the cool table, but about having friends who are true—friends you can be yourself with.

Poor Seth probably had no real friends—just a manager who lied to him and a director who bossed him around, a father who let him slip away . . .

But how could I explain all that? “
Sixth Grade Confidential
was just a silly comedy. School isn't really like that.”

“That's what my dad told me, but why should I listen to him? After I chose acting over Buffalo, he disappeared.”

“He was required by law to stay away from you,” I reminded him. “The restraining order?”

“But no one told me, and I swear I never signed the thing. At least not knowingly.”

“Do you think maybe Fiona tricked you into it?” I wondered.

“It's possible,” Seth said with a sigh. “She has me sign things all the time. I don't always read them, so I guess it's my fault.”

“I think this was all a big misunderstanding. I think your father does care about you. At least I assume that's why he wrote you this.” I handed Seth the letter. “I found it in Fiona's purse. It's addressed to you, and I'm guessing you never received it.”

Seth turned the envelope over in his hands. “I haven't heard from my father in over a year. He never even told me he got remarried.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said.

Seth ripped open the letter and read through it quickly. He looked up at me for a second and opened his mouth as if about to say something, but changed his mind. When he read the letter again, I saw tears well up in his eyes.

Finally he spoke. “He says he's been writing to me once a week for over a year. Ever since the courts ruled in Fiona's favor. And he's been numbering them.” Seth
pointed to the small number at the top of the page. “This is sixty-seven. He said he's going to keep writing until I respond. Even if it takes forever. Even if it's never.”

“There's a sixty-seven on the envelope, too,” I said. “I wondered what it meant. And are you telling me you didn't get any of the other sixty-six letters?”

Seth shook his head slowly, the horrible reality dawning on him. “I guess Fiona's been keeping them all from me.” He rubbed his eyes and took a deep, shaking breath. And then the tears began to fall.

Seeing him so distraught made me cry, too. I couldn't help myself. This was all too terrible. I couldn't believe that just yesterday I'd felt sorry for Fiona, when she didn't truly care about Seth. No one who cared about him would keep him from his own father. Yet she'd been making that choice every single day—for sixty-seven weeks so far.

“How about we get out of this tree and find a phone and give him a call?” I asked.

Seth smiled at me, wiped his tears with the back of his hand, and sniffed. “That's a great idea.”

Once we were on solid ground, I asked, “How did you end up here, anyway?”

“I'm not allowed to say.”

I watched Seth carefully and asked, “Does it have anything to do with Jones Reynaldo?”

He didn't try to deny it.

“Please don't tell anyone. I don't want him getting in trouble. It was cool of him to let me hide out here. He was only trying to help. He didn't need me for a few days and saw that I was stressed and could use some time to chill. He also said it would be a fun prank and good publicity for his movie, too. A total win-win.”

“A fun prank?” I knew Jones was a bad guy, but this was a new level of awful. “Do you know how many people have been looking for you? There's an international search! And guess what Jones was using this space for before you got here.”

Seth looked up at the tree house, confused. “I know he's friends with the artist who built this place. But I didn't know he spent any time up here.”

“Didn't you notice all those empty egg cartons?” I asked. “He's been egging local dogs—trying to scare them out of the park so he could film here.”

Seth's entire face darkened. “What?” he asked.

“Let's go,” I said. “I'll tell you all about it on the way.”