Having a family who constantly tells you all of the things that are wrong with you can be very unlucky. However, even bad luck frequently brings good luck along with it. In Amelia’s case, it meant that no matter how much kids at school teased her about being a yeti, it was still better than all the criticism she got at home. True, it hurt her feelings very badly, but it never once made the slightest dent in her determination to be herself somewhere.
Because Amelia knew she wasn’t a yeti. Now, however, Amelia suddenly felt like she knew something else about herself. It wasn’t true, but neither good luck nor bad luck could be blamed for Amelia believing it.
What she now believed was that she was a fool.
A stupid, stupid, worthless fool. Who had actually believed that a Cool Person like Sloane could like some weirdo like her.
After she fled the classroom, Amelia didn’t stop running until she reached the office.
“I need to go home,” she told Ms. Joan, the secretary.
Then she threw up all over the office counter.
Normally, Miller-Poes were not allowed to go home sick. Their parents (and older siblings) told them to tough it out because Miller-Poes were not quitters.
However, not even Amanda Poe and Judge Alexander Miller could argue with a big pile of vomit. And a principal and school secretary eager to get Amelia out of there before another pile showed up.
Soon enough, Amelia found herself at home, tucked into her big, sparkling white bed in her big, sparkling white room. It felt rather like being in a hospital, to be honest. There couldn’t be many hospital rooms that were cleaner than this one, that was for certain.
“You don’t have a temperature.” Her mom frowned at the thermometer she’d just taken out of Amelia’s mouth. She regarded Amelia the way she always did: as a problem to be solved. “It must be the protein shake Aiden gave you for breakfast this morning. I told you it would make you sick.”
“It’s not the protein shake.” Miserably, Amelia wished her mom would go away and leave her in peace. Well, miserable peace, anyhow.
“It’s too rich for your stomach,” Amanda Poe continued as though Amelia hadn’t said anything at all. She forced Amelia to lean forward so she could stuff another pillow behind her. Even though Amelia had already told her she didn’t want another one. “I’ll go get you some saltines.”
“I don’t want any saltines.”
“Then, once you’ve rested, we’ll go for a jog,” her mom decided, giving the pillows a whack. “We’ll settle your tummy down and then give you a boost of endorphins with a run. You’ll be ready to go back to school by lunchtime!”
What? No! No way. Amelia was not going back to school for the rest of the year. Not with Traitor Sloane there, laughing at her behind her back. Boy, had she been a fool believing that a cool person like Sloane could be her friend. She should have known it was all one big, cruel prank so Sloane and Mackenzie could have a laugh at her.
“I have consumption,” Amelia announced, flopping back against the too-big pile of pillows.
“What on earth is consumption?” her mom demanded impatiently.
“Something that people used to die of back in Victorian times. I’ve got it, and I’m definitely going to die of it!” A sob tore from Amelia’s throat. She couldn’t stand the way her mom was looking at her any longer, so she turned around and buried her face in the pillows.
Maybe if she was lucky, she’d suffocate to death.
Then everyone would be sorry.
“Amelia?” The pillows muffled the sound of her mom’s voice. “Is this about my father? About your grandfather?”
“I don’t know, Mom! Why don’t you tell me?” Amelia burst out, rolling over.
“What?” Her mom drew her hand back in shock.
“Why are you asking me? You never ask me anything. None of you ever asks me anything! You just tell me what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, and what I should be doing,” Amelia ranted, bunching the edge of the blankets up in her fists. “All of you—Dad, Aiden, Ashley, you! I’m the one who knows what’s wrong with me. And no one can fix it!”
Unable to face the world one second longer, Amelia dove under the comforter and curled up into the tightest ball she possibly could. Maybe if she squeezed hard enough, she’d compress herself down into a singular point and the universe would collapse around her.
Ha. Like she’d ever be that lucky.
“Amelia?” Her mom jabbed at the blankets, trying to find her. Wait, no—not jabbing. Was her mom trying to pat her? Like a comforting pat?
That couldn’t possibly be right.
“Amelia—I’m… sorry.” Amanda Poe tripped over the words. They were clearly as foreign to her as a different language. She tried again, more convincingly. “I’m really sorry if I’ve done something to upset you. Can you tell me about it?”
Slowly, suspiciously, Amelia emerged from the blankets. She squinted her eyes at her mom. “I don’t know. Can you listen? Without telling me what’s wrong or what I should do?”
Amanda Poe opened her mouth, clearly ready to protest. Amelia narrowed her eyes further, and her mom swallowed back whatever she’d been about to say. In a slightly strangled voice, she said, “I can try.”
At least that was an honest answer.
“It’s not just you and Dad and Aiden and Ashley, Mom. It’s a lot of things.” Amelia sighed. “But it doesn’t help that I can’t talk with you guys about things.”
“You can talk with us about anything!”
“No, Mom, I can’t. You talk at me and to me and around me. Never with me.”
“Oh.”
Silence hung in the air between them. Amelia looked at her mom, hoping that her mom had finally heard her but not able to believe she really had. Finally, Amanda Poe managed to say, “Why don’t we go downstairs and eat some cookies? And I’ll… try to listen.”
Her mom didn’t eat cookies. Not ever.
Or at the very least, not that Amelia knew about. Having followed her mom down to their too-big, sparkling kitchen, she watched as her mom rooted out a box of pastries from Sully’s from the very back of the pantry. All the way back behind the pasta maker no one ever used. Amanda Poe set them down on the too-big island, and then to Amelia’s complete bafflement, she went on to make them hot chocolate as well.
Maybe her mom was having some sort of stroke. Should she call for an ambulance? Amelia wondered.
With the cocoa made, they both climbed up into chairs at the island. For the first time ever for Amelia, the kitchen didn’t seem too big. Or maybe it was that the distance between her and her family finally felt a bit smaller.
Maybe.
Hesitantly, Amelia told her mom about everything that had happened with Sloane—and about everything before that, too. About being called a yeti for the last month and everyone thinking it was hilarious. About not wanting to tell her family because then it would be like she was the Yeti at school and at home because everyone would insist on telling her what to do.
About how they always treated her like a problem.
Miraculously, her mom listened. It had to be very, very hard for Amanda Poe. Amelia could tell by the way her mom would straighten up, open her mouth, and then cram a cookie into it or pour hot chocolate down her throat to keep herself from saying anything.
Still her mom did it, and when Amelia was done talking, she just said, “I’m sorry, honey. This must all be terribly hard for you.”
“Yeah, it is.” Amelia picked at her cookie, remembering this past weekend when she’d eaten cookies with Sloane. When she’d felt like she was finally being accepted for who she was.
“That Sloane is the worst.”
“The absolute worst.” Amelia could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She didn’t want Sloane to be the worst. She wanted the other girl to be who Amelia thought she was: her friend.
“What would you like me to do?” her mom asked. Amelia gaped at her.
“You’re asking me?”
“Yes, and it’s very hard for me to do,” Amanda Poe said in a slightly shrill voice. “So, if you know what you want, you might want to tell me.”
“I just want this, Mom. To be able to tell you and to have you agree that it stinks. That’s mostly all I want.” Amelia thought for a moment. “Oh, and I’d really like out of Miller-Poe sports nights.”
“Absolutely not. Exercise is good for you and family time is important,” her mom snapped in her decision-making, financial-advisor, this-is-what’s-good-for-you voice. Then, catching herself, she immediately added, “But… maybe two nights a week we could all do what you want to do. And it doesn’t have to be a sport. We could even watch old movies like you used to do with Grandma Suzy. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Her mom also agreed to let Amelia stay at home for the rest of the day, though Amanda Poe had to get back to work. Amelia watched her mom go, mind reeling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d talked to her mom like that. She’d sort of assumed that being miserable was the only way she could live her life. That no one would really listen to her if she tried to tell them what she was thinking.
Then Sloane had come along and treated her like a real person, and Amelia had liked how that felt. Together, they’d accomplished things no one else had in more than a hundred years.
Even if Sloane’s friendship had been fake, the clues they’d uncovered weren’t. In a weird way, in spite of everything, that gave Amelia the confidence to believe she could change her life. Right now. She didn’t have to wait until she was grown up.
So, Amelia decided to continue making changes. Starting with figuring out where those missing jewels were. Having made sure that her mom had driven off, Amelia marched upstairs and traded her pajamas for her trench coat and brimmed hat. With the hat pulled down to hide her identity, Amelia walked to the Fulton County Historical Museum. It was actually quite hot and sunny out, so the coat only made it halfway there before Amelia slung it over her shoulder. She kept the hat on, though, so she was at least half a private investigator.
The lilac tree leaning against the porch was in full purply bloom when she got there. There were also several people Amelia hadn’t expected: Mr. Neikirk, Meredith, and Ty. They were all carrying huge boxes up the steps. Well, Ty was trying. Mostly he was getting stuck in the lilac tree.
“Here, let me help you.” Amelia untangled Ty’s sweater from the branches that had grabbed it. “What’s going on?”
“Grampy is donating the worthless junk from the estate sale over on Oak Street to the museum,” Ty explained. At the words “worthless junk,” Mr. Neikirk whipped his head around. Ty flushed and hastily corrected, “I mean, we’re generously donating some important historical artifacts to the museum.”
Hopping up and down, Amelia tried to get a good look at what was in the box. As far as she could tell, “worthless junk” seemed about right. The “important historical artifacts” included a lot of water-stained magazines from the 1950s and an ancient blender with the sort of frayed electrical cable that seemed like it might come in handy if you wanted to electrocute someone.
Inside the museum, Milton appeared positively distraught to be receiving Mr. Neikirk’s “donations.” He was so upset that he accidentally grabbed a Slytherin mug and poured coffee into it. “But Mr. Neikirk, the museum doesn’t need any of this!”
“Too bad! Dumping stuff at the landfill costs money, and I can write this off on my taxes!” the tiny man chirped. “Say, you wouldn’t want to sell that stuffed owl, would you? I know someone who’d pay good money for it.”
“You can’t have Hedwig!” Milton gasped. Looking down, he realized he was holding a silver-and-green mug rather than a scarlet-and-gold one. He yelped and dropped it, spattering coffee onto his shirt and desk.
“Yeah, I’m not having the greatest day, either.” Amelia patted him on his arm as Mr. Neikirk continued to poke around the museum, shouting out values like he wanted Ty and Meredith to start slapping stickers on things. To distract an obviously upset Milton, Amelia asked, “How’d you end up with a Slytherin mug, anyhow?”
“Joke gift from my brother.” Milton tugged morosely at his bow tie. “He thinks he’s so funny. Have you seen my Gryffindor mug? It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
As Amelia helped the museum curator search the room, Belinda walked in. She had Bunny at her side and a stack of large dusty books in her hands.
“Not much value in those,” Mr. Neikirk clucked, shaking his head. “Now, that motorcycle of yours out there…”
“Not for sale,” Belinda told him firmly. When the auctioneer’s eyes slid to Bunny, she added, “Him either.”
Amelia would have hidden under Milton’s desk to keep the librarian from spotting her, since Belinda was the person most likely to realize she should be in school. However, Mr. Neikirk’s boxes of junk blocked her escape route. Still, Amelia tried it all the same, only to knock one of them over. She grabbed it to keep it from falling, but Milton’s Gryffindor mug tipped out of it anyhow. It bounced against Amelia’s nose, giving the curator enough time to grab it.
“Thank goodness you rescued it!” Milton hugged the ceramic mug.
Belinda took the box out of Amelia’s hands, but considered her beadily. “Hey, shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Special circumstances,” Amelia said, her voice embarrassingly thick. Bunny seemed to sense something was wrong and leaned reassuringly against her side. Amelia ran her hands over his fur and felt a little better.
For once, Belinda gave in to her biker side rather than her librarian side and went off to scold Mr. Neikirk about the careless way he was treating some of the antique books.
Pulling herself together, Amelia asked Milton, “Could you help me look someone up? Someone who would have been born about a hundred years ago?”
“Sure!” Milton enthused, going over to his laptop. “The museum pays for subscriptions to all sorts of genealogy databases. Who are you trying to find?”
“I’m looking for Charles Hoäl’s daughter.” Amelia peered over his shoulder as Bunny went off to hang out with Ty and Meredith in the foyer on the steps to the creepy upstairs.
The museum curator tapped away furiously at the keyboard. “Um, according to the US census, he was married by 1910 to a Rebecca Schmitt. And by 1920, they also had a little girl named Lucy, age eight. So that means she would have been born in 1912.”
Lucy Hoäl, born 1912. Amelia added a note to her phone. Charles had talked about his darling Lucy having a baby of her own before she died. “Any way to see if Lucy ever had a kid?”
“Um. Hmm. Let’s see if she got married first.” Milton did a bit more tapping. “Okay—it looks like Lucy Hoäl married a Henry Mohr around 1933 and had a baby girl named Charlotte in 1934. And—oh, this is sad—there’s a death certificate for Lucy in 1940.”
Charlotte had been six when her mother died. Not exactly a baby, but try to tell a parent or grandparent that. Amanda Poe still sometimes referred to Amelia as her “baby” and so did Grandma Suzy.
“When did Charlotte die?” Amelia asked, laying down her phone.
Milton did a bit more searching of birth and death certificates before frowning and saying, “Looks like she hasn’t. She got married in 1955, though, to a Robert Yoder here in Wauseon. Does that help at all?”
“I’m not sure,” Amelia admitted. “Does she still live anywhere around here?”
“Eighty-two Leggett Street. Hey, do you think you know where the missing jewels are, then?” Milton asked, eyes big. “Wow! Gosh, can you imagine finding them after all this time?”
Amelia could, actually.
However, before she could say so, Belinda returned with the book Mr. Neikirk had been manhandling. The auctioneer tagged after her, harrumphing, “What are you so worried about? Wouldn’t get ten dollars for it at auction!”
“It has important information in it!” Belinda shot back in outrage, before turning to Milton and Amelia. “And speaking of important information, you guys really need to tell Mr. Roth about this! I bet he’s dying to find out where those jewels are.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Mr. Neikirk’s eyes brightened as he considered Amelia. “Whoever finds them will be fabulously rich.”
Maybe. Amelia didn’t mention the fact that at least some of the jewels had already been sold off. Clearly not all of them, or Charles never would have been able to torment Oscar with his scavenger hunt.
Besides, Amelia had just noticed someone out on the sidewalk.
Someone on a bike.
Someone who was tugging at her ponytail.
Someone who should most definitely not be here.
“Excuse me.” Before Milton, Belinda, or Mr. Neikirk could say anything, Amelia dashed through the foyer, past a startled Ty and Meredith, and outside with her fists clenched. She marched up to Sloane and demanded, “What are you doing here? How did you know I was here?”
“Amelia! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Sloane hopped off her bike.
“Oh, I’m ‘Amelia’ now, am I?” Tears sprang into Amelia’s eyes. “Not ‘the Yeti’?”
Sloane at least had the decency to look so sick that Amelia thought, for a moment, she might throw up. Amelia might have felt bad about that had she not actually thrown up earlier that day.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” Sloane managed.
“Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Yeah, I should. But I’m cutting class. And I’m totally going to get into major trouble for that,” Sloane added. “But look, I’m really, really sorry, Amelia. I so am. Like, majorly, incredibly sorry.”
She looked so sad and anxious standing there, pulling at her hair, that Amelia almost believed her—almost. What stopped Amelia was how badly she wanted to believe that Sloane really was sorry. Even more than finding the lost Cursed Hoäl Treasure, the thing that Amelia wanted more than anything in the world was to have a friend.
To know that there was someone who knew how weird she was and liked her because of it.
Which, no doubt, was exactly what Sloane was counting on. Amelia had probably gotten it wrong and the other girl didn’t tug on her hair when she was nervous. She did it when she was fiendishly plotting how to torture people. Right now, maybe she was filming this whole thing with her camera so all of the other kids at school could laugh at stupid, desperate, pathetic Amelia.
Well, she wasn’t stupid or desperate or pathetic. Even if she did have tears stinging her eyes and her skin was all hot and itchy with emotion.
“You’re sorry, huh?” Amelia snapped. “What, exactly, are you sorry about? Getting everyone to call me a yeti or the fact that I finally found out that this was all your doing?”
Sloane finally let go of her bike, allowing it to fall into the grass. “Amelia, I swear it wasn’t! It was that day at the library when you started talking about my mom. And I was so mad and sad when you left that it just came out. I never thought anyone else would think it was so funny. I swear—I swear—I swear on my mom’s memory that I never meant for any of this to happen.”
The other girl’s voice caught in her throat as she spoke. This time, Amelia was pretty sure she believed Sloane about it all being an accident. A fire that she’d unintentionally started only to have it burn out of control.
That should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. It just made her feel sort of empty inside.
“I believe you,” Amelia said slowly. “But here’s the thing, Sloane: Did you ever try to stop anyone from calling me a yeti?”
Stricken, Sloane didn’t say anything. Slowly, she shook her head.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Maybe you didn’t mean to start it… but you did. And you didn’t do anything to try to fix it, did you?” Amelia could see the truth of her words on her supposed-friend’s face. “You just let them keep on teasing me.”
That felt like an appropriately dramatic moment to end this conversation. Amelia only wished she had a microphone to drop before doing so. She started to march off down the sidewalk with her head held high… only to realize she’d dropped her phone on Milton’s desk inside the museum.
Trying to look like she meant to do it, Amelia took a slight U-turn back toward the museum’s second, rarely used entrance. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Sloane was still watching her with a crushed look on her face. It should have made Amelia feel happy—or at least satisfied. Instead, she just felt sicker and lonelier than ever.
Plus, the door to the second entrance was locked, forcing Amelia to walk all the way back down the porch to the main entrance. By the time she went inside, got her phone, and came back out again, Sloane was gone. Fortunately, Milton, Belinda, Mr. Niekirk, Ty, and Meredith had all moved into other parts of the museum so she didn’t have to see them.
Amelia squeezed her hands tightly around her phone, tears welling up in her eyes.
She’d found a friend, only to lose her.
Just like her great-great-grandfather had. Just like her great-grandfather had.
Maybe she would have been luckier never to have had a friend at all.