7
WHEN OUT OF CONTROL, FIRE SIGNS CAN BE FOOL- HARDY, EGOTISTICAL, PLAYFUL, AND CARELESS. THINK OF FLAMES. THEY ARE BEST COMPATIBLE WITH OTHER FLAMES, SOMETIMES EVEN WITH AIR. FIRE SIGNS MUST AVOID EARTH SIGNS THAT SMOTHER THEM AND WATER SIGNS THAT EXTINGUISH THEM.
—Fearless Astrology
The Gears were out of control. They had dashed naked across the backyard of the one high school sophomore whose father would kill them without hesitation. Older than most of the parents at the school, Chili’s parents had given up on the possibility of being able to have a family until she came along, and they were beyond protective.
Stella had actually taken off in the direction Chili had pointed. She’d then called Chili’s dad, who raced home from the car dealership and, red-faced and out of breath, joined us at the Chiliderians’ long dining room table.
Amazing how naked boys all looked the same when their faces were hidden. We couldn’t begin to identify them, and the more Chili’s parents questioned us, the more confused we got. We couldn’t even prove it was the Gears, but we knew.
The phone at Chili’s began to ring. The Gears hadn’t stopped after leaving her place. They’d shown their naked selves all over the neighborhood, from Geneva’s to Charles Bellamy’s. Chili’s dad took that call. He said the guy phoning was Charles’s guardian, and that Charles was “deeply disturbed” by what he’d observed from his bedroom window.
Stella murmured something about “that poor boy.” Once the parents had excused us, we changed for bed. Chili wore her teal-colored monkey slippers and a tank top. Paige and I had put on our matching sleep shirts that Stella had picked up for us during one of her numerous shopping trips to “the city,” which was, of course, San Francisco.
Chili and I stretched out on our stomachs on the pink comforter that covered the bed. She’d already turned up the new Alicia Keys CD in case Stella was still in protective mode and eavesdropping outside the door.
“They’ll probably post pictures of us all over school,” she moaned.
“You, maybe,” I said. “I don’t know why they’d bother with me, but I didn’t see any flashes, and I think they were moving too fast to take photos anyway.”
Paige sat across from us in front of the cherry wood armoire where Chili’s computer lived. Her long blond hair, which had gotten soaked during the Gears’ invasion, was pulled straight back from her face. Without her glasses and in spite of her pale lashes, her eyes looked enormous.
“Do you think you could help identify them, Logan?”
“How?” I asked. “I didn’t see them any longer than you did.”
Then I realized Paige had that awestruck expression on her face again. “You know,” she said.
“Of course! By their Sun signs.” Chili jumped from the bed. “Can you figure out what sign someone would have to be to be a member of the Gears?”
“Maybe.” Could I really find out something like that with my limited knowledge?
“What do you mean maybe?” Chili asked. “What does the book say?”
She and Paige both seemed to be holding their breaths, waiting for my brilliant response. Only problem was I didn’t have one.
“Aries, Leo, Sagittarius are fire signs.” I sat up on the bed. “You’re an air sign, Chili.” Oh, was she ever. I nodded toward Paige. “The Fish over there is water.”
Paige wrung out her ponytail. “Well, at least I look the part.”
“So the Gears are what?” Chili asked.
“Fire signs, I’d say. Not for sure. I just mean a fire sign might do something like this, but so would a lot of signs, especially those with fire in their charts.”
“You mean you can have fire and not be fire?” Chili asked.
“That’s right.” I turned to her and asked what I’d been wondering since we started this conversation. “Hey, Chili, why is it so important for me to figure out who the Gears are?”
“They invaded my backyard,” she said. “Naked.”
“Shocking.” Paige made no attempt to hide the amusement in her voice.
“Naked boys,” I added, and made a creepy face at her. “Kind of fun, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Chili conceded, “but what they wrote about Ms. Snider was pretty rotten. You agree with that, don’t you?”
“Of course, but why do we care who they are?”
“Because it’s important. If we identify the Gears, do you realize how cool we’ll be?”
“Cool so that you can get Trevor?” I should have seen that one coming. “How many times have I told you that you’re going to get him anyway?”
“Based on recent events in a certain school parking lot, I find that pretty doubtful.” It was indifferent Chili again, and I knew what she was trying to cover with it.
“You have his birth date in your address book, right?”
“Let me get it.” She stood up and opened the armoire to a Gemini clutter of paper, index cards, and sticky notes. A couple of mouse swipes, and she had it. “November one,” she said, then got up and flopped down on the bed. “Tell me everything.”
“Scorpio.” I’d already memorized the dates for Sun signs.
“What does that mean? Is it good?”
“Intense and emotional,” I said. “Secretive too. Doesn’t sound much like Trevor, does it? Isn’t he kind of just your basic jock?”
“Basic hot jock.” Chili glanced at Paige. “What do you think?” Paige drew her knees up under her nightshirt, only the tips of her toes peeking out. “Well, last night with Kat sounded pretty intense and emotional, wouldn’t you say?”
“And maybe he is secretive,” I said. “I mean, he’s supposed to be split from Kat, yet she obviously doesn’t think so.”
“I don’t like secrets.” Chili clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them. “But I like him.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad match,” I said. “There have been some famous Scorpio and Gemini couples in history.”
“Oh, tell us,” Paige said.
“I’d need the book for that and I left it at home.”
“Well, let’s go get it.” Chili was already off the bed, digging in her closet for something to throw over her very short tank top and boy shorts.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You know if we get caught, your parents will kill us.”
“If the Gears can run naked through my backyard, we can drive down the street to get a book.” She tossed me a long sweater. “The garage is on this side of the house. They won’t even know we’re gone.”
“Except for Stella, who’s probably crouched outside your bedroom door,” Paige said.
“That’s where you come in.” Chili grinned. “If she is around, just tell her we’re in the bathroom, washing our hair, and we can’t come out just yet. Mom understands hair.”
“I can handle that.” Paige seemed relieved that she didn’t have to accompany us on our wild ride to my house.
“That might work,” I said.
“Of course it will.” Chili clicked open the lock on her sliding glass door that led to the side yard, that led to the garage, that led to the book, that led to who knew what?
I followed her. The sweater didn’t provide much protection from the cold.
“It smells like rain,” I told Chili.
“We’ll get back before it starts.”
Miraculously, we managed to get out of the tandem garage and the driveway with no problem. Chili glanced at me from the corner of her eye.
“Once you figure out the Gears, Frankenstein will realize how brilliant you are. You know that, don’t you?”
I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe I could use Fearless to help me find them. Maybe that would win Frankenstein’s approval.
“You’ve convinced me,” I told her as we turned onto my street. “There’s got to be a way to identify the Gears by their signs, and I’m going to try to do it.”
“I know you can,” she said. “Here we are. Let’s go get that book.”
My dad wasn’t home yet. The lonely feel of our house hit me in the chest.
Chili tapped my arm. “You all right?”
“Just have to find my backpack.” Why was I whispering? No one was home. No one was ever home.
I headed down the tiled hall to my bedroom. No backpack.
“I thought I left it on the bed,” I said. Then I spotted it on my dresser. “There it is.”
“At last.” Chili grabbed it and rummaged through my lip gloss and breath mints. She looked from it to me and said, “There’s no astrology book in here.”
“That’s crazy. Of course there is.” It was always in my backpack.
I grabbed it and started digging. Nothing. No book. I began to panic.
“It’s all right.” Chili squeezed my shoulder. “You probably just forgot where you put it.”
“I know exactly where I put it. Someone took it.” A little shiver ran through me. I tried to ignore it.
“Well, even if you lost it, there are lots of other ones out there, right?”
“No, they won’t be this one. It won’t be the same.”
“All right,” she said. “Let’s backtrack. Where was the book the last time you saw it?”
“In my backpack.”
“And where was the backpack?”
I realized how dependent I’d become on the book. “On my bed.”
“Who has access to your bedroom?”
“No one. My dad never touches my stuff.”
“Maybe he borrowed it.”
“For what?”
We went into his room anyway. Beside his desk, shoved in a steel-mesh wastebasket, I saw it, not even hidden, sitting right on top.
All I could say was “Why?”
“At least we found it,” Chili said.
“Yes.” I hugged it to me. But I kept asking myself that same question. Why?
NOTES TO SELF
I totally panicked when we thought the book was gone. I can’t explain how relieved I am to have it back. I’ve got to find out why my dad took it without even asking. And I will just as soon as he gets home tonight. I realize now that he and I have been living on a teeter-totter. We’re polite and kind to each other, and we say only good things about Mom. It’s as if we know that if one of us moves too fast or gets angry and jumps off, the teeter-totter will come crashing down, and someone will get hurt. Tonight, though, we are going to have to talk. Really talk.