Paige drives to Hollywoodland Park with Dad in the passenger seat, making us a normal little “family.” I keep my eyes open for anything romantic between Dad and Paige, but luckily Paige keeps both hands on the steering wheel, and they talk about how the school is always asking them for money and other boring things. No wedding plans. Not in front of us, anyway.

There’s plenty of room in the back for us kids, especially since Sam and Larry are sitting closer than they need to. The sides of their butts almost touch each other, and whenever the car hits a bump, Larry bounces into Samantha, who acts like it bothers her. She knocks him with her hip and tells him to stay in his own area. I stare out the window at the passing freeway scenery (fast food, billboard, more fast food) to avoid paying too much attention.

“Hey, this was all your idea,” Larry teases Sam. “You’re the one who checked the box marked ‘YES’!”

That comment turns my head around.

“Checked ‘YES’?” I ask. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, my little sister started doing this dumb thing,” Larry tells me. “I think she liked some boy, so she was writing on every piece of paper she could find, ‘DO YOU LIKE ME? YES OR NO. CHECK ONE.’ I finally just started using them for scratch paper and projects and stuff. I told Sam about it and she thought it was funny, so I gave one to her as a joke.”

“And to me!” I say. I probably shouldn’t, not when Larry and Sam look so happy together in their bizarre little two-person world, but I can’t help myself.

“You?” he asks.

“The rocket you launched at outdoor break. The one you asked me to pick up.”

Larry looks at me like Toby does when I pretend to throw a ball but hide it behind my back instead—totally mystified. And much like Toby, he doesn’t seem to have anything to say.

Is Larry going to make me explain it? In front of Sam? I don’t necessarily want to, but I need answers, so I don’t have any other choice. “Inside the rocket. It said that. DO YOU LIKE ME? YES OR NO.”

Larry shakes his head like he’s never heard of such a thing. “I didn’t notice. Maybe my sister wrote on it before I taped it up.”

If a lightning bolt came out of the sky and hit me right now in Paige’s car, I couldn’t be more shocked. “What about my pencil case? When it exploded with all the confetti?”

“I did that,” Sam says. She must see the surprise on my face. “You seemed kind of down, and I wanted to cheer you up.”

“But we were hardly even friends then.”

She shrugs. “I wanted to be.”

“So did I! But then why were you mean to me in Focus! and stuff?”

Samantha’s face looks like it’s searching for the answer to that question. “I don’t know,” she says. “I couldn’t think of any other way to act. Then at the art show, I saw that we could maybe work together again. And be friends.”

“Then it all worked out, didn’t it? I love it when a movie has a happy ending!” Larry jokes. But if this were a movie, it would have a complicated ending, not a happy one. If Larry didn’t write me the note in the rocket…or cause a confetti bomb to go off in my pencil case…what about the note Lisa Lee picked up in the lunch line?

Could she have planted it there on the floor herself?

But Larry also wanted me for his partner in square dancing…he said he loved me…he acted…he acted…

Maybe he was acting like he always did. And I just thought it was something else, making it into something bigger in my own mind.

It all sounds pretty unbelievable, but it’s hard for me to believe that anything’s unbelievable anymore.

So I’ll believe it…I guess.

—

After about forty minutes of driving, Paige practically sings, “Look, kids, we’re he-ere!” It’s not like we need an announcement. We can see it with our own eyes: big letters spelling out “Hollywoodland” over a parking lot that goes on for miles.

Right away I recognize the big yellow roller coaster with cars designed to look like rockets from a science-fiction movie. We’re close enough to hear the cranking noise of it going uphill, and the distant shouts and screams of people having fun.

When we get inside the park, the first thing Sam and Larry want to do is have their picture taken in a little shop where you dress up like old-timey movie characters. They ask if I want to join, and I say no.

“Are you still pretending you don’t feel well?” Dad asks.

“Cleo, you don’t feel well?” Paige asks, putting her hand on my forehead. I pull away. I don’t need anyone checking my temperature, especially not Samantha’s mom!

“No, she’s just lackluster,” Dad tells Paige. “I think the end of the school year is a letdown for her.”

“Really?” Paige sounds surprised. “When I was in school, I was always dying for the year to end!”

“Maybe you didn’t like learning,” I say under my breath, but Dad hears me loud and clear.

“Cleo,” he warns me. “Don’t talk like that to…Samantha’s mom.”

He paused. He was about to say “my girlfriend”! He was about to say “my fiancée”! He was about to say “the woman who’s going to be your mom, whether you like it or not”!

“Sorry,” I mumble, not meaning it but knowing it’s the right thing to say. As Paige takes Sam and Larry to the photo shop, I tell Dad that I’m just not feeling this Bling Bling stuff. I came along because I wanted to see what it was like, but now that I’ve seen it, I really just want to work on my latest drawings.

“You can do that all summer,” Dad says.

Yeah, in between wedding plans.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go on one of the rides?” he asks.

With Larry and Samantha on their date? With Dad and Paige on theirs? No thanks! “No. Not right now.”

I can tell Dad is about to ask me another question, but a voice stops him. “Hi, Mr. Nelson! Hi, Cleo!”

It’s Madison. With Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae at her side.

Dad says hello to Madison, then of course acts like a total dork by saying to Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae, “I haven’t heard about you girls before, but any friends of Cleo’s are friends of mine.” They’re all friendliness and smiles as they say hello, but all I’m thinking is Be quiet, Dad, be quiet quiet quiet!

“I told you we’d see you here!” Madison says happily. “I’ve been wanting to tell you…I wasn’t sure before, but tonight I found out…”

Lisa Lee, who’s reading a text, taps Madison on the shoulder. “We’ve got to go. My dad’s almost at the front of the VIP line at the Claws of Doom, and we can get in with him.”

Madison nods. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?” she says to me. “See ya, Mr. Nelson!” Then she runs off with her two best friends as I stand in the middle of California’s favorite amusement park…with my dad.

“They seem nice,” he says. “Are they some new friends?”

“No, they’ve known each other their whole lives,” I grumble.

“I meant, are they new friends of yours?”

“Not really.”

Dad doesn’t ask anything else because Samantha and Larry and Paige return from the photo shop, all pumped up about the fun they had. They show me the picture: Sam’s in a long, frilly gown with a feather in her hair like the owner of an 1800s saloon, and Larry’s in a cowboy hat and vest. There’s even a fake horse in the background.

They ask me to go with them to ride the rides, but Dad tells them I don’t feel very well (which is nice of him, since he knows it’s not true). They head off with Paige, who says she’ll see my dad later. She’ll see him later, all right. For the rest of her life.

Dad buys me a funnel cake with extra powdered sugar, then lets me do what I want—sit on a bench and draw. I tell him to go have fun with Paige and Sam and Larry, but he’s happy to sit nearby and read a book on his tablet. That’s fine by me, as long as he keeps his distance so I feel like I’m alone.

It’s starting to get a little dark out, but there are plenty of bright streetlights inside the park, so I position myself underneath one. When my funnel cake is gone, I can still breathe in and smell popcorn and corn dogs and cotton candy. Everywhere around me people are screaming and laughing and having fun, but on my drawing pad, Pandaroo is tired, settling in for a long nap. His cave is filled with the latest gadgets and surveillance systems, though, so if anything goes wrong in the universe, he’ll wake up. It takes a while to draw all the details, so I don’t know how long it’s been when I hear a shout of “Cleo!” in the distance.

It’s Samantha, walking back toward me with her mom and Larry. They all have big smiles, red faces, and slightly messed-up hair—even Paige, who’s always perfect. They must have ridden the Scrambler or the Log Flume or those swings that go around and around in a circle until you want to throw up.

“We know you’re not in the mood for rides,” Sam says, “but there’s this amphitheater in the park where they do shows every hour. Magicians and jugglers and things.”

Dad must have heard them from his bench, because now he’s standing over me too, saying, “That sounds neat.”

“Lame,” I say, looking down at my drawing pad.

“We think so too,” says Larry. “That’s why it might be fun. We need a break from the rides. My stomach doesn’t feel so great; I need to sit for a while.”

“Let’s check it out,” Dad says. “You can still sit and draw. We won’t bother you; we’ll just be near you.”

The bench is starting to feel hard against my butt anyway, so I decide to go. It’s not quite eight o’clock, so the amphitheater isn’t full yet. We take some seats a few rows from the stage, and I put my nose right back into my drawing pad while all the lovebirds chat. After a few minutes pass, people start filling up the place—kids and adults who must also need a break from the flipping and flying and bouncing they’ve been doing for the last hour or two.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sam and Larry poking and shoving each other. They seem more like friends—or joking enemies—than girlfriend and boyfriend. I can also tell that Dad’s not paying very much attention to Paige. His eyes are moving all around the amphitheater like he’s looking for someone else. That doesn’t seem like a nice way to treat your fiancée, but it’s none of my business, so I keep my mouth shut.

Suddenly there’s a big, loud drumroll, and a voice announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, porcupines and octopi, arachnids and animals…”

Porcupines and octopi are animals. Oh boy, this is going to be bad.

“Thank you for being a part of our Hollywoodland Park family tonight. We hope you are ready for an evening of fun and excitement, action and laughter! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!”

Loud, goofy, prerecorded music plays, and everyone watches as four clowns run onstage and start tumbling and falling down and generally being dumb and clowny. They’re followed by a juggler making dopey jokes and only juggling balls—nothing cool like torches of fire or chainsaws. I start opening my backpack to attempt drawing in the dark as the juggler leaves the stage to applause.

The stage is quiet for a moment until another announcement comes out of the way-too-loud loudspeakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, fruit flies and bald eagles…”

Oh no, this again.

“Tonight we have a surprise guest, and I know he’ll be a big hit with the kids out there….”

As big a hit as the clowns and the juggler? I think. Then I feel kind of bad. Just because I’m not in a good mood doesn’t mean they’re not decent performers. It’s not their fault I’m here without a date and that my friend Madison—now former friend, I guess—is here with her real friends.

The announcer continues over the loudspeakers. “He only has time for a couple of songs, because this is his last appearance before his tour of Asia….”

Tour of Asia? No, it couldn’t be!

“Ryderrrrrrr…”

Oh my gosh, could it really be?

“Lannnnnnnndry!”

No way. It can’t be.

But it is.