When I opened my eyes I was terrified something awful had happened because Polly was crying. Polly never cried. She was crying and holding my head and saying, “Jas, Jas, make a sound.”
“Any sound?” I asked. I realized I was lying on my back on the ground. “Or did you have a specific one in—”
I didn’t get to finish because she was hugging me. HUGGING ME. Polly, who opposed touching except while dancing, whose idea of close intimacy was air kissing. She was hugging me.32
Only for a second. As soon as she realized I was okay, she stopped. Still, I was touched.
“What happened?” I asked, sitting up next to her.
She dried her eyes on her pant leg. “Someone tried to kill you, and Tom saved your life.”
“Hardly,” Tom said from behind Polly. “I just gave Jas a little tap. If I’d done a better job, she wouldn’t have hit her head.”
It came back to me then. The sound of an engine revving, a car coming at me, Tom yelling my name. And then leaping on me and pushing me out of the way just before the car hit.
“You did save my life, Tom,” I said. “You’re a hero.”
“A superhero,” Polly said.
I swear Tom lit up from the inside. “It was nothing. I was just in the right place at the right time.”
“And you threw yourself in front of a speeding car,” I pointed out.
“You would have done the same for me, Jas,” he said, but he was looking at Polly. He smiled at her. She smiled at him. I smiled at both of them but they didn’t notice.
Tom tore his eyes from Polly to look at me. “I don’t want to scare you, Jas, but I don’t think whoever did this was joking this time.”
I’d just been thinking the same thing. “Did anyone see what kind of car it was? Or the license number?”
“The windows were tinted and there was a fleur-de-lis sticker on the window,” Veronique said. We all turned to stare at her. “I learned about fleurs-de-lis in Stenciling for Dummies.33 They are an easy accent to an elegant room. They’re from France. Not like french fries.”
“Thanks, Veronique,” I said, causing her to beam and go plaster herself to Tom’s arm.
Alyson, sensing that she was missing an opportunity, grabbed Tom’s other arm and said, “Um, I saw that the driver had dark hair.”
“Veronique said the windows were tinted.”
“Are you calling me a liar, Jas?” Alyson asked. “I know what I saw. I saw a man with a beard. Through the windshield.”34
“I thought you said he had dark hair.”
“He did. Dark hair and a beard. Like one of those freaky religious ones.”
“Did he have a mustache too? A hat? A caftan?”
“You know what? I was trying to help because Tomás almost bit it for you, but forget it. I don’t need this attitude-slash-annoyance.” She turned to Tom, grabbing his other arm. “I was just doing it for you.”
“I was serious about the caftan,” I told her.
“Is someone speaking?” Alyson said. “Because I don’t hear anything.”
I sighed. “Did anyone notice, for example, the color of the car? Or the shape?”
Roxy said, “Four-door sedan, midsize, Japanese, with aftermarket headlights and brake lights. A souped-up Toyota, Honda, something like that. I’m not that good at imports since the Cadillac King is strictly all-American. Oh, and it was white. It left some paint behind.” She pointed at the side of the building where I had been standing. There was a gash in the cement blocks, and a swath of white paint. I did not want to think of what I would have looked like if Tom hadn’t pushed me out of the way.
Polly said, “As soon as we get into the Pink Pearl I’ll get on the CB and put out an alert for a white import with a scrape on one side and a, um, sticker on the window.”
Veronique, who had been trying to hug herself as close as possible to Tom, looked up now and said, “The back window.”
“And the driver has a beard,” Alyson said, clinging to Tom’s other side like a lamprey.
Polly smiled at the Henches in her new dangerous way. “Thanks.” She looked at me. “I was thinking you’d want to get out of here before anyone inside knows what happened and calls the police.”
“Or my dad,” I said. “No reason not dying just to have to face him.”
“Exactly.”
I went and stood in front of Alyson, closer than I normally would. “I have a deal for you,” I told her. “If you don’t tell my father about this, I won’t tell your parents that you were the one who punched that guy last night at the Voodoo Lounge.”
“Not much of a bargain, Calamity. My dad thought it was cool when I told him you did it. So I don’t think he’ll mind if he hears I’m actually the cool one.”
Not working. Like a lightning bolt, I remembered another moment from our special time at the Voodoo Lounge the previous evening.
“I will also tell your parents about Miles.”
I saw a flicker of fear—yes!—on her face, but then it was gone and she went, “You don’t even know about Miles.”
“You’re seeing Miles Malone?” Tom asked, pulling his arm away from her. “I didn’t know he was out of prison yet. Or is he on probation?”
Merry Xmas, Jas, is what I thought. I wanted to dance and play and kiss Tom on the lips. Instead I kept my cool. I turned a steely gaze on Alyson. “So, do we have a deal?”
She could barely whisper her reply. “Yes.”
And it was a good thing I sealed it up right then because Polly’s phone started to ring. She answered it, frowned, said a few words, and handed it to me. “It’s the Thwarter.”
“Dad? Is everything okay?” My father hated to use the phone—another genius thing—which meant there was a real problem.
“Is that you, Jas? Is it really you? Talking?”
“I think that’s what I’m doing. What’s going on? Did something happen to Sherri!? Are Uncle Andy and Aunt Liz all right?”
“Don’t change the subject,” he barked.
“Um, okay. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
“A man just called on Sherri!’s mobile apparatus and told us you’d been in a car wreck and were badly injured. Is this true?”
“No.”
“You haven’t been in an accident? You aren’t unconscious?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
But I almost did faint into unconsciousness when he said, “Oh, thank God. I was so—thank God,” in a voice that sounded like he was having trouble breathing.
That couldn’t be good. He might be the Thwarter but I didn’t want him to die or anything. I mean, he’s the only dad I have. And Sherri! would be really sad. I said, “Dad, I assure you that I am speaking to you right now. Unless you think I’ve been possessed by aliens, I am obviously fine.” I was trying to exhibit the wit and verve he loved so well to put his mind at ease and help him get his respiration back on track. It seemed to work.
He sort of snorted and said, “That does sound like you. Still, I would prefer to see you. Come back to the hotel now.”
“We were just planning to do that when you called. We’ll be there really soon unless—wait, Dad, what if the man who called you was psychic? And the accident just hasn’t happened yet?”
“That is not amusing, Jasmine. Although it does prove that you are fine. Tell Polly to drive adequately on the way back. And be sure to strap yourself in.”
That’s right, geniuses don’t use seat belts, they use straps. It’s like a whole parallel universe.
“Polly, drive adequately,” I instructed her as we got into the Pink Pearl. “I’d love to stay up front here with you kids but I must go strap myself in.”
“Do you know what she is talking about?” Polly asked Roxy.
“I think maybe she hit her head harder than we thought.”
Little Life Lesson 37: One man’s madness is another man’s genius.35
I could hear Polly up front on the CB spreading the word that Princess P was desperately seeking a white car and asking anyone who saw it to call her cell phone.
Stuck in the back, I ignored Alyson’s pouting and Veronique’s attempts to probe Tom for bruises and thought about my father’s call. Why would someone phone my dad and report that I had been in an accident? Exaggerating what had happened even? Was it the person who had driven the car, anticipating I’d be hurt more than I was?
Or was the point simply to get me in trouble?
I had to admit, it was kind of a tidy idea. One call to my father and I would most likely be grounded. Which would get me out of whoever’s hair I seemed to be tangled in. There was an elegance to it that I respected…even as I recognized Jack the Immature Jokester’s slimy fingerprints all over it.
Little Life Lesson 38: If you find yourself thinking, “His soul may be black as pitch but his logic is sound,” do this: Stop, Drop, and Roll. Stop what you’re thinking. Drop the pretense. And Roll right on to the admission that what you are admiring—still—is his cute butt and his eyes and his glazed doughnut–flavored lips, which have nothing to do with the quality of his brain.
And DO NOT think that maybe this means you can just have a physical relationship with him and without his shirt.
Polly exhibited admirable adequate driving on the way back to the hotel, and after my father had hugged me (!!!), he inspected every inch of me and, finding them all wanting in all the same ways he always did—“Stop fidgeting, Jasmine. Why are you making that face? Stand up straight”—he decided I was fine.
Little did he know.
When we parted in the lobby we had made sure Tom would escort Roxy directly to their room, without any stops to look for 
Ivan. The Evil Henches had gone to hang upside down by their talons or read aloud from Ritual Sacrifice for Dummies or do whatever they did for fun, so Polly and I were now on our own in my room. I decided to take a bath because not only had it been the longest day of my life involving one arrest, two near-death experiences, two makeovers, one underwear exposure, and a hug from the Thwarter, but I also felt a little grimy from my tumble behind the roller rink.
I stayed there for a long time, asking myself any questions I could think of that did not lead to thinking about Jack. This limited the possibilities pretty much to questions from ninth-grade earth science like, “Define igneous rock.”
When I got out and finished flossing my teeth, Polly was scanning the sheets of one of the queen-size beds for germs with her black light. She looked at me with horror as I pulled back the bedspread and got into the other bed.
“I haven’t checked that yet!” she said. “You don’t know what you’re sleeping on.”
“And I don’t care. It is bound to be less deadly than a speeding car.”
“But there could be microbes,” she complained. “Or hairs.”
“Oh, look, Howard Hughes is alive and well and living inside my best friend. I can’t tell you how much your company cheers me at times like these.” I turned off my bedside light. “Goodnight, P. Sweet dreams.”
“Are you going to sleep? Now?”
“I was giving it very thorough consideration. It’s after three AM.”
“Don’t you want to talk?”
“About what?” I asked into my pillow.
But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew. She wanted to talk about Tom.36
Ha! I had waited YEARS for this and she sprang it on me now, at three in the morning, when I was exhausted. No. She could wait for one night. In fact, it would be good for her.
Little Life Lesson 39: Never put off until tomorrow what you could do the night before because tomorrow you might have bigger problems. Like a madman pointing a gun at you.