14

DISAPPEARANCE : n: an illusion in which a person or object vanishes

 

Forty minutes later, after Gabe had explained his plan to Bernetta in full and had finally succeeded in winning Colin a blue stuffed whale, they left the game area.

“You feel like ice cream?” Bernetta asked Colin as they walked down the boardwalk.

Colin was busy trying to fit his Dracula fangs into the whale’s stitched mouth. “Uh-huh. I love ice cream. Bernie Bernie, Dracula had a whale, right?”

“Of course he did.”

“Good.”

Colin skipped a few feet ahead, his whale clutched securely against his chest, then turned around and proceeded to walk backward, shouting out, “Make way for Dracula!” as he crashed into people.

“So,” Bernetta said to Gabe as they walked, “this con, it’s from a movie, you said?”

“Paper Moon, yeah. You seen it?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You should. It’s really good.”

It had been almost four weeks since Bernetta and Gabe had been working together, but Bernetta still didn’t feel she knew how to have a conversation with him. What were you supposed to talk about on an almost date? Elsa would know, but she wasn’t around, was she?

They walked past the Ferris wheel, with its calliope music and line of kids squealing happily. Bernetta tried desperately to think of something that Gabe would want to talk about. “So, um, is that your favorite movie?”

“Huh?” Gabe seemed to be lost in thought, but he snapped out of it quickly. “Paper Moon? No. I mean, it’s good, but it’s not my favorite.”

“So what is?”

Up ahead of them, Colin crashed backward into a bench, but he got up just fine and waved and smiled before he began his backward walking again.

“Well . . .” Gabe thought about it. “Probably my favorite is Bait and Switch.”

“Oh,” Bernetta said. “I’ve never seen it.” Why hadn’t she ever seen any of the movies he liked?

“Yeah,” Gabe replied, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Most people haven’t. Actually, it’s not even that good. I just like it because my uncle’s in it.”

“Really? Your uncle’s in a movie? Is he an actor?”

Gabe grinned. “Yeah. Well, he’s sort of an actor. He used to live in Hollywood and everything, but he moved back here a couple years ago ’cause he hardly got any gigs. That means acting jobs.” Bernetta nodded. “He’s always saying he’s going to go back, though, take another stab at it. Bait and Switch is pretty cool. You should see it. The scene my uncle’s in, he plays this waiter. And one of the bad guys is sitting in this booth at the restaurant, right? And my uncle serves him coffee. And then the guy dies. It’s poison coffee.” Bernetta laughed. “Uncle Kevin only had three lines, but it was still cool.”

Gabe was looking at her then, giving her a good, serious gaze as they strolled down the boardwalk. He seemed to be thinking pretty hard about something. Bernetta wasn’t positive, but she thought that maybe, just maybe, it might be a date gaze. Maybe he was thinking something wonderful and romantic, like how her eyes were as gray as the ocean on a cloudy day, when the waves were restless and the sky was—

Bernetta walked directly into a lamppost.

“Bernie Bernie, there’s a pole there!” Colin called back to her.

“You all right?” Gabe asked. But Bernetta could tell he was trying not to chuckle.

Bernetta rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh, yeah,” she replied. “Just swell.”

They reached Sally’s Olde Ice Cream Parlour, and Colin studied his flavor choices in the window while Bernetta unzipped her backpack. “Will a twenty work?” she asked Gabe.

“Perfect,” he said. He dug a black marker out of his pocket. “I bought this while you guys were at the games. Here, let me see that twenty.”

Bernetta handed over the bill, and Gabe wrote on it in careful black letters, just to the right of the White House, Jordan 555-2986.

“Great,” Bernetta said as Gabe handed the bill back to her. “We all set then?”

Gabe returned the marker to his pocket. “Yep. You and Dracula get some ice cream. I’ll be over by the cotton candy”—he checked his watch—“for about fifteen minutes. Remember, you don’t know me.”

“Sure,” Bernetta said. “Good luck.”

He looked at her then—gazed, really—right into her stormy sea eyes. “Thanks,” he said, and left.

Even though it was still morning, there was already a small crowd at the ice-cream shop. Colin danced with his whale while they waited in line.

“Bernie, you like my dancing?” Colin twirled in a circle and lifted the whale high above his head.

Bernetta laughed. “Very nice,” she said. “Do you know what flavor you want, Mr. Dracula?”

“Yep yep. Rainbow sherbet and hot fudge.”

“Excellent choice.”

“I know.”

When they got to the front of the line, Bernetta ordered Colin’s flavor concoction and a peppermint cone for herself. While the girl behind the counter was scooping, Bernetta put a hand on Colin’s shoulder and nodded toward the man at the register. “Hey, Dracula, you want to pay?”

“Aw, how come I got to pay?”

“Because I’m getting the cones, and I don’t want you to drop them,” Bernetta replied. Because you’re younger and will cause less suspicion. That was the real reason.

“But I wanna—”

“You know, we’re probably going to be buying a lot of stuff today, and if you pay every time, I promise that when we get home, I’ll give you all my old shoelaces you’ve been asking for.”

Colin’s eyes grew huge. “Even the brown ones?”

Bernetta nodded. “Even the brown ones.” She pulled the twenty from her pocket and handed it to him, phone number side down. “Here, give it to the man like this, okay? With the president showing on the top. They like it better if you do it that way.”

“Okay,” Colin said, taking the bill. “Hey, Bernie?”

“Yeah?”

“After you give me all your shoelaces, will you help me turn them into ninja weapons?”

“We’ll see,” she said. “Go pay.”

Bernetta and Colin sat on the bench outside the ice-cream parlor, licking their cones. Bernetta was watching the sailboats off in the distance, but Colin was turned around backward, making scary faces at the people passing by. Bernetta’s backpack was still strapped securely to her back. She didn’t care what Gabe said about its being suspicious. There was over twenty-five hundred dollars in there, and she wasn’t taking any chances.

She tucked her feet underneath her Indian-style on the bench and took another lick of ice cream. From the corner of her eye, Bernetta saw Gabe enter the ice-cream store, but she tried not to look at him directly. After all, she reminded herself, she didn’t know him at all.

She knew exactly what he was doing, though. Right now he was buying a bottle of water, paying for it with a five-dollar bill. And when the cashier gave him his change, Gabe’s face would suddenly switch from smiling to confused. “You gave me change for a five,” Gabe would tell the cashier, his cheeks scrunched up as though he didn’t quite understand what was going on.

“Yeah?” the cashier would reply. “That’s what you gave me.”

“No, I didn’t,” Gabe would say. “It was a twenty. I’m sure of it. I was just looking at it, and there was a phone number written on there. Jordan or something. Look in your drawer if you don’t believe me. I’m positive it’s there.”

Bernetta smiled just thinking about it. It was a perfect plan, if it worked. And Bernetta was sure it would work. If anyone could pull it off, it was Gabe. He was the best actor of anyone she knew. He could convince anyone of anything.

“Hey, Bernie Bernie,” Colin said, tugging on her sleeve.

She wiped the fudge prints off her T-shirt. “What’s up, Coliflower?”

“It’s your friend.” Colin pointed into the souvenir shop across from them.

“My friend?” Bernetta turned around on the bench to look. “You mean Gabe? He’s in the ice-cream store.”

“No, it’s your friend, Bernie. Your best friend.” He held his whale up and made it kiss Bernetta’s cheek. “You know, Ashley? I saw her over there, looking at the magnets.”

Ashley Johansson? Here? Bernetta’s stomach did a somersault. It would be just like Ashley to jump back into her life right now, just when things were finally going Bernetta’s way again. She narrowed her eyes as she licked a peppermint drip that was making its way down her arm. “Nah, Col,” she said. “I don’t think that’s her.” Bernetta could just barely make out a brown-haired girl behind the display of sweatshirts, but there were a billion brown-haired girls in the world. It couldn’t be Ashley. Besides, why would she be looking at refrigerator magnets?

Colin shrugged and bit a hole in the bottom of his cone. He was sucking the ice cream out when Gabe came over.

“Piece of cake,” he said, and he plopped himself down on the bench next to Bernetta.

“They have cake in there?” Colin asked.

“It worked?” Bernetta said.

“Eighteen dollars and fifty cents,” Gabe said with a grin. He flashed the money at her. “And half of that is yours.”

“Thanks,” Bernetta said. She held her hand out for the money, but she was covered in sticky pink ice-cream goo, and it was hard to take off her backpack while holding an ice-cream cone.

Gabe laughed. “Here,” he said. “I’ll put it in there for you.”

“Thanks.” Bernetta turned to face Colin while Gabe put the money in her bag. When he’d yanked the zipper up tight, bringing the grand total inside to $2,602.36, Bernetta swiveled back around. “So,” she said, “that was pretty easy. You were totally right. What’s the plan now? Try it out at the candy store maybe? Or the T-shirt shack? Or we could take a break and take Colin up the Ferris wheel? He likes when it gets stuck at the top.”

Gabe glanced at his watch and then back at Bernetta. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“The Ferris wheel? I thought maybe we could go there next. What do you think?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gabe said. “The Ferris wheel. Yeah, that sounds great.”

Bernetta raised an eyebrow. “You all right, Gabe?” He seemed to be acting kind of weird all of a sudden. Although what did she know? Elsa said all boys acted weird every once in a while, and you could never know what was going through their heads.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “I just have to go to the bathroom. Why don’t I take Colin with me? That kid needs to wash his hands.”

“All right,” Bernetta said. “Colin, go with Gabe, okay? I’ll be right here.”

“Grrrr!” Colin replied. He leaped off the bench and grabbed Gabe’s hand. “That’s Dracula speak for okey-dokey. Watch my whale, ’kay, Bernie? And don’t let him bite you.”

Gabe turned to go, Colin’s hand in his, but then turned back around. He looked sad about something or—what was the word?—pensive.

“Hey, Bernetta?” he said.

“Yeah?” What was he going to tell her? Was it about her eyes and the stormy sea? She leaned forward on the bench. “Mm-hmm?”

He blinked and looked away quickly. “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.” And he and Colin walked off.

Bernetta leaned back on the bench and licked her peppermint ice cream. Boys were infuriating.

They’d been gone only about two minutes, and Bernetta was still licking away at her ice cream and watching the sailboats, when from behind her she heard an angry voice.

“That’s her!” someone shouted. “That’s the girl right there!”

The voice, Bernetta realized, sounded hideously familiar.

She whirled around, and sure enough, storming toward her, followed by one very large boardwalk security guard, was none other than Ashley Johansson.

Bernetta dropped her ice-cream cone. It landed with a splat right on the wooden boardwalk.

She jumped up as Ashley and the guard came closer. She had no idea what was going on, but she did know that if it involved Ashley Johansson, it couldn’t be anything good.

“That’s her!” Ashley shouted again. She looked as angry as Bernetta had ever seen her, her nose scrunched up like some crazed bull, ready to charge. “Make her give it back,” Ashley told the security guard. She folded her arms across her chest. “She stole it, and it’s mine.”

What? Bernetta’s heart was pounding. She wished she knew how to respond, but she didn’t even know what was going on. She looked over her shoulder for Gabe and Colin, but they were nowhere in sight.

The guard cleared his throat, and Bernetta took a good look at him. She gulped. He was at least six feet tall, and big. He did not have a friendly face either. It was serious, all business. “Let’s just take a look, shall we?” He held a beefy hand out to Bernetta. “Would you hand it over, miss?”

Bernetta blinked several times. “Huh? Hand what over?”

“The backpack, miss. This girl says it’s hers. I’d like to have a look.”

“My—no.” $2,602.36. That’s how much money was in that backpack. There was no way she was handing that over to Ashley Johansson. But how could Ashley have known the money was in there? Had she seen her with her hands clutched tight around her backpack straps and figured it out? “No!” Bernetta hollered. She wished she could keep her cool, but this was all happening too quickly. It was so fast and terrible. “It’s mine,” she said. “I’ve had this backpack for three years.”

Ashley shook her head. “She’s lying,” she told the guard. “She stole my backpack when I was sitting down on the sand, but she ran away, and I couldn’t catch her.”

Bernetta stamped her foot, like a two-year-old having a tantrum. “I did not!” she cried. “She’s making that up. It’s mine, I—”

“Please just hand me the bag, miss,” the guard said, his hand still outstretched. “Then we can have a look inside and settle this.”

Bernetta took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said slowly. She sloughed the backpack off her shoulders. She didn’t want the guard to question why she had so much cash in there, but at least there was no way Ashley could prove Bernetta had stolen it. And Bernetta was innocent until proved guilty. Wasn’t she?

The guard took the bag and unzipped it, examining the contents. “All right,” he said to Ashley. “Can you tell me what’s inside here?”

“Well,” Ashley said, her voice sharp like a bee sting, “among other things, my wallet is in there. That’ll prove it’s mine.”

“What?” Bernetta exclaimed. “There isn’t any—”

“Is this it?” the guard asked, producing a slim green wallet.

Bernetta’s eyes felt ready to pop right out of her head. Where had that come from? She’d never even seen it before.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Ashley said. “My school ID is in it.”

The guard flipped the wallet open and studied the picture inside. “Ashley Johansson,” he read. He took a close look at it. “That’s you, all right.”

Bernetta felt suddenly dizzy. But she couldn’t give up now. There was too much at stake. She wasn’t going to lose everything she’d worked for. Not to Ashley Johansson.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Bernetta told the guard. “She just put that in there. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. It’s mine, I swear, and she’s the one trying to steal it.”

Ashley shook her head. “The backpack’s mine,” she said. She sounded calm now, confident. “My name’s on it,” she told the guard. “Underneath the flap, by the zipper. Right at the top.”

Bernetta snorted. “No, it’s not. What are you—”

She never finished her sentence. Because the guard lifted up the zipper flap, and there, as plain as anything, was a name in large capital letters:

ASHLEY JOHANSSON