11 Birthdays Read online

When Ms. Gottlieb’s back is turned, I pass the note to Jimmy and motion for him to pass it to Claudia next to him, and for her to pass it to Leo. I hold my breath until Leo gets it. Ms. Gottlieb has a zero-tolerance note policy and I wouldn’t want that one read out loud.

  A few minutes later Jimmy tosses another note onto my desk.

  I don’t know. He wasn’t that good. All he did was make Bobby Simon cluck like a chicken. But maybe we should talk to him, anyway. I know where to find him. By the way, my T-shirt from the band is gone. I left it in my jacket pocket and this morning it was gone. I forgot that everything resets itself each morning. Bummer!!

  — L

  The bell rings before I get a chance to write back. I wait for him outside class and we walk down the hall together. He tells me that one of the school busses goes into town, so we can take that one to see the hypnotist, and he’ll call his mom at lunch to ask her to pick us up after. Once that’s decided, I tell him I still have my BORN TO ROCK T-shirt.

  “You do?” He wrinkles his brows. “That’s weird. I wonder why yours would stay and mine wouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know. I wore mine to sleep, and it was still on me when I woke up.”

  “That’s it!” Leo says, startling me. “Anything on our bodies stays with us!”

  “You’re right! The Band-Aids stayed on my ankles, but when I went to get your poem, it wasn’t in my jeans pocket!”

  He stops walking and clutches his books to his chest. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “That no one should ever dress up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz because you’ll get blisters?”

  “No. Well, yes, but that’s not it. What it means is that me and you are still growing every day, like normal. But no one else is! So we’ll just keep getting older while they stay the same. One day we’ll wake up and other people are gonna notice that we don’t look the same as the night before.”

  My jaw slackens. “Oh! You’re right! What a horrible thought!”

  Leo nods in agreement, his face pale. “This hypnotist better have the answers because I’m gearing up for a growth spurt, I can feel it.”

  For the rest of the morning this is all I can think about. What if one day I wake up and I look older than Kylie??

  After school I convince Stephanie (again) that I’m not cut out for the gymnastics team and to try out without me. I decide to experiment with leaving my backpack in my locker to see if it will appear in my house again in the morning. Twenty minutes later Leo and I are standing in front of Willow Falls Pre-owned Vehicles. I don’t see anyone nearby. “Your hypnotist works at a used car lot?”

  Leo nods. “Maybe he hypnotizes people into buying cars.”

  A middle-aged man in a light blue suit pops out from behind the hood of a white sports car. Leo and I both jump. “Oh, it’s you!” Leo says, recovering. “You scared me.”

  The man wipes his brow with a gray handkerchief. His suit is straining to button across his belly. He doesn’t look like he has the power to make anyone buy a pack of gum, let alone cluck like a chicken. “Do I know you?” he asks.

  “It’s me, Leo!”

  I elbow Leo in the ribs.

  “Hey, that hurt!”

  I give him my most meaningful look.

  “Ohhh, right. Got it.” Turning back to the man he says, “Er, sorry, I mean it’s me, Leo, the kid whose birthday party you’re performing at tonight.”

  The man glances around quickly, maybe looking for Leo’s mom. “You’re not going to cancel, are you?”

  “No, no, nothing like that.”

  With a sigh of relief, he gives a little theatrical bow. “What can I do for you then? Are you worried I’ll embarrass you by making you bark like a dog? Don’t worry, I’ll save that for some kid you don’t like.”

  Leo and I glance at each other. “Go ahead,” I whisper.

  “Okay,” Leo says hesitantly. “This is going to sound really weird …”

  “Go on, kid. I’ve heard ’em all. You want me to hypnotize your mom to give you a later curfew? Bigger allowance?”

  Leo looks thoughtful, and I have to jab him again. “Okay, okay. No, it’s not anything like that. The thing is … my friend Amanda here, we’re like, living this day, today, our birthday, over and over.”

  “Uh-huh,” the guy says, smiling at us in that way adults do when they want to humor you into thinking they believe you. Leo doesn’t seem to notice.

  “And we’re wondering,” he continues, “if maybe you had something to do with it? Like if you could have hypnotized me into thinking every day was my birthday?”

  The guy laughs. “I’m not nearly that good.”

  Leo’s shoulders sag. “Oh.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “Maybe you did it without realizing it?”

  He shakes his head. “Believe me, if I could do something like that, I’d hypnotize myself! Imagine the things you could do if you got a ‘do-over’ every day!”

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Leo mutters.

  “In all seriousness, kid. Is school stressing you out too much? Family troubles?”

  “Come on, Leo.” I tug at his sleeve. “Let’s go.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Leo says.

  The man waves good-bye. “See you tonight!”

  “I knew it was a long shot,” Leo says as we exit. “What now?”

  A green Jaguar parked in front catches my eye. I suddenly remember what Mrs. Grayson said when she drove me to the doctor. I tell Leo how my great-great-grandfather was supposedly well-known for some feud in town, like a hundred years ago.

  “Really? That’s weird. Do you think it had anything to do with what that security guard said at the mall? I’ve been thinking about that. Why would our last names have meant anything to him? I think we should find that out.”

  I nod in agreement. “But how? I’m pretty sure my parents don’t know anything. They would’ve mentioned it by now.”

  “Well, I know some people who might be old enough to remember,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Five minutes later we’re walking into the Senior Citizen Community Center. I point to a poster advertising the poetry reading. “Maybe they’ll let you read your poem again.”

  “No thanks. I’ll read a poem in public again when you play the drums in public.”

  I think about how good it felt to play the other day. “You never know. I just might surprise you.”

  “How about those guys?” he asks, pointing to four white-haired men at a card table.

  We walk over. For old guys they move pretty quick — tossing cards and plastic coins so fast I can’t keep up with whose turn it is. Leo clears his throat. No one looks up. In a loud voice he asks, “Any of you guys a hundred?”

  At that, the men all look up and start guffawing. I groan. Leo’s not big on tact. “Please ignore that question,” I say, rolling my eyes at Leo. “We were just hoping to ask you about some town history.”

  One of the guys stops laughing long enough to light his pipe. I glance at the big NO SMOKING sign overhead, but figure he probably doesn’t have much time left anyway. Taking a puff, he gestures across the room to a man reading a newspaper on the couch. “Ask ol’ Bucky Whitehead. He grew up here, and he’s older than dirt.”

  The others laugh. That wasn’t a very nice thing to say. These men could use some lessons on tact, too. I recognize Mr. Whitehead from the poetry reading. He had been listening very intently to Leo’s poem. When we reach him, I do all the talking.

  “We’re sorry to bother you, sir, but maybe you can tell us about something that happened in Willow Falls a long time ago?”

  He rests his paper on his lap and looks up with kind, milky blue eyes. “Not much happens in Willow Falls,” he says with a chuckle.

  “That’s true,” I agree, “but this would have been a really long time ago. Maybe you remember hearing the names Ellerby and Fitzpatrick?”

  His expression doesn’t change fo