Saving Montgomery Sole (25 page)

Now Matt can't play basketball or football. He did end up in the play, last minute. I guess they got Coach Choreographer to figure out some less stressful fighting moves for him.

Probably some light slaps.

One day we were walking down the hall and Thomas was wearing this big pink daisy lapel pin, and I saw Matt point it out, but then he just didn't say anything else.

And I didn't say anything, either.

*   *   *

After my Reverend White run-in, the Mystery Club took a brief hiatus.

Partly because Thomas was up to his well-sculptured eyebrows in production stuff for
The Outsiders
and partly because I was feeling a little burnt out.

After all that had happened, I kind of wanted everything to feel normal and not so mysterious for a bit. For two weeks I didn't even look up mystery stuff on the Internet. I just watched reality TV and cooking shows, with a possible goal of trying to figure out how to make my own gelato.

Sometime around the end of November, Naoki suggested we start up again and invite Kenneth to a meeting. She wanted to try table-tipping. Naoki looked it up and apparently it's supposed to work better with four people.

Naoki: OK? Cuz if you're not comfortable. We don't have to. Totally no big deal.

Me: It's cool. Let's do it.

Table-tipping turned out to be kind of a flop, but it was fun to try. Thomas pointed out that we were more “desk-tipping” than table-tipping. Kenneth added that it was possible Mrs. Dawson's desk was too heavy to tip. Naoki thought maybe Mrs. Dawson's snow globe collection, which we were afraid to take off the desk, was throwing us off balance. I noticed you could throw the whole thing by just moving the table with your knees. We gave it a 1.5.

A week later, I called a special meeting to discuss the Eye. Core members only.

“Not because of anything against Kenneth,” I explained as we all filed into Mrs. Dawson's classroom that afternoon.

“I kind of owe you guys, I think. I mean, I didn't talk about the Eye with you when everything was happening, even though I said I would. So it's kind of a makeup session,” I said, sitting on a desk, placing the Eye next to me.

Naoki was mostly interested in the incantation. She called it a crazy cosmic haiku (although the syllables didn't match up). At the opening of the meeting, she wrote it out on the chalkboard.

In sight

not see

black light

not be

“‘In
sight
,'” Naoki whispered, “‘not
see
.' Like a riddle. What is in sight but not seen?”

“What did you actually see with the Eye on?” Thomas asked.

“People I hated.” I shrugged.

“And you would see it and … what?” Naoki looked at the Eye catching sunlight on the desk. It looked kind of menacing now.

“Something would happen to them. Something bad. The girl at the soccer game disappeared, you know, over the edge of the stands. Matt stopped talking.”

“Didn't he have a heart attack?” Naoki asked. “It's, like, stopping.”

“Doesn't sound like you really saw anything other than what you already knew,” Thomas said.

“Your point?”

Grabbing a piece of chalk, Thomas grinned. “Really,” he said, sketching out the text on the whiteboard, “what you've purchased is Eye of What You Already Know.”

“The Eye of Assumption,” Naoki chimed in. “The Eye of Preconception.”

“Or we could say that the Eye really wasn't so much an eye, because I didn't see anything with it,” I said.

“Well”—Thomas's grin grew so big it hit the sides of his face—“that's what you get for $3.99.”

“Wow,” I gasped in mock amazement, “how long have you been waiting with that one?”

“At least an hour.” Thomas patted himself on the back.

“It was $5.99,” I said.

“Fine.” Thomas stuck out his tongue.

“You're both so silly,” Naoki sighed happily.

I slumped. “I mean, maybe this makes me sound like a jerk, but I have to say, it was … nice. It's like, I expected so many of the people at this school to be crappy. And with the Eye, it felt like I could do something about it. But I guess that's not really
knowing
, you know, per se.”

“Not really,” Naoki agreed.

“So once you know you may or may not have a loaded weapon at your disposal, what do you do?”

“You should throw it off a cliff,” Thomas said.

“Someone could find it and pick it up,” I pointed out.

“Well, they won't know the incantation thing, right?”

After extensive haggling, Naoki remembered that the original ad had a different stone in it.

“You said it was clear, right? Or white? So maybe this
isn't
the Eye of Know,” she said. “Maybe it's something else. You should return it and get the real one.”

“Buyer beware,” Thomas tutted.

“Well, the other option is we just hide it,” Naoki added. “At least this way you don't have to worry about someone else finding it.”

After the meeting, Naoki gave me a little hug.

Naoki said she thinks the Eye is just another part of my Internet searching. It's not the end; it's just another one of the many mysteries out there. It's a lesson, she said, part of my overall quest for knowledge.

“It's like what T. S. Eliot said about exploring.” Naoki stretched her hands high above her head and closed her eyes. “At the end of it, what you know is you.”

“That sounds awesome,” I said.

So I wrapped up the Eye and sent it back to Manchester. Fortunately I still had the address on the packaging under my bed. Because I had had the foresight not to clean my room. Point for me.

I added a note that said I thought I had the wrong Eye and would love to get an actual Eye of Know if they had one. I hope maybe someday they'll send me one. Until then I'll just keep looking.

 
Me.

For my birthday a week later, my moms got me a new laptop and driving lessons. For more, faster web surfing and for possible future exploration outside the Internet.

I also got a hundred dollars to buy new clothes. Which I'm thinking is possibly a good idea.

I mean, Momma Jo's clothes are comfy, but there are other clothes out there.

Maybe even new clothes.

Tesla, who is now MVP of her soccer team, gave me this picture she took of me and her from a year earlier, at this picnic or something.

If you look close, we're like jumbled puzzles made up of the same pieces. Something in our eyes and noses. Our messy habits. Our crooked smiles. I never noticed how our smiles are alike before.

I told Mama Kate, and she laughed, then said, “You should smile more. I love your smile.”

“It's my smile,” Momma Jo said.

I smiled extra big. “Nice!”

The first thing I opened on my brand-new laptop was an e-mail from Kenneth with a link to the craziest thing I have ever seen on the Internet, a site about people who actually drill holes into the tops of their skulls to increase brain blood flow. To improve psychic powers. That's what trepanation is!

Me: Dude. I can't believe there is a video of someone drilling a hole in her head on the Internet.

Kenneth: Look up speaking in tongues. Great videos.

Me: Ok. You look up “levitation” and “dog.”

Kenneth: Good idea.

For the night of my birthday, Thomas's dad lent him the car, and Naoki and Thomas and I went out to this part of the desert off the highway that's right by this great big canyon. We got there just as the sun was setting in this way it does in the desert, with a million weird and crazy colors. You would never find them in a “sunset” palette at the Home Depot.

And we got out of the car.

And we watched the sunset, feeling good the way you do in California when everything is so beautiful.

“This is officially the coolest thing to happen on my birthday,” I said.

We all stood on the edge of the horizon, like the end of the world before it dips down into vastness, and we put our hands in the air and breathed in.

And my eyes got wide, and I tried to just take in all the world in front of me in that moment.

I looked at the sky and let my brain go soft like a sponge.

I tried to absorb all that is the big, strange universe, and all the strange mysteries in it.

Including me. Mystery me.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” Naoki mused, her hands stretched open, her eyes closed.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

 

Acknowledgments

This novel would not exist if it were not for the many people who have supported me through this and other lofty endeavors.

Thank you to Sam Hiyate and Ali McDonald at The Rights Factory.

Thank you to the magical Charlotte Sheedy. Thank you to my incredible editors Connie Hsu at Roaring Brook and Lynne Missen at Penguin Canada. And to copy editor Christine Ma. Thank you to the incredible Eleanor Davis, Katherine Guillen, and Andrew Arnold for the gorgeous cover. And to all my writer friends for their support and advice, with special thanks to Daniel Heath Justice.

Thank you to all my queer families, work and play. Thank you to all the queer parents out there, who are fighting the good fight, loving the good love, every day.

The concept of the Mystery Club was sparked on a porch during a meeting with Toronto's one and only Science Club, which has marked so many. Thank you to all its members: Suzanne, Christine, Ali, Sorrell, Carolyn, and Lindy.

The voice of Monty first appeared on a bus in Portland, Oregon, on a trip I took with Heather Gold, who has my heart and has given me more support than I could have ever imagined possible.

Finally, thank you to my parents, who banked and inspired this book of spells.

 

ALSO BY
Mariko Tamaki

This One Summer

(You) Set Me On Fire

Emiko Superstar

Skim

Fake I.D.

True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice

Cover Me

 

About the Author

Mariko Tamaki
is a Canadian writer. Her works include the graphic novels
This One Summer
(Printz Honor and Caldecott Honor Book) and
Skim
, both with Jillian Tamaki, and
Emiko Superstar
(DC Comics), with Steve Rolston. Her first YA novel
(You) Set Me on Fire
was published by Penguin Canada. Mariko lives in Oakland, California.
marikotamaki.blogspot.com
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here
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