Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) (18 page)

She cracked her neck and started
stretching her arms out. “Cam, you have to understand something. After what
happened in that closet today, I don’t think I’m gonna be kissing
any
guys for a long, long time.”

I managed a subtle laugh. “Yeah…. well…
same here.”

Kimber laughed really hard at that one.
But then her happy demeanor quickly transitioned into a somber one. “OK,” she
said.

“OK.”

“Tell me everything.”

I did. I started by taking her back to
the night in late March last year when Charisma and I and my basketball
teammates went out for a late pizza dinner. I told her what Liesel did. I told
her how she and I bonded over the next couple of months, until I finally caught
her in the CRHS biology room lifting objects in the air with only her mind,
including that very vocal frog. I told her about the night I laid dying in the
hospital bed, only to watch in awe as Liesel magically brought me back to
health with the most awesome set of spells the human eye had ever seen. I told
her all about Liesel’s powers. I told her the truth about our floating at
graduation.

And then I told her about last Saturday
night at the French restaurant.

Surprisingly, she didn’t flinch. “It’s
amazing,” she said. “It all makes sense now.”

“I don’t know if
everything
makes sense,” I said, “but at least there’s kind of an
explanation.”

“She has powers? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I shouldn’t be telling anyone, Kimber.
And you can’t tell a soul.”

“I won’t…”

“If you tell one single person, I’m never
going to speak to you again.
Ever
. Do
you understand me?”

“Can I at least tell Mom and Dad?”

“
Especially
not Mom and Dad!”

Some students walking to a school bus
turned to us. I just smiled back, like Kimber and I were sharing a frivolous
conversation.

“Kimber, listen to me.” I took her hands
and brought them down to the cement sidewalk. “The reason I came to see you
today was to show you what’s happening to me, and for you to help me lie to Mom
and Dad about my whereabouts.”

“What—”

“Mom and Dad can’t know I’m aging again…
it would kill them.”

“How will they not know, Cam? I mean,
look at you
!”

“They won’t see me. At least, not until I
figure out how to stop this. Which should be soon.”

She pulled away from me. “I don’t
understand. If Liesel is the cause of all this, why don’t you just get her to
change you back to normal?”

“She’s disappeared.”

“She’s
what
?”

Again, more students turned to us. I
awkwardly waved back as the last of them stepped inside the overcrowded school
bus.

“I’m trying to find her,” I said, “and
when I do, I’m going to—”

“
Dump
her,” Kimber interrupted.

“Huh?”

“What? You can’t seriously be considering
staying with her now.”

“Stay with her? I’m gonna marry her,
Kimber. I love her.”

“She cursed you!
Again
!”

“It was an accident…”

“How can you ever trust her again? Every
single time you guys have an argument, she sets a curse on you. What if you do
something
really
bad, like cheat on
her or something? She’ll turn you into a rat, or a hamster. Or worse, she’ll
make you vanish into thin air, never to return!”

“She wouldn’t do that! She loves me. This
is all just a huge misunderstanding. I’ll figure this out, OK? I promise.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“Because she’s going to turn up. She
will.”

“What if she doesn’t, Cam? You’re growing
a year younger every day?”

“Yes.”

“So how old does that make you now?”

“Fourteen.”
    

“
Fourteen
?”
Her jaw just hung open.

“Yeah.”

She licked her lips and took a deep
breath. “So that gives you… what… just…”

“Two weeks.”

Kimber stood up, turned around, and
started pounding her fists against the school fence.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Stop! Stop it!”
 

I grabbed her arms and pulled her back.
She was really bawling now, barely able to speak through her sobs.

“I just… I can’t lose you…”

“I know,” I said, hugging her.

“You’re everything to me, Cam. I don’t
know what I’d do without you.”

“I know,” I repeated.

“Promise me you’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“You’ll leave her. If you find her and
she makes you better. You’ll break up with her and call off the wedding.”

“I can’t…”

“Swear it, or I’m telling Mom and Dad!”

I opened my mouth to say something, but
nothing came out. I shook my head and took a deep breath. “OK. OK, I promise.”

“Good.”

I started walking with her along the
sidewalk, heading back toward the school. “So this is what I need you to do for
me…” I started.

I made it back to my car a few minutes
later. I had another missed call from my mother.

I’ll
talk to you in a few days, Mom. I need time to figure out how to stay alive.

7.
Twelve

I spent the last two nights at Liesel’s
apartment, hoping and praying with each passing minute she’d return home, with
a reasonable explanation for her absence. But by Friday afternoon, I had still
heard nothing. I started to worry that she may be gone for good, and that I’d
have to stay like this forever, or—let’s be honest—the next twelve
days.

Liesel had been gone so long, even her
grandpa Dom was getting worried, not used to seeing her disappear for so many
days on end. Of course it made him feel more comfortable to have me around the
apartment, although, oddly, he didn’t really notice my weird aging condition.

“Cameron, have you by any chance seen or
talked to my granddaughter today?” he asked late on Friday afternoon from the
hallway.

I just shook my head. “She’s just… you
know… so busy, preparing for the wedding and all. I was gonna go meet her in a
few.”

I didn’t want to worry the old man by
telling him the truth. He stepped inside Liesel’s bedroom, where I had made her
couch in the corner into a bed.

“Remind me
again, why are you staying here?”

I sat up and smiled. “We… uhh… just have
so much work to do for the wedding that it’s easier to remain in close
proximity.”

“I see.” He stared at me for a moment,
before turning around. “I swear, that granddaughter of mine likes her fiancées
young
!”

I tried to
laugh. “I just slept well, that’s all.”

“She’s always been a little cougar, that
one,” Dom said as he exited the bedroom. “Do you want some waffles?” I didn’t
answer him.

I put on my sister’s super small white
t-shirt and loose blue jeans—they were the only clothing that could fit
me now. I managed to wash them last night after Dom had gone to bed, and now
they had shrunk even more, making their fitting against my body almost perfect.
I grabbed my car keys and headed out of the apartment. I tried to ignore the
fact that I was hungry for the twenty-seventh time today. I had raided most of
Dom’s pantry and fridge, and even found myself hungering after one of his
famous waffles, despite the fact that it was no longer breakfast time. I made
my way outside and down the corridor.

My mom called me again yesterday, but
Kimber promised me that she had told them what I wanted her to tell them. I
needed to explain my disappearance for a few days, so I told Kimber to tell my
parents that I had whisked Liesel away for a long weekend at an undisclosed
location, for a pre-wedding celebration. My mom was apparently upset because
she had something she wanted to tell us, but I had Kimber tell the two of them
that I’d be returning on Monday. I figured that was the longest I could stretch
it. And I also figured by Monday, if I hadn’t located Liesel, I’d be nine years
old. And there’d be so little I could do at that point, that I’d have no choice
but
to reveal my condition to
them.
 

So I had a mission.
Fix this, Cam. Fix this by the end of the weekend. Find Liesel. Make
everything go back to normal.

I kept my phone charged and by my side. I
called Liesel at least fifty times a day. I knew she’d have to call me back
sometime. She’d comfort me and tell me this had all just been some major
misunderstanding.

That is, if she’s not dead.

I had to admit, after five days, that it
was becoming increasingly likely that something unthinkable had happened to
Liesel. But I knew who she was, and what she was capable of. She was going to
find me. And I was going to find her. She and I were going to be OK.

Right?

I pulled up to the parking lot in front
of the jungle gym and swings again, but today, I only stayed for an hour or so.
I got out of the car and walked around the area, including that sidewalk where
I had seen that strange female figure days before; alas, there was nothing
unusual. I decided to get back in my car and just sit inside for a few minutes,
quiet as can be as I surveyed my surroundings.

It was so uncomfortable trying to control
my damn car. Problems had started two days ago as I continued to shrink more
and more; now I had to sit on the edge of my seat, my right leg stretched out
toward the pedal. I knew if I grew any shorter it’d be near impossible to reach
it. I figured I had one more day, at most. Soon I’d have to walk everywhere,
and that was going to be a major problem. Reno’s public transportation system
wasn’t exactly user-friendly. I needed some kind of new clue as to Liesel’s
whereabouts soon, or I was going to be at a loss, growing younger and younger
by the day, with absolutely no lead on where I was supposed to search for her
next. I didn’t have three months to figure things out like I did last year. It
was only day six of my condition, and my age was already heading into the
single digits. This was bad. I had to admit it: I was more worried now than I
ever was during my equally freakish condition last year.

I waited another few minutes, decided I
didn’t see anything remotely suspicious, and started driving back out of the
park. I reached California Avenue and made a left. I decided to head downtown.
I didn’t want to see a doctor; I knew this wasn’t a medical condition that
could be fixed. I didn’t want to see my parents, either; I figured I’d give
them at least the weekend to think I was OK.

I figured it’d be worth my while, at this
trying time, to see a woman I had been hearing about for years, but who I
always assumed to be completely bogus. Right now, though, after everything that
had happened to me, I figured she was the most logical person to see at this
illogical period of my young adult life.

I stopped at a signal, yawned, and looked
out the driver’s side window, immediately struck by the car parked up against
the curb on the other side. The windows were tinted enough so that I couldn’t
see inside. The van was big and brown, just like the one that had been in the
parking lot the minute before Liesel was stolen from me.

I rolled down
the window. “Hey! Hey you!”

The driver rolled down the window, but
only to the top of her head. All I could see were her vindictive pair of eyes.
This is the girl who stole Liesel.

“Hey!
Liesel! Are you in there?”

The honk from the car behind me almost
gave my small twelve-year-old body a heart attack. I looked up to see that the
signal had turned green. I turned to my left to witness the van starting up and
heading down the opposite side of the street.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said as I sped my
car into the intersection and pulled an illegal U-turn in such a tight space
that I had to stop the car, back up, and then pull forward again. I heard
another honk behind me but I ignored it. I could see the van make a sharp right
on a residential street. I followed.

I could see the
van starting to slow down at the end of the street. It was a dead end.

“Yes!” I
shouted. “I got you! I got you now!”

But right before I slowed down, I heard
the harsh sounds of sirens start blasting behind me.

Oh no. No no.

I looked in my rearview mirror to see a
cop car right on my ass. I wanted to try to outrun the cop (for obvious
reasons), but there was nowhere I could go. I was trapped.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t
happening.

I looked ahead of me to see the van
pulling into a driveway at the end of the street, as if this young woman was
faking she lived in one of these middle class homes. I pulled to the curb and
crossed my arms in frustration. I
almost
had her.