“Dad, we’re home,” Morgan called as she pushed open the front door of her house.
“Yeah, Dad, we’re home,” echoed Ris, grinning.
“Hi, girls,” Morgan’s dad, Dylan, called from the kitchen.
“I’m thirsty, Mr. Abbey,” Ris replied. “You have any pop?”
“Only if you call it soda,” replied Dylan. He and Ris had an ongoing feud regarding the proper nomenclature of carbonated beverages.
“Never!” Ris called, walking toward the kitchen.
Morgan followed behind, smiling. It amused her how well Ris and her father got along. As a matter of fact, Ris got along so well with Morgan’s father that back in middle school, Ris went through a phase during which she wanted to get their parents––Morgan’s father and Ris’s mother––to date. To Ris’s chagrin, however, neither parent was interested.
Dylan Abbey, Morgan knew, had eyes for only one woman: Morgan’s mother. He, like Morgan, still held out hope that she would return one day.
By the time Morgan made her way to the kitchen, Ris was pouring a glass of pop for herself and for Morgan as well. Morgan noticed her father putting the finishing touches on a plate of cheese and crackers and a veggie plate. “Does our fame precede us?” Morgan asked, grabbing a Triscuit topped with marbled cheddar off the plate on the tiny kitchen table.
Dylan pretended to give Morgan’s hand a slap. “Hey, now. These aren’t for you.”
“Since when do you make yourself plates of snacks? Whatever happened to eating straight out of the box?” Morgan asked, leaning against the gray faux-marble countertop across from the table.
“Not for me, either. It’s for the one I’m tutoring. My tutee, if you will.” He gave Morgan a meaningful look. “You know the one.”
“Ah. So, when does the eagle land?” Morgan asked.
Ris raised an eyebrow, confused. “Who’s the eagle? And since when do you tutor?”
“It’s, ah––” Dylan looked at Morgan.
“Long story,” Morgan said. “Let’s go to my room and I’ll explain. And you can tell me more about this business plan of yours.”
“But I already explained it to you,” Ris said. “It wasn’t that complicated.”
“Ah, but now I’ll actually be paying attention,” Morgan said.
Ris brought her fist to her chest, a wounded motion. “You know, I’d be mad if I didn’t know you were only not listening because you were thinking about the H-O-T G-U-Y.”
Dylan sighed heavily. “Darn. I really do hate when you girls spell things out in front of me. You know I can’t spell.” He squinted for a moment. “Oh, wait. I can spell.” He cast a suspicious look at his daughter. “Hot guy?”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing.” When her dad continued to look at her expectantly, she continued. “Just some guy in the park—”
“The park,” Dylan began, shaking his head.
“Don’t even start,” Morgan said.
“You know I don’t like you hanging out down there. I keep telling you two to set up shop somewhere else.”
“Where?” Morgan asked, repeating the same argument she’d gone over before. “Where else could we do business?”
“Business,” Dylan scoffed. “I think it’s great that you two are making money, but don’t you think you could do something that requires less scheming and trickery? I mean, conning your classmates out of money—”
“It’s not a con,” Ris interjected emphatically. “Morgan’s got a gift. Our classmates are lucky that Morgan uses her powers to guide them through their tumultuous teenage years.”
Morgan sighed. Contrary to what Ris and her contemporaries thought, Morgan was not under the delusion that she possessed any magical powers; she was just observant. She was able to piece together information in a unique way. Certain connections that were lost on other people were obvious to her. However, people wanted to believe that Morgan possessed a gift. And, as it suited Morgan’s purposes, she allowed them to believe it.
But hadn’t the guy said something about how people were always saying how right she was? Could he mean that she really had some sort of ability?
“Still,” Dylan was saying. “I don’t think the park is a safe place for you.”
“It was just some guy, Dad,” Morgan insisted, shaking her head to clear her mind. “He was, maybe, nineteen. Threat level zero.”
“He was hot, though, right?” Ris asked, leaning against the refrigerator and gazing wistfully at the ceiling.
Morgan shrugged. “He did appear to be pleasing to the eyes.”
Dylan put his hands up. “Okay, okay. Stop with the hot guy talk.” He glanced at Ris. “Anyway, what happened to that teacher she had a crush on?”
Morgan turned to Ris. “I hate you.”
Ris just laughed. “Your room?” Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and exited the kitchen.
Morgan shot a dirty look at Ris’s retreating figure but followed anyway.
“The eagle lands shortly,” Dylan called after Morgan. “Should only be here for an hour or so.”
Morgan waved a hand at her father but didn’t turn. By the time she entered her bedroom, Ris had already made herself at home on the papasan in the corner. As usual.
“So, who’s the eagle?” Ris asked as Morgan took a seat on her bed.
“Why did you tell my dad about Mr. K?”
Ris just shrugged. “So, the business plan––”
Morgan waved her hand at Ris. “Never mind. I’m not ready to pay attention yet.”
“Ah, so we’re back to the eagle.”
“Or Mr. K.”
“All in good time,” Ris said. “Come on, you first or I will withhold vital information from you regarding what I actually mentioned to your dad about Mr. Kment.”
Morgan glowered. “I really hate you.”
“Duly noted.” Ris picked up one of the half dozen or so stuffed penguins from Morgan’s desk and lobbed it in Morgan’s general direction. Morgan didn’t even flinch; Ris’s aim was notoriously off. “Speak!”
Morgan sighed. “Dad got roped into tutoring a certain… benevolent dictator. A friend to you and me. In fact, a friend to all people, great and small.”
Understanding swept across Ris’s face. “Uh-oh…”
“A certain, shall we say, unifying presence at Arthur B. Casey High. Class president, cheerleader, Homecoming Court––”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Ris interrupted. “Lynna Rochester, I get it. But why is he tutoring her? He knows how you feel about her.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “She’s a dumbass and failed geometry and would probably fail it again in summer school without my dad’s help.” She sighed. “And you know his position on how I feel about her.”
“But why is her summer school your dad’s problem? She has her own parents.”
Morgan shrugged. “I doubt her mom can do geometry. Her dad probably works too much. Or maybe he just doesn’t have the patience to deal with her. Who knows? Whatever the reason, they asked Dylan. And you know Dylan.”
“Good ole Dependable Dylan.”
“Sigh,” Morgan said.
“Le sigh,” Ris agreed.
Morgan leaned over and picked up the penguin, which had landed on the floor about two feet from where she was sitting. She threw it back at Ris. Unlike Ris, Morgan’s aim was dead on, and the penguin hit Ris on the nose.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Why, Miss Clarissa Renee Perry, did you tell my dad about Mr. K?”
“Because you beaned me in the nose with a penguin,” Ris said sullenly, rubbing her nose.
“Come on, now. I just did that,” Morgan protested. “Unless, of course, you’re claiming you had a vision of the future––”
Ris shook her head. “No. We both know that fortune telling is your gift, not mine.”
“Well, then––”
Ris sighed. “Seriously, Morgan. We were talking one day and he mentioned having a crush on one of his teachers bac
k in school and so I told him like father like daughter… Sorry, wasn’t trying to, like, mortify you or anything.”
Just then a muffled knocking could be heard at the front door, followed by voices: one male, one female.
Morgan groaned. “That’s mortifying.”
“The eagle has landed?” Ris asked.
“The eagle has landed,” Morgan confirmed.
Ris leaned back into the papasan. “Guess we’re stuck in here now.”
Morgan positioned herself more fully on her bed and leaned against the wall. Her eyes landed on the framed picture on her bedside table. Morgan looked down at the picture, though she didn’t really need to. She had every detail memorized from staring at it so many nights. It was a picture of her mother, Chelsea. In the picture, she was laughing, her head tipped back, her brown hair spilling around her shoulders in loose waves, her light brown eyes sparkling.
“You think I’m crazy?” Morgan asked.
Ris glanced at her. “Care to be a bit more specific?”
Morgan pulled all of her long, dyed-red hair over her left shoulder and ran her fingers through it thoughtfully for a moment. “For thinking she’s still out there somewhere. Alive, you know?”
Ris, who in her years as Morgan’s best friend been subject to many such musings, took in a breath and released it slowly. “I think you’re crazy for a hundred reasons, Morgan. But that—that’s not one of them.”
Morgan nodded. For an instant, she considered telling Ris what the mystery guy said about her mother being alive, but she stopped herself. Hope was one thing; believing a stranger in the park was something entirely different. “I just… I’ve always felt like she was out there somewhere.”
“I know.” Ris shifted and the papasan creaked faintly. “You know what I think?”
“Huh?”
“I think one day you’re gonna find her. I think you’ll be able to use your fortune-telling abilities on yourself and you’re gonna figure out where she is.” She smiled. “I mean, why else would you have your gift, right?”
“Right,” Morgan agreed. And for the first time, she wished what Ris believed about her psychic abilities was actually true.
three