Coffeehouse Angel (7 page)

"That was amazing," Elizabeth said.

The fact that Vincent had saved an old guy's life didn't surprise me one bit. If anything bad was going to happen, you'd want Vincent around. Everyone else would be freaking out, screaming "Earthquake!" or "Alien invasion!" but he'd figure out how to get to the nearest exit, or how to build a ray gun.

Thanks to Elizabeth, the story spread quickly. When Vincent returned from the police department, Principal Carmichael congratulated him over the loudspeaker. Students swarmed him. Teachers asked him to recount the event. The first news van pulled up at noon. Then CNN showed up. Then FOX. Turned out the old man was some kind of software developer--a mega-billionaire who had come to Nordby to buy property. He had had a heart attack while driving, and Vincent's CPR had definitely saved his life.

So, from his hospital bed he made an announcement. He would reward Vincent with--

drum roll, please...a full scholarship to whatever college or university Vincent chose to attend.

Amazing.

That was the best news ever.

"Oh my God," Elizabeth said as we stood in the cafeteria, watching throngs of reporters shove microphones at Vincent's face. "I just remembered, he drank the magic coffee. He got
fortune."

"He gave a man CPR," I reminded her. "He earned that reward. It had nothing to do with the bean."

"Really?" She narrowed her heavily lined eyes. "I suppose you think this was just a coincidence."

"Yes."

"Katrina, there are no coincidences. It's all part of something bigger."

"That's crazy. Of course there are coincidences. You and I are both wearing green shirts. We didn't plan that."

She sighed. "You believe what you believe and I'll believe what I believe."

I didn't feel like arguing. Something else caught my attention. Heidi Darling had squeezed her way through the reporters and was standing next to Vincent. "We're on the same team," she told them with a dazzling smile. She wore the latest trendy jeans, dyed in all the right places. She looked pretty. My old jeans were still wet from standing in the rain. Soaked to the skin, my butt kind of itched.

Principal Carmichael glowed with pride, or maybe from the heat of the camera lights.

"We promote good values here at Nordby High. In fact, I personally created our values-centered curriculum. It's no surprise to me that one of our students acted heroically."

Vincent's bleary-eyed dad showed up. He worked nights as a security guard at the marina and never seemed to get enough sleep during the day. Even though he walked around in an exhausted stupor, usually unshaven, he was pretty good-looking for a dad.

"He's always been a good kid," Mr. Hawk told the reporters. "Real good."

Mr. Darling made an appearance, handing out Java Heaven coupons to the reporters and their crew. "Our coffee is one hundred percent organic. One hundred percent free trade." He shoved a poster in my hand. "Put this up in your window."

Unbelievable. I unrolled the poster, which advertised the "Vincent Mocha." What? He had named a drink after Vincent? And had printed up posters? Could he do that?

Could he name a drink after someone without asking that person?

The swim team gathered for a photo. Heidi Darling put her arm around Vincent for the picture that would be plastered all over the Internet. Someone shoved a microphone in her face. "What do you think of your teammate?"

"Vincent's the best," she replied. "He's a great guy. I've always known he's a great guy."

"She definitely
likes
him," Elizabeth whispered in my ear.

Okay, hold on just a moment. I knew that Vincent was a great guy, long before Heidi knew it. I knew it when he walked me to the nurse's office in the fourth grade, after I had split open my lip on the monkey bars. I knew it when he didn't tease me after Elizabeth and I got a horrid case of head lice from trying on wigs in a costume shop. I knew it because whenever I called him in the middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep or was worried about something, he never got mad at me.

But Heidi acted like it was something she had discovered. Like she was letting us all in on a secret. They looked so chummy with their chlorinated hair and matching sweatshirts.

"Vincent and I spend every morning together," Heidi said.

Elizabeth squeezed in next to a reporter. "If you want to know about Vincent, you should ask Katrina." She pointed at me. "She's his best friend."

"Shhh," the reporter scolded. "That girl with the pony-tail is still talking."

Heidi pressed against Vincent's shoulder. "My dad owns Java Heaven and he created a special drink called the Vincent Mocha." She held up one of the posters. "The best cocoa, the best coffee, the freshest milk. Vincent loves it."

Well, if you knew Vincent half as well as you claim to know him, you'd know that he
wouldn't drink that in a million years because he's lactose intolerant!

Vincent looked totally surprised when he read the poster. But Heidi didn't give him a chance to say anything because she kept talking to reporters about how amazing Vincent was. Elizabeth fake gagged. While she had no real reason to hate Heidi, other than the excessively perky thing, she hated her on my account because that's what real friends do. "Did you notice that her hair is turning green?" she whispered in my ear.

Heidi's hair wasn't the only thing turning green. Jealousy had invaded me and I was pretty sure I looked exactly like the Incredible Hulk.

"Can I have that poster?" Elliott stood next to me. Principal Carmichael had put him on technical duty. He'd been providing extension cords to the camera crews. I gave him the poster. "I'm going to get Vincent's autograph, then sell it on eBay." He smiled at Elizabeth. "I like your striped raincoat." She ignored him.

Vincent didn't make it to any of his afternoon classes. He sat in the cafeteria, answering the same questions over and over. When I passed by, between Geometry and English Composition, he waved, looking totally bored. I never got the chance to congratulate him or ask him about the poster. But I knew that he hadn't agreed to the

"Vincent Mocha" because my friends and family had a longstanding pact to never buy Java Heaven coffee, to never taste Java Heaven Coffee, and to never, ever, step inside Java Heaven.

By the end of the day the rain clouds had cleared, but colder air moved in. I walked home, a hand-knit scarf wrapped around my face, trying to disappear into a cocoon of yarn. I should have been skipping merrily down the street, celebrating my best friend's fortune, but I had let the Darlings worm their way under my skin. I concocted the following conspiracy theory: that Heidi and her father were working together. She would take away my best friend so I'd be miserable, and in my misery, I'd convince my grandmother that we should move to Florida.

"I'll never move to Florida," I snarled.

"I wouldn't move to Florida either. Too humid."

I gasped, inhaling a mouthful of yarn. I stopped walking and pushed the scarf off my face. "You said you were leaving."

"I've been trying to deliver a message here in Nordby." He patted his satchel. "But I haven't been able to deliver it."

"Look..." I paused, weighing my options--run away or deal with him. "What's your name anyway?"

"I don't have a name." He wore the same kilt and sweater. That flowery scent swirled around us. "But if you'd like to call me by a name, you can call me Malcolm. That's what they called me in Scotland. I spent a long time there. So here's a thought--if you're going to move, you might consider Scotland."

"Look, Malcolm, I've got a lot on my mind."

"You've got a lot on
your
mind? I've got a lot on
my
mind."

God, those eyes were blue. If Elizabeth had been there, she would have wanted to paint them. I felt a rush of inspiration. Maybe I should try to paint them, but I had about as much artistic talent as that elephant at the Seattle Zoo. Every Sunday, a zookeeper gave her a canvas and she painted with her trunk. I don't care how many people raved about that elephant's paintings, they were terrible. Just a bunch of splotches. That's what my paintings always looked like. That's why there was an easel and ajar of paintbrushes in my Closet of Failure.

Malcolm kept right on talking. His skin was perfectly clear. He exfoliated, no doubt about it. And his long brown hair wasn't an everyday brown. Close-up, I could see dozens of shades of brown and red and copper--like one of Elizabeth's palettes. "Are you listening?" He waved in my face. "Katrina, I wish you'd listen."

I snapped out of it. "Okay, I'm listening. But just for a minute because I've got to get to work. I don't have time to play that coffee bean game again."

"That's the problem." He pushed his hair behind his ears. "You thought it was a game.

You weren't supposed to give the bean to someone else."

"Huh? I didn't give it to someone else."

"You did. You allowed your friend to drink the coffee that you made from the bean, and your friend received fortune."

How could he know that? Had he been spying on us through the window? Was he some kind of stalker? The cold air tickled my nose. I wanted to hide behind my scarf again. "Vincent got a scholarship because he saved a man's life."

"After he drank the coffee. That bean was for you, to give you what you most desire."

"Well..." There had to be some way out of this conversation. "Obviously what I most desired was for Vincent to get a scholarship. So now everybody is happy."

But I wasn't happy. Something else had caught my attention, something even more annoying than Malcolm and his delusions. The Java Heaven billboard stood across the street. A new message had been painted across the top:
Stop in and try a Vincent
Mocha, in honor of our hometown hero.
How had Mr. Darling managed to do that so fast? Did he have a legion of little elves working for him, running around painting things here and there, printing up flyers and coupons at elf speed?

Only one thing to do. Anna's Old World Scandinavian Coffeehouse needed a special Vincent drink. So what if we didn't have a billboard? We couldn't just sit back and let Mr. Darling turn Vincent into a commodity. He was
my
friend. If anyone was going to turn him into a commodity, it would be me!

"Katrina? You've got to listen."

"I gotta go. Bye!" I pulled the scarf over my face and ran down the hill, my backpack lunging with each step. We'd make a special Vincent drink and sell it at the Solstice Festival. Better yet, Vincent could help us sell it. That would bring in tons of customers. We'd have so many customers that they'd line up and block Mr. Darling's door. Sweet revenge. Vincent could autograph the cups. What would we call our drink? What's the Viking word for hero? Probably something unpronounceable--

something that sounded like you were trying to clear a wad of phlegm from your throat. Forget that.

I rushed into the coffeehouse. The chairs were empty-- no real surprise since The Boys didn't come in on Tuesdays.

"What an exciting day," Grandma Anna said, giving me an extra-tight hug. "We heard all about Vincent saving that man's life. Some of those news station vans pulled up. I got to meet Brad Stone. You know, the anchor from channel seven. He came into the shop with his crew."

"Really?" I unwound my scarf and took off my coat. "What did they order?"

My grandmother stared at her sensible shoes. Silence filled the space between us like poison gas.

"Grandma?"

"They didn't order anything. They thought this was the entrance to Java Heaven. They had some coupons."

Coulda put money on that one.

"Okay, we've got a situation." I leaned on the counter. Irmgaard stopped stirring her carrot soup. "Remember last Solstice, how Mr. Darling gave out those heavenly cloud cookies and all those people lined up?" Irmgaard and Grandma nodded. "This year it could be even worse."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, this year Mr. Darling will be selling coffee named after Vincent. Our Vincent."

"Oh dear." Grandma Anna rubbed the back of her neck.

"So, I think we should create a Vincent drink of our own. Only, it's got to be better than Mr. Darling's. And we'll have the real Vincent here, in the shop, handing out the coffee."

"We will?"

"Of course. I haven't asked him yet, but he'll do it. He loves us."

"He's a good boy."

"But someone has to go next door and buy one of those drinks so we can see what it tastes like. We need to know what we're up against." It would be difficult enough to try to outbrew Mr. Darling, but we first had to get our hands on the drink itself, and we lived by the law of never setting foot inside Java Heaven. "What about one of The Boys?" I asked.

"Oh no." Grandma Anna cleaned carrot peelings from the counter. "They're my friends. I won't send them into that horrid place. I'll call Officer Larsen. Tell him it's an emergency."

"But it's not an emergency." I drummed my fingers on the counter. I wouldn't ask my friends to go in there either. My two friends. It was a matter of pride, but I also secretly feared that they might never emerge, once they had tasted the
dark side.

"We could just ask a stranger. Someone walking down the street," I suggested.

"And what if that stranger told Mr. Darling that it was one of us who wanted the drink? Over my dead body. I won't give him the satisfaction." Grandma Anna tightened her apron. "Not a drop of his coffee will ever touch my lips!"

"I'll be the one to taste the Vincent Mocha," I said, a martyr to the cause. "But we've got to figure out how to get one."

I peered out the front picture window. A Java Heaven employee strolled the sidewalk, handing out tiny sample cups to passersby. His apron, with its cloud logo, was as crisp and white as a brand-new bedsheet--quite blinding beneath the somber late-afternoon sky. He called out to someone, then walked right past our windows. I cracked open the door to eavesdrop.

"Hey buddy. Would you like to try our new drink? It's called the Vincent Mocha, named after our local hero."