The Demon Conspiracy (27 page)

As we started back to the house, Melissa
asked the same question that had been on my mind since I’d seen it.
“So what’s with that thing around Chris’ neck? What do you think it
does?”

“How did you see it?” I asked. “You were
under the desk.”

“There was a hole in the privacy wall. I saw
everything he did.”

“What thing?” asked Travis.

“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Maybe it kills the germs in those pots. But it doesn’t matter
because I am
never
drinking any of that nasty stuff.
Never
.”

“We didn’t do very good detective work,”
said Melissa. “We didn’t get any samples at all.”

“No,” I agreed. “I guess his secret recipe
is still a secret.”

***

When we got home, Angie waited at the door,
arms akimbo. “Travis Lane Bishop, just what did you think you were
doing?” She glared down at him. “Why’d you throw paper towels at
Chris?”

“Cuz I couldn’t find a rock,” said Travis
angrily. “Chris is bein’ a jerk! He won’t come out of the basement
and he yells at us for no reason if we even go near the
stairs.”

Melissa and I both nodded, but Angie ignored
us.

“You can go to your room, young man! You’re
grounded for the next five days. And don’t even think about seeing
any of your friends next weekend!”

“I can’t go to my room,” said Travis. “Jon
won’t let me in.”

“Then you can stay in the living room.
You’ve been sleeping in there anyway. And no TV!”

“How come Jon gets to do what he wants? He
ate my rabbit and kicked me out of my room and all you did was
ground him.”

“Jon is almost an adult. We have to deal
with him differently. Besides, he never hit Chris in the face with
a roll of paper towels.”

Chris came up behind her with a look on his
face like he wanted to tear Travis’ head off. Travis gulped and
moved behind Melissa and me like we were bodyguards, or something.
We were scared, too, but we stood our ground. Angie was shocked by
our reaction, but she was more shocked by Chris.

“You
will
stay out of the basement!” said
Chris, pointing a threatening finger at Travis. “The basement
is
mine
! I am
making something very important. I must work hard and fast!” He
turned and poked Angie hard in the shoulder with his finger.
“
Keep them out
!”

21

PAIN

MARIA

Only one pain is worse than being dumped by
the person in the world you most truly love, and that’s the pain of
being trapped in pre-breakup purgatory. Maria Sanchez knew it well.
She was caught in it now and she felt like a bug in a toilet where
the swirling tide was gradually pulling her down. Whatever she’d
said to make Jon unhappy, whatever she’d done to utterly displease
him, why couldn’t he just tell her? Why’d he insist on this
roundabout way of torturing her soul when it could all be finished
in a moment? Why? Knowing the answer, she sadly shook her head.
Because he was a boy, that was why.

Maria knew that boys and
girls handled breakups differently for different reasons. When a
girl grew tired of a relationship, her decision was usually quick
and unexpected.
It’s
over
. Girls didn’t mess around with
who
felt guilty
or
whose
fault it
was that things didn’t work out. They simply ended it and moved on,
often leaving the former boyfriend hurt, dazed and confused. He
never saw it coming.

But a boy who wants to
break up will try other tactics in order to shift the blame away
from himself. He’ll treat his girlfriend as thoughtlessly as
possible, even to the point of dishing out cruelty. He’ll ignore
her, stop calling her altogether, laugh at her, and sometimes even
abuse her, all because he hopes she’ll become fed up enough to
dump
him
first.
That’s the plan, anyway. Maria would have laughed if she hadn’t
been hurting. The silly plan rarely worked, though, because girls
can be very forgiving creatures when it comes to love, and they
rarely take the bait.

But for some reason boys
just didn’t understand that basic concept. In the end after all his
prolonged shenanigans, the boy still had to deliver one of the
cruelest lines in the history of the world:
I just want to be friends
.
Ironically, the boy is next bombarded by the very same anger and
tears he’d hoped to avoid. No, boys just didn’t get it.

Maria thought about all of
this as she stuffed books into her backpack on Monday afternoon.
She hated what was happening to her since Jon had changed, but most
of all she hated what had happened to
them
. Their relationship had been
deeply emotional and heartfelt and she knew the final pain of
departure would be nearly unbearable. Right now there was no
departure, only the deadened pain of pre-breakup purgatory. She was
sick of it.

Why did Jon have to be so silently
heartless? Why didn’t he just tell her, face to face, that it was
over between them? Her emotions were caught in the grip of
numbness, which made everything inside her ache, almost as if she
had the flu. One day she’d been the light of his life, the next
he’d forgotten her name. He’d never called her—not even once—since
he’d been rescued from Pandora’s Cave. Now he didn’t speak to her
in school unless she spoke to him first. He clearly didn’t feel the
same way about her anymore. In fact, he didn’t seem to feel
anything at all.

Angie had phoned her after the cave incident
and told her what the doctor had said about Jon’s possible amnesia.
He had forgotten so much, the names of friends and family, how to
drive his car, his class schedule, his lover. Maria couldn’t take
it. She didn’t know how to deal with memory loss.

Her eyes stung. Tears fell on her backpack.
She looked around, hoping nobody noticed. Luckily, she was alone in
the hallway, so she wiped her eyes and slammed the locker shut. She
slipped the pack over her shoulders and headed for the main
entrance.

Thanksgiving was next week. Would Jon want
to eat with her family again, like last year? If he did, it’d be an
awkward meal. Her parents were angry with Jon for a couple of
reasons.

First of all, he hadn’t been to work for
weeks and he never said anything about quitting. Missing work was
bad enough, but the big reason they were mad was because of the way
he was treating their daughter. Maria was daddy’s little girl and
she knew it was eating away at her father to watch her suffer like
this. Maybe it would be best if Jon skipped Thanksgiving this year.
Especially if all he planned to do was break up with her.

Break up. The thought hit her in the gut
like a sucker punch. She balked and nearly stumbled into the door.
Her emotions rose inside her like too much steam in a pipe,
building pressure that couldn’t be held back. She was going to cry
again and it was going to be a big one. She had to find her car
before anyone noticed. She pushed open the door and went
outside.

That’s when she found Jon,
sitting by himself on one of the benches in front of the school.
Her heart nearly broke at the sight of him. She stiffened
up.
Don’t let him see your pain.
Somehow she recouped enough of her dwindling
self-control to try to ignore him, but it didn’t last long. A girl
who’s in love can’t do that. A girl with her heart and soul hanging
in limbo needs to know the truth.

Maria took a seat on the opposite end of the
same bench. “Hi, Jon,” she said in a small voice.

Jon looked up as if from a trance. “Hello,
Maria,” he said, detached. “I am waiting for Angie to take me home.
I forgot how to drive.”

Trying her best to disguise the fact she was
on the verge of tears, Maria decided to cut to the chase. “Yes, I
heard. Why haven’t you called me, Jon? Are you mad at me?”

“I am not mad,” said Jon without emotion. “I
am becoming the greatest magician in the world, Maria. You will
see. I will be the greatest.”

“I hope you do become the greatest
magician,” she said honestly. “But can’t you still love me? What
happened? Ever since you went into that stupid cave you’ve been
different.”

“I am different. I am the greatest magician
in the world.”

By now several other students had gathered
to watch them. Maria could be hot-tempered at times and she knew
they were hoping she’d make a scene. They wanted to see a good
fight, if it happened. Sorry to disappoint, but she wasn’t in a
fighting mood.

Maria glared at Jon through bleary eyes,
finally shaking her head in defeat. “It’s like you’re mentally ill,
or something. You don’t even seem like yourself. You never do
anything nice anymore, not like you used to.”

“Like what?”

“You gave me roses once, remember? That was
so sweet and random, it wasn’t even my birthday or Valentine’s Day.
Now I can’t even get you to smile.”

Jon smiled, but it didn’t seem genuine. All
at once he waved his hands around like some kind of Ninja wannabe.
Maria didn’t understand what he was doing. Was he trying to hit
her? She leaned away from him, but he stopped flailing and
stretched his arms out perfectly still, palms down. A second later
he held a huge bouquet of red roses in his right hand. He was
wearing a short-sleeved shirt and when the roses actually appeared,
his hands hadn’t moved at all. Maria gawked. So did everyone around
them. Jon handed her the roses.

“These are for you,” he said gallantly.

Maria took the flowers and smelled them.
“Jon! How’d you do that?” Her eyes became bright and hopeful again.
Did she dare believe he could still love her? “They’re beautiful!”
She hugged him and he hugged her back. But when she pressed against
him and tried to get a kiss, he pushed her away.

“What?” she asked. “Why won’t you kiss
me?”

“I have much work to do. I must work hard
and fast.” That had definitely been the wrong thing to say.
Everyone in school was sick of hearing it, especially Maria. She
looked at him, totally confused by his indifference. She was torn
between feelings of hope that came with the flowers and a renewed
fear of rejection.

At that moment Brandon came out the door. He
smiled when he saw them together. “Hey, nice flowers, Maria. Did
our man here give ‘em to you?”

Maria nodded. “He did magic and they just
appeared.”

“Magic?” Brandon looked at Jon. “You’ve been
working on magic for weeks, man, but you never show me any tricks.
What can you do besides flowers? How about bringing back my
camcorder? That cost me two grand.”

Jon looked at him. “Does anybody have a deck
of cards?”

“A card trick?” asked Brandon. “I’d rather
see my camcorder.”

A boy nearby who had seen the flower trick
rummaged through his backpack and pulled out some cards. “Here you
go,” said the kid. “They’re a little used.”

Jon took the cards and began shuffling them
in remarkable ways. No matter how he shuffled, he never set them on
any surface. Everything was done in the air. Maria gaped at his
skill.

While he worked the cards, Jon said, “I’ll
need a pen.”

Brandon supplied the pen when Jon stopped
shuffling. “Pick a card and show it to somebody. But not to me.”
Brandon took a card and discreetly showed it to Maria and the other
boy. It was the ace of hearts. “Now write your name on it.”

“I saw this trick on TV,” said another girl
who was watching. By now over a dozen people were crowded around
them as Brandon wrote his name on the card. Jon told him to put it
back in the deck, and he did. Jon shuffled again.

“What’s going to happen?”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s going to make the card rise from the
pile,” said the girl.

Instead, Jon threw the cards on the ground.
They landed face up, in a nearly perfect straight line. “Find your
card.”

While Brandon and the others searched, Maria
looked on, confused at how Jon’s display of love for her with the
flowers had so easily been set aside by a card trick.

“It’s not here.” Brandon held up the deck.
“So I guess you’ve got it?”

Jon slowly smiled. He pointed his chin at
one of the parents who had just driven up in a minivan. “Check his
shirt pocket.”

Maria got involved in spite of her torn
emotions. “No way.”

Brandon and the others took off running
toward the minivan. The kids surrounded the vehicle and the man
behind the wheel was clearly nervous when he lowered the glass.
“Yes?”

“I know this sounds kind of strange,” said
Brandon, “but can you look in your shirt pocket and see if
something’s there? It’s a magic trick.”

The man smiled uncomfortably. “Oh, of
course. But I can tell you now there’s nothing in my pocket.” When
he unzipped his jacket and reached into his shirt pocket, his
expression changed. “What’s this?” He removed a playing card and
gave it to Brandon. Maria looked over his shoulder and saw the
card. It was the ace of hearts with Brandon’s name written under
the center heart in his own handwriting. Brandon showed it to the
man first, then to the kids.

“Oh my God!”

“That’s incredible!”

“How’d he do that?”

Brandon looked at Jon and grinned big. “Man,
you’re ready for the big time! What else can you do?”

“Give me some room.”

Everyone cleared a big circle around him.
The man in the car got out to watch. Maria had to find a place
where she could see him through the gathering crowd. Several more
cars stopped as dozens of students and adults were there by now.
Jon closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly. He dropped
his hands to his sides and started to wiggle his fingers rapidly,
like he was playing an invisible piano. Then he rose off the
ground. Everyone gasped. Jon rose nearly five feet in the air and
held it there.