The First Last Day Read online

  “I guess . . . private art classes with my new teacher. That’ll be fun.”

  “You and Michael would really get along,” Kevin said. “He’s an amazing artist—just like you are. He’s always painting or sketch—” Kevin stopped and got this weird look on his face, like he was confused or maybe mad about something.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What did I do?”

  “It’s not you,” he whispered. “It’s that man behind you. He’s been listening to our conversation. Now he’s bending down toward the floor.”

  “Maybe he’s still trying to figure out what hit him.” I leaned over so I could find the straw paper before the man did, but Kevin shook his head and made a scary face. “Not yet,” he mouthed.

  Soon the scrape of the man’s chair sounded from behind me. He glanced our way before passing us, swinging a large briefcase. “Maybe he’s a writer,” I whispered. “My mom says writers like to eavesdrop on people’s conversations to get material for their novels.”

  Kevin got a familiar gleam in his eyes, the one he’d get when he thought of a joke or a pun. “He probably writes under the name I. M. Nosy.”

  I looked at the man again. “More like I. M. Creepy.”

  CHAPTER 5

  C’mon, let’s explore the hotel,” Kevin said, heading toward a row of stores.

  We looked in each of the shops, which all sold the same things: T-shirts, tiny glasses, mugs, and anything else big enough for the phrase I ATLANTIC CITY. In one store, Kevin picked up a box of saltwater taffy. “My treat,” he offered.

  I bared my braces at him. “Remember these. If I break a bracket, I lose my chance for a prize at the orthodontist.”

  “Right. Sorry. I forgot you have the diet of an eighty-year-old. Maybe we can find you some souvenir soup or applesauce.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I pivoted with pretend anger and left the shop. When I turned back to make sure Kevin was behind me, I spotted a familiar briefcase going around a corner. “Was that the writer again?”

  “Maybe he’s following us,” Kevin said.

  “Then why is he walking away?”

  “Maybe that’s how good spies follow people.” Kevin rubbed his chin with exaggeration. “Very tricky.”

  I forgot about the man when a voice from a nearby shop sang out, “Voilà!” I gestured for Kevin to follow me toward a group gathered in front of Marty’s Magic Shop. We were just in time to watch a guy, with a top hat and a black mustache curled up at the sides, pull a coin from behind an old man’s ear.

  Kevin wrinkled his brow. “You don’t believe in magic, do you?”

  “I know they’re really tricks,” I said. “But I can never figure them out. So, to me, it’s magic.”

  “I guess.”

  A guy I assumed was Marty held up a deck of cards and asked a little girl to pick one. Her tiny fingers loosened a card wedged in the middle of the pack. She yanked it out, flattened it to her chest, and then peeked at it.

  Marty instructed her to put it back into the deck. He shuffled the cards, held the pack in the air, and bellowed, “I will make the card that you picked rise from the pack.” Slowly, the queen of hearts grew from the middle of the deck. “Was that your card?” Marty asked.

  The girl’s eyes widened as she nodded yes. The crowd gasped in amazement.

  “He switched the cards,” Kevin murmured. “I didn’t see it, but I know he did.”

  “Thank you! Thank you!” Marty shouted as he took an exaggerated bow. “And now I have an even more mysterious trick: it’s called the Vanishing Silk.” He displayed his bare arms. “You see I have no sleeves in which to hide anything.” He held up a red scarf with one hand and pointed to Kevin with the other. “You!” he shouted.

  Everyone turned as Kevin put his finger to his chest and mouthed, “Me?”

  “Yes, you seem doubtful,” Marty said. “Do you believe I can make this silk kerchief disappear?”

  Kevin shrugged.

  Marty turned back to the crowd and announced, “To the disbelievers like this young man here, I say . . . Watch. Carefully.”

  Kevin whispered in my ear, “I wish there really was such a thing as magic, so I could make Marty disappear.”

  I bit my upper lip to keep from laughing as Marty made a fist with one hand and stuffed the scarf into it. Waving his free hand over the fist, he yelled, “Voilà!” In an instant, he opened both hands wide. The scarf was gone!

  I elbowed Kevin. “How do you think he did that?”

  Kevin’s eyes became suspicious slits. “I don’t know, but I know it’s not magic.”

  All of a sudden, Marty headed toward me. The crowd parted. I froze.

  He reached behind me, toward my backpack, and shouted, “Aha!” He flourished the scarf in the air and exclaimed, “You stole it!”

  A wave of whispers made its way across the room. A flush crept up my neck. How had he done that?

  Marty looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. He used his free hand to twirl his mustache and then turned away, shouting, “All magic tricks are available for purchase!”

  Kevin shook his head. “I still don’t believe in magic.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Okay,” Kevin said. “We’ve eaten, watched people gamble, seen a magic show, and we still have more than an hour before we have to meet my parents. What should we do?”

  “Hmm. Eating. Shopping. Gambling. That’s about all there is.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kevin said, pointing toward some glass doors. “A windmill! There’s a miniature golf course across the boardwalk. Are you up for a game?”

  “Sure.”

  “Stay here,” he said. “My mom’s not answering her cell. I’ll find her and ask if it’s okay if we go outside.”

  While he was gone, I studied the people walking along the boardwalk. I was deep in thought when I felt my backpack being jostled. Startled, I turned to find Kevin with a big smile on his face. “Did I scare you?”

  “No. What were you doing?”

  “Your backpack was open. I was zipping it up.”

  “How did that happen?”

  Kevin wiggled his fingers and made a spooky noise. “Maybe it was magic.”

  “I know there’s no such thing as magic.”

  “Unless you count my amazing mini-golf skills.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You doubt me? Well, get ready for some major mini-golf butt kicking!”

  At the first hole, the Mad Hatter, the object was to get the ball into a large hat. Kevin got the ball in with one swing. It took me three. At the second hole, Jack and Jill, the ball had to go over a small hill. “Only three tries!” Kevin shouted. It took me six.

  “Why is it so easy for you?”

  Kevin leaned on his golf club and grinned. “Because I’m awesome?” I tried to kick the club out from underneath him, but he jumped away. “You know I’m kidding,” he said. “It’s because I get more practice—with my friends at home.”

  After Kevin took only three shots to get the ball between the windmill’s paddles, I took eight tries. “Can’t I start over?” I asked, ignoring the group of kids behind me yelling for us to hurry up.

  “You mean you want a mulligan?” Kevin asked.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what they call a do-over in golf,” Kevin said. “My dad taught me.”

  “Then, yes, I want a mulligan.” It took six swings that time.

  When we finally reached the eighteenth hole, Kevin popped the ball in with one stroke. “Your turn,” he said, examining the scorecard. “Let’s see, if you get a hole in one, you’ll only lose by thirty points.”

  I laughed and hit the ball. It fell into the hole like an exclamation point. I jumped up and down in victory.

  “Not bad,” Kevin said, smiling. He grabbed my club and headed toward the front counter while I stopped to fix my sandal strap. As I got up, a bicyclist pulling a rickshaw along the boardwalk rammed right into Kevin’s shoulder, hurling him to the ground. The driver k
ept on going.

  I raced toward Kevin, who was sitting up and staring straight ahead. His knee was bleeding, and he was kind of scraped up but looked okay. “Should I get your mom?” I asked between frantic breaths.

  He shook his head, tore off a corner of the scorecard, and stuck it on the cut.

  I helped him up and reached for my backpack. That was when I realized I’d left it by the windmill. After making my way through the crowd of kids who had been playing behind us, I grabbed the bag and sprinted back to Kevin. “Whew, that was close,” I said. “All my stuff is in here.”

  I hugged the backpack to my chest and checked Kevin’s knee one more time before we headed inside the hotel.

  CHAPTER 7

  Klaatu barada nikto,” Kevin said as he stepped into the kitchen.

  G-Mags looked up from the stove. Her forehead wrinkled above her gold-rimmed glasses. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “It’s from the old black-and-white version of The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Kevin said. “We just caught the last half on TV. When the robot hears those words, he brings his friend back to life. It’s the best. Right, Hales?”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t an expert on old sci-fi films like Kevin was.

  G-Mags stirred her pot and put the cover back on. “I remember that movie. I had a little bit of a crush on the actor who starred in it.”

  “That’s gross,” Kevin said.

  “Now, what’s gross about that?” G-Mags asked. “You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t had a crush on your grandfather and married him.” She stopped, bowed her head, and added, “May he rest in peace.”

  Kevin’s grandfather had died a long time ago. Still, G-Mags always got this misty look in her eyes every time she talked about him. When that happened, Kevin would change the subject or make her laugh. This time he removed the cover from the pot and said, “Mmmm, smells good.”

  “I used my secret ingredient,” G-Mags said. She pointed to a large clay pot with several leafy green stalks growing out of it.

  I leaned toward the plant and inhaled. It had a sweet smell with a touch of freshly mown grass thrown in. “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s rosemary. Years ago, I got this ragout recipe from my sister, Eleanor.” G-Mags bowed her head and whispered, “May she rest in peace.”

  G-Mags said this a lot, which led me to believe she knew a lot of dead people. And she must have been worried there was something keeping them from having a peaceful afterlife.

  I caught another whiff of rosemary and held my breath. I wanted to capture the smell—and everything else I loved about that place.

  “Oh dear.” G-Mags put her hand to her forehead and collapsed into a kitchen chair.

  Kevin ran to her.

  She waved him off. “It’s just a little dizzy spell. I should have eaten something earlier.”

  Kevin and I let her rest while we set the table. After a few minutes she felt better and dished out the ragout.

  “Hey,” Kevin said as we brought the dishes to the table, “bet you can’t spell ragout.”

  Kevin was a champion speller and loved that he could always beat me at a challenge. I thought for a minute. “R-a-g-o-o?”

  “Ha! I knew you’d say that. It’s r-a-g-o-u-t.”

  At that moment, Mr. Damico came in from the backyard and chimed in, “It’s from a French word, meaning ‘to revive the taste.’ ”

  Mrs. Damico rolled her eyes. “You know the reason they call it ‘trivia’ is because it’s trivial?” Even though she was smiling, she had the look of someone who had heard the same thing way too many times.

  Kevin put the last of the napkins on the table, and we all began to eat. I savored each mouthful, knowing that I might never taste it again. Mom and Dad had said we probably wouldn’t spend next summer at the shore. And G-Mags was thinking about selling her cottage and moving into an assisted living facility. “I think I can taste the rosemary,” I said.

  G-Mags smiled and put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s a symbol of remembrance.”

  Mr. Damico held his fork in the air. “Did you know early Greek students took the meaning literally and wore wreaths of rosemary on their heads in order to stimulate their memories during exams?”

  Kevin’s eyes brightened. “Did it work?”

  Mr. Damico laughed and said he didn’t think it was as effective as studying.

  I’m sure he was right. But just in case, G-Mags gave Kevin and me a few stalks of rosemary to take home with us.

  Now whenever I smell rosemary, I think of summer.

  CHAPTER 8

  Have you finished packing yet?” Mom called from the living room.

  “Not yet.” I figured I’d organize my backpack first and shook the contents onto the rug. There was the rosemary, a tube of sunscreen, some hand sanitizer from Mom, a Star Wars video I kept forgetting to give back to Kevin, a bunch of sand, my beach towel, wallet, phone, sketchpad, colored pencils, and . . . a flat rectangular box I didn’t recognize.

  I picked it up and examined it. The yellow cardboard was faded and scratched. On one side, printed in black, were the words MAGIC PAINTS.

  The seal on the box had already been broken. I pried open the flap and pulled out a thin canvas about the size of a piece of notebook paper. A tube of black paint fell out. It was dented in the middle and looked as if it had already been used. After running my hand around the inside of the box, I found a palette, brushes, linseed oil, and more paint. I spread it all out on my bed. Bits of silver peeked through lines and cracks where the tubes had been squeezed.

  Some small print on the back of the carton read:

  Contents include: two canvases, nine tubes of paint, two brushes, one palette, and a bottle of linseed oil for thinning paint.

  I suspected the original owner had used the missing canvas. Bringing the box even closer, I read the tiny letters at the bottom: Paint your heart’s desire.

  Someone had to have put the box in my backpack by mistake. I felt bad for the person who lost the paints. But I was leaving the next day—there was no time to find the owner.

  I wondered what he or she had painted on the missing canvas. I held up the remaining one and ran my hand across its rough surface.

  My fingertips tingled. I remembered the beach scene from earlier that day.

  After placing the canvas on my desk, I picked up the palette and squirted a blob of blue paint on it. Then a drop of white. A fire ignited inside me as I inhaled the sharp smell of oil and mixed the colors with a brush to create the perfect tint. I attacked the canvas with thick clumps of paint and then swirled it all around.

  When I finished with the sky, I added some green to the mix. With several quick brushstrokes, the ocean appeared. Next, I mixed yellow, brown, and white for the shoreline and the sand sculptures. Finally, I added several drops of black to the palette for the stick-figure bodies lying in the sun.

  When the painting was finished, I scrawled my name on the lower right side of the canvas and hid it along with the paint box on the floor of my closet.

  Mom’s germ phobia was out of control, and I figured if she saw the old box and paints, she would have made me throw it all in the trash.

  A few minutes later, just for fun, I opened the closet and looked at the painting again, remembering the words on the box.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I took a deep breath and wished for a mulligan of my last day of summer.

  CHAPTER 9

  After realizing I’d packed all my pajamas, I crawled into bed, wearing my shorts and T-shirt. I rolled over to one side and stared at the wall. The light from the streetlamp cast shadows of shimmying leaves. Reaching out to trace them with my finger, I thought about how those leaves would be gone in a few months.

  That was the last thing I remembered before being woken up by the doorbell.

  Ringing and ringing and ringing.

  I jumped out of bed. The sound of my parents scurrying to the front door filled the silences between chimes. By the tim
e I reached the living room, my mother, wearing her blue bathrobe with the belt trailing behind, was deep in conversation with Kevin’s parents on the porch. My father stood behind my mother, listening and nodding, while my heart kicked against my rib cage. Where was Kevin?

  I ran to my mother’s side and yanked the door open wider.

  Relief swept over me as Kevin stepped forward from behind his dad. Beyond the porch, a crescent moon and stars were the only signs of light. Why were the Damicos on our doorstep at this hour? Amid my confusion, the words “mother” and “stroke” penetrated the fuzziness in my brain. And then I understood.

  It was G-Mags.

  Words that sounded like a foreign language spouted from my mother’s mouth. “How bad is it? Do you need us to drive you to the hospital?” And “Of course Kevin can stay here.” Mom moved to the side so Kevin could fit through the doorway with his backpack and pillow. “We’ll take good care of him,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  For the first time all summer, I had no idea what to say to Kevin. He looked so different, standing in the living room in his T-shirt and shorts, hugging his pillow. Even the Tweety Bird Band-Aid G-Mags had put on his scraped knee looked sad.

  Finally, Mom broke the silence and asked me to get sheets and a blanket for the couch.

  I dashed to the closet, nearly knocking over the three packed suitcases in the hall. When I got back to the living room, Kevin was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom handed him a glass of water. I could tell by the slope of her shoulders that even she didn’t know how to make Kevin feel better.

  I took my time spreading the sheets and blanket, smoothing out each wrinkle. Finally, when every crease was pressed and every corner tucked, I joined Kevin and Mom at the table.

  Pink splotches dotted Kevin’s face, matching the color in his cried-out eyes. He grabbed a napkin from the holder and blew his nose. “The paramedics said they couldn’t tell if she’d be okay.”