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My mother wanted to knohy I let Jake wrap himself up in bicycle chains and then watched while Peter and Michael pushed him into the deep end of the school pool I said that Jake had a backup plan Tento juet hi when I said that Even before he got in the locker, I kne stupid Jake was being Afterwards, he proain

That hen I told hi How stupid aure out what happened next The proble We spent a lot of ti Scrabble Zofia never let the faery handbag out of her sight She even took it with her when she went to the bathroom I think she even slept with it under her pillow

I didn’t tell her that I’d said anything to Jake I wouldn’t ever have told anybody else about it Not Natasha Not even Natalie, who is the most responsible person in all of the world Now, of course, if the handbag turns up and Jake still hasn’t come back, I’ll have to tell Natalie Soo find Jake

What worries me is that maybe one of the Baldeziwurlekistanians or one of the people under the hill orto run an errand and got worried when Zofia wasn’t there Maybe they’ll co it back Maybe they know I’m supposed to look after it now Or maybe they took it and hid it somewhere Maybe someone turned it in at the lost-and-found at the library and that stupid librarian called the FBI Maybe scientists at the Pentagon are exa it If Jake comes out, they’ll think he’s a spy or a superweapon or an alien or soo

Everyone thinks Jake ran away, except forout another Houdini escape and is probably lying at the bottom of a lake somewhere She hasn’t said that tocookies for me

What happened is that Jake said, "Can I see that for just a second?"

He said it so casually that I think he caught Zofia off guard She was reaching into the purse for her wallet We were standing in the lobby of theJake was behind the snack counter He’d gotten a job there He earing this stupid red paper hat and so He was supposed to ask us if anted to supersize our drinks

He reached over the counter and took Zofia’s handbag right out of her hand He closed it and then he opened it again I think he opened it the right way I don’t think he ended up in the dark place He said to ht back" And then he wasn’t there any there on the counter where he’d dropped it

If I’d been fast enough, I think I could have followed hi for a lot longer She snatched the bag back and glared at me "He’s a very bad boy," she said She was absolutely furious "You’re better off without hi," I said "I have to go get hiame This isn’t Scrabble He comes back when he co," I said "Or I’ll take it froh over her head, so that I couldn’t reach it I hate people who are taller thanto knockto go away and leave one? Are you going to say goodbye to your friends? When you coe They’ll have jobs and babies and houses and they won’t even recognize you Your mother will be an old woman and I will be dead"

"I don’t care," I said I sat down on the sticky red carpet in the lobby and started to cry So came over and asked if ere okay His na

"We’re fine," Zofia said "My granddaughter has the flu"

She took my hand and pulled me up She put her arot to see the stupid ether I don’t ever want to go see another s And I don’t know if I believe in the happy ones

"I have a plan," Zofia said "I will go find Jake You will stay here and look after the handbag"

"You won’t come back either," I said I cried even harder "Or if you do, I’ll be like a hundred years old and Jake will still be sixteen"

"Everything will be okay," Zofia said I wish I could tell you how beautiful she looked right then It didn’tor if she actually knew that everything was going to be okay The i was how she looked when she said it She said, with absolute certainty, or maybe with all the skill of a very skillful liar, "My plan ork First we go to the library, though One of the people under the hill just brought back an Agatha Christieto the library?" I said "Why don’t we just go home and play Scrabble for a while" You probably think I was just being sarcastic here, and I was being sarcastic But Zofia gavesarcastic that ain She knew that I knew she was stalling for ti up with my own plan, which was a lot like Zofia’s plan, except that I was the one ent into the handbag Hoas the part I orking on