The Mall - Megan McCafferty Page 0,16

cousin how Coleco was going all in on these butt-ugly dolls; the market research predicted they would be the craze of the Christmas season. Tommy was a veteran of the toy biz. He survived the infamous Star Wars action figure shortage of 1978, and so he persuaded Vince to smuggle the dolls across state lines. They stockpiled hundreds of them in a secret storage room in the second basement level of the mall, biding their time until the demand far exceeded supply.

“So that’s how the Cabbage Patch came to be,” I said.

“Right,” Drea replied. “But that’s not the good part.”

As legend had it, in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas, when the dolls were impossible to find at Kay-Bee or anywhere else, Tommy sold them for two, five, ten times the retail price. Together, Tommy and Vince made tens of thousands of dollars. Vince used his share to buy a Camaro. Tommy invested his in a cocaine habit. The coke made Tommy paranoid of “the Feds,” so he stashed his illegal earnings all around the mall until he figured out how to safely launder the cash later on.

At this point in the story, Drea got as deadly serious as anyone could possibly be in an outfit that was 50 percent leather, 50 percent lace, and 100 percent bimbette.

“Tommy died of a massive heart attack before he got the money out,” she said. “The treasure is still somewhere in the mall. And you’re going to help me find it.”

I wanted to laugh right in her heavily made-up face. Hidden treasure? A black market for Cabbage Patch Kids? I mean, come on.

However.

Here were hundreds of Cabbage Patch Kids on shelves, the unlucky ones that had gotten left behind. And in between sobs, I had noticed something interesting. And once I noticed it, I couldn’t un-notice it. But this detail only gained significance after I heard Drea’s story. What harm would it do to share this information with her?

“About the treasure.” I hesitated. “It’s probably nothing.”

“What’s ‘probably nothing’?”

From the bottom shelf, I pulled out the Cabbage Patch Kid that had caught my attention. A boy with brown hair, brown eyes, and a single dimple in his left cheek smiled at us from behind the plastic.

“His birth certificate isn’t authentic.”

Drea eyed me skeptically. “What do you mean?”

“I adopted three Cabbage Patch Kids…”

Drea snorted at the word “adopted.” Genius toy company marketing ploys die hard.

“I never played with those things,” Drea said. “I was way more into designing outfits for my Barbies.”

“I remember.”

Even at ten years old, Drea was far too fabulous for changing pretend diapers.

“When you compare this one’s documentation to all the others on the shelves, you can see the ink isn’t the same shade of green…”

Drea took a closer look at this boy’s certificate.

“And the decorative border is only one line, not two…”

Drea chomped harder on her gum.

“But it’s his name that really makes him interesting,” I said. “Rey Ajedrez.”

Between junior high and high school, I’d taken six years of foreign language classes. I was confident in my pronunciation.

And translation.

“In Spanish, Rey Ajedrez means…”

I paused to enjoy this moment. I had Drea’s undivided attention for the first time since fifth grade.

“Chess King.”

Drea stopped chewing.

“That’s either one hell of a coincidence,” I said. “Or a clue.”

Drea’s face shined brighter than all the sequins in Bellarosa Boutique.

“The treasure is ours!” She pumped her fists triumphantly.

I still doubted hidden riches were ours for the finding at the mall. But I knew I’d be unable to resist Drea’s scheme the moment she threw back her head and laughed in the full-throated way that only she could.

“HAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWNNNK!”

This time she was laughing with me. And the magnificent sound of Drea’s effusive approval helped me forget—albeit temporarily—why I sought refuge in the storage room to begin with.

“Cassie Worthy,” Drea said to me with a smile. “I always liked you.”

“I always liked you too.”

It was a weird thing to say to my old best friend, but given how different we’d ended up, somehow it made sense to say it out loud.

Drea bumped her jewel-encrusted shoulder pad against my ratty gray T-shirt.

“Let’s have a killer summer.” She snapped her gum and grinned at me.

I snapped my gum and grinned right back.

9

LUSTIG ZEIT

The next morning, Drea was poised on the edge of my desk in the back office, legs crossed in a way that was intrinsically provocative in fishnet stockings. More notably, she bounced not one, but two Cabbage Patch Kids on her lap. Sometime in the last twelve hours,