The Mall - Megan McCafferty Page 0,35

bent forward and stroked his beard.

“Go on,” he said.

Then Drea went on to explain how we’d been going from doll to doll to doll, to clue to clue to clue, to store to store to store, until the latest doll and latest clue had led us here, to his store.

“We don’t know what’s at the end of it,” she said. “I think there’s fortune to be found. Cassie here”—she jerked her head in my direction—“doesn’t think we’ll find anything.”

“Well, surely you must think there’s something to be found,” Sylvester said to me. “Otherwise why go on looking?”

“Because she makes me do it,” I answered.

“Well, now,” Sylvester said, setting his hands to rest on the curve of his stomach. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

Drea shot me another look. Told ya. No bullshit.

She spread the birth certificate on the counter, pushing aside a bowl of key rings carved into shapes of assorted beach creatures. A starfish. A dolphin. A seagull.

“Now, according to this map,” she said, “the next clue is located…”

Sylvester went behind the register and stomped the floorboard twice with his boot.

“Right here.”

“Yep,” Drea said.

Sylvester stroked his beard and looked back and forth between us, like he was sizing us up. Then he let loose a laugh that came from way down in the deepest part of his belly.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!”

And, yes, it shook like a bowl full of jelly.

“Let’s find some buried treasure!” he said joyfully.

Sylvester had all the right tools for prying up the floorboards with minimal damage. When a big enough gap was made in the planks, he shined a flashlight into the crawl space.

“Whoo-wee!” he whooped. “I’m rich!”

“I knew it!” Drea jumped up and down. “We’re rich!”

“Oh, really?” Sylvester said. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law…”

Just when I thought we were about to get into a battle with Santa Claus over buried treasure, Sylvester hauled his discovery from the crawl space. And I swear, Sylvester was so pleased to bring this black-haired, brown-eyed boy into the world, you would’ve thought he was Xavier Roberts himself.

“Another clue!”

Okay. So I was little excited too. And that excitement quickly turned to annoyance when I attempted to read the birth certificate out loud.

“En Tat-wuss Yoo-gain?”

En Tatws Ugain was the funkiest name we’d come across so far.

“That’s Welsh,” Sylvester said, tapping on the box with a chisel.

“You speak Welsh?” Drea and I asked simultaneously.

“No.”

Drea and I sagged together, both of us unreasonably let down by what would’ve been an unreasonable coincidence. Sylvester let our disappointment sink in for just a second or two more before giving us a mischievous grin.

“I don’t speak Welsh,” he said. “But my wife, Evelyn, does.”

I swear to God, it couldn’t have felt more magical, not even if he had put a finger to his nose and swooped up the nearest chimney.

19

SEALING THE DEAL

Sylvester couldn’t reach Evelyn on the phone, so we’d have to wait at least another day for the next clue. This was fine by me because I’d had more than enough adventure for one Friday.

“How did you know that honesty was the best way to approach Sylvester?” I asked Drea as we stepped onto the escalator.

“If you sell to people long enough,” she said, resting her chin atop the Cabbage Patch Kid box in her arms, “you figure out how to read them.”

“Is that how you knew what dress to pick out for my mom?” I asked.

“Yep.”

When she didn’t elaborate, I decided I didn’t want to hear any more about what Drea has seen in Kathy that translated to bedazzled bimbo dress.

“Isn’t it weird that no one found these dolls before we did?” I asked. “I mean, you can’t blame Sylvester for not looking under the floorboards, obviously. But, like, the ones that were barely hidden, or not hidden at all?”

“Nah, not really,” Drea said. “People get into their routines. You go into work, do your thing, go home. Get up the next day and do it again.”

We stepped around a janitor chiseling gum off the metal platform at the escalator’s base. A sad, sad Scott Scanlon. The lowest of the low.

“Work is so depressing,” I said. “I’m so glad I’m getting the hell out of here next month—”

And as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to suck them back in.

Drea slowly shook her head.

“Work is depressing,” she said, “if you don’t love what you do.”

That was the first moment I truly envied Drea Bellarosa. She obviously loved what she did and was damn good at it too.