remember Marcia, don't you?
Marcia, the sane one.
Marcia, the rational one.
Marcia, the observant one with the scientific mind—you know, the one who would never do anything crazy.
ONE
We each thought it would be nice to be a great detective, like Nancy Drew. If we were all like Nancy Drew, every time a mystery arose we could devote all our energies to solving it. Of course, we'd done our research. We'd gone to the library and looked at the Nancy Drew books there.
That's when we discovered that there were fifty-six books in the original series and that Nancy was eighteen years old in book one and still eighteen at the end of book fifty-six. Marcia had pulled out her calculator and done the math: Nancy Drew solved mysteries at the rate of one every 6.5178571 days. We couldn't compete with that!
We'd learned the hard way that there was no hurrying time. Things would happen when they happened, and there was no use in our trying to solve things quicker. We would get our powers and gifts when the time came, and we'd learn answers when the time came. We'd had to learn patience, not an easy thing to learn, particularly for Rebecca. And Georgia. And Zinnia.
Plus, unfortunately for us, we weren't old enough to be great detectives. We were each only seven years old and wouldn't even be eight until August 8, 2008. This meant that, although we would have liked to spend all our time trying to solve the mystery of our parents' disappearance and all the other mysteries that had arisen since then—like, what was Mommy really working on? how was Crazy Serena related to us? what was the Wicket up to now that she was back? and, oh yeah, what other Eights?—we simply couldn't. We had no time to solve the mini mystery of what those two women were doing in that picture with Mommy, and we had no information on other Eights. And no one else lived a life like we did, so who could we ask? It wasn't exactly like we could go to the police...
We were too busy leading the lives of normal kids: doing homework, taking care of the house—cleaning up after that flock of pigeons had been no small feat!—plus preparing all our own food, paying bills, driving cars, and fighting against evil when it reared its ugly head. So we really didn't have endless amounts of time to spend on trying to solve the mysteries of the universe, much as we might have liked to.
Yes, sometimes it was hard being us.
***
"Mayday! Mayday!" Annie cried, emerging from Daddy's study.
"Yes." Georgia yawned. "We all know it's the first of May, also known as May Day."
"Don't you remember?" Rebecca sneered at Annie. "We were all there at school today when the McG, following Mandy Stenko's suggestion, had us all dance around that silly Maypole in honor of the day."
"I thought it was kind of fun," Petal said quietly. "All those pretty colored ribbons wrapping around the pole."
"Ribbons," Zinnia said wistfully. "Ribbons always remind me of presents. It would be nice if it were a real holiday—you know, a present-giving one—so that maybe I could—"
"I didn't say May Day! " Annie was exasperated. "I said may day! "
We all reflected on this, at least the ones of us who were there. No one had seen Marcia since we'd come home from school.
"May Day? Mayday?" Rebecca shrugged. "I fail to see the difference."
Jackie looked at Annie. "Do you mean mayday as in 'an international radiotelephone signal word used as a distress call'?"
Jackie was big on vocabulary. Sometimes it seemed to us that she had swallowed a whole dictionary!
"Is Jackie right?" Durinda asked Annie soothingly. Durinda was big on soothing. "Is that what you mean?"
"Oh no!" Petal said. "Not a distress call! Does this mean we're on the Titanic? Do we need to send out an SOS?"
"No, we're not on the Titanic, " Annie said. "But we may need to send out an SOS if I don't find out what happened to all those bills."
"What do you mean," Rebecca demanded, "'what happened to all those bills'? If you're talking about
Marcia, the sane one.
Marcia, the rational one.
Marcia, the observant one with the scientific mind—you know, the one who would never do anything crazy.
ONE
We each thought it would be nice to be a great detective, like Nancy Drew. If we were all like Nancy Drew, every time a mystery arose we could devote all our energies to solving it. Of course, we'd done our research. We'd gone to the library and looked at the Nancy Drew books there.
That's when we discovered that there were fifty-six books in the original series and that Nancy was eighteen years old in book one and still eighteen at the end of book fifty-six. Marcia had pulled out her calculator and done the math: Nancy Drew solved mysteries at the rate of one every 6.5178571 days. We couldn't compete with that!
We'd learned the hard way that there was no hurrying time. Things would happen when they happened, and there was no use in our trying to solve things quicker. We would get our powers and gifts when the time came, and we'd learn answers when the time came. We'd had to learn patience, not an easy thing to learn, particularly for Rebecca. And Georgia. And Zinnia.
Plus, unfortunately for us, we weren't old enough to be great detectives. We were each only seven years old and wouldn't even be eight until August 8, 2008. This meant that, although we would have liked to spend all our time trying to solve the mystery of our parents' disappearance and all the other mysteries that had arisen since then—like, what was Mommy really working on? how was Crazy Serena related to us? what was the Wicket up to now that she was back? and, oh yeah, what other Eights?—we simply couldn't. We had no time to solve the mini mystery of what those two women were doing in that picture with Mommy, and we had no information on other Eights. And no one else lived a life like we did, so who could we ask? It wasn't exactly like we could go to the police...
We were too busy leading the lives of normal kids: doing homework, taking care of the house—cleaning up after that flock of pigeons had been no small feat!—plus preparing all our own food, paying bills, driving cars, and fighting against evil when it reared its ugly head. So we really didn't have endless amounts of time to spend on trying to solve the mysteries of the universe, much as we might have liked to.
Yes, sometimes it was hard being us.
***
"Mayday! Mayday!" Annie cried, emerging from Daddy's study.
"Yes." Georgia yawned. "We all know it's the first of May, also known as May Day."
"Don't you remember?" Rebecca sneered at Annie. "We were all there at school today when the McG, following Mandy Stenko's suggestion, had us all dance around that silly Maypole in honor of the day."
"I thought it was kind of fun," Petal said quietly. "All those pretty colored ribbons wrapping around the pole."
"Ribbons," Zinnia said wistfully. "Ribbons always remind me of presents. It would be nice if it were a real holiday—you know, a present-giving one—so that maybe I could—"
"I didn't say May Day! " Annie was exasperated. "I said may day! "
We all reflected on this, at least the ones of us who were there. No one had seen Marcia since we'd come home from school.
"May Day? Mayday?" Rebecca shrugged. "I fail to see the difference."
Jackie looked at Annie. "Do you mean mayday as in 'an international radiotelephone signal word used as a distress call'?"
Jackie was big on vocabulary. Sometimes it seemed to us that she had swallowed a whole dictionary!
"Is Jackie right?" Durinda asked Annie soothingly. Durinda was big on soothing. "Is that what you mean?"
"Oh no!" Petal said. "Not a distress call! Does this mean we're on the Titanic? Do we need to send out an SOS?"
"No, we're not on the Titanic, " Annie said. "But we may need to send out an SOS if I don't find out what happened to all those bills."
"What do you mean," Rebecca demanded, "'what happened to all those bills'? If you're talking about
Similar Books
