Page 59 of Everything She Does Is Magic

His jaw drops when he sees me. I remember that I’m covered in blood, dressed like some kind of low-rent Lizzie Borden. With Mr.Holtzenberg holding me as if I’m dangerous, it seems like I’ve committed a real crime—the kind this guy is probably not at all equipped to handle.

“She was causing ascenein the haunted house,” Mrs.Holtzenberg explains. “Chasing people out. They were screaming in horror.”

The man scrambles to wipe mustard off the corner of his mouth. “Is anyone hurt?” he asks, fumbling with the crumbs that have dropped onto his folding-table desk.

“No,” Mrs.Holtzenberg says. “Just our business.”

If this wasn’t so serious, I could almost laugh. Grace and I were able to go through the haunted house four times in a row without interruption; that’s how slow the business was. By the time we’d finished our last performance, the place was packed.

“Why did you do it?” the security guard asks me.

I’m trying to come up with a reason that’s safe enough to share but also sounds compelling.

I really love Halloween, and I think you guys don’t do it in an interesting way.

Sounds weird.

I’m passionate about haunted houses having genuine scares.

Also weird.

The person I like really wanted this to be a cooler thing than it is, and I took it upon myself to make that happen so that she’s hopefully impressed when she hears about it at some undetermined later date.

I don’t have to answer, because Kyle Holtzenberg himself bursts into the tent. “I put her up to it,” he declares.

The“What?”that flies out of my mouth is involuntary. Unstoppable. In what world is Kyle Holtzenberg trying to take the fall for me?

“This was all my idea,” he tells his parents. “I dared her to dothis.”

“Kyle Kristopher Holtzenberg. Why on earth would you do that?” Mrs.Holtzenberg asks. She’s got that edge to her voice that I recognize from movies—a parent who hashad enough.

“I was trying to win Darcy back,” he says, and now I’m twisted all the way around in my chair, in the front row for this riveting piece of theater. “I know this is usually her parents’ thing, and she was so upset about seeing them lose it. I thought that if I made sure it was a disaster, she’d maybe go to the Fall Ball with me after all.”

The Holtzenbergs have their ghost costumes draped over their arms, and Mrs.Holtzenberg sets hers on the security guard’s desk. “Kyle, sweetie,” she says, putting both hands on either side of his face. “You have got to be serious.”

For a moment, I think she knows he’s lying. Becauseobviouslyhe’s lying. His story is ridiculous, and she wants him to tell the truth. But, no, she’s bought the whole thing so completely that she means Kyle needs to shape up his life. She’s saying he needs to be serious about himself. About his decisions.

It’s Mr.Holtzenberg who still has doubts. He puts a hand on me, pulling the attention back to me after Kyle’s stolen the show. “He really asked you to do this?”

“I did,” Kyle answers before I can. He widens his eyes as much as possible, a face that says,Don’t you dare say it isn’t true.

I do something that might pass for a nod but is really more like a stiffening of my neck, and the security guard says, “Well then, what would you like me to do?”

“Let her go,” Kyle says. “Cuff me instead.”

“No one’s getting handcuffed,” the security guard informs us. He looks to the Holtzenbergs almost like he’s asking their permission for the next part. “But I can keep him supervised in the tent until the end of the night?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs.Holtzenberg tells him, gathering up her ghost costume again.

If both Holtzenberg parents are here, who is supervising the haunted house?I wonder. Not that it matters. But somehow, I know the Kellers would never have let this happen this way. Then again, Kyle’s dramatic and unexpected defense of me wouldn’t have worked on them. There’s no sense in imagining that reality, because the one I’m in is the one where I’m free.

The Holtzenbergs leave first, telling Kyle they’ll discuss this again at the end of the night.

“You’re in big trouble,” Mrs.Holtzenberg says as a final threat, pulling the bedsheet back over her head, leaving me alone with Kyle.

“You owe me five hundred dollars,” Kyle tells me once we’ve exited the tent afterward, back in the land of funnel cakes and Ferris wheels.

“Isthatwhy you did this? Because I’ll go back in there and tell them the truth.” I turn toward the tent.