Read Online A Little Bit of Spectacular by Gin Phillips - Free Book Online Page A

that Amelia’s mother was used to her daughter requesting rides to strange nooks of the city to look for new frogs. (“Once she took me to the Cahaba River three times in one week,” Amelia told me over the phone. “She’ll just be happy I want to go someplace where the car won’t get stuck in the mud and have to be towed.”)
    When we pulled up in front of what used to be the high school, I thought we might have a problem. My mom had been right when she said there was almost nothing left of the school. Plantagenet High was on an abandoned lot, with a concrete path leading from the sidewalk to what probably used to be the front entrance. Now it was a path to a big blank space. I could barely make out the edges of the concrete foundation because of the tall weeds.
    A little ways away from the foundation, there was a broken sign with the name of the school, but some of the letters had fallen off. The unmowed weeds and grass covered everything. And buried in the grass, like really disappointing Easter eggs, were years’ worth of aluminum cans and paper cups, bits of cardboard and decomposing paper. The whole scene was dirty and ugly and more than a little depressing.
    â€œAre you girls sure you want to poke around here?” asked Amelia’s mom, slowing to a stop.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I said.
    â€œIt seems a little iffy,” she said, frowning. “But I’ll park here and keep an eye on you. Try not to stay too long. Don’t get out of view of the car.”
    â€œIt’s just a scouting mission,” said Amelia. “I’d love to find an Eastern spadefoot.”
    â€œI hope when you win the Nobel Prize in frogs, you’ll remember to thank me in your acceptance speech,” said her mom, shooing us out of the car.
    â€œThe spadefoot is a toad, not a frog,” said Amelia as she slid across the seat.
    I shut the door behind me.
    â€œNice thinking with that whole spadefoot thing,” I said to Amelia.
    â€œWhat?” she said, scanning the grass at her feet. “I would love an Eastern spadefoot. But I don’t think this ground is swampy enough.”
    As we stood there, just a few inches off the sidewalk, all the confidence and excitement I’d felt in the car seemed to evaporate, drifting away on the wind like dandelion seeds. All I’d thought about for the last twenty-four hours was getting here. It had felt comforting to focus on the high school. Simple. A high school is a nice solid thing. You can touch it. It’s not like dreams or plans or mysteries or hopes or secret messages—those are all things that pop like bubbles. Flimsy and full of air.
    I’d been clinging to the idea of a good solid clue. I’d hoped—pretended?—that once we got here, my next step would be clear. I guessed I’d hoped that there’d be some giant
X
on the ground or some flashing neon arrow to my next piece of the puzzle. But all I saw was litter and weeds and concrete.
    â€œSo we’re thinking what?” asked Amelia, kicking an empty Sprite can. “Maybe somebody’s spelled out
Plantagenet
with aluminum cans? Maybe there’s a secret group of magicians living underground? Litterbug magicians? Because I don’t see anything.”
    I agreed with her, but I didn’t want to give up and go home without taking a single step. Surely we should at least take a quick look around. I considered the view once more. The cement walkway winding its way to nothing. The sad blank space where the school used to be. The only pretty thing left was the trees. I think they were oaks. The trunks were wide and rough, and the branches spread out across the lot, reaching toward each other. The leaves of each tree brushed against leaves from the trees around it, and it made me think of holding hands. Like the trees were still sad about what happened to the school, and they were reaching out to comfort one