I wasn’t scared for Leo. But I was sad for him.
And I was sad for me.
“Mr. Alexander called me too, but I haven’t talked to him yet,” Mom said. “What happened?”
“The kids have been giving tours about Lisette Chamberlain,” Leo’s dad said. “Daniel Alexander heard about it and thought he’d better let us know. He was worried because they’re so young.”
“I don’t understand,” my mom said, tipping her head to look at me. “Why are you giving tours about Lisette Chamberlain?”
“It was my idea,” Leo said. “I thought up the tour and put the flyers in the programs at the festival. I thought we could earn extra money that way. Since she had so many fans, and it’s the twentieth anniversary of her death.”
“The twentieth anniversary of her death,” my mother repeated.
“We give the tours in the early morning,” I said as fast as I could. I wanted to get it all out. “When you thought I was running. We tell people about Lisette Chamberlain and take them to the places in Iron Creek that were relevant to her life.”
“So it’s the two of you kids,” Mom said. “And a bunch of strange adults who just show up.”
“They call first,” Leo said. “If they sound weird then I tell them the tour is canceled. And actually I’ve never had to do that. No one has sounded too weird.”
Stop talking, Leo. I thought it and he did, but it was too late.
“I’m very sorry for Leo’s part in this,” Mr. Bishop said. “I thought Leo was out running too. This is the first I’ve heard about the whole tour thing.”
“Because I knew you’d say no if I asked,” Leo said.
“Cedar, you lied to me,” my mom said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No more tours,” Mom said, “ever. And you are grounded. Until we go home for the summer.”
“Mom,” I said, “please. Don’t do this.” We had to try to find a way to get enough money for Leo. Maybe his dad would still let him go to England.
My mom looked annoyed. And mad. “Don’t be so dramatic, Cedar,” she said. “You’ll still see Leo at work at the festival.” She glanced over at Leo’s dad, like she was embarrassed. “I guess someone has seen Romeo and Juliet one too many times this summer.”
My face went Fireball-hot with anger and embarrassment. My mom was the one who was freaking out, not me. And I’d read Romeo and Juliet at school but I hadn’t seen the play even once this whole summer.
“We might not be able to see each other at work,” Leo said. “We’re probably going to get fired. Did Daniel Alexander say he was going to fire us?”
“He said that was up to Gary,” said Mr. Bishop. “Daniel said the kids should go to work like usual today.”
My mom was totally wrong. I didn’t feel at all like Juliet. I was Miranda at the beginning of The Tempest asking her dad not to cause the storm. Please don’t do this, I wanted to tell my mom. Please don’t ruin this. But Miranda didn’t know yet who she might lose if her father destroyed that boat. I did. I knew who I’d already lost and who I was about to lose.
Becoming friends with Leo had helped me feel like my own self again. Not the person I was before the accident, but like someone I recognized.
It was almost time for us to leave Iron Creek. We wouldn’t find out what happened to Harley or to Lisette’s ring and we would never see the tunnels and Leo wouldn’t have enough money to go to England.
The summer would be lost. I could feel it slipping through my fingers.
33.
When we got home my mom told Miles to go up to his room—that no, he wasn’t in trouble—and she made me come out with her to the backyard to talk.
She exhaled, a long deep breath that mirrored the sound of the wind in the trees. Pieces of hair that had come loose from her ponytail blew in front of her eyes and she pushed them away.
“Something bad could have happened to you,” Mom said.
“But nothing did.”
“I cannot have one more bad thing happen to someone in this family,” my mother said. “I cannot.”
I saw that she was right.
She could not.
34.
I wore my sandals to work. No jewelry. No watch. Not a hair out of place because I hadn’t ridden my bike. My mom had dropped me off earlier to volunteer in the costume shop and she was going to pick me up after work. She said it was to keep me safe but I knew it was also to keep me away from Leo as part of my punishment.
I tried to look as perfect as possible. But it didn’t matter. The first thing Gary said when he saw me was, “You’ve desecrated the uniform.”
I looked down at my peasant costume.
“You too,” Gary said to someone behind me, and I turned around to see Leo.
“We weren’t wearing our uniforms when we did the tour,” I said. “It had nothing to do with the festival.”
“It had everything to do with the festival,” Gary said. He shook his head. “You used places on the campus of the festival as some of the tour stops.”