Fireworks (3 page)

“You’ll see,” Amy said, her face brightening. “Pack your bags, bro. It’s go time.”

Jonah Wizard had been onstage for what felt like forever. He’d rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed for days. He hadn’t eaten any of the silver-domed, room-service breakfast that his New York hotel had laid out for him — the family meeting had been too upsetting. He was feeling a little dizzy from lack of food and lack of sleep and being attacked by a mob of thirteen-year-old fans the night before. His world tour would begin two days from now, and everyone around him, his dad, his publicist, was all nerves and tension. On top of everything, there were the usual cameras filming for Jonah’s reality show, capturing his every facial movement.

“All right, from the top,” Jonah heard his director say from out in the cushy red seats. “This is our last rehearsal, people, so I want perfection.”

The stage lights on Jonah’s face were too bright — it was causing his pancake-thick makeup to run, and it was bad enough that he had to wear makeup at all in rehearsal. But they wanted to test it against the lighting and camera angles.

Jonah waited for his cue, the drum lead-in, before launching in on his hit track from the killer new album. He was not five words in before —

“CUT. CUT. That was all wrong,” boomed a voice through the megaphone. The director sounded a little off — Jonah hoped he wasn’t getting sick.

“For reals, yo?” Jonah said. He’d nailed the choreography perfectly and the lyrics had never been fresher.

“This time, we’d like you to do something a little different,” said the megaphone voice. The lights were too bright for Jonah to see into his director’s eyes, but Jonah hoped he was glaring into the right spot of the empty concert seats. They’d rehearsed it a dozen times already. Seriously — did fame and fortune not buy anything anymore? Where was the respect?!

“This time,” the voice said, “we’d like you to begin with . . . ”

Jonah waited. This was why you became your own producer. This was why teen stars burned out before their twenty-first birthday bash.

“The chicken dance.”

“Say what, yo?” Jonah must not have heard right. He was multiplatinum. He was a TV star. He had taught Michael Jackson’s son how to moonwalk. Was this some sort of publicity stunt?

“That’s right. You know, the one old people do at weddings, where you flap your arms and waddle around like a chicken. Except we’d also like you to squawk.”

“Bro, get serious.”

“Jonah,” said the megaphone. “Remember, this is filming.”

“Fine. Fine.” Jonah hoped that his director’s remarks would be left out of the reality show.

And so, instead of his sick drum solo lead-in, the cheesy chicken music blared from the gorgeous, refrigerator-sized speakers, and Jonah squawked and flapped and gobbled his way around the stage, doing his best funky-chicken/wedding-chicken dance impression. Or whatever it was. What he didn’t know he made up, but he gave it everything he had, the full enchilada.

Finally, the stage lights dimmed, and Jonah could hear peals of laughter echoing through the theater. It cracked up in a familiar way, the voice breaking and hooting. Jonah made a visor with his hands to get a better look out into the seats. The auditorium lights came up, and there, holding a megaphone and jumping up and down, was his cousin.

“From the top!” Amy cried.

“Amy?!” Jonah said, too stunned to be embarrassed.

“Dude. That was great,” Dan said, holding his stomach. “Ah, the laughing hurts,” he cackled. “But it’s totally worth it!” Tears were streaming down Dan’s cheek.

“Glad I could help,” Jonah deadpanned. That rare sensation, embarrassment, was starting to creep into his voice. The reality TV crew slapped his cousins five.

“Yo, wassup? What are you two doing here?” Jonah sputtered. “Where is my director?”

“He’s on a breakfast break. We told him we’d oversee the rehearsal till he got back. He left us his megaphone.” Amy giggled. “You’ve been punked!”

“Oh,” Dan added, “and we got you the night off. You’re coming with us.”

“But my world tour — we have to rehearse tonight. I have to talk to my dad —”

“We think you’ve had enough rehearsal,” Amy said.

“Oh,” Dan added, “and you have to do what we say, ’cause we got that chicken dance on tape.”

Natalie and Ian Kabra were staring down the mouth of a torture chamber. As anti-festive as it seemed, it was their mother’s tradition to take her children to the Tower of London on holidays. Something about the gloominess of ancient armor and the gleam of creative weaponry put an extra spring in Isabel’s step. And even if their mother had technically disowned them, there was nothing that said Natalie and Ian couldn’t partake in the old Lucian tradition of morbid castle-going by themselves. The Tower of London was a Lucian stronghold, after all.

It was a dreary day on the Thames, but everyone else was out gallivanting, preparing for the evening’s celebrations. Natalie felt that she’d reached the absolute lowest of the low. Unseemly as it was to admit, Natalie had made up the lie about the stupid party, because the truth was that since her mother had disowned them, she and Ian were all alone now.

At that very moment, the lights went out. It was pitch-black.

“Ian?” she said, her voice quavering.

“Guards!” Ian called.

A voice rang out, slow and robotic, like Darth Vader. Ian and Natalie couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from.

“Don’t move,” the voice snarled. “You shall obey exact orders. When the lights come up, you are to remain silent.”

Natalie could feel the world circling in on her. The ceiling felt like it was starting to spin. She was just about to faint when —

“Gotcha!” Amy cried, pulling off a gleaming gold helmet from the gift shop as the lights switched back on.

“What on Earth?” Natalie shrieked.

“How did you get here?” Ian asked, flabbergasted.

“Being part of the world’s most powerful family has its advantages,” Amy said.

“What in the world are you two doing here?” Natalie repeated, out of breath from her near hyperventilation.

“We’ve come to kidnap you,” Dan said merrily.

Hamilton was ready for the summit. They were going to make it up the Matterhorn faster than anyone had ever climbed it before.

“Dad,” Hamilton said, checking his watch and quickening his pace, “we’re going to beat the record!”

The sooner we do
, Hamilton thought,
the sooner he forgets what a giant letdown I am.
This would bring back the Holt family pride.

Only, it looked like someone, or some
ones
, had beaten Ham and Eisenhower to the top. How was that possible? They’d seen nobody on the way up.

“Who in Sam Hill are those folks?” Eisenhower asked.

It was the first words his father had spoken to him all day. Ham knew that his father loved him, but the last few months, it hadn’t always felt like it. Since the Clue hunt, they no longer talked the way they used to, or watched sports together, or understood what the other was thinking during workouts, like most fathers and sons.

“Got me, Dad,” Ham said. The people up ahead didn’t look like ice climbers. They looked like goat herders, carrying walking sticks and not outfitted warmly enough for the winter winds. Where was their Gore-Tex?!

When they reached the top, Ham checked his watch. He was about to announce their time when the tourists turned around —

“Protein shake?” It was Dan.

“Energy bar?” And Amy.

“Electrolyte replenisher?” And Jonah.

Then Hamilton noticed the helicopter behind them. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it. Natalie and Ian waved from the window. “How did — ?”

“No time, we’ve got a ball drop to attend. Eisenhower, we’re taking Hamilton for the night, if that’s all right with you,” Amy said.

To her surprise, Eisenhower nodded, defeated-looking, and said, “Be back for triathlon training.”

“We’ll have him back for you by morning. Official Cahill New Year’s Eve business,” Amy affirmed.

“Dad, I wanted to hang out with you tonight,” Ham insisted.

“Son,” Eisenhower replied, “it’s all right. I’ll see you next year.”

And his father laughed at his own lame joke, for the first time in forever.

From the copter, the Eiffel Tower looked like a rocket ship of light. They circled up to the top to see it from every beautiful angle. Amy thanked the pilot, whom she and Dan had commissioned early that morning back in Attleboro, the first of many calls they’d made on the fly, frantically planning for this moment. She hopped down the step. The entire wraparound balcony was theirs for the night.
Please don’t let this be lame
, she prayed. It was so much easier to plan an agenda than to plan a party.

Amy opened her arms, tilted back her head, and looked at the faces of her cousins, who were staring back at her, dumbfounded.

“Tonight’s agenda is something of the utmost importance,” she began. “More important than anything we’ve talked about before. So important, in fact, that it’s the
only
thing on the agenda. Tonight’s objective: HAVE FUN.” She spun around to take in the 360-degree view. “Let the games begin!”

Heat lamps were perched overhead, so the night felt like April and not the end of December. Waiters emerged, carrying trays of appetizers and sparkling cider.

“Oooh, bacon-wrapped snails, my favorite!” Nellie said, filling up a napkin.