Relieved, Maddy stood up as the crackling Magnavox filled the silence that had overtaken the table.
“Stay tuned as our life and style correspondent Jamie Campbell will be at the Halo Magazine party later tonight for an exclusive interview with the one and only Jackson Godspeed. She’ll continue reporting on his every move as he prepares for his upcoming Commissioning! Plus more on the absence of bad-boy Angel Theodore Godson from a special gala charity event today. Has his latest divorce already caused ripples in the social world of the Angels?”
“OMG!” Gwen squeaked, turning her attention to the TV. “Jackson Godspeed’s Commissioning!”
“His what?” Maddy asked, craning her neck around to see. Was that what the girl on Angel Boulevard had been talking about?
“Commissioning, duh,” Jessica said, shoveling a fist-ful of fries in her mouth. Maddy gave her a blank look.
“Youngest Guardian ever? First Protections? First save?
What city have you been living in?”
“See, everybody but you knows this week is his Commissioning,” Gwen explained, “which means a bunch of parties and events, and then all the Angels dress up and get together and there’s a ceremony where they announce his Protections. And it could be me!”
“If your parents had a crapload of money, which they don’t,” Jessica said snidely through a mouthful of fries.
“They don’t need a bunch of money,” Gwen huffed. “I have the NAS Protection Lottery.” Every month Gwen put most of her allowance into the lottery in the hopes of winning a Guardian for life. On top of their regular protection-for-pay services, it was a big moneymaker for the NAS although five percent of the proceeds went to fund development in Africa and Asia, where only a few disgustingly wealthy political leaders had Guardians.
“You and everybody else!”
“And don’t forget about the NAS charity,” Gwen countered, undeterred. “They raffle off one free Guardian each year.”
“What are odds of winning that?” Samantha asked.
“About one in six billion,” Jessica said.
“Or I could go on. .” Gwen said. As if on cue, from the TV in the corner blared a promo for the season finale of American Protection, a show in which contestants competed against each other in seemingly arbitrary contests, with the viewers voting who stayed and who went. The ultimate prize was winning the services of a Guardian for ten years and a cash prize of a million dollars.
“Last season sixty-two million of you tuned in to see who YOU chose to be America’s next Protection. You made Sarah the world’s new Protection sweetheart! ”
Maddy turned to look. She’d been studying for her AP finals in the spring and had never gone over to Gwen’s to watch with her. On-screen flashed footage of a girl and a boy standing next to each other on a huge stage before an audience. A host opened an envelope and read the name Sarah.
The runner-up grimly hugged Sarah as she jumped up and down in celebration. Seemingly from nowhere, a Guardian Angel, Owen Holymead, descended onto the stage, his wings flapping slowly as he landed. He gallantly stepped forward and took Sarah’s hand. The host handed her an oversized check.
“Who will it be this year?”
“Lindsay!” Sam exclaimed at the Magnavox. Gwen rolled her eyes.
“It’s totally going to be Addison, she had a way better performance last week, Lindsay’s so lame.”
Maddy knew the odds for winning the lottery or American Protection or getting a charity Angel were infinitely small, but Gwen and millions across the world still believed every month, every day, that they would be the new-est Protection, instantly catapulted into the world of Angel glamour and fame, with their own Guardian. To be saved.
Maddy kept her mouth shut.
Gwen took a french fry off Jessica’s plate. “You’ll be sorry when I’m Jackson Godspeed’s Protection and I’m at all the parties with the Angels and everyone wants to be my friend, and you guys are still worrying about second-period algebra.” Gwen turned to Maddy. “You’re coming over and watching Jacks’s Commissioning with us. I even got a little red carpet. We’re totally dressing up. Then after we’ll go to Ethan’s party!”
Ethan’s party. In all the excitement of the bio lab incident Maddy had almost forgotten.
“Gwen, I have three quizzes now on Monday. Two of which, I know for a fact, you do too. Plus my college applications are just sitting there. Look, I know I promised you I would think about it, and I have. The truth is, I really can’t go.” She flipped open her pad and began adding up their bill in her head.
“Come on, Maddy, everyone’s going,” Samantha said, as if that was reason enough.
“Maddy, how long have we been friends?” Gwen asked.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Maddy said, exasperated.
“When else are you going to have fun except this year?
Kyle says Ethan’s house is amazing, and what if he actually has a Guardian, and he makes a special appearance? He says you totally have to come, I bet that means Ethan is really into you. If you never do anything else for me ever again, please do this.” Gwen folded her arms over her chest defiantly. It was one of those moments in life, Maddy thought, one of those moments where you had to choose between what you knew was right and your friend.
“Okay, relax,” Maddy said. She put the check down. “I just have to make sure I can get my shift off and that Kevin doesn’t find out.” Gwen jumped to her feet and gave Maddy a hug over the table.
“This weekend is going to be the best ev-er!” she said, transforming the last word into two distinct syllables.
After the girls paid and left, Kevin came around from behind the fryer, holding a spatula in one hand.
“Did your friends have a good time?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Maddy said, loading Gwen’s dirty dish on her tray.
“What was all that yelling about earlier?”
“Oh, just some Angel Gwen is in love with.”
“No, before that,” Kevin pressed. “You girls were talking about an incident at school or something?”
Maddy paused, hoping her expression hadn’t betrayed her. “Just girl stuff,” she said innocently, not meeting Kevin’s gaze. She piled Jessica’s plate onto Samantha’s and took them both on her arm. After a moment Kevin wiped his hands on his apron.
“Oh. Okay. Well, make sure to tell them to stop by again,” he said, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Maddy didn’t realize until he was gone that she had been holding her breath. Slowly and silently, she let it out.
It was the only secret Maddy had ever kept from him.
Her visions.
Over the past several years, these strange images would come on her out of nowhere. Bad things, like what she had “seen” today. Except the difference was that this time, she actually recognized someone. That had never happened before. Normally the pictures in her head didn’t make any sense.
Growing up, most of the time she had explained the visions away if Kevin happened to be around. The first time it had happened, they’d been at an amusement park for her ninth birthday, and she’d had flashes of horrible things happening on the rides — bloody, disturbing images. She became hysterical and Kevin was so worried he took her to the medical facility at the park. After a while she was able to calm down. And she’d lied, saying the roller coaster had upset her. Even from that very young age, Maddy never wanted him to know about the strange things she saw. And she certainly didn’t want him to know that lately, it had gotten worse. She already felt like enough of a freak with the way she never felt fully simpatico around her peers. She didn’t need her uncle thinking so too. She loved Kevin dearly, but the fact of the matter was, he wasn’t her parent. Some things were just private.