Vanishing Acts by Leslie Margolis Page A

he grabbed me and literally carried me off the set. I tried explaining to him that
Seth
had been trying to talk to
me
, but even I knew how crazy that sounded. I’m just a regular kid. Seth Ryan is a megastar.
    There’s no way Seth would want to talk to me. Except he had. But why? Now I’d probably never know.
    At least my walk with Preston was uneventful. After I brought him back to Isabel’s, I helped her find her oven mitts, her corkscrew, one striped sock puppet, and the red bandanna she wore to her last Springsteen concert. Then I walked the rest of my dogs.
    I got home twenty minutes past curfew, but no one seemed to mind. Finn had called to say filming was running late, so he wouldn’t make it for dinner. He was going to eat at Lucy’s. I guess she was having everyone over after the shoot. I thought about heading there, too, except I hadn’t exactly been invited. I stared at the phone and thought about calling Milo again. But what would I say? How was your chess tournament? Guess what—I got accused of being a stalker this afternoon?
    I don’t think so.

Chapter 8

    I kept forgetting to move the alarm clock to my side of our room, so Finn and I had to run to school again on Thursday. But luckily Ms. Murphy was too distracted to notice us sneak into homeroom late. It’s because she was getting everyone ready to embark on our first field trip of the school year.
    â€œNow, if everyone will just get into a single-file line at the door, I’ll do attendance in the hallway,” she said. We hadn’t even left the room and she already seemed stressed out.
    â€œLucky break,” said Finn, joining the line. “Where are we going?”
    â€œProspect Park, remember?” I asked. “We’re meeting up with Cindy Singer, the artist who did the treehouse sculptures. She’s giving the entire seventh grade a tour of her work.”
    â€œHow do you know this?” asked Finn.
    â€œI pay attention,” I said. “Plus, Mom got all excited when I asked her to sign the permission slip last week. She’s a big Cindy Singer fan. She even tried to get me to read her biography.”
    â€œListen up, everyone,” said Ms. Murphy. “I expect you all to be on your best behavior for Ms. Singer. No talking when she’s talking. No wandering off. No chewing gum. No texting, no e-mailing, no tweeting, no IM’ing, no 3G-ing. Everyone pays attention. Got it?”
    Half the kids looked up from their cell phones to agree.
    I thought about raising my hand and asking what 3G-ing even meant, but decided against it.
    We joined a few other classes in front of the building, but apparently we were getting tours in shifts and none of my friends were in my group, so I stuck by Finn. Ms. Murphy led us into the park via the Grand Army Plaza entrance, where the artist Cindy Singer waited.
    Cindy was tall and skinny with lots of freckles, big black-framed glasses with thick lenses, and a British accent. She was way older than us (obviously), but seemed younger than our parents. “Hello, Fiske Street School students,” she bellowed, extending her arms like she wanted to embrace us in a gigantic group hug. “Thank you for coming to see me.”
    â€œLike we had a choice!” Finn whispered.
    â€œShh!” I said.
    She pointed to the structure above her—a tree house made out of sticks and suspended about twenty feet in the air. “This is my first installation on this side of the pond,” she said, as everyone looked around, confused, since we were nowhere near the pond.
    â€œAnd by ‘pond’ I mean, of course, the Atlantic Ocean,” Cindy continued, laughing at what I guess was supposed to be a joke. “I live in London, and I’ve only ever shown my work in Europe until now. And I know what you’re all asking yourselves: why would an extremely successful artist bother coming to Brooklyn to show her work? Why not