The Amanda Project: Book One

The Amanda Project: Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

This wasn't possible. I looked around me. There was the swing I'd seen that day on our bikes. The wide porch. Even if the door was a different color, everything about the place was exactly the same.

It had definitely been this house that Amanda said she lived in.

"Um, is it possible she used to live here?" We'd biked past in late November and now it was the middle of March. True, Amanda had never mentioned moving, but clearly there were a lot of things Amanda had never mentioned.

"Oh, I suppose it's possible," the man chuckled. "But that would have been a long time ago. My wife and I have lived here over fifty years."

This wasn't possible. "Amanda Valentino," I said, and after all my fears about my dad behaving badly, now it was my voice that sounded harsh and irritated. "She's a teenager, about my height. Beautiful. Changes her appearance a lot. She told me she lives here."

The man didn't seem to have heard the last sentence because he was distracted by an idea. "Are you by any chance looking for Callista? Callie?"

"What?" my dad's voice was a near shriek.

Again, the man didn't seem to notice. "Oh, that must be who you're talking about. A lovely girl. She helped my wife and me with some errands this winter, back when it was so icy in January. Honey!" he called over his shoulder to someone inside the house. "There are some nice people here, say they're looking for Callie."

I felt a wave of dizziness and I wondered if it were possible that I was actually going to faint. As I grabbed onto my dad for support, an elderly woman appeared by the man's side. She was as hunched over as he was and wearing a dress almost the same color as his sweater. I once read somewhere that married people come to look alike, and I wondered if that was what had happened with the two of them.

"Yes?" she said.

"Sweetheart, these people are friends of Callie's. They're looking for her."

The woman's face lit up, and she gave us an enormous smile. "Oh, she's a lovely girl. Did Harold tell you how she helped us this winter? I don't know what we would have done without her."

"Smart as a whip, too," continued the man. "Going to be an astrologer."

"Now, Harold." The woman gave him an affectionate look. "An astronomer." She turned back to us. "Her mother was an astronomer, you see. So that's why she was interested."

Now I felt my dad's arm starting to shake. When neither of us spoke, the woman's expression suddenly changed.

"Nothing's wrong is it? She's not in any kind of trouble?"

Miraculously, I found my voice, though it was shakier than I would have liked. "No," I managed. "No, nothing like that. I just thought she might be here. She's fine, though. Absolutely fine."

"Oh, that is such a relief," said the woman. "We haven't seen her in a while, but she said she'd come again."