Marilyn Kaye - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

"No."

"Do you have a debit card and a PIN?" "No."

"Do you have a checking account or savings account at this bank?" "No."

Clare shook her head. "I'm sorry, young man. You're not eligible to withdraw money here."

"But I want some," George said. "I want a million dollars. Right now."

Now Clare produced an artificial and condescending smile. "Don't we all. But that's not how the banking system operates."

"Please can I have some money? Pretty please?"

"I'm sorry, no. Now please step aside and let me help the next customer." Looking toward Martin, she said, "This is when you start crying."

George wasn't much of an actor. "Boo hoo," he said flatly. "Boo hoo. Give me some money."

"Now, Sarah, you start teasing him."

"Get out of the way! You're holding everyone up. What kind of idiot doesn't understand how a bank works?" Amanda-Sarah scoffed.

"Will that be enough to make you get strong, Martin?" Clare asked.

Martin actually looked offended. "I can call on my superpowers whenever I want!"

Amanda-Sarah piped up. "If it's not enough, I can do more. I'm good at annoying him-I can get him to explode."

Does she have to he so cooperative? Emily thought. Knowing Amanda, she was probably just relieved Emily was going to be the hostage instead of her. Amanda didn't care about anyone but herself, but Emily never would have thought she could sink so low … Could Amanda be the traitor among them? There were so many possible spies. Emily hadn't thought her spirits could go any lower, but now they were plummeting to depths she'd never before experienced, and that dark cloud enveloped her completely. She didn't even need to drum up a vision to know that they were all doomed.

The rehearsal continued. George went back to playing the guard, and Martin took over his own role. He made a big production out of breaking down an imaginary door, even adding sound effects.

"Emily, you stand in for the guard," Clare ordered. "Sarah, make her unable to move."

"Sure thing," Amanda-Sarah said. She fixed a wide-eyed stare in Emily's direction.

Emily tensed up, expecting some sort of cold tingle to creep over her as her body froze up. But nothing happened. She knew she could have moved if she'd wanted to.

So Amanda hadn't absorbed any more of Sarah's powers-not yet, at least. But Emily wasn't going to point that out. She stood very still and held her breath.

Clare gave a short nod. "That will be all. We'll leave for the bank at six o'clock."

"Banks aren't open at six o'clock," Tracey said.

"Northwest National is open till seven one night a week," Clare informed her. "Which happens to be tonight. Tracey, come with me. I want to teach you some tips on memorizing numbers. If any of you are hungry, there are cookies on the dining room table."

Emily watched as the adults and her classmates went into the dining room. She wasn't hungry, and there was another reason she wanted to be alone. She could feel the tears burning behind her eyes, and she didn't want them to see her cry.

It was going to happen just as she envisioned it. Well, at least now she knew she was really capable of seeing the future. But it wasn't much comfort. In one and a half hours, she'd be forced to rob a bank, and there wasn't anything she could do about it.They wouldn't be hurt-they were much too valuable to Clare. They'd just become lifetime criminals.

Amanda-Sarah came back into the room. Hastily Emily wiped her eyes, but it wasn't necessary--the body snatcher barely glanced at her.

"Have you seen my watch? I mean, Sarah's watch. I took it off around here somewhere."

"What does it look like?"

"Old-fashioned--there are these tacky little pearls all around the face. It's bad enough having Sarah's bitten fingernails-I don't have to wear her icky jewelry. . Oh, here it is."

Emily watched her in amazement. "How can you act so-so casual? Aren't you upset about all this?"

Amanda-Sarah shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure I'll get back into my own body pretty soon. I won't be stuck with these people forever."

"But what about the rest of us?" Emily asked.

"Don't worry," Amanda-Sarah said. "When we're all together at the bank, I'll stop them. I didn't want to do it while we were practicing because I wasn't sure I could freeze all three of them at the same time. But once we're at the bank, I'll freeze Clare while she's in the car with you. She'll let me get close enough because she likes me. Then, once we're in the bank, I'll freeze George and Howard. See? It'll be easy."

Emily sighed. "You think you can stop Clare and George and Howard from moving?"

"I stopped you, didn't I?"

"I was faking it."

The other girl's face fell. "Oh. Well, there's a chance I'll have more of Sarah's gift by the time we get to the bank. I wouldn't count on it though. When I was Tracey, I never could stay invisible very long."

Emily dropped into a chair. In the back of her mind, she must have been clinging to the tiny hope that there was still a chance to get out of this. But it wasn't to be.

"Cheer up," Amanda-Sarah said. "Maybe we can get away at the bank. You never know what will happen."

"But I do know what's going to happen," Emily reminded her. "That's why I'm so depressed."

Amanda-Sarah looked thoughtful. "I don't get it. I mean, how can you ever really know exactly what's going to happen in the future? You can see what might happen, but you can't know for sure, can you? There's always that butterfly thing."

"What are you talking about?"

"Haven't you ever heard about the butterfly effect? I saw a movie about it. A butterfly can flap its wings in Brazil and cause an earthquake in Japan. Or something else. A typhoon, maybe."

Emily was in no mood for nonsense. "Don't be stupid."

"No, really. It's like, something really small can happen, and it has an effect that builds and builds. Like the way my parents met."

Emily sank deeper into the chair. "I really don't want to hear how your parents met, Amanda."

"No, listen, it's cool. My father was on his way to a job interview. He was early, so he took a walk through a park, and when he passed too closely by some bushes, a button on his jacket was pulled off. He didn't want to look like a slob, so he ran into the first dry cleaners he saw to see if someone could sew it back on right away, before his interview. And my mother was in there picking up some clothes. That's how they met!"

Emily wasn't impressed. "So? It's what's called a coincidence."

"But, wait, think about it. If that button hadn't fallen off, they might never have met. I wouldn't have been born. So I wouldn't have taken over Tracey's body, and she'd still be that nerdy girl she used to be. You see? Tracey's okay today because my father walked through a park. Get it?"

"Not really," Emily said. Amanda-Sarah gave up and went back into the dining room.

But even as Emily returned to her private sadness, she had to admit there might be something to what she'd just heard. Like, why hadn't her vision of Martin breaking the door down happened? Because a stupid mouse ran across the floor, and Martin turned out to be afraid of mice. If it wasn't for that mouse, the police might be here right now, freeing the kids and arresting Clare and her gang.

Then she sat up straight. That wasn't exactly right. Now that she thought about it, she remembered that her vision only included Martin throwing the sofa. She'd hoped it would break down the door, but that wasn't part of the vision.

Okay, maybe Amanda's story was kind of interesting. Still, it didn't make her feel any better about what they were about to do. In just over an hour, they'd be robbing a bank. And she didn't see how any butterfly was going to be able to stop it from happening.