Thirteen

“It still doesn’t make any sense,” I finally say, after staring at the list for the hundredth time. “Nothing is going to change that.”

“Well, it has to mean something,” Lindsay answers. She and Samantha are sharing my desk chair, doing a Google search for “Pink Crystal Ball.”

“There must be a reason why your aunt gave it to you,” Samantha adds.

“You know,” Lindsay interjects, “this ball is a perfect example of ‘low’ magic because you use it to bring about changes to the self instead of the world in general. It’s also called practical magic. It’s so funny, I was just reading about this the other day.”

Samantha snorts. “I’d say it’s more like plastic magic in this case.”

The two of them laugh at Samantha’s little pun, but I am not amused.

“Listen, I know you guys want to believe that this thing is magic, but it’s not. It’s just a gimmicky toy.”

“Oh really,” Lindsay says. “Then how do you explain what happened with Spencer Ridgely today?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, beginning to feel insulted, “but is it really so hard to believe that Spencer Ridgely would notice me without some sort of magical intervention?”

Samantha and Lindsay both turn around and give me identical, who-are-you-kidding looks. “Uh, yeah,” they both say at exactly the same time. Then they laugh.

I have to laugh myself.

“Come on, Erin,” Lindsay adds, “It’s also what he said. It can’t be a coincidence that he called you ‘smexy.’”

“Yes it can,” I argue. “‘Smexy’ is a popular word. Lots of people are using it. He just as easily could have said that I was hot or smokin’ and you wouldn’t have thought anything of it.” But I’m grinning as I say it, and laugh again in spite of myself.

“He didn’t, though,” Samantha reminds me, serious again. “He said you were smexy. And by the way, the word is not all that popular yet. I just happen to be on the cutting edge of the lexicon. You didn’t know what it was, remember?”

“Okay, okay,” I grumble. “Fine. It was magic. You win.” Samantha flashes me a victory smile and turns back to the computer. “Even though it wasn’t,” I add, under my breath.

“I heard that,” they both say—again at the same exact time.

A second later, Lindsay sits straight up in my desk chair. “Oh my God,” she whispers. “Did you read that?”

Samantha nods excitedly. “Erin, come here. You have to see this.”

I roll my eyes at them. “What? Let me guess, a magic Ouija board?”

“No, seriously, come here. Look what Lindsay found.” I get up and go to the desk, then lean over Lindsay’s shoulder to read what’s on the screen.

The origins of the Pink Crystal Ball toy are based in the Spiritualist community of the 1940s, which popularized the use of séances to communicate with the dead. Robert Clayton was the son of a renowned clairvoyant in Baltimore, whose weekly séances drew crowds from all over the eastern seaboard. Observing the popularity of his mother’s services and how the children in the audience would often imitate his mother afterward, Robert came up with the idea to create a toy that could predict the future. After a few unsuccessful attempts (including a Magic Bowling Ball, a Magic Fortune Cookie, and the unfortunately named Magic Pig Ball), Clayton hit on the idea of creating a plastic version of a crystal ball, which he aptly named the Plastic Crystal Ball. His toy manufacturer, however, suggested that Clayton fill the ball with a pink liquid to better appeal to a female demographic, and the name of the toy was changed to the Pink Crystal Ball. The design turned out to be a monstrous hit, inspiring legions of would-be psychics for generations to come.

In 1952, the year the Pink Crystal Ball was first sold to the public, Clayton brought one home to show his clairvoyant mother, who by this time was on her death bed. Legend has it that his mother took the toy into her hands and immediately fell into a psychic trance from which she never awoke. Moments after Clayton removed the ball from her hands, his mother died. It is believed that while holding the toy in her last moments, Clayton’s mother endowed it with truly mystical, fortune-telling properties.

The toy was thought to have been destroyed in a fire at Clayton’s home in the late 1960s, but some claim that Clayton never had possession of it for more than a few months. Instead, many believe that the toy has been passed around the world, working its magic only for those who have been chosen to receive it.

Lindsay and Samantha both turn around to watch me as I finish reading. Their eyes are wide, and I can tell that they believe every word of it.

“It’s an urban legend,” I say with a shrug. “Like the one about those guys in Mexico who steal people’s kidneys and then leave them sitting in a bathtub filled with ice. Look it up on Snopes,” I suggest. “I’m sure it’s there.”

Samantha shakes her head. “It’s not. I already checked.”

“Well, whatever. It’s not real. First of all, there is no such thing as a clairvoyant. Those people in the ’40s who held séances were all scam artists. It’s a known fact.”

Lindsay gets up out of the desk chair. “Let me see the ball.”

“What? Why?”

“Just let me see it,” she insists.

“Okay.” I retrieve the cardboard box from the top shelf of my closet, then take the ball out and hand it to her. She turns it over, examining the inscription scratched into the base.

“RC 52,” she says, tapping her chin. “RC 52,” she repeats. She looks back at the screen to reread the paragraph.

“Oh my God,” she says suddenly. “RC 52! Of course! Robert Clayton, 1952! This is the one, you guys. This is the mystical Pink Crystal Ball!” She picks it up again and gently shakes it. “Are you Robert Clayton’s ball?” she asks. She looks down at the window, then looks up at me, triumphantly. “‘Your future is obscured. You must ask again.’” She smiles like someone who just solved a Rubik’s Cube for the first time.

“Why are you smiling?” I ask. “If it was really mystical, it should have said yes.”

Lindsay shakes her head, still smiling. “No. It doesn’t work for me. And it didn’t work for Samantha either. It’s like the website said: it only works its magic for those who have been chosen to receive it. Don’t you see? Your aunt chose you to receive it, so it only works for you. That’s why she left you the ball. That’s why it was so important to her!”

I think about this for a minute. I think about the scroll with all of those names, and my aunt’s signature right there at the end. I think about that bizarre memorial service, and about Roni handing me the box, and instructing me not to open it until I was alone. I think about the ball, and the legend, and the “RC 52” inscribed into the paint.

“You’re right,” I hear myself say to Lindsay.

“I am?” she says.

“She is?” Samantha asks, sounding even more shocked.

I nod. “Yes. You’re right that my aunt must have believed that this ball was magical, and that’s why she made such a big deal of leaving it to me. It makes total sense. I mean, she ate this kind of stuff up, you know? Of course she believed it.”

“But what about you? Do you believe it?” Samantha fixes me with a meaningful stare. I stare back at her as if she’s lost her mind.

“Sam, it’s a plastic toy. Somebody probably bought this at Toys‘R’Us and made up the legend as a joke. It’s like a chain letter, only worse.” I pick the ball up and snort at it. “Come on. It’s totally ridiculous.”

Lindsay is giving me a horrified look that I instantly recognize. Long-forgotten memories from grade school come flooding back to me.

March 2000. Lindsay and I are six years old.

Me: “The tooth fairy isn’t real, Lindsay. It’s just your mom coming into your room at night and leaving you a dollar while you sleep.”

Lindsay: Silence. Horrified look.

September 2004. Lindsay and I are ten.

Me: “Mermaids aren’t real, Lindsay. They’re just something that bored sailors made up in order to pass the time when they were…you know, desperate.”

Lindsay: Silence. Horrified look.

Thank God I wasn’t the one who told her that Santa Claus wasn’t real. Although, I’m sure whoever it was got the same exact look.

Lindsay crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Remember how you told me that Jesse Cooper said that you never were an out-of-the-box kind of thinker?”

“Yeah,” I say, my heart sinking at the very thought of it.

“What?” Samantha exclaims. “He did? How come I didn’t hear about this?”

I scowl at Lindsay. “Because I told Lindsay not to mention it to you, because I knew you would use it against me for the rest of my life.”

Samantha laughs. “You’re so right. I totally will.”

“Hello?” Lindsay says, interrupting us. “Remember me? The girl trying to make a point?”

“Yes, sorry,” Samantha says, still laughing to herself. “Please, continue making your point about how Jesse Cooper told Erin that she’s not an out-of-the-box kind of thinker.” I glare at Samantha, and she puts her hands up like she’s totally innocent.

“He was right,” Lindsay continues.

“What?” I exclaim. “Now you’re turning on me too? Come on, Lindsay. Just try to look at this from a rational point of view. A plastic crystal ball that can actually tell the future? It’s…absurd.”

“No, it’s not.” She arches an eyebrow. “What’s absurd is your inability to consider anything that doesn’t come with its own geometric proof.”

What are you talking about? What does that even mean?”

Lindsay throws her arms up in frustration. “It means that the world is not all protons and—what do you call ’em—ions.”

As soon as she says it, I purse my lips together, trying to stifle a laugh.

“What?” she asks, annoyed by my amusement.

“It’s protons and neutrons. And also electrons. They’re the basic particles of an atom, which is what all matter is comprised of. So technically, the world is all protons and neutrons. And electrons, of course.”

The left side of Samantha’s lip curls up in exasperation. “Listen to yourself.”

“That’s my point,” Lindsay explains.

“Your point is that I’m a geek?” I ask, uttering the unspoken word. (Though I prefer Spencer Ridgely’s “hot librarian.”)

“No,” Lindsay says. “My point is that the world is not just comprised of matter. Sometimes you have to believe in things that don’t have a scientific explanation.”

“Yeah,” Samantha adds. “But you are kind of a geek.”

No, I think to myself. No, you don’t have to believe that. But I don’t dare say it. I can tell that Lindsay is on the verge of getting upset (for real), and there’s no reason to antagonize her. So when she picks up the ball and holds it out to me, I don’t argue.

“Here,” she says. “Ask it a question.”

“Okay, fine. Will I get picked for the Italy trip?”

Samantha scoffs, “Wow. For someone who doesn’t believe, that’s a pretty intense question.”

I roll my eyes and look down at the ball. “‘The beyond eludes me at this time.’” I give Lindsay a smug look. “See? It doesn’t know anything.”

“Not necessarily,” she counters. “Maybe it just doesn’t know that. Come on, ask it something else. Something specific, so we’ll know if it’s the ball making it come true.”

I sigh. “Okay. Okay, I have a good one.” I shake the ball. “Will Mr. Lower say that the English paper I wrote was well researched and insightful? Because it was,” I add, glancing at Lindsay. She waves her hand to tell me to hurry it along. I look at the window again, and the pink liquid inside seems to part down the middle as the white, plastic triangle appears. “‘Yes, it is written in the stars,’” I read.

Lindsay beams. “Perfect,” she declares.

“Perfect?” Samantha yells. “Are you kidding me? You have this thing…this, this…crystal ball, that potentially could make happen anything that you want to happen, and you ask it about an English paper? For real? That’s like getting a wish from a genie and asking it for world peace. I mean, Jesus, Erin. Use your imagination. Ask it if Bill Gates is going to name you as the sole beneficiary of his estate. Ask it if Zac Efron is going to show up at school tomorrow and announce that he must have you as his child bride. Come on. Ask it something good. The Italy trip was a start, at least…”

The look on Samantha’s face is so serious and agitated that Lindsay and I both start to laugh again.

“Seriously, it’s a good thing that I’m the chosen one and not you, or every hot guy on the planet would be showing up at school tomorrow,” I tell Samantha.

“Damn straight,” she says. “Now come on. Ask it something better than whether your teacher liked your paper.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking. I’m so bad at this kind of stuff. I feel like it’s my birthday and I have to hurry up and think of a wish before the candles run out of wax. “Okay. I’ve got it.” I shake the ball. “Will I get into Harvard and discover a cure for cancer and win the Nobel Prize and marry a smexy scientist who looks amazing in a lab coat?”

Samantha smiles approvingly. “Much better. What does it say?”

I stare down at the ball, and I’m surprised to feel butterflies dancing in my stomach. What if this really is possible? What if I just laid out all of my dreams and they really will come true? The pink liquid clears and I stare at the answer…

Excerpted from THE SECRET SOCIETY OF THE PINK CRYSTAL BALL © Copyright 2010 by Risa Green. Reprinted with permission by Sourcebooks Fire. All rights reserved.