“Clip-on earrings,” Alma said. “I don’t have to give them a chance. They’re nothing.”
This was the meanest thing Del could imagine Alma saying. The earrings weren’t nothing. They were everything. And if Alma could say something so mean, Del didn’t want to be anywhere near her. Even if it meant going to bed a little hungry. Even if it meant missing family dinner.
Tucked into bed way before bedtime, Del tried to sleep in her magical clip-on earrings. But very quickly, her ears started to ache from the weight of them. They were too tight. She thought they might bring her magical, lucky dreams. But in fact, they made it impossible to sleep. Del put them on her nightstand. She watched them until her eyes started to close, and she drifted off.
She couldn’t wait to put them on in the morning. And maybe, somehow, the magical earrings would be so lucky that they’d fix what was broken between her and Alma. That would be the best kind of magic.
13An Almost Apology
-Alma-
Alma wanted to apologize to Del. That was her plan. It really, really was. She’d said something much meaner than she’d meant to, after all. And when she thought about the sad boy at the stoop sale missing his best friend, she remembered that a best friend was a wonderful thing to have. She owed it to that sad boy to make up with Del.
But when Alma entered Del’s room after dinner, she saw that her cousin was asleep. Alma wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe she should leave Del an apology note.
Alma was about to find a piece of paper and pencil when she caught sight of the earrings. They somehow looked even bigger, even more ridiculous, here on Del’s nightstand. They were so pink and so shiny and so over the top.
It was the earrings’ fault that she and Del were fighting! It was their fault that Del had skipped dinner and Alma had to try to explain why to her whole family. It was their fault that her first week here hadn’t gone as planned.
All of a sudden, Alma was so mad that these ridiculous, over-the-top, crazy-looking clip-on earrings could cause so much trouble. It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right. And she had to do something about it.
If the earrings vanished, there wouldn’t be anything to fight about. Alma and Del could go back to being their usual best-friend-cousin selves.
Alma knew what she had to do. Very quietly, she reached for the earrings. They were heavier than she thought they’d be. There was a tiny clink and clank. A whisper of a jingle and jangle. Del stirred. But she didn’t wake up.
Alma put the clip-on earrings into her pocket and snuck downstairs. They clinked and clanked and jingled and jangled the whole way down, but no one seemed to notice.
Over the years, Alma and Del had put many, many things on their stoop during Alma’s visits. It was one of Alma’s favorite things to do when she visited Del. They’d put out books they didn’t like, sweaters that no longer fit, toys they’d outgrown. Once they even put a whole birthday cake on the stoop, just to see what would happen. It was gone within an hour.
So Alma knew when she put those certainly-not-at-all-magical clip-on earrings on the stoop that someone would want them.
Since they were clip-on earrings, they practically demanded to be clipped somewhere. She clipped them to the ears of the stone lion-head statue that was atop the stone railing of the stoop. She’d never known why it was there or what it meant. But that lion sure looked dressed up now. Ready for a party.
She took one last look at the lion and ran back inside, pretending she’d never been there at all.
14Nowhere to Be Found
-Del-
Del woke up on the floor with a loud thump.
She had never woken up on the floor before. It hurt.
“Ouch!” Del cried. She must have rolled out of bed somehow. Maybe a bad dream.
Maybe just bad luck.
Del rubbed her back and her elbow. It wasn’t a good start to the day.
The very next thing that happened was that Del felt a puddle of water beneath her. She looked up and saw the problem immediately. She had left her window open overnight. And there had been a storm. She didn’t usually sleep through things like storms. But this must have been a big one. The rain outside had mostly stopped. Inside, though, everything near her window was soaked through. Including Del’s favorite stuffed animal, a teddy bear named Oso. Abuelita had given Oso to Del when she was born, and had given him the name to help Del learn Spanish. Del had always loved him.
Oso was a little delicate from being loved for so long, but now he looked positively ready to fall apart from all the water.
It seemed strange, after all that good luck, to have so much bad luck in one morning.
I better put on my magical clip-on earrings! Del thought. Those will fix things, I’m sure. She reached up toward her nightstand, but her hands couldn’t find the earrings.
And when she looked at her nightstand, there was nothing there.
Del gasped. She sank down to the wet carpet and checked all over for the magical earrings. She looked under the nightstand and under the bed and even over by the door, just in case they were so magical that they could float over there somehow.
But the earrings were not in her room.
Del flew through the building on Twenty-Third Avenue. She asked Titi Rosa and Abuelita and Tío George and even little Evie. No one had seen the earrings. When she knocked on Alma’s door, she was ready to explode.
“Have you seen them?” Del asked.
“Seen what?” Alma asked.
“My earrings!”
Alma shook her head. “I haven’t seen them,” she said.
Even though Del
