Chapter One: Ring, Ring, Ring, Your Doom Is Calling!ONE Ring, Ring, Ring, Your Doom Is Calling! It isn't fair." Those were my three magic words. They weren't really magic; after all, magic didn't exist except in books and movies. But in the real world, magic was something else entirely. It was the itch in my nose when I needed to sneeze but stopped right before I could. It was the dream that vanished as soon as I woke up, like a stream of autumn leaves snatched by the wind. Magic wasn't real. But according to my mom, I'd need a whole heaping spoonful of it if I wanted a cell phone before winter break ended and school began. Which was tomorrow . Maybe I didn't need magic. I needed a miracle. "Nothing's fair in life, Raveena," Mama countered, her rose-pink lips twisting into a frown as she skimmed a parenting magazine in Yoon's Antiques. Did she just get that line from her current reading material? Or maybe from her collection of Indian bridal magazines, which each started with a wannabe fortune cookie quote? (I might have snuck a glance at the latest issue. Plain saris are so last season, and don't get me started on accessories!) "But Lillian always uses her phone to call her pops." That's what my BFF called her dad. "You know, to make sure he knows where she is for safety purposes ." How could Mama reject my carefully worded counterargument now? Truly unfazeable, Mama said, "You'll get your phone when eighth grade starts, like we agreed." I faced The Boss one more time with my arms crossed. According to Lillian, every video game has a boss--someone to defeat if you ever want to win the game. Guess real life wasn't so different. Except this boss was my mother. And at this point, undefeated. Even my puppy-dog eyes (by now, I was almost Pomeranian) weren't working. I needed someone who would listen. I needed Grandmama. My heart squeezed. Mama never spoke so sternly to me when my nani was around. Once upon another time, Mama would've slipped her fingers through my hair playfully, wrecking my carefully parted bangs. But she hadn't done that since BGL. Before Grandmama left. I had to up the ante--convince Mama I needed a phone now , just like most of the other kids in my grade. "Phones are more than just two-way talking devices, you know. You could track my every move! You could send me funny memes and check on me at lunch!" "Not the memes argument again," Mama muttered, swapping the parenting magazine for the town newspaper. Splashed on the front page was a grand photo of City Hall. The headline read: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF HOLLOWS' PEAK FESTIVAL ON THE HORIZON! Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "Grandmama would've let me get a cell phone. She wouldn't have even thought twice." Mama froze. Her face darkened as she shuttered the Hollows' Herald closed and placed it back on the newsstand. Striiiiike one! the imaginary umpire boomed in my head. Instinctively, my mom reached for her pocket, where she once kept Grandmama's medicine. Now her pockets were cold and empty. I caught her doing that often, reaching for something that was no longer there. The place setting for Grandmama at the kitchen table, the handheld radio she used to listen to the news. But it wasn't always something physical. Anytime I brought her up, Mama's eyes glazed over and her mind drifted, like she was reaching for warm memories that had gone stale. You know how cinnamon buns taste best when they're fresh and warm and slightly pillowy in the center? That's exactly what my memories of Grandmama were, and they were just as sweet. Yet the empty look on Mama's face, recalling her memories wasn't sweet but sour. Before either of us could say anything, Mr. Yoon waddled out from his knee-high pile of flyers behind the cash register. "I have your reserved box of items in the back!" the owner of Yoon's Antiques called out, his kind eyes smiling at Mama, rimmed by half-moon glasses. "Are you looking for anything else today, Ms. Gill?" Mama nodded before drawing out an old No Frills receipt from her jacket pocket, giving me a look that said, We'll finish this conversation later . On the back of the receipt, she'd written a whole slew of strange things. Polka-dot shoelaces. Steel-toed boots. Fireproof oven mitts. (Maybe that one wasn't so strange; who would design oven mitts that could catch fire?) My mom rattled off the list to Mr. Yoon as I snuck away to the back of the store. Yoon's Antiques was the beating heart of Hollows' Peak--or at least the best place to get a buy-one-get-two-and-a-half deal around here. If someone from out of town visited Hollows' Peak, they'd use the W word. Weird. But in my hometown, where we celebrated reverse birthdays and gave cats belly rubs, there was nothing really off-limits. I dashed around a series of wonky bookshelves, filled with everything from joke books to prehistoric encyclopedias, before reaching the back of the store. My besties were already waiting for me, as predicted. Correction: they were making googly eyes at the store's resident pet fish. Yoon's Antiques had a wide tank with a single puffer fish inside, who always gave me a blank look. Jenna Yoon, who I babysat last summer and was already nearing the size of her family's full-grown husky, aptly called him Pufflepants and even doted on him like she did their dog. But Pufflepants and I weren't on speaking terms just yet. "Is Pufflepants badmouthing me again?" I joked. Aiko spun, her brilliant rainbow-dyed hair as colorful as the camp bracelets on her wrist. "There you are! If you were another second late, he definitely would've started talking." "I think he already is," Blair said, leaning close to the glass and pretending to hold a mic up to Pufflepants's mouth. "He's telling me... we should hurry up and get boba like we planned!" Lillian chuckled. "Blair Ricci, fish whisperer and investigative reporter in training." "Following in your mother's footsteps," I added. Blair's brown eyes sparkled. "Yeah, except for the fish part." We all burst into a fit of giggles as Mrs. Yoon came around the bend. "Is that the Fierce Four I hear?" She pinned a flyer to the wall that read 20% OFF WHEN YOU SPEND $50 OR MORE BEFORE TAXES, COUPONS, AND REVERSE BIRTHDAY CERTIFICATES. "Are you girls excited to go back to school tomorrow?" There was a reason Mrs. Yoon, our school's music teacher, had dubbed us the Fierce Four last year. We did almost everything together: Our science project on rising sea levels won first place at the Hollows' Peak Middle School fair. Our French presentation on the negative impact of settlers on Indigenous soil got us an A+ and a fantastique from Madame Bower. Even though Blair and Lillian were in a different homeroom from me and Aiko this year, we vowed to remain fierce friends. "Yep!" Lillian nodded excitedly at Mrs. Yoon, her tight coils bouncing in two Princess Leia-style buns. She was always changing up her style according to the latest K-pop trends. "I just wish I could go back to playing in school." She made a motion with her hands as if she were practicing the fingering to an alto saxophone. She could play the chromatic scale like it was nobody's business. "Me too, girls. Raveena, I hope you're also practicing your flute?" Mrs. Yoon smiled, though it was pretty clear she was hiding sadness beneath it. This school year wasn't the same as the last--and not just because Grandmama was gone. I mimed playing the flute with my fingers. "I remember all my keys." What I didn't want to remember was what Lillian and I had dubbed the Day of Doom four months ago, when Principal Hanover had called the whole school into the gym for a big announcement. " This year will look different, students ," he'd begun with a sallow face. " Unfortunately, this year, we have no room in the budget for the arts program...." I didn't hear the rest of his sentence. My ears felt like they were dunked underwater. Based on Mrs. Yoon's eye bags, it wasn't hard to decipher what was going on. They were cutting the arts program at school. Not just a portion of it--the whole enchilada. What's the big deal? I heard some kids snickering. Sports kids, jocks with rich parents. Meanwhile, my heart was shriveling like a stale raisin. (Raisins are gross, stale or not.) Apparently the price of laptops and electronic textbooks were on the rise. Even with government funding, Mrs. Yoon had told me that the school's arts program would likely not recover. Cue disastrous, world-ending music. "I'm glad to hear it," said Mrs. Yoon, pinning another flyer to the wall. Her short black bob brushed her chin as she added over her shoulder, "You've always been driven students, girls. Music class or not." Yeah, driven enough to move my butt all the way to computer science. Not that I had a choice. Most music students, including me and Lillian, were dropped into foreign territory--also known as comp-sci. Lillian told me she kept her saxophone by the front door, as if any day Principal Hanover and the school board might change their minds. I'd be lying if I said I didn't do the same thing with my flute. It was Grandmama who had pushed me into music, after all, just as she had with my mom. I could almost feel Grandmama's fingers hovering over mine as she helped me read my sheet music. Her favorite piece was "Canon in D," and so was mine, because it felt like a warm, velvety hug when winter breathed a chill into the air. Although I wasn't skilled enough to handle the major parts on my own, Grandmama always made it seem easy. A deep breath from my diaphragm to fix my posture, a nudge of my elbow to adjust my positioning. She grew up with music in every corner of her house, from harmoniums to pianos to tablas, and wanted the same for her daughter and granddaughter. "Oh!" Mrs. Yoon's eyes lit up. "I almost forgot to ask--how's fundraising going? The school business competition is really heating up, I hear." Using a price tag gun, she slid a reduced-price label onto the base of a snow globe. "The group of girls in eighth grade looking to start an after-school baking program are close to first place. No pun intended, but they might just... take the cake!" Mrs. Yoon was always trying to get a laugh out of us. But in reality, I was too busy mulling over who might actually be in first--a team with a boy-who-must-not-be-named. I'd been refreshing the school website all break for any updates, but nada. "Our... business model kind of needs work," Aiko admitted, toying with her bracelets. Not long after the Day of Doom, Principal Hanover announced a schoolwide competition to help teach kids about business endeavors. Something about the youth of today being our tomorrow, or maybe I'd just read that on the underside of a soda bottle cap. Any group that entered could start a small business and raise money in the town. The group that made the most money by the end of the school year would get to use all the funds toward whatever school activity they wanted, like getting a new computer lab or an extra set of vending machines, or, in the Fierce Four's case, bringing back the arts program. But we were collecting chump change compared to the other competitors. Our business title wasn't too hot, either. Get Everything Done! was our way of giving back to the community. Need your driveway shoveled? Aiko had your back. Bake sale? Blair was on it. Playing the sax at the Hollows' Peak Retirement Home? Lillian was your girl. Still, it never quite seemed like we were close enough to reaching our fundraising goal. It didn't help that most adults--you know, the people with actual money and who made actual decisions --wouldn't take our business goal to save the arts program seriously. The arts made us who we were, so why couldn't adults value it the way we did? "Raveena, hon? Let's get going to Benny's Boba," Mama called from the front of the store. "There are my marching orders," I deadpanned, but truthfully, my mouth was watering at the thought of my go-to order: taro milk tea with lychee popping boba. Yum! I waved goodbye to Mrs. Yoon, who said she was leaving for her lunch break, and left the others to say their fishy-faced farewells to Pufflepants. Mama, now standing before the register, was handing Mr. Yoon a wad of cash. I lifted the heavy, half-broken box off the front counter. Some might call what lay within treasure; others, junk. I'd been watching enough Storage Wars with Mama to know the difference, and right now it was the latter. "Before I forget," Mr. Yoon said as he closed the register, "we just got a matching glassware set in the back. I know you love the Martha Stewart Collection!" "Martha, you say?" Mama pretended to think it over. "David, you know I can't resist a good deal." "Who the heck is Martha Stewart?" I mumbled to myself as Mama disappeared around the corner. So much for Let's get going to Benny's Boba! Were grown-ups always so easily distracted by home goods? The truth was, Mama couldn't turn down a good antique. Leave it to old, dusty piles of stuff to get my mom excited. Sometimes I wondered if she loved antiquing because it reminded her of a forgotten era with Grandmama. I always caught her staring at the dishware my grandmother had brought over from India back in the seventies. Pieces of history that had been collected and displayed like precious memories of the past. I took two steps toward the front door as Mama and Mr. Yoon became engrossed in the glassware out back. "Hey, guys," I called out, pretending to step through the exit, "last one here gets warm boba!" Lillian, Blair, and Aiko arrived at the front of the shop in record time, likely already rehearsing their orders. Aiko hunched over, catching her breath, like the thought of room-temperature boba was blasphemy. A second later, Lillian glanced in horror at the broken box in my arms, shifting a few items around. "What on earth is that ?" "It looks... ancient!" Blair shuddered out. "Terrible," Aiko added. "Terribly beautiful . I like it." I set the box down on the floor, curiosity overheating my body. Were they talking about those polka-dot shoelaces? They couldn't be that bad. I investigated what my friends were staring at, and my eyes landed on a big, blocky remnant of the past. A corded phone . The phone was a soft baby pink with a vintage slim handset, the cord all tangled up in knots. Its delicate shiny buttons, which rotated in a circle, looked like they were about to pop out any minute now. Where the paint was chipping off, brownish-black marks revealed themselves underneath, like burnt spots on toast. Aiko gaped in awe. "OMG. This is giving me major The Goonies treasure-hunting vibes. You just don't see these kinds of rotary phones anymore!" Of course Aiko would go gaga over old tech. Her mother had been a classic movie buff, and Aiko had eighties movie aficionado genes in her blood. Mama Tanaka passed away when Aiko was nine, but we all still felt her presence. The phone's buttons shone like pearls, drawing me in. And I wasn't the only one stepping closer. The other girls were too, each of us craning our necks as if the object were hypnotizing us. Together, each of us reached out a hand, the phone practically begging us to touch it.... Zap! "Ouch!" I pulled back my hand. What was that? I stared at my tingling fingers, then at Blair, Lillian, and Aiko. Each of them was gazing at her own hands in fright. Blair looked the most terrified of all, watching as tiny white sparks flushed down her skin and disappeared. "You all felt that, right?" I asked, just to make sure I wasn't imagining it. "The phone," Blair began timidly. "It..." "Nearly zapped our fingers off?" Aiko finished. Lillian's brown skin flushed pale. "What was that?" We all stared back down at the phone. Lillian reached into the box with an inquisitive hand, but I held her back with an arm. "Lillian, you could get zapped again!" "I have to test my hypothesis," she argued. For Lillian, science was always at the root of everything. Instead of enjoying the magic of a beautiful sunset, she preferred to explain the way light scattered in the atmosphere to form different colors. "By getting electrocuted?" said Blair. Lillian ignored us as she blew out a breath and grabbed the phone. I squeezed one eye shut, preparing for another electrical charge as she set the phone on the front counter. Nothing happened. "That was some static shock, huh?" I joked. Because what else could it have been? Blair wiped her brow with relief; Aiko slumped with disappointment. That was when things got weird. Lights flickered overhead. The ground momentarily rumbled beneath the soles of my sneakers, making my knees quiver. Even the paperwork on Mr. Yoon's counter fluttered from an unseen breeze. Blair shrank back. "What's going on?" Lillian stared up at the lights. "Maybe a power surge? Or an issue with the air vents?" Just as she finished speaking, a light bulb exploded nearby. We all yelped in unison. Every light source fizzled out one by one, plunging the store into darkness. No--a dewy silver light was now streaming out of the phone like mist escaping Niagara Falls, filling the air with an otherworldly glow. The aura from the phone was unlike anything I'd ever seen. White light escaped every hole and button, like smoke escaping a chimney. And at that exact moment, the phone rang. Excerpted from Spirit Service by Sarena Nanua, Sasha Nanua All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
