"We're going to have to hurry, shweetie," Andie told Kelly. "We have to get to the optometrisht in time for you to get your glasses fitted."

"Okay, good." Kelly felt relieved to have escaped the three boys from his school without having his secret revealed. The funny thing is, he thought, the secret isn't just that I'm a boy now but that I was a boy all last year, too.

He giggled a bit at the absurdity of it and Andie smiled at him. "Bet I know what your giggling about, shcamp," Andie hazarded. She had watched the little romantic playlet with amusement and a bit of surprise and she'd almost burst trying not to laugh.

"I bet you don't," Kelly replied. Kelly resisted turning around to see if the boys were watching him leave. They probably were. Two of them had kissed him and he had actually slapped one of them. First time I've ever hit anyone in my life, he thought. And I hurt my hand. He wanted to rub it a bit but his other hand was full with the bags of clothes he had acquired at the Gap and rubbing it against his side or leg didn't seem--didn't seem ladylike.

While he puzzled about that, Andie and he headed toward the exit from the roof of Triangle Square. A little girl in a wheelchair and her family were waiting at the elevator, so Andie decided to risk the escalator and guided Kelly toward it. "So? What exshactly was going on back there?" she asked as she carefully placed her high heeled feet on the moving treads.

Kelly just shook his head. "Me trying to stay alive? I thought I was going to die when they recognized me. Or they would kill me. But apparently they had thought I was a girl back in school, too." He took a little care getting on the escalator too since the bags he was holding were a little awkward.

"Too?" Andie grinned back at him.

"You know what I mean." Kelly rolled his eyes and sneaked a glance back over the edge of the escalator before the moving stairs carried him too far down. He'd finally decided to see if the boys were watching him but he couldn't tell; there was some guy in the way.

Phil watched them descend the escalator and when they were half way down he followed them. Still no one really noticed him even when they looked directly at him, just a small, slender man with bright blue eyes who had learned not to be seen. He stayed far enough back he couldn't hear them talking but he had heard Barbie call the other girl "Andie"; Andie was tall, over six-feet in those ridiculous heels. Phil felt a little afraid of her; tattoos and body-piercings he associated with prison gangs and the woman most likely outweighed him, too. Anyone with that many holes in their face probably carried something sharp around with them, he decided. The weight of the travel bag in his left hand reassured him.

On the ground level, Andie stopped Kelly from heading out to the street to go back to the salon. "I'm parked here, downstairs," she said.

"Okay," said Kelly, turning to follow Andie around the front of the Bookstar entrance. Across the busy entrance and exit lanes for the underground parking he could see the Virgin Records store but Pete, Richard, Cheryl and Sarah were out of sight at the registers in the middle of the store. Traffic buzzed and rumbled in and out, Saturday afternoon was a busy time in the mall.

The elevators down to the parking levels were also busy and Andie decided to actually take the stairs. She held the door to the stairwell open for Kelly. This took a little maneuvering since they were both carrying packages.

"So why did you kiss them," asked Andie as she started down first.

"They kissed me!" squeaked Kelly, quivering indignantly on the top step.

"So you kissed back?"

"No! I didn't! I didn't kiss anybody!" His head moved this way, his arms moved that way and his body another, all very prettily expressive of his annoyance at Andie's teasing. Or would have been if he hadn't spoiled it at the end with a giggle.

Andie didn't see because she was ahead of him, lower on the stairs but the performance hadn't been wasted.

Phil had closed the gap a bit, standing in the stairwell doorway. He watched Kelly's little tantrum with some amusement. Barbie had always had a temper, he thought. Much like her mother's, but usually so well controlled no one would suspect.

Kelly followed Andie on down they stairs, unaware of the pale-haired observer. Andie and Kelly left the stairwell at the first parking level and headed toward the blue convertible, still talking. Phil couldn't believe how much it affected him to hear Barbie's voice and laugh again. And when she gestured... and how she moved her body... and the expressions on her beautiful face... He wanted to get closer, he'd come a long way to talk to Barbie, to tell her some things. He followed them on down the stairs.

He hesitated at the doorway on the first parking level, watching them. His anger had cooled and some rational part of his mind tried to tell him that the little girl with the blonde curls couldn't be his Barbie. He wanted her to be Barbie, though -- wanted it to be true so much it made a hard lump in his chest. And if she wasn't Barbie, who was she?

He hesitated, postponing action, trying not to make a decision he couldn't retract. He watched as they got into the convertible and Andie backed it out of the parking spot, Barbie's beauty etched itself onto his soul just as it had before...if she was Barbie?

Who else could she be?

The answer hit him like a chunk of concrete falling from the ceiling. He staggered a bit with realization. The emotional earthquake left him shivering in the damp underground August heat.

It could be true. If the girl who looked so much like Barbie, wasn't Barbie, then she would be just about the right age. He forced himself to wait, to do nothing, to watch as the girl who wasn't Barbie and the one called Andie put their packages in the trunk of the small blue convertible and got inside and closed the doors.

He heard the younger girl say loudly, "No! I wasn't practicing! It was an accident!" Followed by laughter from both girls. But he did nothing, forcing other people using the stairs to step around him. The driver, Andie, backed the convertible out of the space; he could see her laughing face clearly.

Still he did nothing, trying to think, trying to decide if his guess might be true, hope and a kind of fear almost paralyzing his thoughts.

And then the car was moving forward and it was too late. He turned suddenly, heading back up the stairs, unsure of himself, his plans broken and tattered, his wounded mind still trying to make sense of what had happened. Could it be true?

And if it were, what should he do?

Andie put the car into the queue leading to the exit ramp as Phil climbed stairs back toward the main level of the mall.

Idling in the car on the exit ramp from the basement parking, Andie asked, "Why did you slap the one guy, what was his name?"

"Jimmy. He kissed me twice!" Kelly made a face for emphasis.

"Didn't you like it the shecond time?" Andie teased.

"No!" Kelly tried to resist pouting.

"But you liked it the firsht time?"

"Andie! No! I didn't like it either time! Boys kissing me is just gross! Ick!" But he giggled again, spoiling the pout for a moment.

"How about the other boy, does he kiss better?" Andie asked in mock innocence.

Kelly didn't answer but tried to continue pouting. He wanted to kick something, preferably Andie. And it worried him that in fact, he didn't know how he felt about the kisses. They were scary but that wasn't the same as not liking them. And why did he keep wanting to giggle when he thought about them? Or cry, one or the other.

She chuckled. "It's okay, kid. At your age, you don't have to like being kissed yet."

"I'm never going to like being kissed by boys!" Kelly said scornfully, then realized exactly how that had sounded when Andie started laughing. "Stop teasing me! Andie!" Kelly wailed, suddenly almost ready to cry again. I still sound exactly like some spoiled little girl, he thought with disgust.

"Hey, kid, sorry." Andie was instantly contrite. The cars on the ramp moved a couple of car lengths and stopped. Andie reached behind the seat. "Look! I brought Robin, you left him in the shop." She handed the yellow-haired doll to Kelly.

Kelly took the toy and looked at it doubtfully. He sniffed back a tear and flounced a little in the seat. It wasn't reasonable that holding the doll should make him feel a bit better, but it was true. He glanced sideways at Andie to be sure she was watching him, then he kissed the doll on the forehead. "This is the only boy I'm ever going to kiss," he said in his best little girl voice.

The line of cars moved up the ramp again. Andie was still laughing when they reached the top and someone started honking a horn.

Phil, using the stairs, had reached the first floor before Andie and Kelly in the car did. He had been heading toward the Bookstar trying to get his mind around the task of finding a replacement for his beloved book; trying to distract himself from the truth he had almost grasped. The truth that frightened him.

He turned around when he heard the horn and the screeching of tires. The blue convertible carrying the girl with the metal in her face and the other girl who might be Barbie but probably wasn't had just emerged on the ramp from the basement parking. A car coming in from the street pulled out of the incoming lane, its horn honking, brakes screeching.

Phil stared. The other car held two women; the brunette driving Phil didn't know, but the redhead -- that had to be Amanda, his ex-wife, with her hair dyed. She got out of the car while it was still moving, already talking in her animated way with her hands and even her whole body. At forty-two she was still very much a sex-kitten, he reflected. Like mother, like daughter. Like...?

Phil examined his feeling for Amanda, a sort of fond nostalgia; they'd never been good for one another but all he remembered now was the good times. He blocked from his memory the drunken fights, the screaming accusations and most especially, Amanda's testimony at his trial.

Amanda, still gesturing and shouting, dashed across the busy traffic lanes to stop in front of the blue convertible. The driver braked to a halt, yelling something; Phil couldn't hear any of the words over the traffic din from where he stood. Moving easily, as if untroubled by any sort of intent, Phil walked toward the conversation.

He knew that Amanda would likely recognize him, the years had not changed him much though he wore his hair much shorter now. He didn't look at her, and he didn't watch the two girls in the car but he got steadily closer, not even sure himself why he did so.

"Mom!" Kelly screamed when he saw Amanda running through the lanes. He had always called her 'Mom' --just like Barbie did-- when he didn't call her 'Amanda'. He'd never called her 'grandma' because she didn't like it. "Mom, what the heck?" She had to be practically the last person he expected to see here and for a moment he forgot what he was wearing and how he looked.

Amanda didn't really look at Kelly and so didn't see him for who he was. Instead, she ran up and slapped the hood of the little blue car with both hands. "You were going to wait for me here!" she screamed at Andie. "I saw you and I knew it was you, nobody else carries a hardware store on her face!" She gestured wildly; her frustration, worry and anxiety spilling out in unexpected rage.

Behind her, on the other side of the maze of lanes coming in and going out of the mall, Rachel tried to maneuver her car out of the way of the incoming traffic. "It would be easier if Amanda had at least shut the damn car door!" she told herself out loud. But she worried about her friend; strong negative emotions are never good for an alcoholic who is just taking the first steps toward recovery. She kept glancing over at Amanda, still gesturing and shouting at the driver of the little blue car.

Andie shut her eyes. This was exactly why she had decided not to meet Amanda, the woman caused public embarrassment everywhere she went. It had been more than a year since their first and only other meeting but Barbie had told Andie about several similar displays. With Amanda, screaming and cursing in public seemed to be the expected end of any social encounter, or the beginning in this case.

"Leave us alone, Mom!" Kelly shouted. She must be drunk again, he thought, embarrassed so much by her actions he forgot some other important details of the situation.

"Kelly!" Amanda shrieked, recognizing him this time. "Kelly, what the heck are you wearing?" Until that moment she hadn't actually realized that the girl in the car with Andie was actually her grandson.

Phil had finally gotten close enough to hear words and this exchange confused him even more. Kelly? Mom? He tried not to think about that, just another puzzlement that could wait. He concentrated on a new plan forming half-consciously in his mind. He moved to the rear of the convertible, his back toward Amanda.

Behind him, near the bookstore, Pete had just re-entered the mall through the Harbor Boulevard walkway, his arm around Cheryl with Richard and Sarah close behind. Pete put out his arms to stop the others when he heard the horn blowing and the tires squealing. Richard asked, "What's going on?" Just as Pete had, he pushed the girls behind him without really thinking about it.

"I don't know," Pete said cautiously. Baffled, they watched the developing scene: some madwoman screaming at their aunt.

Amanda forgot all about Andie and started around the car toward Kelly, "What are you wearing?" she repeated, screaming at him. "Get out of the car!" The kid was all dolled up like some kind of pre-teen starlet. I knew this would happen, Amanda, steamed internally. The kid is going queer!

Kelly locked the door quickly and then tried to make himself small, crouching down in the seat and covering his head with one hand while trying to roll up the window with the other. "Leave me alone, Mom!" he yelled into the floor boards.

The car was a convertible but with the door locked and the window rolled up, Amanda wouldn't be able to reach in to undo his seatbelt and she might not think of unlocking the door as angry as she seemed to be. If she takes me away, I might never see Barbie again, he thought. I don't want to grow up like her and I don't want to go live in some foster home. These were old fears; ones that sometimes tormented him while he was alone at night and Barbie was at work. He put both arms over his head and tried not to cry.

"You painted your nails! Get out of the car, Kelly!" Amanda screamed. "Get out of the car right now!"

"That's enough of that!" Andie yelled across at Amanda.

"You stay out of this!" Amanda yelled back. She reached over the window and fumbled at Kelly's back and sides, her reach too short to get an effective grip or accomplish anything. "Have you gone crazy?" she screamed. "Open this door!"

"You leave Kelly alone, old woman, or I'll come around there and clean your clock!" Andie snarled. She'd never before in her life made a physical threat that she actually meant, but Amanda wasn't going to take Kelly without a fight.

"Old!" howled Amanda. "You perforated slut!" She fumbled with the doorlock, almost speechless with rage.

"Just drive!" Kelly pleaded with Andie, his arms still over his head.

But Andie was already opening the car door on her side.

Seeing that, Pete began to run, Richard only a fraction of a second behind him. Cheryl and Sarah screamed and Sarah tried to pull the bigger girl inside the Bookstar.

When Andie began opening the car door, Phil had reached the convertible. He sprinted around the back of the car; he was a lot closer than the Mann brothers. None of the women had seen him yet.

Pete saw him but had no idea what was happening. "Andie, behind you?" he called out.

Andie looked up at the voice and saw Pete running towards her across the pavement just as Phil hit her from behind. In almost the same move, Phil tossed the bag he had been carrying behind the seat and slid under the steering wheel.

Barbie/Kelly looked up and yelled at him, "Where the heck did you come from?"

Amanda screamed, "Phil! Oh, my God!" She reeled back in shock.

Andie twisted as she fell away from the car; her long arm reached Phil's face and her artificial fingernails left scratch marks as he put the car in gear and roared forward. Amanda grabbed at the car door on Kelly's side but only managed to get knocked to the pavement by the impact. Andie cursed as she rolled on the dirty pavement. Amanda lay still.

Pete went to his left, the passenger side of the car roaring toward him, and his brother went right. Richard screamed at Pete, "Get Kelly! I'll--" but the little blue car driven by the colorless man was on top of them.

Time slowed down for the Mann brothers like sometimes happens to some people in combat. The boys seemed to have all the time in the world.

On the passenger's side of the car, all Pete could do was get out of the way, he decided. Pete saw immediately that there would not be enough time to get Kelly out of the car, discarding all of the fanciful fantastic plans that formed and aborted as soon as he thought of them. Besides, she'd be belted in or the crazy redheaded woman would already have dragged her out and there certainly wasn't time enough to undo a belt by reaching into a speeding car.

He tucked his head down between his shoulders and started a roll the way he had been taught in football practice, picking a clear spot in the spontaneously appearing crowd in which to land. He screamed as loud as he could, too, hoping to draw the attention of the madman away from his brother.

Time also slowed for Richard as the adrenalin hit his system. I'm not going to make it, he thought. The angles and movements seemed clear, he didn't have enough acceleration to clear the left side of the vehicle. I could go up, he thought, but if I went through the windshield I might hit Kelly and hurt her. I could try to land on the driver but there's no way I can get high enough not to hit the hood first and I can't know which way I might bounce. Besides, where would the car go if I landed on the driver?

Richard looked into the startling blue eyes of the pale-haired man behind the wheel and saw fear. He turned his head, slowly it seemed, and saw that his brother was going to be out of the way. He pointed that direction with his left hand and saw the driver nod and begin to twist the wheel. He saw Kelly look up and begin a scream at seeing him pinned in the vehicle's path.

Richard knew how to roll, too, but he had wasted time communicating with the driver and checking on Pete. I'm going to land badly, he thought, even if the car misses me. He smiled at Kelly, tucked his head into the curve of his right arm and twisted his body up, out and away.

The front fender barely touched his left heel as he flew by but the impact ripped the ninety-dollar sneaker off his foot and hurled it across the traffic lanes. If the car had had further to travel and gain speed, the shock might have broken his ankle.

Phil didn't have the Mann brothers reflexes, he couldn't stop in time, he wasn't even sure why he steered right since it hadn't seemed possible to go between the boys in front of him. Somehow he'd know the boy wanted him to swerve to the right. Suddenly he was past both of them, except for a tennis shoe spinning toward a wall. Then he crossed a sidewalk and was on the street, Newport Boulevard, headed toward the ocean.

We're going the wrong way, he thought. Tires squealing, horns blaring, Barbie/Kelly screaming in fear beside him and clutching her dolly, he made a U-turn across five lanes of traffic and headed north toward the freeway entrance. From there he could go anywhere, up the coast to Los Angeles, down to San Diego or back the way the bus had brought him from the Inland Empire.

He turned to look at his passenger, his captive. She looked back at him in obvious terror; her green eyes wide and filled with tears; her mouth open to scream again; her arms tensed as if to ward off a blow. He saw now that for all of her resemblance, the little girl was not Barbie. Intellectually, he had known that, Barbie would be a grown woman now. This girl, Kelly, must be someone else and he thought he knew who.

He shook his head and turned back to driving. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, almost shouting in the rush of wind. "Is there someplace we could go where--where you would feel safe and we could just talk?"

Kelly gasped, unable to sort out every thing that had just happened. Had the car actually hit Richard? And now this strange question, certainly the last thing one would expect a kidnapper to offer. "Uh, I don't know? Who are you?" Kelly asked wonderingly.

The pale man smiled. "I'm Phil, just call me Phil. What's your name?" He slowed the car, matching with the traffic as they took the entrance onto the 55.

"K-kelly?" This is so weird, he thought, maybe I shouldn't talk to him at all?

Phil nodded, he had heard Amanda call her Kelly. "That's a nice name. How old are you, Kelly?" He tried not to signal how important this question really was to him, keeping his eyes on the road and not looking at Kelly. He took the line of least resistance and stayed on the 55, passing up the exit to the 73 and 405 North; he was heading back the way he had come on the bus.

"I'm twelve," Kelly said, prepared for the strange man to say something like, you don't look twelve, like most people usually did when he told them his age.

"Oh, shit." said Phil, his suspicions almost confirmed. He took another quick look at the child. Barbie's eyes and chin and mouth, sort of. But he recognized some other features, too. He looked back at the road. "What's your mom's name?" he asked.

"B-barbie." Kelly hiccuped in the middle of the name.

Phil smiled with just the corners of his mouth. "You look a lot like your mom."

Kelly blinked. "You know my mom?"

"Yes," he said. "I did, years ago. But I never knew about you?"

"Um." Kelly tried to think. This strange man was scary, obviously crazy. He says he won't hurt me but how do I know that? I can't trust him. "-hic- We could go to South Coast Plaza? The Mall?"

Phil frowned. "Where the heck is that? I haven't been in OC in more than ten years? I use to live in Riverside."

"It's, um, at the 405 and Bristol?"

Phil looked at one of the freeway signs. "Bristol coming up. Right, I think I went there once." He took the exit ramp carefully; driving was a skill he hadn't used much lately and he didn't want to make any mistakes.

"Le-hic-eft," said Kelly. The hiccups were beginning to hurt; this was the third case today, maybe the fourth. He glanced at Phil. Funny, I'm not as scared as I was of Jimmy and Tommy? He looks calm and kind; like he likes animals and little kids, thought Kelly. Still, this is a crazy-making situation.

Phil turned north toward the Mall. "Do they still have a carousel at this place?"

"Uh, maybe. I think so," Kelly remembered the carousel from when he was small but wasn't sure it still existed. Three years ago at Christmas he had ridden it with a bunch of smaller kids. Well, younger kids.

"Do you like carousels?" Phil asked.

"-hic- y-yeah?" Embarrassing to admit it, Kelly thought. Then he remembered how he was dressed. This guy probably thinks I'm a girl; it's okay for girls to like things like carousels.

"Does Barbie still like them?" Phil chuckled.

The question seemed so friendly. Kelly relaxed the tiniest bit and smiled, thinking of his mother's gleeful enjoyment. "Yeah, we ride the one at the Fun Zone sometimes."

"Oh! They rebuilt the Balboa Fun Zone? That's great! We should have gone there."

What a strange conversation, thought Kelly. This guy has just carjacked and kidnapped me and we're talking about carousels. Another hiccup turned into a giggle.

Phil glanced at Kelly and smiled a bit more than before. The day suddenly seemed priceless, exquisite. The air blowing through the open car tasted sweet, the sun felt warm, and Kelly was a beautiful child. They crossed the 405, the mall lay on the left and a lot of big office buildings on the right. He waited in the lane to turn into the South Coast Plaza parking lot. "We need to find a phone?" he said.

Kelly blinked and glanced down at the console. Andie's cellphone lay in the hands-free cradle where she had left it. "A phone?" he asked. Something about cellphones, the police could use them to find a caller, couldn't they? He wasn't sure.

"We need a phone so you can call them and tell them you're okay," said Phil. "They'll be worried. And so they'll know where to come to pick you up. Does Amanda have one of those cellphone things?"

Kelly shook his head. "I don't think so? You know Amanda, too?"

Phil looked a bit less pleased with things. "Yeah, she's your grandma. I used to be married to her." He made the turn into the parking lot, following a lane toward the Sears store on the corner. "I don't see any pay phones?" Phil commented.

Kelly's eyes widened, considering. "There's a phone right here," he admitted. He pointed at it in the console and hiccuped again.

Phil parked the car and looked at the cellphone curiously. "Oh. Okay. One of those cellular phones? That belonged to the lady that owns this car?"

Kelly nodded. "Yeah, Andie. She's...gonna be my aunt? My mom, is gonna marry her brother?"

Phil's face didn't show the--pain? dismay?--confusion that statement caused. Kelly hiccuped and winced. "Those are getting pretty bad," Phil observed. "Shall I scare you?"

Considering everything that had happened in the last five minutes, the bizarre offer almost caused Kelly to burst into nervous giggles. "Uh, no, I get them when I'm scared." He squirmed. The last hiccup cure had involved a soda and a kiss. The soda, at least, had a consequence; he needed to pee.

"I don't want you to be scared," Phil reassured him, or tried to. "I've got a water bottle in my travel bag--" Phil began but Kelly shook his head.

"Nuh-uh, I've got to find a bathroom, first?"

Phil smiled, a normal, friendly smile. "Okay, phone call first then you can look for the little girl's room."

Kelly's head jerked and he winced internally but he nodded. He really didn't want Phil to find out that he was really a boy. "Okay," he mumbled and reached for the phone. Phil cleared his throat and Kelly looked back up at him.

"If you call the police, I'll have to leave. I mean, right away, and we won't be able to have our talk? I really want to have that talk, Kelly. I've got some things I need to tell you. And some for you to tell your mom." Phil stayed still but relaxed. "I'm sorry if I've frightened you."

Kelly didn't say anything as he lifted the phone and pressed the menu key. This was just too confusing. He chose a number from the list of names and numbers that came up. He told Phil what he was doing. "I'm gonna call--Richard. He's going to be my step-brother, oh, and he's the one whose shoe you hit, I want to know if he's okay."

Phil nodded. "Yeah, right. Tell, him I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have done this." I shouldn't have done any of this. I knew I'd probably go back to jail if they caught me violating parole but for this... He let the thought trail off, refusing for the moment to consider consequences or options.

Kelly couldn't think of anything to say to Phil so he just nodded and pushed the connect button. What in the world am I going to tell Richard, he wondered.