Page 100 of The Frog Prince

“I demand an explanation.”

“I want to speak with the person in charge immediately…”

It only got worse from there. I was alone with the parents, social workers, and angry at-risk children, without even one face painter or popcorn maker to back me up, lend support, or offer assistance.

It was truly as if the event, Kid Fest, never existed. No clowns, no caterers, no carnival booths, no inflatable bounce house.

No anything.

Just the kids. Crying.

I hired a dozen different companies to be here today, and there’s no one at the Birch. No one I’ve worked with in the past. No one I paid money to, signed contracts with.Nothing.

I’m beyond baffled. I’m freaked. Panicked. Sweating away in my periwinkle blouse.

I do fruitless, desperate mental calculations. This is the 26th of April. Sunday. Kid Fest Day. This is what I’ve been working so hard on for the past few weeks. Nailing down the details, double-and triple-checking the entertainment for the kids, making sure they had more than enough to do. Arts, crafts, games, sweets, treats, goodie bags. But the phone calls, the packet of confirmations, the letters and contracts in my briefcase, might as well be nonexistent. The entire event is gone. Vanished.

Now I’m on my cell phone, running from one cluster of adults to another, pleading with them to wait a minute, let me just get someone on the phone, that there’s been a mistake and I can get this fixed, even as I begin dialing my contact list all over again, calling one vendor and then another. No one answers, but then, this is Sunday. The Lord’s day. The day of rest.

Hell and damnation.

Maybe I should have gone to church more after all.

White noise fills my head. My heart’s pounding so hard, I think it’s going to jump through my chest. I suppress the panic with everything I can.

Please, someone, have a cell phone, or call-forwarding, or something.

Something.

Cars are pulling away; one fifteen-passenger van leaves fast, the driver leaning heavily on the horn, and the bus packed with kids from South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club is now exiting from the parking lot.

Sick, I watch the departing stream of buses and cars, all the while my fingers punching in phone number after phone number. Someone has to know something. Someone has to know—

“Hello?”

Thank God! It’s Barb from Balloon Wizardry. She works from home, and she picks up the phone. “Barb, it’s Holly from City Events.”

“Hi, Holly—”

“Barb, where are you?”

There’s the faintest pause. “What do you mean?”

“Kid Fest. Today. Where are you?”

“Kid Fest was canceled.”

I go cold all over. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Barb, it can’t be canceled, because the kids are all here with me, and we’re standing outside the Birch Museum, wondering where everyone else is.”

“But you called—”

“I didn’t call.”

“Your assistant called.”