Authors: Alex Flinn
Tags: #Adolescence, #Love & Romance, #Personal, #Beauty, #Beauty & Grooming, #Health & Fitness, #Juvenile Fiction, #General, #United States, #Social Issues, #Adaptations, #People & Places, #Fantasy & Magic, #Fiction, #Fairy Tales & Folklore
“Better?” I went from holding her hand to hugging her. “Lindy, you loved me when I wasn’t even human. You kissed me when I had no lips. You saw what was deep down inside me when I wasn’t even sure about it myself. Believe me, there’s no way I could do better. I think you’re perfect.”
“Oh, if you say so.” But she was smiling.
“I do. I’ll look whatever way you want me to. But do you think this happens to everyone – being turned into a beast, then changed back because of true love? Most people wouldn’t even believe it could happen, but it happened to us. Magic. For the rest of our lives, we’ll go to school and have jobs and eat breakfast and watch TV, but we’ll know that even if we don’t see it, there’s magic in the world. Face it, this is happily ever after, true love like in fairy tales.” I kissed her again. She kissed me back. We stood there, kissing, until the sun was fully up in the sky and the morning sounds of the city had begun.
Then we went downstairs and made breakfast.
EPILOGUE
Senior Year
“Hey, your name’s on this.” Lindy’s tone is derisive as she passes back copies of the Tuttle homecoming court ballot.
Yeah, Lindy and I went back to Tuttle. It took some string pulling on Dad’s part to get us back in, but our classmates welcomed us back into the fold – that is, if whispering behind my back that I’d flunked out of boarding school, been involved in a scandalous affair with the headmaster’s daughter, or had a nervous breakdown can be considered welcoming back. At Tuttle, it probably was.
“He must have had a nervous breakdown,” I heard Sloane Hagen say one day when Lindy and I passed her in the hall. “Or maybe he took a blow to the head. Why else would he go out with a nothing like her?” Apparently, she’d been serious about my calling her if I transformed back. She’d mentioned several times that she was waiting for a call. She was still waiting.
Now I look at the ballot. Sure enough, there’s my name. “Must be a typo.”
“Right.”
“I haven’t seen these people in two years. Why would they nominate me for homecoming court?”
“It couldn’t possibly be based on looks, right?”
“Maybe so. Whatever.” I crumple the ballot into a ball and try to score a basket with it in the trash can. I miss and head to the front of the room.
But the teacher reaches it first. “Mr. Kingsbury, I believe this is yours,” he says. “In the future, there will be no three-pointers in my AP English class.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s no special treatment around here, Kyle. For anyone.”
“Yes, sir.” I salute, then shove the ballot into my pocket and head for my desk. “Jerk,” I whisper to Lindy.
Lindy looks at the teacher. “What Kyle means is, he’s very sorry, and it won’t happen again.” Around us, people are giggling. I notice that hardly anyone’s filling out their homecoming ballots. I count three wastebasket basketballs, waiting to be thrown as soon as the teacher turns his back again, two paper airplanes, and one origami piece, not including the people who are just letting the ballot sit while they text-message.
“We don’t have to go to the dance, by the way,” I tell Lindy. “It’s pretty lame.” But Lindy says, “Of course we’re going. I want a real corsage from you – any color rose you like –
and I have the perfect dress.”
The teacher must have decided we’d spent enough time not filling out our ballots because he starts class, and we go over an hour of English lit that Lindy and I, at least, already know from our years of homeschooling with Will.
On the way out, I corner the teacher. “Nice guy, ragging on us.” Mr. Fratalli shrugs. “Hey, you wouldn’t want people thinking I was showing favoritism just because we happen to live in the same house.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” But I’m joking and put my hand up for a high five. “See you later, Will?”
“Much later,” Mr. Fratalli – Will – says. “I have school tonight. Don’t want to have to teach little snots like you forever.”
Will’s going to school too. Grad school, so he can be an English professor. But I made sure my dad wrote him a great recommendation to teach at Tuttle for now.
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “Well, we’ll keep the pizza warm for you.”
“I’d think you’d be studying too hard to have time even to order pizza.”
“Then you’d think wrong. This class is easy compared to what we used to do.” After school, Lindy and I usually take the subway to the house in Brooklyn where we still live with Will. My dad offered to move me back into his Manhattan apartment after my transformation, but I think we were both relieved when I said no. I wanted to have someplace for Lindy to stay. So now we all stay together.
“Do you want to walk over to Strawberry Fields?” I say to Lindy as we leave Tuttle. We do that some days, to look at the garden.
But today, Lindy shakes her head. “I want to go see something at home.” I nod. Home. It’s still such a bizarre and beautiful word for me, to have a home where I can come and go, a place where people actually like me.
When we reach the house, Lindy disappears upstairs. Her room is still on the third floor, and I hear noises from above. I pick up the mirror we always keep in a place of honor in the living room, the repaired mirror that Kendra brought the day the spell was broken. “I want to see Lindy,” I tell it.
But as I knew would happen, I see only my own face. The magic is over, but its effects will live forever. There was definitely magic in Lindy and me getting together.
Lindy comes down a few minutes later.
“Where is it?” she says.
“Where’s what?” I’m polishing off a box of Cheetos and a glass of milk. I’ve finally figured out where everything is in the kitchen.
“Ida’s dress,” Lindy says. “I’m going to wear it to the dance.”
“That’s what you want to wear?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing.” I take another handful of Cheetos.
“Is it because it’s not new?”
I shake my head, remembering my comment to Kendra. “Around here people buy new dresses for a dance.” I want to slap that guy except – oh yeah – he was me. “It’s just… I’m not sure I want other people to see… to know about… never mind. It’s fine.”
“Are you sorry you’re not going with some homecoming queen girl or something?”
“Yeah, right. No. No. Stop asking me stupid questions. It’s fine.” She smiles. “Then where’s my dress?”
I look away. “In my room, under my mattress.”
She gives me a funny look. “Why would it be there? Were you wearing it? Is that why you don’t want me to wear it?” She’s kidding, but even so…
“No.” I start downstairs to get the dress. I don’t expect her to follow me, but she does. I walk through my rooms, past the rose garden, then lift the mattress and take the green satin from the space between it and the box spring. I remember the days when I used to smell her perfume, though I would never tell her about it in a million years. Still, I remember the first day I saw the dress, the first day I saw her in it, being so afraid to touch her, but hoping maybe she’d love me. “Here. Put it on.” She examines it. “Oh, it has a few beads hanging. Maybe you’re right about not wearing it.”
“You can get it fixed. Take it to the dry cleaner. But first put it on.” Suddenly, I very much want to see her in it again.
A moment later, she’s wearing it, and it is exactly as I remember, the cool green satin contrasting with the warm pink of her skin. “Wow,” I say. “You’re beautiful.” She examines herself in the mirror. “You’re right. I’m gorgeous.”
“And so modest. Now I have to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
I hold my hand out to her. “May I have this dance?”
THE END
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