How to Ditch Your Fairy (15 page)

Demerits: 9

Conversations with Steffi: 11

Game suspensions: 2

Public service hours: 19

Number of Steffi kisses: 4

Boys who like me: all of them

Girls who hate me: Heather Sandol

D
anders Anders was the first one to meet me after school.

“Park,” he caled, opening the door and gesturing for me to get in.

“Emergency.”

I leaned in through the door. “The parking fairy’s gone,” I told him. “I can’t help you.”

Danders shook his head.

“Truly, Andrew, it’s gone this time.”

“Lies.”

I shrugged. I was relieved I’d gotten through the day without earning a school suspension, plus Danders would believe me soon enough. I climbed in, tossing my bag onto the backseat, and reached out to close the door.

“Wait!” Mazza came running up, yeling and breathless. “Charlie!

Your flowers! I thought! We! Could! Hang! Out!”

A bilion roses pressed into my face.

“Can’t, Mazza,” I said, my eyes watering from the rose fumes.

“I’ve got public service. Andrew here is kindly giving me a lift.”

Danders didn’t say anything. “Could you put the flowers in back?”

Danders made the door click open and Mazza laid them reverently on the seat. He closed the door and the car filed with the smel of roses. I coughed. It was like being in a florist. I wound down the window.

Danders didn’t say anything as he drove into town. He remained silent as he circled one block four times.

“This where you’re hoping for a parking spot?” I asked at last.

“Parking fairy gone?” Danders asked.

“Parking fairy gone,” I confirmed.

He sighed. It was probably the saddest sound I’d ever heard.

“Wil you drop me off at public service?” I asked. “I’m at Hilside cemetery.”

Danders sighed again.

“What’s your emergency, Andrew? You realy do have an emergency, don’t you?”

“Money,” he said, and he made the word even sadder than his sighs.

“But you’l have lots of money next year. When you’re an Our.”

“Next year,” Danders said as if that was too far away too imagine.

He let me off at the cemetery.

“Good luck,” I told him. “Hope your money worries are over soon.”

He said nothing.

Fiorenze dashed over to hug me. She was covered in dirt and I hadn’t put my vest on yet. “You’re making me dirty!” I shouted though I didn’t realy care. It felt wonderful to be at public service again, making my demerits go away.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding not even slightly sorry and steering me toward where she was working.”Guess what? I walked part of the way here! Can you believe that?”

“Um, yes?” I brushed off the dirt she’d gotten al over me, puled my vest and gloves on, then bent down to pick up a chewing gum wrapper, which I dropped in the non-recyclable sack.

“Waverly dropped me off,” Fiorenze said, adding a handful of weeds to the compost sack, “and on my own I walked past a bunch of boys and they didn’t even look at me! Al they cared about were their boards. I’m so happy! I love your fairy! I mean
my
fairy.”

I grinned. “I love your fairy too! My fairy! Our fairies! Poor Danders couldn’t find a parking spot! I’m free!”

“That’s stelar! We’re both free!”

“And the boys at school are being so sweet,” I continued, grinning at the thought of Steffi’s kisses. “You should see the flowers they gave me!” Then I remembered that the roses were stil on the backseat of Danders Anders’s car. Oh wel, it was the thought that counted, right? “Me and Steffi are boyfriend and girlfriend now. I realy like him.”

“That’s even more stelar, then,” Fiorenze said. “Though he liked you before the fairy.”

“I
hoped
so, but it was hard to tel. You know, what with you having the fairy and al.”

“Which means the fairy’s only
strengthening
his feelings about you.”

He had said al those lovely things about me. Stuff he’d never said before. “Can life get any better than this?”

“Doubt it,” Fiorenze said, picking up a used condom and depositing it in the nonrecyclables. “Ewww. Just as wel these gloves are so thick.”

“Isn’t it? I’m doing eight hours tonight and I’l be quiet as a mouse tomorrow. I am not going to get a school suspension!”

“Eight hours? The cemetery closes at eleven.”

“Oh right, five hours, then,” I said, dropping a candle stub in the nonrecyclables bag. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but what did you do to get demerits? You’re always so quiet in class. I’ve never seen you in trouble.”

Fiorenze laughed. “I broke a vase over Freedom Hazal’s head.”

“How come I never heard that?”

Fiorenze shrugged. “Freedom wasn’t exactly boasting about it.

He told everyone it was a boarding accident.”

“Yay you! I think the fairy works extra-strong on Freedom.”

“It does,” Fiorenze said firmly.

“He’s creepy.”

“Not as creepy as Irwin Daniels.”

“Irwin Daniels is a creep?” I asked.

Fiorenze nodded. “Him, I punched. Every demerit I’ve earned has been because of the boy fairy.”

“But I thought the rule protected you?”

“Mostly. But sometimes the boys get out of line. I’m supposed to tel the teachers and not take matters into my own hands.”

“Not break stuff over their heads or punch them?” I asked.

“You got it.”

“You know, the boy fairy is a great way to figure out who the creeps are. Most of the boys have been gentlemanly. I haven’t had to use violence.”

Fiorenze didn’t say anything. I wondered if she was embarrassed that I was handling the fairy so much better than she had.

“I’m realy glad we swapped,” I said.

“Me too.”

I managed five hours. Fiorenze left after three, her demerits al scrubbed away.

Demerits: 9 -5 = 4

Conversations with Steffi: 11

Game suspensions: 2

Public service hours: 24

Number of Steffi kisses: 4

Boys who like me: all of them

Girls who hate me: Heather Sandol

T
he next morning as my dad dropped me off, a mob of boys congregated around the car. They surged forward as I opened the door.

“You haven’t done anything to annoy anyone, have you?” Dad asked, reaching across to close the door. “Looks like they have pitchforks hidden behind their backs.”

“Dad!” I grinned. “Don’t be torpid. They’re just pleased to see me.” I couldn’t see Steffi anywhere amongst them.

“Al of them? I didn’t know you were friends with that many boys. You’re sure?” he asked, looking out the window at Bluey, Mazza, Freedom, and the rest, who, while they didn’t actualy have their faces pressed up against it, were pretty close.

“A hundred and ten percent sure.” Though I had to admit the boys didn’t look quite as smiley as they had yesterday. Probably they missed me. I kissed Dad on the cheek and slid out of the car.

The boys started talking to me al at once. It was like the sound a crowd makes when it’s the finals and you’re out in the middle of the field with the red bal in your hand and your team only needs to bag a few more for the win.

A roar.

You can’t distinguish your name from your team’s from your city’s. The boos from the yays. Al you can do is narrow your focus to the batter and the wicket they’re guarding. To making those stumps explode.

Or, in this case, to finding a path past the school gates and into Biology. Even though Mr. Kurimoto was probably the only teacher in school who didn’t issue demerits. Al he cared about were red blood cels and fast-twitch muscles. But his was the only compulsory class I enjoyed.

“Hi,” I said, smiling al around me, wondering where Steffi was. I thought about puling out my lucky bal, but there wasn’t exactly much room for spinning it. “Coming through. Hope you’re happy.

I’m happy. We’re al happy. Happiness everywhere. Ow!” This last because my hair was being yanked. I turned. A boy I didn’t know had his hand in my hair. “Let go!”

“Can’t!” he said. “It’s my school ring. In your hair.”

Desperately he tried to untangle his ring, while at least a dozen other boys yeled at him.

“Stop it!” I yeled back. “Be quiet! I can’t hear my own thoughts.”

The boy’s hand came free, but there was stil something in my hair.

“My ring,” he said.

“I’l get it to you later,” I told him. “But if we don’t get to class soon we’l al get demerits.”

This got through to some of them and my way into the science block became clearer. Eyes on the stumps, I told myself. Bluey, Mazza, and Freedom buzzed along beside me as I tried to get the ring out of my hair.

“Sit with me at first recess, yeah?” Freedom was asking. Mazza and Bluey were saying pretty much the same thing, though Mazza was also asking where in my bedroom I’d put the roses and if I’d thought of him as I looked at them. I didn’t have the heart to say they were probably stil in Danders’s car and that the only person I’d been thinking of when I passed out last night was Steffi.

“My stop,” I said, pushing past them into Biology. Al the male faces in the room turned to me as if they were flowers and I the sun.

I smiled and slid into my regular seat next to Rochele. She smiled too, but I could tel she was stil unhappy with me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“There’s a ring in my hair.”

“Let me. No, don’t pul away from me. Here,” Rochele said as it came free.

I took the ring from her. The side of the crest was dented. I pushed at it to no effect and then gave up and put it into my pocket.

“Fiorenze likes my parking fairy.”

“I’m sure she does.”

“This swap is working out.” A note landed on my desk. And then another. Then three more.

“Mmm.”

“What?” I asked.

“There are rumors flying around, Charlie. They’re not kind.”

“About me?”

“About you.”

“The immune system,” Mr. Kurimoto said, stalking into class, late as usual. “What can you tel me about the effects of extreme fitness on the immune system, Rochele?”

Someone put their hand on my shoulder. I startled and turned around. Irwin Daniels was licking his lips.

“Desist!” I hissed.

“Why?” he whispered. “You want me to touch you, don’t you?”

“No!” Fiorenze was so right about Irwin.

“You’re the one with the fairy that makes me feel this way,” he whispered, leaning forward and stroking my hair and then my back.

I shook him off again. “Quit it!”

“Shouldn’t have stolen Fiorenze’s fairy, then, should you?”

“Did not,” I said, leaning as far forward in my seat as I could.

Why would he say such a torpid thing? It was just as wel most boys weren’t like Irwin or Freedom.

“Rumors like
that
,” Rochele said under her breath.

“Irwin,” Mr. Kurimoto said. “Keep your hands to yourself. Do you agree with Rochele’s and Meike’s answers?

Why?”

Fencing was next. I sprinted the whole way, ducking and weaving, with Rochele running interference and setting awesome picks. It was fun but exhausting, and I couldn’t help missing when we played bal together al the time. She said good- bye, heading off to basketbal ( just to make my pang of envy bigger), and I colapsed onto the nearest bench. If I made it into the basketbal stream then
everything
would be perfect.

“How much did you pay Fiorenze to get her fairy?”

I looked up. Heather Sandol and her best friends, Alicia and Tracy, were staring at me with their hands on their hips. I’d heard the expression “lips curled with contempt,” but now I was seeing actual lips actualy curling.

“I didn’t. We swapped.”

The withering-glare triplets said nothing.

“I just wanted to get rid of my parking fairy.”

“Yes,” Tracy said. “Because they’re such a trial.”

“No boyfriend of your own,” Heather said. “So you had to steal Fiorenze’s fairy.”

“I didn’t steal it!”

“That’s injured,” Alicia said. “You’re injured.” She spat. The globule landed just in front of my feet. “None of the boys like you, Charlie. You’re forcing them to. Against their wils. You’re turning the boys into zombies.”

“What?” I began. “It’s not like that.”

“It’s malodorous,” Heather said. “I used to like you. I thought you were funny. I had no idea what you were realy like. It’s not just Freedom. It’s al the boys. At least Fiorenze didn’t
enjoy
her fairy.”

“I don’t enjoy it,” I protested even though I did. “I just wanted to get rid of my parking fairy. Swapping was the only way.”

“She seems to be under the misapprehension that we’re talking to her,” Heather said, turning her back on me. Tracy and Alicia did the same. “Where could she have gotten that idea from? She wanted the boys, didn’t she? Wel, now they’re
all
she’s got, ‘cause no one else is going to talk to her.

“Absolutely no one.”