How to Ditch Your Fairy (7 page)

Days walking: 62

Demerits: 8 - 3 = 5

Conversations with Steffi: 7

Doos clothing acquired: 0

Game suspensions: 1

Public service hours: 3

Hours spent enduring Fiorenze

Stupid-Name’s company: 2.75

B
y the time I got home the door to Nettles’s room was closed and no light seeped out. Mom and Dad were in bed reading. They caled out their helos and good nights. I returned them trying not to sound as tired as I felt. I stumbled into my room, dumped my backpack, tried to feel pleased about the three demerits I’d just wiped out, then plugged my tablet into the big screen on my desk, and went straight to the PR homework, skipping my mail and al other temptations.

I had to come up with likely (and tough) questions (at least fifteen) at a press conference after a PR disaster and answer them with the most positive spin possible. I hadn’t even read through the five scenarios yet. It’d be easiest to do the first one. But I was stil burned from the test we’d been given back in middle school where it turned out the last question was an instruction not to do the test at al. Like most of the class I’d just started doing it and scribbled away until I was disturbed by the sound of giggling coming from al the smarty- pants (including Rochele) who’d read it the whole way through.

In the first scenario you were captain of the New Avalon XI, who’d enforced the folow on and then lost. I checked the last scenario: a cyclist testing positive for enhancers after taking out the yelow jersey in the Tour. Ouch.

So okay, there was no
Do not do this test
trick. Deciding to stick with my strengths, I chose the cricket option: captain of the NA XI. I started searching for transcripts of folow-on loss press conferences and found several. I clicked on the oldest one.

“I can’t believe that’s homework.”

I jumped. Or I would have if I’d been standing. When I turned to tel Nettles to quit it, a bright light went off in my eyes. Nettles capturing my soul. Again. She doesn’t go anywhere without her camera.

“Nettles! You scared me. Put your camera away!”

Nettles grinned, her face matching that of the monkeys wielding knives emblazoned on her T-shirt. She peered at my tablet and the press conference I’d found. “You’re just going to copy that, aren’t you?” she asked, taking a photo. “Where’s the creativity in that?”

Nettles is very large on creativity.

“It’s PR,” I told her. “There’s no creativity in PR. It’s al spin, spin, spin. You just give it your al, take advantage of your opportunities, step up to the next level, make a 110 percent effort, and at the end of the day the best team wins because champions wil out. Stop taking photos of me! It’s late. The flash hurts my eyes.”

Nettles teeth-sucked. “PR is also a compulsory at Arts, you know. And it’s very creative. Much originality. Sports is entirely without originality. You’re al learning to do something that’s been done before over and over and over. Bounce the bal, hit the bal, throw the bal. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

“You’re only twelve,” I said just to annoy her. “What would you know?”

“Like fourteen’s so old. And I know heaps about originality!

More than you ever wil!”

Originality is Nettles’s other religion. I couldn’t be bothered arguing with her about whether sports are worthwhile or not. I got bored with that conversation years ago. If my little sister couldn’t understand the joy of your body in motion, of making a cricket bal do exactly what you wanted it to, of going under someone’s guard and bending the point of your foil into their chest, of hearing the swish of a basket that is al net, then there was nothing I could say to explain it to her.

Nettles thought my school was an insanely strict nightmare run by sadistic uptight prison guards; I thought it was heaven.

“That’s vastly doos for you, Nettles. Yay Arts and al of its
creativity
and
originality
.” I yawned. Not to raz her, but because I was so exhausted I couldn’t not. She snapped a photo. I’m sure my tonsils looked gorgeous.

“I won the Arts Junior PR special event promotion,” she said in her it’s-no- big- deal voice, which always means that it’s a
huge
deal.

“You did?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.

“Results were announced this morning.”

I gave her a much- lighter- than- Rochele punch.

“Congratulations! What did you win?”

“Ful credit. Family pass to the show. And my counselor says I should think about making PR one of my majors when I get to Arts High.”

“Doos.”

Nettles shrugged. “I don’t want to be a PR hack, explaining why Our Vida uses elephant dung instead of clay to a room ful of reporters who stil think the word ‘poo’ is funny. Not joyous.”

“The word ‘poo’
is
funny.” I yawned again. “I thought you said Arts PR was a vastness of creativity and originality?”

She shrugged again. “Anything can be creative and original.”

“Even sports?”

“Except sports. Are you going to come?”

“Come?”

“To the show? It’s a family pass.”

“What show is it?”

Nettles teeth-sucked again. “Monkey Knife Fight. It’s only their monstrous comeback. Sold out decades ago. They’re fourth- row tickets. Right in the center.”

“Doos seats,” I said.

“So, you coming?”

“When is it?”

“Wednesday after next. Eight o’clock.”

What would I be doing in two Wednesdays? Let’s see … public service. And after that catching up on homework. Or, I could stil be walking back from whatever oval I was playing on. Assuming I was playing. I might run up enough demerits to be off my teams and have my coaches hating me even more. I started to say I couldn’t.

Nettles was giving me her ful-bore, eyes- cut, nostrils-flared, teeth-bared glare. I sighed. “I’l try.”

“You’l
try
?” She was so cranky she wasn’t even taking pictures.

“Wel, I’m kind of—”

“If you weren’t being so stupid about your fairy you could come.

I don’t even have a fairy! I’d love to have a parking fairy!”

This time I yawned so hard my jaw cracked. I winced and rubbed it. “Nettles, I’m tired. It’s late, and I have lots more homework to do. Trying is the best I can give you.”

“Don’t then. I only wanted you to come for Mom and Dad. But you’re too selfish to ever think of anyone but yourself. Forget about it.” She hissed and then left the room in an angry but quiet stomp (mustn’t wake Mom and Dad). Her closing of the door was the quietest slam possible, but it rang in my ears as if it had been the loudest.

I turned back to my unoriginal and uncreative assignment. By the time I’d cut and pasted and reworded and reordered the questions off the transcript, my eyes were so tired the words on the screen blurred into each other.

By five a.m. I’d answered al the questions but had barely made word- count. I fel into bed bone- tired, brain-tired, fairy- tired, and sister- guilty.

Microseconds later my alarm went off: six a.m. I pried my eyes open with my fingers; they were glued shut with sleep. If the gunk in the corners of my eyes was bad fairy aura, then I was in for a vastly horrendous day. I roled out of bed and into the shower before I realized I hadn’t taken my pajamas off. I’d worked off three demerits last night at public service.

It was not enough.

Days walking: 63

Demerits: 5

Conversations with Steffi: 7

Doos clothing acquired: 0

Game suspensions: 1

Public service hours: 3

Hours spent enduring Fiorenze

Stupid-Name’s company: 2.75

S
teffi was outside, sitting on my front steps, bouncing coins off the back of his hand as if they were jacks. I shut the front door behind me, my heart beating ridiculously fast. He pocketed the coins and stood up.

“Heya, Charlie. Okay if I walk to school with you?”

“Sure. Is something up? Where’s Fiorenze?”

“Oh,” he said, looking almost embarrassed, “we sort of broke up.”

“Realy?” I asked, having to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from screaming with joy.

“Uh-huh.”

“How about that?” I said, trying to think of something less torpid to say. I was smiling so big my cheeks were beginning to hurt, but Steffi was here, at my house.

“Shouldn’t we get going?”

I looked at my watch. I was running late. “Yup. Sorry. Didn’t get a lot of sleep.” I wondered why he hadn’t rung the doorbel to hurry me up.

Steffi slipped his backpack over both arms, jumped down the steps, and did three forward handsprings, then two backward, before landing on his feet with a big grin.

“Show- off,” I said, cartwheeling across the lawn.

We smacked palms. Steffi shook out his arms. “That felt briliant.”

I grinned. It did. “Run to school?”

“You’re on,” he said, taking off.

I caught up with him at the lights. “Took your time,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not awake yet.” I brought my foot up behind me to stretch out my quads. Steffi did the same.

“You know what I like best about school?” Steffi asked.

“There’s something you like about school?” I asked, switching legs. “I thought it was al too weird for you.”

“I love that everyone’s into sports, that no one even talks about loving it ‘cause it’s too obvious. It’s the air we breathe.” He took in a deep breath.”At my old school there weren’t that many sports types.”

I hadn’t realized he’d gone to a mixed school. In New Avalon mixed schools were only for the untalented. The light changed and we bolted across the street. His legs were longer than mine—whose aren’t?—but my fasttwitch muscles are not too shabby. I passed him in the middle of the block.

“Hey!” he shouted. “It’s not a race!”

“Yes it is,” I shouted over my shoulder and sped up. This time it was him catching me at the light.

“You’re fast,” he said, breathing hard. We both were. I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back.

“Yup.”

“Wanna keep pace the rest of the way?” he asked. “That way we could, you know, talk.”

I grinned. The light changed and we jogged across together.

“It’s hard to believe that al those things are realy against the rules.”

“You mean the infractions list?”

“Yeah,” Steffi said. “Why does the school need to be so crazy strict?”

“Because it’s a
sports
school, Steffi. Sports are al about rules. If you can’t folow rules, you can’t play sports. Discipline is the most important thing an athlete can learn, no matter what sport they play.”

“Wow,” Steffi said. “Do they make you learn that by heart?”

“Huh?” I said. Why did he always say such weird things? “No.

It’s just true. I like rules. They’re why sports make sense. You don’t have to guess what you’re supposed to do, you just know.

When I hit the middle stump and it goes cartwheeling, the batter’s out. And the same rules apply to everyone. Like sports, the school is a rule-governed system that makes sense. If I folow the rules al’s wel, if I don’t al’s not.”

“Wel, sure, except for when someone cheats. Or when the referees make a bad cal. Or when the rules don’t apply to some people because they’re so special. Like that Danders Anders guy.”

“Danders gets demerits too, you know. He gets more than you do.”

Steffi laughed. “You sound like my sister.”

“What?” We were both jogging much slower now.

“She thinks I have a getting- out- of- trouble or nevergetting-caught fairy—she cals it different things—but she’s my big sister and is convinced that I get away with murder and always have. You know how big sisters are.”

I stopped mid-stride. Steffi puled up. “You okay?”

“Did you say a getting-out- of-trouble fairy?” That made
so
much sense.

“That’s what she reckons.”

“Hah!” I started jogging again. “Steffi, how many demerits have you gotten so far? How many times have teachers and coaches cited you for an infraction?”

“An infraction? Like what Sandra was explaining about? Would I know if a teacher or coach had given me one?”

“Oh, yes, you’d know.” I started to run through the Steffi infractions I’d seen: kissing, holding hands, passing notes to Stupid-Name, being sloppily and incorrectly dressed, arriving late, fighting in class (when he told us that everyone hated New Avaloners). I was sure there were more.

“Then none, I guess,” he said.

“Hah!” I exclaimed. I
knew
it.

“What?”

“Your sister is spot on. At least two coaches saw you hand in hand with Stup—I mean, Fiorenze—that’s an infraction; your tie was messed up al day yesterday— that’s an infraction; you were later than me to Fencing and I got a demerit—you didn’t.”

“So?”

“So!? It means your sister’s right! You definitely have a getting-out-of-trouble fairy. You can do whatever you like! And wholy get away with it! Oh, if I had your fairy …”

Steffi waved my words away. “Al of that doesn’t mean anything.

I’m the new kid in school, they’re just going easy on me.”

“Ah, no, Mr. West Coast. They don’t ever
go easy
. Not on anyone
ever
. Especialy not on new kids. At the start of the year we were a class of 540. Now there’s 403. You should have demerits up the wazoo.”

Steffi shook his head and did his West Coast hand wave.

“Doesn’t add up—”

“Doesn’t add up! I just thought of another one: you talked out of turn in PR when you were saying how everyone hates us. But you weren’t given a demerit. Half the class was, but not you!” Why was he denying it when it was so obviously true?

“Whatever. Listen, Charlie, wil you do me a favor? Don’t mention this to anyone? Even though it’s not true I don’t want other people to be thinking it is.”

I slowed my jog to a walk and spat on my pinkie, holding it out.

“Fairy honor.”

He did the same. “Ah, okay. Fairy honor.” We pressed our pinkies together, then let go. I suppressed the shiver that contact with Steffi gave me.

“You can wholy trust me. I haven’t even told anyone— except Ro and she’s the queen of secret keeping—that you like to be caled Steffi.”

Steffi laughed. “I don’t care about that. You do know it’s mostly a girl’s name on the West Coast too? I know how to handle the jerks who hassle me about it.”

Jerks
? “I’m sure you do. I’m glad you moved here. I never would’ve met you if you’d stayed back on the West Coast.”

Steffi didn’t say anything.

“Aren’t you glad you moved?”

“Sometimes. A lot of the time I miss home. Ravenna seems so far away from here.”

“What’s Ravenna?” I asked

“That’s my city. That’s where I’m from. You never heard of Ravenna?” Steffi asked, sounding shocked.

“Wel, I guess, um,” I said, wondering if I should have heard of it.

“Wel, I haven’t realy studied geography. I was at a sports middle school too, so—”

“It’s beautiful. Lots of hils.”

New Avalon has lots of hils too, I wanted to tel him, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t go down too wel. “Are your friends back home proud of you for getting into NA Sports?” I asked instead.

Steffi sighed.”I don’t suppose they’ve thought about it.”

“Wil they come visit you? Are you the first to move here?” I’d never met anyone from there before. I wondered if they were al like Steffi or if he was unique.

“Unbelievable. Do you only think about New Avalon?” Steffi’s face darkened, like he was realy mad. “Al you ever ask me is what I think of your school, of your city, of you Avaloids, but you never ask me about where I come from, about my old school. Not a single person has asked me about home.”

“Sorry,” I said, not sure of what he wanted me to say. We couldn’t help it that we came from the most important city in the world, could we? I patted his shoulder but he shrugged my hand off.

“Why aren’t any of you curious?”

“Wel—,” I began. I didn’t want him to be mad at me, but I didn’t know what to say to make him happy again.

“Why don’t any of you ever mention Stanislaw Leda? Or Huntley du Sautoy? Or Livio?” he asked, almost shouting. “They are only three of the most famous people in the world! But they’re not from New Avalon, are they? They’re not
Your
Stanislaw or
Your
Huntley or
Your
Livio so you just don’t care!”

“But I love Livio!” I had reams and reams of Livio’s music.

“You care more about
Your
Zora- Anne even though the only thing she’s famous for is being charismatic because of some fairy you al believe she has. She doesn’t
do
anything! She’s not a sports star. She doesn’t sing or write or dance or make scientific discoveries or design buildings. She’s just popular and charming!

What’s the point of that?”

“She does do …” I stopped. I couldn’t think of a single thing Our Z-A did.

Steffi flicked both his hands. “And you, Charlie, you say you want to travel, see more of the world, but you’re not interested in anywhere but here. If it doesn’t have to do with New Avalon, or more specificaly, with New Avalon Sports High, you’re not interested.”

Was that true? Then I remembered. “I
have
asked you about the West Coast. You said they think we’re stuck- up, that they hate us, and I asked—”

“You asked me what they think about
you
. That’s not curiosity about the world, that’s more of being obsessed with New Avalon.”

Steffi was waving his arms around and walking faster. I’d never seen him so cranky before. He stil managed to look pulchy. His lips were so soft-looking. So gorgeously shaped. I wondered if he’d be mad at me if he knew that’s what I was thinking. “You do know this isn’t the only city in the world, don’t you? It’s not even the biggest.”

“But I …” That was hardly fair. “It’s not the biggest? That doesn’t sound right. Are you sure?”

Steffi let out a loud sigh. “I’m not mad at you, Charlie. It’s not just you anyway. It’s the whole city. Sometimes I feel like the West Coast has disappeared and that Ravenna and al my friends there have vanished into thin air. That I’m just imagining the mail I get.”

We turned the corner onto Malett, the steepest street in New Avalon, and thus in the world (though Steffi now had me wondering if that was true) and got a sweeping view al the way out past the river and the city to the ocean. NA Sports lay at the bottom of the hil. I looked at my watch. “Oops. We’ve only got five minutes.”

Steffi looked at me and grinned. I smiled back. He realy wasn’t mad at me. “Want to sprint it?”

“Sure,” I said. Did I mention that Malett is steep? At least if I had a broken ankle I’d be off school and couldn’t rack up any more demerits. Wel, not as many.

“You ready?” he asked, looking at me sideways. When he looked at me like that I was sure he liked me close to how much I liked him.

I nodded. I would probably do anything he suggested.

“Let’s
goooo
!” He took off.

I ran as hard as I could, caught him, then momentum took over and it wasn’t so much running as keeping from toppling over. We screamed al the way down the hil.