How to Ditch Your Fairy (9 page)

Days walking: 67

Demerits: 7 - 3 = 4

Conversations with Steffi: 8

Doos clothing acquired: 1

Game suspensions: 1

Public service hours: 16

Hours spent enduring Fiorenze

Stupid-Name’s company: 2.75

W
alking through the city even at eight thirty a.m. on a Sunday, there were cars everywhere. Horns honking. Drivers being hateful to every pedestrian who exercised their legaly supported right of way. Drivers exceeding the speed limit, not caring whether they lost points or not.

And then, worst of al, Danders Anders puling up his car and roling down his window.

“Get in.”

“No.” I kept walking.

“Andrew, she doesn’t get in cars anymore,” Rochele explained, folowing me. “Besides we have somewhere we have to be.”

Danders kept his car at a slow crawl beside us, causing an instant traffic jam, filing the air with profanities, and more horns honking.

What is it about cars that turns everyone into a doxhead?

“Emergency.”

“Me too, Andrew.”

“No parks.”

“We don’t have time,” Rochele said.

I sped up. There was no reasoning with Danders Anders. Up ahead was a pedestrian- only street. We could lose him there.

Danders stopped his car. Right in the middle of the street! He got out and caught up with me in a few easy paces. Then he picked me up as if I weighed no more than a bag of cotton candy and headed back to his car.

I screamed as loud as I could and kicked with al my might.”Let me go! Let me go!”

“Can’t,” Danders said. “Emergency.”

Rochele grabbed his shirt, trying to slow him down. She is tal and strong. But he is taler and stronger.

“Andrew! Let her down!”

Rochele put her body between him and his beloved car. “Let her go, Andrew. She doesn’t want to get in your car.”

“Need her,” Danders replied, as if that was reasonable. Behind him the traffic built up even more, the horns louder and angrier.

Danders pushed Rochele aside with one hand while keeping me from escaping with the other. I screamed so loud it hurt.

He winced. “Stop,” he said, reaching for the door handle. I screamed again, aiming at his ears.

“Ow,” Danders said as Rochele tried to stop him from opening the door. He swatted her away, while I screamed again so loud I thought my voice would break. Danders yelped and fel, taking me with him on account of his grip fairy. I landed on top of Danders, who was stil yelping. I looked up.

Two police officers. One of them holding a stun gun.
That
was what had caused Danders’s yelp.

“Andrew Khassian Rogers?” the one with the stun gun asked, but I could tel it wasn’t realy a question. They knew who he was.

Danders blinked.

“Let go of the girl.”

Danders let go of me. I pushed off him. How many demerits did you get for being arrested?

“Are you al right?” the non- stun- gun- wielding officer asked.

I nodded. “He didn’t hurt me.” I doubted he’d used even a tenth of his strength.

“And you?” the officer asked Rochele. She had what looked like the beginnings of a bruise on her cheek.

She touched it gently. “He hurt my face.”

“Accident,” Danders said, rubbing his butt. “I hurt too.”

The officer stood on tippy toes to look at Rochele’s injury.

“There’s no broken skin. Can you touch it?”

Rochele put her fingers to her cheekbone. “It’s not too bad.”

“Probably not broken.”

“No thanks to him,” Rochele said.”How could you?”

“Accident,” Danders repeated.

“Would you like to press charges?” the officer asked. She was not serious. Nobody pressed charges against stars of A-stream teams, especialy ones like Danders Anders who were in their final year and on the brink of superlative careers.

“I’d
love
to press charges,” Rochele answered. “That would be joyous.”

The officer grinned. “Wouldn’t it?”

“Come on, Ro,” I said, grabbing her arm. “We’re stil an hour away from Fiorenze’s.”

“Okay, okay,” Rochele said. She turned to the officer. “I don’t suppose you could rough him up a bit?”

“I thought you
liked
Danders?” I asked.

“Less now than I did.”

The officer laughed. “Stun gun’s al we can do and it’s done. You can comfort yourself knowing that Mr. Khassian Rogers won’t be comfortable for several hours. Do get your face checked out, though.”

“I wil,” Rochele said. “Thanks for rescuing us.”

The officer tipped her hat. We waved as we walked away.

“Something’s up with Danders,” Rochele said.

“You think?” Sandra’s not the only one who can be sarcastic.

“I’ve heard rumors.”

“Realy? Like what? Is he going to run away and join the circus?”

Rochele laughed. “No, someone saw him with people he shouldn’t be with.”

“Like who?” I tried to think who he shouldn’t be with. “Arts students?”

“Hah! No, more like criminals.”

“Criminals!”

“I mean, they didn’t say, but that was the impression I got.”

“Who said?”

“Freedom Hazal. He said that a friend of his cousin’s had seen Danders at a temp nightclub in the produce district. It sounded like Danders was using flyers.”

“Drugs? Danders? Freedom’s a gossip.”

“Doesn’t mean there’s not something to the gossip. Danders is acting vastly out of character.” She touched her cheek and winced.

“He never used to be violent. Flyers can make you violent.”

“I guess.” Though Ro’s cheek was kind of an accident. We continued our trek toward Fiorenze’s house, putting the malodorous Danders Anders out of our thoughts.

Days walking: 67

Demerits: 4

Conversations with Steffi: 8

Game suspensions: 1

Public service hours: 16

Hours spent enduring Fiorenze

Stupid- Name’s company: 2.75

Kidnappings thwarted: 1

F
iorenze Burnham- Stone’s house was ginormous.

I’d heard the rumors, obviously. After her foul- and grossly-unfair fairy, and the fact that her parents had made no effort to lose their accent, the hugeness of their house was the most talked-about thing about the Burnham-Stone family. But I hadn’t realized quite how big.

As we walked up the long drive under an archway of flame trees, the house that came into view wasn’t simply big, it took up the whole block. It was five stories high, made of pink marble, and whole block. It was five stories high, made of pink marble, and surrounded by an ornate garden with columns and arches and fountains. The whole thing sat at the top of the cliff with ocean views on one side and city views on the other.

“Fairy dung!”

“Come on, Charlie, I told you she had a big place.”

“This is not a
big
place. This is a castle, a coliseum, a cathedral.

The Sports Museum isn’t as big as this place. It’s the same size as school! I say again: fairy dung! Are her family insane?”

“Possibly.” Rochele grinned. “But they know a plenitude about fairies and they’re going to help you.”

I wondered if they realy could.

I caught the smel of salt. The smel brought a rush of memories: days surfing, snorkeling, doing laps in the bars, sand castles, beach voleybal. I tried to remember the last time I’d been to the beach.

Definitely not since I’d started at Sports. That made me a little sad.

“Can you smel the ocean?” I asked.

“Yeah, isn’t it fantabulous? When’s the last time we went to the beach?”

“I was just thinking that! Let’s go next school break. After my fairy’s gone.”

“That’s the spirit!” Rochele punched me. I winced. She ran up the front steps and rang the bel. The door opened instantly.

It was Fiorenze. “Hi, Rochele. Hi, Charlie,” she said. “I saw you coming up the drive.”

We both said hi back. Then we al stood there awkwardly for what felt like hours.

“Oh,” Fiorenze said at last, “come in.” She opened the door wider, revealing the biggest foyer I’d ever seen. The floor was made of swirling marble. There were two giant curving staircases and the biggest chandelier I’d ever seen.

“Oh,” Fiorenze said again. “It is kind of big, isn’t it?” She made it sound like that was a realy bad thing.

“Sure is. You must have like five rooms of your own!”

“She has two,” said a strange- accented woman, walking toward me and holding out her hand.

She was pulchritudinous. No, not pulchy exactly, stylish. She was the same height as her daughter. Her skin color was a little darker, with more red. She had the biggest eyes I’d ever seen. Her hair was close cropped, making them look even bigger. And New Avalon is ful of big- eyed pulchies. It was hard to believe she wasn’t an Our.

But to be an Our requires not just fame—you have to be a proper New Avaloner. She’d only lived here ten years or so. Not long enough to lose her accent. Not that a Fairy Studies professor would ever become famous, not unless they captured a fairy or something.

“I’m Tamsin,” she said. “You must be Charlotte.”

I shook her hand and didn’t tel her that I hate being caled Charlotte. I couldn’t quite imagine her caling me
Charlie
.

“Helo, Rochele. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks, Tamsin.” Rochele spoke as if caling her by her first name was perfectly natural. No way could I cal this goddess by her first name.

“Are you girls hungry? Thirsty?”

“No, thank you,” Rochele said. I shook my head. I was feeling too awe-ful to speak.

“Wel, then to business it is. Darling, show Rochele the new additions to the basketbal court. Didn’t you say she’s an A-streamer now?”

I tried not to think jealous thoughts. Even if I’d made B-stream I couldn’t have replaced Elena; I’m just a little point guard.

Fiorenze looked down. “Oh, I thought we—”

“See you later, darling.” She turned to me, swiveling elegantly. I wondered if she’d ever been a dancer. “This way,” she said as if her words were part of the same movement.

Folowing her, I was convinced that if anyone could get rid of my loathsome fairy, it was Tamsin Burnham-Stone.

Days walking: 67

Demerits: 4

Conversations with Steffi: 8

Game suspensions: 1

Public service hours: 16

Hours spent enduring Fiorenze

Stupid- Name’s company: 2.75

Kidnappings thwarted: 1

D
r. Burnham- Stone led me up the right-hand curving marble staircase and down a long corridor that wasn’t lined with family portraits, though I could imagine them.

“Have you considered that you might have the fairy you have for a reason?”

“Um,” I said. To make sure my blood is ful of carbon monoxide?

Stupid cars.

“Some people believe that everyone gets the fairy they deserve.

And that changing your fairy wil create chaos.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” I said. I did not
deserve
my fairy! “How do you mean chaos?”

“I mean what I say,” she said grimly. “Chaos.”

That wasn’t any answer. “Yes, but what do you mean by chaos?”

She opened a door and led me into a large room. I was startled to see myself a hundred times over. The wals were lined with mirrors. I automaticaly straightened, puling my shoulders back, and flattened my core muscles. The result of years of fencing lessons in front of mirrors.

Dr. Burnham-Stone put her finger over her lips and gestured for me to sit down. But there weren’t any chairs, only cushions and loads of books in precarious piles. At the other end of the room was a metal box with a huge padlock on it.

I wondered if that was her secret fairy manifesto! Fiorenze hadn’t been kidding about it being locked up. The padlock was the biggest, most unbreakable in the universe. How on earth did Fiorenze expect me to get a peek at the book?

I sank cross- legged onto the nearest cushion, keeping my stomach muscles tight and my back straight. Fiorenze’s mom sat down opposite me with a notebook in hand. She stared at me as if I were a bug she was figuring out how to kil.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I stare back? That seemed rude. I rested the backs of my hands on my knees like I was going to start meditating. Hardly! I hate meditating.

Dr. Burnham-Stone kept staring at me. I wondered if Fiorenze was adopted. Fiorenze’s eyes were smaler, her nose bigger, and her hair had tighter curls (when it wasn’t braided, that is). Maybe she favored her father. I wondered where he was. Wasn’t he a fairy expert too?

I felt a trickle of sweat rol down my spine, which was crazy because the room wasn’t hot. Wasn’t cold either. I wished she’d say something.

I shifted position just a hair because my calves were aching. Her eyes narrowed.

“Must not move,” I told myself, which made me want to move.

She hadn’t moved a muscle (except the glaring ones). I couldn’t even tel if she was breathing. I wondered what she was seeing when she stared at me. Could she actualy see my fairy? Did she have a fairy that let you see other people’s fairies? Surely if that was true she’d be famous. I mean, how doos would that be? Everyone would want her to stare at them and at their newborn babies.

Maybe she could even tel what fairy they had in the womb.

“Why are you staring at me?” I asked, even though I knew I shouldn’t, but she was hardly going to give me a demerit, was she?

“Are you trying to scare the fairy away?”

Dr. Burnham-Stone snorted.

My legs started to go numb. I am not a fan of staying in one position for more than a few seconds. Hence the not liking of meditating. Another trickle of sweat ran down my spine.

My left cheek was itchy.

And my shoulder.

Since when did shoulders get itchy?

“Can you see my fairy, then?” I asked. “Are you memorizing it?”

“Something like that,” she said, opening up her notebook and scribbling in it.

I crossed my legs the other way and shook out my arms. Dr.

Burnham- Stone kept scribbling, glancing up at me and frowning, and then scribbling and scribbling and scribbling some more.

I wondered what time it was. I hoped it wasn’t too late. I had a vast amount of homework to get through and it was going to take a couple of hours to get home. Unless her scribbling was her figuring out how to get rid of my fairy, in which case I could go by bus and it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes or so (traffic depending).

She closed her notebook and stood up. “Come here,” she said, leading me to the corner of the room, where there were mirrors on two sides. I stood up and folowed her. “Stand there,” she said, pointing to the corner of the room.

I stood with mirrors on two sides of me while she dragged two portable ones to make a third and fourth wal around me. Milions of reflections of myself over and over and over again.

“What do you see?”

“Um, me?”

“Look closer.”

I looked closer, staring at myself multiplied into infinity. But I couldn’t see anything unusual. I just looked like me.

“Can you see your fairy’s aura?”

“Um.”

“Do you see anything hovering around your edges?”

“I can see
you
.”

“Look closer.”

I did. I could see the tiny faint hairs on my face. Were teeny little hairs fairies? Or did she mean the freckles on my nose? How come no one else in my family had freckles? Not even Nettles, who’s a shade or two lighter than me. Not fair. There didn’t seem to be any fairy aura caught in any of my freckles.

“Relax your eyes. Let yourself see!”

I tried. But I just saw even more Charlies.

“Um,” I said.

Dr. Burnham- Stone frowned. “You need to relax your eyes.

Stare at one point. Stare at your nose until your vision blurs.”

I stared. My nose blurred. My head started to ache and then something shifted, my nose unblurred. And there was an arc of smudgy light around me. As wel as a briliant one around Dr.

Burnham-Stone.

“See?”

I did see. “Yours is golden; mine is blue and white.”

“Yes. Except that you have two auras, not one.”

“So one of them’s mine and the other is my fairy’s?”

“No,” she said, as if I were a little dense. “They both belong to fairies. One is your original fairy’s. See the thicker white aura? The thin blue one belongs to your proto- fairy. It’s waiting for the parking fairy to leave before it emerges fuly.”

“Two fairies?” Was that even possible?

“Yes, two. Though it’s more like one and a fraction. Your parking fairy is definitely weakening. See how much less bright it is than mine?”

I nodded.

“Continue walking. Your parking fairy is almost gone. But you must also encourage the proto- fairy. Do things that wil strengthen it.”

“Realy?” I said, staring at the white aura. It wasn’t nearly as bright as her fairy’s aura, but it was stil considerably thicker and brighter than the proto- fairy’s blue smudge. “But isn’t there something you can do to snuff out the parking fairy right now?”

“It’s better to finish the work you’ve begun,” she said, sounding a bit like Coach Ntini.

Dr. Burnham- Stone, I decided, was excelent at not answering questions.

“What’s my proto- fairy, then?”

Dr. Burnham-Stone shook her head. “That you must discover for yourself.”

“How?”

She smiled. “You wil find out.”

“Can you give me something to read about proto- fairies? Wil I get a hint about what it is? What if it’s worse than the parking fairy?” I didn’t realy think she’d hand over the
Ultimate Fairy
Book
, but it was worth a shot.

She shook her head. “Little is known about them.”

“What do
you
know, then?”

Dr. Burnham-Stone cut her eyes at me.

“I’m just asking,” I protested. “How can I encourage it if I don’t know what it is?”

“A proto- fairy is exactly what it sounds like. A fairy that isn’t fuly formed yet. You don’t need to know any more than that.”

I disagreed. I thought I needed to know
heaps
more than that.

What kind of a scholar didn’t want to teach you stuff?