My Fair Godmother (33 page)

nothing but a storyteller. I would have come for you. I wouldn’t have let my father hurt you.” He may have meant it, but I didn’t regret choosing Tristan. I glanced at Tristan to see what he would do, but he was only gazing at Hugh patiently.

Hugh held out the stick, making it into a weapon, then turned to Tristan. “What will you do now, page? If you don’t draw your sword, I will strike her. Draw it, and it will only make your end come more quickly.” Tristan stood up slowly, faced Hugh, then pulled his sword from the sheath. “Do you feel anything happening?”

Hugh took a step away from him. A flash of uncertainty crossed his expression.

I stood up but made sure to stay near Tristan. “You don’t understand magic either, Hugh. If you did, you’d know that you can’t switch the same enchantments.” Hugh took another step backward, this time as though he’d been knocked by a fist. His eyes had a wild look to them and his voice came out strangled. “I still have the same enchantment?”

“No. I switched with Tristan last night. Now he has the invincibility enchantment and you—well, you can’t go home until you’re a prince.” As soon as I spoke the words, a stream of sparkles swooped down from the sky. Like thousands of little 420/431

fireflies, they encircled Hugh and lifted him from the ground.

He put his hands out as though trying to swat them away. “What’s happening?”

“I think you get to go home now,” I said. Then the lights drew together and he was gone.

Tristan and I stood looking at the empty space for a few seconds, checking to make sure he’d really left. At last Tristan lowered his sword. “Well, they’re going to be happy to see him back at the castle.” I nodded. “I think so.”

Then we both laughed and Tristan wound his arms around me. He laid his head against my hair, holding me close. “You still smell good.”

“Better than cough syrup?”

“Way better than cough syrup.” The lights came again, a shower of sparklers this time, and then Chrissy stood before us.

She wore a tropical blue swimsuit and a pink terry cloth cover-up, and she smelled of suntan lotion. She took her sunglasses from her nose and slid them on top of her hair. “Okay, I’m saving myself the fifty voice mails you’ll be sending me shortly and taking care of this right now.” She tossed her blond hair over her shoulder and held up her hand to keep me from speaking. “I already know you no longer have that can’t-go-home-until-421/431

you’re-a-prince enchantment. So what will it be, are you happy with your prom date now, or are you going to claim that I still messed up your wish?” I held onto Tristan’s hand tightly. “I’m very happy with my prom date.”

“Good.” She smiled at me, satisfied. “All that anxiety you had over the dance and what everyone at school would think of your date—I hope you’ve learned that you can’t let people in high school hand your happiness to you.”

I nodded.

“I’m the one with the wand,” she went on. “Leave it to the professionals.”

“What?” I asked, because it wasn’t what I’d expected her to say at all. But I don’t think she heard me. She flicked her wand in our direction and the next thing I knew, we were standing in my bedroom.

• • •

I let out a sigh of relief. “We’re back in the modern world.” Just because I could, I walked over to the light switch and flipped it on. “Look, electricity.” 422/431

His eyes kept roaming around my room. “You have a ton of clothes.”

“Not really,” I said, and shut my closet door. I hoped he wasn’t referring to all the clothes sprawled over my bed and thrown across the top of my dresser. In truth, it did seem like an overabundant amount. Everything in my room seemed luxurious now. Even Princess Margaret hadn’t had such nice things.

“I need to call my parents,” Tristan said.

“What are you going to tell them?” I asked.

Which was the reason he didn’t call them right away. I gave him a haircut first, then he showered, and I gave him a pair of my dad’s sweatpants and a T-shirt.

I also called Jane’s cell phone to let her know that I was home and to find out how Hunter was, but she didn’t pick up. And then I remembered that she’d taken her cell phone to the Middle Ages.

Yeah, so Jane probably wouldn’t be answering that anytime soon.

After Tristan was clean, shorn, and standing in my kitchen, I helped him with his story. “You leaned out of your window and fell out. Head injury. You wandered around for two days and don’t remember anything.”

“Wouldn’t my window have been left open if I fell out of it?”

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I looked at him and sighed. “It’s not going to matter what you tell them. They’ll know something odd happened to you—you’ve grown at least an inch and filled out. You’ve got scars on your arms. Plus you’ve turned into this total hot guy.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. I don’t look that different.”

“Yes, you do,” I said, because it was true.

He shook his head. “You just see me differently now.” I knew he was wrong, but the funny thing was that when he went home—he gave me a blow-by-blow description later— his parents only noticed the new haircut. They thought that’s why he looked so different.

He ended up telling them this very creative tale about how he’d snuck out of his house Saturday night because he was going to come to my window and ask me to prom in the moonlight like Romeo and Juliet, but in the dark he’d gotten lost and accidentally fell into someone’s un-derground cellar. When he finally came to, he realized that the owners must have locked the cellar without realizing he was in there. It took him an entire day of banging on the door before someone heard him and let him out.

And the haircut? He’d trimmed his hair himself before he came to see me because he wanted to look his best.

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Tristan wasn’t sure they completely believed him, but that’s the thing about being the responsible honors-kid type of guy. Your parents are willing to cut you a lot of slack. They were so happy and relieved to see him that they overlooked the minor details.

Not long after Tristan left, Jane called from the ER to check and see if I was home. She cried when she heard my voice. “I just knew your fairy godmother wouldn’t leave you stranded at that castle.” Uh, right. I thought it was entirely possible that not only could Chrissy have left me stranded there, but dec-ades could have passed before I crossed her mind again.

The one thing I had learned from all of this was that magic shouldn’t be meddled with and that fairy godmothers were an unreliable bunch. Okay, technically that’s two things. Plus, I’d also learned that Tristan was a total catch, so I guess that’s three.

Hunter had X-rays taken and he didn’t have any broken ribs. He told the doctors and his parents that his injuries had been from a car accident, but since his car didn’t have a dent anywhere on it and he also had a huge bruise on his cheek from where one of the castle guards had punched him, this story was somewhat suspect in nature.

I was just glad I didn’t have to lie to anybody about all of

it.

Even

though

the

reptiles-on-my-tongue

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enchantment was gone—Chrissy had said it would only be there until my wishes were complete—I still got a sick, watery feeling in my mouth whenever I even thought about lying.

Tristan went back to school Tuesday morning, and despite his assurances that no one would notice a difference in him, people did. Perhaps it wasn’t his looks so much as it was his walk and his new air of confidence.

Or, as he told me, life looks different when you’re invincible.

Prom night came, and Tristan and I doubled with Jane and Hunter. Jane spent her own money to buy back my prom dress for me, and I did her hair in a style that rivaled Cinderella’s. It felt nice to be friends again, the way we had been before.

The dance took place in a local hotel conference room, not a castle; and rock music blared over the speakers instead of musicians playing in a loft. But it still seemed more magical than my last ball had.

I danced with Tristan nearly every song and felt like I’d never get tired of having his arms around me.

Toward the end of the night they announced the prom royalty. Hunter was crowned prom king. They made him come up to the front of the room and put a spiky crown on his head.

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Tristan nudged me while we clapped for him. “So do you still think a crown makes a guy look hot?”

“Actually, I think I’m more into sleek-looking suits right now.” I ran my fingers over the arm of his tuxedo and gave him an appraising stare. “You know, sort of that James Bond cool look.”

“Uh-huh.” He finished clapping and took hold of my hand. “I guess I should be glad you’ve only recently gone for the spy look, or for the last eight months I would have been somewhere dodging bullets, wouldn’t I?” Then he tilted his head. “You’re not talking to your fairy godmother anymore, are you?”

I laughed and squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

From

the

Honorable

Master

Sagewick

To the Department of Fairy Advancement
To the Honorable Department,
I am in receipt of student Chrysanthemum
Everstar’s extra-credit report and have reviewed
it thoroughly. Although I approve of the results
Miss Everstar was able to achieve, I found her
methods lacking. I recommend she has more
practice before admittance to GM University.

I’ll have Madame Bellwings give her another
assignment.

Yours,

Playing the Field

All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School
Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws
Fame, Glory, and Other Things on My To Do List
It’s a Mall World After All
Revenge of the Cheerleaders
My Fair Godmother

Janette Rallison

has been writing since she was six years old, although the quality of her work has improved substantially since then. She is the author of many books, including
All’s
Fair in Love, War, and High School
;
It’s a Mall World
After All
; and
Revenge of the Cheerleaders
. She lives in Chandler, Arizona, with her husband, Guy, and their five children.

Visit her Web site at

www.janetterallison.com

Check out her blog at

www.janette-rallison.blogspot.com

Copyright © 2009 by Janette Rallison All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy-ing, recording, or by any

information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

publisher.

First published in the United States of America in January 2009

by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.

E-book edition published in August 2010

www.bloomsburykids.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

Permissions, Walker & Company, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rallison, Janette.

My fair godmother / Janette Rallison.

p. cm.

Summary: High school sophomore Savannah wants to find the perfect prom date after her

boyfriend breaks up with her to date her older sister, but when a godmother who is only

fair becomes involved, Savannah finds herself in trouble in the Middle Ages, along with a

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boy who would like to be her charming prince.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8027-9780-3 • ISBN-10: 0-8027-9780-6

(hardcover)

[1. Fairy godmothers—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3.

Sisters—Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 5. Middle Ages—Fiction. 6. Self-es-teem—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.R13455My 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008013361

ISBN 978-0-8027-2246-1 (e-book)