Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The) (2 page)

I sighed. That was
hours
later than usual.

“You can hang out in the library. I’ll call you if we can get there any earlier. I
am
really sorry, honey.” It sounded like she really meant it.

Okay, so maybe this part wasn’t weird.

When people found out Mom was an actress, they usually thought my life was pretty glamorous, but most of the time, it was like this.

I was a practiced new kid. I was practically a professional.

I’d been to ten schools in the last three years. We started moving a lot after my parents divorced and my mom got tired of running into my father in L.A. Since then, Mom focused on making movies that shoot only on location.

It wasn’t really so bad, but I was tired of getting picked up late.

The other message from Amy was the strange one.

“Hey, Rory. Me again! I bet you’re sick of the library, so maybe you could try out that Ever After School thing. Ms. White called this afternoon to offer you a place in their program.”

First of all, my mom never placed me into any program without speaking to every teacher, principal, and guidance counselor I might meet. She liked to be “involved,” as she called it. I usually called it “overprotective.”

I was glad that she cared, but it also meant that the whole school knew who my parents were before my first class. Which kind of led to kids like those seventh graders talking to me for reasons that have nothing to do with
me
.

Just once, I’d like to walk into a school and not hear “Maggie Wright” and “Eric Landon” whispered as I passed.

Not that I had ever mentioned it to Mom or Dad.

“She spoke to your mom. She seems very nice,” Amy continued.

“Nice” didn’t seem like the right word to describe Ms. White.

“Very professional.” That sounded a lot more fitting. “Ms. White said that if you wanted to do a test run this evening, you could walk there. To the right of the school, three houses down, the red door. She said you can’t miss it. What do you think?”

It couldn’t be worse than two and a half hours in the library. The kids’ shelves at this branch were pretty picked over, and surfing the Internet for that long made my eyes hurt.

“Who knows? You might make some friends,” Amy added slyly. “Anyway, I’ll pick you up there at six. See you soon!” That meant she and Mom had made the decision for me.

•  •  •

The red door belonged to an ordinary brick house. The lawn was a little overgrown, and I didn’t see any other kids going in. When I noticed a
JUST SOLD
! real estate sign hidden behind the bushes, I thought I might have the wrong place.

But the plaque on the door read
Ever After School
in curly script. Someone had added a little blue Post-it that said:
Welcome, Rory!

Sketchy
was the word that came to mind. My mom would’ve wanted me to back out and head to the library instead.

I knocked.

The door opened. A woman about Mom’s age came out, smiling. Her brown hair was very frizzy, and she wore a blue and white apron around a thickening waist. “You must be Rory Landon. Come in! I’m Ellie. I’m so sorry that the Director couldn’t come meet you herself. A minor emergency has come up that requires her immediate attention. You know how it is. Always putting out small fires.”

Laughing a little to herself, she bustled through a dim hallway, but she didn’t give me time to look around. At the far end, she held the door open to the backyard. “Everyone’s so excited to make your acquaintance. Snow has told us so much about you.”

“Snow?”

“Ms. White, dear,” Ellie explained.

“Snow White?” I said, in disbelief.

With a sinking feeling, I realized that this was probably one of those
themed
day care centers. I hadn’t gotten stuck at one of those since I was seven. I glanced back. Maybe there was still time for me to pretend I had tons of homework and escape to the library.

If Ellie noticed, she pretended she didn’t. She closed the door behind us. It was as red as the front door with a red crystal doorknob. “This is the ruby door, my dear. Remember that for when
it’s time to go home. This way, now. You’re just in time for the field trip.”

The backyard looked like a formal courtyard. An enormous tree stood in the middle of the grass, almost three stories tall, with branches dipping to the ground and twisting up again into the sky.

Underneath the tree, a crowd of kids had gathered around a woman standing on a podium. Blond hair fell to her waist and curled girlishly. Her velvet dress was
way
old-fashioned. The last time I had seen one like it was when Mom played a medieval queen in a historical drama. The blond woman wore it like a uniform. Which meant that EAS was definitely into the themed thing.

“That’s the Director,” Ellie whispered. “She’s explaining today’s trip. The sixth graders are over there.” She pointed out half a dozen kids my own age. One of the boys stood on the lower branches of the tree, leaning against the trunk, his arms crossed over his chest. A girl in a green silk dress took in his every move with a small smile.

If the kids had also been dressed in costumes, I might have turned and made a break for it. Instead, I dropped my backpack and crossed the courtyard. A few people noticed me, but most just listened to the Director as I crept around the trunk.

If you’re like me, an only child whose mom’s job forces you to change schools three times a year, you develop a system for making friends. The first step in mine was to identify possible candidates, attracting as little attention as possible.

The girl in the green dress tossed her long blond hair and moved away from me, nose up. Friendship with her didn’t seem likely—or very appealing.

So I stood by a girl sitting on the roots of the tree, bent so low over a book that the beads in her braids touched the page. She read really fast, turning pages every few seconds and tapping her
dark brown fingers on the spine nervously. It didn’t look like it, but I had the feeling that she was listening to every word the Director said.

“Rangers have reported five fires in the park area.” The Director gestured to a map behind her, but it was too far away for me to read. “Four have been extinguished, and the park is allowing one to smolder in order to clear out the underbrush. Our objective is to stop the source before the problem gets out of hand.”

She surveyed the crowd like a general sending troops into battle. When she saw me, she smiled. I froze, all my plans for keeping a low profile going up in smoke.

“Ah, Rory—so glad you could join us.”

Over a hundred heads turned toward me. A flush crept hotly across my cheeks, and trying to smile, I swallowed around a lump in my throat.

“Everyone, this is Rory Landon. She’s new to Ever After School, so it would be best if you could watch out for her,” the Director said.

My face grew even hotter, and I knew I was doing a great impression of a human traffic light.

“Please join me in welcoming Rory.”

Everybody around me applauded dutifully, and looked me over a second too long to be normal, even the boy in the tree. I waited for them to start whispering about my actress mother or director father, but they didn’t.

“And Chase Turnleaf, let me remind you that we do
not
climb the Tree of Hope,” the Director added sternly.

When everyone turned to him, the boy grinned carelessly, as if it didn’t matter whether he was in the Tree or not. He jumped down and landed as lightly as a cat.

“And let me remind you
all
of the rules for today’s excursion,” the Director said. “Only high school EASers are allowed to approach the problem directly.”

Surprised, I looked into the crowd more carefully. At least half the kids were
definitely
too old for day care. I started to worry that Ever After School was one of those role-play programs, where they stage mock battles with elaborate point systems.

And I left all my armor at home.

“Those of you in middle school are attending purely in a scouting capacity,” the Director added.

Even weirder, I didn’t recognize any of the younger kids. Considering that we were so close to
my
school, you would think I would see one or two familiar faces. Maybe it was just because I was new to the area.

“Do you guys go to Ridgefield too?” I asked. (This is another friend-making tactic—finding out who answers questions nicely, and who doesn’t.)

Chase Turnleaf frowned, as if this was a really weird thing to ask. The girl in the green dress said, “No. Millstone.”

From the snotty way she said it, I guessed Millstone was exclusive—maybe even private. If most of the girls were like her, I was really grateful Mom hadn’t sent me there.

“Hansel has led the juniors and seniors ahead,” the Director continued.

“Hansel? As in Hansel and Gretel?”

I hadn’t meant for anyone to hear me, but without looking up, the girl sitting on the roots answered, “Yes.”

“Now, follow me. We’ll need to hurry if we’re going to get back in time.” The Director rushed down the foot ladder behind the podium and led us across the courtyard, her skirt raised in both
gloved hands. The train of her dress dragged behind her over the grass. It was embroidered with a flame-colored bird. “Don’t forget to take a flare as you enter the passage.”

They were taking this a little far. “Who’s she supposed to be? Cinderella?”

“No,” said the same girl. She stood up, still flipping through pages in her book,
Dragons for Dummies: Dos and Don’ts
, as the crowd meandered across the courtyard. Her thick, old-fashioned glasses made her brown eyes look huge. “Ellie’s Cinderella. The Director is Sleeping Beauty.”

I laughed a little, but the girl gave me an odd look.

As we lined up, she read one final page, closed her book, and tucked it behind a box holding open a yellow door. Then she held out her hand with a smile. “I’m Lena.”

“Rory.” I shook her hand, relieved that she’d made the first move.

The hallway we walked down was dark, lit only with strips of tiny lights on the floor like you see in airplane cabins and movie theaters.

“We
know
who you are,” said a boy walking behind us. It was Chase. His blond hair hung in shaggy curls around his ears, and he looked a lot taller up close. “Ms. White came back from your school and dragged Rumpy into a conference about you for two whole hours—”

“Don’t call him that.” Lena glanced back nervously.

Chase ignored her completely, which I didn’t like much.

After being the new girl so many times, I’d gotten better at figuring people out. Chase seemed like he couldn’t decide what he wanted to be exactly—the class clown or the school bully. It was probably better to avoid him until he made a decision.

So I turned to Lena. “Why were they talking about me?”

Lena sighed. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

“Was it because of my parents?” It would
not
be a good sign if even the adults running Ever After School got excited over Mom and Dad.

“Why?” asked Lena. “Are they Characters?”

I stared at her blankly, wondering if “Character” was a code word in role-play speak.

“Your dad’s not an Aladdin, is he?” Chase asked darkly.

That had to be the single weirdest question anyone had ever asked me about my father.

“His name is Eric,” I said hesitantly.

“That name sounds familiar. . . .” Lena said. For a second, I thought she would make the connection and ask,
Eric Landon, the director?
But she just looked thoughtful.

Maybe, just maybe, nobody here knew anything about my parents.

Most people couldn’t tell just by looking at me. Everyone recognized Mom. She was the petite, elegant blonde they’d seen on magazine covers. I looked more like my dad—athletic and on the tall side, with wavy brown hair so thick that it went everywhere no matter how tight my ponytail was. The only part of me that came from Mom was my eyes—hazel with dark, arching eyebrows.

“Sometimes parents don’t talk about it,” Lena added with a sympathetic smile. “They don’t want to get your hopes up—in case you don’t turn out to be a Character.”

But if these kids didn’t know— Well, it made this role-play deal look a lot more promising.

I wanted to ask what a Character was, but then Chase nodded to his left where three boys with light brown hair and brown eyes walked with flashlights. “These are the Zipes brothers—Conner, Kyle, and Kevin.”

“Nice to meet you,” one of them said.

“We’re triplets,” said another.

“Fraternal,” added the last.

“So you can tell us apart,” said the first.

“Great,” I said. Maybe it was the dim light, but they all looked identical to me—except that maybe one was a little taller and one had darker hair.

Triplets were tough. I had been friends with identical twins a couple schools back. Erna and Erma were always nice to me, but every once in a while, they would completely forget I was there and start talking like they had a secret language. If these guys were fraternal, they might not be like that, but I would have to wait until I could tell them apart to be sure.

Lena pointed to the girl in the green silk dress, who was walking ahead of us and hadn’t once looked back. “And that’s Adelaide.”

“Charlotte Adelaide Eleanora Radcliffe,” Adelaide corrected.

“What’s her problem?” I whispered to Lena.

“Her grandmother is a grand duchess or something, so she thinks she can act like a princess.” Then Lena rolled her eyes so hugely that I saw it even in the dark, and we both grinned.

I liked Lena.

That hallway seemed longer than hallways in a building should be, but maybe it only felt that way when it was crowded with students shuffling along in the dark.

My elbow brushed the wall, which was cold, like wet stone, and it smelled a little like rotten eggs. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“All right, own up,” said an older boy. “Who farted?”

“That’s sulfur, dummy,” replied one of his classmates, and several people laughed, including Chase.