Who Needs Magic? (8 page)

“I wasn’t sure, but now I am: You’re not one.”

“One what?”

Ariella waits for a pair of pink-and-green-clad tweens to pass by.
“You know.”
She twirls a wandlike finger in the air.

“I am so.”

Ariella hangs up the sweater and slides the headband over her hair. Naturally, it looks perfect on her.

“Think about it, Delaney. You’re fifteen and you’ve never done any real magic. You haven’t granted one big wish.”

“Flynn got his wish.”

“See, that doesn’t make any sense. You can’t be emotionally involved with your beneficiary. And then there’s the way you look.” Ariella glances into the shatterproof mirror and adjusts the headband.

I step between Ariella and her reflected self. “I have the wand. I’ve felt the wish. I can do the magic. You’ve seen me.”

“You felt
one
wish, and you got it wrong. It doesn’t count.”

“My dad
told
me I was one.”

Ariella takes off the headband and waves it at me. “There you go. More proof. A fairy god
father
? There’s no such thing. When Justine was little, she called herself my fairy godsister, but her powers were all pretend.”

“My dad’s not a pretend anything. He’s granted like a million wishes.” I follow Ariella to the cashier line. “I have the phone number of one of his clients, because we’re going to her
wedding
. You want me to call her?”

Ariella lowers her voice when we get in line. “Okay, maybe you’re some sort of distantly related magical entity.”

“Like because my Dad’s half-Irish, maybe we’re leprechauns?”

“Sure! That’s possible.”

“Then I would
want
to wear green.” I say this
loud
and get a barrage of quick glares from the princesses in line behind us.

Back outside the store, Ariella swings her shopping bags in one hand and gestures with her other. “Don’t you see, Delaney? It explains everything. Your people, whatever they are, start later in life. They don’t have as much magic, and they look like … you.” As she waves and swings, the big bold mall lights bounce twinkling beams off her headband and off her embroidered jacket and even off her hair. I’ll admit this difference between us: she reflects light; I absorb it. “So that means there’s nothing
wrong with you at all! You’re probably only
meant
to do small wishes.”

“But my dad—”

“You said he’s some kind of therapist guy, right?” I’d told her about him on the way to the Princess Shop. She’d never heard of “Dr. Hank.” (“Oh, I don’t have time for TV or any of that sort of stuff, and I get all my books from the library.”) “That means he’s good at figuring out what people’s wishes are. And then he uses his minor magic to help them come true.”

“He turned a rusted heap of metal into a red convertible. That’s not minor magic.”

“But he’s been doing magic for a long time, right? So he’s gotten better at it. Twenty years or so from now, you’ll be a tiny bit better too.”

“You are so completely—”

Ariella’s cell tinkles its wind-chimes tune. “Hold on.” She checks the text. “Mom’s here.”

On the way to the car, Ariella continues her pep talk, offering to take me “small-wish hunting” anytime, because I should definitely keep trying to improve my skills even if they’re limited by my inferior birth. She babbles on as if nothing’s wrong, saying we should come to the mall again soon, because she didn’t get to show me the Accessories Plus store or the Starlight Organic Makeup Bar, and wouldn’t it be cool if I slept over one night?

I say nothing, because what more is there to say? She’s wrong, that’s all. I know what I felt with Flynn and it
was
a wish. Even though I got the wish wrong, it was still a wish. And Dad’s magic is
big
. Plus, he wouldn’t say he was an f.g. if he wasn’t, because he
hates
being one. If I told Ariella any of this, though, she’d just argue it away like everything else, and I’d be even more frustrated and pissed off than I already am. So I vow to stay silent until I get home.

“I got this really cute angel necklace, Mom,” Ariella says once we’re back in the car. “And some earrings. I’ll show you.” Ariella leans forward, brandishing her tiny shopping bag.

“Later, honey,” her mom says, waving her away and resuming her Bluetooth conversation with Ariella’s dad. “Can you take Justine to camp tomorrow? I’m meeting with Beth in the morning for a debriefing.”

Ariella plops back down onto the seat, hurt by the dismissal, having forgotten me. But the memory lapse is temporary.

“I hope you’re not sad, Delaney. I was trying to make you feel better. You can’t be happy unless you accept who you are.”

How ironic that I said almost the same exact thing to Andrea, Dad’s client, owner of the magic-made red convertible, a few months ago. But I was talking about accepting who you really are. Not accepting who some sugar-crazed clueless winged-thing collector
thinks
you are.

“I
have
accepted who I am. An f.g.” Now I’ve broken my promise to myself to never speak to her again.

“Once you have time to think it over, you’ll realize I’m right.”

I break another promise, to avoid eye contact, and I twist in my seat to face her, the pressure of the seat belt preventing me from sticking my face right into hers. I hope it’s not too dark in here for her to see the sparks of anger flashing from my eyes.

She either can’t see it, or she’s doing an excellent job of pretending not to, because instead of shriveling under my gaze, she smiles a sympathetic smile that’s illuminated by the headlights of the car behind us, and she pats my hand. “I don’t look down on you, Delaney. I’m not that kind of person. Different doesn’t mean less. We can still be friends.”

I yank my hand free and press my body into the corner between the seat and the door. The headlights have gotten closer and Ariella’s face glows ghostly gray, like she’s some f.g. ghoul come to torment me—which she is, even without the ghastly glow. I’m tempted to scream “Let me out of here!” at horror-movie-shriek-level pitch, when I notice that Ariella’s mom has pulled up in front of my house, and the lights behind us sweep past as the driver veers around.

I unsnap my seat belt, open the door and practically fly out, relieved to be in the cool air of night, free. Dad’s car is in the driveway and the living room light is on. Another thing to deal with. I have to go in, though, or Ariella’s mom will never leave.

After I unlock the door, I wave the all-clear signal,
ignoring Dad’s “Delaney? Is that you?” Who else would it be? Ariella’s mom returns the wave, still on the phone, and shifts the car into drive. I purposely keep my gaze from the backseat, but the car advances before I can turn away and I spot Ariella. Thankfully, she’s in the shadows. But then a streetlamp casts a brief spotlight on her face. She’s still smiling at me sadly. Not a sad-for-her smile, because she’s sorry about her idiotic accusations regarding my supernatural DNA, but a sad-for-me smile. A pity smile.

By the time I think of the perfect comeback, the car’s already at the end of the block, its red taillights blinking into darkness as the car turns the corner.

I run down to the end of the front walk and shout it into the air, on the chance it might be carried on the night breeze to Ariella’s ears.

“We can’t still be friends—because we never were!”

Dad’s in the living room, sitting in the easy chair, squinting through his glasses at a tiny folded-out piece of paper. “What are you reading?” I ask.

I don’t feel like talking, but mindless conversation should, by definition, clear my mind, which has already started replaying my conversation with Ariella. Once again I try to mentally fix the past, coming up with great arguments—which she immediately shoots down.

Even in my imagination, I lose.

“It’s the instructions to the lights we bought for out back. I thought I’d put the lights up tonight, since I was home early.”

“What instructions? Don’t you just plug them in?”

Dad drops the paper on an end table and stands. “Since you’re the expert here, why don’t you help me put them up?”

“It’s dark out, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Isn’t that the best time to hang them? So we can see what they look like up? We’re not going to have them on during the day.”

It’s a good point. And Ariella’s going to keep creeping into my brain if I try to read or watch TV, so although it seems insane, the only way to
maintain
my sanity is to agree.

“Don’t forget to bring the instructions for walking down the hall,” I say. “And the ones for opening the door. And the ones for—”

Dad takes my arm and guides me out of the room. “You’re not always as hilarious as you think you are, Delaney.”

But obviously I am, because he’s smiling when he says it.

Dad carries the stepladder out from the shed as I lift the rest of the lights out of their boxes and set them down on the new patio table. The yard is eighty times better than when I arrived, when it was nothing but weeds and dust. There’s lavender along the brick wall that separates our yard from the one next door, and red bougainvillea spidering up the side of the garage. It still needs work, but the
lights, which were my idea like everything else that’s been added, will help a lot.

“We should start behind the gardenia bush and then string them along the top of the back—”

“Um, excuse me,” I say. “Which one of us is the one with taste?”

Dad sets the ladder down on the grass. “I don’t think this requires a fancy design, Delaney. You’re the one who commented that you only need to plug them in.”

“Do you want it to look pretty or boring? I’ll let you decide.”

Dad sighs and gestures at me to take over, which I do, directing him to drape the strings in a series of spirals and waves around the trees and along the walls. This was a good idea. The air is floral and sharp and full of mind-cleansing, confidence-juicing oxygen.

“So did you have fun with your friend, Delaney?”

“She’s
not
my friend.”

“You said you knew her from the mall.”

“I said I
met
her at the mall. And I should’ve followed my instincts and never talked to her again. Then I wouldn’t have had to spend all night having her tell me
I’m
the freak.”

Dad repositions the stepladder along the wall. “She told you you’re a freak? Why?”

I hand him another string of lights. “Because I’ve only had one client, my magic is lame and I don’t sparkle.”

Dad stops halfway up the ladder and turns to me. “You told her you’re a fairy godmother?”

“She’s one too. The supercharged version. Eighty-two wishes granted and she’s not even fifteen yet. She got her first client when she was
nine
!”

Dad steps down to the grass. “That’s not possible, Delaney.”

I grab the lights from Dad and climb up the ladder. “That’s what I thought. Until today.” It was a
horrible
idea to come out here. My brain was almost Ariella-free and now she’s stomped her way right back in. I concentrate on stringing the lights, but my mental picture of Ariella won’t go away. “You should see her. She fits the part perfectly, with all her glitter and blondness. She’s practically sprouting wings.”

“Maybe she came from a costume party.”

“I didn’t say she actually
had
wings.” I pause mid-string and think about this for a second. “At least not that I saw, but who knows?”

“I’m sure you misunderstood, honey.”

“You’re as bad as she is! Everybody’s calling me a liar.”

“I’m not saying that, Delaney, but it seems strange that in my whole life, I’ve never met another one, and my mother never met another, and as far as I know, my grandmother never did either.”

“As far as you know? That’s not very far. You never have an answer when I ask you things like why can’t we
do wishes for ourselves or why we only have one client at a time.”

“That’s just the way it is.” Dad reaches up to help me, but I yank the lights out of his reach.

“That’s not a real answer. And it makes it difficult to argue back when somebody like Ariella says you’re not a real f.g.” I climb off the ladder.

“That’s ridiculous.”

I march past him and pick up the last string of lights. “What’s ridiculous is a fairy god
father
. And an f.g. who hates pink and hates people.”

“You don’t hate people.”

“I may not hate all of the people all of the time, but I hate all of them some of the time, and I hate some of them all of the time.” I plug the new string into the last one and then zigzag the lights down along the little looping wire fence bordering the lavender.

“That’s definitely a new spin on the quote. But no matter what this Ariella says, the fact is, you
are
a fairy godmother.”

“A fact is provable, and you can’t prove it. In
fact
, it would be easier to prove it wasn’t true. I need an extension cord.”

Dad disappears into the shed and emerges with a nest of tangled green cable. But instead of handing it to me, he holds on to it, as if he’s absorbing some silent message it’s giving him. Finally he’s come up with something
supportive to say that will crash a hole through Ariella’s logic and crush my doubts. “Maybe she’s right.”