A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic

by Lisa Papademetriou

  Leila screeched, whipping around. “W-w-what?” she stammered, staring at the man who had suddenly appeared behind her.

  The man pursed his lips, pointing his silver mustache at the bookshelf. He wore a brown three-piece suit and brown bowler hat, and was definitely not her uncle. Her jaw dangled as she struggled to make sense of this man’s presence, his outfit, and his accent, all at once. To her jet-lagged brain, the man’s accent had sounded like, “Don stun aboo lie an indessclive ship!”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Urdu,” Leila told him.

  “For heaven’s sake!” The old man huffed, straightening his blue tie. “Don’t you understand English when you hear it? Idiot!”

  “What?” Leila asked again. She had understood the words “English” and “idiot,” but that was it.

  The man leaned on his cane and flashed his dark eyes at her. “Don’t just stand there like a fool,” he said, deliberately and slowly. “If you want the book, then you should take it!”

  Well, once he slowed down, the words finally managed to reach something deep in Leila’s brain. “Oh!” she said. “You are speaking English.”

  The man looked as if he had a very low opinion of her. “If you want a book,” he said again, “take one.”

  “I don’t really want a book.”

  He scoffed. “Of course you do.” He rapped on the floor with a silver-handled cane. Leila looked back at the book. She looked at the old man. She had no idea who he was, but she was fairly certain of one thing—he did not live in this house. Yesterday, the entire family had come to pick her up at the Lahore airport: her uncle, Babar Awan; his wife; and their three children. And now, here was some old man in a three-piece suit in the family library. Should I call 911? she wondered. Could she even use 911 in Pakistan? (Just to let you know: the number is 1122. But if you can’t remember that, and you’re having an emergency in Pakistan, just yell real loud.)

  It finally occurred to her to yell real loud, but Samir—her cousin who was only five months older than she was—walked right in and said, “Oh, hi, Leila. I see you’ve met Mamoo.”

  Mamoo is the Urdu word for “uncle.” Actually, it’s the Urdu word for “my mother’s brother.” There’s a different word for “my father’s older brother” (taya) and “my father’s younger brother” (chacha). With a mother, there’s just mamoo.

  This mamoo looked disgusted. “She’s too shy to take a book!”

  Leila squirmed.

  “What sort of book would you like?” Samir asked.

  “I don’t really—”

  “Where’s your father?” Mamoo narrowed his eyes at Samir. “The man spends all of his time ignoring me.”

  “He’s at work, Mamoo,” Samir replied. “It’s Wednesday. He’ll be home at dinnertime.”

  “Oh, he will, will he?” Mamoo stroked his mustache. Leila thought that he sounded like he didn’t believe it, which—I can tell you—he did not. “I’ll be back at nine o’clock sharp. But don’t tell him I’m coming!” He scowled at Leila.

  “I’m not gonna tell him,” she said.

  “He really isn’t avoiding you, Mamoo,” Samir called down the hallway.

  The old man shook his cane, but didn’t turn back.

  Samir faced Leila. He pushed his rectangular glasses farther up his long nose. One of his thick black eyebrows was permanently arched, which made it look as if he was mocking the world. People often took that eyebrow personally. Right now, Samir was looking at Leila’s hair, which made her smooth it self-consciously. “What sort of book were you looking for?”

  “I . . . I just . . .” Leila blushed a little under Samir’s gaze. If only she were Elizabeth Dear! Then she would have thought of something witty and charming, yet utterly unassuming, to say. Even Nadia could have spouted some kind of Noteworthy Quotation from a Literary Luminary about the Importance of Story.

  But Leila was stuck being herself, and all she came up with was, “I like all different kinds of books. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.”

  “Take any book you want,” Samir told her.

  Leila’s father was from Pakistan, and she knew one thing for sure about the culture—if someone thought you wanted something, be it a pancake or a bar of gold—they would insist that you take it from them. They would insist forever. Pakistani hospitality is an irresistible force and an immovable object rolled into one. There was really only one way to solve the problem. She grabbed The Exquisite Corpse from the shelf and mumbled thanks.

  They stood in silence for a moment, as perfectly still as the shelves around them. “Do you like reading?” Samir asked at last.

  “Of course. I read all the time.”

  “Kim’s gun is on display here in Lahore, if you’d like to see it.” Leila’s face was blank, so he added, “Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling used to live in Lahore. Have you read it?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. The Jungle Book? The Just So Stories?”

  “I know The Jungle Book,” she said. She didn’t want to admit that she had never heard of Kipling. She’d always thought that Walt Disney wrote the movie.

  “They make us read Kipling in my school, since he lived here and won the Nobel Prize. What was the last book you read?”

  “Sweeter than Sugar,” Leila said. It was #32 in the Dear Sisters series. “It’s really good,” she added, wondering if she sounded as intelligent as Elizabeth Dear.

  “I’m sure it is,” Samir said with that arched eyebrow. “We could go see the gun, if you like.”

  Now, Leila had about as much desire to go see a gun previously owned by Kipling as she had to mop up a hairball made by her cat, Steve. But Samir’s brown eyes were gleaming, and Leila sensed that this was some famous Pakistani thing she was supposed to be all excited about, so she said, “Okay. Sounds great.” Leila hated to hurt people’s feelings.

  “Oh, by the way,” Samir added as she started to turn away. “Rabeea was looking for you earlier. I think that she and my mom want to take you shopping. They said that you wanted some salwar kameez.”

  “Yes!” Leila cried. “I love Pakistani clothes, but I never get a chance to wear them at home. Where’s Rabeea?”

  Samir directed her to the front sitting room, and she hurried away. Leila rounded the corner so quickly that she nearly ran into someone. “Oh, sorry!” Leila gasped.

  This was Chirragh Baba, the cook. He said something sharp in Punjabi. He had the sort of face you would draw with heavy lines—wrinkles ran from his large, long nose to his puckered mouth, as if he had done a lot of frowning in his life. (He had.) His hair was dark orange—henna dye over gray—and his black eyes seemed to lead down a deep, deep well. They were eyes to nowhere. Leila had met Chirragh the night before, and he had given Leila an unwelcoming welcome.

  “How long is she staying?” Chirragh had demanded, scowling. He’d said it in Punjabi, of course, but seven-year-old Wali had helpfully translated for Leila.

  Now, Chirragh’s eyes glittered like something that just might bite you. It was his signature look. He reminded Leila of the evil butler in Dear Sisters Super Special #8: The Case of the Creepy Castle. That guy had been super-duper bad news.

  “Uh, sorry,” Leila muttered again. She looked down at her shoes, avoiding that disturbing dark gaze.

  Chirragh didn’t speak another word, but continued limping down the stairs, supporting himself on his strong, right leg.

  Leila looked up and watched him go. I’d better keep an eye on him, she thought, half hoping that he would turn out to be a major villain—maybe stealing spoons or spreading false rumors. That would open up a lot of adventure possiblities!

  She stopped by her room and put the book at the edge of her bed. The Exquisite Corpse. Definitely a mystery, she decided. Leila knew that Elizabeth Dear wouldn’t be in it. Still, she was hopeful that it would be both utterly romantic and moderately gruesome.

  She couldn’t wait to read it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kai

>   KAI SHOULD NOT HAVE gone to the Walgreens. Like I said, that was her second mistake. Oh, she still would have had an adventure—writing in the book guaranteed it. But it might have been a smaller adventure. Oh, well. She went, so it wasn’t.

  It was five long blocks to the Walgreens pharmacy. In the gutter, Kai saw a squashed frog that had dried to leather in the Texas heat. I like to call that road jerky. A thick breeze licked at her sweaty scalp. The lawns were patched with grass so dry and brown it looked like hay.

  Across the sidewalk, Kai’s flip-flops shlip-shlip-shliped after her. She was the only pedestrian in sight. Everyone else was locked up tight in their cars breathing nothing but air-conditioning, like people who were used to serious heat and didn’t want to put up a pointless fight.

  She paused at the stoplight, and looked up the street, to where the black ribbon of asphalt bled against the wavy edge of the sky. It was so hot that the tar patching the cracks in the road had melted, and lay there soft as warm candle wax. When the white letters lit up, she scurried across the intersection, wisely wary. That tar would’ve grabbed her flip-flop and ripped it right off her foot. Then she’d have had to run out into traffic to try to get it back. Probably would’ve gotten run over by a Chevy Suburban, which would have made this into a very different kind of story. Much shorter.

  Kai scuttled across the parking lot and onto the wide sidewalk that bordered the strip mall. There it was: the Walgreens. The air-conditioned home of Dr Pepper and Cheetos. Heaven for the kind of girl who was never let out of the house by herself, which—let me tell you—is the kind of girl she was. She even considered buying two bags of Cheetos. That’s how big this adventure was to Kai.

  Two newspaper boxes stood sentry outside the double glass doors. A dog leash looped, loose and limp, around one. At the bottom, panting in the shadow of the strip mall’s roof, lay an exhausted-looking brown-and-white Chihuahua. His tiny tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, and his tan ribs rose and fell in quick time.

  “Hey, cutie,” Kai said, stooping to doggie level.

  “You shouldn’t pet strange dogs.”

  Kai looked up. A girl with curly black hair and eight million freckles poked her head around the side of a stucco pillar. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that?” the girl asked.

  This chafed at Kai like a burlap backpack. First of all, her mother had told her that. But her mother never let her do anything. Second, this girl looked like one of the Bunnies—the pretty girls—at her school, who always thought they knew everything, but who really had brains like vacant parking lots. And third, this dog was tiny. He weighed about an ounce; how much damage could he do? Kai ignored the freckled girl and touched the tip of the dog’s ear with a single finger.

  That Chihuahua burst like a firecracker! He snarled and snapped at Kai, who screamed and fell backward onto her butt. The dog barked like it was fighting off a shark attack, and a woman in a muumuu blasted out of the electronic door shouting, “Taco! Taco!”

  But Taco had already lurched to the end of his leash and clamped his jaws onto the hem of Kai’s jeans.

  “Get him off!” Kai screamed.

  “Taco!” the woman shouted. Her giant blonde hair quivered with each screech. “Taco!”

  The freckle-faced girl walked over and grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck. She gave him a good shake until he let go. Then she handed him to the woman with the giant hair, who said, “Oh, Taco, you naughty baby,” and nuzzled him adoringly. She turned to Kai and shouted, “What’re you pestering my dog for?”

  “Why did you leave your dangerous dog unattended?” the freckled girl demanded. “Taco needs a muzzle. My dad’s a lawyer—you’ll be lucky if we don’t sue. I’ll bet Taco’s done this before—hasn’t he?”

  The woman with the giant hair huffed and walked off, cooing to Taco as he licked her on the neck.

  Kai stood up and silently watched the woman stuff herself into a small Honda. The dog rode shotgun. Then she turned to face the girl with the freckles.

  “I’m Doodle,” the girl said. “And you’re welcome.”

  Kai—who had just been about to say thank you—was irritated again. Bunnies always had cutesy nicknames, and this one was no exception. “Why Doodle? Are you an artist, or something?” she demanded.

  “I was born on the Fourth of July.”

  Kai frowned. “Does that explain something?”

  Doodle started humming “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Kai had never heard anyone hum in a way that made it sound like, “Duh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-DUH-DUH . . .”

  “Oh,” Kai said, feeling even more irritated and stupid than before. “Well, yeah—thanks for saving me from that Chihuahua.”

  Doodle smirked a little. She had a twitchy little mouth, and her smirks were rather comical. Everyone thought so, not just me.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Do you think they have a card for that? In the drugstore—‘Thank you for saving me from that Chihuahua.’ With, like, a rose on it? Everything written out in gold letters, all scripty, and a poem inside?”

  “Yeah, they probably sell a lot of them,” Kai said. “At this location, anyway. Well, see you around.” She turned toward the doors. The electronic eye sensed her movement and opened for her, blasting her with cold air.

  “Hey—” Doodle called after her, “what’s your name?”

  For a second, Kai was tempted to pretend that she hadn’t heard. Her mother always said she should never tell strangers her name. Then again, she thought that she’d probably never see this girl again, so who cared? “Kai!” she called, a moment before the doors closed behind her.

  Doodle’s funny, twitchy mouth smiled at her through the glass.

  Kai didn’t know what to think of that smile. Yet. But I was confident she would figure it out.

  It was the same long walk back in the opposite direction, only—this time—Kai didn’t have air-conditioning to look forward to. She’d hung around the magazine racks until the skinny, acne-faced clerk came over and started arranging them protectively. Then Kai wandered around the aisles for a while until the same clerk started following her, eyeing her pockets suspiciously. Finally, she had to admit that it was time to go back outside.

  Kai felt the air-conditioning evaporate right off her clothes the minute the electronic door opened. The air shimmered with the sound of cicadas as she started for Lavinia’s house. The good news was that the queasy feeling left over from the airplane had disappeared. Walking had helped.

  She heard the argument before she saw it, but wouldn’t you know, the minute she was within spitting distance of Lavinia’s house, Kai saw a certain curly-haired, freckle-faced girl facing a smirking boy with eyes like steel. The boy was taller than Doodle, and if Kai were the type to admit it, handsome. His clothes were fashionably large and new looking, and everything about him seemed to say “I’M RICH” in all capital letters, just like that. The boy was holding something. A jar.

  “Give it back, Pettyfer,” Doodle demanded. But she said it in a way that didn’t sound too hopeful. “You’ll damage it.”

  “Damage it?” Pettyfer laughed, shaking the jar. “It’s already damaged. What do you want it for, anyway?” He shook it again. Kai could see that there was a bug inside.

  Doodle reached for the jar, and Pettyfer yanked it away. And Kai—who never really spoke up to anyone—stepped forward and shouted, “Hey!”

  Pettyfer stopped and stared at her.

  Now, Kai wasn’t a big girl. She wasn’t particularly good at fighting. But she was good at planning. The kids at school thought she was weird, but they didn’t really pick on her because she had hundreds of prewritten comeback lines and always mapped out her route between classes to avoid the biggest bullies. Kai came from a big city, and she had a plan for almost everything. Her plan for people who wanted to rob her or threaten her was this: Make them think you’re dangerously crazed. So when Pettyfer looked at her, she grabbed two fistfuls of her own hair and roared, then charged directl
y at him, screaming, “Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

  Pettyfer fell over backward, scrambled to his feet, and took off, tripping over his enormous, expensive shoes.

  “Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOO! Blooga-blooga! Blooga-blooga!”

  “Aaaaaaah!” Pettyfer screamed and picked up speed. He had to hold up his baggy jeans as he ran. In about a half a second, he had disappeared behind a neighboring house.

  Panting, Kai came to a stop beside Doodle, who was staring at her, bug-eyed. Kai put her hands on her knees, bending over to suck in a deep breath. “Whoa,” Doodle said.

  Kai looked up at her. “He wasn’t expecting that,” she explained.

  “Nobody was expecting that,” Doodle replied. “Ever.”

  “Is your butterfly okay?” Kai asked as Doodle bent over to retrieve the jar. It was made of plastic, and had only bounced when Pettyfer dropped it.

  Doodle held up the jar. “It’s a moth,” she said. “And it was dead when I found it.” She shook her head. “I’d wanted to see if I could identify it, but it’s too messed up now.” She unscrewed the top and shook out the moth, which dropped to the ground just like an old piece of lint, not like something that used to live, and breathe, and fly.

  “Who was that guy and why was he trying to steal your dead moth?” Kai asked. “And why were you carrying around a dead moth in the first place?”

  “I’m a lepidopterist,” Doodle said.

  Kai thought this over. “Is that contagious?”

  Doodle didn’t exactly laugh, but her eyes squinched up as if maybe she was thinking about it. “That’s someone who studies butterflies and moths. I’m into moths, mostly.”

  “Is that . . . interesting?”

  “It is to me.”

  “Oh.” Kai squinted at the limp form on the grass—the dead moth. She could see how moths might be interesting. To the right person. “Why was that boy trying to take it from you?”

  “Because he likes to destroy stuff he doesn’t understand, which is just about everything.”

  Kai nodded. She knew the type. (Don’t we all?)