by Sarah Peters
Back to Earth
I woke to the dulcet sound of Erica and Ellie screaming at each other from the hallway.
With a mighty groan I rolled over and blinked at the alarm clock. 7:19.
AM? PM?!
I groaned again and covered my face with my pillow.
From downstairs, Mom started hollering to know if I was up yet, because she’d discovered my phone was dead and we Needed to Have a Talk.
I’d crawled immediately into the shower when I’d gotten home, and from there, immediately into bed. Time had lost all meaning to me.
“Mom’s looking for you,” Meg said helpfully from her spot at her vanity. “She’s still pissed that you didn’t tell anyone where you were Friday night.”
“I was at Becca’s,” I said, my face still covered by my pillow.
“Sure, but she called Becca’s dad, and he said Becca was gone too.”
“And after Becca’s we went to Finn’s,” I said.
“She tried Finn’s mom also.”
I considered. “I have other friends. I was at a sleepover.”
Meg gave my head a conciliatory pat. “Best of luck convincing her, kiddo. Mars ate one of her slippers this morning so she’s on the warpath to cleanse the home of all degenerates.”
I gave her a thumb’s up from under pillow and covers.
“Is it Saturday?”
“Sunday. You slept for 20 hours. New personal record, I think.”
Eventually my stomach gurgled so loudly I had no choice but to escape the safety of my bed and face the rest of the house.
Luck, for the first time ever, happened to be on my side. I spotted mom out in the garden out back, and edged my way into the kitchen, grabbing a box of Jolly-Os before sneaking down to the basement.
Mom finally caught me when I snuck upstairs at 10:58 to grab cookies, and then came the inevitable Confrontation About the Phone.
“THIS IS THE THIRD PHONE YOU’VE WRECKED THIS YEAR,” she hollered.
“Technically it’s only the second this calendar year,” I advised, which was a fatal mistake.
In the end, after more hollering, more accusations, more despairing comments questioning why I couldn’t be responsible like my older sisters, more regrets over raising a child as ungrateful as myself, etc., etc., etc., she decided that if I wanted a new phone, I’d have to pay for it myself.
Trudging to school on Monday felt more dreamlike than standing on a stage in front of a crowd of dancing fairies and singing a song with Tobias Monday.
The morning walk was blustery as I contemplated how to make money without doing any actual work. Not having a phone brought on malevolent panic, spurred by anxious conviction that At This Moment I was missing ALL the news and who even KNEW what was happening on TikTok or what sort of weirdass snaps I’d been sent.
No, I needed a phone.
Thus, I needed money.
My social media followers equaled about 20 in total, I had no special talents or skills, and since I’d promised Tobias the tiny rusty ring, I couldn’t go selling that.
I did still have the magical wand (and no, I never intended to fess up to Finn or Tobias about keeping it), but I suspected it wouldn’t sell for much money.
That meant I had to get a job.
Ideally a job I could walk to and then quit after I made the bare minimum amount required to replace my phone, which meant a job in charming downtown Butterfield. There were plenty of locally owned stores and restaurants there.
I wondered if fairies owned any of them.
I daydreamed about getting a string of part-time jobs and brilliantly uncovering fairy-boss by fairy-boss throughout French, which earned me a disapproving glare from Madame Banks when I gave the wrong answer to a question about my pretend plans for my upcoming work trip to Switzerland.
“Vraiment, Catherine?” she asked scathingly, after the class had tittered at my response. I blinked, and for the life of me could not recollect what I’d said to earn such ire.
“Désolé,” I muttered.
And because it looked like it would be that kind of Monday, Madame Banks forced me to recite the correct answer, word by painful word, me stumbling through the future perfect tense as if we hadn’t spent the past two weeks going over it.
The downward trend continued in Euro Lit. Jake Wildern caught me outside the classroom and threw his arm companionably over my shoulder. He looked especially princely and golden today, and his green eyes were as bright as freshly cut grass and it annoyed me. I shoved his arm off me.
“I heard you went to a party this weekend,” he said, undeterred. “With the bad guys.”
I eyed him. “Pretty sure you guys count as the bad ones, considering you’re oh, idk, trying to kill me.”
Jake gave me an apologetic grin and ruffled my hair before I could swat away his hands. “I’ll keep you safe,” he declared.
I do not know what kissing Anna Flores had done to his brain, but it was definitely addled.
“I have Tobias to keep me safe, thank you very much,” I replied primly, ducking away from his arm when he tried to swing it over me again. “He can fly, and heal feet, and he has claws.”
“Is this your made-up boyfriend?” one of Jake’s friends asked. She laughed, and the others laughed too.
I did not turn red. I have far too much dignity. Instead, I lifted my chin, sniffed delicately, and declared, “he wishes!”
This only got more mean laughter, so I slumped into my desk. Who cared what those jocks thought anyway! And what was Jake on about? He’d done less than nothing to protect me so far.
Becca, with her normal sleek black hair and human face, sat down a minute later. She looked nearly as aggrieved as I felt. “Missing half of last week killed me,” she grumped, spilling her textbooks and notebooks over her desk. “Can we make a pact to never get caught up in fairy business ever again?”
“Ugh, gladly,” I said. I considered, and added, “Once we’re sure Finn’s back, of course.”
“Of course.”
We shook on it just as Ms. Clemmings slammed the door shut and the class descended into terrified silence.
Like a velociraptor, she stalked past us and up to the front of the classroom. Her smile looked benevolent, but I knew all human emotion had long been drained from her through rigorous training. “Now class,” she said, “who would like to discuss this weekend’s reading?” Her beady eyes swept over us, searching for the weakest in the herd. We all studiously avoided eye contact with her.
Her eyes landed on me, and she grinned like a shark about to chomp.
“Catherine?”
I spent Choir worrying about Finn, and then ran at a breakneck speed to the cafeteria, where I positioned myself in front of the doors and stared accusingly at every student walking past who wasn’t him.
I spotted his telltale auburn hair first, but I grimaced when I noticed how well combed it was, and how the boy who sported it wore a polo shirt. Finn hated polos.
“Ugh, what are you still doing here?” I demanded of Bo. “Where’s my Finn?”
“He’s not your Finn,” Bo replied, walking past me. “He’s a fairy.”
A horrible thought came to me and I hurried after him into the meatloaf line. “Wait, is Finn going to be stuck there forever? And you’ll be here?!!”
Bo finally looked at me. He scowled. “Well, that’s the proper and right order of things, isn’t it? The fairy lives with the fairies and the human lives with the humans? Or so my dad said. And since he always gets his way, that’s how it’ll be.”
“I don’t think you like us very much,” I observed.
“No shit,” he muttered.
“But you weren’t super helpful on Friday. In fact, you did nothing.” I considered. “Do you know where Finn’s staying?”
Bo scoffed. “What, you’re planning on kidnapping him?”
“If that is what it takes,” I said, full of noble sacrifice. I elbowed him, nearly jostling his yellowish green beans off his t
ray. “So, do you know where he is?”
“You had a whole night and morning to kidnap him, why didn’t you do it then?”
He clearly didn’t want to tell me.
And he seemed to be under the impression that distracting me with other questions would work. “Listen up, Bountiful Harvest,” I growled in my best Batman voice, leaning in too close while he tried to pay for his lunch. “Either you tell me where he is, or I flip this tray in your face.”
The cashier gave me a reproachful glare. “Ms. Wadell, that is no way to talk to your friends.”
“This is between me and him, Mrs. Schue,” I retorted. I shoved a hand threateningly under Bo’s tray. “You wanna wear a gravy suit, or you wanna tell me where to find him?”
Bo was not Finn.
Finn would retaliate by trying to flip my tray all over me and then scamper away before I could catch him. Bo, on the other hand, seemed horrified by the prospect of me getting food on his clothes. Well, horrified and annoyed.
“You’re really immature, did you know that?” He stalked away, keeping his tray steady between his hands.
Rude! And maybe a little true. But still rude!
After I paid, I plopped down in our usual spot, sending Death Ray Glares at Bo’s back as he sat down among his new friends. “I bet FakeFinn doesn’t even like rom-coms,” I muttered. “He probably watches American Revolution documentaries for fun.”
“You’re in the fighting mood today,” Becca observed, lifting an eyebrow. “So, want to tell me what’s going on between you and Tobias?”
A direct attack!
I stuffed meatloaf in my mouth to give me time, and eyed Becca as I chewed. “What makes you think something going on?”
Becca looked at me.
I stared back, trying to act guileless.
“Are you kidding me?! He was all over you two nights ago! PLUS, the way he saved us from his moms, PLUS Homecoming, PLUS he’s hot and also totally scary and looks like he eats kittens, and I’m pretty sure he hates everyone but you.”
“I’m included in that,” I said, pointing at my chest with my compostable fork. “He hates me too.”
“I heard you two whispering in the backseat,” Becca retorted. “Making deals. And I saw the two of you on that stage before Finn pushed me through the portal. The two of you were looking at each other like you were already naked!”
“Excuse me, I am full of maidenly purity, I would never imagine anyone naked!” I stuffed mashed potatoes into my mouth and followed it with another large forkful of meatloaf. OMG Tobias must be beautiful without clothes on. The thought of tracing the lines of his body down his bare chest had me close to blushing. “That was just part of our dance. A performance.”
“And you turned away all that cool stuff and asked the Corn King for the ring because Tobias asked you to, didn’t you?” Becca is smarter than me, and we both knew it. She could see through my blustering like Superman looking through walls. “What’s he giving you for that?”
I choked on the potatoes. “N-nothing,” I said, quite unconvincingly.
If Finn was here, the two of them combined could scrape the truth out of me, but Becca doesn’t tease as much as Finn, and she relented. She chomped on a carrot. “I mean, as long as you’re into him too,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Even though he’s totally creepy.”
“Don’t hate on goths,” I protested meekly.
“He is not a goth,” Becca retorted. “High end punk, maybe.”
Our lunch conversation degenerated from there.
On my walk home after school I stuck my hand in my butt pocket for my phone, recalled I had drowned said phone and Mom’s fiery tirade about how I’d have to pay for my own, and took a detour, heading towards cutesy downtown.
I cracked my knuckles and did a couple shoulder circles. I had never in my seventeen years applied for a job, but I was not going to let my general lack of experience or know-how stop me. I was a freaking cute high school girl; how could I NOT be hired immediately?!
As it turned out, walking up to the first employee I saw in any given shop or café and sweetly asking for a part time was NOT the way to go. When they said, “we’re not hiring” me proclaiming, “but Grandma Betty SWORE this would work!” was not the appropriate response. Pretty sure I’m banned from Laurie’s Antiques for life now (but that was more because I accidentally backed into a display of collectable salt and pepper shakers than anything I said).
After six failed attempts I slunk across the street to Field of Butter Diner (the owners thought they were funny and truth be told, so did I) and plopped myself onto a stool at the bar, dropping my backpack next to me.
The waiter was some kid I recognized from somewhere but I didn’t know his name, so I just gave him a bro-nod and ordered a pumpkin pie and a milk, like the mature adult I almost was. I spread out my French homework and puzzled over it as he brought me the noms.
“I took you for a lemonade drinker, not milk.”
Tobias Monday, dressed in his magnificent school uniform, slid onto the stool next to me.
And winked.
Monday is for Lovers
I choked, half the milk going up my nose and the other half spurting out of my mouth, and swiveled away from him as I died.
My nose burned. My eyes burned. My face BURNED.
I coughed and hit my chest and kept my back to him because OH MY GOD WHY.
“Milk is more nutritious,” I finally managed to croak.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him and I drowned my shame with another gulp of sweet watery cow juice.
He didn’t bother replying, and when I inched back around to face the counter, I discovered he’d picked up one of the heavily laminated menus and was eying it.
I drank more milk.
Kill me. Just… just strike me dead, O Mighty Zeus. It doesn’t have to be painless, as long as it’s definitive.
I stabbed into my slice of pumpkin pie, my mind scrambling to think of something—ANYTHING—to say.
“So,” I landed on. “I won the bet. You lost it, magnificently.”
“Agreed,” he said, not looking up.
Ok…
“And as the winner,” I charged on, “I’ve got my first wish-slash-question-slash-demand.”
He shrugged.
I swallowed. My nose still burned, and I discovered I’d spewed milk onto the front of my sweater. I hastily wiped it off. “Tell me what I stole from you.”
“You’re not going to like it,” he warned, flipping a page of the menu and perusing it with disdain.
“Just tell me. It’s my first wish, you have to.”
“Very well.” He set the menu down and swiveled in his stool so that he faced me. “But you were warned.” He paused, and to my alarm I noticed his fingers picking at the edge of the menu. Was he nervous?? I think he was nervous!! This made me nervous, but I schooled my expression, doing my best Stern Mrs. Clemmings impersonation, and gave him a nod. He sighed and his fingers stilled. “The first time we met, you stole my heart.”
I stared at him.
He met my gaze, but when I didn’t reply after many long, long seconds his eyebrow twitched in irritation. “Well?”
“I think I threw up in my mouth.” I turned to face the counter. The sides of my face flamed. My heart was thrumming instead of beating. Was this how a star felt before it went supernova??? “I mean, um yikes, that was lame. Like, super cheesy. Pure fromagerie. Just, just unexpectedly corny.” He’d been lying, right? Like, of all the things to accuse me of stealing from him… his heart? Really?!
