“I saw you. Heard you too,” Nettles said, sticking her head out of the living room window. She waved her camera. “And I’ve got photos!”
“You did not take photos!” I yelled. My cheeks were so hot they burned.
She took another photo. “Did too! Several kissy shots.”
“I’ll kill you!” I screamed, even though I knew she would never use the photos against me. I really wanted to kill Steffi. Or Fiorenze. Or her fairy. Or possibly all three.
“Won’t that get you expelled too?” Nettles asked, clicking away.
“Shut up!” I said.
She just laughed. “If you went to Arts you could kiss as much as you want. Though why anyone would want to . . .” She made a mock kissing sound. It sounded like a frog drowning.
“Let’s go, Steffi,” I said, grabbing his hand, pulling him up, so he was standing practically on top of me, which only made me wish we would kiss again. I stepped back.
“Don’t you have homework to do?!” Nettles yelled as I practically sprinted away. My muscles hurt. I’d had to skip my massages for the last few weeks. Too much homework to do on account of I’d lost so much time from all the walking around. And so on times a bazillion million zasquillion.
Steffi trotted along beside me, laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Your sister and her camera. You.”
“Me?”
“The way you take all those rules so seriously. I mean, me and Fio were kissing at school and no one said a word. Ntini walked by. I’m sure he saw us. Didn’t bat an eye.”
My brain split in two. One half was thinking, “He’s not even embarrassed that he was KISSING Stupid-Name?! And now he’s kissing me?! Is that what they do on the West Coast? Kiss each other all day long?!”
The other half yelled at him: “That’s because you have a never- getting- into- trouble fairy! You could stand on the table in the cafeteria with the wrong uniform on and your tie crooked and shout out that New Avalon was torpid and self-obsessed, and in the ensuing riot you would be the only one not to get double demerits.”
Steffi grinned, untroubled by my accusation. I wanted to punch him. “I’m not sure you can call a city ‘self- obsessed,’ but if there is a city that fits that description, it’s New Avalon.”
“If you like Fiorenze so much why did you kiss me?”
“I . . . ,” Steffi began, his grin finally going away. “It’s hard to explain. I don’t like Fiorenze. Not really—”
It was too much. “She has a fairy! It makes you like her! Why can’t you resist it?”
“It’s not like that,” he said. “When she’s around—”
“It’s exactly like that!” I yelled, turning back to the house, but Steffi grabbed my arm. “Don’t touch me! Don’t speak to me! I don’t ever want to see you again!” I screamed as loud as I could, shaking off his hold, and I sprinted back to my place, up the stairs, and into my room, slamming the door loudly and satisfyingly behind me. The whole world was conspiring against me. I hated it and everyone in it, but especially the kissy- kissy boy Steffi. He didn’t like me; he just liked kissing.
There was a gentle knock on the door.
“What?” I growled.
My dad opened the door. He was holding the laundry basket. “Hope you don’t mind, but I did your laundry. Well, as much of it as I could find.” He put the laundry basket down. “Thought you might be running out. Folded it too.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, biting my lip to keep from crying. Why did I have to like a boy who was bewitched by a fairy?
“I’m impressed by all the public service you’ve been doing. As long as you keep up this getting- rid-of- your- fairy campaign I’ll do your laundry. All I ask is that you leave it somewhere I can find it. Under the bed and crumpled up in your school bag is not the most convenient—”
There was another knock on the door. Mom slipped in holding a plate loaded with food. “Dinner, love. We weren’t sure if you’d eaten or not.” She put it down on my chair, there not being any space on the desk.
I burst into tears, and my parents kissed the top of my head, hugged me, and told me everything was going to be okay. Sometimes parents are more than tolerable.
CHAPTER 20
a Revelation
Days walking: 68
Demerits: 4
Conversations with Steffi: 9
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 16
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid- Name’s company: 2.75
Kidnappings thwarted: 1
Number of Steffi kisses: 2
Fights with Steffi: 1
I was not surprised to see Steffi and Stupid- Name together the next day. Hurt, but not surprised. When you like a boy who can’t resist an every- boy- will- like- you fairy, you have to expect it. I wondered if this was what the rest of my life would be like. Liking someone who only liked me part of the time.
Nor was it a shock that he didn’t say hello, or look at me—I had told him not to, but I was surprised when Stupid-Name came up to talk to me at the end of Fencing (to which, of course, I’d been late. But at least I had clean whites on account of my dad’s mercy laundry run).
“Hi, Charlie,” Fiorenze said.
“Hi,” I replied, continuing to wipe down my practice foils and put them in my fencing bag. Why was she talking to me? She had Steffi. Why did she have to come and gloat about it?
Steffi was deliberately looking vastly pulchy. I’d had to bout with him too. And even though I couldn’t really see his lips behind the mask, it was like I could feel them there. I kept remembering what kissing him was like. Naturally I lost.
Stupid Steffi.
“Are you doing more public service on Wednesday?” Fiorenze asked. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone and go back to her kiss-anyone boyfriend?
“Yes.” And why couldn’t Steffi resist her stupid fairy? Why didn’t I have her fairy?
“Me too,” she said.
I zipped up my bag and hoisted it over my shoulder, heading out the door.
Fiorenze trotted along beside me. “Do you think they’ll pair us again?” she asked.
I grunted. I had no idea. Nor did I care.
“Coincidence us both doing Wednesdays, isn’t it?”
I stopped and stared at her. “I do it every night.” That wasn’t strictly true—I didn’t do public service on Sundays—but close enough.
“Oh,” Stupid-Name said. “Sorry.”
“Fio!” Steffi called from the steps of the bus. “You coming?”
“You’d better go,” I pointed out.
“Oh,” she said again, turning to where Steffi was waving at her, his hair falling into his face, his fencing jacket askew.“You’re right.” She turned back to me. “Um . . .”
“What? I have to go. I’ll be late.” I stalked off across the football fields (all codes), wishing my fencing bag wasn’t quite so heavy, or my locker so far away.
The grounds had dried up considerably since last week. I knew the city needed more rain, but I was feeling selfish enough to be grateful that I wouldn’t have to waste time scraping mud off. At least something was going my way.
“Gorgeous day, isn’t it?” Stupid-Name said.
“What?!” I exclaimed. “I thought you took the bus.”
“Um.”
“Why aren’t you with Stefan?”
“I just, um, felt like a walk.”
What was up with her? We’d known each other for years without her saying a word and now, all of a sudden, she was stalking me.
“And, um, I wanted to ask—”
“Oh, no!” Up ahead Danders Anders was walking toward us. His hulking frame was impossible to mistake for anyone else’s. I thought about running, but I had the fencing bag over my shoulder, plus running would put me farther away from where I wanted to be, not closer, which would mean more demerits.
“What? Oh. He wants you to get in his car, doesn’t he?”
“S
eems like.”
“He moves very quickly, doesn’t he?”
“It’s those long legs,” I said.
Danders lurched to a stop in front of us. “You car later,” he said without bothering with any prepositions or a hi or how goes it or I’m really sorry I attempted to kidnap you.
“No,” I said.
“Stung,” Danders said. “Hurt.”
“They stung you because you attacked me.”
“Car, six. Emergency.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Andrew,” I said, my voice starting to break. “I said no. I mean no. You can ask me a million, bazillion, kajillion times. You can offer me all the gold on the planet, the keys to the land of Ourdom, and I would still say no. So stop asking!”
The muscles in his forehead twitched as if he was trying to make sense of my words even though such computing powers were beyond him. I wondered which one of us would blow a gasket first.
“Car.”
“No!” I began. “You can’t—”
“She doesn’t have a parking fairy anymore,” Fiorenze said.
I closed my mouth.
“My mother got rid of it for her.”
Danders swiveled to stare at Stupid- Name. “What?”
“She doesn’t have a parking fairy.”
“No parking fairy?” His forehead was convulsing. “Fairy gone?”
Fiorenze nodded. “Fairy gone.”
“No fairy?” Danders asked again. “Charlie good fairy gone?”
“Charlie’s good fairy gone.”
“Where go?”
“We don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” Danders asked.
“Don’t know,” Fiorenze confirmed.
“Really?”
“Really,” Fiorenze said firmly, sounding almost like her mother.
“Sad,” Danders said and then slouched away without another word.
“Wow,” I said, watching him disappear. “I can’t believe he bought it.” Danders isn’t great at grasping change.
“I know,” Fiorenze said. “He is the strangest boy. I wonder what goes on in his head. Do you think he even realizes that we’re human beings the way he is?”
“Hey, you lied!” Being caught lying is vastly serious. Depending on the circumstances you can be expelled. Why had Fiorenze lied for me?
She nodded. “Sometimes you have to.”
“He probably only believed you on account of your boy-attracting fairy,” I said without thinking. I blushed.
She didn’t seem to notice. “Doesn’t work on seniors.”
“What?”
“It only works on guys around the same age as me.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Imagine if it worked on all boys. How torpid would that be?”
I thought about it for a second. “Or if it worked on your teachers.” I shuddered.
“I hate my fairy.”
“You what?” I stared at her. She was looking straight back at me. “But . . . ,” I spluttered.
“I hate it. I’ve been doing everything I can to get rid of it. I did the not-washing thing. But Mom intervened. I stayed away from boys. Not that that was hard. It was starting to fade . . .”
I hadn’t noticed her staying away from Steffi.
“But. It. Will. Not. Go. Away. No matter what I do. I don’t even think I like boys.”
“But everyone is jealous of your fairy,” I said, trying to make sense of her words. “Everyone wants it.”
Fiorenze shook her head. “No, they don’t. Not if they thought about it.”
“And you do too like boys. What about Steffi?”
“Who?”
“Stefan.” I felt a tiny thrill that he had told me his nickname, but not her.
“Stefan,” she repeated. “He’s unavoidable. All the other boys obey the rule that protects me, but not Stefan, and he never gets a single demerit.”
“But you’re always holding hands, passing notes to each other, giggling.”
“I don’t giggle.”
I shrugged even though it was true. Fiorenze was not a giggler.
“And it was Stefan passing notes to me. As for the holding hands—I told him I didn’t like it. Or him. But it didn’t make any difference,” Fiorenze said. “The teachers weren’t going to protect me because of Steffi’s fairy. What could I do?”
“But you were together by first recess of the day you met!”
“I reported him. Three times. But, of course, the teachers didn’t do anything.” Fiorenze’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked rapidly to make them go away. She was safe from a demerit—there were no teachers in sight. “My fairy is the worst fairy in the world,” she said. “But at least Steffi isn’t as bad as the other boys. I don’t think the fairy affects him as much; he’s only tried to kiss me twice.”
“What does your mother say?” I asked, reeling from what she was saying.
“She hasn’t.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“You met her. She’s not very forthcoming, is she?”
That was an understatement. She was all cryptic sayings.
“You really don’t like Steffi?” I asked.
“No, I really don’t.”
I shook my head. How was it possible not to like Steffi? “Why haven’t you asked your father to help you, then?”
“I can’t. My parents are . . . Well, neither of them has a lot of time for me. I’m not what they expected.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if me and Nettles were what our parents expected, but there hadn’t been any complaints. Well, not about who we were, just about what we sometimes did (or didn’t do). What did they expect from me and Nettles? That we try hard and be happy? Something like that. My parents didn’t have a lot of time, but they gave us whatever we needed of it.
“That’s why I tried to join you yesterday, but Tamsin, well, you saw. She told me to go off with Rochelle.”
“That was you trying?
Fiorenze ducked her head.
“You didn’t even ask if you could watch. You just went away as soon as she told you to.”
Fiorenze was still looking down. “She was firm. There’s no point arguing with her when she’s being firm.”
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t realized Fiorenze was such a torpid- heart.
“Did Tamsin show you the book?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I think I saw it, though. In a big metal box?”
She nodded.
“But it was locked up.”
“It always is. If only we could read it,” Fiorenze said. “Then we’d get rid of both our fairies.”
The bell for the end of first recess rang. “Fairy dung!” I yelled. “Late again!”
CHAPTER 21
Ruins
Days walking: 69
Demerits: 5-3 = 2
Conversations with Steffi: 9
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 19
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid-Name’s company: 3
Kidnappings thwarted: 1
Number of Steffi kisses: 2
Days Steffi not talking to me: 1
The next morning Steffi was not waiting on my front steps. Even though I was exhausted from Monday night’s public service, I’d gotten up early hoping we’d get to talk. He hadn’t said a word to me since our fight on Sunday. It was the longest we’d gone without speaking since I first met him. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Rochelle or Sandra about Fiorenze hating her fairy either.
Should I tell Steffi that Fiorenze didn’t like him? How would it feel to be drawn to someone who couldn’t stand you?
I had to get him talking to me again. I missed it. He so often said (and did) unexpected things. He looked at things so differently.
I also liked the kissing. Who’d have thought that mixing your saliva with someone else’s saliva wouldn’t be malodorous? I hoped we’d get to kiss again.
�
�Wha—,” I said.
Large hairless arms closed around me and lifted me off the ground. A huge hand was firmly over my mouth, holding my jaw shut so that I couldn’t bite or scream. The hand stank of chlorine.
I kicked hard, and swung my bag to thwack my assailant, but none of it prevented my being bundled into the front seat of Danders Anders’s car. A seat belt snapped into place around me. I pressed the release button, but nothing happened.
“Locked,” Danders Anders said, folding himself into the driver’s seat. “Door too.”
It was more like a tank than a car; even so, Danders dwarfed it. The top of his head pressed up against the roof. His knees were in his chest and the steering wheel looked tiny beneath his ginormous hands.
“Liar,” he said. “Fairy not gone.”
I hugged my bag to my chest and thought about explaining how it was Fiorenze who was a liar, not me.
“Sorry,” said a voice from the backseat. I swiveled to see Bluey Salazar blinking at me. He did not look cheerful.
“Sorry?” I asked him.
“I kind of sort of accidentally let slip something that led Andrew to make certain connections—”
“Danders doesn’t make connections!” I hissed. “His brain’s too small.”
“Shh,” Bluey whispered. “He’s right there.”
I didn’t care.
“Park city,” Danders announced. “Emergency.” How was he capable of driving when speaking was such a challenge? He hadn’t made any connections. Bluey must’ve flat out told him my parking fairy wasn’t gone.
“No!” I screamed. “No parking! I can’t be in a car! I can’t find parking spots! Don’t you understand? My parking fairy is almost gone! This will make her come back!”
“Parking fairy good.”
“No! Parking fairy bad. Parking fairy benighted, malodorous, doxy, vile. There is nothing good about parking fairy. I can’t do this! I can’t feed the bad fairy! I can’t starve the good fairy! I can’t!”
My eyes were getting hot. I did not want to start crying, even though the odds of any teacher seeing were small. But I was furious. If Danders Anders had been considerably smaller, and I knew it wouldn’t get me expelled, I’d have killed him.
“Give money. Not now. Later. Lots of money.”
“I don’t want your money! Not now or ever!”
“You see, Andrew?” Bluey said. “You’ve driven her insane. You should let her go.”
How to Ditch Your Fairy Page 10
