“Hey!”
“Crista!” Ali shouted. “Crista’s still down there. We’re sending her away with the rest of them.” She fell to her knees and scanned the pack of imps for Crista, but all the imps looked the same. Why didn’t she come out?
“Crista!” Michael got down next to Ali, and so did Jennifer.
“Crista, come out!” Ali cried. “Please! You aren’t really an imp. Please answer me!”
The glowing from the imps got brighter and brighter and became a shining red. Poof! It flashed so bright that Ali had to cover her eyes. When she removed her arm, every single imp was gone.
Thirty-Five
“Crista!” Ali shouted to the empty space. “She can’t be gone. She’s not supposed to be an imp. She’s supposed to be with us.” If she’d had her hair back, she would have torn it out. Instead, she leaned over her knees and grasped onto the bald edges of her head.
“Woo-hoo! We did it!” someone cried.
“Great job, Ali!” Natalie Buckmaster slapped Ali on the back. “La-LA-LAAAA!” she sang out, proving her diva singing voice was still there. “You’ve gotten rid of them and we kept our wishes!”
“A-li! A-li! A-li!” the kids chanted.
“Why don’t you guys just go home?” said Michael, resting one giant hand on Ali’s back.
“Let’s go back to school and make sure our real teachers are there,” said Molly.
“Good idea,” said Tyler. “Since my parents apparently forgot about me, I guess they can wait.”
“Thank you, Ali,” said Molly. “We owe you.”
“A-li! A-li!” the kids kept chanting as they walked out of the restaurant.
“You’re gonna pay for this, Jared,” said Jonathan.
“Serves you right,” said Jared.
“Oh yeah?” The cousins pushed through the door and took their argument out into the street. Michael and Jennifer stayed with Ali, while Hannah and Deacon held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes.
“Please!” cried the Happy Rat, twisting his ruined head. “Please just leave. I have to get this cleaned up before my boss comes in.”
“We’re sorry,” said Michael. “Come on, Ali, let’s go back to your house. Maybe we can figure it out from there.”
Ali let him help her up.
Jennifer gracefully picked up a table and set it upright.
“It’s all right,” said the Happy Rat. “I’ll do it. Please just go.”
“Come on, Hannah,” said Ali. “Let’s go home.”
“Okay,” said Hannah. She picked Deacon’s wig up off the floor and set it back on his head.
He picked hers up and set it on her head. “Beautiful.”
Leaning on Michael, Ali headed for the door.
“Ali, wait!” said Hannah, running around in front of her. She held up a wig with thick, straight brown hair. “This one would look wonderful on you. You can’t go around almost bald.” Her superior tone sounded like the old Hannah, before she was addled by a combination of magic and love. Ali almost smiled as Hannah set the wig on her head and adjusted it. “There!”
Hannah took Deacon’s hand and led the way out of the restaurant.
It was a long walk home, and nobody said much. Hannah and Deacon went off on their own, and Ali led Michael and Jennifer up to her room.
“I’m sure there’s a way to find Crista,” said Jennifer. “We’ll do another spell. One that locates imps or something.”
“I guess,” Ali said. “But why didn’t she answer me? Why didn’t she jump out of the pack? She doesn’t even want to come back, and it’s my fault. I got her turned into an imp.”
“I wonder if they’d trade my wish for her,” said Michael. “I don’t mind being my old self again.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not possible,” said a voice.
Ali looked around for it. There on Ali’s desk stood Pilose. She looked the way she had in Ali’s vision back in the mound—complete with long, flowing imp locks.
“Pilose!” Ali cried, running over to her. “Tell me where Crista is!”
“Pilose?” said Michael. “Where is she?”
“Right here on the desk,” said Ali, pointing right at Pilose’s head. “And she’s got her hair back.”
“I don’t see anything,” said Michael.
“Me neither,” said Jennifer.
“Well, she’s right here,” said Ali. “Didn’t you hear her speak?”
Both of the others shook their heads.
“They won’t be able to see or hear me,” said Pilose.“You see, our spells didn’t quite work out. Apparently you and Bunny wanted the same thing—to set us free from each other. But Impoliptus tricked Bunny, and it turns out we’re Divvy-imps again. The other children can’t see us because only you have a remnant of imp magic.”
“Divvy-imps again!” Ali cried. “What about our child magic?”
“You tried valiantly,” said Pilose, “and you helped re-enslave us. But it’s difficult to get out of just deserts.”
Ali rolled her eyes. The whole “just deserts” thing. “Are you my Divvy-imp, then?”
“No, Alison,” said Pilose. “This imp is yours now.” She waved a hand toward the back of the desk.
Another imp moved slowly out from behind the pencil case. There was no mistaking the pink T-shirt and the long brown hair. It was Crista.
“Crista! You’re my Divvy-imp? No way.”
“Crista is right here? And she’s your Divvy-imp?” asked Michael, leaning over Ali in a fruitless attempt to see.
“It’s all right,” said Crista. “I am what I am now. And we have a whole ’nother year together before you get too old and I have to bind to another child.”
“A year.” Ali pushed a strand of wig hair out of her face. “We’ll figure out a way to help you. I promise. Can you at least eat real food now?”
“Yes,” said Pilose. “One good thing about this whole mess is that we’re no worse off than when we started. Bunny is back with Virginia, and that child is punishment enough for an evil imp. Well, Ringlet and I have children of our own to deal with. I’m sure I’ll see you again.”
“Wait!” Ali cried. “You have to help Crista! And you have to turn me back to normal.” She pulled off her wig, exposing her fairy hair tuft. “Plus Hannah’s and Deacon’s hair.”
“Everyone’s hair will grow back,” Pilose said.
“Am I supposed to wait for it to grow back?” Ali asked. “You imps can make it grow back right now.”
“Sorry,” said Pilose. “By myself, I don’t have that kind of power.” Pop. Pilose disappeared into thin air.
“Wait!” Ali cried, but it was no use.
“It’ll be okay,” said Michael. “It won’t take that long.”
“It’s not just my hair,” Ali said. “She must know how to help Crista. I don’t believe for a minute that it can’t be done.” She picked up the directions, which she had dropped on the desk. “How can I turn Crista back into a person?” She waited. Nothing happened.
“I think it was tied to the un-enslavement spell,” said Crista. “And that’s undone now.”
Ali let the paper fall to the desk. “I just wish I had my wish,” she said. “Then I’d be able to figure this out, no problem.” She sat down in her desk chair and dropped her head onto her hand.
“You don’t need a wish to be smart, Ali,” said Crista. “That’s what I was trying to tell you at the beginning. Look at what you did. Yeah, some stuff went wrong, but you figured it out. You got everyone’s parents back, and the kids got to keep their wishes and their memories, and there won’t be any more hexes, and now we don’t have to eat hair. Even the imps are better off because of you.”
“You’re already a rock star,” said Michael. “Remember how all the kids chanted your name?”
“I guess,” said Ali. She had done a lot. She’d saved Hannah too. “But if you have to stay that way, it’s not enough.”
“I have faith in you,” Crista said. “You’
ll figure out how to change me back eventually. But I’m fine for now. There are some good things about it.” She grinned and waved a hand.
Ali’s chair flew out from under her and she landed on her bottom.
Michael, Jennifer, and Crista all burst out laughing.
“Hey!” Ali cried, staring up at Crista. “Did you do that?”
“That’s for getting your best friend turned into an imp,” Crista said, winking. “And you’d better be a good girl this year, because that was only a stage-one punishment.”
Ali scrambled to her feet. “Now I’m really getting you turned back,” she said.
“Ali!” her mother called from downstairs. “Help me bring these groceries in!”
“Just a minute!” Ali called.
“Maybe your parents will remember something,” said Jennifer. “Like, maybe they’ll have some sense of how you saved them even if they don’t know.”
“Alison Elizabeth Brown Butler!” her mom called.
Ali rolled her eyes. “Yeah, maybe.”
All four of them—three kids and an imp—laughed.
About the Author
MARY G. THOMPSON was born and raised in Cottage Grove and Eugene, Oregon. She was a practicing attorney for more than seven years, including almost five years in the U.S. Navy, and is now a law librarian in New York City.
Her previous books for Clarion are Wuftoom, which Publishers Weekly called “[A] wildly imaginative debut . . . A tale to jolt readers out of their complacency,” and Escape from the Pipe Men! Visit her at www.marygthompson.com.
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