by Amanda Ashby
“Sorry, I’m late.” She puffed as she came to a halt alongside her two best friends, who were standing next to a papier-mâché flying monkey called Colin. Sophie widened her eyes. “Wow, he looks amazing.”
“I know, right,” Kara agreed as she flipped a strand of long dark hair out of her face and carefully inspected one of the wings to make sure it was okay. Kara, who was the artist of the trio, had spent the last couple of weeks up to her elbows in glue and newspaper making props for the upcoming musical, The Wizard of Oz.
“Well, I just hope that they’re using lots of ropes on him, because if he falls someone is going to get seriously splattered. I saw this movie once where that exact thing happened,” Harvey, the movie buff of the three, said as he knit his brows together.
“Colin isn’t going to be splattering anyone,” Kara cut him off before he could talk about anything too gruesome. Then she turned back to Sophie and wrinkled her nose. “Anyway, where have you been? The dress rehearsal starts in five minutes. I was starting to think that you’d forgotten about it.”
“Of course I didn’t forget about it.” Sophie looked horrified as she wiped the sweat away from her brow and silently concluded that if she had to keep running around school like this, she was going to have to get a lot fitter. “You know that I would never let you down like that.”
“Well, that’s good.” Kara looked relieved as she fiddled with one of Colin’s monkey ears. “I’m so nervous about Colin’s big day.”
“She’s not exaggerating,” Harvey confirmed as he held out his arm. “She’s been pinching me for the last ten minutes to help her calm down. I’m sure I’m going to have a bruise tomorrow. So what happened? Did you get distracted by Jonathan?”
At the mention of Jonathan Tait’s name, Sophie let out a happy sigh, since she thought the seventh grader, with his tanned skin and blond hair, was the most perfect guy in the whole entire world. Plus, he loved Neanderthal Joe almost as much as Sophie did and they had sortofkindofmaybe been hanging out together ever since she had started sixth grade last month. Then she realized her two friends were looking at at her expectantly, so she lost the dreamy expression and gave a quick shake of her head.
“No, it didn’t have anything to do with Jonathan,” she assured them. “It’s just that on my way here I noticed that the cafeteria was serving meatloaf.”
“Meatloaf?” Kara squeaked, her normally relaxed face suddenly looking far from happy. “You nearly missed Colin’s first proper rehearsal because of some meatloaf?”
“Well, in Sophie’s defense, the cafeteria here does make very good meatloaf,” Harvey offered. “Much better than what we got at Miller Road Primary, that’s for sure. Apparently they’ve got a special secret. What?” he protested as he suddenly realized the two girls were staring at him. “It’s true.”
“We believe you,” Sophie quickly assured him before she turned back to Kara, who was glancing nervously around the backstage area. “But what I mean is that I’ve been looking for Malik. He promised he would be here by now, so when I saw that the cafeteria was doing meatloaf I thought he might’ve snuck in there to steal some.”
Her friends both nodded knowingly—stealing meatloaf from the cafeteria was exactly the sort of thing that Malik was likely to do. Unfortunately, ever since Sophie herself had become a djinn, she had been stuck with him as her djinn guide. Not that he did much guiding. Instead he spent most of his time watching YouTube clips, eating Cheetos, and getting Sophie into trouble. Usually all at the same time. Unfortunately, he was also the only hope she had of finding out where her father was.
“So, I gather that Malik wasn’t there,” Kara said, her voice full of understanding.
“No.” Sophie let out a frustrated sigh. “I even checked behind the deep fryer where they were cooking the meatloaf, but there was no sign of him.”
“Ah, so that’s the secret to the meatloaf. Deep-frying. Nice.” Harvey, who was a big fan of eating, nodded his head in approval before he realized they were staring at him again, and so he coughed. “But so not the point. So have you tried clapping him?”
“I’ve been clapping him all morning,” Sophie said, since according to Malik, clapping was like ringing a doorbell and when she did it he would appear. However, if this was true, then all she could conclude was that Malik’s doorbell was broken. Very, very broken. “What if something’s happened to him? What if—”
Before she could finish, Patrick Dutton, an emo-looking seventh grader with aqua eyes and Justin Bieber hair, strode toward them. He had a clipboard in one hand and what looked like part of the yellow brick road in the other. Kara immediately started to blush.
“Hey, Kara. The rehearsal is just about to start, but you can watch it from the front. And don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Colin for you,” Patrick said with a wink. But instead of replying, Kara began to fiddle with her hair as she mumbled something that sounded very much like mwhooahwwh. Then, as Patrick carefully moved Colin over to the left side of the stage, Kara dropped her head and hurried to the front of the auditorium as fast as her long legs would take her. Sophie and Harvey exchanged a surprised glance before they raced after her.
“Um, excuse me, what’s going on?” Sophie demanded as she finally caught up with her friend and they all sat down in an empty row of seats.
“Nothing. Nothing’s going on,” Kara said in a rush, and shot Sophie a concerned look.
“So why were you acting so—” Sophie started to say before widening her eyes. “Kara, do you have a crush on Patrick?”
“What?” Kara blinked as she studied her fingers, refusing to look up at either of her friends. “No, of course not. W-why would you think I had a crush on him? That’s crazy talk.”
“Er, because you did this and this when he was talking to you,” Sophie said as she nervously tugged at her hair to demonstrate Kara’s behavior. “Not to mention the whole mwhooahwwh thing. Is that even a word?”
“Oh no.” Kara let out a long groan as her cheeks turned the color of ketchup. “So do you think that he noticed?”
“Only if he had ears and eyes,” Harvey assured her. Sophie hit him in the arm.
“Of course he didn’t, and the only reason we noticed was because we know you so well,” Sophie quickly backtracked as she realized that Kara did have a crush on Patrick. Why hadn’t Kara told her? But she already knew the answer. She had been so caught up with finding her dad and the whole djinn thing that she hadn’t realized Kara even knew Patrick, let alone liked him. She was a bad friend. “So why didn’t you tell us you liked him?”
“Well, at first I didn’t know I liked him. He’s one of the stagehands, and he’s been coming to the art room to check on Colin’s progress,” Kara explained as she nervously started to fiddle with her necklace. “And that’s when I noticed the color of his eyes. I mean, did you see them? They were like the ocean on a summer’s day with just a hint of lapis in there.” She let out a dreamy sigh and her shoulders started to droop. “But of course it’s hopeless. You saw me. I can’t even string two words together when I’m around him. Why would he ever like me?”
“Um, because you are gorgeous, not to mention sweet, kind, and funny. Oh, and you’re also very nice to papier-mâché flying monkeys,” Sophie said. “And if you like him, then you should do something about it.”
“W-ell, he did tell me that the whole drama club is going to see The Wizard of Oz at the movies on Saturday for inspiration. It’s a sing-along. Anyway, he kind of asked me to go with them,” Kara reluctantly admitted.
“He did not.” Sophie widened her eyes as she gripped her friend’s arm in excitement. “That’s so majorly exciting!”
“Yeah, the thing is that I’m not so sure it would be a good idea.” Kara shook her head. “What if I get all tongue-tied again and I’m stuck there on my own? I wish I could be more like you when you’re around Jonathan. How do you manage to speak to him without feeling like you’re going to melt into a puddle?”
“I do
n’t know,” Sophie said truthfully as she considered it. “I guess I’m always so excited to see him and then we’re normally so busy talking about Neanderthal Joe that there’s no time to be nervous. Perhaps you just need to make sure you talk about things you’re interested in?”
“I guess.” Kara still didn’t look convinced, and Sophie felt another pang of guilt that she hadn’t been more helpful to her friend. Then she had an idea.
“Hey, what if Harvey and I went with you? I mean I know that we’re technically not part of the drama club, but it’s a public movie theater so there’s nothing to stop us from going too,” Sophie said, and Kara immediately brightened.
“Really? You guys would do that?”
“Actually.” Harvey coughed. “I can’t. My mom’s making me go along to some lame single-parent camp next weekend so we can bond with other single-parent families.”
“Oh, Harvey, that’s terrible.” Sophie shot him a sympathetic look. His parents had recently split up and he was now caught right in the middle of all the warring.
“Tell me about it. I swear that my mom’s only doing it to bug my dad because he wanted me to go to the lake with him. Honestly, parents are so complicated.”
“So are they talking to each other yet?” Kara looked worried, and Harvey shook his long bangs.
“Not exactly, though they are talking about each other a lot. Mainly to me, so now I just put my earbuds in and nod from time to time. Something that I plan on doing the whole weekend while I’m away at Camp Touchy-Feely,” he said as he blew his hair out of his eyes.
“Maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t go to the movie?” Kara said immediately, her pale green eyes full of worry. Sophie shook her head.
“You have to go. And even though Harvey can’t make it, you’ve still got me. Oh, and we should get you a new outfit. You could ask your mom to take us to the mall. You know how excited she gets when you want to exchange your paint-splattered wardrobe for something new,” Sophie said. Of course she would’ve been happy to conjure something up, but Kara’s mom had a bad habit of noticing new clothes and wondering where they had come from.
“What? Oh please, not more crushes. I mean, first we had all the business with Sophie and Jonathan Tait, and now Kara likes someone? Honestly, I don’t know where you kids ever get the time to just do your homework,” a voice suddenly said. They all looked up to where Malik— Sophie’s djinn guide—was now floating in front of them, a frown on his face.
Today he was wearing a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt and some skinny jeans, and his Zac Efron hair was slicked back off his head. He also had a bulky man bag slung over his shoulder, which he refused to stop using despite Sophie’s assuring him that it was the ugliest thing in the entire world. Thankfully, due to the fact that he was a ghost, Sophie and her friends were the only ones who could see him.
It was a small comfort.
