by Sally Warner
“If we have to,” I say. “At least that way we’ll be the ones in charge. That’s the important thing.”
“If you say so, EllRay,” Corey says, trying to be loyal.
“Doink, doink, doink,” Jared whispers again, fiddling with his—my—invisible crown.
“You got a better idea?” I challenge him.
“I guess not,” Jared admits, shrugging.
“Then put on your thinking cap this weekend,” I say as the buzzer sounds, using one of Ms. Sanchez’s favorite expressions. “If you even have one, that is.”
“Excellent,” Corey murmurs, low-fiving me as we head for class like those little iron filings being pulled by a magnet, which we did in Science Activities once. I forget why.
We’re the iron filings in this comparison, and Ms. Sanchez’s class is the magnet.
But this time, the iron filings are going to be in charge—for once.
3
MY ONE AND ONLY SISTER
Alfie and I get up early on Saturday mornings and eat cereal in front of the TV while Mom and Dad sleep late. We take turns choosing DVDs or TV shows. Today it is Alfie’s Saturday to choose, which is why we are watching Pink Princess Fairies. I’m just glad Jared and Stanley can’t see me now. I would never live this down.
Alfie frowns. “I think I saw this one before,” she says, pointing at the TV screen with her dripping spoon.
“How can you tell? They’re all the same,” I say, after slurping down the last of my cereal milk from the bowl.
“They’re not all the same,” Alfie argues, scowling.
“Sure they are,” I say. “The littlest pink princess fairy always gets into trouble, and the bigger ones save her. And that baby dragon always shows up, too.”
“But it’s different kinds of twouble,” Alfie points out. “And the fairies wear different outfits every time.”
“But they’re always pink and sparkly outfits,” I say.
“Or else they wouldn’t be pink princess fairies,” she explains. “Duh!”
Alfie is four years old, and she is my one and only sister. Her real first name is Alfleta. That is the Old Saxon word for “beautiful elf.” Why Old Saxon, which my father told me hasn’t been spoken in more than a thousand years? It’s because of my mom and those romantic books she writes. And when Alfie was born—I was four years old—Mom said that was her new baby girl’s name, period.
I think a lady who has just had a baby gets the biggest vote on what to name it, so my dad didn’t argue.
And Alfie did look like a golden brown elf. She still does, a little. She’s really cute, but I don’t tell her that very often. She’s bad enough. Besides, my mom says girls shouldn’t only get praised for being cute.
“Anyway,” Alfie says, as if that’s what we’ve been talking about all along, “I’m going out with you and Dad this morning when you do your chores.”
“You’re not,” I say, keeping my voice matter-of-fact and calm, which usually works with her. “You and Mom do girl chores on Saturdays, and me and Dad do—”
“You have to let me come with you and Daddy, EllWay, or it’s against the law,” Alfie says. “You can’t gang up against girls. Suzette Monahan says so.”
Suzette Monahan is one of Alfie’s best friends and worst enemies at Kreative Learning and Playtime Daycare. And yes, I know they spelled “creative” wrong.
Suzette is what my mom calls “a real handful.” “Nobody is ganging up on anyone around here,” I tell my sister, stacking our cereal bowls. “You and Mom do fun girl stuff on Saturdays, and Dad and I do . . .”
I don’t finish my sentence, because I can’t exactly claim that what Dad and I do on Saturday mornings is FUN. We do not have a lot in common. My dad is a college professor and a geology scientist, see, and his brain is usually busy thinking about stuff like radio isotopes, which he says tell us how old rocks are. And I’m just an eight-year-old kid. I think about my two favorite basketball teams, the Lakers and the Clippers, and scoring snacks, and funny videos starring cats and dogs. We can’t have a pet because Alfie’s allergic.
We try to have fun, though. And I like hanging out with Dad. I kind of spy on him, in fact—but not in a creepy way—to see how a man does things.
My dad never loses stuff, for example. I’m exactly the opposite.
But even a brainy geology scientist has other things to do. We almost always do three errands and then have one secret Saturday treat. We usually go to the hardware store, because my dad likes to fix stuff, and the plant nursery, because he grows roses, and then we go to a yard sale or two. My dad says you never know when someone’s going to toss out some interesting rocks or crystals.
Once, Dad even found a little meteorite mixed in with a bunch of marbles and stuff in a shoe box lid on a card table! That was cool, because meteorites are pretty rare. The meteorite Dad found was the size of a peanut. It looked like a twisted piece of rusty metal. But instead, it was basically a visitor from outer space, Dad said. Only luckily, not the DROOLLY kind with fangs you see in scary movies I sort of like.
See, my dad told me once that a meteorite is a natural object that falls to earth from outer space, which is enough all by itself to make a person nervous. I’m never telling stressball Corey about rusty peanut-shaped meteorites falling from outer space, that’s for sure!
Meteorites can either be “falls” or “finds,” my dad says. A “fall” is a meteor you actually see falling from the sky, and they are pretty rare—which is good or else you might get bashed when it comes down. A “find” is a meteorite that came down sometime in the past, maybe hundreds of years ago. Or thousands.
Or yesterday, if you live in Siberia, even though Dad says it’s just a coincidence that so many land there.
The secret treat my dad and I get every Saturday is one doughnut each, which is the reason Alfie can’t come with us. She could not keep quiet about eating a doughnut for more than a minute, tops, and my mom’s really into healthy foods.
Well, my dad and I are too, officially. But this is only once a week. It’s a guy thing we do together, and I want to keep it that way.
I go out alone with Mom sometimes, too, usually to lunch or to a movie that she doesn’t want Alfie to see. And Alfie sometimes goes out with Dad. She gets all dressed up, too. You should see her.
“You and Dad eat cookies when you go out,” Alfie says like she’s accusing me, Pink Princess Fairies forgotten for the moment. “There was chocolate on your shirt when you came home last week, EllWay.”
My sister the master detective!
My sister the chocolate hound is more like it. Chocolate is Alfie’s favorite food group.
“Okay, maybe we had a cookie,” I fib, pretending to admit it. “One cookie, Alfie, with chocolate on top. But if we ever do it again, I’ll bring one home for you.”
“Me and Mom have to go to the farmer’s market,” Alfie says with a pout, not giving it up. “And all I get is fwee samples of fwoot.”
That’s “free samples of fruit,” in Alfie-speak.
“Listen, Alfie,” I tell my little sister. “I promise I’ll bring home something good for you today, okay? From one of Dad’s yard sales?”
“But not a rock,” Alfie warns me.
“Not a rock.”
“Something chocolate?” Alfie asks, hope making her shiny brown eyes look even bigger than they already do.
“Or even something Barbie,” I promise. “Or some jewels.”
Alfie is big into used jewelry these days, the junkier and shinier the better. She likes to glue it on stuff. My mom says she’s being creative.
“You won’t forget?” she asks.
“Nuh-uh,” I say, getting ready to bail on Pink Princess Fairies once and for all.
There’s usually a tangle of messed-up jewelry somewhere at a yard sale.
“Then okay,” Alfie says. “And I’ll bwing you fwoot.”
“Deal,” I tell her, and we shake hands on it.
4
“YOUR AMAZING FIRST MAGIC SET, WITH TOP HAT, WAND, AND DVD!”
“We’d better go, or Alfie’s gonna have a meltdown,” I warn Dad as he studies his list of chores in the driveway, even though I don’t see why he needs a list. Like I said, we pretty much always do the same thing.
“That’s ‘going to,’ not ‘gonna,’ son,” my dad says. “No lazy tongues at our house, please.”
But he BIPS open the car door locks, and we get in and buckle up.
“I was checking a few addresses for a sensible driving plan,” Dad tells me as he backs out of our driveway. “Because I thought we’d hit the yard sales first, for a change.”
“What are you looking for?” I ask as Dad heads away from where most of the houses are in Oak Glen.
“Just the usual,” Dad replies.
Oak Glen is about halfway between San Diego and Disneyland. I’m not sure why they built a town here in the first place, now that I think about it. But, like just about every place in California, my dad says, it’s getting bigger every year.
Our town is partway up a low mountain. It curves around a couple of bulging, rocky foothills like it’s a stretched-out cat taking a nap in some giant’s garden.
If Oak Glen were a sleeping, stretched-out cat, Oak Glen Primary School would be sitting on the cat’s head, our house would be on its chest, and we would be driving around one of the almost treeless hills toward the pretend-cat’s tail.
“What about you?” Dad asks, like he just reminded himself to be polite and ask me questions, too. “Looking for anything special today?”
“Just a present for Alfie,” I say. “You know, a broken bracelet, or something else sparkly. Or maybe some old Barbie stuff. Um, Dad?” I ask.
“Mmm?”
“Were you or Mom talented when you were kids?”
“Talented like how?” Dad asks, his forehead wrinkling as he thinks back. “I learned my times tables before anyone else in class. Felt pretty darn good about it, too,” he says, smiling a little.
Wow, that skill sure didn’t get passed down. Not to me, anyway.
Not with seven-times-anything—except one or ten.
But I try to imagine standing in front of the Oak Glen Primary School Talent Show Tryout Committee, stumbling over my times tables. Would that satisfy Ms. Sanchez and our principal?
“You weren’t talented at music or anything?” I ask, my voice hopeful.
“Sorry,” Dad says, shaking his head. He turns off onto a smaller road.
He signals even when there are no other cars around, I have noticed.
“What about Mom?” I ask, still hopeful. Maybe there’s still some hidden family talent that was passed down to me—only I don’t know it yet.
“Hmm,” Dad says. “She likes to sing.”
Okay. I may only be eight years old, but already I know that “liking to sing” isn’t the same as being able to sing. Sing well, that is.
I mean, I like my mom’s lullabies and random kitchen, garden, and shower songs fine, but she’s not exactly talented. No offense.
“What other talents are there in life?” I ask my dad.
“Why this sudden interest in talent, EllRay?” Dad says, slowing as we approach a line of cars parked along the edge of this dusty road.
“It’s for school,” I say, shrugging. “See, our principal got this idea that the whole school should have a talent show at assembly next week. Ms. Sanchez just announced it yesterday.”
“Really?” Dad asks, pulling in behind an out-of-state SUV. “That seems kind of last-minute, doesn’t it? The school year’s over in a couple of months.”
“I know,” I say, agreeing with him. “It’s messed-up, right? And the whole thing’s so embarrassing! It’s going to end up just being talented fifth- and sixth-graders, obviously, because they’re the only ones who are good at stuff. Or at least the only ones nobody will boo off the stage. And maybe they’ll throw in a few kindergarten kids, for laughs.”
“So what’s the problem?” Dad asks. “That sounds like a show.”
“It’s the principal,” I try to explain. “He told Ms. Sanchez that every class has to take part—in the tryouts, anyway. So Ms. Sanchez says that our class has to come up with at least five tryout acts. We have until Monday morning.”
“Maybe there’s some hidden talent in your class you don’t know about,” Dad says as we cross the empty road—after looking both ways, of course.
“Dad, please. You know my class,” I say, eyeing the groups of yard sale shoppers—the competition—clustered around the card tables and blankets scattered across the yard sale family’s dried-up lawn. I look for the jewelry-tangle table and the kids’ area.
“Point taken,” Dad says, laughing. “Although some of the girls in your class might surprise you, EllRay. They’re probably taking lessons in all kinds of things.” He sighs.
“That’s what Ms. Sanchez said,” I tell him. What is it with girls and talent? Alfie’s already nagging Mom and Dad for classes in ballet, horse riding, gymnastics, and archery, which is just one SCARY idea.
“Maybe,” I say. “But none of them stepped up when we were talking about it on Friday, that’s for sure.”
“Too bad,” Dad says, heading like an arrow for a table with an old basket of geodes on it.
He doesn’t seem too worried about my problem.
But that’s okay, I figure—because I’m worried enough for both of us.
I spot it five minutes later, among a bunch of other toys spread out on an old picnic blanket on the brown grass. The toys include:
1. A marionette cowboy puppet whose strings are so badly tangled that the puppet looks permanently frozen in place, like something from a monster movie. Not that I’ve ever seen a cowboy puppet in a monster movie.
2. A handful of little metal cars that look as if they were left out in the rain—for a year or two.
3. A bucket full of small plastic building blocks that look like someone spilled pancake batter on them a long time ago.
4. And, most important and best of all, a colorful but faded cardboard box that is taped shut and labeled “Your Amazing First Magic Set, with Top Hat, Wand, and DVD!”
There’s a five dollar sticker on the box.
Magic. That’s it! Magic is a talent, isn’t it?
“It’s missing the DVD,” the bored-looking teenage kid guarding the blanket tells me. “And I think the top hat got wrecked, so that’s gone, too. But otherwise it’s good. You should get it, bro.”
I have only three dollars in my pocket, and I wanted to spend at least a dollar to buy a present—okay, a bribe—for Alfie. And he’s not my “bro.”
But even if I spent all my money on myself, I wouldn’t know how to turn three dollars into five dollars. I’m not that good a magician—yet.
My dad says you can usually bargain with the sellers at yard sales, but I don’t know how to bargain—especially with a teenager.
I don’t even know whether I should try to look rich or poor.
So I just stand there, as frozen as the tangled cowboy puppet, staring at the taped-shut magic set. “Does it still have the wand?” a voice behind me asks.
Dad! Just in time.
“Yeah,” the boy says, standing up a little straighter. “And a few props. I think.”
“What about an instruction booklet?” Dad asks.
“Most of the instructions were on the DVD, which got lost,” the teenager says, scowling. It sounds like he’s blaming the DVD itself for getting lost.
So basically, he’s trying to sell a box with a stick—excuse me, a wand—inside it.
“How about three dollars?” the kid says, starting to sound desperate.
“Can you afford three dollars?” Dad asks me.
“I can afford two dollars,” I tell him. “Because I have to save a dollar for Alfie’s present. I promised.”
“Hey,” the kid says, eager for a sale. “If you’re gonna spend money on something else here, too, I’ll let you have
this magic set for two dollars. It’s really cool,” he adds, not sounding very convincing.
“Did you learn any tricks?” Dad asks him.
Besides figuring out how to sell a taped-shut box with a stick in it for two dollars, I guess Dad means.
“I could kind of make something small disappear,” the teenager says, trying to remember. “But that was a few years ago. Do you wanna look inside the box?” he asks.
I can tell he’s scared we’ll say “Yes.”
“EllRay?” Dad asks. “You’re the buyer, son.”
“No. That’s okay,” I tell the kid. “Here’s your two dollars,” I add, fishing the CRUMPLED bills out of my pocket.
“You’re sure you don’t want to look inside the box?” Dad asks me. “‘Let the buyer beware,’” he adds, quoting from somewhere.
My dad loves quotations. I think that’s part of being a college professor.
“I’m sure,” I tell him, tucking the almost-empty box under my arm. We walk away from the toy blanket and the relieved teenager. “Because it’s perfect, see?” I tell Dad. “For the talent show!”
“The lamer the better,” is what I don’t add. It’s my own silent quotation.
Because—I don’t want to get in the talent show, remember?
I just have to try out and get it over with so we don’t let Ms. Sanchez down.
And that’s worth two dollars any day of the week.
5
DOOMED
“I thought you said Sundays were meant for hikes and picnics,” Alfie says, sitting inside a circle of dolls and doll clothes. She looks like an angry cartoon kitten when she’s mad, I sometimes think.
“It’s raining out,” Dad says, not looking up from the newspaper.
Yes, we still get actual newspapers at our house.
“It’s not real rain,” Alfie argues, staring out the window.
