“Martin’s life really stinks. I wish I could help him.”
“Can’t you just do a little magic for him?” Sunny begs.
“Well…I guess so.”
So when Martin leaves the cafeteria to empty one of the many overflowing trash cans, I pull out my wand and chant, “Martin is needy, so mop be speedy.” Then I toss the spell at the mop that Martin has left behind.
There’s a flash, and the mop lurches up and wipes the cafeteria floor in a squeaky, squishy blur. Just as Martin comes back, I grab the mop, which wiggles in my hand like it wants to go clean the entire school. Martin stares at the floor, bewildered.
“Surprise!” Sunny says.
I hold the mop like I’ve just been pushing it. “We wanted to help out!”
Martin keeps staring at the gleaming floor. “How did you do this so fast?”
“At the restaurant, I learned how to speed clean,” I lie. The mop wiggles in my hand again, so I rush toward the door before it gets away from me.
Martin calls, “Hey! I need to put the mop away!”
“We’ll do it for you,” I say. “You go home! Bye!”
Sunny and I are out the door before Martin can say another word. I put the mop on the floor, and it pulls me along like a super hyper puppy on a leash.
“You’ve got to make it stop,” Sunny says.
“I can’t! It’ll do this till midnight!”
“But somebody’s going to see it!”
She’s right. Magic spells can cause as many problems as they solve, at least for me. As the mop yanks me down the hall, I finally get an idea. “Sunny—open your locker.”
Sunny runs ahead and turns the combination, but the mop drags me right past in a cleaning frenzy.
“Slow down, mop!” I command, but the mop ignores me. It’s heading for the gym and its gigantic floor. Once the mop starts cleaning that place, it’s never going to stop. Desperate, I say, “Mop! Go back! Sunny spilled a whole carton of milk in her locker, and it’s starting to smell!”
The mop can’t resist. I let go of the handle, and it zips back down to Sunny’s locker and hops inside. Sunny slams the door, and it’s trapped. We can hear it rattling, but there’s no way for it to escape.
“Well, the bottom of my locker is going to be really, really clean,” Sunny says. “And thank you for helping Martin.”
“You’re welcome. But I can’t help him anymore—Martin’s sure to figure out it’s magic. From now on he’s going to have to do his own mopping.”
We hear a frantic let-me-out! handle-tapping sound from inside the locker as we leave.
Two fairies zoom up and wag their fingers in my face the second I step inside my room.
One of them is Katarina, who’s shouting, “How could you! How could you!”
And the other one is blue-eyed, blue-haired Augustina Oberon. “You stupid girl! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Augustina is the fairy who, instead of sending me away to the Godmother Academy, decided to let me be homeschooled. (Actually, Katarina blackmailed her into giving me permission. And since Augustina was in Julius’s stomach at the time, she went along with it. Long story.)
“Is this about the mop?” I ask. “It’ll be fine in Sunny’s locker.”
“It’s not about the mop. It’s about the spell bind you just created,” Katarina snaps.
“What’s a spell bind?”
Augustina flies in front of my face like an angry wasp. “Did you or did you not help one Martin Paganini Shembly with a cleaning spell?”
“His middle name is Paganini? That’s so weird!”
Katarina says, “Paganini was a famous violinist and a very nice man. He played me a concerto for my birthday in 1802. I was very young, of course!”
Augustina screeches at us both. “Pay attention, you blithering fools! Katarina, you’re the teacher. Supposedly. Explain to your pupil what a spell bind is.”
Katarina flies down and lands on my shoulder. “When you don’t have a client, and you do a spell to help someone, that spell binds you to them as their fairy godmother.”
“But I used spells when I didn’t have a client to make you lemon-flavored. And to turn you into the bear.”
“Godmother-to-godmother magic doesn’t count. You did a spell to help Martin! It was a spell bind!”
“AND IT’S SIMPLY NOT ALLOWED!” Augustina shouts. “Fairy godmothers can’t go around choosing their clients.”
Katarina nods. “If you could choose your own clients, everyone would try to bribe you and give you gifts.” She gets a faraway expression. “Although gifts are nice.…”
Fairy godmothers have so many rules! I shrug. “Sorry! I won’t do it again.”
Augustina stares at me. “It’s too late. Martin Shembly is now your client. This assignment appeared at Fairy Godmother Central this afternoon.” With one flick of her wand, Augustina makes a tiny rectangular piece of paper, half the size of a postage stamp, float in front of my face. “Here is your client’s dream. You need to make it come true.”
The paper has writing that’s so small, I almost have to cross my eyes to read it. The writing says, Your client is Martin Shembly, and you need to make his life not-stink.
I’m sort of happy inside. “Martin sure needs a fairy godmother. Maybe my spell bind is accidentally a good thing.”
Ow! I get a kick on one side of my neck from Katarina, and on the other side from Augustina. I brush them both off my shoulders and they fall onto my bed.
Augustina glares at Katarina. “Haven’t you taught this girl anything?”
Katarina glares right back. “We were getting to the lesson about spell binds next week.”
Augustina shouts, “You’re a horrible teacher! You should be drummed out of the Godmothers’ League.” Then the two fairies start kicking each other.
Better than kicking me, I think, and I smile a little at the thought—which Augustina sees. She snaps at me, “You won’t be smiling when you hear your punishment.”
The smile vanishes from my face. This is going to be something awful, I’m sure. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: fairies play rough. “What kind of punishment?”
Augustina fluffs her blue hair, enjoying this. “Let’s start with your teacher. Since your homeschooling is Katarina’s responsibility, if you fail to get Martin his dream by the exact moment of the full moon, Katarina will be exiled to the South Pole without wand or wings.”
Katarina shudders. “That means penguins! I hate penguins!”
Augustina gives Katarina a sparkling smile. “I know! Perfect, isn’t it?”
“And what about me?” I ask.
“You will be exiled along with your teacher—as her servant. Oh, and of course Martin’s life will stink forever. But these things happen.”
OMG! That’s terrible!
Augustina gives me the same sparkling smile. “Well, Lacey, you’d better get busy! The full moon will be here before you know it!” She flies toward the door, leaving a trail of electric-blue sparkles that fizzle out on the carpet. Just before she leaves, she flicks her wand at the wall below my Endangered Animals calendar. A dime-sized hole appears, and a cold breeze whistles through. “On the other side of that portal, Antarctica awaits,” Augustina says, and then she’s gone.
Katarina looks up at me, rubbing her shin where she got kicked. “I hope you’re happy! Soon we’re both going to be living in an igloo and fighting off penguins.”
“They wouldn’t really send us to Antarctica, would they?”
“If you’d read the biography of Swettlanda Puck the way you were supposed to, instead of giving it to those silly footmen, you’d know the answer is eaeyeeeap!”
“What’s that?”
“‘Yes’ in Penguin.”
I sit on the bed next to Katarina, feeling dizzy. “But I don’t want to live in an igloo.”
“Then you better have Martin squared away by the full moon.”
“When is that?”
“Look it up. You’re the
one with the internal.”
When I finally figure out she means Internet, I search for the date on my phone. “The moon is full at 12:34 a.m. on Sunday the twenty-eighth.” I count on my fingers. “That’s nine days from now. Nine days! Just once I’d like to have a full thirty days to complete a fairy godmother assignment.”
“You’re the one who got yourself into this mess. It’s not the Godmothers’ League’s fault that you don’t have enough time.”
“It’s not just me in this mess. We’re in this mess. Tell me how to help Martin!”
Katarina scratches her head. “You do have a point there. All right. The first thing you need to do is—” Then her mouth clamps shut, and though she’s clearly struggling to say something, no more sounds come out.
“Katarina! What’s wrong?” I ask. A moment later, a little piece of paper comes floating down from the ceiling. I grab it and read it out loud: “Teachers teach and students learn. Lacey Unger-Ware, you must find the answers for yourself. NO CHEATING!”
Another note floats down, and I read it, too. It says, “And tell Katarina I’m WATCHING HER. Love and sparkly kisses, Augustina.”
Katarina coughs and her mouth pops again. “I can’t help you. But I can say I hate that know-it-all fairy!”
I run to the door.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“If you can’t help me, then I need my godmother posse. Come on!”
“W hat are you supposed to do?” Paige asks me.
Sunny, Paige, and I sit in Paige’s family room eating popcorn. (Paige says there’s no problem so big that popcorn won’t help.) Katarina perches on the ottoman munching on a single popped kernel; since it’s almost as big as her head, she has to hold it in both hands.
I pull out the tiny piece of paper and read out loud, “‘Your client is Martin Shembly, and you need to make his life not-stink.’”
“Martin’s life is pretty stinky,” Sunny says.
“But that’s so vague! Martin is in middle school! Of course his life stinks,” Paige says.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say. “A couple of weeks ago, Martin was happy. But now everyone hates him. So I’m thinking what we need to do is make people not hate him anymore. It’s going to be really hard.”
“Ya think?” Katarina says, super sarcastically.
I ignore her and say, “But before we do anything, I have to tell him I’m his fairy godmother. I hate this part—he’s never going to believe me! Paige didn’t believe me; Sunny’s mother didn’t believe me; nobody ever believes me when I tell them I’m a fairy godmother.”
Katarina can’t resist rubbing it in. “I never have that problem at all.”
“That’s because you’re three inches tall with butterfly wings and a poufy dress!”
Sunny looks at me, squinting. “What if you used a spell to shrink yourself? Just for when you first meet him.”
I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. I could get trapped in a spiderweb. Or I could get blown away by a gust of wind—”
“Or you could get eaten by your cat,” Katarina says.
“Julius wouldn’t eat me.”
“Shall we shrink you down and see?”
Okay, she’s probably right. Julius would eat me; if I was bug size, I’d be cat food for sure. But instead of admitting that out loud, I repeat, “It’s too dangerous. So what else can I do to make Martin believe I’m his fairy godmother?”
Paige, Sunny, and Katarina study me like I’m an exhibit at the natural history museum. Feeling self-conscious, I straighten my T-shirt over my jeans.
“That’s it!” Paige shouts.
“What’s it?” I ask.
“It’s the way you’re dressed. Nobody believes you’re a fairy godmother because you don’t dress like one.”
“So what am I supposed to do, dress like Katarina?”
And Paige, Sunny, and I all turn and study the tiny fairy like she’s in the natural history museum.
Katarina puts her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong with the way I look? I’ve been on the ten-best-dressed-fairies list for the last three centuries. Have any of you?”
Paige leans forward and touches the fabric of Katarina’s sparkly dress. Katarina slaps her finger. “No popcorn hands!”
“Lacey, do you think you could copy the dress?” Paige asks me.
“Why?”
“If you showed up at Martin’s place wearing a dress like this, at least you’d look like a fairy godmother.”
Katarina seems dubious, but Sunny is enthusiastic. “And then do a little magic, and Martin will believe you’re a fairy godmother, no problem!”
This makes sense. This makes a lot of sense. I pull out my wand and chant, “No need to guess! I’ll copy this dress!” I toss the spell in a swishing motion, and magic sparkles swirl in the air. A moment later a miniature gown, exactly like Katarina’s, falls to the floor. I pick up the tiny dress with my thumb and forefinger and stare at it. “Well, it looks like a perfect copy, all right.”
Katarina snorts. “Amateur.”
Hoping my next spell works better, I chant, “Copy her dress, but my size, not less!” and swish the wand again. The same magic sparkles swirl, but this time a dress big enough for me appears.
Sunny applauds, and we all go over to look at it.
“I never realized how beautiful Katarina’s dress is,” Paige says. “Look at the embroidery and the jewels—”
“And cloth of gold, and crystals from Paris, and pearls from a lagoon in Bali,” Katarina adds. “I designed it myself.”
I’m feeling smug about making such a perfect copy. Then I try to pick up the dress. Yikes! It weighs a ton! “Katarina, how can you wear this?”
“With style and panache, of course.”
Sunny struggles to lift up one of the puffy sleeves. “Maybe it will be better after you put it on.”
It’s a thought. Sunny and Paige help me squirm into the gown. I’ve heard that firemen’s gear is really heavy, but I bet it’s nothing compared to Katarina’s six-ton gown. I stand with my knees quivering as I try to balance.
“How is it?” Sunny asks.
“Not too bad,” I say. Then…WHOMP! I topple over backward onto the couch. I can tell I’m not getting up again, no matter what. “Katarina, what am I going to do?”
She laughs. And laughs. Then laughs some more. “You’re already doing a good job of looking like an idiot. But you might try pressing the third emerald from the top of the bodice.”
I press the first green jewel I see—and my wand makes a bleep! bleep! sound.
“No, that’s the wand alarm. I said the third emerald.”
I reach for another green jewel.
“NO! You pea brain—that’s the Good Night Moonstone!”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind. Don’t touch it.”
I peer down at the front of the dress, which isn’t easy when I’m lying flat on my back on the couch. I reach for the third emerald, and when I press it, there’s a low humming sound as the dress inflates all around me. I float to my feet, feeling weightless and graceful.
“That’s better,” I say. I give the girls a little curtsy—and then slowly float up in the air like a balloon that’s come untied. Sunny grabs my arm and steadies me.
“How do I stop floating?” I ask Katarina.
“Press the emerald again.”
WHOMMMMMP! I plummet back to the couch, facedown this time. This is so annoying!
Katarina flies over and lands on the couch next to me. “Well, copying the dress was an excellent idea. I’m glad I thought of it!”
“Katarina! Paige thought of it!” I say.
“Are you saying something, dear? I can’t hear you when your face is in a cushion like that.”
It’s good she can’t hear the next thing I say.
Trust me, it’s not nice.
Yuck! Just look at all those dead moths on top of Martin’s porch light!
The reason
I’m looking at them is because I’m hovering outside his front door, with Paige and Sunny on either side holding on to the sleeves of my glittering fairy godmother dress and trying to stop me from floating away.
Katarina, flitting nearby, says, “Bring the Hindenburg down!” (I guess that makes me a blimp.) Sunny and Paige finally manage to pull me low enough so my feet reach the porch, and Sunny uses her free hand to ring the doorbell.
Martin answers the door, so dejected that he doesn’t even give my dress a second look. “You guys can’t be here. I’m grounded.”
Paige blocks the door with her foot. “Are your parents home?”
“No, they’re both at work. Why?”
I give Martin my brightest smile. “Greetings and salutations, Martin Shembly!” I say. “I am your fairy godmother. Not every girl…uh, boy…receives this boon, but you are one of the lucky few. I am here to make your life not-stink.”
Martin rolls his eyes. “Good luck with that.”
“Really, Martin. I’m your fairy godmother!”
“And I’m the tooth fairy. If I give you a dollar, will you leave me alone?”
Sunny frowns at him. “Martin—Lacey’s telling you the truth. All you’ve got to do is listen to her!”
And then, without asking, Sunny and Paige glide me past him into the house.
“Hold on!” Martin yelps. “I told you, I’m grounded! If my mom finds out you’re in here, she’ll kill me! And then my dad will kill me again!”
Sunny and Paige park me in the middle of the entryway of the house. It’s two stories high—which will work great for what I’m about to do.
“You guys have got to get out of here!” Martin says.
Sunny looks nervously up at the ceiling high above us. “Lacey? Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” I say, sounding more certain than I feel. “Let me go.”
Sunny and Paige release my sleeves, and I slowly float off the floor, pulled upward by the dress.
Martin’s eyes open wide. “Whoa!”
As I float up over his head, I’m soooo glad I’m still wearing my jeans. Katarina thought I was being stupid, but it’s better to be stupid than to have everyone singing, “I see London, I see France, I see Lacey’s Unger-pants.” (That happened to me on the jungle gym in second grade, and once was enough.)
The Spell Bind Page 5
