Step four: zap up a magic key I can use to turn the rides off.
Geez. This is complicated.
Step five: start over and come up with a better plan.
Scott says, “Look at that guy down there!”
Down at the control station for the Tilt-a-Whirl, there’s a small figure who’s opening the front panel and pulling out wires. It’s a boy with glasses and dark-brown hair. And not just any boy—it’s Martin!
I have a horrible, sinking feeling. Martin’s track record has been pretty shaky so far. What if he does something that makes the Tilt-a-Whirl whirl off into space? It could happen—after all, he wrecked a whole water tower!
I shriek and cover my eyes when sparks fly out of the control panel that Martin’s working on. I wait for the screams and the crash.
“He did it!” Scott says.
Peering out between my fingers, I look down and see the Tilt-a-Whirl coming to stop. The riders get off it, so dizzy that they walk in loopy circles until they finally just sit down on the ground. But they’re all safe.
The loudest screams come from the Terrifica roller coaster, where a dozen people ride the train of cars up and down the scary-high tracks, faster and faster. I squint—Abner’s in the very front car. I bet right about now he’s really wishing he hadn’t had five servings of green cotton candy today.
Martin runs over to the Terrifica’s control station and yanks it open. As he fiddles with the wires, it’s like one of those scary scenes in movies where a guy’s trying to stop the timer for a bomb. In the movies, it’s always the red wire. Or is it the blue wire? Oh, please, Martin! Get it right!
To my relief, there’s one last burst of sparks from the control station, and the roller coaster cars glide down to the platform, smooth as anything. Abner gives Martin a grateful look—and then barfs into his cowboy hat. Yay and ew.
It takes Martin only a few more minutes to shut down all of the runaway rides, and now the merry-go-round, the drop tower, and the teacups all slow to a stop. Martin gets a lot of pats on the back and at least seven kisses.
The Ferris wheel comes last, which is only fair since we’re not moving. Martin hot-wires the controls and gets people off, one car at time. He gets a lot more pats and kisses—he’s a hero!
As we wait our turn, Scott says, “You were going to tell me something. What was it?”
There’s been enough excitement for one night, so I just say, “Uh…um…do you want to go to a movie sometime?”
There’s a long, long silence. Then he smiles and says, “Sure. That would be fun.”
I know what you’re thinking. No, he’s not my boyfriend.
But ask me again in a month.
After the last people get off the Ferris wheel, the kids cluster around Martin, applauding and cheering while he grins. I’m pretty sure Martin has never, ever gotten this kind of attention. But he sure deserves it.
The kids may all be happy and excited, but the grown-ups look terrified.
Principal Conehurst shouts, “Is anybody hurt?” He scans the crowd, and when no one says anything, he gives a sigh of relief.
And Abner pushes his way to the front, blotting his forehead with a handkerchief. “All right, folks! We’ve had a lot of fun, but now it’s time to call it a day.”
Oh, no! The carnival was supposed to go on for hours more—and we need to raise all the money we can get. We’ve got to start it back up!
But then I look around at all the sparking wires and empty booths, and I know we can’t. Agh! Antarctica, here I come. Martin may be a hero right now, but tomorrow the kids will remember about the water tower and the field trips and his life will still stink. And so will mine!
Suddenly, there are cries of “Help! Help!”
My heart skips a beat. Maybe people are hurt.
The yells are coming from the ticket booth. “HELP! HELP!” Inside, Paige and Sunny are pressed against the ticket window. The bundles of money—and there are a lot of them—have fallen all around them.
Sunny presses her mouth against the slot in the window. “We can’t get out! The money fell over!”
I run around to the ticket booth’s back door and turn the handle. The door opens, and pink-rubber-banded cash pours out like a Las Vegas slot machine paying off.
Paying off big.
Makayla starts shrieking. “LOOK AT ALL THAT MONEY! LOOK AT ALL THAT MONEY!”
Martin and Principal Conehurst reach the booth at the same time and watch as Sunny and Paige crawl out through all the cash. I’ve never seen that much money in one place.
The principal turns to Martin and says, “We’ll have to count it, of course, but to me it looks like there’s more than enough money here to fix the water tower, restore the field trips, and…”
He gets a gleam in his eye.
“…buy that espresso machine for the teachers’ lounge.”
Makayla shrieks and kisses Martin right on the lips.
(Ew.)
I peer into the booth, and I see Katarina peeking out from behind a stack of cash. She smiles and gives me a thumbs-up.
I hug Martin. “I think your life officially doesn’t stink anymore.”
Right before midnight, Abner, Martin, Sunny, Paige, Katarina, and I sit on deck chairs on Abner’s patio waiting to see the magic carnival disappear.
Oh—and we found the bird-workers. They all climbed up into trees, where they’re sleeping with their heads tucked under their arms. (If you ever use magic bird-workers, remember they’re only good till dusk. After that, they want to go home to roost.)
The birds aren’t the only ones who are asleep—so is Abner. He had a really big, fun day at the carnival, and the second he sat down in his chair, he conked out like Madison after a birthday party.
I’m sorry to say that it took quite a bit of lying for us kids to be here right now. Paige’s father is working the late shift at the hospital, so Paige told him she had a sleepover at my house. Sunny and I told our parents that we had a sleepover at Paige’s house. And Martin told his parents that he was helping late on the carnival cleanup crew, which would look very good on his college applications.
Martin checks his watch. “A minute till midnight! That’s synnngera in Elvish.”
Katarina snorts. “That means ‘I have dandruff.’ Where do you get these words? I’m serious. Where?”
Martin blushes. “Off the Internet. Maybe I should have learned Troll instead.”
Katarina nods encouragingly. “Troll is easy! Instead of talking, they hit each other on the head with clubs. Excellent language, but very painful.”
Paige laughs and tells Martin, “Maybe you should try Spanish.”
As the seconds count down, Sunny tells me, “You’re getting better at being a fairy godmother, Lacey. Usually you’re running around like crazy about now. But tonight you’re done early!”
“I admit things are looking positive,” Katarina says. “But remember, the moon isn’t officially full until 12:34 a.m. A lot can happen in half an hour.”
I shake my head. “Nothing’s going to happen! I’ve finished my fairy godmother assignment. We raised a lot of money, and the kids like Martin, so his life doesn’t stink anymore. Makayla even kissed him! We’ve done it.”
“And I got out of my violin audition. It was a perfect day!”
The bells of the town’s clock start chiming midnight, and Abner wakes up with a start.
“Did I miss anything?” he says sleepily.
“You’re just in time,” I say.
Green fireworks shoot out of all the rides and booths, which disappear one by one. Then the fireworks join together in one brilliant blast overhead. A moment later, PLUNK! Abner’s miniature carnival toy falls back to the lawn.
And, finally, the bird-workers in the trees sparkle back into real birds again. There’s a lot of confused chirping and cheeping.
I look around at the empty lawn, which, with the minutes-from-being-full moon overhead, is almost as bright as day. Sunny’s ri
ght. I am getting better at this.
Suddenly, a purple jewel lights up on Katarina’s dress and she looks at it, horrified. “This can’t be happening!” she says.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
The purple jewel starts to play a tune that sounds familiar.
Martin cocks his head. “What song is that?”
Paige says, “Don’t ask me. I’m tone deaf.”
Sunny listens for a second. “It’s from the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride at Disney World.”
Katarina shrieks, “And it means Terrifica is on her way! Everybody hide!”
Too late—a tiny, glowing dot of purple light zigzags toward us and flies onto the patio. It turns out to be a very, very, old fairy godmother with dark-purple hair, a wrinkled face, and enormous ears that could belong to a bat. And she looks furious. “What are you idiots doing here?” she shouts.
Katarina gulps. “What do you mean?”
Terrifica pokes Katarina with her wand, exactly the same way Katarina pokes me. “I am the best fairy godmother teacher who has ever taught,” she shouts. “Not one of my students has been a failure! There are no dryer fairies or dung beetle fairies among my alumnae! And now you, Katarina, are about to be banished to Antarctica.”
“But—” Katarina says.
“SILENCE!” Terrifica shouts. “Katarina, they never should have let you into the Godmother Academy. Of all my students, you were always the most trouble! Always getting your spells wrong. Never finishing your book reports. Always talking back in class.”
Gee. Katarina kind of sounds like me.
Forget kind of. She really sounds like me.
I expect Katarina to start shouting back, but she just hangs her head miserably. A tear trickles down her cheek.
Now it’s my turn to get mad. Katarina is a cranky pain sometimes, but she doesn’t deserve this. After all, she did agree to homeschool me when it would have been a lot easier for her to just let me get shipped off to the Godmother Academy.
“She’s not a failure,” I say.
“SILENCE!”
“I won’t be silent! Katarina’s a great teacher. And we’re not going to Antarctica! We got Martin his dream.”
“No, you didn’t, you dunderhead! Why do you think I flew all the way here from Florida during the international mah-jongg tournament? To stop you and Katarina from ruining my perfect reputation, that’s why!”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
Terrifica glares at me and points into the distance with her wand. We all look and see a single, puffy white cloud far in the distance. “That cloud is directly over your house, Lacey. It’s a blizzard straight from the South Pole, waiting to blow you and Katarina away at twelve thirty-four a.m.”
“That can’t be right,” I say. “I did everything! I totally unstinked Martin’s life!”
Terrifica shakes her head. “No, you didn’t.”
“What haven’t I done?”
“I can’t tell you that. It’s between you and your client.”
The fairy godmothers always, always, always make this stuff so hard! I turn to Martin and peer into his face. “Martin! What’s wrong with your life? Why is it still stinking?”
Martin says, “Um…well…everything’s fine.”
I yank his shirt. “No it’s not! Tell me what’s wrong! I’m your fairy godmother and I need to know!”
“Lacey, you’re kind of creeping me out here.”
Katarina flies up to us. “Tell her! We only have twenty-two minutes before the moon is full!”
Martin looks totally blank.
“This is important!” I shout. “What is still wrong with your life?”
Paige pats me on the shoulder, “Lacey. He’s a boy. Boys don’t talk about feelings.”
Sunny says, “He did with me, sometimes.”
I let go of Martin’s shirt. Then I yank Sunny’s shirt. (I’m doing a lot of yanking tonight, but it’s an emergency.) “Sunny! What did he tell you? What else about Martin’s life needs to be fixed? Think! Think! Think!”
“To Martin’s in a flash, and don’t let us crash!” I chant. A split second later, we skid onto the lawn in front of his house, stopping so fast that our feet dig deep grooves in the grass.
“That was cool!” Martin says.
“That was scary,” I say as we race through the front door of Martin’s house. The clock in the hallway shows 12:29 a.m.
Martin calls up the staircase that leads to the second floor, “Mom! Dad! I need to talk to you! MOM! DAD!”
A few moments later, Martin’s parents rush out of their bedroom, pulling on bathrobes.
“What’s wrong?” his dad asks.
Martin rushes up the stairs and stands next to them, looking very short and defenseless. “I need to tell you guys something. Something very important.”
“What is it, Martin?” his mother says.
He gulps. “Ah…well…I…”
Our time’s almost gone! If we weren’t on such a tight deadline, I’d let Martin get to this his way. But we’ve only got five minutes. By now, probably just four minutes!
So I rush up the stairs and jump in, mouth first. “Martin’s life stinks.”
They look at me, shocked.
But I keep going; there’s nothing else I can do. “I know you think Martin’s a musical genius, and maybe he is. And I know that you’re excited about getting him lessons with that maestro guy. But Martin doesn’t want to do it.”
Now they look at Martin, shocked.
“But you love the violin,” his mother says.
Martin still doesn’t seem ready to take a stand.
“He doesn’t love the violin,” I say. “He likes the violin, and he’s good at it, and he’ll always play it. But what he loves is inventing things. Sure, everything he makes blows up or farts or knocks something down. But that’s because he spends all his time practicing the violin when he doesn’t want to!”
Martin frowns. “Not everything I make blows up or farts!”
“Martin! We don’t have time for this!” I turn back to his parents. “You guys have got to let Martin be Martin and forget about the musical genius part—or his life is going to stink forever!”
Martin’s mom looks worried. “Martin, you don’t really think your life stinks, do you?”
This sounds funny coming from Martin’s very-proper mother, but it’s the most important question she’ll ever ask.
Two minutes before the full moon! I want to jump in here, but I think Martin is going to have to answer this question on his own. He looks at both his parents as if he’s terrified to tell them the truth. But finally, he says, “Kinda.”
“Kinda?” his father asks.
Martin nods. “Yes, it stinks! I hate all the practicing! But you guys only seem to like me when I’m playing!”
Wow. Especially for a boy, that’s an amazing thing to say out loud. How will his parents take it?
As the seconds keep ticking away, they seem frozen in place. Finally, after what seems like forever, Martin’s father puts his arms around him and hugs him. “I love you all the time,” his father says.
And then, to my ginormous relief, Martin’s mother hugs him, too. “What are you thinking? Of course I love you all the time.”
Martin looks up and studies their faces. “You’d love me even if I never played the violin again?”
They both nod without hesitating a moment.
“So…I don’t have to take lessons with Maestro Chaliapin?” he asks.
His parents both shake their heads. “No, you don’t,” his father says.
Martin hugs them back.
Then Martin’s father looks over at me. “By the way…who are you?”
“I’m just a friend,” I say.
“She’s more than a friend,” Martin says. “She’s my maar friend.”
Martin’s father asks, “You mean she’s your great and excellent friend?”
“Dad! You speak Elvish?”
“I’m a lot more like you than you think,” his father says, giving Martin another hug.
Martin smiles. “I hear my accent is awful.”
“That’s all right, honey!” his mother says. “We’ll get you a tutor!”
At 12:42 a.m., I leave the house and see Abner’s green limo waiting for me at the curb. I climb in and find Abner at the wheel with Terrifica sitting on his shoulder. Sunny and Paige are in the back.
Sunny asks, “Did you fix things?”
“I think so. But with fairy godmother stuff, it’s so hard to tell. Where’s Katarina?”
Paige says, “She flew to your house to see if the blizzard is still there.”
Sunny whispers in my ear, “I don’t think she wanted to be in the same car as Terrifica.”
Terrifica’s bat ears quiver. “I heard that!”
About a block away from my house, Terrifica yells, “STOP! It’s Katarina!” Abner slams on the brakes.
Katarina flies up to my window, looking grim and shaking her head. “It’s awful! Just awful!”
OMG! After all this, it didn’t work.
There’s silence in the car as Abner drives the final block. I expect the worst: a giant glacier, maybe.
But there’s no glacier.
No snow or icicles.
No mysterious cloud overhead.
Just my house, looking cozy and normal in the moonlight. Even the weeds in the front yard are still there.
I look at Katarina. “You said it was awful!”
“It is! The paint is peeling. The lawn is a disgrace. And there are cracks in the sidewalk.”
“But there’s no snow!”
“Snow would cover up a multitude of sins. I can’t believe that this is where I’m going to be living for the foreseeable future.”
I’m on the verge of yelling at her for badmouthing my beautiful house, and then it sinks in: if Katarina’s going to be living here for the foreseeable future, we’re not going to Antarctica! We’re not going anyplace!
“We did it!” I shout.
Everyone in the car cheers. Even Terrifica, who says, “Thank glitter! My record is perfect.”
The next morning, Katarina sits on the edge of my dresser, looking glum even though the temperature is back to normal and there’s not a penguin in sight.
The Spell Bind Page 14
