Me, My Elf & I

by Heather Swain

  Even tho i think u suck 4 kissing TLC, thnx for breaking them up. i luv 2 c Bella from Hella cry!

  I have to read it a few times to understand what she means but finally it dawns on me that Timber and Bella broke up! I pop out of my seat, then quickly sit back down.

  “What’s wrong?” Briar leans over and whispers.

  “Look at this.” I point to Rienna’s message.

  Briar reads the message then looks at me confused. That must be how I look most of the time in Brooklyn. Now I see why Mercedes and Ari get so annoyed with me. I don’t have time to explain everything to Briar.

  “I have to find out if they really broke up,” I whisper. “But how?” I mutter half to myself and half to Briar. “Who can I e-mail? Could I e-mail Rienna back? She did say that I suck. Maybe she doesn’t want to hear from me. Maybe I could e-mail Jilly, the fairy queen. But wouldn’t it look weird to ask her if Bella and Timber broke up?”

  “I don’t really understand this whole e-mail thing,” says Briar. “But, if they did break up and he wanted you to know, then he’d e-mail you, right?”

  I slump back in my chair. “You’re right.”

  “Why would this Rienna girl be happy that this poor Bella girl is sad?”

  “First of all,” I tell her, “Rienna has a crush on Timber so she’s happy that he’s free now. And second of all, there’s nothing poor about Bella. She’s the meanest one of all. ‘Bella from Hella’ is right!” Then I sit up straight. “Oh my God. I wonder if Rienna is BellaHater?”

  “Huh?” says Briar.

  “Never mind,” I say. “I just figured out what to do.” I’m about to type in the BellaHater blog address when I get a new message in my in-box. It’s from Timber! I let out a little shriek.

  “Quiet down!” the librarian snaps at me. “Or you’ll have to leave.”

  Briar and I slump down, giggling. “Timber must be online right now,” I whisper to her and point to the screen.

  “Open it! Open it!” she yell-whispers back to me.

  I click on the message.

  Hey Z, I’m in study hall. Wondering y u r not at school 2day. Tried 2 IM u last night, but didn’t get an answer.

  Since I can’t IM on this stupid old computer, I start typing furiously, trying to get an e-mail message to him as quickly as possible.

  Sorry I didn’t get your IMs! My family had to leave Brooklyn because my grandmother is sick.

  I hit send, then wait for a minute until this e-mail comes back:

  Sorry about yer grandma. Is she going 2 b ok?

  We continue our slow electronic conversation. I imagine him in the school computer lab, looking really cute slouched behind a screen.

  Thanks for asking. We’re not sure what’s wrong with her so I don’t know how long I’ll be here. 2 bad. Bklyn isn’t the same w/o U.

  Briar and I hold hands and grin at each other. “What should I say?” I ask her.

  “Ask him if they broke up,” she says.

  “I can’t just ask him that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Erdlers aren’t like that.”

  “But you’re not an erdler,” Briar says.

  “But he doesn’t know that,” I tell her. “I have to be more, you know, subtle. Not so honest.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be honest?” she asks.

  “I don’t have time to explain,” I say impatiently as I start typing again.

  “I have to get this message to him before he logs off.”

  What’s going on in Brooklyn?

  I send it and we wait. And wait. And wait for so long that I’m sure I missed him. I’m about to cry when finally another message from him pops up. We both squeal, then cover our mouths so the librarian won’t kick us out.

  Nothing much happening here.

  “What!” I hiss. “What’s he mean nothing much is going on?”

  “He probably thinks you left before all this stuff started happening,” Briar says.

  I look at her, amazed. “You think just like an erdler.”

  “Thanks,” she says, smiling.

  “But what should I do?”

  “You should ask him,” she says, poking my arm.

  “I can’t,” I whine.

  “Either he likes you or he doesn’t, Zephyr. Don’t you want to know?” Briar asks.

  “No!” My stomach is gurgly and I’m starting to sweat. “It’s not that simple. Maybe he’s starting to like me, or he thinks he likes me but he’s not sure yet. I mean he did just break up with Bella.”

  “Then we have to help him decide whether to like you or not,” she tells me.

  “But how?”

  “Move over.” Briar pushes me out of the way.

  “Don’t ask him!” I whisper.

  “I know what I’m doing!” She pecks at the keyboard while I chew on my fingernails.

  Really? Because right before I left all those crazy e-mails went around.

  U saw those, huh?

  Yes.

  r u upset?

  not really. r u?

  I’m amazed at my cousin. She’s already picking up the abbreviations and she sounds more like an erdler than I do. We wait for his reply.

  hmmm, well, kinda. Bella’s pissed as hell and her friends hate me now.

  Briar’s fingers fly across the keys as she types in “Did u break up?”

  “No!” I whisper and grab her arm, but she hits send anyway. I cover my face with my hands. “I can’t look. I can’t look,” I moan quietly.

  “There’s his reply,” she says after a few seconds. I still don’t look, until I hear her gasp. Then of course, I peek through my fingers.

  yeah, it’s over.

  Briar and I grab each other’s hands and scream.

  “That’s it!” The librarian marches toward us. “This is a quiet, respectable public library. Not a place for you little derelicts to come and make a ruckus.”

  I know she’s going to kick us out so as quick as I can I type, “Gotta go. Getting kicked out. More later . . .” I hit send right before the librarian pulls the plug.

  “You two get out of here,” she snarls at us. “And don’t come back, you hear? I don’t want to see you again!”

  Briar and I run down the steps of the library, cracking up. “Did you see her face?” Briar says. “She was so mad. She looked like a snapping turtle!”

  I’m laughing so hard I nearly fall over. I have to stop walking and lean against a light pole to catch my breath. “Do you think he got my last message?” I ask her between gasps for air.

  “I think it went through. Don’t worry. But what are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, and suddenly the whole thing doesn’t seem so funny. “Did that librarian say we can’t come back?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” says Briar. “We got banned!” She laughs.

  “Oh no!” I moan. “How will I get in touch with him again?”

  Briar gasps. “Oh dear. I didn’t think of that.”

  Just then a car drives by. “Go back to the woods!” some jerky guy yells out the window.

  “You don’t own this street!” I yell back. The car slows down and does a U-turn at the end of the dusty road.

  Briar grabs my arm and pulls. “Come on!”

  But I’m mad. “I’m not going to let these dumb erdlers tell me what to do anymore,” I tell her. “We have every right to be here,” I yell over my shoulder as Briar drags me down the sidewalk.

  “Stop!” she begs. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  The car speeds up and now I am furious at the erdlers telling me I can’t be here. Banning me from the only computer in a hundred-mile radius. I’m not just some little meek elf anymore. I spin around and face the oncoming car. Quick as I can I zap them with a little hex to seal their doors for a few minutes so no one can get out of the car and a farting spell just to make them miserable. Then I grab Briar’s hand and yank her between two buildings. We run as fast as we can down an alleyway, through s
omeone’s backyard, and duck into the woods. We don’t stop running until we get back to Alverland.

  chapter 11

  JUST WHEN I think I can’t take it anymore—when I think I’ll die if I’m in Alverland another minute beyond the three days we’ve been here already, I overhear my parents arguing in our kitchen. I pause behind the door and eavesdrop, which I know is wrong, but I can’t help it.

  “This is important,” my dad says.

  “More important than your family?” Mom asks.

  “Aurora, of course not. But Fawna is getting better every day. She’s up walking now. She ate a bit. She’s clearly going to recover.”

  “I’m not ready to go,” Mom says and my heart jumps. Does that mean my dad wants to leave?

  “I’m not asking you to leave,” he says, and I feel my stomach sinking.

  “But why do you have to go?” Mom asks. “Why can’t we all be together for a little longer?”

  “The song is doing well,” Dad says. “It’s climbing up the chart. I can’t lose that momentum. If I’m not out there, touring, gigging, getting some publicity, it could all go backward. You promised me a year to do this. To really pursue it.”

  “But I didn’t know she’d get sick if we left.”

  My dad sighs. “She didn’t get sick because we left.”

  “That’s what you want to believe,” Mom answers. “But no amount of success is worth tearing your family apart.”

  “I’m not tearing our family apart,” Dad insists. “I’ll be gone one day, then I’ll be back.”

  I have to know what’s going on so I step around the door. “Are you leaving?” I ask my dad. They both look at me, surprised, but neither of them answers. “Are you going back to Brooklyn?” He shakes his head no, but my mom nods hers yes. “Which is it?” I ask.

  “I’ve been asked to do a radio show down in Appleton, Wisconsin.”

  “And then—” Mom says.

  Before she can finish, I jump in. “Can I go? Please? Please let me go with you! I never get to go. Grove always gets to go. I know I’m not part of the band, but I’ll do anything you want. I’ll carry your gear. I’ll set up your stuff. I’ll sleep in the van. Whatever. Just let me go with you! Please, please, please.” I’m practically hanging off my dad’s arm, begging him because I know if I can get to Appleton I can find a computer.

  Dad laughs. “Since when are you so interested in Wisconsin?”

  I glance over at my mom. She’s shaking her head back and forth slowly in a way that says she is not happy about any of this. “Your grandmother has been very ill . . . ”

  “I know!” I whine. “Really I do. And I care about that. More than anything. But she’s getting better and it’s not like I can help her! All we do is try to stay out of the way.”

  “Simply having us here, all of us here, helps her,” Mom says.

  “But I’d just be gone for a day, right Dad?”

  “Why do you want to go so badly?” Dad asks me, and I know I’m going to have to give them some sort of reason.

  I chew on the inside of my lip. I don’t know how much to admit. “I need to check my e-mail. I want to know what’s going on in Brooklyn. At school. In my classes. And with my friends. That’s all.” Obviously I’m leaving out important details, but like Timber said, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

  “Is that all?” Dad says with a laugh. He reaches in his pocket. “If you want to check your e-mail, you can use my Treo.” He pulls out a PDA.

  I jump and snatch it from his hand. “How long have you had this!” I yell.

  He shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “A while. I have to be able to e-mail my manager when I’m on the road.”

  I’m not even listening because I’m too busy trying to figure the thing out. “Do you get a signal out here?” I ask as I push buttons.

  “Only if you climb a tree or go up to the top of Barnaby Bluff,” Dad says.

  “Can I please have this for a few hours?” I ask.

  “Why does she need that thing?” my mom asks Dad.

  Dad puts his hand on her arm. “It’s okay,” he assures her. “You can use it,” he says to me, and I’m out of there before they can change their minds.

  The sun will go down soon, so I quickly find a tall tree and clamber as high as I can with the Treo in my pocket. I settle myself into the crook of a large branch and wait for the little machine to hook me up to the world. Who knew my dad was so tech savvy? In a few minutes I’m on the Web.

  Of course, the first thing I do is check my e-mail. I want to know if Timber got the last message I sent from the library. There’s a response to that message in my in-box, but all he says is “ok c’ya l8er” and does not pledge his undying love, which is what I was hoping for. There’s also an e-mail with an updated script for the ELPH audition. Part of me wants to open it and practice, but part of me wants to ignore it because what’s the use? I probably won’t be back in time to audition so why torture myself? I try to tell myself that there will be other auditions, other chances, other scripts, but I’m not so sure and that makes my heart feel like a sapling beaten down by the wind and rain. I leave e-mail and mess around with the keys until I figure out how to get on my dad’s instant messenger program. It’s Thursday evening, a school night, so the chances of Timber being online are pretty good. I punch in “R U there? It’s Z.” Almost immediately I get a reply that he’s off-line.

  I’m so disappointed that I nearly fling the Treo out of the tree! How can he not be online? That’s so unfair. Now what am I going to do? Look at stupid puppy videos on YouTube? Of course, I could go to Bella’s blog or even to the BellaHater blog to find out what’s going on. But first, I decide I should check out something else. I pull up the YouTube Web site and scroll down until I find the GGJB “Not Like You” featured video.

  Ari’s face fills the tiny window and I feel a strange mix of emotions. I’m happy and sad at the same time. It’s the weirdest thing to have both sensations at once. It’s like one of those strange erdler contradictions: being nice and mean at the same time; or saying one thing with your words but meaning another with your tone; or acting like someone’s friend but really being her enemy. I quickly forget about my emotions though, because I get sucked into the video. I love watching Ari sing his heart out. The melody is catchy and the chorus gets stuck in my head,You can’t make me!

  I won’t be like you.

  You can’t make me

  into the image of you.

  I’ve got my friends

  and I know what to do

  to be like me

  and not like you.

  The video is great. First he’s in his house, alone at the piano. Then he’s with his band beneath a tree in the park, surrounded by a group of little kids. Next they’re standing in the middle of a crowded sidewalk in downtown Brooklyn. Then they’re in Chinatown, then Times Square, then Coney Island. Each shot is a different place around New York City and I’m dying of envy! As soon as Fawna’s better I’ve got to get back to Brooklyn.

  When the video is over I scroll down and read the comments. Like Mercedes said, most of them are positive but there are a few mean ones, too. That shouldn’t surprise me, I guess. By now I know it’s impossible for erdlers to always be nice. At the bottom, I see a box that says, “Comment on this Video” and I immediately start typing.

  Great! Superb! I loved it! Fantastic! The best video I’ve ever seen. The music is wonderful and the words are clever, funny, and have heart. Just like you, Ari!

  After seeing Ari, I’m curious about what people think of my dad’s videos so I type his name into the search box. I can’t believe it! Twelve videos pop up, all from live shows. I click on the first one and my dad starts singing. I scroll down and scan the comments. People love him! They think he’s amazing. And even weirder, some people say he’s sexy. There’s also some girl who wants to have my brother’s babies. Gross! That’s just wrong. I remember Ari saying people talk about my dad and his band on the Web a lot
so I put his name in Google then click through some of the links. Mostly it’s boring stuff about how good Dad’s songs are or people swapping stories about seeing his band play live in different places around the country. But then I end up in a chat room with some creepy rumors.

  —He lives in the woods in the UP of Michigan

  —I hear he’s a Mennonite.

  —Not a Mennonite! Part of a Wicca cult.

  —It’s a commune. Totally off the grid.

  —How can I join?

  —Anybody know where? I’m from Michigan. I’d love to look him up.

  —Somewhere in the Porcupine Mountains.

  —No, near Keweenaw.

  —It’s called Alderville or something like that.

  —You’re all wrong. He lives in Brooklyn. He’s a fake!

  It’s strange to see so much speculation about my dad and where we live. I had no idea people were so interested in finding us. Luckily no one’s figured it out yet. When I’m bored reading about my dad, which doesn’t take too long, I go to Bella’s Web site just to torture myself.

  I hate seeing her smug face captured in a perfect head shot staring out at me from her homepage. There are links to videos of all the little parts she’s had in TV shows, commercials, and even movies. I don’t bother to read her public blog entry because I know it will all be lies. Instead, I drag the cursor up to the corner and click on the dog. I type belladonna in the password box and the real blog pops up. But there’s no entry for today. I skim back through the past week and find the entry from the day after Mercedes sent the mass e-mail about my kiss with Timber.