Showing Off

by Emily Jenkins

  To Todd, Randy, and Daniel, who deserve unicorn gummies, lemon drops, and choco fire trucks.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Nory Horace arrived at Dunwiddle Magic School with really wet feet.

  It was late October and rain poured down. The sky was dark even though it was morning.

  Nory wore a raincoat.

  She held an umbrella.

  But she didn’t have rain boots.

  Back when Nory had lived with her father, brother, and sister, she’d owned a shiny pair of orange boots decorated with cheerful blue ducks. They were really great boots.

  But now she lived with Aunt Margo. And she had no boots.

  How had Nory been separated from her rain boots? She had flunked the Big Test to get into Sage Academy, that’s how.

  Sage Academy was the fancy private magic school where Nory’s father was the headmaster. When Nory had flunked the Big Test, Father was so upset, he sent Nory away. She had moved to the town of Dunwiddle to live with Aunt Margo so she could go to a public school with a special new class for fifth graders who had wonky magic.

  Of course, you weren’t supposed to say wonky. The word wonky was rude. You were supposed to say different or unusual.

  See, Nory was a Fluxer. That was her magic talent. Magic talents bubbled up when a person was around ten. Once you started fifth grade at magic school, you studied one of the five Fs of the magical world.

  Fluxers were one of the five Fs. They could turn into animals.

  Flyers flew.

  Flares had fire magic.

  Fuzzies had animal magic.

  Flickers had invisibility magic of one sort or another.

  Usually, Fluxers turned into ordinary animals like cats, dogs, cows, and goats. But Nory Horace didn’t flux like that. Nory fluxed into mixed-up animals. When she did, she often lost control of her human mind. The animal mind took over.

  It was very embarrassing.

  Nory had been able to hide her problems for a bit. But during the Big Test to get into Sage Academy, she had fluxed into a snake-kitten in front of a lot of Very Important People.

  Then Snitten-Nory had unhinged her snake jaw and chomped on her own father’s hand, because it happened to smell like salmon.

  Afterward, she turned into a dragon-kitten.

  And she might have breathed a little fire.

  Or a lot of fire.

  And she might have zoomed around the testing room in an inappropriate way.

  Okay, she did do that. Nory did turn into a dritten, and she did do all those things—and some things that were even worse.

  It had been very, very humiliating.

  She didn’t like to think about it. And since Father didn’t like to think about it either, he had shipped her off to live with Aunt Margo, as soon as arrangements could be made.

  Nory hadn’t packed her rain boots when she moved, because she’d been in a state of shock. When a person is thinking, My whole life is falling apart! My magic is so wonky that my dad is ashamed of me! I have to move to a new town! Where I won’t know anyone! I’ll be stuck in a class of wonkos just like me, only wonkier! that person doesn’t also think, Oh, hmm, in October it’ll be rainy, probably. I’ll pack my rain boots.

  Now here she was, six weeks into the school year at Dunwiddle. It was the first day of serious rain and her feet were soaked. But what was a girl to do? Wet feet were wet feet. Nothing was gained by moping.

  Nory was good at looking on the bright side. It helped that she’d walked to school with her new best friend, Elliott. “Do you have extra shoes in your locker?” Elliott asked as they stepped through the entrance.

  Everyone in Nory’s Upside-Down Magic class kept extra clothes at school. They needed them. One of their classmates, Willa Ingeborg, had Upside-Down Flare magic that created indoor rain, and not always on purpose.

  The students got wet pretty often.

  Nory looked inside her locker. Bummer. She didn’t have extra shoes, but she did have an extra pair of red socks. “Oh well, I can spend the day in socks,” she told Elliott as she put them on.

  “But the floor’s a mess,” he pointed out. “You’ll get them wet.” His ice magic wouldn’t help, Nory figured. Elliott was an Upside-Down Flare. He could freeze things. But a frozen floor would be worse than a wet floor. Everyone would slip. “Wait!” Elliott cried. “I have a better idea! Be right back!”

  Nory stood still. Around her, students came in, closing up their umbrellas and hanging their raincoats in their lockers. All of them wore rain boots. A couple of Flyers hovered a foot or so off the ground to avoid the puddles, even though there was no flying allowed in the hallways.

  Less than a minute later, Elliott returned with the wheelbarrow. The UDM kids usually used it to bring Bax Kapoor to the nurse’s office. Bax was an Upside-Down Fluxer who accidentally turned into a rock almost every day.

  “Hop in!” Elliott said.

  Nory rode to class with her head propped in her hands and her legs dangling over the edge. Her feet felt cozy and dry in her red socks.

  I may be down a pair of rain boots, she thought, but I’m definitely up in friends.

  Dunwiddle Magic School was fifth through eighth grades. The students were divided into the five magic categories: Flares, Flyers, Flickers, Fluxers, and Fuzzies. Then there was group of unusual kids like Nory: the fifth-grade Upside-Down Magic kids. Those kids studied with Ms. Starr, the Upside-Down Magic teacher. Ms. Starr taught literature, social studies, gym, math, and science—and she also had special training to help kids with upside-down magic. She wanted them to get in touch with their unusual talents. They did headstands in class. They hula-hooped. They did interpretive dance (though none of them liked it). They did trust exercises. They tried to feel their emotions and channel their magical talents productively.

  Today, after math, Nory slid her protractor into her desk. Her friend Andres Padillo was floating on the ceiling, attached to a long leash connected to his belt, as usual. Andres was an Upside-Down Flyer. He’d flown up, up, up on the day his magic came in, and he had never flown down. That’s why he had to be on a leash. He couldn’t stop flying.

  Nory had an idea she’d been wanting to try. “Pull Andres down,” she told Elliott. “Hey, Andres! Let’s do a gravity experiment. I’m going to sit on you, okay?”

  Marigold Ramos came over. “We’re going to sit on Andres?”

  “I’m not sure about this,” muttered Andres as Elliott reeled him down.

  “You’ll be fine!” Nory said. “It’s for science!” To Marigold, she added in a whisper, “Don’t shrink him.”

  Marigold wasn’t an upside-down talent. Or at least, no one had ever been able to put a label on her magic. She shrank things, but she couldn’t make them big again afterward.

  Andres was now floating level with the desks. He grabbed on to the back of a chair with one hand and on to Elliott’s shirt with the other. Elliott struggled with the leash, trying to keep him low. Andres’s feet kept floating up.

  Nory hopped onto a chair. She pulled Marigold up with her. “I’ll sit on his shoulders. Marigold, you sit on his back. And, Andres, we’re going to try to weigh you down. But maybe you’ll fly us up, instead. Either way will be excellent, okay?”

  “You might hit your heads on the ceiling,” warned Andres.


  “Students!” Ms. Starr said, walking over. “What in the world is going on?”

  “An experiment, Ms. Starr,” said Andres. Nory and Marigold were sitting on him, but he hadn’t lowered down to the floor. He was just about two feet off the ground, with Elliott still holding the leash tightly.

  “Girls, there will be no riding of Andres.”

  “But it’s a science experiment,” said Marigold.

  “Yes,” Nory said. “We’re learning about gravity!”

  Ms. Starr made her mouth into a stern shape. “Gravity is very interesting,” she said, “but friends do not ride friends. Not even if you have permission. You all know that about Fluxers, right? You don’t ride your fluxed classmates. And you don’t ride your Flyer classmates either. So please. Marigold, Nory, Elliott. Let Andres go.”

  Nory and Marigold climbed off Andres, reluctantly. Elliott released the leash slowly and Andres bobbed back up to the ceiling. “Sorry, Andres,” Nory called as her friend steadied himself against the top of a bookshelf.

  Andres was laughing too hard to reply.

  “Listen up,” said Ms. Starr. “Today, for our magic studies, we are going to foot paint.”

  “Foot painting!” Nory wondered aloud. “Is that like finger painting?”

  “It’s good for managing new sensory input and creativity at the same time,” Ms. Starr said. “That’s an important skill for kids with unusual magic. Nory, will you and Pepper go to the art room? Bring back four jars of poster paint, please. The big plastic jars. You can pick the colors.”

  Pepper Phan was tiny. She had jet-black pigtails and a round, friendly face. Pepper was an Upside-Down Fuzzy. More specifically, she was a Fierce.

  Typical Fuzzies tamed unicorns or commanded groups of rabbits. Some sent carrier pigeons, or swam with alligators. Pepper was the opposite. Instead of trusting her, animals feared her.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t turn her magic off. All animals, even people fluxed into animal form, thought Pepper was a terrifying monster.

  When Nory was human, she liked Pepper a lot. Pepper was thoughtful and kept candy in her pockets. They both liked to hide out in the Dunwiddle supply closet when school got stressful.

  Now the two of them walked down the hall together. The floor had dried. Bright red fire extinguishers lined the walls in case of Flare problems. The neatly printed signs read:

  NO FLYING EXCEPT IN THE FLYERS’ COURT OR THE YARD.

  NO ANIMAL FRIENDS IN SCHOOL WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

  NO FLUXING WITHOUT TEACHER SUPERVISION.

  Today, Nory noticed a sign she had never bothered to read before. It read:

  DO NOT RIDE ON YOUR FELLOW STUDENTS.

  They passed the fifth-grade Flyer class. Kids were at their desks, levitating slightly above their seats. The teacher was shaking a maraca, saying, “Up two-three-four, down two-three-four.” The students raised and lowered themselves by magic.

  “I’m glad I’m not a Flyer,” said Nory. “Their lessons are so boring.”

  They passed the invisible water fountain and the signs for next week’s kittenball games and invisible diving competitions. They stepped up to the art room.

  The door was closed, so Nory knocked twice.

  “Come in!” someone called.

  They went in.

  Suddenly, Pepper clutched Nory’s arm. “Oh, no.”

  “What?” Nory asked.

  Pepper was frozen in place.

  Nory’s eyes followed Pepper’s. The kids in the art room were eighth-grade Fluxers. Most of them were in human form, but in the back of the room sat an elephant. She held a pencil in her trunk. It was Andres’s sister, Carmen. She’d won a fluxing award for being able to do such an advanced animal. No one else in eighth grade could do any kind of large mammal yet.

  The art teacher, Mr. Hamil, was also a Fluxer. He sat in the center of a large table, posing while the students drew. His elbows were on his knees. His chin was in his palms.

  He was in the form of a chimpanzee.

  One elephant plus one chimpanzee equaled two jungle animals, and that was bad news for Pepper the Fierce.

  Pepper knew from experience that fierced animals get even more frightened if she moved. Maybe things would be okay if she just stood still?

  But no. It was starting. She felt scared and slippery inside. That was the best way to describe it. When her magic turned on, something shifted within her. Her stomach turned to Jell-O. Her skin felt slick. Her thoughts flew every which way.

  A dangerous energy sparked, like static electricity, only spikier. Chimp-Hamil turned to look at Pepper. His eyes grew round.

  “Eeee!” he screeched. “Eeee-eeee-eee!”

  Twelve humans, one chimp, and one elephant swiveled their heads to see what was going on. Elephant-Carmen bellowed. (Fluxers couldn’t speak when they were in animal form.)

  Chimp-Hamil clacked his ape teeth and leapt onto the shoulders of an eighth-grade boy.

  “What the zum-zum?” the boy shrieked. “Mr. Hamil, you’re choking me!”

  “He looks like he might bite!” a girl cried. “Jamie, you have to get out of there! Flux into something small!”

  The boy immediately fluxed into a hamster. Then Hamster-Jamie and Chimp-Hamil crashed to the floor, knocking over several jars of paint as they fell.

  “Zwingo!” cried another boy. “Has Mr. Hamil lost his human mind?”

  “Where’s Jamie?” asked the loud girl who’d told him to flux.

  From beneath Chimp-Hamil, Hamster-Jamie screamed.

  “The teacher’s squishing him!” Nory cried. “He’s trapped!”

  One of the girls said, “Flux into something that can stop Mr. Hamil!”

  “No! Don’t flux at all!” shouted Pepper.

  But—

  Pop-pop-pop!

  Three of the eighth graders fluxed. One turned into a pit bull, one into a boxer, and one into a gorilla. The gorilla was reaching for Chimp-Hamil when the dogs saw Pepper. Both of them barked their heads off, and the gorilla screamed a horrible ape scream.

  “Pepper, no!” Nory cried.

  Pepper turned to look at Nory. Only, what was going on? Nory’s face looked like it had turned to wax. Hot wax. Her forehead bulged out. Then her forehead went back to normal, but her cheeks rippled. Nory was fluxing by accident.

  “Nory, stop!” Pepper begged.

  Nory seemed like she was trying to speak, but Pepper couldn’t make out her words.

  Pop-pop-pop!

  Kitten body, kitten paws, kitten tail. Dragon claws, dragon wings, dragon teeth.

  Nory was a dritten.

  Dritten-Nory flapped into the air, yowling and breathing fire.

  Pepper sidestepped the flames, and Dritten-Nory turned in midair. She flapped right out of the classroom, yowling all the way.

  Pepper followed. She was heading for the door when a boy slammed it shut and moved a desk in front of it.

  “It’s not safe in the hall!” the boy cried. “There’s a flaming dragon!”

  Pepper was trapped. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to turn off her Fierceness.

  It didn’t work. That was no surprise. She’d never been able to turn off her magic before. Pepper opened her eyes and faced the art room. “I’m just a fifth grader who came to get some paint for a project!” she yelled at the chaos. “I’m harmless!”

  Elephant-Carmen reared back. Chimp-Hamil hooted and danced.

  Elephant-Carmen trumpeted and rammed her front feet through the ground-floor classroom window. Smash! She jumped through the opening.

  The dogs and the gorilla followed her lead.

  Chimp-Hamil threw a jar of paint at Pepper. He had lost much of his human mind, but he appeared to be trying to protect his students as best he could. The jar broke on the floor and splattered everyone with green paint. He threw another, and yellow splattered. Hamster-Jamie scrabbled his legs and scurried to hide beneath a rolling cart.

  “Stop!” Pepper yelled. “I’m n
ot going to hurt you!”

  Chimp-Hamil stopped. He looked around, eyes bugging out. Then he turned his back on Pepper and leapt out the broken window.

  “Please just leave,” the loud girl said to Pepper.

  “I’m sorry! I’m not doing it on purpose!”

  The loud girl shook her head. “Just go away before you make things worse!”

  Arms shaking, Pepper pulled the desk out of the way.

  The boy who had put it in place narrowed his eyes at her. “Your magic is really wonky,” he said.

  Pepper felt like sobbing, but she lifted her chin high and opened the door. “In case you didn’t know, it’s rude to call someone wonky.”

  She spun on her heel and fast-walked down the hall, blinking back tears.

  When Pepper turned the corner, Nory stepped into view. She was back to being a human, thank goodness. “Pepper! Wait!” she called.

  Pepper stopped.

  Nory gestured at the place where the invisible water fountain stood. “I flew into the fountain. I must have pressed the lever by accident. But on the bright side, the cold water was such a shock, I fluxed back into me.”

  Pepper looked at Nory. Her hair had come out of its ponytail on one side. Also, her shirt was wet. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay. Sorry about turning into a dritten. I nearly burned you.”

  “That’s all right. Sorry about being a Fierce.”

  Nory took Pepper’s hand. “I know you couldn’t help it. Neither of us could.”

  At the main office, Nory and Pepper told Principal Gonzalez what had happened in the art room.

  His eyebrows pulled together like unhappy caterpillars. He took a deep breath. He thanked them for letting him know.

  He called the janitor. He called Coach Vitomin, Nory’s tutor, who had experience with panicked Fluxers. He called Nurse Riley. Then he sent Pepper and Nory back to class and headed toward the art room.

  Pepper and Nory took the long way around, to avoid passing the Fuzzy animal room.

  “How’s your tutoring going?” Nory asked as they walked.

  Nory and Bax worked twice a week with Coach, since they were both Upside-Down Fluxers. The other kids in Ms. Starr’s class also had tutors who helped them make the most of their upside-down powers. Even Marigold finally had a tutor now. The school had found a specialist from the nearby University of Maine, since her magic was so unusual.