“Saturday’s the day we practice for the Show Off,” said Pepper.
“Are you going to join the show?”
“I want to,” Pepper said. “If we can figure out the fiercing.”
“Here’s an idea. Why don’t you just wait in the classroom until it’s time for your act?” Ms. Starr said. “If UDM is the last act in the entire show, all Fluxers should be in human form and all animals returned to the Fuzzy room by the time you come to the auditorium. You’ll miss watching the other acts, but I think you could safely perform.”
“Really?”
“I’ll talk to Principal Gonzalez about shifting the schedule to make that happen.”
“Thanks!” Pepper said. For a moment she was super excited, but then she remembered: Nory.
“But what if Nory wants to flux during the song?” She knew how anxious Nory was about her dad coming to the Show Off. She wanted her friend to have the chance to flux if she wanted to. “If I’m in the band, Nory won’t have the option.”
Carrot bounded out of the box. “We have an idea for you, Pepper!” the bunny shouted. “It’s an idea for pausing your magic!”
Ms. Starr nodded. “It’s true. If you can pause your magic for the length of the song, then Nory can flux if she wants to. I did some research and called a couple of experts. Carrot told me that after you scared her on purpose, you seemed to pull your magic back in. Is that true?”
Pepper nodded. “I didn’t turn it off. I just stopped pushing it out.”
“So let’s think of your magic like a river. You were able make it gush out in a big wave, and then you slowed the flow back again, right?”
“Yes,” said Pepper. “I think so.”
“But it was still flowing,” put in Carrot. “It’s always still there.”
“The professor I spoke to yesterday said that for magic that doesn’t turn on and off naturally, like yours and Sebastian’s, thinking of it like a river can be very useful,” said Ms. Starr. “You won’t ever stop a river from flowing, but you can imagine pinching its sides closed for just a minute or two, right? Like a temporary dam.”
“I guess I can imagine that,” said Pepper.
“Ooh, is that broccoli?” said Carrot, twitching her nose. “Is that broccoli in your pocket?”
Pepper took the broccoli out of her dress pocket.
The rabbit gobbled it up. When Carrot was done, she said, “Okay! Let’s try it.”
“Try what?” asked Pepper.
“Try pinching your river of magic closed, for a second,” said Ms. Starr. “Just a quick pinch. Carrot will be able to feel it if it stops or lessens.”
Pepper tried pinching.
“Nothing yet,” said Carrot.
“Concentrate, Pepper. Feel the flow of the river of magic inside you,” said Ms. Starr. “It should feel like the tickle of your feet when you’re foot painting, or the tickle of air when you’re nostril breathing, or the rhythm when you’re hula-hooping.”
Pepper nostril breathed. She felt the magic. The river of the magic.
“Now, can you pinch the sides of it closed?” Ms. Starr asked gently.
Pepper closed her eyes and pinched.
The river stopped flowing. It stopped, and then right away, it hurt. The water was building up against the dam. It hurt, and then the magic exploded out in a rush, breaking through the pinch.
Pepper opened her eyes to find Carrot hiding behind the cat litter again. “Oh, you got me good that time!” said the bunny, laughing as she climbed back out. “I almost upchucked my broccoli!”
“Did I pause my magic?” Pepper asked.
“You did!” said Carrot. “Eloise, I think it paused for about four seconds before it rushed out and scared me. Did it seem like four seconds to you?”
“Four seconds,” Ms. Starr agreed. “Beautiful work, Pepper.”
“Can we go back to the cafeteria?” said Carrot. “I want to see what else is in that salad bar.”
Nory flitted about Aunt Margo’s backyard, setting lemonade, chips, and apple slices on the picnic table. The weather was warm even though it was October, so she thought she and the UDM kids could practice their act outside. They could be inspired by nature! They could breathe the fresh air!
Elliott, Sebastian, and Marigold showed up together, with Willa and Andres right behind them. Willa fastened Andres’s leash to the picnic table. He was holding bongo drums. Bax arrived with an electronic keyboard. Pepper followed him, pushing the UDM class wheelbarrow with several more of Andres’s drums in it.
“I’m learning to put my fiercing on hold,” Pepper told Nory. “Just for a couple seconds at a time, but I think it might be a lot longer by the Show Off. In case you want to do kittingo.”
Nory shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t even do flamingo. I don’t have anything but black kitten that I know for sure I can hold for a long time without it getting mixed up. And any fifth-grade Fluxer can already do black kitten, so there’s really no point.”
What she didn’t say was how important it was for her not to do mixed-up animals for the Show Off. There was just no way. Not with Father coming.
“Okay,” said Pepper. “But just in case you change your mind, Ms. Starr is helping me work on it.”
Elliott came and sat down next to Pepper and Nory. “Zinnia came to my house yesterday,” he told them.
“She did?” Pepper said.
“Yeah. She apologized for everything that happened since our magic came in. She said she’s been terrified of Lacey and going along with all kinds of bad stuff, but she got the courage to stand up to her after she saw you fierce that swarm of wasps. She feels awful about everything she did now.” Elliott sighed. “Then I said sorry about yelling at her the other day, without letting her talk. And then she had a peanut butter cookie in my kitchen and said she wasn’t a spy.”
Pepper blinked and pressed her lips together. “She got the courage to say no to Lacey because of me?”
Elliott shrugged. “That’s what she said.”
“And do you believe she’s not a spy?”
Elliott shrugged again. “I’m not a hundred percent sure. I’m willing to be friendly with her, but I’m not exactly going to tell her all our secrets. You know?”
“I need a place to put my drums!” Andres called from the end of his leash. “Nory, would your aunt care if we put them on the roof of the garden shed?”
“I’ll ask,” Nory said.
Aunt Margo said that was fine. They dragged out a ladder and put Andres’s collection of drums into a place where he could reach them. Marigold played scales on her clarinet. Bax set up his keyboard on the picnic table, running electricity from inside the house. Elliott sat beside Bax and tuned his guitar. Willa asked Figs for a large bowl of water. She sat at the picnic table and frowned.
“Oh,” she finally said, dismayed. “I’m outdoors. I have a cool idea to show you guys, but I can’t make my rain cloud here. I can only rain indoors.”
“I know!” cried Nory. “You can go in the garden shed.” She opened the doors to Aunt Margo’s tiny shed, which was filled with shovels, flowerpots, and a snowblower.
Willa brought the bowl inside and then was able to make a small and wobbly rain cloud over it. The raindrops fell slow, fast, or medium into the bowl, making different plunking noises. “That’s my instrument!” she said happily.
“Wow.” Nory was impressed.
“Okay: ‘Crazy-Daisy Shame!’” said Elliott. “Andres, want to start us off?”
Andres rapped his drumsticks together. “And a one—and a two—and a one, two, three!” he called.
He pounded out the tempo. After several false tries, Marigold figured out the notes to the melody on the clarinet. Bax played a bass line with his left hand. Elliott joined in, playing what was maybe harmony.
They were playing! And Willa was singing.
Bax riffed on the keyboard with his right hand as well. He wasn’t half bad, Nory thought. She looked to Sebastian for confirm
ation. He had set his tambourine down and was grimacing and waving his hands back and forth.
“No, no, no!” he cried. “You have to stop. You have to stop now, I’m begging you!”
Willa stopped singing.
Bax, Elliott, and Marigold let their hands fall. Willa’s rain kept slowly pitter-pattering.
Andres gave a final bang to his bongos.
Sebastian put down the tambourine and tore at his hair. “The sound waves are a mess! Elliott’s guitar is strangling Bax’s keyboard. Bax, when you do that doodly-doodly-doo thing”—he demonstrated with his fingers—“the notes look like ghouls rising from the grave. Also, they don’t align with the waves from Marigold’s clarinet. The drumbeat is inconsistent, which doesn’t help. And the rain is too fast.”
“He’s kinda right,” Pepper said. She winced to say sorry. “I can’t see it like Sebastian can, but I can hear it.”
“Good music looks beautiful,” Sebastian said. “Good music is like looking at a sunrise. You,” he said to Andres. “Let Willa start with a slow pitter-pat. Then add in a simple beat.”
Willa pitter-patted.
Andres hit a single bongo.
“No, watch my hand, Andres. One. Two. Three. Four. Stay. On. This. Beat.” Sebastian moved his hand down, up, to the side, and up. “Bax, skip the doodly-doos for now and just—yep!” he said as Bax started with the bass line. “Okay, let all those three guys come in and then, Pepper, you come in with your percussion. And when I point at you, Marigold and Elliott come in. After that first little introduction bit. Not during. After.”
“Yessir,” Marigold said.
“Ready, and go!” said Sebastian.
Nory listened in growing amazement. What Sebastian said made sense, or it sure sounded as if it did.
He stopped everyone again and gave advice to Willa about vocals, and then turned to Elliott. “Can you sing in tune? Will you do the second verse, then? Bax, I want you to come in on the chorus, too, so it really goes pow! Then we can all sing the third verse together.” He had the group try again.
It sounded five thousand times better than it had.
“Yay!” Nory cried. “Oh, yay! Sebastian—you’re the conductor! You have to be!”
Sebastian looked proud. He broke a twig off a tree and tapped it against his palm. “Again, please, people. With feeling.”
Using the twig as his conductor’s baton, he led the group through Everyday Cake’s “Crazy-Daisy Shame” three more times. The third time, he asked Pepper to show him what she could do during the a capella section. He worked with her clapping, layering her beats on top of the others, showing them off.
Nory was thrilled. They were going to be amazing! They were really a band!
It was only when everyone had packed up and gone home that she remembered: She wasn’t in it.
And Father was coming.
And Hawthorn.
And Dalia.
They were coming to see her, and Nory had nothing—nothing!—to show off.
On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Phan accompanied Pepper to the house of Ms. Starr’s elderly friend Mrs. Winterbottom. Mrs. Winterbottom had wrinkly white skin and cotton-ball hair. She was waiting for them by the gate to her front yard when they arrived.
“I do hope you can get rid of these mice,” she said, holding on to Pepper’s arm for support as she led the way to the porch. “Come along, Mr. Phan. I’ll fix you a cup of tea. I have some crochet magazines you can flip through.”
Pepper fought not to laugh. Her dad had insisted on coming with her, but Mrs. Winterbottom seemed harmless.
“Oh, I just walked over for the exercise,” Pepper’s dad said. He frowned and rocked on his heels. “I’ll be going now. Pepper? You’ll be all right? You can find your way back home?”
“I don’t know. Three blocks is a lo-o-ng way.”
He grinned. “See you in a bit, then.”
“So, how do you do it?” Mrs. Winterbottom asked Pepper once Pepper’s dad was gone. They were standing on the porch.
“Scare mice? It comes pretty naturally,” Pepper answered. “I have a lot to learn about my magic, but this shouldn’t be hard.”
“Lucky you,” said Mrs. Winterbottom. “I found flaring very tough in school. Finally I realized I’m good at warming things or heating them, but skills like making flames and fireballs will never be easy for me. That’s one of the reasons why I became a professional baker.” She smiled. “Well, that and a sweet tooth.”
Mrs. Winterbottom opened the door to her house and ushered Pepper in. The front room was a living room. The sofa was powder blue, as were the curtains. Mrs. Winterbottom had a great many porcelain figurines, all three inches high.
Okay, Pepper thought. Now where are the mice? She tried to push her magic out in a wave like she had in her lesson with Carrot and Ms. Starr.
“My, my!” Mrs. Winterbottom said. “You do have a talent! You don’t seem like you’re even trying but look, there they go!”
Pepper turned and saw eight small gray mice scurrying from under a bookshelf. She ran to open the front door, and they streaked out in terror. Back in the living room, Mrs. Winterbottom had climbed onto the sofa to save her feet being run over. Four more mice were racing for the door. More and more mice scuttled out from behind the piano and from under a powder-blue armchair. Even more ran down the sides of the bookshelf.
A white mouse with pink eyes took a flying jump from the shelf and landed on a spindly-legged coffee table, rattling the porcelain figurines on top of it.
“Not the girl picking apples! That’s a collector’s item!” Mrs. Winterbottom cried.
Pepper lunged, steadying the figurine just in time.
Mrs. Winterbottom gasped and pointed at a card table at the other end of the room. “Not the shoe-shine boy! Not the tiny yodeler!”
Pepper righted one figurine and then ran to the next. She steadied a goat herder and a little girl with a bird on her shoulder. A jaunty drummer boy almost fell, but she caught him in time. And the mice kept coming! More and more of them, streaming down the stairs and out of the kitchen.
“Pepper! Help my babies!” Mrs. Winterbottom cried, her head whipping from one tottering figurine to another.
Only when the last mouse made it over the threshold of the door did Mrs. Winterbottom stop squealing.
Then she climbed off the sofa gingerly and gave Pepper a pat on the back.
“My dear girl, you are a wonder,” Mrs. Winterbottom said. “I’ll recommend you to all my friends. Such magic! Such powerful magic!” She insisted on paying Pepper twenty dollars.
The feeling of using her magic to do something helpful was payment enough for Pepper. But she still accepted the money.
Pepper left Mrs. Winterbottom’s house walking on clouds. She felt so good, in fact, that she didn’t go straight home. She went to Zinnia’s house instead.
“I got paid for a job I did,” she blurted when Zinnia opened the door. “So I can treat for ice cream. Want to come?”
Zinnia looked at her. “I wasn’t sure we were friends anymore. After what happened when I came over the other day.”
“We are,” said Pepper decisively. “I just had to work some stuff out. It was cool that you apologized to Elliott.”
“It was so awkward,” said Zinnia, rolling her eyes. “But I feel a bit better now that I did it.”
Zinnia told her mom she was going out. She and Pepper chatted as they walked along together. They didn’t see the ice-cream truck by the playground, so they walked a couple of extra blocks to the sweet shop in the center of town. Pepper bought a scoop of strawberry ice cream for Zinnia and chocolate for herself. She told Zinnia about Mrs. Winterbottom and the mice.
“You could start a business,” Zinnia said. “A non-harmful pest removal service!”
“Maybe I could!” Pepper considered it. Money of her own, to spend as she liked! Money earned by helping people. It sounded good.
As they walked back from the sweet shop, Pepper and Zinnia pa
ssed a poster on the wall outside the movie theater. It said that Everyday Cake was playing at the Cider Cup Dance Hall in a couple of weeks.
“Do you like Everyday Cake?” asked Zinnia.
“I love them.” Wouldn’t it be great if I could earn enough money for tickets? Pepper thought. She imagined dancing with Zinnia in the audience while the lead singer, Arabelle, belted out “Crazy-Daisy Shame.”
“Pepper, hello!” Zinnia was talking.
“Sorry. I was daydreaming.”
“I said, there’s no way you love Everyday Cake as much as I do. Have you seen my Everyday Cake backpack? I got it when I threw out my Biscuits BeBop one. And I have the remix and the regular version of ‘Crazy-Daisy Shame.’ Also, I have a poster in my bedroom! It’s got Arabelle with pink hair.”
“Nuh-uh,” said Pepper. “I love Everyday Cake even more than you, because I listen to them on my headphones every day when I walk to school.”
“No, I love them more because I named my hamster Arabelle.”
“No, I love them more because I taught my brothers and sisters how to sing ‘Crazy-Daisy Shame’ and now my class is doing it for the Show Off!”
Zinnia’s eyes went wide. “You are? For the Show Off?”
Pepper clamped her hands over her mouth. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“Don’t worry,” said Zinnia, licking her ice cream as it dripped down the cone. “Your secret is safe. You can trust me.”
Pepper really, really hoped that she could.
Nory was excited. And depressed. She was excited that the UDM class would show its school spirit and impress everyone at the Show Off. And she was depressed that all she could do in the act was bang a tambourine. It wasn’t enough. Not with Father and Hawthorn and Dalia maybe coming. Now that Sebastian was conducting, Nory was the only one in the whole class who had nothing really musical to offer.
The week leading up to the Show Off was intense. In every classroom, kids ignored their teachers in order to practice their acts. In almost every classroom, the teachers didn’t mind, because they wanted their class to win.
Eighth-grade Flyers could be seen practicing floating somersaults in the yard, and the lunch helpers just looked the other way. The seventh-grade Fuzzies were talking nonstop about lizards they’d trained to jump on mini trampolines. Nory and Elliott saw the eighth-grade Fuzzies carrying large fish tanks into their classroom for their squid ballet.
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