Once again Miri goes through the whole spell, the throwing, yada, yada, the cold, the fading. Well, the big goat fades, but the little one doesn’t budge.
Miri approaches the cage. “What’s wrong, baby goat?”
“Try again,” I tell her, already bored. I’m now sitting on the floor, too tired to care about what’s been on the floor before me.
Miri tries again. “Be free”—blah, blah, blah—“born!”
The goat still doesn’t budge.
“Something’s not working,” Miri says. “I’m going to check it out.” She looks around for a lock, finds it, recites the open sesame spell, and opens the cage. “Isn’t he cute? Hello, adorableness. Why won’t you go home?” She gently pats his head.
I approach the door. He is cute. Small, too. He’s all white, with a small wet gray nose and two triangular floppylooking ears that are pointing to the high ceiling. I bet he’d be great to mooshie. He looks like a teddy bear. Teddy goat. Billy the Teddy Goat. He looks so cuddly, probably only a few weeks old. “Maybe he was born here,” I say. “That’s why he didn’t disappear.”
Billy looks up at us and widens his big dewy eyes.
“Aw,” Miri and I both murmur.
And that’s when it happens.
Billy bolts. Right out of Miri’s arms, right between my open legs, and out of the cage, galloping at a speed I would never have believed possible for a goat. A baby lion, maybe. But a goat? This one is faster than a speeding bullet. As Miri and I watch him in disbelief, Billy the Supergoat runs straight for the door. The open door.
“Get that goat!” Miri screams, and we take off. Fine, I’m laughing a bit. I can’t help it. But I run after the goat anyway, right through the convention center, until I’m outside, wondering which way he went.
“Billy’s gone,” I tell Miri.
“Who’s Billy?” she says, panting. “We should fly. That will make the goat easier to—”
The broom is no longer where she left it. “What the—”
“What did you expect to happen on an isolated street in the city?” I scream. Someone is in for a rude shock when they try to sweep their floor. “There’s Billy!” I say, pointing at the small creature currently licking his hoof.
We bolt after him. And he runs. And we chase. We chase him all the way down Thirty-ninth Street, cringing every time he crosses an avenue, praying he doesn’t end up goat cheese. We continue chasing him right to Forty-second and Eighth, and then right into the—
Oh, no. Not the subway station!
Miri freezes at the landing. “We’re not allowed to take the subway so late at night,” she whimpers.
We’re allowed to go hightailing over Manhattan but not to take the subway? Does this make sense? I ignore her and take the stairs two at a time, trying to catch up to Billy the Bolting Supergoat. “Come here, Billy,” I call, but he doesn’t stop. Instead, he runs right under the turnstile. Of course I don’t have my MetroCard. Why would I? It’s two in the morning!
“Zap it around,” I tell my ashen-faced sister. She’s almost the same color as Billy, who’s now calmly licking himself in a very inappropriate way on the other side of the turnstile.
Miri does as she’s told, and I push through and lunge after Billy. He’s faster and takes off as soon as I’m an inch away from grabbing him. Luckily, there’re only two other people waiting for the train.
And then Billy the Supergoat takes a flying leap—“No, Billy, no!” we shriek—directly onto the subway tracks.
Our jaws drop in horror, and we peer over the edge. Billy seems to have realized that he might have made a mistake, because he is now bleating loudly, and his little legs are quivering.
“We have to get him,” Miri says, and takes a step toward the track.
I give her a power block with my arm. “Over my dead body are you stepping onto a subway track.”
“But . . . but . . .”
And then we hear it. Oh yes, the rumble of the swiftly approaching train.
“Oh, no,” Miri whimpers. My heart races almost as fast as the oncoming car. As the headlights glare toward us, I see poor Billy, eyes wide and wet, begging us to help.
Miri shrieks, reaches her hands toward the train, and yells, “Stop!”
Her lips purse, I feel the rush of cold, and the subway grinds to a sudden halt.
The station is silent. Until Billy bleats.
The conductor pops his head out his window. “What the hell?” he says. “We just lost power.” He spots Billy. “All this because of one little goat?”
“One little goat,” I say. “That my father bought for two zuzim.”
Miri starts to cry.
I lead my blubbering sister and the sleeping goat she’s cradling up the pitch-black stairs. It seems Miri blew out the power in the whole station. Thank goodness for our night-vision helmets. “I almost killed you,” Miri tells the goat between sobs.
“Yes, you did,” I say as I finally step into the night. I’m furious. We have no broom, no batteries, no money, and no working subway, and my feet are killing me. Not only are my shoes broken in, but my feet feel broken too. “You have to think about the ramifica—”
Oh, no. I look around.
The entire city is dark. As in cloaked in darkness. As in all the sparkling lights that normally illuminate the city have either burnt out simultaneously, or—
“Uh, oh,” Miri squeaks. “Did I . . . ?”
“Yes, Miri. Apparently you did. Apparently your little stopping-the-train tactic blew out all the power in Manhattan.” I am so mad, I’m fuming.
“Well, what else could I do? What about poor little Billy?”
We arrive home two hours later. I won’t even discuss the bloated, deformed shape of my feet. I’m too angry to talk to my sister, so I leave her and Billy to figure out their sleeping arrangements. I throw the itchy helmet onto the floor and feel my way toward my mom’s room. After making sure that she’s sleeping soundly, wrapped in her covers, oblivious to the world, I kiss her on the forehead and feel my way back to my room, drop my camouflage outfit on the floor, and slip under the covers. I need to get some sleep! Prom is tomorrow and I’m going to be so tired and I’m going to look exhausted and there’s no power and I don’t even know what time it is because my clock isn’t working and please, please, please let everything be better in the morning.
17
Blackout
I’m awakened by Miri’s screaming, “No, Tigger, no! Leave Billy alone!” and realize that maybe everything does not always seem better in the morning. I look at my alarm clock, but it’s black. Please don’t tell me that the power is still out.
And then I remember the goat, so I get out of bed to see how our houseguest is doing. I find Billy on the kitchen table, bleating like crazy, Tigger hissing on a neighboring chair, and Miri failing to manage the ménage.
“What time is it?” I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
“Eight-thirty,” Miri answers.
I groan. “I’m going to be late for school!”
“There is no school,” she says, pulling Tigger’s chair across the room to the sink. “Power is still out.”
She points to the radio next to the sink. I carry it to the kitchen table and turn the volume up. Hmm. Good thing we’re out of lithium batteries and not AAAs.
The voice coming from the radio is loud and crisp. “At 2:09 a.m. eastern time, the entire island of Manhattan was hit by an unexplained blackout. Subways stopped midtunnel, streetlights went out, and electricity consumers are still waiting to have service restored. The cause of the blackout is still unknown. All schools are closed today, and most businesses are expected to remain closed until power is restored, hopefully by tomorrow morning. The bell on Wall Street will not be ringing. . . .”
You’ve got to be kidding. Oh. My. God. “Miri! Are you listening?”
Billy bleats. The cat hisses. I sigh.
Instead of listening, or caring, Miri watches Tigger as he leaps off the chair
and onto the countertop, and she scoops him up before he attacks the table. I sink into Tigger’s vacated chair and cradle my suddenly pounding head in my arms.
“What do you think bleat means?” Miri asks.
“I think it means ‘I miss my mother,’ ” I say.
“In other news,” the radio announcer continues, “exotic animals have been appearing in unexpected places all across the country. This morning, a dance troupe in Birmingham, Alabama, found a seven-thousand-pound elephant on the stage of the BJCC Arena.”
That’s it. I’ve had enough. “Sit down, Miri.” I must look serious, because she slithers into a chair, holding Tigger tightly on her lap. “Do you realize what you’ve done? By trying to save the circus animals, you caused a citywide blackout. Plus you’ve endangered the animals you tried to save! They just found an elephant in Alabama! There could be a alligator in Maine!”
“An alligator wouldn’t have been born in Maine,” she says, reddening.
“How do you know? Stranger things have happened! My point is, you have to realize that all your spells have consequences. You have to think, and I mean really think, about each and every action before you end up ruining everything!”
“B-but I thought the animals were b-born in the wild . . . ,” she stutters.
“I’m sure some of them were, but you didn’t do your research and lots of people—and animals—are going to get hurt.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I just wanted to help.”
“I know you did, and that’s very honorable. But you’re not helping! You’re making things worse! What do you think is going to happen to that elephant? They’re not going to fit him with tights and ballet slippers and give him the starring role in The Nutcracker! He’s going to be tranquilized and could be hurt. Is that what you wanted?”
“No,” she whimpers. Billy bleats.
“Don’t you see? Everything comes with a price. The cows had to go somewhere, so they went to the school gym. The oranges had to come from somewhere. The Mercedes had to come from somewhere. Nothing comes from nothing. You’re not making something appear from nothing, Miri. Your magic just moves things from one place to another.”
“Stealing,” she says, and starts crying all over again. “You’re right. Helping just made everything worse. I’m the worst superhero ever!”
Finally, my message is getting through to her. “And I still haven’t figured out what happened to the oil you zapped. I’m hoping it ended up in a gas station or some lucky guy’s backyard. But don’t you see? You’re just like Mom. She’s a magicoholic. You’re a do-goodoholic.”
She nods. “From now on I’ll mind my own business. Keep my nose in my own books.”
Good. Well, not exactly. “That’s not what I meant—”
“Stop trying to make the world a better place,” she says sadly. “I’ll never help anyone again.”
Now she’s just going to extremes. “Miri, you don’t have to stop helping anyone. You have to stop helping everyone.”
“Huh?”
I walk over to the table and sit on it, facing my sister. “You have to learn that doing a hundred things partially means you’re not doing anything a hundred percent. In the past two months, you’ve tried to feed and clothe the homeless, stop the bushfires in California, fix the ozone layer, and save circus animals, among other things. It’s too much. You need to try to make a difference one issue at a time so you can give each issue your all. Every action has costs, even every nonmagical one. What you have to do to make a real, positive difference is plan. Map out your potential actions so you can figure out what the consequences are ahead of time. That way, you’ll do good, not damage.”
She dries her eyes with the backs of her hands. “That makes sense.”
I pat Billy on the head. “I know. I’m very smart.”
The phone rings and we both jump. I grab it before it wakes my mom. She needs her rest.
“Rachel? Are you okay?”
“Hi, Will. I’m fine. How are you?”
“Not so good. I just called Penthouse Fifty and the prom is officially canceled.”
What now? What else could possibly have gone wrong? Why is this prom so cursed? Why, why, why? “Because of the power?”
“Yup,” he says, sighing.
“But we still have the space, right? Can’t the band sing without a microphone? We could light up the room with candles. It would be really romantic!”
“We could, but the room we rented is on the fiftieth floor. So everyone would have to walk all the way upstairs.”
Oh, right. No elevator. “Don’t they have any rooms on the ground floor?”
“They do, but the other problem is that the doors all have key cards that don’t work without power.” His voice cracks. “I just can’t believe this.”
“But can’t they move the date?” I ask, feeling desperate. “We can have it tomorrow, or next week—”
“Rachel, everyone’s booked. The band and the rentals can’t make it another day and they won’t return the deposits unless it’s tonight. So unless the power comes back on, it’s over.”
Not only have Miri and I caused a major blackout in the metropolitan area, we’ve ruined the prom. Again.
I hang up with a depressed Will and recount the latest news to Miri, Billy, and Tigger.
“We have to wake up Mom,” Miri says.
“No,” I say firmly. “She’s recuperating. We’re not asking for her help. We have to deal with this on our own. Let’s try the spell reversal.”
“But the animals—”
“The animals will be better off. If we reverse the go-home spell and the animals return, maybe this whole chain of events will unravel. Billy wouldn’t have run into the subway, you wouldn’t have had to save him, and the power wouldn’t have gone out. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try.”
“Okay.” Miri sighs, and I follow her into her room. “But I need to recharge the crystal in the salt for an hour. And I can’t promise it will work.”
“I know. But let’s give it a go.”
By noon we buy new batteries and transport ourselves back to the convention center. Luckily, the goat is light, and Miri is carrying him in a satchel over her shoulder while I’m on her back wearing the crystal necklace and holding up the umbrella shield.
Bright light!
We pop up behind a police car. Good—no one seems to have seen us. Bad—there is a police car. Four officers and a crowd have surrounded the front door to the convention center.
“Damn animal rights groups,” someone says.
We head back to the side entranceway. “We’re actually going to circle the entire building backward?” I ask in amazement.
“Since the crystal is already enchanted,” she says. “Can you do it? I’m a jinx these days.”
I would, but I know that I’d be doing more harm than good. She has to learn to pay the consequences. I shake my head, and hand her the crystal necklace, and she passes me the goat satchel with a sigh.
“This had better work,” she says. “Billy misses his mommy. Ready?”
“Yup,” I say, and begin leading Miri around the million-square-foot block-long building, reflective shield hiding us from prying eyes.
Twenty minutes and six stumbles later, we’re back at the side entrance. As she takes the final step, we hear an explosion of roars, bleats, and howls from the animals now inside. A little cranky, are we?
A trainer throws open the side door and yells to a nearby policeman, “The animals are back! It must have been some sort of publicity stunt!”
I remove Billy from the bag and set him free toward the door. “Run, little goat, run! Let’s get out of here,” I say as a policeman and onlooker approach the door. We sneak back toward the street, hoping to see working traffic lights. To our disappointment, they’re still not on. So much for the great spell unraveler.
Miri sighs. “Next plan?”
We find a five-broomer light spell, but before we try it on t
he city, we test it on the apartment. Our curtains catch on fire.
My mom is now awake in her room, chatting on the phone, oblivious to our role in this catastrophe.
So we listen to the radio, which tells us that they’ve located the problem. Reportedly, a power blockage around Times Square caused a surge, which made the lights go out on the entire island. Who caused the blockage isn’t, of course, on the news. The newscaster also reports that the power is expected to be back up and running by early tomorrow morning. I give Miri a dirty look.
“Great,” I say. “One day too late.”
“Should I try another spell?” Miri asks.
“No,” I say, resigned. “It’s too risky. What if it goes wrong? They say they’ll have it fixed by tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to wait.”
“But your prom is tonight.”
I shrug. “It’s just a prom.” I try to smile.
“I feel awful,” Miri says. “If only you could have it someplace out of the city.”
“Like where? Disneyland?”
“Very funny.” Then she jumps up. “I know! I know! Didn’t you say the theme was Oscar night?”
“Yes. But I doubt we’ll be able to have it in L.A. Unless the entire class is going to climb on your back.”
“What about the drive-in? You know, the one we flew over? It’s only about forty minutes away. They’re not in the city, so they’d have power.”
“How would we even get there? We can’t fly everyone out there on brooms, and the subways aren’t running. It’s not like we know anyone who owns a car, never mind a bus.”
She sighs. “That’s true.”
We hear my mom’s door open and she comes out in a bathrobe. Her roots are back to normal (dark), her nails are back to normal (ragged), and her breasts are back to normal (small and saggy). But she’s smiling. “Morning, girls!”
“You seem happy,” Miri says gloomily.
“I slept very well, thank you. And I just had a very nice conversation with Lex. Remember him? He called to see how we three girls are holding up in the blackout. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”
Frogs & French Kisses Page 21
