“Solution number two!” Titi crowed. “Hold on!” He disappeared from the kitten poster.
“No, no, no!” Nadia cried. She didn’t want to waste one of her six remaining solutions on a stupid comic book! “That’s not what I—”
“Too late,” said Titi. His voice sounded muffled.
Nadia glanced around but didn’t see him in any of his usual spots.
“Under the desk,” Titi said.
Nadia reached under the desk and her hand touched the comic book. She pulled it out.
“Hey there,” Titi said, waving from the cover; then he sneezed, loudly. “You should really dust under there more often, Nadia.”
Nadia gave him a look. “Well, I’m glad to have the comic,” she said. “But I can’t believe I wasted …” Her voice trailed off as she tried to look on the bright side of things. “Did you get another new power?” she asked hopefully.
Titi shrugged. “Maybe. Time will tell.” He popped over to her wall calendar. “So that meeting with your friends sounded really frustrating.”
Nadia sighed. “Yeah. I usually have so many good ideas, but I’m feeling off my game. What Makes America, America—could that be any broader?”
“What Makes America, America,” Titi mused. “I’ve been thinking about this. Supersized food? Deep-fried candy bars? Calling a game where you use your hands ‘football’ and a game where you use your feet ‘soccer’? Short vacations? Free refills on sugary drin—” He stopped suddenly.
“What’s up?” asked Nadia.
“I think I know what my new power is!” he said with a grin. “And I think I can help you with your project. Shall we give it a go?”
“Um … would it be using one of my solutions?”
Titi put his hands on his hips. “So you don’t want the new exhibit at the museum to have your name on it?”
Nadia sighed. “Fine.” She looked out the window. Her friends were floating around in the pool. They didn’t seem to miss her.
“Awesome,” Titi said. “Because this is going to be epic. Hang on!”
WHOOSH!
The room was suddenly filled with a loud blast of wind that drowned out Nadia’s screams. She was falling … falling … falling. And then suddenly she was not falling anymore. The air was hot, and she seemed to be standing in … sand? Nadia looked around wildly. What was going on?
It took a minute for Nadia to catch her breath. “Whoa! That was awesome!” she said. “I didn’t even know some of those facts!”
Titi beamed from the open comic book as he brushed sand off his feet.
“Wait,” Nadia said, her mind suddenly swirling with possibilities. “Can you take me anywhere in history in that comic book? Victorian England? The Ming Dynasty?”
Titi paused. “Not sure. Should we try it? Yes, let’s! Get ready for the WHOOSH-ing. One … two …”
Nadia braced herself.
“Three!” Titi shouted.
And nothing happened.
Titi shrugged. “Looks like I’m limited to ancient Egypt. But isn’t that enough, Nadia? I mean, really.”
“Ancient Egypt is pretty cool,” replied Nadia. “All right. You’ve convinced me. We should do our project on ancient Egypt. But … one problem—how does that relate to America?”
Titi raised his eyebrows. “You’re American, aren’t you?”
Nadia nodded. And she was Egyptian.
“Clever,” she said. “So it would show how Egyptian culture has influenced American culture or something like that?”
“Something like that,” Titi said. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” said Nadia.
“So why don’t you bring me down to meet your friends?” Titi asked. “Once I take them to ancient Egypt, they’ll definitely be on board.”
Nadia considered this. She loved her friends, but this might be too weird, even for the Nerd Patrol. What if they told other people? Plus, this whole problem-solving thing was turning out to be pretty useful. If she shared Titi, the others might use up all her solutions. She shook her head. “No way.”
Titi stuck out his lower lip in a pout.
“Sorry,” Nadia said. “You’ll have to go back into the amulet for now. Ready?” She paused to let Titi prepare himself. They had figured out that the way to send Titi back into the amulet was to shut a book (or notebook) on him. It felt a little harsh at first, but they were both getting used to it. They even had a catchphrase.
Titi struck a pose, feet apart, one hand on a hip, the other with a fist in the air. “To the hippo and beyond!”
“To the hippo and beyond!” Nadia said, and closed the comic. She picked it up to take it down to Adam, but then thought better of it. She wasn’t sure if Titi could do his magic in any book or just this one, but she wasn’t about to give up the chance to travel to ancient Egypt again. That was seriously amazing.
Back outside, Baba was grilling hamburgers, hot dogs, and kofta. Everyone was gathered around the picnic table.
“Well, I’ve got the perfect idea for the project,” Nadia announced, grabbing a paper plate. “Egypt!”
Sarah, Vikram, and Adam just stared at her.
“Egypt?” said Chloe.
“I don’t get it,” Adam said.
“Me neither,” added Vikram.
Nadia explained that they could do a project on how Egyptian culture—maybe even an Egyptian immigrant—had contributed to American culture. “Great, right?”
“But … how does that relate to the rest of us?” Sarah asked. “We’re not Egyptian.”
Oh. Nadia hadn’t really thought that through. For a moment there, she’d sort of forgotten she was part of a group.
She thought fast. “I mean, since we all have different backgrounds—Egyptian, Korean, Indian, Jamaican—we can focus on a few different ones.”
“Interesting,” said Vikram.
“Hmm,” Sarah said. “That could maybe work.”
Chloe considered the idea, then shrugged.
Nadia turned to Adam. He had a puzzled look on his face.
“What’s wrong, Adam?” asked Sarah.
Adam shrugged. “It’s a cool idea, I guess. It’s just that I don’t exactly know where I’m from. Maybe Switzerland? I might be a little Italian. I’m not sure.”
“You just need to do some research!” Nadia said. “Ask your mom.” She turned to the rest of the group. “Maybe we can each come up with … say, three immigrants from the country our family is from and then decide which ones we should focus on? Then we can help each other come up with a cool way of presenting it all.” She smiled at her friends. “Sound good?”
Chloe shrugged again. “I guess.”
Adam did not look convinced, but he didn’t argue, either.
“All right, then,” Nadia said with a nod.
As she reached for a piece of kofta, her necklace twinkled in the sunlight. “Thank you, Titi,” she whispered.
She had an amazing group, a no-fail idea, and a little magic man to help her solve any problem that might get in the way of winning this thing. What could possibly go wrong?
Thank you, Nadia,” said Ms. Arena as Nadia handed her the Nerd Patrol’s entry form. Nadia had sent a group text out yesterday after realizing they hadn’t decided on a leader for their group. When no one else replied within five minutes, she went ahead and filled out the museum paperwork with her name in the “group leader” spot. She was pretty sure they’d be fine with it.
The teacher flipped through the stack of entries. “I’m thrilled to see that so many of you are entering the contest,” she said. “And look at these ideas! There’s some great thinking going on here. Innovation: From the Model T to the Apple Computer. The Importance of Football, America’s Favorite Pastime.”
Football? Nadia thought. Really? In all her trips to the museum, she’d never seen a single thing about sports. Who had come up with that idea?
As if answering her thoughts, Jason fist-bumped Aiden and Mike.
&n
bsp; “Good luck with that,” Nadia muttered to herself.
The teacher continued. “Suffragette City: Women’s Fight for the Right to Vote. And Immigreat: A Look at Five Special American Citizens.” Nadia smiled. She had worked hard on that title.
Ms. Arena looked up at the class. “I’m really proud of everyone who submitted entries. I can’t wait to see your presentations!” She placed the forms in a manila envelope and asked a girl named Rebecca to deliver it to the main office. Some butterflies started up in Nadia’s stomach. It was official—as Principal Taylor would say, now they were in it.
As if on cue, the loudspeaker crackled to life and Principal Taylor’s voice rang out. “Good morning, Bridget Mason students! First of all, don’t forget that the fall carnival is next weekend! Rides, games of chance, plus delicious and totally unhealthy food! I’m sad to say there won’t be a trivia contest this year, but that’s because we’re going to have a … wait for it … DJ! That’s right. Music by master DJ Ed U. Cator! Be there or be square!”
The class groaned. Principal Taylor could be so goofy sometimes.
“And I’m delighted to report that the museum exhibit entries are pouring into the office as I speak. Many thanks to all of you who are participating and representing Bridget Mason Middle School. May the best team win!”
* * *
“So I was thinking that even though the cash prize is very exciting, we should try to put it out of our minds,” Nadia told everyone that day at lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day and they were sitting outside in the courtyard. “We just need to concentrate on creating a really amazing exhibit.”
Vikram looked worried. “Do you think our idea is good enough?” he asked. “I mean, some of the ones my teacher read out in homeroom were pretty cool.”
Adam shrugged. “Well, it’s too late to change it now.”
“Right,” Nadia said. “But our idea is great. I mean, who doesn’t like a good immigrant story?”
“Immigrants, huh?” said Jason, sitting down heavily and slinging his lunch bag onto the picnic table. “I knew that one was yours!”
Nadia frowned, uncomfortable with Jason’s comment, but decided to let it slide. She opened her lunch bag instead. She was delighted to discover that Baba had packed her some fūl, a fava bean stew, with some pita bread to dip into it. She took a quick sniff. So good.
Jason was once again staring at her lunch, a disgusted look on his face. Rude, she thought, but ignored him. He unwrapped his sandwich and took a big bite. “I just don’t get it,” he said through the mouthful of PB&J. “I mean, how are people from other countries American, you know?” He chewed and swallowed, then looked Nadia dead in the eye. “Let me guess. It was your idea, Ms. Egypt.”
“Well, um …” Nadia started to say.
“It was your idea,” said Adam.
Was she imagining things or did his voice sound almost accusatory all of a sudden?
Adam looked around the table at the Nerd Patrol. “Do you guys think we submitted a bad idea?”
“It’s not as cool as football, that’s for sure,” said Jason, taking a sip of his chocolate milk.
Adam nodded. Nadia stared at him in disbelief.
“Um, hello,” Chloe said to Jason, ignoring Adam’s question. “America is a nation of immigrants. If you’re not Native American, someone in your family was an immigrant. Or was enslaved and came here because someone made them.”
Nadia turned from Adam to Chloe, surprised her friend had summed things up so easily.
“Yeah,” Nadia added. “What Chloe said.”
“Whatever,” Jason scoffed. “I think we all know whose idea is coolest, and whose project is going to win.”
Everyone looked at him as if to say, “We do?”
“Mine, of course!” Jason said.
Nadia raised her eyebrows. Braggy, much? Adam nodded as if to agree with Jason but stopped when he saw Nadia’s expression. Everyone else busied themselves with their lunches. It was … awkward.
“Hey, what did the Chinese man say to the other Chinese man?” Jason finally said.
“I don’t know,” said Adam, his eyes brightening at the setup of another of Jason’s jokes.
“Tell us!” said Vikram.
“How am I supposed to know?” said Jason. “I don’t speak Chinese!”
Everyone burst out laughing, including Nadia. But then she bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself. Was she even supposed to find that amusing? Was it offensive? She wasn’t quite sure. Molten monkey muffins, as Titi might say. Why was Jason so annoyingly funny?
Jason rushed off after he finished his lunch, and the conversation turned back to the project.
“So what do we need to do next, Nadia?” Chloe asked.
Oh, right, Nadia thought, popping the last of her pita bread in her mouth. She was group leader—her friends would be looking to her to make decisions and have a plan.
“Hmm …” she said. “Let’s work separately on our immigrant stories this week. Then there’s that all-day Project Party at the museum on Saturday. We can figure out our creative presentation idea then.”
Vikram, Chloe, and Sarah nodded, but Adam was staring off into space. “Adam?” Nadia said. “You okay?”
“Huh? Oh yeah,” Adam said. “Saturday, project, museum. Got it.”
Nadia stared at her friend. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Adam, but he clearly needed some cheering up. She glanced around and saw a poster for the fall carnival.
“Hey!” she said. “We should all go to the carnival together after the Project Party! Play some games like the milk bottle toss.” She snagged Adam’s balled-up lunch sack and tossed it at his empty milk carton, which toppled over. “Though it’s a bummer there’s no trivia contest this year.”
Adam and the rest of her friends broke into big grins at the mention of the carnival. Last year’s was the first activity they had done together as a group. They had entered the trivia contest and chosen Nerd Patrol as their group name. They had won (of course), and the rest was history.
“Awesome,” Adam said. “It’s a plan!”
* * *
The rest of the day was busy, and Nadia didn’t get a chance to see Titi until after dinner. Once everyone had finished eating and the dishwasher had been stacked, she was finally able to go upstairs to her room. She opened the door and dropped her backpack to the floor with a heavy sigh.
“Help,” she said, and grabbed for the amulet … but her fingers came up empty!
She panicked for a moment before realizing she’d never put it back on after her shower that morning. (Not-so-fun fact: Two-thousand-year-old artifacts don’t exactly react well to bubble-gum-scented shower gel.) She rescued the hippo from the bathroom counter. “Help!” she said again.
“Long day, huh?” Titi called. It took a moment for Nadia to find him on the wall calendar. “Not that I would know how it went,” Titi continued, “since someone left me behind.”
“Sorry,” Nadia said. “It was a long day.” She walked over to the bed and collapsed onto it.
“Hey!” called Titi. “I can’t believe you didn’t notice! Especially after all that fashion hullabaloo with Adam on the first day of school.”
“Notice what?” said Nadia, sitting up.
“My new outfit!” said Titi, spinning around and striking a pose. “It’s my latest power. I can finally change my clothes!” He was wearing an elegant suit, crisp white shirt, bright red power tie, and shiny shoes.
Nadia smiled. “I must admit, you do look snazzy.”
“Watch this!” Titi exclaimed. “Cowboy! Athlete! Punk rocker! Scary clown! Lunch lady! Isn’t it amazing?”
Nadia watched, her mouth slightly ajar, as Titi went through half a dozen outfit changes right before her eyes.
“Yeah, cool,” she said. “I mean, I think? Do the clothes come with special powers to help me with my solutions?”
“Holy hippos, Nadia,” said Titi with a wag of his finger. “Not everything is abou
t you. This is the best power ever. I’ve been wearing that linen ensemble for two millennia!”
He snapped his fingers and settled on a white bedazzled jumpsuit with sunglasses and a towering black pompadour hairstyle.
“Well, hello there, Mr. Presley,” said Nadia, giggling. “Hey, did you know Elvis recorded six hundred songs during his career, but he didn’t write any of them?”
Titi jumped to a folder sitting on Nadia’s desk. “I did not know that,” he said. “But—and I know you’ve been waiting for this—enough about me. Tell me how the EGYPTIAN EXTRAVAGANZA! is coming along.”
Nadia sighed. Though lunch had ended on a good note, she couldn’t help but replay the awkward way it started off, particularly the part of the conversation where Jason said people from other countries weren’t American. She knew that wasn’t true. So why did it bother her so much? And Adam had almost seemed to agree with him …
“Ugh,” Nadia said. “More like EXTRAVAGANTLY UNCOMFORTABLE. Not everyone is … confident in the idea. And Adam’s acting weird, especially around the new kid.”
“I’m all shook up!” Titi said. “Tell me more. Maybe I can help.”
Nadia hesitated for a moment. The tiny teacher seemed good at school-like stuff. Math, history. But friend—or frenemy—stuff? Nadia wasn’t so sure she trusted him with that kind of thing. “It … it’s not important,” she said.
“Try me,” said Titi.
Nadia stared at the ceiling for a moment, then glanced at her bobbleheads. Normally she’d talk through stuff like this with them, but they never had any actual answers. What did she have to lose by talking to Titi?
So she filled Titi in on Jason, and before she knew it, she’d told him everything—how he was funny but seemed to hate everything about her. “He makes fun of my facts, and my Egyptian-ness—anything Egyptian—and my food.” Nadia stopped, her voice cracking. For some reason, Jason making fun of the food her parents made her hurt the most of all. She grabbed the scarab-shaped pillow she’d gotten this summer and buried her face in it.
The Magical Reality of Nadia Page 4