Bolting up in bed, I expected to see the guys standing there, mocking me. Or maybe just Mueller, angling for a peek of sideboob or bare leg. Instead, I found a small man with a long beard and pointy orange hat standing on the dresser, hanging the creepy-saying sand painting back on the wall.
“Can’t just leave things in their place,” he muttered in a voice that was both small and gruff, like a member of the Lollipop Guild. Smaller than a munchkin but younger than a gnome, his skin was a shade of acorn brown with bright orange hair that matched his hat.
The little man finished his work and moved to hop off the dresser. With knees bent and arms swinging, he suddenly realized I was staring at him and stared straight back at me. “Mundane!” he grumped.
“Brownie…?” I whispered.
His eyes narrowed at me almost threateningly. “You can’t see me.”
“Can. Have you always been here?” How many zillions of times had I changed in my room with this little man staring at me? I pulled the fluffy comforter up to my chin.
“Mundanes don’t see homefolk,” he muttered to himself. His nose—all two inches of it—sniffed at the air. He flinched and toppled over. “Forgive your servant, Drapple,” he said as he got back to his feet and bowed to me. “Pleasure to serve godmother, Godmother.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, way more wary of him than he was of me.
“Brownies tend to the house. House belongs to the godmother. Brownie must bow to the godmother.”
I shook my head. “House belongs to godmother’s mother.”
“A brownie tends, regardless. What does Godmother wish of me?”
“Nothing. Not a thing. You can go now.”
“Can’t go. My home.” He inflected that last word with such meaning, I felt it in my stomach gremlin. “What does Godmother need?”
I nibbled at my lip. “Um…could you leave that painting down? It’s icky.”
He looked up at the saying and bowed. “As Godmother wishes. Where to put it?”
“The room on the other side of the basement?”
“Stinky man room?”
“Yes, stinky man’s room. He’ll appreciate it far more than I will.”
He bowed. “It is done, Godmother.” He maneuvered himself up to tiptoes to pull it back down. “Aught else, Godmother?”
I shook my head. “You may go now.”
“Off to tend the garden goes Drapple,” he said, almost sing-song, and then vanished.
Brownies in the house. Dragons on the plains. What next? Trolls under bridges? A ghost in my closet?
After performing a quick check to make sure that last one wasn’t true, I sat down to check on the game. A direct whisper popped up as soon as I logged on.
Oh, Wizzywoo. I’m in so much trouble! Major emergency, and I have no idea what to do.
What’s up? I typed back at lightning speed. Nothing like an emergency to start off the morning.
I’m going to die. You have to help me!
Calm down. Where are you? Vineberry Grove?
Not in the game! IRL! I’m so screwed…
An explosion of fear and something I could only call magic burst through me. I couldn’t have ignored her if I wanted to. What can I help with?
Princess Fireflower—I still didn’t know her real name—gave me her address and begged me to hurry. I threw on jeans and a mostly clean top and dashed upstairs. Mueller was at the table, eating cereal with little marshmallows in it. In his boxers and nothing else.
“Bob isn’t here to compete with,” I reminded him as I grabbed a bottle of orange juice.
“Huh?” he asked, still groggy from sleep.
“Never mind. I’ll be back. Got an emergency to fix.”
“Magical or otherwise?”
“Both? Maybe. I’ll call you.”
“Careful not to give anyone else extra appendages. At least none that aren’t useful…”
I did my best not to be grossed out by the mental image he clearly wanted to paint for me and hopped in my mom’s car. Princess Fireflower lived forty-five minutes west of me. I got there in thirty. I practically ran to the front door, banging on it with urgency.
A girl with short black hair and three nose rings answered it. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for—” I didn’t even get a chance to finish.
Princess Fireflower squealed as she ran across the threshold to throw herself into me in a giant hug. “You actually came! I’m so excited!”
I pushed her away from me, surveying her thin body. I saw no wounds, no blood, no emergency-room-worthy markings, and I got a good look, since she was dressed in a pair of booty shorts and a tight Rarity shirt from My Little Pony. “I came as soon as I could. What’s the emergency?”
“Ohmigosh. Tyler totally asked me to go to ComicCon with him this weekend! It’s everything I’ve ever wished for, dreamed of, fanfic’d!” She bounced up and down on the balls of her bare feet.
My fear hit a wall like an excited puppy after finding a recently cleaned floor. “And…?”
The air-grasping, stomach-cramping angst she portrayed in that moment would have done Lady MacBeth proud. “And I have nothing to wear!”
Teenagers. Can’t ignore them, can’t kill them.
Chapter 24
“Princess…um…” I faltered, trying not to sound absolutely ridiculous with practically the first sentence out of my mouth.
“Amy,” she supplied. “And you’re…”
“Tessa.”
“Tessa. This is so amazing. I can’t believe you’re here! I tried to get my roommate to help me, but she was all like, you don’t know real pain. She’s so melodramatic.”
I threw aside all the cliche sayings and got right to the point. “Amy, you can’t tell someone you’re going to die because of an emergency unless you’re actually going to die. People tend to believe it. They’re weird like that.”
She blinked at me, her mouth a little ‘o’ of confusion. “I guess I did say that, didn’t I? You weren’t supposed to believe me. I mean, if I had a real emergency, I’d probably call 911. You know?”
“It’s the ‘probably’ part that worries me.”
She giggled. “You’re funny. I like that.” She hopped backwards further into the house and beckoned to me. “Come in, come in!” When I followed with extreme hesitation, she pulled me in the rest of the way on her own. Strong for a scrawny thing. “I don’t normally invite people to my house, just so you know. I’m not a total idiot.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, wondering if I was the total idiot in this situation. She didn’t seem like the kind of kid who would tie me up and slowly feed me to her pet python, but you never knew.
“When you said hi at the arcade the other day, I just…I don’t know. I had this feeling. Like we’d already met, you know?” She led the way into her bedroom, which looked like the Cutie Mark Crusaders had decorated it and a chaos dragon had gone to work with the rest. Clothes were everywhere, except on the desk. It housed her computer and a pyramid of Mt. Dew cans almost as tall as the ceiling. That explained some things. “I dunno. For some reason, you were the first person I thought of when I realized how screwed I am.”
“It’s just ComicCon,” I said, fighting the urge to run. “You can wear anything and the boys will still ogle you.”
“But I don’t want the boys to ogle me. I want Tyler to ogle me. Well, fall in love with me. Or at least ask me out.”
I picked up a pizza pocket wrapper and dropped it in the completely empty sunflower trash can beside the desk. “Wait, isn’t Tyler your boyfriend? The one you’re always talking about?” ‘Always’ being a relative term, given that we’d only been playing the game together for about four days.
She paused halfway through picking her way to the bed. Her lips screwed up in a sheepish smile. “Um…yeah. About that…” She pranced across the room and clicked her computer awake. With a few more deft clicks, she brought up a picture of a blond kid with Bieber hair. �
��That’s Tyler. Isn’t he hot?”
Given that he looked about fifteen, I wasn’t at liberty to answer. “He looks…” I trailed off, trying to find a nice way to say he looked like Winona - a total tool - and coming up empty.
“Dreamy,” she supplied. “And he really is. He helps me with all the dungeons and he grinds with me for hours and hours, even if there’s a quest he really wants to finish.”
I wanted to say, “I’ll bet he does.” But I kept my notions to myself.
“The thing is…we’ve never been on a real date. I mean, we’ve had online dates. We do everything together in the game. He’s absolutely my online boyfriend. But we’ve never had a chance to take it off the computer, you know? And I really, really want to. He’s so sweet and cute, and he gets me. No boy has ever gotten me before.” Her shoulders slumped.
I sighed the sigh of a thousand unrequited loves and sat down on the edge of the bed. I was supposed to be her fairy godmother; I should probably be supportive. Did Cinderella’s godmother think she was silly for wanting to go to the ball? “So, ComicCon, huh? Just the two of you? That’s a big step.”
A sizzle of electricity coursed up the skin of my arms, making me shiver. Magic? It had to be. I tuned out Amy’s litany of traits and exciting things about Tyler as I considered. Cinderella going to the ball… Was that what was going on here? I mean, I had a young woman hoping to impress a golden-haired boy by going to a fancy, well-attended gathering. They may not be wearing Valentino or Armani, but some of those costumes cost serious bank. What, exactly, made Cinderella the timeless tale she was?
Interrupting a story about a raid he’d helped her finish, I asked, “Hey, what about your mom? Any sisters? Shouldn’t they be here to help you?”
That sobered up her caffeine high right quick. She sat down hard next to me, causing the bed to squeak something terrible. “My mom died when I was little. My sisters…they don’t like me much. They think I’m weird. But they’re all about makeup and hair and whose boyfriend is going to be worth the most in ten years. That’s why I moved in with Riga. All three of them joined a sorority pretty much the second they got to college. They’re triplets and they’re perfect.”
“That sucks. Being the weirdo is crappy. You have so much to offer people, but they never see past the surface. Never get to know you. It’s lonely.”
Any depression that might have tried to seep into me was bounced out by Amy leaping up from the bed. “Exactly!” She took my hand. “I knew you’d know what it feels like. It’s like we’re kindred spirits!” She bounced on her bare feet. “Will you help me? I really want to impress Tyler and I just know if I have an amazing outfit he won’t be able to help himself.”
While I wasn’t sure that was the goal we should be shooting for, who was I to argue with tradition? My Cinderella wanted to go to the ball, so I needed to figure out how to get her there—perfect dress, updo, metaphoric glass slippers and all. If that’s what it took to break the curse and wake up my mom…well, it wasn’t a lot to ask.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Two hours of modeling and arguing later, I threw my hands into the air and shouted, “Enough!” I took a deep breath. Somehow, I doubted Cinderella’s godmother yelled at her. “It’s Wednesday. You have three days before ComicCon. We can come up with something.”
“Two days,” she squeaked. “It starts Friday.”
“Friday. No problem. Why don’t you clean this up, and I’ll go home and think about it. Then maybe we can hit the mall tonight.”
“The mall?” she whined, pretty heavily for someone with such a thorough closet. “I work tonight, anyway.”
“Can you call out?” I didn’t condone shirking responsibilities for shopping, no matter what my brother might think. But this was more important than just a convention. This was the fate of Trapperstown and the greater Denver area, here.
She shook her head, glancing at the floor. “I work at this nasty bar, and the owner is a slave-driver. He refuses to hire more people for the busy shifts, so I end up doing a lot on my own. But it’s okay. I get to work around my classes and it pays most of my bills. It would be nice not to smell like booze and gross cologne all the time, but it could be worse.”
“I get it. You need the job. Tomorrow?”
You’d think I asked her to give blood to a vampire the way she squirmed. “I guess…I just…can’t we shop online? I have all these awesome dresses bookmarked.”
“Dresses that will get here in two days?” I hated to be a spoil-sport, but somebody had to be realistic.
“I guess not…” She sat down and drew her knees to her chest. “I don’t like going…out there. Places with too many people. The bar is nice because it’s lame enough that it’s never busy. Shopping is the worst. Everybody watches you, just waiting to sneer at your choices. I mean, if it’s not in style, then why is it on the racks? And yet they always smirk at me. I know I can’t pull off anything fancy, but…”
I sat down across from her, my magic drawing me into her plight even as my stomach gremlin growled in discomfort. “Is that people in general, or your sisters?”
She shrugged. “Does it matter? I know everyone’s thinking it. I’m too skinny. Too…tomboy. I play too many games and know the names for too many computer components. I’m not, you know, girly.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“Yeah, but you’re…” She kept herself from saying ‘old,’ but only barely. I could tell by the way she blushed. “You’re a professional. You look right in a suit and a skirt. I look like a sparrow trying to be a griffin.” She sighed.
“We’ll figure something out.” I patted her hand with as much maternal warmth as I could muster. My mom would be ashamed of the awkward result. “I promise.”
Hope lit her youthful, freckled face from within. “Really?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Really.”
“Oh, thank you, Tessa!” She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me with a side-to-side waggle. “I knew you’d help. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.” She beamed at me.
As unawkwardly as I could, I pulled her arms away and set her hands on the bed. I might have a problem with displays of affection to work on, but that would be on my own time, when I had more than two days to save an entire city. “I have to go now, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? We’ll get you there with the fanciest dress at the ball. Er, convention.” I smiled.
She clapped her hands. “I can’t wait! See you on the game tonight? Late?”
I agreed, then exited as smoothly as I could.
Back in my mom’s car, I stared at my hands. I’d left my wand at home, but I could feel the tenuous thread of energy that linked me to it.
I knew what I had to do. It was pretty obvious.
Hopefully I could do it without the nonsensical song…or giving poor Amy a tail.
I had better practice reversing that particular mistake, just in case.
Three hours later, I stepped back from Mueller’s side to admire my handiwork. “What do you think?” I asked, appraising.
Mueller glowered at me like a wet puppy. Not because I had given him any more canine parts, but because, well… “This skirt is damn drafty.”
“Most of them are,” I said, walking circles around him. “Shows off your legs real nice, though.”
“My eyes are up here,” he growled, swatting at my hand as I waved it - and the wand - someplace he didn’t appreciate.
I leered at him playfully. “And they sure are pretty. We should make them stand out more. Bit of eye shadow…”
“Do it and die.”
“Now, Mueller,” I said, affecting an expression of innocence. “How am I supposed to see the full effect if you don’t model the whole look?”
“How are you gonna see it without boobs? I still don’t know why you couldn’t magic up a mannequin.” His shoulders neared his ears as he glared at the floor.
“If it was good enough for Scott Bakula, it’s good eno
ugh for you.” I squinted, looking past the broad chest and beer belly, the hairy arms and legs, all bared by the skimpy archer’s costume with its leafy green bustier and kilt-like padded skirt. As if armoring the pelvic region while leaving the rest of the body exposed would help anyone in a fight. Silly game artists.
He caught my geek reference and volleyed back. “No way in hell are you the Calavicci in this pair.”
I snickered. “Technically, I think this all makes me God or Time or Fate or whatever leaped Sam around in time. How about the boots?”
“Do it and die,” he said again.
“So many threats. I thought you’d enjoy standing nearly naked in my bedroom? Besides, you’re wearing more than you were earlier.”
“Yeah, but those boxers were mine. I’ve had the chance to break them in.” He tugged ineffectually at the bustier. “This chafes.”
“But it makes you look so pretty. Isn’t that worth the pain?” Was I mocking him? Yes. But was I enjoying it? Oh, hell yes.
“I still don’t understand what this is going to do. I’m way bigger than that Fireflower chick and—”
“Yeah you are,” I said, making it sound suggestive but thwapping him in the beer belly with my wand to make sure he didn’t get any ideas.
He glared at me and kept going like I hadn’t interrupted. “—this is never going to fit her.”
“Magic. It’s all in the wrist,” I said, flourishing the wand. The gesture accidentally shrank the skirt until Mueller’s eyes watered. “Whoops! Sorry about that.” A flick of the wand and the skirt returned to its previous size.
“That’s it. I’m finding my other clothes.”
I chased him up the stairs as he stormed off, not doing a great job at hiding my giggling. “Just a couple more additions, I swear! Then you’ll look like a perfect archeress from Gates of Gossamerre!”
“They let you play as a big, hairy man-archeress?” He stormed toward the couch in the living room, where we’d left his spare clothes. Every attempt I had made to magic the costume out of thin air had failed. Then I remembered that - at least in the Disney films - the godmothers always started with something tangible. The cloth they spun into a dress, the rags illusioned into a ball gown. Mueller had put up a huge fight in the beginning, until he saw the mess I made of my own clothes. In the interest of saving the town, he went along with my request to use his while he wore them. That it hadn’t taken much convincing was…interesting.
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