“Except for the ones that haven’t ever been checked out by Benign Designs. Like the seven-league boots,” I pointed out.
She waved her hand. “I’m not counting those. They’re clearly mistakes.”
“You can’t just decide anything that doesn’t fit your theory is a mistake! And what actually is your theory, anyway?”
“That the people at Benign Designs are doing something to the objects.”
“What kind of something?”
“I don’t know. Stealing their magic, maybe.”
“Can you do that? Can you take the magic out of something magical?”
“I don’t know. I can’t, obviously, but maybe somebody can.”
“But then why do the objects still work for the next three patrons?”
“I’m not sure. It has to be some kind of delayed action. Maybe the magic fades slowly.”
“Or maybe they put a spell on them so the third person to take them out has to give them to Benign Designs, and they replace it with a fake, like you and Marc do with the seven-league boots.”
“Maybe—that’s another possible theory. We could test it, by borrowing one of the objects.”
“Oh, wait!” I remembered the comb. “I already did!” I took it out of my bag. “This was on the list.”
“What is it?” Anjali turned it over in her hands.
“It’s a . . . comb,” I mumbled, suddenly embarrassed.
She looked at me intensely. Under her scrutiny, I felt mortifyingly vain. I couldn’t believe I had borrowed a mermaid’s comb so I could look nice while watching someone else’s boyfriend play basketball.
“What kind of comb?” she asked.
“A mermaid’s comb. I wanted . . . I thought . . . ,” I trailed off.
“Okay.” She sounded embarrassed by my embarrassment. “Does it still work?” She lifted the comb to her hair.
I wanted to stop her, but I couldn’t. I sat paralyzed.
She combed. At each stroke, her hair shone with the rainbow darkness of a starling’s feathers. It waved like a midnight river, smooth and cold and singing with ripples, stars dancing on its surface and death in its depths. If it had been a river, I would have thrown myself in and let the torrent dash me against the sunken rocks.
She raised a questioning eyebrow at me. “Well?”
“Your hair looks fantastic,” I said. “But then, it always looks fantastic.”
“Here, you try it.” She tossed me the comb. I sniffed it and nodded in recognition. That smell—that wild, shifting, unmistakable smell of magic, overlaid with the floral musk of Anjali’s hair.
“Aren’t you going to use the comb?” she said.
I shrugged. There didn’t seem to be any point.
“Go on, I want to see what it does.”
I shrugged again and lifted the comb.
The door gave a great rattling shudder. “AANNjaliiiiiiii!”
Jaya.
“Open up, Anjali! You’ve got Elizabeth in there, I heard you! And you’re doing your hair! I want to heeeeelp!” she wailed.
“Oh, brother,” said Anjali, but she opened the door. “Go away, Jaya,” she said.
Jaya ignored her. “Hi, Elizabeth,” she said. “Want me to do your hair?”
I handed her the comb.
I expected painful tugs, but Jaya was surprisingly gentle, or maybe it was the comb. My scalp tingled with delight. I closed my eyes and murmured, “Mmmmm.”
“You have nice hair, Elizabeth. Want me to make you a French braid?”
“Sure.”
Her quick fingers parted and pulled and tightened my hair, combing each section as she joined it into the braid. When she reached the end of the braid, she fastened it with a scrunchy that she took out of her own hair. “Go look,” she said, pointing to the mirror on Anjali’s dresser.
Usually my hair wisps out of braids and updos, but this time it lay gleaming and orderly. It flattered the shape of my face. For once I actually had cheekbones.
“Nice,” I said. “Thanks, Jaya. I guess the comb still works.”
Anjali glanced at Jaya and frowned at me.
“Don’t worry, Anji, I already know all about it,” announced Jaya. “I was listening at the door. This is a magic comb, and some magic objects aren’t magic anymore, and you’re trying to catch the bad guys. Let me help! You know I’m good with spreadsheets—Daddy says so.” She started to comb her hair.
“Jaya, you are such a pest,” said Anjali wearily.
“Is that a good idea, Jaya?” I said.
“Of course it is! I could help you find the bad guys, and I could tie them up for you,” Jaya said.
“No, I mean using that comb.” Her hair still looked like a cloud of spikes, but an increasingly attractive cloud of spikes. “You’re kind of young for that kind of thing.”
Jaya looked insulted. “I borrow Anjali’s makeup all the time!”
“You what?” The clouds gathered on Anjali’s exquisite brow.
“Don’t worry, I always put everything back.” She found a knot in her hair and tugged at it with the comb.
“Be careful with that, Jaya!”
“Give Elizabeth the comb, Jaya,” said Anjali. The thought of her sister meddling with her makeup must have been what gave her voice such a cold edge. She could be surprisingly scary sometimes, I thought.
“Fine. I’m done with it anyway.” Jaya handed me the comb with dignity.
“Thanks, Jaya,” I said, putting it away in my bag. “Okay, so the comb still works. What does that prove?”
“Nothing yet,” said Anjali. “Maybe it doesn’t lose its magic until after you return it. Maybe somebody’s planning to take it away from you. What about that bird? Maybe they’re going to send it to get the comb. Or do you have an uncontrollable urge to give the comb to someone from Benign Designs?”
“What’s Benign Designs?” asked Jaya. Anjali ignored her.
“Not as far as I know,” I said. “The only people I’ve given it to so far are girls in the Rao family. You don’t work for Benign Designs, do you?”
“What’s Benign Designs?” said Jaya again.
“We don’t know yet,” I said. “We need to find out.”
Anjali said, “Let’s do a search.” She went back to typing on the computer.
“Let me help, I’m good at finding things,” said Jaya, inserting herself between my shoulder and Anjali’s legs to peer at the screen.
Anjali batted her away. “If you break my computer, Dad will be very angry,” she said.
“I’m not breaking anything,” said Jaya, but she subsided next to me on the floor. She glanced at my wrist, then pushed up both my sleeves. “Hey, what happened to the knot I made you?” she said accusingly.
“I . . . It came off,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not supposed to. Maybe I didn’t do it right. I better make you another one—you’re not safe out there, with monsters and Benign Designs and everything.”
“Leave her alone, Jaya,” said Anjali. “Elizabeth doesn’t want to wear some ugly piece of yarn to the basketball game.”
“Why are you so mean to me? All I’m doing is trying to help! I hate you!” Tears hung in Jaya’s enormous dark eyes. The contrast between her pouting face and her glamorous hair was comical but heartbreaking.
“You can make me a new knot, okay?” I said quickly.
Jaya turned the pout on me. “Don’t pretend to be nice! You’re just as bad as my sister.”
“Please? I really would feel much safer.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll do your ankle so the ugly knot won’t show. Which foot?”
I held out my left. Or was it my right? Without my sense of direction, it was hard to tell.
Jaya got a piece of yarn and began the lengthy ritual. “But I’m not making you one, stinkhead,” she said to Anjali. “The monsters can eat you for all I care. If they do, you’ll probably poison them.”
Chapter 16:
A basketball game
We got to the Fisher gym in plenty of time and claimed seats in the third row, far enough from the band not to blow out our eardrums. Anjali insisted on wearing the Fisher colors: white and an unflattering shade of purple. She achieved this by borrowing an old blazer of her mother’s that would have made anyone else look like a Halloween version of a newscaster, but this was Anjali—Anjali aglow with the mermaid glamour. All the girls raked her with appraising glances. All the guys raked her with the other kind of appraising glances and held out their hands to help her over the bleachers.
Anjali took it in stride. I don’t think she even really noticed. She focused completely on Marc, grabbing my arm so tightly it hurt when he missed a layup, roaring “Mer-RITT! Mer-RITT!” with the rest of the crowd when he stole the ball back and nailed a three-pointer from the top of the key.
The distraction didn’t seem to bother Marc. In fact, I’ve never seen him play better. Once, he turned our way and gave a little bow before leaping onto an escalator in the air and allowing himself to be borne gracefully aloft within inches of the basket. He sank the ball like a lump of leaden butter over the fingertips of the snarling World Peace center and winked at Anjali as he landed. The gym went wild.
Friends, ones I didn’t know I had, clustered around us at the end of the third quarter.
“Are you guys coming to Jake’s Joint afterward?” Sadie Cane asked Anjali.
“Jake’s Joint?”
“The hamburger place on Ninety-first Street. We always go there after the games. Marc didn’t tell you?” She was clearly fishing for info about Anjali’s relationship to Marc.
“No, Marc and I have plans with Elizabeth,” said Anjali.
“I hope we’re not dragging Merritt away from a fun tradition,” she whispered to me. “He would have told us if he minded missing it, wouldn’t he?”
“I’m sure the plans he makes with you are the ones he wants to keep,” I said.
Somebody behind me snorted quietly. Swiveling to see who, I found myself looking up at Aaron Rosendorn. Despite the heat in the gym, he was wearing a black leather jacket and a blue-and-green-striped scarf, the World Peace Academy colors.
“Aaron! You came after all!”
“Yeah, I found out my favorite pages would be here,” he said. “I figured I’d better show up and keep an eye on you.”
“Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re here,” I said, then immediately blushed and wished I hadn’t said it. It’s not like he came for me, I told myself. Unless that’s what he meant by “keep an eye on you”?
Evidently not. “Hi, Anjali,” he said.
Anjali turned around. “Oh, hi, Aaron. What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a basketball fan.”
“Didn’t Elizabeth tell you? I’m a humanitarian. I’m praying for World Peace,” he said.
Anjali laughed. “Good—they can use all the help they can get.” She turned back to the game.
Instead of leaning back again, Aaron whispered in my ear. It tickled. “So, Elizabeth,” he said. “Did you see Marc’s air ball at the buzzer?”
I lost my temper. “Aaron, you’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met in my life,” I snapped.
Aaron flinched as if I’d hit him. “That’s quite a superlative, considering how many annoying people you must have met,” he said. “I imagine you run in very annoying circles.”
“Not if I can help it,” I said, turning my back. The ref blew his whistle and the last quarter began. I concentrated on the game with all my might.
Marc scored the winning points. After we’d finished screaming ourselves hoarse, Anjali told me she was going to the bathroom. “I’ll meet you at”—she noticed Aaron leaning closer, hesitated, and said—“where Marc said.”
“Okay. You know where it is?”
“I’m sure I can find it.”
She picked up her things and glided away among the bleachers. I put my coat over my arm and scrambled after her toward the door.
Aaron scrambled after me.
“Why are you following me, Aaron?”
“You invited me here in the first place.”
“And you insulted me and insulted Marc and hung up on me, so why did you come?”
“I told you. I’m worried about the Grimm Collection. No way I’m going to miss the meeting of the Pages’ Conspiracy, Fisher Branch. I’m sorry if you find that insulting.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There is no conspiracy. You’re just trying to horn in on Anjali’s date with Marc.”
“Is that what you think? I could say the same thing about you.”
“You could say it, but you would be wrong.” I headed for the girls’ room, figuring he couldn’t actually follow me in there.
Well, I tried to head to the girls’ room; in my excitement, I’d forgotten about my little sense-of-direction problem. I managed to stop myself before going into the boys’ room. I found the girls’ room after only two trips around the third floor.
By then Aaron had regained his cool. “Are you trying to shake me? You’re not very good at it,” he said companionably, striding along beside me.
I gave him the most sarcastic smile I could muster.
“I was right,” he said. “You do run in extremely annoying circles.” He chuckled at his own joke.
I liked him much better before, I thought, when he was making me sit on imaginary chairs and fall down. I went into the girls’ room and let the door swing shut in his face.
Anjali wasn’t there. I took my time, reading the graffiti in the stall, then touching up my lip gloss. I noticed I was looking good: confident, a little fierce, with very nice hair. Mermaid magic?
I gave my hair a few extra strokes with the comb.
Aaron was waiting for me outside the bathroom, leaning against the wall. He tilted his head to one side and made a show of inspecting my face. “You really didn’t need to spend all that time on your makeup just for me,” he said. “Not that you don’t look nice, of course—but you overdid the mascara. I prefer the natural look.”
“I’m not wearing mascara.”
“No? Hm. So where are we meeting Anjali?”
“You’re not meeting her anywhere.”
“Sure I am. I’m pretty stubborn, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I don’t get it, Aaron. Do you really think there’s a conspiracy? Because if we wanted to conspire, we could perfectly well do it sometime when you’re not around to watch. So tell me. Why are you really following me?”
“I don’t know, Elizabeth—maybe because I can’t stand to be parted from you?” His smile, which was exquisitely balanced between sarcasm and sincerity, revealed beautiful white teeth.
“If that were true, you would never say so.”
“Maybe you’re right. Or maybe I think it’s perfectly safe to say so because I know you’d never believe I would admit a thing like that if it were true.”
“Or maybe you’re talking in circles to confuse me so you won’t have to answer my question.”
“Talking in circles is no worse than walking in circles.”
“If you don’t like the way I walk, you don’t have to follow me.”
“Oh, but I do like the way you walk. Very much. I’ll happily watch you walk all evening.”
I gave up. Anjali and Marc would have to get rid of him themselves. I headed toward the school library—or at least, I tried. But the library seemed to recede before me, wiggling away like a clam when you don’t dig fast enough, and I found myself instead standing in front of the social studies department office.
“Oh, the door’s shut. I guess they left without me,” I said.
“Nice try,” Aaron said.
“See—it’s locked.” I rattled the door to show him. My coat brushed against it, and the buttons made a scraping noise.
To my surprise, the doorknob turned. Aaron pushed the door open and snapped on the light. A cold wind blew in our faces from the window, which was open a crack, blowing papers off the desks. I shut
the window. Should I pick up the papers too?
Aaron sat down.
“What are you doing? That’s Mr. Mauskopf’s chair!”
“Who’s Mr. Mauskopf?”
“My social studies teacher. He’s not going to like you sitting there.”
“That’s okay. He’s not my social studies teacher.”
“Come on, Aaron, you’re going to get me in trouble. Let’s get out of here before someone shows up.”
“Like who—Anjali and Marc? . . . Hey, Elizabeth?” Aaron’s voice changed, the bantering tone dropping away. “What is your social studies teacher doing with Art Murk?”
“With what?”
He pointed. Hanging over Mr. Mauskopf’s desk was the muddy, shifting painting from the Grimm Collection.
“I have no idea. Are you sure that’s what it is?”
Aaron turned back to the painting and said, “Well? Don’t keep us in the dark—show us Anjali and Marc.”
The dim, sinister forms in the painting began to ooze like nightmare lava.
The picture showed Anjali and Marc, standing in one of the Fisher hallways. They were in the middle of a slow kiss.
Aaron stared at them, his face an unsettling greenish color. The kiss seemed to go on forever. So did Aaron’s stare.
“Stop it, Aaron!”
He didn’t seem to hear me. He went on staring with an expression like someone watching his house burn down. In the painting Marc and Anjali came up for breath and he began kissing her neck.
“Don’t watch that!” I shook his shoulder, but he ignored me, so I covered his eyes with my hands and yelled at the painting, “Much too frank! Please go blank!”
It obeyed slowly—so slowly it seemed to be taunting me. Marc’s lips melted into Anjali’s throat; her hair blended with his hands.
Aaron gripped my wrists tightly as if to pull away my hands, but instead he held them still against his face. I felt his eyeballs roll beneath my hands under their thin lids, the lashes tickling my palms; it was disturbing, embarrassing, almost like the amorphous shapes in the painting. His hands felt hot on my wrists. I thought I felt his pulse race, but maybe it was mine.
Polly Shulman Page 16