Magic's Child

by Justine Larbalestier

  I have friends now, a family of more than just me and Sarafina. And though they all drive me insane, I wouldn’t give them up.

  I can’t count the way I used to. The numbers don’t unfurl in my head, but I’m still better at maths than most people. I’ve got a good shot at going to university and becoming a mathematician. Jay-Tee still runs faster than most and dances like a dervish. Sarafina can still tell direction by the stars. Mere is still one of the top actuaries in the state.

  My baby’s due in October. Danny’s going to fly back for it, even though that’s right after he starts university and joins his fancy university basketball team. Jay-Tee will be here too.

  We’re calling the baby Magic Galeano Cansino. And she’ll be as magic-free as I am. I think she’ll be the luckiest baby in the world.

  Epilogue

  The first time Tom ever held a baby in his arms was when Mere handed him Magic. She was less than a day old.

  He’d already pointed out that it was a stupid name. Aside from the obvious objections, what was her nickname going to be? Maggi? Like she was a soup mix or something? And Maggie and Mags weren’t much better.

  But Danny was all, Are you crazy? Magic (Some-surname-Tom-forgot) was the greatest basketballer (or, sorry, basketball player—Tom never got it right) of all time! It’s an honour to have such a name, blah, blah, blah. And Reason said she liked it and that besides, it was a nice reminder of the family secret.

  Tom kind of thought him being around and still being magic would be reminder enough. But apparently not.

  So they ignored him about the name and now they were ignoring him about not wanting to hold her.

  He really didn’t want to hold Magic. Babies grossed him out. Tom didn’t understand how anyone could think they were pretty. Yet there were Mere, Sarafina, and Jay-Tee leaning over the hospital bed, pretty much ignoring Reason, who was lying there knackered, cooing over her baby with its squished-up little face like a monkey’s. Even Danny was grinning and saying how gorgeous she was.

  Gorgeous! Her skin was a weird colour somewhere between blue and khaki, which might work for a coat or a pair of jeans but was a bit of a disaster as a skin tone. And she had way too much hair on her head. It looked like a badly made wig.

  “Do I have to hold her?” he asked. “Babies make me nervous.”

  “Tom! You’re practically her uncle,” Jay-Tee said. “Of course you have to hold her. Plus wait till you smell her.” Jay-Tee put her nose to the baby’s too-hairy head and breathed in deep. “She smells soooo goooood!”

  Eww.

  Danny grinned. “She does smell good, doesn’t she?”

  Reason nodded.

  “Fine,” Tom said, “but if I drop her I want it noted that you were all warned and it’s not my fault.”

  “You won’t drop her,” Mere said, coming around the bed with the tiny little hairy monkey-child. “Just make sure you’re supporting her head and neck.”

  “She doesn’t have a neck.”

  “Her head, then. Make sure your hand is under her head.”

  “What if she shits on me?”

  “Tom!” Jay-Tee and Danny said at once. Reason just smiled.

  “She’s wearing a nappy, Tom,” Mere said. “Nothing will get on you.”

  “Fine.” Tom tried to arrange himself the way Mere was demonstrating. Then, before he was ready, she eased Magic into his arms, making sure his right hand was under her microscopic head.

  Tom didn’t notice the way she smelt. He was too distracted by the tingling that had started up in his arms. He sat down in the one armchair, clutching the baby tight. His eyes narrowed until they were filled with hexagons.

  “What’s wrong, Tom?”

  “Nothing…” he said, because nothing was wrong. Reason and Danny’s baby was right as rain. It was just that they’d been spot-on with the baby’s name. She lived up to it completely.

  But she didn’t have the weird, golem-y, Cansino kind of magic; she had the old-fashioned kind, just like him. Tom wondered why it hadn’t occurred to any of them that even after turning the Cansino magic off, Magic would still have the normal kind.

  Oh well. Too late now.

  He looked up at them: Jay-Tee, Reason, Mere, Sarafina, and Danny. Not one of them had the tiniest skerrick of magic. Dead spots. They were looking back in his direction, but not at him: at Magic, full of happiness because of the new baby. How was he going to tell them?

  “She’s heavier than I thought,” Tom said. “Doesn’t smell too bad, I s’pose. If you like that kind of thing.”

  Later, Tom decided. He’d tell them that there was another magic-wielder in the Cansino line later.

  THE END

  Glossary

  bitumen: it can mean both a paved (sealed) road and the black substance (usually asphalt) used to pave (seal) the road

  a bit thing: particular. If someone is a bit thing about how they dress it means they are particular about their attire.

  blue heeler: an Australian cattle dog

  bugger: damn. The thing you say when you stub your toe and don’t want to be too rude.

  chunder: vomit

  croc: short for crocodile

  daggy: a dag is someone lacking in social graces, someone who is eccentric and doesn’t fit in. The closest U.S. approximation is nerd, but a dag doesn’t necessarily know a thing about computers or mathematics or science. Daggy is the adjectival form.

  dog’s breakfast: a mess, a disaster. To make a dog’s breakfast out of something is to really mess it up.

  four-wheel drive: SUV

  grouse: excellent, wonderful. However, it can also be a verb meaning to complain, as in, “I wish you’d stop grousing about everything.”

  knackered: very tired, exhausted

  Libs: abbreviation of the Liberal Party of Australia, which despite the name, is the conservative party.

  lift: elevator

  mad: in Australia it means crazy; in the United States, angry

  poxy: unpleasant, crappy, or annoying

  skerrick: a very small amount

  slab: a case of two dozen cans or bottles of beer

  unco: short for unco-ordinated. Someone who’s unco isn’t much chop at sports or juggling. For some unco types, even standing can be a challenge. Your humble author has been known to be unco, though only since infancy.

  wanker: poseur

  Acknowledgments

  Way back in late 2003, Eloise Flood took a chance on me and bought this trilogy on the basis of a proposal. I’d never sold a novel before, and there she was, buying three unwritten ones. I still can’t get over it. Without Eloise I doubt these books would exist, and if they did, they wouldn’t be nearly as good. Thank you. You’ve been the best publisher, editor, and friend possible. And extra thanks for bringing in Liesa Abrams as my other editor. There isn’t a better team in the business.

  And thank you, Scott Westerfeld, for being my first and last reader, meanest critic, sternest taskmaster, and for convincing me to become a full-time novelist before I’d sold a word. Gulp!

  The Razorbill team of Eloise, Liesa, Andy Ball, and Margaret Wright is extraordinary. Wow. It’s been a privilege working with you all. Thank you for everything.

  Marc J. Cohen provided three beautiful covers, Christopher Grassi made the innards look lovely, Annie McDonnell did a great job proofing, and Polly Watson is the bestest copy editor eva.

  Thanks to everyone else at Penguin who worked hard on this trilogy, from sales to marketing to publicity to all the other departments. Extra-special thanks to Sharyn November for giving the paperback editions of the trilogy such a wonderful home at Firebird.

  My foreign rights agent, Whitney Lee, is the greatest and so far has found a home for the Magic or Madness trilogy in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Taiwan, and Thailand. Thank you for all your hard work.

  Some of the very best critiquers read and dissected Magic’s Child. Without Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Karen Joy Fowler, Pamela Freeman, Margo Lanagan,
and Scott Westerfeld, it would’ve been the worst dog’s breakfast imaginable. I owe you all big-time. Especially you, Karen, for being excellently annoying and inexcusable and saving this novel.

  Thank you Holly Black, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Diana Peterfreund, and John Scalzi for being my lifeline when we were all struggling with books due around the same time. Don’t know what I’d’ve done without you lot to compare notes with and whinge to.

  Thanks to the fabulous New Bitches: we all rule!

  David Levithan and everyone at the YA drinks nights in NYC are wondrous beyond words. I don’t make many of the meetings, but the ones I get to are golden.

  Thanks to Luz Barrón for removing all hassles from my life while I wrote most of the first draft in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

  Denise Lynch and Tony Vinson, respectively, answered my questions about social-work services and education in NSW. Any mistakes are mine, all mine.

  Since the first volume in this trilogy was published, many advocates—librarians, teachers, and booksellers—have gotten behind my books in ways I never imagined. Thank you to Agnes Nieuwenhuizen, Mike Shuttleworth, and Lili Wilkinson of the Centre for Youth Literature, in Melbourne, Victoria; Katheleen Hornig, Merri Lindgren, Hollis Rudiger, and Megan Schliesman of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in Madison, Wisconsin; and also to Sara Couri, Megan Honing, John Klima, Jack Martin, Kimberly Paone, Sandra Payne, and Karyn Silverman. Ron Serdiuk of Pulp Fiction books in Brisbane has been a one-man promotion machine. Everyone at Galaxy and Gleebooks in Sydney has been awesome, as has Justin Ackroyd of Slow Glass Books in Melbourne. Not to mention Dreamhaven in Minneapolis and Borderlands in San Francisco, as well as Jennifer Laughran of Books Inc. in San Francisco and everyone at Peter Glassman’s glorious Books of Wonder in NYC.

  Another unexpected boon of being a published writer is all the wonderful folks who’ve written to me about the trilogy. It makes a huge difference to know that these books are being read and enjoyed.

  Lastly, my family: Niki Bern, John Bern, Jan Larbalestier, and Scott Westerfeld. Thank you for the security of knowing that, whatever happens, you four have got my back.

  JUSTINE LARBALESTIER says: “You’re holding in your hands the last book in the Magic or Madness trilogy. It’s finished! Hurrah! Writing this trilogy was a big challenge for me not least because I’m crap at mathematics. Hmmm, ‘crap’ might be writing tickets on myself. I can barely even add. So creating a believable character who’s not only good at maths, but exceptionally good, was a huge, huge stretch.”

  “I relied on two books: Marcus Du Sautoy’s gorgeously written The Music of the Primes and Mario Livio’s The Golden Ratio. I didn’t understand the really mathy parts of either book (not even close), but they gave me a feel for how it is to be in love with numbers and patterns—for the magic of them. I couldn’t have written Reason without those books. I was left wishing I wasn’t so innumerate.”

  “It means a lot to me that several maths teachers and maths geeks have written to say how much they enjoyed the mathiness of the trilogy. Phew! Whether you’re good at maths or not, I hope you enjoy the conclusion to the trilogy.”

  Justine Larbalestier was born and mostly raised in Sydney, Australia. Having anthropologist parents meant that her childhood was punctuated by sojourns to other parts of Australia, including two small Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory. Her first book, The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, was shortlisted for a Hugo Award.

  Visit her Web site: www.justinelarbalestier.com