I stared at it, speechless. It was like when cartoon characters get so flustered that smoke starts spewing out their ears and their eyes bug out on springs. My mom just smiled.
“Your plane tickets are in there. He said you’d be getting your itinerary in an e-mail. Did you?”
“Um, yeah.” I stared at the envelope, not wanting to open it in front of my mother in case Tinker Bell flew out of it, trailing a stream of magic sparkle-dust.
“He explained about the tour to your father and me. You leave tomorrow.”
“Wow.” It was the kind of all-purpose word that seemed to cover the complexity of the situation nicely, so I said it again. “Wow.”
“Wow indeed.” Mom sat down on the edge of my bed. I knew that move. It meant she “wanted to talk.” This was definitely not a good time.
“How’s Tammy?” I asked, as a diversion. “Did you drain all the Mr. Bubble out of her lungs?”
“She’s fine.” Mom sounded weirdly calm, considering the big drama that had just transpired. “She was probably playing with Barbies until Dad and I walked in, right?”
“Watching SpongeBob, but yeah.”
“We overreacted,” she said simply. “But you didn’t. After your father put her down Tammy told us the whole story: that you were right outside the bathroom door the whole time she was taking a bath? And you came in and pulled her out of the tub the minute you heard something suspicious?”
“Yeah, the bathroom is probably a mess, sorry about that—”
My mom threw her arms around me and squeezed so hard I lost my breath. “Morgan! Do you realize that you saved your sister’s life?”
“Mom—ouch—I think you still might be overreacting.” I wriggled free, gently, because I could tell she was on the brink of getting weepy, and I didn’t have time to deal with that. “Maybe you’re having one of those hormonal surges that afflict women your age and cause temporary fits of insanity.”
“Most serious childhood accidents occur in the home,” she said, wiping her eyes. “But not this time, thanks to you. And now this!” She tapped the envelope with her finger. “Oxford University is pursuing you! Morgan, I don’t know what to say. I feel like there must be a whole side of you that we’ve missed, somehow.”
Oh my God, you have no idea, I thought. “Does that mean I can go to England, then?”
“Sweetheart, you have to go! I know it’s short notice, but it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve traveled to Europe alone.” She looked at the pile of clothes on my bed like she wished she were the one with the plane ticket. “Do you need any help packing?”
“I’m fine.” I really wanted her to leave so I could print out Colin’s travel directions. “I can manage. Thanks.”
She started to leave, but stopped in the doorway.
“This is going to be a real adventure for you, Morgan.” She put her hand over her heart, drama-queen style. “I just have a feeling. This trip is going to be a truly unforgettable experience.”
six
i waited until i heard my mom’s footsteps going down the stairs, counted to ten, and then turned back to the computer. My reply to Colin was short and sweet. “I’ll be there Friday morning,” I wrote. “Whatever it is, you’re not crazy. Love, Morgan.”
I stared at the screen for a moment before pressing SEND. Of course I was dying to know what was going on—for one thing, what the fek was he doing on vacation with his grandfather? He was supposed to be working the bike tour this summer—but there’d be plenty of time to ask questions in person. Right now, the less I knew, the less I’d have to lie to my parents about. I just needed to get my half-goddess butt to Wales without anybody realizing that I was taking a detour. Call it the really, really scenic route to Oxford.
Feeling totally spylike, I printed out Colin’s e-mail and travel instructions, then deleted the file. I changed my password too, just in case some nosy kid named Tammy felt like playing with my computer while I was gone.
And I wrote an e-mail to Sarah saying I’d be out of town for a while to look at college campuses. “Cheerio!” is how I signed off at the end, instead of goodbye. I was pretty sure she’d figure it out. I made it a “send later” e-mail and timed it to get to her when I would be high in the sky, halfway over the Atlantic. Detailed explanations would have to wait until I got back to Connecticut.
Of course, I had no idea when that would be.
the next morning, with some small part of me still suspecting I might have dreamed the whole thing, I found myself standing in the lobby of the local Marriott, waiting to board the airport van to JFK.
The Oxford brochure poked strategically from the outside pocket of my wheeled suitcase, where everyone could admire it. My secret itinerary from Colin was folded up and hidden inside the private zipper pouch of my backpack, where I usually stashed my SGS (SGS was Sarah-and-Morgan-speak for Secret Girl Stuff, meaning tampons and panti-liners and supplies of that nature, though math tests that had failing grades scrawled on them in red ink sometimes got crumpled up and shoved in there too).
I promised my mom that I’d be careful and not get kidnapped by perverts, my dad that I’d take plenty of pictures and not get arrested by a “constable” and Tammy that I’d buy her crappy souvenirs from every overpriced gift shop in the United Kingdom.
And then, with multiple hugs all around and my mom doing a final frisk to triple-check that my passport and plane tickets were safely stashed on my person, I climbed in the van and took my seat. Taking the van was my idea—I figured there was no need for either of my parents to miss a whole day’s work just to drive me all the way to the airport when the Marriott was only two miles away from our house. I already had enough guilt that I wasn’t telling them the whole truth about where I was going.
“I want to handle this trip myself,” I argued, when Mom made a boo-boo face about my van plan. “That’s what a true Oxonian would do.” I’d been waiting for a chance to use that word ever since I’d read it in the Oxford brochure. Privately, I imagined the Oxonians as a small, nerdy race of aliens from the planet Oxon. Their incompetent rulers would be called the Oxymorons. Anyway, just saying it did the trick. Dad puffed out his chest, Mom got a tear of pride in her eye, and they let me go.
“My goodness,” Mom whispered in my ear, during her final-final-final-positively-this-is-the-last-one goodbye hug. “You’ve grown up so much since last summer, I can’t get over it.”
She doesn’t know the half of it, I thought. Last summer I’d been a cranky-to-the-point-of-emo-girl whose world revolved around a twisted axis named Raphael. Now I was a legendary half-goddess who’d been summoned to a far-off land, “by name,” Colin had written—but by whom? And to do what?
Like a dork, I waved through the van window until I couldn’t see my family anymore. Then I took a deep breath and settled into my seat. I’d brought my MP3 player for the ride but I didn’t feel like turning it on. There was too much to think about: Finnbar blowing bubbles in my parents’ bathtub, Colin’s e-mail, even the phreaky Mr. Phineas—all signs pointed to some kind of magical disaster brewing.
I could handle it, right? I’d done it before. The half-goddess Morganne, at your service. Magical Disasters R Us.
But something was bothering me, and the van was halfway to the airport before I figured out what it was:
Whatever faery mischief was percolating this time, it sounded like my utterly non-magical, one hundred percent-skeptical human Colin had already come face-to-face with it.
Not in a dream, or while under an enchantment that would make him forget everything he’d seen by morning—but for real.
That had never happened before.
the whole seven-hour flight to london, in between naps, gross airplane meals and multiple screenings of Be Kind Rewind, I kept thinking about Colin, and magic, and—wait for it—photosynthesis.
I mean, come on: The fact that a blade of grass, or a tree, or a weed growing in the sidewalk could have the ability to turn carbon dioxide into
oxygen and keep an entire planet alive had to be the greatest feat of magic ever.
Photosynthesis was something Colin had absolutely no trouble believing in, but faeries? Leprechauns? Not a chance. He thought all that “faery claptrap” was leftover junk from the “old Ireland,” the backward, superstitious country of his grandparents’ day.
Colin believed in the future. He believed in an Ireland whose high-tech factories manufactured laptop computers, and where heavy metal bands rocked the night away in two-hundred-year-old pubs. What would he say if he found out his very own Morgan, the bad-ass American girl whom he’d taken for a band chick when he first met me, was really a magical half-goddess from Ye Quaint Olde Days of Irish lore?
Would he think I was insane? Or worse, ridiculous? Some stupid fairy-tale character, like a cheap plastic toy you’d get by sending in the top of a Lucky Charms cereal box plus $3.95 shipping and handling?
Or would he be too mad at me to care, once he found out that I’d basically been lying to him since the first day we met?
Correction: It was more like the third day. But still.
Fek, I thought, as I stared out the window at the swirl of gray clouds below. If my goddess half gets busted in front of Colin, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.
after my flight landed at heathrow i followed the crowds and the signs and figured out how to get through customs and retrieve my suitcase from the luggage carousel. I was briefly stumped trying to find the terminal where Colin had instructed me to catch the bus to Wales, but once I realized the buses were called “coaches” I figured it out. The idea of traveling by coach made me feel like I might be going to Wales in a pumpkin pulled by enchanted mice, which would hardly surprise me at this point.
When it was my turn at the ticket window I read the information directly off the itinerary from Colin, to make sure I got it right. “One round-trip to Castell Cyfareddol, please.”
The clerk looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my forehead.
“Pardon me, miss—but where did you say you were going?”
“I must be pronouncing it wrong.” I pressed the sheet of paper against the glass so he could see. “This place. It’s in Wales.”
He looked at the paper, then back at me, an expression of total horror on his face. “KASSul Kuh-FAIR-uh-doll? Why on earth would you want to go there?” Then he removed a pencil from behind his ear and tapped it on the glass to make sure he had my attention, even though I was already looking at him.
“Castell Cyfareddol is a profoundly silly place,” he said ominously. “The type of destination that attracts budget-minded couples on second honeymoons. Rock stars on ironically low-brow vacations. Disgraced members of the royal family hiding from the paparazzi.” He leaned down and spoke in a fearful hiss through the hole in the bottom of the ticket window. “Personally I can’t imagine going there. Speaking for myself, I would rather go nearly anyplace but there.”
What a head case, I thought. This guy could definitely use a dose of my mom’s Xanax.
Thanks to my dad, my wallet was pimped out with my very own AmEx card for traveling. I pushed the card through the window. “Awesome.” I smiled, trying to be friendly. “It sounds like a total piss. How much did you say the ticket was?”
He scowled back at me from under his wire-rimmed glasses. “Forty non-refundable pounds. And for a mere one pound extra you can buy insurance against accidents that are highly likely to befall your person, including loss of life, loss of limb, loss of personal property and personal liability in case of unforeseen but practically inevitable catastrophe—”
All I knew was I didn’t come all this way just to miss my coach. “Just give me the ticket,” I growled, switching to my scariest deadpan death glare.
“Forty pounds, then. It’s hardly worth it. ‘Castell Cyfareddol, ’ ugh!” You could practically hear the quote marks of distaste in his voice as he punched the information into the ticket machine. “You know what it means, don’t you? ‘Magic Castle.’ Please! They might as well rename it ‘Dis neyland.’ ”
The ticket finished printing. He pushed it through the window with the tip of his pencil, as if he didn’t want to touch it.
“That would be a lot easier to pronounce—hey.” I looked at the ticket. “This is one-way. I asked for round-trip.”
He threw his hands up in the air, as if I’d proved his point. “See? That’s another reason not to go! It’s a preposterous place. Completely preposterous! Yet once people get there they never want to leave. Journey time is three hours. Overpriced snacks and refreshments will be available on board. Express Coach wishes you a pleasant trip. Next!”
I looked over my shoulder. There was no one behind me.
“Next!” he called again, even louder.
“Never mind, I’ll buy the return ticket in Wales.” I hoisted my backpack into place. “Thanks anyway.”
“Believe me, you shouldn’t be thanking me at all.” His voice rang after me as I walked away. “Arrivederci, Miss Mouseketeer! Have a good time at Disneyland!”
the clock had magically zipped ahead five hours because I’d crossed the Atlantic, so it was early morning when I got on the bus to Wales, even though my body was insisting it was still the middle of the night. I kept having the urge to check the time on my cell phone, but the arrangements for my trip had happened so fast I’d never figured out how to get my phone set up to work in England. In the end I’d left it home.
The good part was I’d be spared hourly calls from my parents asking whether Oxford was everything it was cracked up to be. Sure, Oxford is great! I’m chillin’ with the archbishops! I’m Facebook friends with Frodo and Samwise! And the prime minister invited me for tea, but I had to blow him off because I’m having drinks with Hugh Grant later . . .
Yeah, right. The nagging question of how I was going to explain to my parents why I never actually made it to my campus tour at Oxford was buzzing around my head in a most annoying way. I filed the whole problem in my mental “I’ll deal with it later” pile. That pile was getting kind of large, but at the moment I had other stuff to worry about.
For one thing, without a phone I had no way of getting in touch with Colin to tell him I was a mere pumpkin ride away. I’d have to check in at the front desk of Castell Cyfareddol—fek it, I was just going to call it Magic Castle, it was easier—and have them call Colin’s room once I got there.
Disgraced members of the royal family hiding from the paparazzi . . . I hoped the ticket clerk was right about that much, at least. It would be kind of cool to run into some royalty.
As long as it wasn’t Queen Titania.
from the outside, castell cyfareddol’s main hotel looked far too much like the Cinderella Castle at Disney World for my taste, but when I walked through the revolving doors and saw who was at the far end of the lobby arguing with the desk clerk, I knew I was definitely not in Orlando. My own personal version of heaven, maybe.
“It’s a fairly simple question, innit? What I’m asking is, d’ye happen to know if there are any horses living wild on the grounds? A herd of Welsh ponies, maybe?”
“Sir, if you want to take riding lessons as part of your holiday it can easily be arranged. Starlight Stables is in the next village and offers a discount to the guests at Castell Cyfareddol. I can call them right now to make an appointment—”
“I’m not interested in takin’ any bloody lessons . . .”
The decor of the lobby was a cross between the Taj Mahal in India and the Bellagio casino in Vegas, two places I’d never visited but had seen pictured in my mom’s alphabetized collection of Travel + Leisure magazines. However, in this half-goddess’s opinion the rear view of Colin O’Grady was one of the true wonders of the world, so much so that I would have been happy to stand there admiring it until lunchtime, at least.
But during the argument about the ponies the exasperated desk clerk had spotted me waiting with my luggage, and she pounced on the opportunity to change the subject. She called
to me loudly, over Colin’s shoulder, “Can I help you, miss?”
Colin glanced behind him. Then he did a double take. He turned to face me. His mouth fell open but nothing came out.
I was so happy to see him I was almost afraid to breathe, in case it was all a dream. There was so much I wanted to tell him—how much I’d missed him, how glad I was to have any reason, even a crazy one, to come join him in Wales, how heart-stoppingly yummy he looked from head to toe—but the expression of pure shock on his face shut me up.
“Mm—Mm—Mm—Morgan?” he finally choked out.
I raced over and threw my arms around him. “See, I made it! Your directions were perfect. Oh my God, Colin, what’s going on? When I got your e-mail I was kind of freaked out—there’s so much I want to ask you—”
“What e-mail?” He pulled me off of him and stared at me like he was seeing a ghost. “No offense, darlin’—but what the fek are ye doin’ here?”
seven
okay. this was not the greeting i’d expected. we stared at each other like two people having a WTF? contest.
“You sent me an e-mail,” I said, bewildered. “You asked me to come. You said it was an emergency.”
He was shaking his head noooooo, side to side—
“I swear, Colin! I can show you, I printed it out—it says something weird happened and I was ‘summoned by name.’ You even sent me all the directions on how to get here, the address and the coach schedule and everything . . .”
I’d never actually seen Colin in a fight, but I knew from what he’d told me that he wasn’t above exchanging friendly fisticuffs in a pub when the occasion called for it. Now I knew what he must look like in those moments. He looked very focused, and very pissed off.
“Now who the bloody hell would do somethin’ like that?” he muttered, looking away. “And why?” He exhaled sharply and turned back to me. “At least it proves yer not hallucinatin’, because ye’d never find yer way here otherwise. As destinations go, this place is unlikely as they come.” Then his eyes filled with concern. “Are ye all right?”
What I Wore to Save the World Page 5