How to Ditch Your Fairy

by Justine Larbalestier

  “You went to Fiorenze Stupid-Name’s house! To our sworn enemy’s home? You talked to her parents?” How could she?! We had a pact that neither of us would ever have anything to do with poxy boy-magnet Fiorenze Burnham-Stone, who’s even more annoying and pretentious than her name.

  “Basketball, Charlie. She’s captain. Remember? It wasn’t just me. The whole team was there! I have to socialize with her. Plus she was sick all last week and I agreed to fill her in on all the stuff that isn’t in the notes.”

  “Stupid basketball team.” Mention of it did not make me happy. I’m astral at sports—we’re both at New Avalon Sports High, the best Sports high school in the city, probably in the world—but I’m not very tall. Okay, I’m not even slightly tall. I’m the opposite of tall. The shortest girl in my class and I always have been.

  My mom says that makes me more environmentally sound than everyone else, because I take up less space and use less resources. But that is no comfort when you try out for the basketball team and everyone laughs at you. “Hey, shorty,” they called.“You need a stepladder?”

  Back at Bradman Sports Middle School I’d been the star point guard, averaging six assists a game. Six! And my ten points a game wasn’t bad either. Tragically, none of that was on show at my high school basketball trial. I was one for twelve from the floor with only two assists. It was like there was Vaseline on the ball. And my strength, free throws? I didn’t make a single one.

  I wasn’t even selected for D-stream basketball. All because of one poxy day.

  As long as I could remember all I’ve ever wanted to do is play cricket and basketball. I couldn’t wait for the New Avalon Sports High tryouts. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t blitz in basketball. I’d actually worried that by the time I got to the final year of high school and had to pick one, I wouldn’t know what to do. But I might not get to make that choice. My next chance to try out for basketball wasn’t until the beginning of next year! So many months away . . . But I practiced whenever I could. Next time I was determined not to have a bad day.

  “Our basketball team is not stupid,” Rochelle said. “Anyway, none of us like her. But she is our captain. I can’t avoid her!”

  Fiorenze Burnham-Stone wasn’t liked by any of the girls at school because she’s stuck-up and won’t talk to the rest of us, but mostly because of her every- boy- will- like-you fairy. Even though she’s not that smart, or fun, or pulchy, or anything really—all the boys want to be with her.

  “I wasn’t at her house for fun, you know,” Rochelle said. “It was pep-talky and strategy and you know.”

  “Is her house as big as everyone says?”

  “Bigger,” Rochelle said. “I only talked to her mom ’cause there were all these books about fairies, but not supermarket-lite books, serious books, with not-fun covers and long titles. I was curious. You’re the one who always wants to know about fairies. You should talk to her parents. Her dad has written books about fairies. Whole books! They’re, like, world experts.”

  “Who believe in auras?”

  “I saw mine in her mom’s mirror. And this morning I had to blink and blink before I could see right, it was so thick.”

  “You don’t think it was just sleep in your eyes?”

  “That’s what I used to think, but now I know better.”

  “Really?”

  Rochelle nodded earnestly.

  “Do you think fairies can read our minds?” I asked.

  “No. They’re not psychic or anything.”

  “So auras, yes; mind-reading, no?”

  “Yup,” Rochelle replied, ignoring my mockage.

  “Hmmm, so how do they know if we’re mean or not?”

  “Don’t you know anything, Charlie?”

  I shrugged, not conceding ignorance, but not pretending I knew vast reams either.

  “They can see what we do. That’s all anyone needs to figure out if someone’s mean and doesn’t deserve a fairy. I mean, we can’t read Fiorenze’s mind, can we?”

  I shuddered. “The horror. Can you imagine? Who wants to go into her malodorous mind?”

  “Exactly,” Rochelle said, finishing off her ice cream.

  I wasn’t sure what was exactly about it; our not reading Stupid-Name’s mind didn’t have anything to do with whether fairies could read our minds. “My mom reckons it’s random—what fairy we have. No merit involved,” I said. “Why can’t we see them, anyway?”

  “Because they’re in- vis-i-ble. Why can’t we see dust mites?”

  “ ’Cause they’re really, really small. But, Ro, we can see them. Through a microscope.”

  “That’s cheating.”

  “Do you reckon we could see a fairy through a microscope?”

  “Please!”

  A car honked. Rochelle’s dad rolled down his car window and yelled at her, even though she’d already stood up. “Sure you don’t want a lift?”

  I shook my head. Even if I hadn’t been on my walking-only regimen, I wouldn’t have taken a lift with Rochelle’s horrendous father.

  “Still walking everywhere?” Rochelle asked as her dad honked again. “You really think it’s going to get rid of your fairy?”

  “Hope so.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Parking Fairy

  Days walking: 60

  Demerits: 4

  Conversations with Steffi: 5

  Doos clothing acquired: 0

  I have a parking fairy. I’m fourteen years old. I can’t drive. I don’t like cars and I have a parking fairy.

  Rochelle gets a clothes-shopping fairy and is always well attired; I get a parking fairy and always smell faintly of gasoline. How fair is that? I love clothes and shopping too. Yes, I have a fine family (except for my sister, ace photographer Nettles, and even she’s tolerable sometimes) and yes, Rochelle’s family is malodorous. She does deserve some kind of compensation. But why couldn’t I have, I don’t know, a good- hair fairy? Or, not even that doos, a loose-change-finding fairy. Lots of people have that fairy. Rochelle’s dad, Sandra’s cousin, Mom’s best friend’s sister. I’d wholly settle for a loose- change fairy.

  It can be arduous hanging out with Rochelle. She always looks doos in her perfect clothes. And sometimes I get bored going shopping with her all the time, even when her fairy is working for me. Sometimes I look forward to rainy days even though it means we have to play tennis indoors. Her fairy doesn’t work on rainy days.

  My fairy has no objection to rain. She just doesn’t do anything useful except make sure that whatever car I’m in finds the perfect parking spot. That’s why I’m walking home and not getting a lift from Rochelle’s dad: it’s all part of my campaign to get rid of my fairy. I’m starving her of opportunities to do her thing so she’ll want to go and be someone else’s fairy. Our Zora-Anne says this is the best method for getting rid of a fairy you don’t want. It’s how she got a charisma fairy after having been born with a never- getting- lost fairy. Our Z-A never went anywhere for five years so she couldn’t get lost and then one morning she woke up with a brand-new fairy, and before she knew it she was a star.

  It could happen to me too.

  So I walk. I could take the bus or the ferry or the lightrail, ’cause it’s not like they need to park, but somehow walking seems much more wearisome for a parking fairy. For two months now I have walked everywhere. I haven’t even ridden my bike or board. For all I know my fairy may be gone already. But I can’t be sure and there’ve been no signs of a new one.

  I’ve read everything in the library about fairies, especially anything that touches on the question of how to get rid of one, which hardly any of them do! Talking to Stupid- Pants Fiorenze’s parents was tempting. But all they’d have would be theories. That’s all anyone’s got— even the Fairy Studies experts—but there aren’t any that fit all the facts, and make sense, and can be proved.

  No one has ever seen a fairy. There are lots of fake photo sites, but, well, they’re clearly fake. Or they’re so indistinct and smudgy it
could be anything. Like Steffi said, some people don’t think it’s a fairy that makes sure that every car I’m in gets a parking spot. Some say they’re ghosts or some kind of spirit, and some people, like my dad and Steffi, don’t believe it’s anything but luck.

  My mom has many theories. She’s the one who figured out what my fairy was. I was still a baby. She’d had to go into town every day for a week because she was giving evidence in a court case (she’s a microbiologist) and Brianna, who used to look after me back then, was sick, so Mom had to bring me in and hand me to the lawyer’s associate to mind while she was on the stand. Anyway, every single day I was with her she got a parking spot in front of the courthouse in the only spot without a parking meter. It didn’t matter how late she was running or whether it was raining or anything. The only time it didn’t work was when Dad took a day off work to mind me. Mom ended up having to park practically where we lived and catch a bus in.

  “Bingo!” she thought. “My daughter has a parking fairy.” After that she put it to the test and found parking spots outside the Opera House, in the ranges, and right near the NACG on the first day of the Millennium Test. Incontrovertible proof that her first child had a parking fairy.

  And the beginning of my life in cars. I’m always being borrowed by Mom, or one of her sisters, or her best friend, Jan, or Nana and Papa, or just about everyone in our neighborhood, whenever they’re going to the doctor’s, or grocery shopping, or anywhere that parking might be a problem. Every single day of my life someone asks me to get in their doxhead car.

  I hate cars. I hate drivers. I hate their little squeals of joy when they find a parking spot.

  But mostly I hate my benighted parking fairy.

  CHAPTER 4

  New Avalon the Brave

  Days walking: 60

  Demerits: 4

  Conversations with Steffi: 5

  Doos clothing acquired: 0

  It was such a long walk home that I almost wished I’d accepted the lift from Rochelle. Then a bus got caught at the lights. There was hardly any traffic. I could cross against the lights, and if I ran flat out I’d make it to the next stop in time to catch it.

  Two months of walking . . . I considered whether I was tired enough to give my fairy a sniff of parking possibilities.

  Nope. I was not going to give in.

  The lights changed and the bus zoomed away. I crossed the street at my own pace, walking by the baseball diamond, where littlies in uniform were doing catching drills and their coach was yelling encouragement. I walked past the bus stop and someone said Charlie in my ear. I dropped my lucky cricket ball.

  “Gotcha!” It was Steffi, grinning. Black curls bouncing around his face.

  I grinned back, wondering if it would be totally weird if I reached out and touched one of his curls.

  He retrieved my ball, rubbed it on his shorts, though it was a long time since that ball had any shine, and then tossed it back to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, wishing I could think of something else to say, but all I could think of was his pulchiness.

  “Saw you from the bus, so I thought I’d surprise you. How’s it going?”

  “Not too horrendous,” I said, smiling. Especially not now that Steffi was here walking beside me.

  “That sounds grim.”

  I smiled. In the five—five!—conversations I’d had with Steffi since he’d started school last week, he’d used a mountain of words like “grim.” Words so injured your parents wouldn’t even use them. But somehow because he was saying them, they didn’t seem so torpid.

  “You heading home?” Steffi and his family had moved into Bradman Court, just around the corner from my place. Convenient, yes?

  “Yeah. Was shopping with Rochelle.”

  “Sounds like a ton of fun,” Steffi said sarcastically.

  One of our five conversations had covered the topic of how tedious shopping is, but I’d meant grocery shopping—not clothes shopping! He was still grinning, making his eyes even more intense than they already were. I’d thought they were light brown, but now they seemed to have gold streaks in them. Like a tiger’s or something. Not that I’d ever seen a tiger. Yum. (Steffi, not tigers— though I’m sure tigers are also a pleasure to look at as long as they’re not trying to rip your throat out or anything.)

  “So what does Rochelle need all those clothes for?” Steffi asked. “We have uniforms. Lots of uniforms! Ninety percent of the time we’re at school or at a meet.”

  “She needs clothes to go shopping in.” I shot a look at him; he was looking back at me.

  “Of course!” Steffi bounced from his left foot to his right, then skip- hopped in front of me.

  I giggled. “I tried on this top and it almost strangled me.”

  “Now that sounds more interesting. Did you kill it?” Steffi drew a finger across his throat. “You could have brained it with your cricket ball.”

  I spun the ball the other way. As if I would deliberately damage a cricket ball. I mean in a way that wouldn’t enhance its spinning. “No, but I shoulda. It was vicious! It even mooshed my spoffs out of place.”

  Steffi stared at me. “Your spoffs?”

  I gestured chestward, trying not to blush. “You know, spoffs.” Why had I told him about the top?

  “That’s what you call them? Spoffs?” Steffi asked. “You people are crazy.”

  What else would you call them? “Anyway, I wrestled the top into submission. I think its strangling days are over.”

  “Excellent.”

  I giggled again. No one says “excellent.” It’s even more injured than “grim.” And here was Steffi telling me “spoffs” was crazy. Hah!

  “What?” Steffi asked.

  He mock punched me (much lighter than Rochelle does) and I was so pleased he’d touched me, it was hard to keep from laughing. Then I worried that it was weird that I was happy that he’d just mock punched me. He’d probably do that with anyone he hung out with.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked again.

  “Nothing.”

  “You people are always laughing at me,” Steffi said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m not mad. It’s just so different here. It’s hard to fit in when we don’t even seem to talk the same, you know?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Have you ever lived anywhere but here?” he asked, looking all serious, which made him even more pulchy.

  “No. My family’s been here for ages. My parents and my grandparents and their parents were all born here.”

  “Hmm,” Steffi said. “Well, my city’s a lot different.”

  I nodded sympathetically. There’s no place in the world like New Avalon. It’s one of the biggest cities in the world for one, and we have more sports, arts, design, and science stars than anywhere else. More of our politicians make it to the capital, and we have the strongest economy of any city in the world. It must be hard coming here from somewhere else and realizing how obscure your home is.

  “And you Avaloids—”

  “Avaloners.”

  “Avaloners,” Steffi repeated. “Whatever. You act like I should know everything about your city and are suprised when I don’t know who some supposedly famous person is. You don’t believe me when I say that they’re not famous anywhere but here.”

  “Like who?” I asked.

  “Zora- Anne.”

  “You don’t know Our Z-A?!”

  “I do now, but I didn’t. No one back home’s ever heard of her. Also, what’s with the Our thing? I never heard anyone say that before. Why is she always called Our Zora-Anne and not just Zora- Anne? Do you only use it for famous people? Does anyone call you Our Charlie?”

  I laughed at the idea. “Maybe one day they will, but not quite yet.”

  “So only the famous people are Ours?”

  “Uh- huh. What do you call the famous people from your city?”

  “We just call them by their names. Stanislaw Leda is Stanislaw Leda, and Huntley du Sau
toy is Huntley du Sautoy. No ‘Our’ in front.”

  “Aren’t you proud of them?” I asked. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t know who those people were.

  “Well, sure. I mean, some. But others are lame. We don’t worship them like you Avaloids do.”

  “Avaloners,” I said. “We don’t worship Ours. We’re just proud of them.”

  Steffi looked like he was going to say something and then flicked his hands instead. I wondered if it was supposed to be like shrugging, or teeth sucking, or if it was more like eye cutting.

  “Is that why you said everyone outside New Avalon hates us? Because we call famous Avaloners ‘Ours’?”

  Steffi laughed. His whole face changed and he looked even more pulchy. I started laughing too even though I wasn’t sure what was so funny.

  “Not everyone hates you. Believe it or not some people don’t even think about New Avalon.”

  “But last week in Statistics you said that everybody hates us.” The whole classroom had exploded.

  “I did, didn’t I?” he said, grinning. “Sure set everyone off.”

  He had. Everyone told him to go back to where he came from, and demanded to know what kind of a name Stefan was anyhow. ( Just as well they didn’t know about his nickname.)

  Demerits had been handed out left, right, and center, but it had been a welcome distraction from calculating the shift in batting averages from the twenties to the present day. I have no love for statistics.

  “It’s true people hate New Avalon, but I mostly said it to annoy Freedom Hazal. He doesn’t seem to think anyone outside New Avalon has ever achieved anything.”

  “Freedom can be a bother.” Which was an understatement. Freedom’s good- skin fairy causes no amount of jealousy—fifteen years old and he’s never had a pimple, or blackhead, or the faintest hint of heat rash. He gloats about it too.

  But wasn’t it true that most famous people were from New Avalon? I decided not to point that out.

  “You still trying to get rid of your parking fairy?”

  I nodded, pleased that he’d remembered. “It is my life’s mission.”

  “I thought getting on the basketball team was your life’s mission?”