A whole hour’s work erased one demerit. How fair was that?! I wisely did not share this thought.
“This is your quadrant.” She handed me a map. “Get rid of all garbage, weeds, and detritus. You are to make your quadrant beautiful. Your assigned partner hasn’t arrived yet. So you will have to work even harder.”
She indicated a pile of gloves, one of yellow fluoro vests, another of burlap sacks, and the last of gardening forks. “Take one of each of those and four sacks. One is for glass and plastic recyclables, one for paper and cardboard, one for compostable materials, and one for nonrecyclables.”
“Right,” I said. “Thanks.” I tried on some gloves for size. None fit. I took the least ludicrously large ones. Two more people wandered in. Adults. The yellow-haired lady started barking the same instructions at them.
I picked up a sack. It was bigger than me. I stuffed one of the vests and a fork into it and then grabbed three more sacks.
“Put the vest on now!” the woman yelled. I turned around. She was staring right at me. “Do not take it off ! Not until your work is finished! Go!”
“Sorry,” I muttered, but she had turned back to her new offenders. I fished out its yellow splendiferousness and slipped it on, then stumbled away.
My quadrant was outlined in red. I looked around for a street sign. Diviya Street. My quadrant was bordered by Diviya, Eastern, Hillside, and Nelson. With my usual luck I’d been given a section that was about as far as you could be from the main gates. I headed off at a jog, passing the huge jacaranda, eucalyptus, and flame trees that surrounded Our Diviya’s grave. She had wanted to be surrounded by the sound of birds. I wondered if she’d considered the possibility of bird droppings.
Two public service workers wearing the same brilliant yellow vests as me were on their knees scrubbing the marble monolith erected in her honor. I didn’t recognize them, not from Sports. I hoped they were Our Diviya fans.
I didn’t recognize any of the other workers in yellow vests. Most looked older than high school students. One of them resembled Our Little Jo, then I remembered that she’d been caught driving drunk. Maybe it was Our Little Jo. I looked away: vastly undoos to be caught staring at an Our.
As soon as I got to my quadrant, I started ripping up the weeds surrounding the nearest grave and hurling them into a sack. The stone was tilted and illegible. Most of the headstones around me were no better, their engravings worn down by wind and rain.
I visualized all the demerits peeling away as I dropped weeds into one sack, broken glass into another, and sodden paper cups into the third. Any minute, any day, any week now, my fairy was going to be gone.
The work wasn’t that hard. There wasn’t much rubbish and last night’s rain made the weeds less stubborn than they might have been. I kept my back dead straight, bending from the waist, holding my abdominal muscles tight, and got into an easy, soothing rhythm. After a while I wasn’t thinking about anything except weeds in first sack, plastic in second, soggy cardboard in third, nonrecyclables in fourth. No thoughts of basketball, or Stupid-Name, or my doxhead fairy. Except for the occasional used condom (touching one—even through thick gardening gloves—is erky!) interrupting my zenlike calm, it was delicious.
My partner showed up fifteen minutes late.
She went straight to the other end of the quadrant and started working without saying hello or even nodding.
Fiorenze Burnham-Stone.
Why? Just because we went to the same school didn’t mean they had to put us together! And what had she gotten a demerit for? Holding hands with Steffi? I hoped so.
We worked silently for an hour. But I couldn’t recapture my zenlike weed and rubbish sorting. My mind kept spinning into unpleasant Steffi- and- Fiorenze- keeping- me- from- playing- basketball- with- their- evil- mind- control- over- my- fairy spirals. Even though that didn’t make any sense. Why did she want Steffi? She’d never liked a boy before. Why start now?
Because he was the most pulchritudinous boy I had ever seen. Funny too. Talking with him was as fun as talking with Rochelle. Of course Fiorenze would like him too. Wouldn’t anyone?
“Are you thirsty?” Stupid- Name asked.
I blinked. I hadn’t realized she’d gotten so close. “What?”
“I brought some electrolytes.”
I grunted and accepted the clear bottle she pulled out of her backpack. I’d stupidly forgotten to refill my own and had only half a bottle of plain water.
“Keep it,” she said. No doubt she didn’t want the bottle back after I’d infected it.
“Thanks.”
“Gorgeous night,” she said, standing up, stretching, and looking at the browny-yellow-gray sky. “What a view.”
I stood up, rubbed my lower back, sore despite my abdomen- tightening precautions. She was right. I’d been so intent on demerit erasure I hadn’t noticed how far up the hill we were. You could see all the way to our school with its spread-out buildings, ovals, cricket ground, nets, and courts, past the inky river with brilliantly lit boats, to the city lights with glowing blimps floating overhead, and the blackness of the ocean beyond. You could even see some stars.
“From up here even the traffic looks gorgeous.”
I grunted again. Why was she telling me? Fiorenze didn’t make conversation. I sucked down half the bottle. I was thirsty. “Thanks,” I said.
“It was nothing.”
It would probably be rude of me to agree with her.
“So, ah,” I said. “I’m coming over to your place Sunday.”
“Yes.”
Neither of us said anything. I drank more of the electro -lytes, put the bottle down, and picked up my gardening fork.
“Because you want to get rid of your fairy?” she said.
“Yup.” If that was news to her, then not only did she not talk to anyone at school, she didn’t listen either.
“Me too . . . ,” she muttered.
“You what?” I asked, not sure I’d heard her right. She couldn’t have said what I thought she said.
“Nothing,” Fiorenze said, pulling her gloves back on. “I was just wondering how that was going.”
“How what’s going?” I bent down and picked up a shard of glass.
“Getting rid of your fairy.”
“Slowly.” But at least doing this service was making my mission easier. I’d be getting rid of my demerits as fast or faster than I accrued them.
“You should try to get a look at Tamsin’s book,”
Fiorenze said.
“Who’s Tamsin?”
“My mom.”
Figured that her name would be as torpid as her daughter’s. “She has a book about fairies?”
“The Ultimate Fairy Book. It has all her research and theories, everything she’s learned.”
“The Ultimate Fairy Book?” I repeated, wondering what kind of person would name their own book Ultimate. “I thought your dad was the one with all the books.”
“Mmm,” Fiorenze said, “but Tamsin’s the one with the proper book. It has everything there is to know about fairies in it.”
“Is there a copy in the library?” Maybe I could skip going to Stupid-Name’s house.
Fiorenze looked at me as if I were insane. “Tamsin has never shown her book to anyone. She keeps it locked up in a metal box. She wrote it by hand.”
I goggled. “She what?”
“Too easy to steal otherwise. This way there’s only one copy in the world.”
“But doesn’t she want to publish it?”
“Yes. But not till it’s finished.”
Her mom sounded like a crazy person. “Why would she show it to me then?” I said.
“She won’t. But if she leaves the room for a bit or the box is open, you should look at it.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “You want me to pry into your mom’s secret book?”
“I . . . No. You’re right. I was just . . . Never mind. I guess we should get back to work.”
She bent down t
o the weeding. I did the same, wondering why she was being so talkative. Why had she told me about her mom’s book?
I wished I was anywhere but here. Preferably on a basketball court, shooting effortless three-pointers, while the basketball coaches looked on and realized their terrible, terrible mistake.
CHAPTER 12
Worst Sister Ever
Days walking: 62
Demerits: 8 - 3 = 5
Conversations with Steffi: 7
Doos clothing acquired: 0
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 3
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid-Name’s company: 2.75
By the time I got home the door to Nettles’s room was closed and no light seeped out. Mom and Dad were in bed reading. They called out their hellos and good nights. I returned them trying not to sound as tired as I felt. I stumbled into my room, dumped my backpack, tried to feel pleased about the three demerits I’d just wiped out, then plugged my tablet into the big screen on my desk, and went straight to the PR homework, skipping my mail and all other temptations.
I had to come up with likely (and tough) questions (at least fifteen) at a press conference after a PR disaster and answer them with the most positive spin possible. I hadn’t even read through the five scenarios yet. It’d be easiest to do the first one. But I was still burned from the test we’d been given back in middle school where it turned out the last question was an instruction not to do the test at all. Like most of the class I’d just started doing it and scribbled away until I was disturbed by the sound of giggling coming from all the smarty- pants (including Rochelle) who’d read it the whole way through.
In the first scenario you were captain of the New Avalon XI, who’d enforced the follow on and then lost. I checked the last scenario: a cyclist testing positive for enhancers after taking out the yellow jersey in the Tour. Ouch.
So okay, there was no Do not do this test trick. Deciding to stick with my strengths, I chose the cricket option: captain of the NA XI. I started searching for transcripts of follow-on loss press conferences and found several. I clicked on the oldest one.
“I can’t believe that’s homework.”
I jumped. Or I would have if I’d been standing. When I turned to tell Nettles to quit it, a bright light went off in my eyes. Nettles capturing my soul. Again. She doesn’t go anywhere without her camera.
“Nettles! You scared me. Put your camera away!”
Nettles grinned, her face matching that of the monkeys wielding knives emblazoned on her T-shirt. She peered at my tablet and the press conference I’d found. “You’re just going to copy that, aren’t you?” she asked, taking a photo. “Where’s the creativity in that?” Nettles is very large on creativity.
“It’s PR,” I told her. “There’s no creativity in PR. It’s all spin, spin, spin. You just give it your all, take advantage of your opportunities, step up to the next level, make a 110 percent effort, and at the end of the day the best team wins because champions will out. Stop taking photos of me! It’s late. The flash hurts my eyes.”
Nettles teeth-sucked. “PR is also a compulsory at Arts, you know. And it’s very creative. Much originality. Sports is entirely without originality. You’re all learning to do something that’s been done before over and over and over. Bounce the ball, hit the ball, throw the ball. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
“You’re only twelve,” I said just to annoy her. “What would you know?”
“Like fourteen’s so old. And I know heaps about originality! More than you ever will!”
Originality is Nettles’s other religion. I couldn’t be bothered arguing with her about whether sports are worthwhile or not. I got bored with that conversation years ago. If my little sister couldn’t understand the joy of your body in motion, of making a cricket ball do exactly what you wanted it to, of going under someone’s guard and bending the point of your foil into their chest, of hearing the swish of a basket that is all net, then there was nothing I could say to explain it to her.
Nettles thought my school was an insanely strict nightmare run by sadistic uptight prison guards; I thought it was heaven.
“That’s vastly doos for you, Nettles. Yay Arts and all of its creativity and originality.” I yawned. Not to raz her, but because I was so exhausted I couldn’t not. She snapped a photo. I’m sure my tonsils looked gorgeous.
“I won the Arts Junior PR special event promotion,” she said in her it’s-no- big- deal voice, which always means that it’s a huge deal.
“You did?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
“Results were announced this morning.”
I gave her a much- lighter- than- Rochelle punch. “Congratulations! What did you win?”
“Full credit. Family pass to the show. And my counselor says I should think about making PR one of my majors when I get to Arts High.”
“Doos.”
Nettles shrugged. “I don’t want to be a PR hack, explaining why Our Vida uses elephant dung instead of clay to a room full of reporters who still think the word ‘poo’ is funny. Not joyous.”
“The word ‘poo’ is funny.” I yawned again. “I thought you said Arts PR was a vastness of creativity and originality?”
She shrugged again. “Anything can be creative and original.”
“Even sports?”
“Except sports. Are you going to come?”
“Come?”
“To the show? It’s a family pass.”
“What show is it?”
Nettles teeth-sucked again. “Monkey Knife Fight. It’s only their monstrous comeback. Sold out decades ago. They’re fourth- row tickets. Right in the center.”
“Doos seats,” I said.
“So, you coming?”
“When is it?”
“Wednesday after next. Eight o’clock.”
What would I be doing in two Wednesdays? Let’s see . . . public service. And after that catching up on homework. Or, I could still be walking back from whatever oval I was playing on. Assuming I was playing. I might run up enough demerits to be off my teams and have my coaches hating me even more. I started to say I couldn’t. Nettles was giving me her full-bore, eyes- cut, nostrils-flared, teeth-bared glare. I sighed. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll try?” She was so cranky she wasn’t even taking pictures.
“Well, I’m kind of—”
“If you weren’t being so stupid about your fairy you could come. I don’t even have a fairy! I’d love to have a parking fairy!”
This time I yawned so hard my jaw cracked. I winced and rubbed it. “Nettles, I’m tired. It’s late, and I have lots more homework to do. Trying is the best I can give you.”
“Don’t then. I only wanted you to come for Mom and Dad. But you’re too selfish to ever think of anyone but yourself. Forget about it.” She hissed and then left the room in an angry but quiet stomp (mustn’t wake Mom and Dad). Her closing of the door was the quietest slam possible, but it rang in my ears as if it had been the loudest.
I turned back to my unoriginal and uncreative assignment. By the time I’d cut and pasted and reworded and reordered the questions off the transcript, my eyes were so tired the words on the screen blurred into each other.
By five a.m. I’d answered all the questions but had barely made word- count. I fell into bed bone- tired, brain-tired, fairy- tired, and sister- guilty.
Microseconds later my alarm went off: six a.m. I pried my eyes open with my fingers; they were glued shut with sleep. If the gunk in the corners of my eyes was bad fairy aura, then I was in for a vastly horrendous day. I rolled out of bed and into the shower before I realized I hadn’t taken my pajamas off. I’d worked off three demerits last night at public service.
It was not enough.
CHAPTER 13
Steffi
Days walking: 63
Demerits: 5
Conversations with Steffi: 7
Doos clothing acquired: 0
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 3
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid-Name’s company: 2.75
Steffi was outside, sitting on my front steps, bouncing coins off the back of his hand as if they were jacks. I shut the front door behind me, my heart beating ridiculously fast. He pocketed the coins and stood up.
“Heya, Charlie. Okay if I walk to school with you?”
“Sure. Is something up? Where’s Fiorenze?”
“Oh,” he said, looking almost embarrassed, “we sort of broke up.”
“Really?” I asked, having to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from screaming with joy.
“Uh-huh.”
“How about that?” I said, trying to think of something less torpid to say. I was smiling so big my cheeks were beginning to hurt, but Steffi was here, at my house.
“Shouldn’t we get going?”
I looked at my watch. I was running late. “Yup. Sorry. Didn’t get a lot of sleep.” I wondered why he hadn’t rung the doorbell to hurry me up.
Steffi slipped his backpack over both arms, jumped down the steps, and did three forward handsprings, then two backward, before landing on his feet with a big grin.
“Show- off,” I said, cartwheeling across the lawn.
We smacked palms. Steffi shook out his arms. “That felt brilliant.”
I grinned. It did. “Run to school?”
“You’re on,” he said, taking off.
I caught up with him at the lights. “Took your time,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not awake yet.” I brought my foot up behind me to stretch out my quads. Steffi did the same.
“You know what I like best about school?” Steffi asked.
“There’s something you like about school?” I asked, switching legs. “I thought it was all too weird for you.”
“I love that everyone’s into sports, that no one even talks about loving it ’cause it’s too obvious. It’s the air we breathe.” He took in a deep breath.“At my old school there weren’t that many sports types.”
I hadn’t realized he’d gone to a mixed school. In New Avalon mixed schools were only for the untalented. The light changed and we bolted across the street. His legs were longer than mine—whose aren’t?—but my fasttwitch muscles are not too shabby. I passed him in the middle of the block.
How to Ditch Your Fairy Page 6