“I guess.” Though Ro’s cheek was kind of an accident. We continued our trek toward Fiorenze’s house, putting the malodorous Danders Anders out of our thoughts.
CHAPTER 17
Tamsin Burnham- Stone
Days walking: 67
Demerits: 4
Conversations with Steffi: 8
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 16
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid- Name’s company: 2.75
Kidnappings thwarted: 1
Fiorenze Burnham- Stone’s house was ginormous.
I’d heard the rumors, obviously. After her foul- and grossly-unfair fairy, and the fact that her parents had made no effort to lose their accent, the hugeness of their house was the most talked-about thing about the Burnham-Stone family. But I hadn’t realized quite how big.
As we walked up the long drive under an archway of flame trees, the house that came into view wasn’t simply big, it took up the whole block. It was five stories high, made of pink marble, and surrounded by an ornate garden with columns and arches and fountains. The whole thing sat at the top of the cliff with ocean views on one side and city views on the other.
“Fairy dung!”
“Come on, Charlie, I told you she had a big place.”
“This is not a big place. This is a castle, a coliseum, a cathedral. The Sports Museum isn’t as big as this place. It’s the same size as school! I say again: fairy dung! Are her family insane?”
“Possibly.” Rochelle grinned. “But they know a plenitude about fairies and they’re going to help you.”
I wondered if they really could.
I caught the smell of salt. The smell brought a rush of memories: days surfing, snorkeling, doing laps in the bars, sand castles, beach volleyball. I tried to remember the last time I’d been to the beach. Definitely not since I’d started at Sports. That made me a little sad.
“Can you smell the ocean?” I asked.
“Yeah, isn’t it fantabulous? When’s the last time we went to the beach?”
“I was just thinking that! Let’s go next school break. After my fairy’s gone.”
“That’s the spirit!” Rochelle punched me. I winced. She ran up the front steps and rang the bell. The door opened instantly.
It was Fiorenze. “Hi, Rochelle. Hi, Charlie,” she said. “I saw you coming up the drive.”
We both said hi back. Then we all stood there awkwardly for what felt like hours.
“Oh,” Fiorenze said at last, “come in.” She opened the door wider, revealing the biggest foyer I’d ever seen. The floor was made of swirling marble. There were two giant curving staircases and the biggest chandelier I’d ever seen.
“Oh,” Fiorenze said again. “It is kind of big, isn’t it?” She made it sound like that was a really bad thing.
“Sure is. You must have like five rooms of your own!”
“She has two,” said a strange- accented woman, walking toward me and holding out her hand.
She was pulchritudinous. No, not pulchy exactly, stylish. She was the same height as her daughter. Her skin color was a little darker, with more red. She had the biggest eyes I’d ever seen. Her hair was close cropped, making them look even bigger. And New Avalon is full of big- eyed pulchies. It was hard to believe she wasn’t an Our.
But to be an Our requires not just fame—you have to be a proper New Avaloner. She’d only lived here ten years or so. Not long enough to lose her accent. Not that a Fairy Studies professor would ever become famous, not unless they captured a fairy or something.
“I’m Tamsin,” she said. “You must be Charlotte.”
I shook her hand and didn’t tell her that I hate being called Charlotte. I couldn’t quite imagine her calling me Charlie.
“Hello, Rochelle. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks, Tamsin.” Rochelle spoke as if calling her by her first name was perfectly natural. No way could I call this goddess by her first name.
“Are you girls hungry? Thirsty?”
“No, thank you,” Rochelle said. I shook my head. I was feeling too awe-full to speak.
“Well, then to business it is. Darling, show Rochelle the new additions to the basketball court. Didn’t you say she’s an A-streamer now?”
I tried not to think jealous thoughts. Even if I’d made B-stream I couldn’t have replaced Elena; I’m just a little point guard.
Fiorenze looked down. “Oh, I thought we—”
“See you later, darling.” She turned to me, swiveling elegantly. I wondered if she’d ever been a dancer. “This way,” she said as if her words were part of the same movement.
Following her, I was convinced that if anyone could get rid of my loathsome fairy, it was Tamsin Burnham-Stone.
CHAPTER 18
Two Fairies
Days walking: 67
Demerits: 4
Conversations with Steffi: 8
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 16
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid- Name’s company: 2.75
Kidnappings thwarted: 1
Dr. Burnham- Stone led me up the right-hand curving marble staircase and down a long corridor that wasn’t lined with family portraits, though I could imagine them.
“Have you considered that you might have the fairy you have for a reason?”
“Um,” I said. To make sure my blood is full of carbon monoxide? Stupid cars.
“Some people believe that everyone gets the fairy they deserve. And that changing your fairy will create chaos.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” I said. I did not deserve my fairy! “How do you mean chaos?”
“I mean what I say,” she said grimly. “Chaos.”
That wasn’t any answer. “Yes, but what do you mean by chaos?”
She opened a door and led me into a large room. I was startled to see myself a hundred times over. The walls were lined with mirrors. I automatically straightened, pulling my shoulders back, and flattened my core muscles. The result of years of fencing lessons in front of mirrors.
Dr. Burnham-Stone put her finger over her lips and gestured for me to sit down. But there weren’t any chairs, only cushions and loads of books in precarious piles. At the other end of the room was a metal box with a huge padlock on it.
I wondered if that was her secret fairy manifesto! Fiorenze hadn’t been kidding about it being locked up. The padlock was the biggest, most unbreakable in the universe. How on earth did Fiorenze expect me to get a peek at the book?
I sank cross- legged onto the nearest cushion, keeping my stomach muscles tight and my back straight. Fiorenze’s mom sat down opposite me with a notebook in hand. She stared at me as if I were a bug she was figuring out how to kill.
I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I stare back? That seemed rude. I rested the backs of my hands on my knees like I was going to start meditating. Hardly! I hate meditating.
Dr. Burnham-Stone kept staring at me. I wondered if Fiorenze was adopted. Fiorenze’s eyes were smaller, her nose bigger, and her hair had tighter curls (when it wasn’t braided, that is). Maybe she favored her father. I wondered where he was. Wasn’t he a fairy expert too?
I felt a trickle of sweat roll down my spine, which was crazy because the room wasn’t hot. Wasn’t cold either. I wished she’d say something.
I shifted position just a hair because my calves were aching. Her eyes narrowed.
“Must not move,” I told myself, which made me want to move.
She hadn’t moved a muscle (except the glaring ones). I couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. I wondered what she was seeing when she stared at me. Could she actually see my fairy? Did she have a fairy that let you see other people’s fairies? Surely if that was true she’d be famous. I mean, how doos would that be? Everyone would want her to stare at them and at their newborn babies. Maybe she could even tell what fairy they had in the womb.
“Why are you staring at me?” I asked
, even though I knew I shouldn’t, but she was hardly going to give me a demerit, was she? “Are you trying to scare the fairy away?”
Dr. Burnham-Stone snorted.
My legs started to go numb. I am not a fan of staying in one position for more than a few seconds. Hence the not liking of meditating. Another trickle of sweat ran down my spine.
My left cheek was itchy.
And my shoulder.
Since when did shoulders get itchy?
“Can you see my fairy, then?” I asked. “Are you memorizing it?”
“Something like that,” she said, opening up her notebook and scribbling in it.
I crossed my legs the other way and shook out my arms. Dr. Burnham- Stone kept scribbling, glancing up at me and frowning, and then scribbling and scribbling and scribbling some more.
I wondered what time it was. I hoped it wasn’t too late. I had a vast amount of homework to get through and it was going to take a couple of hours to get home. Unless her scribbling was her figuring out how to get rid of my fairy, in which case I could go by bus and it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes or so (traffic depending).
She closed her notebook and stood up. “Come here,” she said, leading me to the corner of the room, where there were mirrors on two sides. I stood up and followed her. “Stand there,” she said, pointing to the corner of the room.
I stood with mirrors on two sides of me while she dragged two portable ones to make a third and fourth wall around me. Millions of reflections of myself over and over and over again.
“What do you see?”
“Um, me?”
“Look closer.”
I looked closer, staring at myself multiplied into infinity. But I couldn’t see anything unusual. I just looked like me.
“Can you see your fairy’s aura?”
“Um.”
“Do you see anything hovering around your edges?”
“I can see you.”
“Look closer.”
I did. I could see the tiny faint hairs on my face. Were teeny little hairs fairies? Or did she mean the freckles on my nose? How come no one else in my family had freckles? Not even Nettles, who’s a shade or two lighter than me. Not fair. There didn’t seem to be any fairy aura caught in any of my freckles.
“Relax your eyes. Let yourself see!”
I tried. But I just saw even more Charlies.
“Um,” I said.
Dr. Burnham- Stone frowned. “You need to relax your eyes. Stare at one point. Stare at your nose until your vision blurs.”
I stared. My nose blurred. My head started to ache and then something shifted, my nose unblurred. And there was an arc of smudgy light around me. As well as a brilliant one around Dr. Burnham-Stone.
“See?”
I did see. “Yours is golden; mine is blue and white.”
“Yes. Except that you have two auras, not one.”
“So one of them’s mine and the other is my fairy’s?”
“No,” she said, as if I were a little dense. “They both belong to fairies. One is your original fairy’s. See the thicker white aura? The thin blue one belongs to your proto- fairy. It’s waiting for the parking fairy to leave before it emerges fully.”
“Two fairies?” Was that even possible?
“Yes, two. Though it’s more like one and a fraction. Your parking fairy is definitely weakening. See how much less bright it is than mine?”
I nodded.
“Continue walking. Your parking fairy is almost gone. But you must also encourage the proto- fairy. Do things that will strengthen it.”
“Really?” I said, staring at the white aura. It wasn’t nearly as bright as her fairy’s aura, but it was still considerably thicker and brighter than the proto- fairy’s blue smudge. “But isn’t there something you can do to snuff out the parking fairy right now?”
“It’s better to finish the work you’ve begun,” she said, sounding a bit like Coach Ntini.
Dr. Burnham- Stone, I decided, was excellent at not answering questions.
“What’s my proto- fairy, then?”
Dr. Burnham-Stone shook her head. “That you must discover for yourself.”
“How?”
She smiled. “You will find out.”
“Can you give me something to read about proto- fairies? Will I get a hint about what it is? What if it’s worse than the parking fairy?” I didn’t really think she’d hand over the Ultimate Fairy Book, but it was worth a shot.
She shook her head. “Little is known about them.”
“What do you know, then?”
Dr. Burnham-Stone cut her eyes at me.
“I’m just asking,” I protested. “How can I encourage it if I don’t know what it is?”
“A proto- fairy is exactly what it sounds like. A fairy that isn’t fully formed yet. You don’t need to know any more than that.”
I disagreed. I thought I needed to know heaps more than that. What kind of a scholar didn’t want to teach you stuff?
CHAPTER 19
a Surprise
Days walking: 67
Demerits: 4
Conversations with Steffi: 8
Game suspensions: 1
Public service hours: 16
Hours spent enduring Fiorenze
Stupid- Name’s company: 2.75
Kidnappings thwarted: 1
When I finally got home I was so wrapped up in my thoughts about fairies—why couldn’t Dr. Burnham- Stone tell me how to get rid of the parking fairy right away? Why was she so vague? What was my proto- fairy?—that I didn’t notice Steffi sitting on the front steps of my house, grinning at me, until I was almost treading on him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, even though I couldn’t help being pleased to see him. “Fiorenze didn’t want to hang out with you?”
Steffi waved his arms about in a most undoos way. Almost like he felt guilty for the way he kept mucking me around. Always with Fiorenze and her stupid fairy at school, but running after me otherwise. It wasn’t fair.
“Let’s not talk about that,” he said. “So how’d it go?” he asked. “Is the fairy gone?”
“How’d you know where I was?” I sat down beside him, but not so close we were touching. I didn’t trust him. I knew he’d be back with Stupid- Name the minute he saw her at school. “Stup—I mean, Fiorenze told you?” I hated to think about them together, talking about stuff— about me.
“Uh-huh,” he said, looking down. “She mentioned it. What did Tamsin say?”
He called her Tamsin too? “That I have two fairies now.”
“Two? Double the fun, eh?”
I looked at him. He was smiling. The warmth of it made me smile too. I wished I could stop liking him. “Yup. One of them’s the parking fairy. She says it’s getting weaker. Isn’t that doos? But she also says I have to keep walking everywhere to make it go away fully.”
“Bummer.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t wholly sure what “bummer” meant.
“So what’s your other fairy, then?” He shifted a little closer to me and I got this weird sensation like I could feel where he was even though we weren’t actually touching. Tingly. I told myself to shift away, but my body didn’t listen.
“I don’t know. Tamsin says it’s a proto- fairy.” If I moved a tiny fraction of a millimeter closer we would be touching, which would be bad.
“proto- fairy? What’s a proto- fairy?”
“A fairy that isn’t a whole fairy yet. I think.”
“Do you have any idea what yours might be?”
“No.” My body felt like it was somehow leaning toward Steffi’s even though I was holding myself so rigid and still my muscles were starting to twitch. It was the opposite of how I’d felt holding still to keep Dr. Burnham- Stone from glaring at me. That was on purpose holding still; this was not.
“Do you have any ideas? Anything you’ve gotten better at lately? Any luck increases?”
I snorted. “Hah! Luck increases! Try t
he opposite. My life is all demerits and public service.” And liking a boy who acts as if he likes me except when he’s with the girl I hate most in the whole world.
“Grim.”
“She says that I have to do stuff that will encourage the proto- fairy to become an actual fairy.”
“Makes sense,” Steffi said. “But how can you do that if you don’t know what it is?”
“I see you’ve spotted the problem.” I sighed.
“Maybe your other fairy is a worry fairy?”
“A worry fairy?”
“Your forehead’s all scrunched up.” Steffi touched his thumb to my forehead to smooth my frown. I held my breath.“Too much worry. Must be your new fairy messing with you.” He moved his hand away, but I felt warmth where his thumb had been. Almost like it was still there.
“Worry fairies would take worries away, not add them,” I said softly.
“Let me be your worry fairy, then.” Steffi grabbed at the air just in front of my face. “This is me removing a worry. And here’s another one. And another. And . . .”
Steffi’s face was so close to mine that I felt his breath against my cheeks. I could smell the coconutty soap he’d used and the faint salt of his sweat.
Then I felt his lips against mine. Warm and soft. My lips buzzed, a tingle shot all the way down to my toes.
Steffi shifted, but he was still so close I could see the almost invisible hairs on his cheeks and the tiny half-moon scar in his left eyebrow. I’d never noticed it before.
“Oh,” I whispered.
Steffi kissed me again.
“Oh,” I thought. “More kisses. Bubbly warm kisses.”
“Kisses,” I said, then my brain spasmed. “Kisses!”
I jumped up. “Steffi! You can’t do that!”
He stared up at me as if I’d spontaneously combusted. “You don’t like kissing?”
“No! I mean yes. I mean, aargh!” How could he be kissing Fiorenze one minute and me the next? “Kissing is wholly against the rules.”
“But we’re not at school.”
“Steffi! It doesn’t matter. It means instant expulsion. EXPULSION. Doesn’t matter where or when you get caught. Anyone could see us here!”
How to Ditch Your Fairy Page 9