by Amanda Ashby
“Well, I’m pleased that at least one of my daughters is happy,” her mom continued as she pulled out into the traffic and started to drive down King Avenue.
“Are you sure there’s something wrong with Meg? I mean, the girl loves sharks—maybe it’s just part of her weirdly gruesome nature?”
“I don’t think so,” her mom said as she turned left onto Meadow Lane and slowed down so that an old woman could shuffle across the street. “I tried to talk to her again after breakfast, but all she would say was that she likes things the way they are and she doesn’t want anything to change.”
“Yes, well, when change involves selling the house and moving to Montana, I tend to agree with her,” Sophie said as she reached up and touched the lucky guitar pick that was hanging from her neck. “But some change is good change. I mean, things are okay now, but who’s to say that something can’t happen to make life even better?”
Sophie’s mom started to smile. “Oh, honey, you’ve got no idea how happy I am to hear you say that. I mean, I know I was stuck in a rut for a long time, but I’ve finally managed to see that sometimes good things can happen when you very least expect them to.”
“Exactly.” Sophie gave an empathetic nod of her head, since it was fair to say that six weeks ago she never expected to become a djinn or to find out the truth about her missing dad. But now, she was almost on the verge of changing their entire life. And considering the extra attention Sophie’s mom was putting into her appearance, not to mention how happy she was lately, it was almost like she knew that Sophie’s dad was on the brink of coming home.
And...but whatever Sophie was about to think next was lost as her mom pulled into Mr. Rivers’s driveway and Sophie caught sight of Jonathan Tait standing outside his house next door, looking adorable in a pair of baggy jeans and Sophie’s favorite apple-green hoodie, which made his golden curls look even more golden.
A happy sigh escaped her lips. Even better, the minute Jonathan saw her, his eyes widened in surprise and he started to jog over to the car. Sophie immediately wished that her flat blonde hair wasn’t quite so flat.
“And actually, while we’re on the subject of things changing...” Her mom stopped the car and gave an awkward cough. “There is something I wanted to talk to you about. And you’re not listening to me, are you?”
“Huh?” Sophie blinked as she dragged her gaze away from Jonathan for a moment and turned back to her mom. “Did you say something?”
“Never mind.” Her mom shot her a rueful smile. “I know better than to try to talk to you when there’s a cute boy around. Go and say hello to him, and I’ll let Max know we’re here.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Sophie pushed open the car door. “You’re the best.”
“I know,” her mom agreed before narrowing her eyes. “Is your hair looking bouncier than normal?”
“Er, of course not. I’ve just been using some new conditioner.” Sophie crossed her fingers as she quickly scrambled out of the car to greet Jonathan.
“Hey, Mrs. Campbell.” Jonathan nodded as Sophie’s mom walked toward the front of Mr. Rivers’s house. Then he turned back to Sophie and smiled. “So I guess you got roped into babysitting Ryan the biter again. Ouch.”
“I know. It was kind of a last-minute thing,” Sophie explained, returning his smile and valiantly resisting the urge to push one of his blond curls out of his eyes. “So how was basketball?”
“It was pretty cool.” Jonathan nodded. “Though if I’d known you were going to be hanging out here all afternoon, I wouldn’t have arranged to go to Cooper’s house to play Halo. I could’ve hung with you instead. Man, here he is now to pick me up.”
“Maybe I’ll still be here when you get back?” Sophie said in a hopeful voice, savoring the fact that Jonathan wanted to hang out with her. There were just some things that a girl never got sick of hearing.
“Sounds good to me,” he agreed as he gave her one final goofy grin and hurried over to the car, where Cooper Mitchell was waiting for him. Sophie waited until he was gone before she turned and walked toward Mr. Rivers’s house, a dreamy smile still on her face.
An hour later Sophie wasn’t smiling quite so much. Ryan had already asked for three snacks and had made Sophie crawl on her hands and knees to look for a piece of missing LEGO—which, when she’d finally wished for it, had appeared in her hand smelling very much like the small pond at the back of the garden. Judging from the surprised (and disappointed) expression on Ryan’s face, Sophie realized he must’ve put it there on purpose. Little beast. That’s when he started throwing marbles at her.
In the end, the only way she had managed to stop him was by turning herself invisible and taking the marbles from him. That had caused him to cry so much that she had conjured up the latest Guitar Hero game for him to play with. Even then, he hadn’t said thank you. But at least, judging by the noise coming from the guest room, Sophie might be able to have some time to herself.
She collapsed onto the large leather sofa. It was nothing like the lumpy one at her mom’s house, which had a big stain where Meg had once spilled some ketchup, as well as shredded sides, courtesy of Mr. Jaws.
She ignored the blast of music coming from upstairs as she wondered how Malik was getting on with his lead. More importantly, she wondered how long it would be before she heard back from him. As a positive person she wanted to believe it would be within the next few minutes. Of course, as someone who had known Malik for the last six weeks, she realized it could also be considerably longer. His jaunt to France being just the latest example.
Had she mentioned how much she hated waiting? Normally she would’ve called Kara or Harvey, but they were both busy. And after what had happened in the basement that last time she was here, exploring the house wasn’t something she was eager to do. Which left her with homework.
She reluctantly flipped open her Spanish book and was just about to start when she glanced out the window just in time to see a large white catering van pulling up the Taits’ driveway. Sophie gazed at it with interest as a smart-looking woman holding a large black folder got out. She was quickly followed by a fat man with a bunch of helium balloons. They must be there about the anniversary party.
The anniversary party that she was going to!
Sophie grinned with excitement as she thought about the gorgeous outfit that she and Kara had spotted at the mall last week (the one that was now hanging in Sophie’s closet, since that’s what eleven-year-old girls with magical powers tended to do). Then she realized that, with all the excitement, she hadn’t had a chance to see her dress and new shoes together. She closed her eyes and wished for them both to appear.
She grinned as they hovered in front of her like a floating mannequin. Not just because they were helping her levitation abilities, but because that last time she had been babysitting, Ryan had snuck in and stolen her good jeans, which had been the thing that had led her to release Malik accidentally from his bottle. Not something that she was—
“There you are,” a voice suddenly announced, and Sophie spun around in time to see Melissa Tait standing next to the sofa. She looked as pristinely perfect as ever, with her blonde hair hanging down over one shoulder in a complicated French braid that Sophie could never hope to manage.
The floating boots immediately fell to the carpet with a soft thud, closely followed by the dress. Sophie felt her cheeks start to blaze; getting caught using magic by her arch-nemesis wasn’t exactly the smartest move she’d ever made.
“M-melissa,” she stammered as the buzzing sensation in her veins finally started to die away. “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing with the”—floating dress and the flying shoes?—“outfit,” she finished lamely.
“Well, for a start, I can see that you’re about to make a major fashion faux pas,” Melissa retorted, casting a telling eye over the dress and boots that were lying in
a heap on the carpet. “I mean, the boots are cute, but the floral dress is so out of fashion that it might as well have a Myspace account. Please tell me that you’re not going to wear it to my parents’ anniversary party.”
“Of course not. I mean, no. Definitely not,” Sophie said in a rush, relieved that Melissa hadn’t seemed to have noticed the little display of magic. She made a mental note always to check that the door was locked before doing anything like that again. Then she frowned as she remembered that she had locked the door when Mr. Rivers had left. “And by the way, how did you get in?”
“Key.” Melissa held it up. “Mr. Rivers is letting me use his place to sort through and scan my parents’ old photographs for the party. We’re going to get some blown up and framed, plus make a video montage of them,” she explained, walking over to an antique-looking dresser and pulling out a large cardboard box and a very pink laptop that she had obviously left here on her last visit. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. I need to talk to you.”
“Oh.” Sophie’s stomach plummeted as she remembered that she’d spent the better part of yesterday and today making herself invisible just to avoid this very conversation. Would it be very wrong to disappear right now? However, she didn’t even bother to answer her own question. Instead, she took a deep breath. She might as well get this over and done with right now. “Look, Melissa, about those books on the Roman Empire, the thing is that—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Melissa held up a hand so that Sophie could see her perfectly manicured fingers, complete with purple nail polish. “I should’ve texted Jonathan back to say thank you. Don’t worry. My precious brother has already flipped out at me about it. Not that I did it on purpose, it was just that as soon as I got the books, I bumped into Ben, and—”
“Hang on a moment.” Sophie narrowed her eyes as she tried to process what the other girl was saying. “Do you mean that you actually got the books?”
“Well, yeah.” Melissa gave a slight tilt of her head. “And I got the assignment done, too, which, according to Jonathan, was all because of you. No offense, but that isn’t completely true—you weren’t the one who had to miss Vampire Diaries to do it.”
“Riiight.” Sophie was still trying to get used to the fact that Melissa wasn’t actually mad at her.
“So then Jonathan flipped out some more when I told him that I didn’t apologize to you at school. Which is so unfair when I did actually wait at your stupid locker for ages, but it was like you had disappeared off the face of the earth. Plus, it’s not my fault that you’re such a freak that you don’t even own a cell phone. I mean, seriously, what’s that all about?”
“Trust me, it’s not my idea,” Sophie assured her, not bothering to point out that calling someone a freak wasn’t always the best way to apologize. Then she narrowed her eyes and studied Melissa’s perfect face. “So let me get this straight, you’ve been trying to say you’re sorry to me because Jonathan asked you to?”
“We are twins,” Melissa reminded her before reluctantly adding, “Okay, and so the other reason is that we’re supposed to be doing a speech together for the anniversary party, and Jonathan refused to do it unless I said I was sorry.”
“Right,” Sophie said again in an uncertain voice. This wouldn’t have been the first time that she’d misinterpreted something Melissa had said to her. However, instead of rolling her eyes, Melissa seemed to be...smiling. “Er, well, I guess that’s great. Apology accepted.”
“Thanks. Oh, and don’t forget to tell Jonathan that I’ve done it,” Melissa reminded her in a sharp voice. “Anyway, I’d better get to work on these photographs. I want to get them finished before Ryan decides to set fire to them or something. Wouldn’t put it past the evil little so-and-so.”
“You’re going to stay here?” Sophie asked in surprise. “If Mr. Rivers lets you use his place, and you knew you had to do some work over here, why aren’t you the one babysitting Ryan?”
“Are you serious? That kid is vile. No offense, but there isn’t enough money in the world to tempt me to look after him. Yesterday he was throwing marbles at me over the fence, and he didn’t stop until I threatened to have my mom run over his skateboard with her SUV.”
“Snap. He was throwing marbles at me, too, until I hid them all from him,” Sophie said, not bothering to add that she’d used her magic to do so.
“You did? Nice. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Melissa nodded her head in approval as she smiled. Then Sophie blinked. Had she somehow ended up in an alternate universe or something? Melissa Tait was smiling at her. Maybe it was another djinn thing that Malik had forgotten to mention? But before she could figure it out Melissa coughed. “Actually, if you’re not doing anything, you could help me sort through these photographs. It’s such a nightmare, and of course they didn’t have digital cameras back then, so everything needs to be scanned in. It’s prehistoric.”
“Er, sure.” Sophie cautiously nodded her head. She had no idea why Melissa was suddenly being so nice to her, but, like everyone at Robert Robertson Middle School knew, it was better to have Melissa as a friend than as an enemy.
ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU’RE FEELING OKAY?” HARVEY asked on Thursday afternoon as they crowded into Sophie’s bedroom. The minute they shut the door behind them, Sophie conjured up a packet of Oreos and three cans of Diet Coke, while making a mental note to hide the trash from her mom.
“Yeah, because I’ve heard that prolonged exposure to Melissa Tait can make you break out in hives,” Kara chimed in from where she was sitting cross-legged on Sophie’s yellow-and-white comforter, hugging a shopping bag to her chest.
“I’m talking about whether Sophie’s had any after-effects from all the flying she did yesterday,” Harvey corrected her as he reached for a cookie and started to pull it apart, which was his preferred way of eating them.
“And I’m talking about the fact that Melissa can’t be trusted, so if she was nice to Sophie, then it was for a reason. Oh, and did you see her today at school? All that smiling and waving? Something’s definitely going on.” Kara folded her arms and poked out her lower lip.
“Guys, nothing’s going on, and weirdly enough, Melissa was actually being quite nice,” Sophie assured them while letting out a silent groan. Despite the fact that she had already explained what had happened at Mr. Rivers’s house yesterday afternoon, her friends had been quizzing her about it all day. Which was why Sophie didn’t bother to add that she’d actually enjoyed looking at the wedding photographs. It was obvious where Melissa got her fashion sense from, since her mom had been wearing an amazing ivory silk dress that nipped into a tiny waist and had about a zillion tiny beads sewn onto the bodice.
It had taken almost an hour to sort through everything, and once they were finished, Melissa had let her look at a bunch of photos from various family vacations. Sophie had immediately honed in on Jonathan, though she couldn’t help but notice how normal Melissa looked in them. There were even a couple where she was making a face, which was pretty funny.
Jonathan was always telling her that his twin sister wasn’t so bad, and while Sophie had wanted to believe him, Melissa’s personality had always gotten in the way. But after yesterday she was starting to wonder if he had a point. Then she caught sight of Kara’s face and realized that no matter what she might think, she wasn’t going to change her friend’s mind anytime soon.
“But enough about me, I want to see what you got at the mall yesterday afternoon. You’re going to look so amazing when you go to the movies. Patrick won’t know what hit him.”
“Actually”—Kara bowed her head and started to fiddle with the shopping bag in her lap—“I’m not sure I’m going to go.”
“What?” Sophie shot her friend a perplexed look; it was like Kara had turned into a different person since Patrick had asked her out. “What are you talking about? I thought we discussed this. I mean, you like him
and he likes you. Am I missing something?”
Kara didn’t answer, and finally Harvey let out a sigh. “Kara had an ‘incident’ yesterday at the mall,” he explained. “Her mom had gone to pick up some dry cleaning, and while she was away, Kara saw Patrick in the food court.”
“You did? What happened? Why didn’t you tell me about it today at school?”
“I think she was too traumatized. Apparently, it was another mwhooahwwh moment,” Harvey said.
“It was way worse than what happened the other day.” Kara let out a wail, her cheeks both bright red. “It was awful. I was completely incapable of speech. There might even have been some snorting.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Sophie instantly reassured her. “Besides, I’ve known you forever, and I’ve never heard you snort. Not even when we all went to see Shrek and laughed our butts off.”
“Okay, so maybe there wasn’t snorting,” Kara conceded. “But there was definitely moronic muteness. It’s hopeless. I can’t go to the movies with him if I can’t even talk to him. Why is this so hard for me? I feel like my brain has been taken over by aliens.”
Honestly, Sophie had no idea. Sure, she got nervous when she spoke to Jonathan but never at the expense of her vocal chords. However, there was no way she was going to tell Kara this. Instead, she gave her friend a reassuring smile.
“Of course it’s not hopeless. And this is something we can fix. You just need to start talking about stuff he’s interested in. That will give you time to relax instead of freezing up. We can work out a list of discussion topics. It will be like an assignment!”
“But I don’t know what he’s interested in because I can never get the words out to ask him. I told you, it’s hopeless.” Kara’s bottom lip was wobbling now, and Harvey inched back a bit, obviously worried that tears might be next.
“Oh.” Sophie paused for a moment before widening her eyes. “I’ve got it! What if tomorrow at lunchtime I turn myself invisible and follow Patrick around? Then I can see what he does and what he talks about. I could even find out what library books he’s reading. Then we can work on a list for you.”