by Amanda Ashby
“Yes, you are,” Meg retorted in a stubborn voice that Sophie was only too familiar with.
“Is this about Mom trying to sell the house?” Sophie wrinkled her nose. “Because you know that she’s changed her mind about that. We’re not going anywhere. You should be happy.”
“I’m never going to be happy again,” Meg announced in a dramatic voice before turning her attention back to her shark pictures and letting out a long sigh. Instinctively, Sophie reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand and gave her a small nudge.
“I bet you will.” Sophie beamed, still not quite able to contain her happiness. “In fact, I can guarantee it.” However, when Meg’s pout didn’t show any sign of disappearing, Sophie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Okay, what if I tell you a secret? Will that make you feel better?”
“What kind of secret?” Meg demanded in a noncommittal voice.
“Like the fact that I might have some good news about Dad.”
“W-what?” Meg instantly gave Sophie her full attention, her navy eyes bright as stars.
“The thing is that you can’t tell anyone, okay.” Sophie suddenly realized that it might not be the cleverest idea to tell a six-year-old a secret. “You have to pinky promise.”
Meg immediately stuck out her pinky and hooked it onto Sophie’s. Then she said in a small voice, “You know where Dad is? Does Mom know?”
Sophie shook her head, unable to hide her smile any longer. “No and I shouldn’t have said anything to you in case I’m wrong. But you just looked so sad. The thing is, Meggy, hopefully, he’ll be back with us soon and we’ll be a proper family again.”
“Will he be here before tomorrow night?” Meg asked. Sophie blinked in surprise. That wasn’t exactly the answer she had been expecting.
“Okay, so it won’t be quite that fast, but it should be soon.” She reached out to squeeze Meg’s hand again, and Mr. Jaws swiped a paw at her. She pulled her hand back and then frowned. “Anyway, what’s so special about Friday night?”
“That’s when Mom’s going out on a date with Mr. Rivers, so if Daddy’s going to come home, it would be better to do it before then,” Meg elaborated.
“What?” Sophie’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Since when?”
“Since I heard her talking on the phone to get Mrs. Corbett to be our sitter,” Meg replied.
“That’s it?” Sophie let out a long groan as her heart rate returned to a more even pace. Talk about scaring her over nothing. “Maybe Mom wants to go to a movie or something? Because I can assure you that there’s no way she’s going on a date. Especially not with Mr. Rivers. He’s just been helping out with her pottery business. They’re friends,” Sophie explained. But Meg just shook her head, causing Mr. Jaws to jump out of her lap and hurl himself across the room.
“It’s a date,” Meg said in a petulant voice. “And it’s not fair, because I don’t want Mr. Rivers to be our new dad.”
“Of course he’s not going to be our new dad.” Sophie rolled her eyes as she got to her feet. Even though her younger sister often had the uncanny knack of knowing things first, she had definitely gotten her wires crossed this time. “In fact, let’s go find Mom right now so that she can tell you for herself that she isn’t going on a date with anyone. Mom,” she called out as she and Meg stepped into the hallway. “Mom, where are you?”
“I’m in my bedroom,” their mom replied as they both hurried in, just in time to see her checking her reflection in the mirror. She wore a fitted red dress that Sophie had never seen before. Sophie also noticed that there were a lot of shopping bags littered all over the large bed in the center of the room. “What’s up?”
“Meg has this crazy idea that you’re going on a date with Mr. Rivers. I think that’s what she’s been worried about—” Sophie started to say before she remembered that not only had her mom gone shopping, but she had recently gotten her hair cut. Suddenly Sophie had a very bad feeling; she sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to ignore the way her heart was hammering in her chest. It was like someone was trying to squeeze all the air out of her body. “M-mom?”
Her mom bit into her lower lip and moved some of the shopping bags off the bed so that she could sit down next to her. “I am. I was going to tell you yesterday, but then you got distracted by Jonathan. I know we’ve talked about it a bit, but—”
“What?” Sophie managed to break out of her daze for a moment. “We never talked about you going on a date with Mr. Rivers. Trust me, it’s the kind of thing I would’ve remembered.”
“Yes, we did. When we were down in the basement. We talked about moving on to a new chapter and putting the past behind us.” Her mom looked confused.
“I didn’t mean you should move on and date anyone,” Sophie yelped. “I was talking about...well, I wasn’t talking about that! How could you even think that’s what I meant?”
“Honey, I’m sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding, but I don’t see why you’re so upset. It’s been four years. What do you want me to do? Sit at home on my own every night like I’ve been doing?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Sophie nodded, an edge of desperation starting to seep into her voice as she shot her mom a pleading look. “You can’t go out with him. Please, Mom. You really can’t.”
“Besides,” Meg suddenly decided to chime in, “Sophie told me that Daddy’s coming home, and so you don’t need to go on a date with Mr. Rivers. You can just go on a date with Daddy instead.”
Sophie widened her eyes and stared at her sister in horror. Which bit of “don’t tell anyone” had she not understood? Not to mention the whole pinky promise ritual. Unfortunately, it was too late, and Sophie winced in dismay at the way her mom was frowning.
“Meg,” their mom said in a tight voice, “could you please go to your room for a moment? I need to talk to Sophie.”
Meg might sometimes be a bit clueless, but even she could see the way their mom’s face had hardened, and she quickly raced out of the room without a word. Great, so now she showed some restraint. The minute her sister was gone, Sophie’s mom turned to her, brown eyes narrowed and jaw clenched.
“Sophie Campbell, I can’t believe you would tell your six-year-old sister that her father might be coming home.”
“But—” Sophie started to say. Her mom held up her hand and shook her head.
“I think you’ve done enough talking for a while. I know how much you love and miss him, and so do I, but we’ve already been through this. Your dad’s left us, and he’s not coming back. I’m sorry that you’re upset about it, but I’ve made up my mind about this. Tomorrow night I’m going out on a date.”
A DATE. HER MOM WAS GOING ON A DATE. WITH someone who wasn’t Sophie’s dad.
How could this be happening? And why now? Especially considering how far she’d come. After all, it hadn’t been exactly easy to get an interview with the Djinn Council and to find the recipe to make Solomon’s Elixir. And don’t even get her started on learning how to fly and getting the floor plans for Sheterum’s mansion. For what? So that her mom could go on a date with someone else a week before Sophie was finally due to rescue her dad?
Suddenly she understood what the phrase “a day late and a dollar short” really meant.
It was like the Universe hated her or something. But that couldn’t be right because she and the Universe were as one. Not to mention the fact that she had been doing affirmations for the last four years to make sure that they would once again be a happy family. And nowhere in those affirmations had there been any mention of Mr. Rivers.
Just thinking about it caused Sophie’s heart to start pounding an anxious rhythm. It was such a disaster. And even worse, so far she hadn’t been able to stop it. Though it wasn’t from a lack of trying. She had given her mom some excellent reasons why she couldn’t go out on a date (ranging from the way he folde
d the towels in the guest bathroom to the fact that he was related to the evil Ryan the biter), but so far her mom had absolutely refused to change her mind about it.
In the past, Sophie had always thought that Meg was the stubborn one in the family, but since last night, it was becoming increasingly obvious who her sister had inherited the stubborn gene from. Oh, and to make matters worse, after giving her another lecture on how bad it was to fill her sister’s head with fairy tales, her mom had decided to give Sophie extra chores around the house for two weeks. And yes, technically, Sophie could use her magic to do them, but that was hardly the point. After all, Meg didn’t get extra chores, and she was the one who had broken her promise—
“Hello there.” Harvey’s hand suddenly appeared in front of her as the lunch bell finally rang. Kara had been excused for some special Wizard of Oz meeting, so they were going to catch up with her in the cafeteria. All around her students were talking and pouring out toward the exit like a tidal wave. She reluctantly joined the flow as Harvey shot her a quizzical look. “Is everything okay?”
“You mean apart from the fact that my mom’s going on a date tonight with the horrible guy who kept poor Malik ruthlessly locked up in his basement for a gazillion years, and I still haven’t figured out a way to stop it yet,” Sophie asked as they squeezed their way through the crowds.
“I thought that was an accident. Didn’t you say that he didn’t know Malik was in the vase?” Harvey scratched his chin in confusion. “Not to mention the fact that you said how nice it was that he was helping your mom with her pottery business.”
“Yes, but that was before he decided to ask my mom out and in turn try to ruin our lives,” Sophie retorted darkly. “Now I totally hate him again. Plus, you were the one who told me that he had weird body language.”
“Trust me, I know how stinky it is when parents don’t stay together.” Harvey gave her a nod of sympathy. “But Soph, I’m sure you will think of something. After all, that’s what you do. You give it all your attention and focus, and then suddenly you and that Universe of yours figure it out.”
“But what if it doesn’t work this time?” Sophie tried to keep the panic out of her voice. “What if all of my luck has run out?”
“A wise friend of mine who is a great believer in positive thinking will probably tell you that luck doesn’t work like that,” Harvey said with a grin, and Sophie suddenly felt a bit better.
“Thanks, Har—” she started to say. But before she could finish, Malik suddenly appeared, his normally perfectly groomed Zac hair sticking out in all directions, and his crumpled American Idol T-shirt covered in Cheetos crumbs.
“What are you doing here?” Sophie demanded in a low voice, since Malik’s presence at Robert Robertson Middle School seldom ended well.
“I’ve got some good news,” he announced in a dramatic voice.
“You do?” Sophie felt her heart pound with nerves. “Is it about my dad? Do you think we can go and rescue him today? Because seriously, Malik, that would solve everything.”
“It would also be insanity,” Malik assured her. “It’s going to be hard enough to get past Sheterum’s defenses when he’s away, but it will be impossible when he’s at home.”
“Oh.” Disappointment stung as she let out a sigh. “So what is this news then?”
“I’ve only gone and figured out the perfect way to stop your mother from going out on a date with that man.”
“What is it?” Sophie was instantly alert, since it turned out that Malik had been just as upset about her mom going on a date as Sophie and Meg, and he had promised that he would do all he could to stop it. He was obviously being true to his word. For once.
“We just need to tell her he’s a nose picker. When I was trapped in his basement, I saw him go in there on at least three occasions, and don’t even get me started on where he wiped it.”
“Ew, gross.” Sophie gave a delicate shudder. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know,” Malik agreed with a fierce nod. “I mean, there’s no way she can go out with him after she hears that.”
“Yes, but I can’t exactly tell her,” Sophie reminded him. “Since she might have a few problems believing that my ghostly djinn guide, who had been trapped in a vase at the time, actually saw Mr. Rivers picking his nose—”
“And wiping it,” Malik reminded her.
“And wiping it,” Sophie repeated. “But the problem is, if we go down the djinn path she might ground me forever, and then it would be even harder to go rescue my dad. Besides, Harvey has helped me remember that it’s pointless to be upset about it because the Universe will come through for us.”
“Yes, well, that’s easy for you to say because you’re both young and naive and probably don’t feel things as much as I do.” Malik glumly sighed. “I mean, you think that you know someone, and then this happens. Because seriously, it’s one thing for her to like your father, Tariq the Awesome, since not only is he a fine figure of a djinn, but they were actually married. But for your mom to want to go out with the likes of Max Rivers? I’m not going to lie to you, it feels like a stab in the heart.”
“Er, you’re a ghost, which means that, technically, you don’t have a heart,” Harvey pointed out in a reasonable voice as he and Sophie exchanged grins. However, a second later Harvey stopped smiling as he realized that Sophie was turning in the direction of her locker. He looked at her in alarm. “You want to go to your locker now? But it’s Nacho Friday, and if we don’t get there early, all the guacamole will be gone.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Sophie raised an eyebrow before giving him a little push. “Anyway, you go ahead and I’ll meet you there. I just need to look for my homework. I was sure I put it in my black folder, but it’s not there. I blame my mom—if she hadn’t dropped the dating bombshell on me, then I wouldn’t have been so distracted.” It was extra annoying because it wasn’t even like she could conjure up another one, since for some reason her djinn magic didn’t work well on homework, which, if you asked her, was a real flaw.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Harvey asked.
“It’s nachos. Who cares if she minds or not? Let’s get going already,” Malik said as he began to float toward the cafeteria without so much as a backward glance.
“Go. Besides, Kara’s probably waiting in there,” Sophie said to Harvey, and then watched him hurry away with his long, lanky strides. Once he was gone, she made her way to her locker and let out a huge sigh of relief when she found her math homework crammed into the back of her Spanish book. She had obviously been more distracted than she had realized.
However, she was feeling a lot better now that Harvey had reminded her how pointless it was to worry. Of course she would figure out a way to stop her mom from dating Mr. Rivers. And then next Friday her dad would be home, and she would never have to think about any of this stuff again.
She quickly shut her locker and was about to head to the cafeteria when she caught sight of Jonathan walking up to her, looking as goldenly glorious as ever. Suddenly all of her worries faded away.
“Hey.” He came to a halt and shot her one of those dazzling smiles that made Sophie’s knees knock.
“Hey,” she said back to him while cursing herself for forgetting to bounce up her flat hair. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he leaned against one of the lockers.
“So I was hoping I would see you today. I feel bad that I had to bail on Wednesday afternoon when you were at Mr. Rivers’s house. Melissa said that you totally survived the Ryan the biter experience. That’s seriously impressive stuff.”
“Yeah, well, to be honest, I think he was more scared of Melissa than he was of me,” Sophie confessed as she casually reached up to her hair and futilely tried to tease it with her fingers. It remained stubbornly flat.
“She can be pretty scary,” he agreed. “
Though it sounds like you both got on okay, because when she was telling me about how you helped her, she didn’t roll her eyes or make a snorting noise once. Are you sure you didn’t use magic on her?”
Actually, Sophie admitted to herself, she had tried magic on Melissa on more than one occasion, and each time it had been a disaster. Not that she was going to tell Jonathan that. Though perhaps once her dad was home, she would ask him if he thought she should let Jonathan in on her secret. Instead, she just shrugged. “I think she just enjoyed showing me all of your family photographs.”
Jonathan raised his eyebrows in alarm. “What? I thought it was wedding photographs. Please tell me that there weren’t any of the camping trip we took when I was six?”
“Do you mean the one where you tied a scarf around your waist and you were pretending it was your tail?” Sophie asked in an innocent voice before grinning. “Or the one where you—”
“Okay, stop.” Jonathan’s face went bright red. “This is the most embarrassing moment of my life. I’m so going to kill my sister for this.”
“Actually, I thought they were adorable,” she confessed.
“That’s debatable.” Jonathan shuddered and glanced at his watch. “Anyway, I’d better get over to the court, or Coach will flip.”
“Cool. I’ve got to get to the cafeteria,” Sophie said, conscious that she hadn’t spent as much time with her friends as she normally did. She was just about to head there when she caught sight of Melissa Tait hurrying toward her. She was wearing a cute skirt, a simple T-shirt, and a wide belt. However, her pristine look was marred by the worried expression on her face.
“Please tell me that Jonathan’s here. I really need to speak to him.”
“H-he just left. I think he had practice,” Sophie answered in a cautious voice; despite what had happened yesterday at Mr. Rivers’s house, she didn’t exactly trust Jonathan’s sister. Then she noticed that Melissa’s normally perfect nails were chewed to the quick. If Harvey was here, she was pretty sure he would say that Melissa was stressed. Which was crazy, since as far as Sophie knew, Melissa Tait didn’t stress about anything. Did she? “Um, is everything okay?”