For David, of course.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Sneak Peek
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
Nory Horace was trying to turn herself into a kitten.
The kitten had to be a black kitten. And it had to be completely kitten-shaped.
It was the middle of summer. Nory was hiding in her family’s garage. Kitten, kitten, kitten, she thought.
She was hiding in case something went wrong. She didn’t want anyone to see. Still, if something went really wrong, her brother and sister would be close enough to hear her yell for help.
Or meow for help.
Or roar.
Nory decided not to think about that. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need help.
Kitten, kitten, kitten.
She had to master kitten, because tomorrow was the Big Test. Tomorrow, after so many years of waiting, she would finally take the entrance exam for Sage Academy.
The school was very hard to get into. You wouldn’t be accepted with anything less than amazing talents. Nory’s friends weren’t even bothering to try. They were all taking tests for easier schools.
If Nory passed the Big Test, she would start fifth grade at Sage Academy in the fall.
If she failed the test …
No. She couldn’t fail. She wasn’t taking tests for any other schools. Not only because Sage Academy was a very important, very fancy magic school, but also because her brother, Hawthorn, went there.
And her sister, Dalia, did, too.
Plus, Nory’s father was kind of the headmaster.
Okay, not kind of. He was definitely the headmaster.
Thinking about the Big Test made Nory queasy. Her magic was strong. There was no doubt about that. But sometimes her magic went wonky.
And Sage Academy did not want wonky.
A black kitten was likely to be on the Big Test tomorrow. It was a beginner animal. Nory had turned herself into a black kitten loads of times, actually. The problem was what happened after.
But Nory would not think about that. Instead, she took a deep breath and lifted her chin.
Kitten! Kitten! KITTEN!!!
The world went blurry, and Nory’s heart beat faster. Her body stretched and shrank. There were popping sounds.
Yay, kitten!
But wait.
Her mouth felt wrong. Nory clacked her teeth together. Clack, clack, clack. Whoa.
These weren’t normal teeth. These were long. These were sharp. These were powerful. Long, sharp, and powerful enough to chomp through wood!
Hmm, Nory thought, feeling odd. Why would a kitten want to chomp wood?
Nory looked over her shoulder. She saw a perfect black kitten tail swishing in the air. Connected to the tail was a set of black kitten legs, with padded feet and sharp claws.
She looked down, expecting to see a matching set of front legs where her arms used to be. But …
Her front legs weren’t kitten legs. The fur was brown and slick. Also, she seemed to have a fat, round tummy. And what was this nose?
She couldn’t see it well, but it had nothing kittenish about it. It was more of a snout.
A beaver nose.
Zamboozle! I’m half kitten and half beaver, Nory realized.
Her magic.
Had definitely.
Gone wonky.
Not again! she thought. What am I doing wrong? I’ll fail the Big Test if I do this tomorrow! I should change back right away and try again for perfect kitten. Yes. That’s exactly what I should do.
But the beaver-kitten part of Nory wouldn’t listen. Beaver-Kitten-Nory didn’t care about the Big Test. Beaver-Kitten-Nory just wanted to chew stuff with her awesome beaver teeth.
She searched the garage. Wood! Where was the wood around here?
Must chew, Beaver-Kitten-Nory thought. Must make beaver dam.
No! No! said the dim voice of Girl-Nory.
Beaver-Kitten-Nory waddled out of the garage and into the house. Then she went upstairs and into her father’s office. Tree stumps would do, or branches. Anything, really, made of wood.
Nory spotted her father’s bookshelf.
It was very beautiful, having been lovingly built over two hundred years ago by craftsmen in Europe.
It was a very important, very expensive piece of furniture.
It looked delicious.
Oooh, Beaver-Kitten-Nory thought. Look at that! A wooden tall-thing! Chewy rectangle-things!
She nudged one of the books onto the floor and nibbled it.
Hard on the outside, like bark. Tender on the inside, like leaves. Mmm. Chew, chew, chew. Beaver-Kitten-Nory gnawed through four of her father’s books.
Then she bit through the legs of her father’s solid oak desk.
Next she chewed off a section of her father’s favorite armchair. She dragged fluff and wood into the guest bathroom and built a small beaver lodge under the sink. Then she chased her kitten tail for a couple minutes and used a pile of ripped-up pages for a litter box.
It was awesome. She was awesome. She, Beaver-Kitten-Nory, felt better than she had in weeks!
At least, until her brother, Hawthorn, found her.
Hawthorn was sixteen. He took care of most of the house stuff because their father, Dr. Horace, was too busy and important to be bothered with making dinner and braiding hair.
And because their mother wasn’t around.
She had died a long time ago.
Hawthorn liked sports and cooking and bossing people around. He also liked setting things on fire, since he was a Flare. A really good Flare, too. His powers never went wonky.
“Nory!” Hawthorn cried now, staring at the beaver lodge. “What are you doing?”
Beaver-Kitten-Nory tried to rub her face on Hawthorn’s pant leg.
“I don’t even know what you are right now,” he went on, “but you better change back and help me clean up. Seriously, what have you done? It stinks in here!”
His voice made Beaver-Kitten-Nory tremble.
“Nory? Change back now!” Hawthorn yelled.
Ploof. He’d scared Nory into returning to her proper girl shape: big hair, small body, brown skin, purple shirt. There was a bit of armchair fabric stuck in her teeth. Yuck. She spit it out.
This was a disaster.
The office and the bathroom were smelly messes. Father’s favorite armchair looked like it had exploded. His antique desk tilted dangerously on three legs. Some of his precious books now resembled coleslaw.
He was going to be really, really angry.
“Sorry,” Nory whispered.
Hawthorn looked mad. And scared.
“Just help me clean,” he told his sister. “We don’t have long.”
Together they fixed up the damage as well as they could. They filled garbage bag after garbage bag. They wiped surfaces with spray cleaner. When the bathroom looked like a bathroom again, Hawthorn called a carpenter to repair the desk and armchair. He made Nory vacuum up the wood dust. He found the website for the Cup and Chaucer Bookshop and ordered new copies of all the books Nory had ruined.
When all this was done, Nory cleared her throat and asked, “Hawthorn? Are you still mad at me?”
He shook his head. “You have to keep your human mind in control, Nory. That’s all there is to it.”
“I know.”
“And when you turn into an animal, turn into a normal animal,” he snapped. “Stop mixing your parts up. You’re getting really wonky and nobody likes it.”
“I was practicing kitten like you told me to,” Nory explained. “And then the beaver part just happened, and everything went upside down.”
“That’s what you were?” asked Hawthorn. “A kitten-beaver?”
“Beaver-kitten, actually,” said Nory. She thought for a moment, then grinned. “A bitten!”
“Whatever it was, it was gross,” Hawthorn said.
Nory’s grin disappeared.
“Plus, you lost control, like you always do,” Hawthorn continued. “We’ll have to blame Dalia’s rabbits, I guess.”
Dalia, the middle Horace child, was thirteen. She was a Fuzzy and had a lot of pets, including two bats, three toads, a ferret, a toucan, a pair of mice, and twelve rabbits. They weren’t well behaved. The ferret pooped on the carpet. So did the toads. And the bats were always going in people’s hair. It wasn’t a stretch to blame Nory’s mess on the bunnies.
Still, Nory felt guilty. The rabbits shouldn’t get in trouble for her mistake. Neither should Dalia. She twisted her hands. “Shouldn’t we tell Father what really happened?”
“No,” Hawthorn said. “We don’t want him angry at you. Not the day before the Big Test.”
Nory bowed her head. Maybe Hawthorn was right.
Some lies were safer than the truth.
* * *
Up until summer vacation, Nory had gone to ordinary school like everyone else her age. Nory’s ordinary school was called Woody Dale. It was kindergarten through fourth grade, just like all other ordinary schools.
Nory had studied reading and writing, math and science, gym, art, and music. The one thing she hadn’t studied was magic, since a person’s powers didn’t bubble up until around the time she or he turned ten. Once you were ten and ready for fifth grade, you enrolled in a different school. You still had to read and do math and play basketball, but you also practiced magic. The kind of magic you practiced depended on your talent.
Some kids were Flares—they had fire talents, like Hawthorn.
Some were Fuzzies—they had animal talents, like Dalia.
Others were Flickers or Flyers or Fluxers. Nory was a Fluxer, although she wasn’t a regular Fluxer.
Her magic was unusually big. Unlike most Fluxers, she could turn into lots of animals. But Nory hid her magic from Father, because it always went wonky.
For example, she’d be a perfectly nice skunk and suddenly swell up to the size of an elephant. And then grow a trunk.
Or she’d be a perfectly nice puppy and then grow squid legs.
Nory knew that Father would disapprove of a puppy with squid legs. He would disapprove a lot.
Another problem was that Girl-Nory almost always lost control of her human self during her transformations and ended up making a huge mess. Skunkephant-Nory had become obsessed with finding peanuts and had stunk up the Horace kitchen. They’d had to scrub everything with bleach and convince Father that some real skunks had snuck through the kitchen window. Puppy-Squid-Nory had chewed all of Dalia’s shoes and then squirted Hawthorn with nasty squid ink. Hawthorn had claimed he’d been the victim of an exploding pen.
Even black kitten had gone wrong four different ways. The scariest was when Nory had developed a touch of dragon and breathed fire at the sofa. Hawthorn had taken the blame for that one, telling Father he’d goofed up a Flare seat-warming project. Father had bought a new sofa and made Hawthorn pay for part of it, but Nory wondered if he’d really been fooled. Hawthorn got top marks in Flare Studies at Sage Academy. He never would have made a mistake like that.
Father must have known that Nory’s transformation power was out of control.
He just didn’t want to talk about it.
He didn’t talk about a lot of things.
* * *
When Father got home from Sage Academy that evening, Hawthorn told him about the damage. Immediately, Father marched to his office to see it for himself. Hawthorn, Dalia, and Nory followed.
“Dalia,” Father said, frowning at the scratch marks on his desk. “You have got to get those rabbits in line. Discipline is what they need. Discipline and a better lock on their pen. You’ll take care of that, yes?”
“Yes, Father,” Dalia said. She glared at Nory.
Father hesitated. “Well. Thank you, Hawthorn, for calling the carpenter and for ordering new copies of my books.”
Hawthorn nodded. Father glanced at Nory. For a second, she thought he was going to say something to her.
Maybe he would ask her what really happened.
Maybe he’d offer his help.
Instead, he clenched and unclenched his fingers three times. The entire messed-up office disappeared around them.
Most Flickers could make things invisible, but only extremely powerful Flickers could make an entire room disappear while people were still standing in it. All the edges were neat and even, too. The Horace family appeared to be hovering above the dining room.
“Go downstairs, children,” Father said. “I’d prefer not to be disturbed for the rest of the evening.”
He himself disappeared, and the conversation was over.
* * *
Father left early for work the next morning.
Nory ate breakfast with Dalia, Hawthorn, and a few of Dalia’s rabbits.
“Do you want your egg hard- or soft-boiled?” Hawthorn asked. He took a raw egg from the refrigerator.
“Soft, please,” Nory answered.
Hawthorn cooked the egg the way all Flares did, heating it with his hands until it was perfectly done. Then he shot flames from his fingertips and toasted a piece of bread. As he served Nory her food, he said, “Eat up—you’ll need your energy. Are you ready for the Big Test?”
Nory nodded. Then she shook her head. Then she nibbled at her toast.
“Just do what the teachers ask,” Hawthorn advised. “Not more, not less. Don’t get weird.”
“I know,” said Nory. She tried to swallow but the breadcrumbs stuck in her throat.
“They want you to be predictable.”
“I know.”
“And precise.”
“I know.”
“So get your details correct, down to the whiskers.”
“Okay.”
“Keep control of the animal body.”
“Okay.”
“And braid your hair. Tight! Also, you can’t wear those pants.”
Nory looked down at her clothes. “But these are my lucky purple jeans!”
Hawthorn shook his head. “Change into that dress with the nice collar.”
Nory stood up.
“Not now! After breakfast!”
Nory sat down, and Hawthorn gave her more instructions. Dalia joined in, too. They talked at her while she tried to eat. They talked at her through the door while she changed her outfit. They talked at her all the way to Sage Academy, which was a ten-minute walk from their house.
They led her through the school gates and paused. Hawthorn placed his hands on Nory’s shoulders. “Whatever happens, whatever you turn into, don’t lick anything.”
“Or eat anything,” said Dalia.
Hawthorn hugged Nory. “Just do your best.”
“And pass the test,” Dalia added.
“Not that we’re worried!” they said together.
Then they were gone. Hawthorn was expected at his summer job. Dalia had an appointment with her math tutor.
Nory was on her own.
* * *
The building that held Sage Academy’s Hall of Magic and Performance was tall and made of stone. Gargoyles looked down from above.
Inside, Nory found a line of kids standing with their parents. They were all there for the Big Test.
Mothers smoothed their children’s hair. Fathers patted shoulders and buttoned cardigans.
Nory’s dress was itchy.
In front of h
er was a light-skinned girl with a sharp, short haircut. Her features were small, her hands were small, and her feet were small. The only big thing about her was her glasses. They had black frames. Each lens was the size of a large cookie.
The girl’s dad spoke to her in a low voice. “You can light matches, Lacey. We know that. But let’s go over the marshmallow.”
“Golden brown is four seconds, slightly burnt is six,” the girl—Lacey—recited. Her lip trembled.
“If you undercook it, you won’t get into Sage Academy,” her dad warned. “If you overcook it, that’s even worse.”
Lacey nodded.
“Don’t mess up,” said the dad.
Lacey’s hands started to shake.
Nory felt bad for her. She didn’t think Lacey’s dad was being particularly helpful. She tapped Lacey on the shoulder and smiled.
“This is scary, isn’t it?” Nory said. “My stomach’s like one huge knot.”
Lacey whipped around. “Shhhh! Don’t you realize people are concentrating? People are reviewing their magic techniques!”
Nory blushed. She chewed the inside of her cheeks and waited.
The line moved forward.
Now ten kids were in line ahead of her.
Then eight. Then five.
Then one. Lacey’s name was called, and a look of pure panic flashed across her face.
“Good luck,” Nory said.
“Shhhh!” Lacey said again. She smoothed out her expression, shrugged off a hug from her father, and marched into the Hall of Magic and Performance to take the Big Test.
Silence.
More silence.
Then, from behind the Hall of Magic and Performance door, great racking sobs.
Lacey burst out of the room, ran down the long hall, and pushed through the heavy doors of the building.
“Lacey?” the girl’s dad cried, dashing after his daughter. “Lacey!”
Lacey’s wails sounded ghostly.
Nory shivered.
It was her turn.
The Hall of Magic and Performance was very grand. The ceilings were painted with dragons and unicorns. The seats were covered in dark purple velvet. The curtains on the side of the stage were gold. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling, lit by candles.
Onstage was a wooden table that looked to be as old as the school itself. Nory walked onto the stage and faced the audience. Seated in the front row were four teachers and her father, the headmaster. He wore his second-best suit.
Upside-Down Magic Page 1