The rain stopped.
Everyone got their spare clothes from their cubbies, and the janitor was called in again. But even though it was Willa who had caused the problem, it was still Nory that no one wanted to talk to.
* * *
The days passed, and nothing got better. When it came time for the class to study magic, Ms. Starr told her students to do headstands. They all had to come to the rug, where Ms. Starr urged them to flip their worlds upside down. She had Andres stand on his feet, like a bat, with his head downward. She gave him a closed umbrella as a prop.
No one except Willa was very good at it. Most of the students had to lean against the wall.
Bax turned into a rock every time he went upside down.
Every single time. Then he was taken off to Nurse Riley in the wheelbarrow. After about an hour, he’d return to class in his human form, usually with a green medicine mustache.
It seemed like a hopeless cause, but Ms. Starr made all of them keep practicing.
“Headstands calm our brains and relieve stress,” she insisted. “More importantly, they let you see things upside down. They give you another way of thinking about the world. It really helps those of us with upside-down magic, I promise!”
Nory wasn’t sure the teacher knew what she was talking about. “Ms. Starr?” she asked one day when they were all upside down (except Bax, who was a rock, and Sebastian, who was on wheelbarrow duty). “Did headstands help you with your magic?”
Ms. Starr was in the center of the carpet, doing a perfect headstand. “It helped me tremendously,” she said.
“Because your magic is Upside-Down, too,” said Marigold.
“Absolutely. That’s why I wanted to become a teacher.”
“Just tell us what it is,” begged Willa. “Please? We know it’s different. But different how?”
“It’s a magic that—well, it might disrupt the classroom, when I bring it in,” said Ms. Starr, mysteriously. “I want us all to get settled before I share it with you.”
“I bet you’re a special kind of Flicker,” guessed Elliott.
“No, some kind of Fluxer,” guessed Andres.
“No, a Fuzzy,” guessed Pepper.
“I’ll tell you when it’s time,” said their teacher. “Now I want all of you to come down to the floor. Andres, I’ll get that bag of bricks for you to hold. We’re going to do a group trust exercise.”
Everyone groaned.
* * *
Every day, as soon as school let out, Nory raced to Aunt Margo’s and called home.
Every day she reached the voice mail.
“Please call me back, Father,” she said.
“It’s awful here, Hawthorn,” she said. “And I miss your cooking.”
“The other kids talk about me when they think I can’t hear, Dalia,” she said. “They’re all really messed up. I just want to come home. Please?”
No one called back.
* * *
Two weeks after Nory arrived, on a Saturday morning, Aunt Margo made a call of her own.
“Stone,” she said sharply, “I know you’re there. I know you’re letting our calls go to voice mail. I’m sure you’ve told Hawthorn and Dalia not to pick up. This is unacceptable. Nory is your daughter. You need to stop acting like a dimwit. I know you have my number, so call us back.”
But Father didn’t.
After two hours of waiting, Aunt Margo punched in a different number. “It’s time for you to meet Nory,” Aunt Margo said to the person on the phone. “Can you come get us?” She paused, then said, “Yes. Perfect. Give us five minutes. Six if you want me to brush my hair.” She laughed, said, “Love you, too,” and hung up.
“We’re going out for lunch,” she told Nory. “Figs is coming for us in his car.”
“Who’s Figs?” Nory asked. She was crumpled on the couch feeling sorry for herself.
“He’s my boyfriend. You’ll adore him. He’s taking us to this new bakeshop that two of our Flare friends just opened. The cinnamon rolls are supposed to be wonderful. You can handle a cinnamon roll for lunch, right?”
“Maybe.” Nory smiled for the first time that day. Father always insisted on vegetables and protein for lunch, so no one got weighed down with too much sugar and starch. “But what if Father calls back? Or Hawthorn, and we aren’t here to pick up?”
“Piffle,” said Margo. “I’ll take my cell. Figs is already on the way. Oh, there he is!”
A large brown-and-white dog jumped through an open window in the living room, barking and wagging his tail.
“Figs!” Aunt Margo scolded. “Stop showing off, you big hairball.” She turned to Nory. “Figs has been wanting to show you his Saint Bernard since the first day you got here. He just got it licensed. But I told him to wait. I wanted you to have a chance to get settled.”
Figs bounded over to Nory and grinned a doggy grin. Then he backed up and shook his body so that his fur stood out all over. A moment later he changed into a broad-shouldered, olive-skinned man. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and had a big smile. “Hello, Nory,” he said, reaching out his hand. “I’m Figaro Russo. I run the pharmacy in town. We’ve got aspirin, wart medicine, burn ointment, catnip, you name it. We sell candy, too. You should come by and spend your allowance. You’re giving her an allowance, right, Margo? She needs one.”
“Fine,” said Margo. “I’ll give her an allowance. Now can we go? I’m starving.”
“Let’s do it,” Figs said, clapping his hands. “Cinnamon rolls, here we come!”
They had a wonderful lunch of starch, grease, and sugar. Figs talked about fluxing a lot. He was licensed for four different dog shapes.
“Never could get my kitten right, though,” he said, encouragingly. “I must be the only Fluxer in North America without a cat license. And I haven’t got any large carnivores, either. But oh, well. What would I do with them, anyway? Dogs just come more naturally to me. I’m working on chihuahua. I think it might be useful to do a really little dog. But so far, no luck.”
On the way home in Figs’s van, Aunt Margo’s cell rang. She looked at it, raised her eyebrows, and handed it to Nory.
Nory’s heart jumped. She put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Nory! We’re on speakerphone!” Dalia said.
“Who’s on speakerphone?” Nory asked.
“Me and Hawthorn.”
“What about Father?”
“At a meeting,” Dalia said. “You know Father. Always working, even on the weekends.”
“Hi, Nory,” Hawthorn said. “Sorry it’s taken us this long to call you back. Father wanted us to let you get settled first. But after Aunt Margo’s message, we decided we should sneak a call.”
Well, it’s about time, Nory almost said. But she didn’t. What if they hung up?
She would make the best of things. She would. “Aunt Margo just took me to a really nice lunch,” she said. “It had no vegetables at all.”
“Lucky,” said Dalia.
“How’s the house?” Hawthorn asked. “Is your room very small?”
“How’s your new school?” asked Dalia. “Is it depressing?”
“We want you back,” Hawthorn swore. “It’s just hard to convince Father.”
“But we have an idea!” Dalia added. “We thought if you could get control of the animal bodies, you know, so you don’t chew things and set things on fire—”
“And if you can get yourself doing a really good kitten without any weird things popping out—”
“Father said your kitten was really good until it went wonky.”
“—then you could get yourself tested out of that Upside-Down Magic class. You could go to a class for normal kids!” said Hawthorn. “Then you could work on being more normal, and reapply to Sage Academy.”
“Reapply?” said Nory. On the other end of the line, she heard the faint sound of a door being opened. “Is that Father?”
“Oh, no,” Dalia said, her voice going up in pitch. “We have t
o go.”
“Get out of that special class,” Hawthorn said. “Just stop being wonky, and come home. We miss you.”
“Hawthorn? Dalia?” Nory heard her father say. “Who is that on the phone?”
There was a click, and then nothing.
Nory squeezed her eyes shut in the back of the van. Figs and Aunt Margo were talking about whether they could make cinnamon rolls at home. Aunt Margo was saying the recipe sounded too hard and they should just make cinnamon toast like everyone else did. Figs was saying you shouldn’t avoid trying something just because it was hard.
Nory only half listened.
She was thinking about Hawthorn and Dalia’s plan.
First she had to learn to be normal. Yes. Then she’d get out of Upside-Down Magic and be put into regular Fluxer class. She’d learn to be even more normal in Fluxer class and then she’d reapply to Sage Academy. She could even do fifth grade over again. She wouldn’t mind.
If Nory could do all that—if Nory could be normal—surely Father would let her come home.
On Monday, Bax turned into a rock at the beginning of headstand practice. As usual.
It was Nory’s turn to take him to Nurse Riley, and as she pushed the wheelbarrow down the hall, she peered into the other classrooms. It was the hour for magic study, and the fifth-grade Flares were roasting marshmallows in their hands.
Their classroom smelled delicious.
The Fuzzy class stood in a circle around a large silver unicorn. They were grooming it and feeding it carrots.
The fifth-grade Flyers were levitating two feet above the floor, slowly going round in a circle. Every now and then, one of them drooped lower or tipped backward, and the teacher would blow a whistle. Young Flyers were called earlybirds. Most of them wouldn’t be able to go higher than five feet until high school.
Andres was an exception, obviously. Andres could probably soar all the way to the moon if he wanted, but then what? He wouldn’t be able to get back down.
Nory walked on. She reached the medical office and said, “We’re here,” to Bax, even though she wasn’t sure he could hear her.
“Ah,” Nurse Riley said. “Headstand practice again?”
Nory passed over the handles of the wheelbarrow. “Can I watch? Please?”
“Believe me, doll, this is something you don’t want to see,” Nurse Riley said. He shut the door.
Nory took a different route back to Ms. Starr’s room. The Flicker classroom had a room full of kids staring at toads that hopped about on their desks. “Begin!” cried the teacher. Half the toads went invisible. The other half looked like they were missing various toad body parts. No feet, no face, no middle. It was actually kind of cool, Nory thought.
The fifth-grade Fluxers were working on kittens. It wasn’t a big class, since Fluxers were rare. There were only ten students. Nory could see they were trying to add colors to their kitten transformations. Four were still just black, but five had white spots, and one was successfully calico. “Luciana, stop looking out the window,” the teacher chided. “The squirrels aren’t your concern. And Alastair, don’t scratch the furniture. All of you, remember to keep control of the animal mind!”
Nory wanted more than anything to join them.
* * *
When she got back to the classroom, everyone was still doing headstand practice. Soothing music played. Ms. Starr stood upright in the center of the carpet.
Nory chose a spot beside Elliott. “Elliott,” she whispered. “Hey! Elliott!”
He pretended not to hear her.
“Boys and girls, think about this,” Ms. Starr said. “When you are upside down, the ceiling becomes the floor and the floor becomes the ceiling. Am I right?”
“Bor-ring,” Marigold said under her breath.
“Fine,” Ms. Starr said, piercing Marigold with her gaze. “But if you want to be the best you can be, this is how.”
She walked over and devoted herself to coaxing Andres into his proper bat position.
“I have a plan for us,” Nory whispered to Elliott. “And I know you can hear me, so stop pretending.”
“You’re annoying me again,” said Elliott.
“It’s a good plan,” said Nory. “A plan to get us out of Upside-Down Magic.”
Elliott pressed his lips together.
“You and I are different than the others in our class,” Nory whispered. “We could do magic like normal people if we just got enough practice.”
Elliott didn’t stop her, so Nory went on.
“If you can stop freezing things and I can stick to just regular animals, then we can transfer out of UDM. We can go to the normal classes.”
“You skunk-sprayed the Sparkies,” said Elliott.
“I’m sorry.”
“They were my best friends until that happened.”
Were they? Nory wondered. But she didn’t want to say that to Elliott. Instead, she said, “You can practice your flare talent, and I’ll practice my fluxing. We can help each other.”
“If I were a regular Flare,” mused Elliott, “maybe they’d like me again.”
“We’ll work on it!” Nory whispered. “You and me, after school.”
Elliott rolled out of his wobbly headstand and patted down his curls. “Will Ms. Starr let us leave this class? Will Principal Gonzalez?”
This was something Nory hadn’t considered. “Of course they will,” she said. “They have to.”
“Do they?”
“We can at least ask, can’t we?” Nory argued.
They waited until the end of the school day. As soon as the other UDM kids left, they approached Ms. Starr’s desk.
“Yes?” Ms. Starr said, looking confused about why they were still there. She also looked tired, and Nory realized she was wearing her fourth change of clothes that day.
“We just wanted to say that you’re a really good teacher,” said Nory. “And Andres and Willa and everyone, they’re all nice. Right, Elliott?”
Elliott blinked.
“But Elliott and I, we’re not the same as the others in this class,” Nory went on. “We can do normal magic, if we practice. They can’t.”
“Is that so?” Ms. Starr said.
“Yes, it is. But we need your help. So will you?”
“Will I what?”
Nory stood up straighter. “We want to be tested. Please. To see if we can place into the regular fifth grade.”
Ms. Starr’s face fell. “Why?”
Nory felt a pang. She hadn’t meant to hurt Ms. Starr’s feelings.
“Because we don’t want to be wonkos,” Elliott blurted.
“I hope no one is using that word here at Dunwiddle,” Ms. Starr said, frowning.
If Elliott heard the tremble in Ms. Starr’s voice, he didn’t let on. “We just want a chance to be normal,” he said.
“Helping you be normal isn’t my job,” Ms. Starr said. Her expression was earnest. “My job is to help you understand what you have and accept it. I am teaching you how to make the most of your talents. This class is where you belong, because you have something unusual to offer.”
“Please,” begged Nory.
“Did you know that in the olden days, unusual powers were prized?” Ms. Starr continued. “Powers like making rainstorms, creating ice, or seeing what no one else could see. Turning into combination animals was considered beautiful.”
“They used to think Upside-Down Magic was better than regular magic?” Elliott asked.
“Some people thought it was better, just as now some people think it’s worse. But I think it’s just part of all the magic that’s out there,” said Ms. Starr.
“I think Elliott and I can be normal,” Nory argued.
“But what’s normal?” Ms. Starr asked. “It was only a century ago that people separated the powers into the five Fs, you know. It’s a very limited point of view. I believe there’s no such thing as normal, and that we all deserve respect, just as we are.”
All that was very nice,
but Nory wanted to go home to her family. “Please let us try,” she pleaded again.
Ms. Starr sighed. “You want to test out of my class?”
“Yes,” said Nory.
Elliott nodded.
“All right,” Ms. Starr said at last. “If it means that much to you, I’ll ask Principal Gonzalez to evaluate you.”
Nory grinned wide.
This time would be different from the Big Test.
This time she would pass.
Nory and Elliott practiced that afternoon at Nory’s house. Aunt Margo gave them cinnamon toast for a snack, but she wasn’t happy about their plan to get out of UDM.
“Oh, please,” she said, sinking into a chair at the kitchen table after they explained it all to her. “Just be who you are, not who you think you should be.”
Nory hated the expression on her aunt’s face, but it didn’t change her mind. “We’ll be outside practicing,” she said. “Come on, Elliott. You can bring your toast with you.”
Aunt Margo’s yard was full of vegetable plants and flowers. There was a line of laundry hanging out to dry in the September sun, and a small metal table with some chairs. Nory and Elliott ate and talked.
“Once we get switched to the regular classes, we’ll get trained in all the regular things,” Nory explained. “Did you know they don’t have to do headstands? Or interpretive dance. Or group trust exercises.” She told Elliott what she’d seen when she’d peeked into other classrooms: about the Flares’ marshmallow lessons and the earlybird Flyers in the circle and the Fluxers working on colored kittens.
“So they were working on actual skills?” he asked. “Practical skills?”
“And we will, too,” Nory said. “As soon as we get out of UDM.”
“How do those other teachers teach magic?” asked Elliott. “If they don’t do headstands and all that.”
“They teach magic like Ms. Starr teaches math. They explain how it’s done and then the students practice doing it.” She slipped a hair band off her wrist and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “My father always said that good magic is like a well-trained house pet. Nobody likes a dog that barks all the time, or a cat that scratches the furniture, right?”
Upside-Down Magic Page 6