The Spell Bind

by Barbara Brauner

  “Because I’ve been too busy plowing snow! Who has time to teach?”

  “Stop fighting, you guys,” I say. “I tried to make a unicycle for the club at school, and it got away. I won’t do it again.”

  They stop glaring at each other and instead they glare at me.

  Augustina points at the Frisbee-unicycle, which is crashed on the other side of the dresser with its pedals still pedaling. “That misbegotten device you created was flying all over town.”

  Katarina is shocked. “Did anybody see it?”

  Augustina shakes her head. “Thankfully, nobody human. Just three dogs, twelve crows, and a skunk.”

  Now that she mentions it, there is a skunky aroma wafting from the unicycle. That skunk must have been scared.

  Augustina looks disgusted and tries to wave the smell away. “Alarms were sounding all over Godmother headquarters. It could have been the end of fairy godmothering as we know it!”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” I say. “The unicycle is here now. Everything’s good!”

  Augustina gives me a pinch. “One thing’s not good. You. Make that two things. You and your teacher. Katarina!” Then she gives Katarina a pinch, too. “Keep your student under control, or we’ll all pay the price!”

  And she disappears out the window as fast as she came.

  I decide it might be a good idea to give Katarina a little time to calm down, so I go lie on the couch in the family room—where it’s warm—and watch Bridemonsters reruns. Julius curls up on my lap, purring.

  Madison comes waltzing in, singing, “I’m a ladybug! I’m a ladybug. Tell me to fly away home!”

  “All right. Madison, Madison, fly away home!”

  “I am home! I tricked you!”

  She falls on the couch next to me, giggling hysterically. Julius is used to her, so he doesn’t even bother opening his eyes. (Is he a brave cat? Or just lazy?) Madison finally giggles herself out and says, “Mom and Dad are going to the restaurant, and you’re gonna make me SpaghettiOs and then we’ll wash Barbie’s hair.”

  Nobody told me I was babysitting tonight. Normally I’d be annoyed, but every hour outside my room is an hour when I’m not getting yelled at by fairies. So instead of complaining, all I say to Madison is “Which Barbie?”

  “All of them. And then we’re going to watch Ladybug and the Tramp.”

  “You mean Lady and the Tramp.”

  “No, we’re going to turn the sound off and you’re going to do ladybug voices.”

  I say, in a high, squeaky, sort-of-insect voice, “Hi, Tramp! I’m the ladybug of your dreams! Let’s eat LadybugOs.”

  Madison laughs like she’s never going to stop. To a five-year-old, anything in a high, squeaky voice is absolutely hilarious.

  Mom and Dad get home, and I give Julius one last hug before I go back to my room. I tell him, “Maybe you can’t feel the cold, but there’s going to be a lot of yelling. Believe me, you’re better off out here.”

  My bedroom is so quiet, you can almost hear the icicles forming. The magic unicycle has frozen solid, poor thing. It’ll probably be really happy to turn back into a Frisbee at midnight.

  Katarina has rebuilt her igloo bigger and better—it’s an ig-mansion. She must have added fifty rooms! Dim, cold, blue light pours out of every window.

  Shivering, I peer inside. Katarina is sound asleep on a little bed covered with white fur. (It had better be fake fur, I think to myself.)

  Even with all the fur, fake or not, it doesn’t exactly look warm and cozy in there. Plus it could be the most wonderful room in the world, and it would still vanish at the stroke of twelve.

  Is that what Katarina’s whole life has been like? Cold blue rooms with no one, no family or friends or pets, to keep her company?

  No wonder she’s so cranky all the time. If she weren’t a fairy godmother, I’d say she needed a fairy godmother.

  My eyes flutter open and I see morning sun streaming through arched, iron-framed windows. The kind of windows castles have.

  “Katarina!” I say, not wanting to move from under my pile of covers. “What have you done now?”

  When there’s no answer from her, I sit up and look around. My bed is in the middle of a castle kitchen with stone walls and a ginormous fireplace. And there’s a blond girl on her hands and knees scrubbing the filthy floor. A blond girl who’s wearing a cheerleader’s uniform.

  “Paige? What are you doing here?” I ask.

  She looks up with a scared expression. “Stepmother! I’m almost done! Please don’t throw more food at me! I’ve done everything you asked!”

  Stepmother? I look behind me, and there’s nobody there.

  Then I glance into the mirror on the wall and see myself. I’ve got fancy hair, and evil eyebrows, and my hands are full of green Jell-O.

  Paige screams, “No! Not the Jell-O!”

  I can’t help myself. I throw it at her.

  And then I wake up—I’m in my freezing-cold bedroom, with no trace of a castle or Paige.

  Creepy dream! And how weird that I was the evil stepmother. I think about the dream for a while. In the food fight at school, Paige got dirty and the kids made fun of her. And it was my fault.

  OMG! I’m the evil stepmother in real life, too!

  I’ve got to make Paige understand how sorry I am. But I’ve already tried to apologize. What else can I do?

  “I lost my shoe and you. I don’t know what to dooooooooooooo!” I sing on Paige’s front lawn.

  That song doesn’t sound familiar? It’s from Cinderella, the Rock Opera.

  That doesn’t sound familiar, either? Well, it’s a play that my school put on, and Paige had the lead role. The words from her big solo kind of fit what’s going on between the two of us right now. Plus I’m hoping that the fact I’m humiliating myself on her lawn will make her feel better, or at least make her smile.

  The song doesn’t have that many words, but I sing them over and over again at the top of my voice: “I lost my shoe and you. I can’t believe it’s true. I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling so very bluuuuuuuue.”

  Katarina is in my pocket holding her ears. “This is a ridiculous plan! Stop that yowling before my eardrums explode!”

  A moment later, Paige’s front door opens, and I hold my breath, hoping that she’ll come out smiling.

  But it’s not Paige. It’s her father, Dr. Harrington, who’s dressed for work at the hospital. “Hi, Lacey. Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” he asks, and then he gets into his car and drives away without mentioning the singing.

  I guess he just assumes that all twelve-year-old girls are a little crazy.

  “She’s not coming out! Let’s go!” Katarina says.

  But I launch into the song again: “I lost my shoe and you…”

  Then Paige’s door reopens and a girl comes out. It’s Makayla!

  This is worse than I thought. Paige has unfriended me and refriended Makayla!

  Makayla walks up, puts her arm around me, and raises her cell phone. She speaks in her very-important-news-blogger voice: “I’m here with Lacey Unger-Ware, who has been quite the girl about town lately. I don’t know how she does it. Now she’s outside Paige Harrington’s house singing a song. Come on, Lacey! Show us what you can do.”

  I hesitate. If she posts the video, I’m going to look like a total idiot. But then I remember that’s the whole point of what I’m doing. To get your friend back, you have to be willing to put yourself on the line. The really embarrassing line.

  So, as Makayla records me, I open my mouth and sing, “I—”

  “STOP!” Paige shouts, so loud that Makayla jumps and drops her phone. As she leans down to pick it up, Paige yanks me inside the house and shuts the door.

  We take turns peering through the curtains at Makayla, who knocks for a while but finally gives up and walks away.

  I turn to Paige and jump right into my apology. “Paige! I messed up with Martin and you, and I’m soooooo sorry!” I launch back into the son
g. “I lost my shoe and you…”

  “Wait! Will you do one thing for me?” Paige asks.

  “Sure! Anything!”

  “Never sing that song again!”

  “But I need to show you how sorry I am.”

  “I got that! Stop! I forgive you!”

  “You do?”

  Paige nods. “Anybody who would do something that silly deserves a second chance.”

  Katarina pokes her head out of my pocket, surprised. “She does? I told her to buy you jewelry!”

  “No, the song is enough. More than enough.”

  I give Paige a big hug. “You forgive me! You forgive me! I’m so happy.”

  But I’m only happy for a moment more, because then Paige says, in a very serious voice, “There’s a big, big problem. Let me tell you why Makayla was here.”

  I don’t like the sound of that.

  The more I hear, the worse it gets. After Paige finishes talking, I text Sunny and Martin: EMERGENCY! FOUNTAIN PARK ASAP!

  At the park, I turn to Paige. “Tell Sunny and Martin what you told me.”

  Paige takes a deep breath and starts talking. “First thing this morning, Makayla came over to my house and started asking me all sorts of questions about Lacey. She knew Lacey and I had a fight and thought I would be happy to badmouth her.”

  “What did she want to know?” Martin asks.

  Paige says, “About the fairy godmother dress. And about backpacks with pink sparkles coming out of them. And…about whether I believed in magic.”

  Katarina moans. “She asked about magic? This is bad! This is really bad.”

  Martin says, “Makayla must have thought about it last night and decided there was more to the story than smelly cleaning products. Maybe she’s a real reporter after all.”

  Sunny asks, “So what did you say back, Paige?”

  “I pretended like I thought she was joking. I told her if she was going to punk me for her blog, she was going to have to try harder. Then she pretended like that’s what she was doing and left.”

  Martin nods. “She who punks last punks best. Paige, you’re maar.”

  Katarina shudders. “Stop with the Elvish! Your accent is horrible. With that pronunciation, you just called Paige a jelly doughnut.”

  I try to put the discussion back on track. “Anyway, I think we’re okay—Makayla doesn’t really know anything.”

  Katarina says. “She knows enough. You can forget about your carnival.”

  Sunny says, “There’s going to be a carnival?”

  “Yes!” I say. “That’s the new plan. I’m going to make a magic carnival with rides and stuff to pay for the after-school programs.”

  Katarina shakes her head. “Not with Makayla watching you! Magic—of any kind—is too dangerous. Fairy godmothers survive with humans because humans don’t pay attention to anything. But now Makayla is paying attention.”

  Martin looks confused. “Wait—I’ve got a fairy godmother who can’t use magic?”

  “What if Lacey does magic without making it look like magic? A carnival that seems like the kids made it, but it’s really all from Lacey’s wand?” Sunny asks.

  Katarina shakes her head again. “Even that would be too dangerous with Makayla sticking her nosy little nose into everything. All she needs is one glimpse of Lacey’s wand in action, and it’s all over.”

  I feel like screaming. “We’ve got to have the carnival,” I say. “What can we do?”

  Katarina looks wise and solemn. “We need to take care of Makayla.”

  “Take care of her, how?” I ask.

  “I suggest the Red Shoes Protocol.”

  Paige looks intrigued. (She loves shoes.) “What’s that?”

  Katarina smiles. “Simple, really. We give her beautiful dancing shoes. She puts them on…and she dances away, never to be seen again.”

  “But what happens to her?” Sunny asks.

  “Well, in the Middle Ages they usually danced into the woods and were eaten by wolves. But it doesn’t have to be wolves. Coyotes, mountain lions. Even a pack of little yappy dogs would work. At any rate, your problem is solved and we can go on with the carnival.”

  “No way! We can’t send Makayla off to be eaten by wolves,” I almost shout.

  Katarina shrugs. “Fine. Go with the yappy dogs. They’re small but mean.”

  “No! I’m not going to send Makayla off to be eaten by anything.”

  Katarina says, “Well, then. There’s only one thing I can say. If Makayla stays…we’re DOOMED!”

  We sit around like we’re having a contest for who can look the most miserable. I think I win, because I’m the one who’s wrecking Martin’s life, not to mention mine and Katarina’s. I’m so over being a fairy godmother! Sure, I’ve got a magic wand, but does that make things easier? No! It only messes things up. For all the good it does me, I’d be better off trying to do things without any magic at all.

  But I could never raise the money we need without magic. Could I?

  And then I have my best blinking-lightbulb-idea moment so far. I say, “We can do it!”

  “We can do what?” Sunny asks.

  “We can put on a real carnival this weekend. Without magic! It will take a lot of work, but we can do it!”

  “Nonsense!” Katarina says. “An enterprise this big must have magic!”

  But Sunny, Paige, Martin, and I talk, and we talk, and we talk some more.

  An hour later, we’ve got a carnival planned.

  A non-magic carnival, and Makayla won’t be able to do a thing about that. By the time we’re done talking, even Katarina looks less depressed.

  “Well…it might work,” she says. “But wolves or yappy dogs would be a lot easier.”

  “You really think Principal Conehurst will let us do it?” Martin asks me.

  I nod. “Absolutely!”

  “Impossible! You won’t even be able to get the flyers done by Friday, much less put together a whole carnival,” Principal Conehurst tells me and Martin in his office.

  If Katarina were in my pocket right now, she’d be whispering, “I told you so!” Luckily, she stayed home to supervise portal snow removal.

  “We can do it!” I say. “We’re desperate! People hate Martin, and we need them to stop hating Martin. The only way to do that is to fix the water tower and get back the field trips. Martin can barely take it anymore.”

  “I think I can only take it till Sunday when the moon is full,” Martin says.

  The principal raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me—you’re a werewolf.”

  Martin shakes his head. “No, it’s worse than that! I’m unpopular! And not just a little unpopular. Hugely unpopular. People throw food at me!”

  Principal Conehurst gives Martin a sympathetic look. “I get what you’re saying. But organizing an entire carnival in five days is completely unrealistic.”

  “We can do it,” I say.

  The door bursts open, and Mrs. Fleecy races in. “Please let them do it!”

  Principal Conehurst looks at her, startled.

  “I admit it,” Mrs. Fleecy says. “I was listening on the intercom, and I think the carnival is a lovely idea. Maybe they’ll raise the money, or maybe they won’t. But the important thing is that this school will start pulling together again. I’ve worked here for almost twenty years, and I’ve never seen so many unhappy students. At least let Lacey and Martin try.”

  “But a carnival in five days?”

  “What better way to make the kids forget their problems and work together? Give them a month, and they’ll bicker and fight. Give them five days, and they’ll have to be a team.”

  Principal Conehurst frowns, thinking. “But the school has no funds for this. And remember, all the carnival supplies were ruined.”

  “We don’t need any funds! And we’ll bring our own supplies,” I say.

  More frowning from the principal. “Let’s be logical. Because of the flood, you don’t even have booths.”

  “Thou
ght of that!” Martin says. “We’ll go to every store that sells refrigerators and ask them for the boxes. My Cub Scout troop did that for our haunted Halloween house.”

  “Cardboard boxes? Won’t that be kind of…bare?”

  Mrs. Fleecy says, “That’s a perfect job for Craft-N-Crunch! And I’ve got a garage full of paint!”

  “What about lights? On Friday night it will be dark.”

  I say, “There are lights in the parking lot.”

  And Martin adds, “And every kid could bring in one strand of Christmas tree lights from home.”

  Mrs. Fleecy smiles. “That would be pretty!”

  “How about rides?” Wow. Principal Conehurst thinks of everything. Luckily, we have, too.

  Martin says, “I’ve got a basement full of tools. There’s just going to be one ride, really. I’m going to build it, and it’s going to be epic!”

  Even I don’t know what Martin’s got planned for the ride. All he’ll tell me is that he’s got it under control. I just hope it’s not too epic.

  Principal Conehurst is still thinking. “What about prizes for the games?”

  Hmmm. We didn’t think of everything. We’d need money to buy prizes. All those stuffed animals…and then I grin. “I have at least ten stuffed animals in my closet that I never look at. And I bet that every other girl in school does, too. The prizes will be donated.”

  The principal looks at me, Martin, and Mrs. Fleecy (who’s giving him a thumbs-up and waggling her eyebrows like a crazy person). He crosses his arms and frowns.

  OMG. He’s going to tell us no. Antarctica, here I come!

  Then he reaches over and grabs the microphone for the school’s public address system. “Attention, Lincoln Middle School students! Please join Martin Shembly and Lacey Unger-Ware for a meeting in the parking lot this afternoon after school. They are organizing a fund-raising carnival to be held this weekend. The proceeds will go to restoring the field trips and the water tower. Also, Mrs. Fleecy will provide cookies for everyone. That is all.”

  He waggles his eyebrows back at Mrs. Fleecy.