I consider throwing a rock at the car (I know that’s a stupid idea, but it’s the only one I have). Then I remember I’ve got a magic wand. But what spell should I use? Right before the car turns the corner—and gets out of range of my wand—I chant, “Hubble bubble, engine trouble!”
As soon as I toss the spell, the engine makes a wheezing, coughing, clunking sound and the car lurches to a stop.
I hide behind a neighbor’s fence as Martin and his parents get out of the car. His father starts to open the hood, but his mother says, “We don’t have time for that! We’ll take my car.”
They hurry back to the driveway, where a second car is parked. I raise my wand again and chant, “Double bubble, engine trouble!” I toss the spell just as Martin’s father gets in and turns the key. The coughs, wheezes, and clunks are even louder this time. The car doesn’t budge an inch, but a couple of pink bubbles float out from its radiator grille and drift through the yard.
Martin, who’s waiting on the sidewalk with his mom, sees the bubbles and looks around suspiciously. I wiggle my fingers at him from behind the fence, and he smiles.
Unless Martin’s parents have another car stashed away, I’ve solved the problem: Martin is not going to his audition.
Martin’s mom pulls out her cell phone, exasperated. “Oh, for the love of Christmas! I’m calling a cab.”
Oh, for the love of Christmas is right! I’m going to be sitting behind this fence all morning!
Fifteen minutes later, a yellow cab pulls into the driveway. But I’m ready for it. I raise my wand and chant, “Triple bubble, engine trouble!”
I toss the spell, and the loudest coughing, wheezing, clunking sounds so far come out of the cab’s engine. And this time, there’s something extra. The cab’s hood pops open, and pink bubbles pour out. I wasn’t expecting this—I just stuck the word bubble into the spell because it rhymed with trouble. But words in spells count, and when the word is bubbles—especially triple bubbles—you get a lot of them. I feel a little sorry for the cabdriver, whose engine won’t work until midnight. On the bright side, his car is going to be really, really clean.
Martin’s mother, whose mouth is a thin, angry line, says, “This is ridiculous! I’m calling another cab!” But as she pulls out her cell phone, Martin’s father stops her. “Pamela, it’s no use. We’re not going to make it to the audition in time.”
“But—”
“These things happen. We’ll try to reschedule for next week.” Then he puts his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son. I know how disappointed you must be.”
Martin plasters on a sad face and says, “Oh, I’m horribly disappointed.”
Martin’s mother punches another number into her cell phone. What if, after all this, she’s still not ready to give up and she’s going to rent a bus or a small airplane or something? She talks into the phone, “Hello, Maestro Chaliapin? I’m so sorry. Something unexpected has come up and we’ll need to reschedule.”
Yay! I don’t have to bubble-ize a bus or an airplane! I pop out from behind the fence and act like I’m just noticing Martin in the driveway. “Hi, Martin! Have you heard the big news? Abner’s Pickles is sponsoring a new school carnival today! Want to come?”
Martin looks at his father with big, puppy-dog eyes. “Can I, Dad? Can I?”
His father nods. “I don’t see why not.”
Double, triple, and quadruple yay!
On the way to Abner’s house, I ask him to stop at the deserted school parking lot. The sun is shining bright and clear—which makes the remains of yesterday’s carnival look really, really awful. With all the wet, limp cardboard, it looks like somebody tried to papier-mâché the pavement. Somebody who flunked art class.
The saddest thing of all is the pile of soggy stuffed animals that were supposed to be prizes. Yesterday they were soft and fluffy; now they’re garbage. But I need them! It’s one thing to feed people magic food; it will just disappear from their stomachs at midnight. But it’s mean to give them magic prizes that won’t be there in the morning.
So I get out of the limo, raise my wand, and chant, “Poor little animals wet and dirty, dry off and clean up in a hurry.” I toss it at the animals, and they rise into the air, spin around, and then land in a perfect, clean, fuzzy pyramid.
We load them into the limo. And now it’s finally carnival time.
I carry Abner’s miniature carnival out of the house and put it at the edge of the wide, green lawn. It’s still so early that birds are hunting for worms in the morning dew—they don’t know that they’re about to see some serious magic.
There’s quite a group out here on the grass: me, Katarina, Martin, Sunny, Paige, and Abner. My hands are a little sweaty—what if I mess this up? The carnival is pretty much our last chance.
“Take a deep breath and relax, Lacey,” Katarina says. “Don’t think about the many, many times you’ve bungled, botched, and butchered even the simplest of spells.”
“KATARINA!” I shout.
“That’s what I get for trying to be supportive,” Katarina says.
I do take a deep breath, raise my wand, and chant, “Little carnival so tiny, turn big, bold, and shiny!”
I toss the spell at the carnival toy. Flashes of green, sparkly light shoot out from it like fireworks as the startled birds on the lawn flutter away and perch in the trees.
The fireworks go up, up, and up, and then crash back to the ground with a burst of sparkles.
With every sparkle burst, a booth or a sign or a ride appears.
Flash! There’s a merry-go-round.
Flash! There’s a teacup ride.
Flash! Flash! Flash! There’s a drop tower, a super slide with five tracks, a Tilt-a-Whirl, the Terrifica roller coaster, and a gigantic Ferris wheel. And just like in the carnival toy, pickles decorate everything. The merry-go-round doesn’t have horses to ride, it has pickles; the Ferris wheel has pickle-shaped gondolas; and the teacups aren’t really teacups, they’re pickle jars.
Flash-flash-flash! Food booths spring into view like pages in a pop-up book, all of them selling something either pickle-y or green or both. Pickles on sticks. Green cotton candy. Neon-bright jugs of green soda. Tubs of green relish for the hamburgers and hot dogs. Green ice cream. (I sure hope it’s not pickle flavored.) Apple-green snow cones.
Flash-flash-flash! And we’ve got the carnival games: Whac-A-Pickle, pickle toss, tic-tac-pickle.
And, finally, the fuzzy animals float out of the open door of the limousine and over to the booths to be the prizes.
So less than a minute after I toss the spell, we have a complete, full-sized, pickle-themed carnival, all set up and ready to go. I tell the others, “Now all we need to do is turn on the lights and the music! Instant carnival!”
“Are we going to do everything ourselves?” Martin asks. “Sell the tickets, run the rides, cook the food…”
“…and cheat the rubes at the carnie games?” Katarina asks, a little hopefully.
“We’re not cheating anybody!” I say. “But we are going to need some help.” I look at the carnival, where the curious birds are flying back out of the trees and perching on the booths, hoping for food.
I raise my wand and chant, “On the count of three, workers you shall be! One, two three!” I toss the spell at the birds, which, with the sound of flapping wings, transform into carnival workers who wear pickle-green T-shirts. The newly human workers huddle together, heads bobbing, and give me one-eyed bird stares. (Which makes sense, since they were birds just a second ago.)
I tell them, “Everybody spread out! Choose a booth or a ride!” But they all just turn their heads to stare at me with their other eyes.
“Shoo!” I say, clapping my hands. “Get to work!”
They scramble off and the carnival comes to life. Lights are turned on. The merry-go-round spins with its organ playing. Delicious smells waft over from the food booths.
Katarina says, “Ooh, pretty!” and starts to fly toward the glitte
ring lights. She never can resist anything that sparkles.
I jump in front of her to block her view. “Katarina! Snap out of it!”
Katarina blinks at me, a little dazed. “You need to warn me before you turn on twinkle lights!” She pulls a pair of dark glasses out of her pocket and puts them on. Superman has Kryptonite; Katarina has glitter.
I raise my arms dramatically and say, “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Lincoln Middle School Carnival!”
Martin says, “Small problem: there are no ladies and gentlemen.”
Abner scratches his cowboy hat and tells me, “We’re ten miles from town. How do you expect anyone to find out about us?”
Everyone looks at me like they think I’ve got the answer.
But I don’t. I’ve been so busy planning a carnival that I never thought about the people.
Paige sees my blank look. “Oh, no! We’ve gone to all this trouble so Makayla won’t think it’s a magic carnival…and now it’s not going to matter, because no one’s going to know about it!”
O.
M.
G.
I start jumping up and down excitedly.
Katarina gives me a cranky look. “What’s wrong with you, Lacey? Do you have fleas?”
“No! I have an idea,” I say. “We need Makayla. And we need her now.”
They all look at me like I’m insane. But I’m not insane. I’m a genius.
Thirty-four minutes later, Makayla stands in front of the pickle carnival talking breathlessly into Taylor’s camera. “This is Makayla Brandice, your eyes and ears on the school—with an exclusive, worldwide breaking news report! I’m here at the fabulous vacation compound of Abner, of Abner’s Pickles fame. And, today only, he’s putting on a fund-raising carnival to benefit Lincoln Middle School!”
She rushes up to Abner, who stands near the entrance to the Terrifica roller coaster with Martin. “Mr. Abner! Please tell us where you got this wonderful idea!”
Abner puts his arm around Martin’s shoulders and says, “It wasn’t my idea. Your classmate Martin Shembly talked me into it. He’s a wonderful kid, and you all are very lucky to have him at your school.”
Makayla nods. “Oh, that’s what I’ve always said, Mr. Abner! We’re so very, very lucky to have Martin.”
Makayla is shameless! But at least this time she’s shameless on the side of good. She turns back to the camera. “So, whatever you do, come to the carnival! It’s amazing! I’m spreading the word, and I want you to spread the word, too! Tweet it! Text it! Call everybody you know! Let’s make this the most successful fund-raiser in Lincoln’s history! We’ll repair the water tower. And I’ll get to go to the Online News Association banquet.”
That’s a little extra shameless, even for her. So she adds, “It’s not about me, of course. It’s about the school! Please come!”
Because of Makayla, thirty-eight minutes later, the word is out.
But will people come?
Yes, they do!
Thanks to Makayla’s gigantic mouth and pushy personality (which, as of now, I love), by ten a.m., hundreds of people have bought tickets. The morning goes by in a pickle-green blur. Tons of people shake Martin’s hand, including Principal Conehurst, whose smile is so wide that it stretches almost all the way around his head.
While Martin greets the public, Sunny, Paige, and I work at the pickle-shaped ticket booth. Katarina leans against a pile of money, out of sight. She says, “Cash is surprisingly comfortable!”
As more and more people arrive, there are long lines for everything, but no one seems to mind. This is a pretty small town, and there hasn’t been a carnival this good in…ever, probably.
The kid who seems to like the carnival best isn’t a kid at all—it’s Abner. He rides all the pickle rides, plays all the games, and eats all the food. Every time he sees me, he says, “This is the best day of my life!”
After lunch, Mom, Dad, and Madison come up to the ticket window, all smiles.
“The carnival’s wonderful, Lacey!” Dad tells me through the little window.
“Congratulations, honey!” Mom says. “It’s just amazing that Abner’s Pickles came through like this.”
Madison pulls on Mom’s and Dad’s sleeves. “Come on! I want a pickle snow cone! I want to ride the teacups! I want to play Whac-A-Pickle!”
Dad smiles at her. “Is that all?”
“No. I want you to win me seven stuffed animals! So I can sleep with a different one every night.”
Dad hands me all the cash in his wallet. “This is going to be an expensive afternoon.”
I hand Dad the tickets, and Madison yanks them away.
Mom calls, “We’re only here for an hour—then it’s back to the Hungry Moose for the dinner shift. Good luck today, Lacey!”
“Thanks, Mom.”
As the day goes on, I’m excited to see the pile of cash below the ticket booth windows getting bigger and bigger. Katarina puts on a little green visor and snaps pink rubber bands around bundles of cash and then stacks them in the back of the booth.
Sunny, Paige, and I take turns either selling tickets or walking around the carnival. Every time I leave the booth, I’m happy to see that the bird-workers are doing surprisingly well. They’re manning (birding?) the rides just fine. And this has got to be the cleanest carnival ever. The second anybody drops a piece of popcorn or any other food, they scramble for it and pop it into their mouths. Weird and gross, but very tidy.
The afternoon shadows are getting long as I finish another shift in the ticket booth and head out into the carnival again. I see a familiar face at the snow cone stand.
“Hi, Scott!”
“Hi, Lacey,” he says as he walks past me. Wow! He’s not even going to stop! Even with all that’s going on, I can’t leave things like this. So I blurt out, “Scott? Are you mad at me?”
This makes him stop.
“No, I’m not mad,” he says.
“You never really talk to me anymore.”
“You’re always busy with Martin. You haven’t even come to a Uni-Cyclones meeting.”
Oh, geez. I can’t tell Scott I’m busy with Martin because I’m his fairy godmother—but what do I tell Scott? Finally, I say, “After the water tower thing, Martin needed my help—you saw how bad it was for him. But when the carnival is over, he won’t need my help anymore and I’ll have more time for things like the Uni-Cyclones.”
He’s quiet for a long time, and I think I’ve blown it. But then he says, “The next meeting is on Monday.”
“I’ll be there!”
He smiles a little, more with his eyes—and those beautiful eyelashes of his—than with his mouth. “Great,” he says.
Then I gulp and ask a question that’s a lot scarier than the pickle Tilt-a-Whirl. “Scott? Do you want to ride the Ferris wheel with me?”
“Yeah,” Scott says. “I’d like that.”
The sun is setting as Scott and I climb into the pickle-shaped gondola of the Ferris wheel. A sleepy-eyed bird-worker closes the safety bar over our laps and turns a key on the control panel to put the wheel in motion.
I always forget how high up Ferris wheels go. You’re in a tiny car that you could fall out of at any second—and you’re going up and up and up. When the gondola rocks a little, I grab the safety bar.
Scott sees my white knuckles and gives me a smile. “It is pretty high, isn’t it?”
He puts his hand over mine.
He likes me.
At least I think he likes me. But maybe he’s just worried about me freaking out on the Ferris wheel and embarrassing him in front of the whole school.
I let go of the safety bar, to show him I’m not afraid. But as the Ferris wheel turns around and around in the last rays of the sun, Scott keeps holding my hand.
He likes me!
The Ferris wheel slows to a stop to unload people at the bottom, and our car sways at the very top. It’s like we’re floating up here, peaceful and alone.
Scott’s
really nice—and he likes me. And all I really seem to do is lie to him. Maybe it’s time for the truth. “Scott, I want to tell you something,” I say.
He looks at me, curious.
“I…I’m…”
But just before I say, I’m a fairy godmother, with a magic wand and everything, and I hope you still like me even though it’s kind of strange, there are shouts down on the ground.
“STOP THE RIDE!”
We both peer down at the ground, far below us. There are more shouts: “Get us off this thing!” “I’m gonna be sick!” “Please help us!”
“What’s happening?” Scott asks.
And then I notice that there are no bird-workers at the controls for the rides. Not one! They can’t have just disappeared—it’s not midnight yet!
But they’re definitely gone. And all the rides are still spinning and twirling and looping and dropping. No wonder everybody’s yelling.
Scott and I are actually the lucky ones. We’re just stuck—forty feet above the ground with no way to get off!
Down at the ride control stations, people in the crowd are trying to turn things off by pushing every button they can find. Nothing helps.
“Why can’t they shut the rides down?” Scott asks.
“I think you need a key for them.”
What am I going to do? I can’t use my magic wand in front of Scott, Makayla, and all these people, but I’ve got to do something. I start working out a plan in my head:
Step one: put Scott to sleep so he won’t see me doing any magic. (Where’s the Good Night Moonstone when I need it?)
Step two: make myself invisible so I can fly down to the ground.
Step three: come up with a good flying spell. (Now I really wish I’d paid more attention in magic homeschooling.)
The Spell Bind Page 13