“Room sweet room,” she says, sounding sarcastic about it. Instead of complaining about my room, you’d think she’d be happy not to be in Antarctica right now.
“I like it this way.” I flop down on the bed. “You can change your sixty percent into anything you want.”
“Why bother? No matter what I do, it’s never quite right. Underneath, it’s still your room, not mine.” She climbs into my jewelry box and pulls the lid shut over her.
I feel bad. After all this time, she still doesn’t feel at home here. But what can I do about it?
There’s a glittery blue flash at the window: it’s Augustina Oberon. Just what I need. Another fairy. I look at the jewelry box—Katarina peers out for a second and then quietly closes the lid again. Great! So I’m the one who has to talk to her.
“Hello, Augustina,” I say.
“So, Lacey Unger-Ware, it seems you completed your assignment with twelve seconds to spare last night. Cutting it a little close, weren’t you?”
“But I got it done!”
“I’ve brought your report card.”
“I get graded?”
“Of course. With every assignment.”
Augustina snaps her fingers, and a sheet of sparkly paper floats down from the ceiling.
I read it and frown. “I got a C-minus?”
“You were lucky to get that! I wanted to give you a D, but Terrifica said that anybody who could put up with Katarina deserves a little extra credit, and I was forced to agree.”
And with a flash of blue, she disappears.
A moment later, Katarina pokes her head back out of the jewelry box. “Is she gone?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“She’s lucky. I’m still stuck right here.”
Geez. I’ve got to do something to cheer her up.
Compared to that, unstinking Martin’s life was easy.
Today, the whole school is gathered around the new Abraham Lincoln top hat water tower for the rededication ceremony. The tower looks exactly the same as it was before, except not rusty or filled with slimy, disgusting water. For today’s event, there’s a wide purple-and-gold ribbon tied around the legs.
Principal Conehurst finishes a long speech about how wonderful it is to have the water tower back, and everyone cheers. Then he says, “Martin Shembly will now cut the ribbon.”
Mrs. Fleecy hands Martin a giant pair of gold scissors, and Martin slices through the ribbon in one smooth motion. We’re all about to cheer again when we notice that the ribbon isn’t quite cut through. Martin raises his hand. “I’ve got this covered.”
He pulls on the ribbon, which still doesn’t tear. Then he yanks really hard—and there’s a loud cracking sound from the tower’s legs. “Oops,” Martin says.
“Run for your lives!” Principal Conehurst shouts. And the water tower tips over in a gigantic flood of icy cold water. Makayla, who’s the closest, gets washed away screaming, “Not again!”
Kidding! I was just daydreaming.
Actually, the rededication ceremony went perfectly. The speeches were a little boring (and that’s when I started daydreaming about Martin knocking over the water tower again), but Martin manages to cut the ribbon without a smidge of trouble.
“Thank you, Martin!” Principal Conehurst says. “The entire school owes you an enormous debt of gratitude for helping raise the money.”
Martin says, “I couldn’t have done it without a lot of help. Makayla Brandice, you’re a publicity genius.”
From behind her camera, Makayla waves at the crowd, and we exchange a smile. (And it’s sooo weird that we don’t hate each other anymore. Let’s see how long that lasts.)
Martin continues, “And Sunny Varden, Paige Harrington, and especially Lacey Unger-Ware, you’re all wonderful. Get up and take a bow!”
And we do.
After school, Mrs. Fleecy walks into the art room carrying two extra-large containers of crafts supplies and cookies. She smiles when she sees Martin sitting next to me, Sunny, and Paige. “Martin? Are you joining Craft-N-Crunch?”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m just here to help the girls with some wiring.”
“How nice! They’ve been working so hard on their project.”
Then Scott pokes his head in the door. “Come on, Martin! You need to start the Future Flyers Club meeting. The leaf blowers are here!”
“Where’d they come from, Martin?” I ask.
“Abner donated them! He says I remind him of himself when he was a kid.” Martin looks a little worried. “Don’t tell Principal Conehurst we’re working on jetpacks.”
I won’t need to tell him—the principal’s sure to notice when they knock something down. But, thank glitter, that’s not my problem anymore. “Be sure to wear helmets! And knee pads! And maybe some Bubble Wrap!” I say.
As Martin gets up to go, Scott tells me, “See you tomorrow, Lacey.”
“I can’t wait,” I say.
After the boys leave, Sunny asks me, “What’s tomorrow?”
“Um…we’re going to a movie.”
Sunny and Paige both say, “Ooooh.”
I pretend like it’s no big deal, but on the inside, I’m saying, “Ooooh,” too.
I put a shoe box down on my dresser, where Katarina, looking bored, sits filing her nails.
“I made you something,” I say. “Sunny, Paige, and Martin all helped.”
She barely looks up from her nails. “Great. A shoe box. I’ll check it out later. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my cuticles won’t wait.”
“No, look!” I say.
She sighs and walks over to it.
“I decided you need a space of your own in here. Someplace nice.”
“And you thought of a shoe box,” she says. “Yippee.” She somehow makes “Yippee” sound like “Yuck.”
I turn the box around to the side where I’ve made a Katarina-sized door. I open it. “Go inside.”
“I’m not going into a shoe box!”
“Please!”
She looks inside the door. “Oh,” she says, and disappears inside.
When I don’t hear another sound for a while, I peer through the window. Katarina is walking around the little room that we’ve made for her over the last two weeks, sometimes in Craft-N-Crunch and sometimes in Martin’s basement.
“Oh, I love the wallpaper!” she says.
“Paige saw it in a magazine, and we copied it.”
“And there’s a TV!”
“It’s Sunny’s old smartphone. She thought you would like it.”
“And there’s a crystal chandelier!”
“I made it out of a necklace. Martin wired it with little lights. Turn it on!”
She looks at me, worried. “It’s not going to blow up, is it?”
“No. Only the first two blew up. This one is fine.”
Katarina flips the switch, and the tiny crystal chandelier sparkles with light.
“Lovely,” she says.
Katarina pats the bed. “It feels comfortable.”
“It’s filled with feathers. I told Madison I’d eat her broccoli for a month if she’d let me have one of her feather boas.”
Katarina sits on the bed, studying every detail of the room.
“And I didn’t use one speck of magic, so nothing will disappear at midnight,” I say. “It will last as long as you want to stay. Which, I hope, is a long time.”
Katarina says, “You did all this for me?”
I nod. “This is your home. I want you to be happy.”
Katarina says, “This could work.”
And then she gets up and slams the door in my face.
I think that means she likes it.
The Spell Bind’s glittering godparents include Emily Bergman, John Biondo, Teresa Blasberg, Helen Brauner, Becky Bristow, Josh Capps, Jennifer Cheng, Jennifer Collopy, Delmus Credle (who tirelessly listened to never-ending details about jetpacks and pickles), Breezie Daniel, Dirk Dickens, Mike Hale, Russ Hanford, Michelle Hardy, Lisa
Holmes, Alice Lawson, Laurie Mattson, Maelena Mattson, Jen Mulder, Jean Noble, Catherine Onder, Gerardo Paron, Daryl Patton, Michael Schenkman, Cheryl Tan, Linda Wachter, Daniel Wake, Alexis Wallrich, Justeen Ward, Marty Ward, and everyone at Once Upon a Time Bookstore in Montrose.
Laura Hopper, Joseph Veltre, and Bayard Maybank are our Godmother Posse. Thanks, guys!
Tracey Keevan, our wonderful editor, makes sure our spells never backfire unless we want them to.
And thanks with sparkles on top to Jamie Baker, our publicist, and the great team at Disney-Hyperion.
Barbara Brauner grew up in a house that had so many books, her father had to brace the floors. After she moved to Los Angeles to work in the movie business, she met James, who’s been her writing partner ever since. Barbara lives with her bite-y, scratchy, and yet still oddly lovable rescue cat, Jeeves.
Before he started writing with Barbara, James Iver Mattson worked in motion picture special effects, which, just like the Oh My Godmother series, often involved a lot of sparkles. James’s cat is named Fred, and is Jeeves’s sweeter-natured brother. You can visit Barbara and James online at www.braunermattson.com.
Abigail Halpin lives, draws, and dreams in northern New England. When not drawing, she can frequently be found armed with a pair of knitting needles or a stack of books, or making a racket on the piano. Visit her at www.theodesign.com.
The Spell Bind Page 15