The duck squawked.
“Yes, go on,” Iz said to it. “Do it, and see if I care, you silly thing.”
The duck made a new noise that sounded like agreement—a small huff, of sorts.
As the duck waddled back out, Ari hoped Sir Vincent was less nerve-wracking than a duck. In fact, he sort of hoped that Izzy might have, in this short time, forgotten about introducing him to Sir Vincent. He wasn’t sure he wanted to meet any more animals today. But Izzy, as usual, hadn’t forgotten.
“Sir Vincent is in the parlor. Would you like to meet her?”
Ari agreed reluctantly, wishing he had any clue how to say no to Iz. But he didn’t, so he followed Iz into a room that looked an awful lot like a regular old living room, and not the slightest bit like a parlor—although he wasn’t certain he knew the exact difference—and there, in the corner of the room, catty-corner to the sofa, stood a large screened cage full of branches and giant leaves. Ari couldn’t see what was in it, though his imagination certainly ran away from him. He thought it looked like the sort of cage one might keep a dragon in, if one had a dragon for a pet, and of course he wouldn’t put it past Izzy to be the one person in the world who had a dragon for a pet. In fact, once he started thinking it, it seemed almost likely. What other pet would be quite so right for her? And who else would be more likely to have a scaly, winged, fire-breathing creature in a cage in her living room/parlor? And, well… didn’t she live in a castle? And hadn’t he himself said that a castle ought to have a dragon? Before they’d even got across the room, he’d decided that’s what must be in the cage.
He followed Izzy around the sofa. She led him to the cage and pointed inside.
When Ari saw the creature that lived in the cage, he couldn’t say he was disappointed. For it was, in fact, something like a dragon, although not the size one might expect something ferocious to be. Nor did he think this particular dragon was going to be much of a success at either flying or fire-breathing, but he supposed he could live with that. It was about as close to a dragon as it would be possible to have in someone’s parlor.
“She likes to think of herself as a dragon.”
“Well, of course—” Ari started, but then he remembered what Izzy had called the animal. “She? Didn’t you say its name was Sir Vincent?”
“Indeed I did.”
“Can a girl be a sir?”
“A girl can be whatever she’d like to be, thank you very much. If she can be a Vincent, then she can be a sir.”
Izzy logic.
“She’s a chameleon,” Iz whispered behind her hand. “But don’t tell her that. She gets her dignity from the idea that she’s the guardian of the treasure.”
Ari whispered behind his own hand. “She might be right.”
Izzy peered at him with oddly bright eyes. “Yes, yes, I suppose the pancakes are worth guarding.”
“What about the house? And Bentson? And the princess, maybe. From Sir Vincent’s point of view, of course.”
Izzy snorted and said, “I’m sure I don’t know any princesses around here.”
But Ari thought she looked pleased.
“Well, she can look after me as well,” Ari said, this time straight to the lizard. “I will be well served if Sir Vincent considers me worthy.”
The chameleon blinked, slow and steady.
“I believe she likes you,” Izzy said.
“Is that usual?” Ari asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Does she like most people she meets?”
“I haven’t met her to most people,” Iz said airily. “Only you.”
And at that moment, Ari feared that if Iz looked directly at him, she would find his eyes oddly bright, too.
But she didn’t look at him, only grabbed his hand and dragged him along to the next room over, which was very green, and which she presented to him with the matter-of-fact assessment:
“This is the jungle room. It’s Bentson’s, really.”
“But Bentson’s a duck. Don’t ducks live around ponds and things? What does he need a jungle for?”
“How should I know? I don’t ask what for. I make sure they have what they need, those two. One doesn’t ask questions about things that are none of one’s damn business.”
“You shouldn’t say that,” Ari said automatically.
“What? Business? Business business busy-ness business. I don’t see why not. What’s wrong with it?”
“Not—oh never mind. You’re going to do whatever you want!”
Iz looked at him, eyebrows raised in astonishment. “What else is there to do?”
“Haven’t you any idea that there are rules?”
“Of course. But this is my house, so I make the rules, and when I make the rules, I can say whatever I’d like to say. You do too many shoulds, dear boy. That’s what comes of having a mother, I suppose. There’s good and bad to it, really. I’ll bet she makes all sorts of silly rules that you follow. Without even thinking. Like not saying business. Ridiculous.”
Ari gave up. “Yes, I suppose that’s what comes of having a mother.”
Izzy finished showing him the rest of the house, but admitted quite freely that in fact she’d already shown him the best bits. But it seemed necessary to finish the thing out, so they saw the kitchen, the basement (“dungeon,” said Izzy), and the w.c., which Izzy refused to call a bathroom.
“W.C. is far more civilized and interesting. It’s British. And there you have it!” They returned to the parlor, where Ari admired Sir Vincent again.
“So you see,” Izzy said, in her way of saying something that made it impossible to disagree, “I have myself, and I have Bentson, and I have Sir Vincent, and I have the house itself. It’s quite enough for one household, don’t you think? Particularly given that we every one of us have so much colorful personality.”
“So… you don’t think you might need a mother or a father? Sometimes. To give you a rule or two, now and then.”
“Well, what one needs and what one gets are not always quite the same thing, are they?”
“I suppose not.”
“I believe that if we had a mother and a father around here, we’d be positively bursting with too many folks, and that wouldn’t be good. No, I think we are perfectly all right as things are, Castle Beauregard Mandelgreen being the loveliest, safest, most homelike home seen in these parts since the beginning of time.”
Izzy sounded more certain of this than she had of anything that came before, so Ari supposed it was true, and that at the very least, she must believe it, but if he were to confess to himself and himself alone, he wasn’t too sure that Iz didn’t need a mother. Or at least a father. At least sometimes.
But he kept that bit to himself and told his friend how wonderful her strange home was. And that much was the truth.
Being the Story in Which Helen Doesn’t Like Izzy
Izandria Dauntless’s neighbors were grandparents. Not Izzy’s grandparents, mind you, but someone’s. For the winters, they went away somewhere warmer, which Izzy quite liked, because it meant she had most of the street to herself, and all of the snow, for there were no other kids on her block. But THAT was in the winter.
In the summer, the grandparents had a visitor for one month out of every year. Her name was Helen, and she was the granddaughter, and she was exactly the same age as Izzy. (Whatever that was. Izzy had never been too sure.)
Helen was blond with curls that never seemed to go out of place; straight, white teeth; and pale unblemished skin. (No freckles.) She wore clothing that never seemed to get dirty. And there was one other thing about her that Izzy tried to explain to Aristotle.
“It’s like her eyes aren’t all there.”
“Like she has no eyeballs?”
“No! Her… looking. The way she looks. Not to you, but at you. Oh! There’s something missing. When you look at me, I see your you, there in your eyes. When we talk, I see things happening, there in your eyes. Your you having a time, being a thing,” Iz
zy struggled, but Ari thought he was beginning to get it.
“And Helen doesn’t have that?”
Izzy looked drained, cheeks slack and teeth clenched. “Nothing. Like I can’t… see her in her eyes. Or anyone, really. It’s not right. Those eyes!”
Helen often drifted down the lane toward Izzy’s house, dragging a stick along the fence as she walked. You could hear her coming from miles away—rat-a-tat-a-tat-a. But Izzy had developed a fool-proof solution; every year when she heard Helen making her way down the lane, she pulled out a stack of signposts she’d made the first year Helen came to stay, and she stuck them all over her lawn.
Thus, when Helen reached the end of the grandparents’ fence and arrived at Izzy’s, she faced signs pointing toward the house advertising such things as, “person-sized spiders,” “rats with knifelike teeth,” and “skeletons that walk.” Iz figured that ought to be enough to keep her out.
But one day Ari came over while Helen was in town. Helen had reached the end of the fence with her rat-a-tat-a and stopped. Ari discovered her staring at the unusual signs in Izzy’s yard with her head tilted, debating whether she ought to let them put her off or not.
“I wouldn’t risk it if I were you,” Ari said gravely, although he’d no idea why Izzy would want to let people know about a “flesh-eating chameleon” on the grounds. He was reasonably certain that the only flesh Sir Vincent ever ate belonged to flies, if flies could be said to have flesh. He figured Izzy would have some reasons that he would initially think were demented, but as long as she talked about them long enough, in the end he would find them brilliant. That was increasingly how it went.
“What do you want?” Helen snarled.
“Nothing,” Ari said. “I’m looking for a person-sized spider for my collection, so I’m going into the house.”
Helen narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s not funny. It’s that girl who lives there. She’s weird. Are you weird?”
Ari mulled this over. “As a general sort of thing, I think I’m quite usual. However, I do come to this weird girl’s house a lot, and we do many weird things, so you may have a point.”
“Yeah, you’re weird. She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t want me to come in. She thinks I’m afraid of the signs, and that’s why I don’t. She puts them up when I come to visit my grandparents to keep me out.”
“You seem wise to her ways. Why don’t you go in, then?”
Helen looked at him as though he had suggested she boil her head in lemon juice. “She puts up creepy signs to keep me out. Why would I want to go in?”
“Fair enough,” Ari said. “Then why are you standing here staring at her signs? Talking to me about how weird she is?”
Helen shrugged. “I’m here for a month, visiting my grandparents. Every year. And there’s nothing to do. No one to talk to. It’s boring. I thought… we could be friends.”
“Izzy doesn’t really have friends.”
“She has you.”
“How many people do I look like to you?”
Helen shifted feet, and it looked to Ari like she was deciding what his question meant. He didn’t think it was going to be anytime soon that she would figure it out, so he turned to head up to the house and leave her behind, only to see that Izzy was on her way down.
This produced a quaver in his stomach. He was sure it would be fine, but he couldn’t help thinking that it might’ve been even better than fine if Iz had left well enough alone and not decided to have a chat with Helen. But Iz was not one to be stopped from satisfying her curiosity, even if things might be even better than fine if she weren’t quite so curious.
“Hallo,” she said. “Looking for a skeleton?”
“No,” Helen replied sullenly. “Of course not. What kind of dummy is looking for a skeleton?”
“Well. Not just any skeleton, of course. One that walks.” Izzy shrugged. “I’m not personally in the market for one at the moment, but I figure one day when the one I’ve got wears out, I might want to replace it with a fresh one.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Helen.
“Hmm… I don’t talk much to stupid people. Maybe you could help me! Say some stupid things, and I’ll see if any of them are the stupidest I’ve ever heard.”
“Is she serious?” Helen asked Aristotle.
Ari bit his lip. It wasn’t that easy to answer. Because in one way, the answer was yes, 100%, deadly, that Izzy was, truly, never anything but serious. And yet, the answer was also—nothing about Izzy was really serious. It was all seeing where she could get to and what she might do in a way that wasn’t like what you were used to. But she was totally serious about that. Which Ari was pretty sure he finally understood, but also pretty sure that Helen was not going to understand. So in the end, all he said was, “Mmmf,” so that Helen could take it however she liked.
She eyed him like she didn’t trust him, either.
“Hmm, no, I don’t think that’s quite the stupidest thing I’ve ever head,” Izzy said. “Try again.”
“I don’t want to play this game.” Helen rat-a-tatted her stick on the sidewalk a few times.
“Okay,” Izzy shrugged. “No one’s made you stay. Aristotle and I are going to have our teanic* now, then.”
(*A teanic, of course, being exactly like a picnic except with tea.)
“Aristotle? Is that your real name?”
“It’s the name I gave him,” Izzy said.
“Can’t he speak for himself?” Helen asked, and Aristotle marveled for a moment at how she could seem so empty and unthinking one minute, and then suddenly say something sharp as a tack another—while still maintaining her outer air of fog. As though there were a whole other person beneath what she showed most of the time. He shivered. Izzy was right, it didn’t seem right. Never mind that there might be some truth underneath what she’d asked.
“Of course I can speak for myself,” he said. “It’s a nickname. Izzy and I are friends, and she calls me by a nickname. Would you like one?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m Helen.”
“You never wanted to imagine being someone else?”
“No,” Helen said.
“I’m not sure she can,” Izzy said. Her gaze had gone from mildly curious to intense scrutiny, like one would use when examining a bug under a microscope, as one tried to sort out how its antennae worked or what its guts were made of. Izzy sometimes got this look when she was trying to understand something. It was not a comfortable look to be the recipient of.
“Don’t say ‘she’ like that,” Helen said, her hands balling into fists at her sides.
“Why not?” Izzy asked.
“Because I’m standing right in front of you!” Helen roared. “And I hate it!”
“Well, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Ari. Why should I care how you feel about it? You’re standing on my lawn, uninvited, interrupting a private conversation. In fact, I think I’ve made it quite clear that you aren’t welcome here.”
Helen’s mouth hung open. Izzy turned away, looking like she was about to head back to the house, which Ari supposed was exactly what she meant to do, but Helen snapped her mouth closed and hurled herself at Iz.
She got a fist full of Iz’s pigtail and yanked, and Izzy howled. (Still the pigtail didn’t fall out.) Helen pummeled Izzy’s side and as much round her front as she could grab, fists flailing and face reddening.
Ari could hardly believe the whole thing, but once he realized it was for real happening, he leapt up and latched his fingers hard round Helen’s arms and tried to pull her off Izzy.
Izzy lashed out backward with both her elbows, sending sharp, hard bones into the softest spots she could find.
Helen grunted, pulled back suddenly, and shoved Izzy as hard as she could.
Izzy fell forward on her hands and knees and whirled around, sliding back on her butt to escape from Helen’s further wrath.
Helen stood there, breathing hard, glaring at Izzy.
“No one will ever like you,” she said, her mouth twisted. Stealing a glance at Ari, who had slunk around her side, ready to get between the two if need be, she added, “Not really.”
“Well,” Iz said, slapping her palms against each other and brushing at the dirt on her knees. “No one ought to get started soon, then. You see, I like me, and I have for some years now, oh about since I was three and three-quarters, and I quite think I shall continue liking me. At least for now. You never can say what will happen tomorrow, can you? But no one can go ahead with the not liking. I believe Ari and I will keep busy regardless.”
It would not have been inaccurate to say that Helen’s mouth gawped even more than before, like a fish who’s had more air than water.
“You’re not bothered by no one liking you?”
“Bothered? Quite the contrary, young lady. It’s always a pleasure to have someone like you, even if it is no one. And still and all, even if you could say no one likes me, you couldn’t quite say no one likes me, because I’ve told you, I like me, and that looks to be so for a while ahead. So I’ve got no one and I’ve got me, and I expect that shall suffice for getting done what needs doing. Aristotle and I are now quite past the time when we should be having our teanic. I fear, given that you’ve tried to pull my hair and smash my face, I cannot invite you along, Helen. So we shall be headed back up to the house without you. Good day.”
Helen, whose mouth had not stopped gawping, backed up, slowly at first, without taking her eyes from Izzy, and then more rapidly, until she looked (and felt) entirely ridiculous, running backward as well as she might, but still quite certain that it would be unwise to take her eyes off Izzy.
Izzy watched her go, frowning. “What do you suppose is wrong with her?”
Ari shook his head. He stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth for a minute before speaking. “You’re not like other people, Izandria Dauntless.”
“Oh don’t you get started now, too.”
“I didn’t say no one likes you. I said you’re not like them.”
Izzy looked him straight in the eye and said, “One might as well be the other, mightn’t it?”
A Possibility of Magic Page 3