My Fair Godmother Read online

  I sat on my bed for a moment longer. The clock on my dresser read 10:00, but it felt like I’d been gone for years. I wanted to find my parents—and even Jane—throw my arms around them, and tell them I’d missed them.

  Of course I couldn’t do it, especially not looking like I did. I took off my Snow White dress, grabbed some clothes from my dresser, and darted into the bathroom. The beautiful, marvelous, completely modern bathroom.

  I must have stood in the shower letting the warm water run over me for a good twenty minutes before I even picked up the shampoo bottle. And then I nearly cried when I did. Shampoo instead of that hard, bad-smelling soap. It made bubbles in my hair. Could anything be more wonderful?

  As it turned out, I discovered many things that were. I put creamy, soothing hand lotion on my hands that were still chapped and blistered from my days as Cinderella. I found my parents just as they were about to turn in for the night and gave them both big hugs. My mother smelled of a mixture of her perfume and hairspray. I’d missed that smell.

  My dad’s embrace felt so secure. This more than anything convinced me I was really home. No memories of wicked stepmothers in all their evil glory could bother me while my dad was around. With that one hug they vanished back into the pages of fiction.

  Jane was talking on the phone with Hunter, so I didn’t say anything to her, and she averted her eyes when she saw me. I flipped the lights on and off in the kitchen just because I could. Ditto for the water in the sink. My reunion with the refrigerator was especially touching.

  I stood in front of it staring at the many contents and felt tears press against my eyes. Cold milk and leftover pizza. Yogurt, jam, oranges, lunchmeat, and little prepackaged slices of American cheese. I didn’t know what to eat first.

  Jane walked into the kitchen to return the phone to its cradle and saw me crying in front of the fridge. “What’s wrong?” she asked in a tentative voice, like she was afraid of the answer.

  “Nothing.” I emptied the fridge of several items, putting it all on the table. I caught sight of a loaf of bread and picked it up, cradling it in my hands like it was a baby. “Can you believe how light and soft this is?” I asked Jane. “There’s no gritty little hard pieces in it.”

  She didn’t answer, just watched as I grabbed the ice cream from the freezer. I kissed the carton, set it down on the table, and grabbed a bowl. I served myself two large scoops, which I ate in between nibbling on everything else.

  Jane looked at me then said, “I see,” in this prim sort of way like she was psychoanalyzing me, but I didn’t even care.

  • • •

  The next morning while I poured myself a bowl of cereal, my mom walked by and caught sight of my hands. She took hold of my wrist and her eyebrows drew together in concern. “What happened? How did your hands get like this?”

  “Um . . .” I’d hoped no one would notice them until after they’d healed. I stuttered for another moment then said, “I guess I forgot to wear gloves a few times while I weeded the backyard.”

  As soon as I said it, I felt something cold and slippery filling my mouth. How could this be? I thought the whole no-lying rule was only for the Middle Ages, but something was definitely squirming on my tongue and Mom was just not going to understand if I upchucked a snake on the kitchen floor.

  I sprinted past her to the guest bathroom, slammed the door shut, leaned over the countertop, and spit out a toad. There is nothing as repulsive as having a live toad sitting in your mouth. I’ve heard they’re not really as slimy as they look, but tell that to my tongue. I spent the next few minutes spitting into the sink and trying to wash the amphibian taste out of my mouth. The toad hopped around the counter and repeatedly tried to jump through the mirror.

  My mom knocked softly on the door. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  From the kitchen I heard Jane say, “Well, what did she expect after she ate all of that junk last night? No one can fill up on pastrami and ice cream and not have it take its toll.”

  Thank you for those words of advice, Jane.

  I cupped the toad in my hands—and even this was gross— rushed past my mother to the back door, and then before she could follow me to see what I was doing, I dropped it on the lawn.

  It sat there blinking up at me. I hurried back inside and went into the bathroom to wash my hands. While I did this, Mom and Jane peered in through the doorway at me.

  “Why did you just run outside?” Jane asked.

  I didn’t answer her question.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah.” I wiped my hands on a towel. “I’m just going to go upstairs and brush my teeth.” Multiple times.

  My mother let the subject drop, but Jane kept sending me sharp glances like she thought I was plotting some sort of revenge.

  To tell you the truth, though, I wasn’t thinking about the whole Jane and Hunter drama even though she was with me again—a constant reminder of her betrayal. It seemed like I’d dated Hunter so long ago. When my mind turned from the wonder and comforts of my world—and I was seeing everything around me like I’d never seen it before—it was only to think about the fact that magic still existed here too. I’d proved that when I’d spit up a toad.

  The fairy spell was still on me and would be until Chrissy fulfilled her part of the bargain and got some princely guy to ask me to prom. In between working on my homework, I daydreamed about this mystery guy.

  Maybe tomorrow as I walked to school some sleek Trans Am would pull up and the studly young driver would ask me for directions to the high school because he was going to start school there.

  At 4:30 Emily called me. “Did you hear about Tristan?”

  Tristan. I hadn’t thought about him or the swimsuit incident in so long. It was odd to think that in this world it had just happened yesterday. “No. What’s up with Tristan?”

  “He disappeared last night. He was in his room and when his parents went to tell him to turn off the light he was gone. Vanished. Just like that—from his own house.”

  “Disappeared?” A sick, horrible feeling gnawed at my stomach.

  “His parents have called all his friends and no one knows what happened to him. Tristan’s room is on the second floor and his parents were downstairs in their living room the whole time with the doors locked. So the police say he must have climbed out the window on his own—I guess it would have been hard for a kidnapper to scale the wall and carry him off that way, but still—can you imagine Tristan running away?”

  No, Tristan wasn’t the type to run away. I’d never heard that he didn’t get along with his family. In fact, they came to every track meet to cheer him on. And Tristan was so responsible. He cared about his grades. Did a person who’d put that much effort into school just take off without explanation?

  It didn’t make sense.

  Then I remembered that Chrissy had volunteered to turn Hunter into a frog. She hadn’t said the same about Tristan, had she? Had I even told her about Tristan and the swimsuit thing? I couldn’t remember.

  After I hung up with Emily, I stood in the middle of my room and hissed out, “Chrissy!” several times. I was afraid that she wouldn’t come for days and by that time Tristan could have been eaten by—well, whatever unfortunate creature in the food chain was designated to eat frogs.

  Nothing happened. I kept calling Chrissy’s name, all the while hoping that Emily would call me back and tell me Tristan had come home, it was all a mistake, he hadn’t been missing at all. That didn’t happen either, but after a few minutes a fountain of sparkles erupted in my room, and then there she was, decked out in a black cocktail dress complete with spiky black heels and a sequined handbag.

  She put one hand on her hip and eyed me over in a disappointed fashion. “You really need to develop some patience. Do you think princes just appear spontaneously every time you make a wish? These things take time, you know.”

  “I didn’t call you here to talk
about princes.”

  “Good, because frankly I was getting tired of all that whining.” She smoothed down the front of her dress. “What do you think of my new outfit? It’s to die for, isn’t it—and you’ll never believe the bargain I got on these shoes. They were such a good price I had to buy some in yellow too, and I don’t even own a yellow dress. Well, not yet anyway.”

  “Look, do you know anything about Tristan Hawkins disappearing? Because I distinctly remember telling you that I didn’t want you to turn anybody into a frog.”

  “Oh, that.” She flipped her hair off her shoulder in an unconcerned manner. “Of course I didn’t turn him into a frog. He was much too nice for that.”

  The way she said it confirmed my fears. I grasped hold of the front of my shirt in an attempt to keep my heart from pounding its way out of my chest. “But you turned him into something else?”

  “Not yet; I’m still in the process.”

  “In the process?”

  “Of turning him into a prince.”

  “What?”

  She straightened her purse strap on her shoulder as though she were about to leave. “You gave me a long list of things you wanted in a guy and he fit them all, except for the fact that he’s a commoner. So I sent him back to the Middle Ages with the instructions that I would bring him back after he became a prince. Your orders.” She gave me a bemused shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t understand it. He’s been there for months and he’s not even a knight yet. I really expected more of him.”

  “He’s been there for months?” I gasped out.

  She let out a sigh. “I’ve explained the time thing to you before. One hour here equals a week back—”

  “Yes, I understand the concept. What I meant was that you’ve got to bring him back right now. You can’t just zap people from their bedrooms and drop them into the Middle Ages.”

  “I can if you ask me to,” she said with a smile.

  I shook my head. It felt like the room was closing in on me. “I never asked you to do that.”

  She opened her purse, pulled out the scroll and unrolled it. “You said you wanted a prince type of guy. That leaves emperors, czars, and dictators. I thought it would be easiest just to turn him into a prince.”

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  She lowered the scroll from her face. “Then I guess you need to learn to articulate better.”

  I let out several deep breaths and tried to think about this logically. Which was very hard to do since I could feel myself sliding into a full-blown panic. Tristan was missing. He’d been in the Middle Ages for months and it was my fault. “Okay, if my wish sent him there, then how about I just wish that you bring him back?”

  She rolled the scroll up and placed it back in her purse. “You’ve already used up all of your wishes. First you wished to be Cinderella, then Snow White, and lastly you wished to send Tristan to the Middle Ages to become your prince.”

  I clenched my hands into fists. “No, that was the same wish that you just messed up a bunch of times!”

  “Hopefully he’ll accomplish the whole prince thing by this prom,” she said as if she hadn’t heard me at all. “But if not, don’t worry. You didn’t specify which prom and there are a lot of other guys I could send to medieval times to make their fortune. Eventually one of them is bound to become a prince, right?”

  “No,” I said. “You can’t do that. You have to bring—,” but she didn’t listen to the rest of my sentence.

  With a flash of light, she disappeared.

  Chapter 9

  I stood there for several more moments, just gasping at the empty space in my room. I called her name. I demanded she come back. I even stomped my foot, but she didn’t return. And every minute I stood here, Tristan was back in the Middle Ages experiencing—how much time exactly? Every ten minutes that went by here was more than a day there. Four hours was a month. I didn’t have any time to spare, and yet I had no idea how to bring him back.

  I paced the room for probably a complete day in Tristan’s time, and then decided that if I couldn’t talk to Chrissy, I could at least try to talk to the leprechaun. Maybe as an ex-assistant he had some leverage on Chrissy and could make her undo the last wish.

  I looked around the house in places I thought a leprechaun might be—under the beds, in drawers, hiding in the kitchen cabinets. I remembered Chrissy had said something about him playing poker with the computer gremlins so I did a thorough check of all the computers. Then I walked around the backyard, looking behind trees and pushing away branches of bushes so I could see inside them. “Hey, Mr. Bloomsbottle,” I kept whispering. “I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.” I checked another bush. “Clover? Where are you?”

  I peered around a tree and saw Jane standing there, eyeing me suspiciously. “What are you looking for?”

  “Uh, nothing.”

  Oh no. That was a lie. And there was the consequence, already growing between my teeth. I rushed to the nearest large bush so Jane couldn’t see what came out of my mouth. The whole time I ran I was afraid that if I didn’t make it in time, whatever it was squirming around in my mouth would try to crawl down my throat. When I got to the bush, I leaned over and spit up a gecko. And yes, I knew it was a gecko because I recognized it from the TV commercials.

  As I stood there gagging, Jane walked over. “So this is your new method of making me feel guilty? You’re pretending to be bulimic?”

  “I am not pretending to be bulimic.”

  “Oh. You just throw up every time I’m around, then? That’s a real subtle message.”

  Even though Jane was being unnecessarily snotty, I decided to tell her everything. First of all, it would save me from spitting up more geckos every time I talked to her. Plus she was smart enough to possibly find a solution to this problem.

  So I did. Right there in the backyard I told her about Clover and how I needed to find him because he knew my fairy godmother and I needed advice about undoing wishes.

  The whole time I spoke she folded her arms and gave me this humorless stare. When I finished she just nodded and said, “Okay, don’t tell me what you’re looking for. I don’t care.” Then she turned on her heel and went back inside.

  I sighed and looked around the lawn again, trying to fend off the overpowering feeling of helplessness. How did one contact a leprechaun? They made a point of staying hidden, and it’s not likely he’d walk into a trap—that is, unless I made it an especially tempting trap.

  I went to the store and bought a package of Ding Dongs and some Barbie doll furniture. Then I went back home, took my dad’s gopher traps out of the garage, and hauled them inside. I set up furniture in all the traps complete with Ding Dong slices and little cups of milk. Just for good measure I threw a flash drive into each of the traps. If a few computer gremlins were lured into the traps along with the leprechaun, all the better.

  I put one trap by the computer in my room, one by the computer in Jane’s room, and the other in the family room where my parents’ computer sat. Maybe he’d come by for another poker game soon. If he was still around at all.

  I checked the traps after dinner. Nothing. I went back to the computer in my bedroom and looked up information about leprechauns and fairies. After almost an hour of sifting through sites of artwork, craft projects, party ideas, and historic origins of mystical creatures, I heard the doorbell ring. Jane answered it and I heard Hunter’s voice.

  I tried to tune out Jane and him and concentrate on Web sites. Somewhere among the thousands of references, there had to be someone who’d dealt with magical creatures. Surely someone out there could help me.

  I heard Jane and Hunter walk into the family room and realized I should have told my family not to mess with the traps I’d set up. I hurried toward the family room but Jane and Hunter were already there.

  They stared at the Barbie furniture I’d set up in the trap and spoke in low voices to each other. Hunter shook his head. When they heard me walking toward them they fell s
ilent.

  I lowered my voice as well. “Stop looking at me like I’m crazy because I’m not—and don’t stand so close to that. You’ll scare off the leprechaun.”

  Which perhaps was not the best method of proving my sanity, but there was no point in defending myself. I’d either keep looking like an idiot or I’d start covering the carpet in reptiles. I turned and left the room.

  I went back to my computer to look up more Internet sites. And there in the middle of the trap eating a Ding Dong was Clover T. Bloomsbottle.

  He wasn’t the sole occupant of the trap. Behind him, two creatures that looked like two-inch pale gray bats had pulled my flash drive apart. They sat beside each other grunting and chewing on the contents.

  As I approached, Clover looked up at me—first with agitation, then with complacent disregard. “Oh, it’s just you.” He waved a finger in my direction. “You can’t have me gold, so don’t even ask.” He shoved another piece of Ding Dong into his mouth, getting cream filling all over his beard, then shook his head happily. “These are much better than those dried-out crackers and boxes of cereal you have around.” He took another bite. “Which reminds me, that Cap’n Crunch fellow cheats at cards. As for the Pillsbury Doughboy—aye, there’s a sop for you. You really could do with a higher class of magical folk in the kitchen.”

  I was so happy to see him I didn’t know where to begin or what to say first. I ended up saying, “I didn’t realize we had magical tenants living in the cupboards.”

  He took another bite. “And I don’t care what you Yanks say, cheese should not whiz.”

  The gremlins looked up and said something too, but it all sounded like clicks to me.