A Snicker of Magic (22 page)

The Beedle was for sure right about one thing: There was one memory I’d tried so hard to forget. Maybe I could never truly fix Mama’s sadness. But I could do something about mine. And Oliver said that memories can heal you, if you let them. So I grabbed a spoon and snuck back to the craft room. Maybe if I could be brave enough to remember, I would be brave enough for anything.

The lonesome light of the full moon came down through the window as I pulled the red ribbon loose. I popped open the lid.

“Here goes nothing,” I said. I scooped out a bite.

The ice cream melted, sweet and creamy against my tongue.

We lived in Virginia and I was riding the school bus home. I was so little my shoes didn’t touch the floor. When the bus pulled up to my driveway, I saw Roger Pickle’s car about to back out. But he pulled back in when he saw the bus slowing down.

I took another bite and shut my eyes tight.

“Dad!” I scampered down the big bus steps and jumped onto the gravel. Roger Pickle got out of his car and stood up tall. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt. He had red hair, like mine, and a red beard that matched his hair exactly. He sighed when he saw me coming toward him. The way he
looked at me stopped me as hard as if somebody’d rammed into me.

“Dad?” I stopped. “What are you crying for?”

“Allergies.” He smiled. He reached out his arms for me. “I’m going to work early. Come hug my neck.”

I gripped the spoon so tight my fingers ached. The ice cream tasted different now, so sour that it nearly locked my jaws. Biscuit stood up and stretched and climbed up in my lap. She rested her fuzzy face against my broken heart.

“Thanks, buddy.” I kissed her fuzzy, stinky head. “I knew I’d hate this stupid ice cream.”

I jumped up into Roger Pickle’s arms and pressed a kiss against his neck. “Love you,” I said. I rested my face against his strong shoulder. His worn-out shirt was soft against my face.

His face was wet with tears when I pulled back. He kissed me softly on the tip of my nose. “Love you,” he said.

And then he let me down and I ran off and didn’t look back. “See you tonight!” I waved behind me. I ran inside and wrote ten brand-new words, all different colors, on a blank sheet of paper. I gave them legs and I gave them eyes. I gave each word a heart of its own. And when it was time for Roger Pickle to come home, I sat outside on the front steps and held the words in my hand and I waited. I waited until after the sun set. I waited even after the stars came out and I was shivering. I fell asleep right there, on the steps, waiting. It was Mama who carried me back inside.

I wiped the snot off my face and tucked one of Cleo’s flashlights against my neck. I opened my blue book and started writing.

“What’s
factalactus
mean?” Mama’s voice was soft, but it still made me jump. The flashlight clunked into my lap. I scrambled to turn it off before she could see what I’d written.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, working to get the tears out of my voice. “Did you need something?”

“I just came in to check on you.” Mama reached and tucked my hair behind my ear. Then she reached for the flashlight in my lap.
Click.
She held the light up over my pages again. “What’s a
factalactus
?”

I’d rested my hands down on the open pages of the blue book, fingertips touching. When Mama shone the light, my hands made a heart shape. “
Factalactus
is a word I saw squished down in the ice-cream carton, glowing in the dark. I don’t think it’s a real word, so I gave it my own definition. A
factalactus
is a truth that hurts a little bit, that prickles and stings, like you tried to shake hands with a cactus flower. But just because it hurts doesn’t make it less true.”

Mama nodded. “I see.”

I hoped she didn’t read the examples I’d written down.

“Hold this flashlight for me,” Mama said as she reached across me for the pale purple carton of Blackberry Sunrise.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,” I sighed. “It’ll just make you remember things.”

“I know what it does, Felicity.” I heard a kind smile in Mama’s voice. “I make gallons of this stuff every night at work, remember?”

Mama squared around until she was sitting in front of me, holding the Blackberry Sunrise in her lap. “What’s the opposite of a
factalactus
, you guess? What do you call a truth that feels so good, it’s like you hugged the summer sunshine?”

I stared down at my shadow-heart hands.
“Facto … fabulous?”

Mama nodded. “I like that.”

She scooped a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. I held my breath and waited. The only thing worse than me having a bad memory was watching Mama have one. I wanted her first bite to be sweet, not sour.

“Factofabulous.” Mama gulped. “The time we stopped in North Carolina, and flew butterfly kites in the park. We ran beside each other until our legs ached. And then we all flopped down in the grass, but the wind still held our kites up high. Those butterflies looked like they were glued to
the springtime blue. And you kept catching poems for your little sister. As soon as you finished one, she’d ask you for another. You never got tired of it. I loved that day.”

I scooted closer, until my knees were touching Mama’s knees. “I loved that day, too.” I smiled. I was glad her Blackberry memory was sweet.

“Factofabulous,” Mama said as she ate another spoonful.

I shook my head. “Don’t press your luck, Mama. It might not give you two good memories in a row….”

“Factofabulous.” Mama said the word like she was casting a magic spell over me. “When we camped inside the Pickled Jalapeño and stared up at Spiderberg. I painted new castles and rivers and woods. And you made up stories about the people who lived there.”

“Ruled there,” I whispered. “We were the Queens of Spiderberg.”

Mama angled her spoon down into the carton to scrape out another bite, but I locked my hand around her wrist.

I glanced at that rotten ice cream, then up into my mama’s face. I didn’t need the flashlight now. The moonlight had reached through the window and found us. The moonlight always reaches for her. “The ice cream … how do you make it do that? How do you keep getting good memories from it?”

“It takes some practice.” Mama set the carton back down on the floor. “But even if I taste something sour, even
if the bad memory comes first, I choose to replace it with a good one instead.”

“You just choose?”

Mama nodded. “It’s as simple and difficult as that. Sad memories don’t just come in ice cream, you know. Everything you touch, everything you smell, everything you taste, every picture you see — all of that has the potential to call up a sad memory. You can’t choose what comes up first. But you can choose to replace it with something good. I choose to think on the good parts.”

I leaned close so I could talk with less than a whisper. “I was remembering when he left. I’m not mad that he left me. But I’m mad that he left Frannie Jo. She’s little and weird and she needs people. I’m mad that he left you. I knew I’d think of him when I tasted the ice cream; I knew I would.”

“It’s fine to be mad at people for a little while. Being mad doesn’t mean you don’t love somebody.”

“Is Roger Pickle the reason you stopped painting for so long?” I asked.

“One of the reasons,” Mama sighed. “Someday you might get rejected. Someday you might go through a rough spell. Someday the world might press down so hard on you that you don’t see your words anymore.”

“But you’re painting again,” I reminded her.

“Thanks to you.” She tapped my nose with her finger. “You kept loving me and I kept loving you. And we can get through anything.”

Mama held the ice cream out to me again. “Give it a try,” she said. “Even if the sad memory comes first, choose to remember something good.”

I closed my eyes. I thought about my family. I reached for the ice cream. I took my first brave bite. Pure sweetness.

“Factofabulous.”
I smiled. “The day Boone wore fairy wings at Snapdragon Pond.” We both laughed. “You showed me the tall trees. We climbed as high as heaven …”

It was late by the time I finally crawled into bed. I curled up on my side. Biscuit snuggled against my back. I was just about to close my eyes when Frannie Jo rolled over and touched her forehead to mine.

“I have a factofabulous
,
” she whispered.

“Frannie,” I whispered back. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

“Okay. Do you want me to tell my factofabulous or not?”

I smiled. “Tell me.”

Frannie grinned and rolled onto her back again. “Do you remember when you were talking at the school assembly last year and you accidentally said ‘Great Kentucky Arm Fartists’?”

I groaned. Leave it to Frannie Jo to drag up that awful memory the night before the Duel. “Of course I remember. Wait … that’s not your factofabulous
,
is it?”

“Hush and let me tell you,” Frannie sighed. “This is what happened. I was in the lunchroom, and Ronnie Barnhill saw you walk down the hall.”

“That kid was mean,” I said.

“Shhh,” Frannie cautioned. “Ronnie started making fart noises at you. So when he stood up to take his tray, I pulled my peanut butter sandwich apart and left the goo half faceup on his seat. And he sat down on it. And I never got in trouble for it, because people thought I was too little and sweet to do anything so mean.”

Frannie giggled so hard the mattress shook. “That was a fun day.”

I guess I should have been mature enough to tell Frannie Jo that picking on people was never right, no matter how big or mean or little or sweet they are. But I’d have that conversation with her another time. I leaned over and planted a quick kiss on Frannie Jo’s blond hair. “Thanks for taking such good care of me.”

She rolled into me and tucked her little face under my chin. “You take better care of me. Felicity?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t need that bird on your wrist to do good tomorrow. You’re factofabulous already.”

Factofabulous
: My Blackberry dreams that night were the sweetest.

My aunt Cleo says that only fools run away from what they fear. Fear always finds you no matter what, she says. And it growls louder and grows bigger, the longer you run away from it. That’s one reason I decided to run to Stoneberry Elementary on the morning of the Duel, instead of hitching a ride in the Pickled Jalapeño. I thought running at my fears might make me feel brave, and it did. A little bit. The other reason I decided to run was because I wanted to tell Jonah about my Blackberry memory.

And I wanted to tell him about my own sweet amends.

Here’s what I didn’t take into consideration: Stoneberry School is farther away from Cleo’s apartment than I realized.

Also, running a long distance was making me sweat.

I slowed to a jog when I saw Jonah waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the school. His hair was its usual every-which-way mess, but his button-down blue shirt didn’t have a wrinkle to be seen. He was tugging at his red necktie as I came up beside him.

“Pumpernickel!” I called out.

“Flea!” He grinned. “You picked a good day to be late….”

“You thought I changed my mind, didn’t you?” We raced for the front-end auditorium together. “You thought I’d ditch you.”

“I knew you’d come,” Jonah said.

“No point in backing out now —”

But then I saw the Stoneberry parking lot, which was so full that folks were parking their cars on the playground and all up and down the sides of the street.

“Wow,” I heaved. I wiped the sweat off my lip. I wiped my sweaty bangs away from my forehead. “Do I stink like sweat?” I asked Jonah.

“You smell normal.” He laughed. “You look fine. You look pretty.”

I was so nervous that I didn’t even get embarrassed over his compliment. Cleo’s surprise was a new dress she’d made for me. The dress was pink, which didn’t thrill me at first. But she said if I wore my sneakers with it, I’d make the dress look punk pink. And that sounded kind of awesome. My shoes squish-popped all the way to the auditorium doors. Miss Divinity Lawson had strung a banner over the entryway that read:

M
AGIC
H
APPENS
H
ERE

As soon as I walked through the door, I knew it was true. Because it seemed like everybody in town had turned out for the Duel. Divinity Lawson was setting up flower
arrangements on the corner of the stage. Ponder and Oliver, who were in charge of refreshments, had set up an entire dessert booth in the back of the building. Jewell Pickett worked the room, socializing with her customers. Virgil Duncan sat in the front row, holding what appeared to be a very large remote control with a small, revolving satellite. Elvis Phillips was sharing a bag of popcorn with Charlie Sue. The thought of leaving them in less than a day made my chest hurt.

“You okay, Felicity?” Jonah said to me.

I nodded, afraid my words would come out too gravelly if I tried to talk. We pushed our way through the noisy crowd and down the aisle toward the stage. The gargantuan stage.

I swallowed hard. The stage was so high that every last person in this auditorium would see me when I dueled. Toast was already up there, preparing his work station. It’d be hard to win against gourmet grilled cheese made from a clothes iron, but winning had never been my big goal. Toast saw me staring and waved. I waved back, and then he pointed to the design on his blue T-shirt: a llama in a space helmet.

“The space llama’s his trademark,” Jonah reminded me. Then his voice gentled as he said, “Are you about to puke?”

“It’s possible.” I nodded.

“Maybe concentrate on your bird instead of that stage,” Jonah said. “That’s still your good luck charm, right?”

“It
was
,” I sighed. “Hope flew the coop a few days ago.”

Jonah stopped wheeling so suddenly that I crashed into the back of his wheelchair.

“Where’d the bird go?” Jonah looked stricken. “You were banking on the bird!”

“I know!” I fanned the heat away from my face. I wished for enough magic to make the air conditioner work. “I sent the bird to your dad.”

Jonah’s voice softened. “… You did what?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine without the b-b-b-b …” My words were failing me already. And my face was already red and my heartbeat was already pounding in my ears. This time my heart didn’t sound like it was saying
yes
. It sounded like it was saying
RUN
.

More people herded into the auditorium and pressed in around us so close that I felt even smaller than I was, too small, like a bug nobody sees before they accidentally squish it.

“Maybe I shouldn’t d-d-d …”

Jonah Pickett reached out and took my hand. He pulled his red pen from his pocket and clicked it, and then he pushed the tip of it to my wrist, exactly where hope was before it flew off.

“You don’t need the bird,” Jonah said. And he made a list from my wrist to my elbow:

Splendiferous

Spindiddly

Wonder

Enchanting

Curious

Stalwart

Plumb Pretty

Plumb Awesome

= Felicity

“There’s a bunch more I want to write.” Jonah looked up at me. “But I’m running out of room.”

“Now who’s the word collector?” I smiled.

“There’s one word I’m keeping for myself,” Jonah said. “
Wonderstruck
. That’s how I feel whenever I’m around you. No other word fits.”

Wonderstruck

… was full of lightning bolts. I saw it flickering somewhere close to the ceiling, but I imagined it zapping down the middle of my heart, too, cutting it in two pieces. One piece might fold into a paper airplane. The other would become an origami bird. And they’d both zoom around the room until they collided.

Wonderstruck
: My heart would crash against itself and fizzle in a flicker.

“I think you’re wonder-striking, too,” I said to Jonah. “I think you see people way better than they are.”

“I see people exactly as they are.”

How would I ever say good-bye to the best friend I’d ever had? How could I leave when our adventures were just getting started?

Tick-tock
, everything I loved was slipping away from me.

I had to duel in approximately five seconds.

I had to leave town in less than twenty-four hours.

All because of that stupid curse …

“I tried to solve the riddle,” Jonah said sadly, as if he could read my mind. “After we looked for Florentine, I went home and tried to figure it out. I still don’t know what it means.”

“So now you believe in the curse?” I asked.

“Maybe a little bit,” he admitted. “But I believe in you more. You’ll do great today.”

Part of me wanted to crawl off like a spider word and hide under the chairs, far away from all that crazy. Part of me wanted to throw my arms around Jonah’s neck and hug him tight.

What I did instead was lean down and kiss Jonah’s cheek, fast as a flutter. The kiss
POPPED
against his cheek. A bottle-rocket kiss. Then I ran for the front row and sat down and stared straight ahead. I was too embarrassed to look at the reaction on his face.

Impulsive.
I was too much of that.

Ridiculous.
I was plenty of that, too.

Opportunist.
I smiled.

The bottle-rocket kiss had as much magic in it as anything I’d ever seen.

I might have kept on thinking about it if I hadn’t heard somebody holler, “Find us some seats together, Day! Make yourself useful!” followed by a wheeze and a cough.

I cranked around in my chair to see two Harnesses, two Pickles, and one Grissom lumbering down the aisle, Aunt Cleo leading the way. She’d tied her leopard-print bathrobe
around her red dress. The man following her was Day Grissom; I knew by the way she kept talking to him, but he didn’t look anything like the Day Grissom I knew. Day had shaved off his gnarly beard and cut his hair. He looked sharp, no holes in his jeans, shirt tucked in. He looked mighty handsome, as far as old people are concerned.

“Excuse me,” Day said to the Smith family on the middle aisle. “Are those seats down there taken?”

But then Cleo pushed him out of the way and said, “Make room, y’all! Scoot!”

Uncle Boone filed in behind Aunt Cleo, carrying his banjo around his back. He wore faded jeans, but he’d pulled a snazzy blazer on over his old T-shirt. And he’d traded his cowboy boots for a pair of Converse. Boone looked different from the first day he wandered into Midnight Gulch, but I’d never seen him look more like himself. Miss Lawson had asked me for Boone’s contact information a few days ago. She said she was hoping he’d consider playing at the end of the Duel. Truly, I think Miss Divinity Lawson just wanted Boone’s phone number. I was happy to oblige regardless.

The Pickles came last. Mama carried Frannie Jo, of course. She still had paint splatters on her arms and had braided a feather into her hair.

I watched my whole family, all except Roger Pickle, lodge themselves in the middle row, where they could see me and cheer for me when I took the stage.

I could duel if they were with me. I could do anything if they were with me. My fears were monster big. But their love for me was bigger. Fear seems like all the world when it takes hold of me; it’s all I dream about, think about, and see. But it was love taking hold of me right then. And love is the whole universe — so wide I can’t even see the edges of it.

Love is wild and wonderful.

Love is blue skies and stardust.

I reached for my blue book so I could collect those sentences.

… And then I realized I didn’t bring my blue book. Which meant that I didn’t bring my poems.

Cold sweat trickled down the side of my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remember the poems I’d written last night. Nothing. I opened my eyes and looked at the gym floor, hoping for a few words, any words. But I only saw letters, as scattered and sparkly as stars in a kaleidoscope.

My locket warmed up against my chest. At exactly the same time, Toast Terry plopped down in the seat beside me and said, “What’s wrong, Pickle?”

But I couldn’t answer him. First, I was afraid I’d upchuck if I opened my mouth to say anything, on account of my frazzled nerves.

But second, and most important, I couldn’t focus on Toast long enough to answer. All I could see was the guitar he was holding. “Is that …”

“Ramblin’ Rose’s guitar,” his voice crackled happily. “Miss Lawson asked her to bring it, said maybe she could play sometime today. But Miss Rose says she just got acrylics and doesn’t want to mess them up, so she asked me if I’d play it instead. Can you believe it? Ramblin’ Rose asked me to play her guitar! This guitar is better than grilled cheese sandwiches.”

Miss Divinity Lawson stepped to the podium and tapped the microphone. It squealed as she said, “Welcome to the Stoneberry Duel! I have a few announcements to make and then we’ll get started….”

The guitar.

The banjo.

The locket.

My sweet amends.

They were all connected. I was connected to all of them.

“Did you forget to eat breakfast?” Toast asked. “You look pale.”

As I concentrated on Ramblin’ Rose’s guitar, words slid down the taut strings and curled around the frets:

September

Sorrow

Surrender

Mistake

Memory

THREADBARE

I swallowed hard against the sudden, burning tingle in the back of my throat. “Toast, do you realize this is the first
time in a hundred years that both of the Brothers Threadbares’ instruments have been in the same room?”

“Awesome!”

“Felicity Pickle?” Miss Divinity Lawson said. Her voice echoed across the auditorium. “C’mon up. You can start us off.”