A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic (19 page)
Read A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic Online
Authors: Lisa Papademetriou
W
ELL, THERE ISN
'
T MUCH
more to the story. Leila returned home and discovered that Nadia was still often annoying, and that, in spite of her epiphany in Pakistan, the whole world had not turned magical overnight. Ta'Mara had a new boyfriend, and she talked about him all of the time. Aimee was obsessed with her new part in the fall ballet, so she didn't hang out with Nadia as much as Leila had feared she would. And Nadia was still . . . Nadia. She had decided to start a nonprofitâsomething about helping baby ducksâand was busily assembling a robot in her spare time.
Leila never started a blog, but she did keep in touch with Samir, who sent emails with photos of Wali, and Rabeea's art, and even Mamoo and the goat, which had grown quite fat in Mamoo's care.
Babar Taya had said that Leila could take
The Exquisite Corpse
with her to America, and she had, but nothing new appeared. Over time, the words began to fade; a week
before school was to begin in the fall, it was completely blank except for the first page. It was just as she had found it. “Nice try,” she told the book when she discovered the change. “But I know you're still magic.”
Kai's copy of the book also faded, but she also stubbornly clung to the belief that the book was magic. “I have a witness,” she informed the book. “Doodle knows all about you, wise guy.”
When Professor Hill sent the lab results and the copy of Mamoo's email detailing his concerns about Scarlet Catsbane to the local paper, the small-town press had a field day with the fact that Pettyfer Jonas Sr., knew that the shellac used at American Casket could cause problems for asthmatics, and did nothing. He was quickly ousted as president, and Doodle's father was chosen to take his place. When Scarlet Catsbane was replaced with a harmless compound, his lungs recovered quickly and he found he was rarely ever sick. In addition, the new shellac actually cost less and lasted longer. Unharvested, the field of Scarlet Catsbane grew and bloomed behind the factory, and Doodle spotted
three
Celestial Moths there one evening, a fact that she dutifully reported to the Lepidoptery
Society at their monthly meeting.
Once the judge reviewed the proof of Edwina's life and checked it against the will her parents had made, Kai became the official heir to the American Casket fortune. The money was held in trust for her, but once she turned twenty-one, the money would be hers.
Kai and her mother moved to Houston. They often went to visit Lavinia and Doodle on weekends, and Kai would play her violin in the evenings. They found a sweet little one-story house in a lovely, safe neighborhood with a community pool and a skate park nearby. They were right next door to a woman who had planted her whole yard with cornflowers. School was set to start in a week, and Kai had the strangest feeling that she would make friends there. Maybe even a Best Friend. Doodle had shown her how.
Kai knew now that every storyâeven her ownâheld its own magic, and all she had to do was keep turning the pages until the eventual very real, very happy ending.
I
WOULD LIKE TO
gratefully acknowledge the people who made it possible for me to write this book, and those who made it impossible for me to give up.
Thank you to An Na, who gently steered me away from the wrong story; to Mark Karlins, who steered me toward the right one; to Rita Williams-Garcia, who helped me understand the characters; and to Kathi Appelt, who brought me all the way home.
I would like to thank James Patterson for his generosity, which enabled me to dedicate myself to this project. Thank you to the staff of the National Museum of Funerary History, who helpfully provided information on nineteenth-century casket factories.
I must thank my husband, Ali Usman, and my other Lahori advisors and readers: Aimen Khan, Uzma Sajid, and Annum Khan. I would also like to thank other early readers: Kathryn Gaglione, Marguerite Belkin, Ellen Wittlinger, Nancy Werlin, Pat Collins, and Liza Ketchum.
I have a special velvet-lined box of thanks for Rosemary Stimola and Kristen Pettit, who not only believed in this story, but have believed in
me
for a long, long time.
And, of course, thanks and love to the Allies in Wonderland.
Photo by Ellen Augaren
NEW YORK TI
M
ES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LISA PAPADEMETRIOU
is the author of
Middle School: My Brother Is a Big, Fat Liar
and
Homeroom Diaries
(both with James Patterson), the Confectionately Yours series, and many other novels for middle grade readers. Her books have appeared on the Bank Street Best Books of the Year list, the NYPL Books for the Teen Age, the Texas Lone Star Reading List, among others. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. You can visit her online at
www.lisapapa.com
.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
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.
A TALE OF HIGHLY UNUSUAL MAGIC
. Copyright © 2015 by Lisa Papademetriou. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Papademetriou, Lisa.
  A tale of highly unusual magic / Lisa Papademetriou. â First edition.
    pages  cm
  Summary: “Two girls on opposite sides of the planet connect through a mysterious book, whose phantom narrator guides them into spinning a story about the past that will affect their futures”â Provided by publisher.
  ISBN 978-0-06-237121-8 (hardback)
  EPub Edition © September 2015 ISBN 9780062371072
  [1. BooksâFiction. 2. MagicâFiction. 3. FriendshipâFiction.]  I. Title.
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FIRST EDITION
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