Extraordinary<li> (11 page)

After all, he had to be jet-lagged, in addition to worrying about being brainwashed into agreeing to be turned into a vampire.

I wasn’t really the most empathetic person alive or anything (something I’ve worked on since then), but I could see where all of
that
could get you down.

In the morning at school, I went straight to the theater to thank Gregory for granting my wish, but he wasn’t around yet. I guessed he was only in for one period a day.

Cathy was sulking around in the hall by her locker, and even shaking Fred off when he tried to comfort her. When she saw me, she gave me the dirtiest look anyone had ever given me.

It hurt. I might not have been popular, exactly, but people didn’t usually hate me enough to give me dirty looks like that. Most people seemed to like me, even. I didn’t enjoy having enemies.

I walked up to Cathy, hoping I could settle things with her.

“Hey,” I said.

“Get away from me,” she said.

“Look,” I said, “I didn’t ask for any part in the show. I don’t want it. I’m going to tell Gregory to give it back to you.”

“I have a meeting with the little freak today,” she said. “I’ll handle him.”

“Want me to come along? I’ll take your side.”

She shook her head. “Just leave me alone.”

I shrugged and walked off.

I really didn’t want the part. The mayor’s wife doesn’t sing much, but, well, it was still more singing than I was going to be able to pull off. Some people really do come alive onstage, but I’m not one of those people.

I was just getting to my locker when Amber tapped me on the shoulder.

“There you are!” she said. “Where’ve you been?”

“I was trying to find the new director,” I said.

“And I was trying to find you! We stayed up, like, all night talking to Mutual last night.”

I tried not to let on how jealous I was to have been left out of that.

“He’s, like, the coolest guy ever now,” she said. “Did you ever hear of aerial hunting?”

“Is that where they kill wolves and stuff with airplanes?”

“Yeah. There was an airport base a mile from his ranch—he used to sneak out there at night and steal parts of the airplanes so they couldn’t take off!”

Swoon.

“Awesome!” I said. “He was like a superhero!”

She leaned in closer. “And when
we
told him that, he said he was just imagining what
you
would have wanted him to do. You inspired him, Jennifer.”

I smiled.

Well, actually, no. I made a noise like “Squee!”

I hadn’t seen much of it yet myself, but there was definitely some evidence that he wasn’t as much of a cowering wreck as he’d seemed to be the night before, if he was out engaging in espionage.

“And it gets better,” she said. “We’re going on a double date tonight.
Date
. Jason specifically referred to it as a date.”

“Please tell me you’re not kidding,” I said. “Because if you are, you’ll be missing several vital organs in the morning.”

“Didn’t it feel good, the four of us all together again?” asked Amber. “We just, like, fit. We could retire together and buy condos in the same senior apartment complex.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said.

But I was imagining it, too. I was imagining Mutual and me as adults. We’d live in a small, colorful apartment next door to a theater, with the million or so of his babies I
planned to have, and we’d be mild-mannered liberal arts professors by day and environmental espionage agents by night. Everyone would think we were a couple of extraordinary people.

I also knew I was still imagining myself with the version of Mutual that I’d always wanted him to be. I had to accept the fact that the real one might not live up to it.

But I spent all day drawing little sketches of Mutual in the margins of my notes. If the favor I owed Gregory was kissing Mutual at the dance, I was more than ready for the challenge. No way was I letting him come back to town without getting the kiss we’d planned for all those years ago.

When I got to the auditorium for fourth-period rehearsal, I found Gregory Grue sitting on a stool onstage, talking to Eileen Codlin, who was taking notes. All of a sudden (and this is the only time I ever, ever thought this), I really couldn’t wait to read her book. I wanted to know more about this fairy godparent business.

I walked down the aisle and hopped onto the stage.

“Hey,” I said to Gregory.

“Hoo hoo,” said Gregory, in a more casual tone than usual. “Did you work on your song this weekend?”

“Some,” I said. “But I really just wanted to thank you.”

“For the part? Don’t thank me, just rehearse! If you suck, it’ll make me look bad.”

“No,” I said. “For … you know. Granting my wish.”

“I didn’t grant any wishes yet,” he said. “I’ve gotten you off to a good start, but these things take time. And you still owe me a favor with a guy to be named later.”

“Doesn’t look like it’ll be a problem,” I said.

“Is this how fairy magic works?” asked Eileen.

“It’s like this, baby,” said Gregory to Eileen. “As soon as one of us decides to grant someone a couple of wishes, it creates this vacuum of energy in the world that can only be filled by having the wisher do us a little favor. Nothing much. I wish we could do away with that whole angle, but I don’t make the rules.”

He looked over at me and said, “Remember that. I don’t make ’em. I just follow ’em.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Now go backstage and talk to whoever’s in charge of costumes.”

“Actually,” I said, “I was going to ask if you could give the part back to Cathy. She wants it a lot more than I do.”

“The play’s the thing, kiddo,” he said. “My job here is to make this show the best it can be, and you’ve got the right look for the mayor’s wife, minus the Grimace hair, which we’ll cover up. Cathy’s all wrong for it. Mrs. Alison must have been drinking from an extra-large water bottle the day she did the casting!”

“Can’t you fix her with makeup?”

“Look, I have a meeting with her right after class. Just let the two of us work all this out, and keep your nose on your own face, where it belongs, okay?”

“Sure.”

I thought I’d ask again later, and wandered around to find Marty, the guy who was in charge of costumes.

I wasn’t in any of the scenes that were being rehearsed that day, so I sat back and watched as Cathy and the rest of the chorus worked on the blocking for the “Iowa Stubborn”
number. Gregory directed like a tyrant, shoving people around and yelling if they took a step with the wrong foot.

Under normal circumstances, I would have thought he was being a real dick.

But in my haze of stupidity, I thought he was simply being a really passionate director.

Right before my last class of the day, I stepped into the hall and saw Cathy yelling at Fred.

“I hate you!” she shouted. “I never want to talk to you again! Get away from me!”

Fred looked shocked.

Cathy threw a textbook at him. Being a vampire, he had no trouble getting out of the way. It landed on the floor and slid down the hall toward me.

When it got to my feet, Cathy gave me a look I couldn’t quite place and said, “Why don’t
you
go out with him instead?”

A crowd gathered around the two of them.

“What are you all looking at?” Cathy shouted. “Mind your own business!”

“Can’t we just talk?” asked Fred.

Cathy screamed out a swear word.

Mrs. Smollet appeared out of nowhere, took Cathy by the arm, and led her away.

Fred stood there in the hall, staring and looking aghast. He didn’t even move when the bell rang.

I asked around a bit but couldn’t quite get the story out of anyone. No one seemed to have seen the whole thing.

But by the end of the day, the pieces had been put together.

All through fifth period, Cathy had been telling Fred she wanted to break up and that he should go date some other girl. He had sort of resisted, until she blew up in the hall.

Word had it that it all started when he told her he didn’t want to convert her after all, but no one was sure.

All we knew was that she’d be spending the rest of the week in in-school suspension.

Unless you’re awfully dumb, you can probably guess that I never had my fairy godmother give me acne and the ability to spray some nasty-smelling mist, like a skunk, to scare Mutual away, like she does in the book. That would have just been plain mean, even if I didn’t like him. The “Jenny” in the book should have been nicer to Mutual, even if he was annoying, and maybe even something of a stalker whose attempts to kiss her could be considered sexual harassment by most courts.

Girls, if you’re being harassed, the thing to do is get a lawyer. Not turn into a weird half-girl, half-skunk creature to gross your stalker out. Remember: it didn’t work for “Jenny.”

I might not have looked like a model or anything on the night of my date with Mutual, but I can guarantee you that I didn’t stink. I took the longest shower of my life and used
up half of my products. Then I spent much longer than usual picking out an outfit. I wanted something sexy, but not, like, so slutty that I’d scare him off. At least it had warmed up enough that I could just wear a jacket and not have to worry about looking like Grimace in a giant coat. The ice had melted, leaving us with deep puddles full of soggy November leaves.

When I drove out to Jason’s, I felt positively elated. I had forgotten all my disappointment that Mutual wasn’t acting like some sort of Superman, and shoved the voice in my head reminding me of the difference between the real Mutual and the fantasy one into its own compartment where I couldn’t hear it.

This was the night I’d been waiting for all my life. The day that made my life up until that point worth it.

I could think of every bad thing that had ever happened to me—every bad day, every time my crowded schedule seemed to be keeping me from having a social life, everything—and how it had led me to this place.

Mutual came out of Jason’s house wearing a plain black T-shirt and looking even more nervous than usual. I was nervous, too.

Jason got into the backseat and motioned Mutual into the front.

“Hi, Mutual,” I said.

“Hi,” he said. He was blushing already. It was pretty cute, really.

We drove out to Amber’s parents’ ranch to pick her up, and she promptly made out with Jason a little bit, kicking my seat in the process to get my attention and suggest that it might be a good time for Mutual and me to do the same.

Mutual and I looked at each other, but we both just sort of smiled nervously, and I started to drive.

“Did you ever go into downtown Des Moines when you lived in Preston?” I asked.

“Not that I remember,” he said. “As far as I know, my first time there was yesterday, when I took the cab from there to Jason’s. I think it’s about the same size as Anchorage, though. I went there a couple times. And all the radio stations came out of there.”

Man, it was weird to hear him using contractions.

Jason passed me up a tape he’d made of old metal songs that Mutual knew—my car only had a tape player. I didn’t really know any of the songs myself, but hearing Mutual and Jason sing along at the top of their lungs was fun.

Between songs, Mutual threw back his head and laughed. He seemed as though he was finally coming up for air after being underwater for years—like he was coming out of his shell, just the way I’d hoped he would.

“Oh wow,” he said. “I could never cut loose like that at the farm. I had to listen to the radio really quietly on headphones that I hid under my mattress. I never got to sing along!”

“You have a good voice,” I said. “You could totally be a singer.”

“Beats being a speller,” Jason said. “You get a lot more groupies, too. I don’t think there’s such a thing as spelling groupies.”

Amber elbowed him in the ribs.

“What’s a groupie, exactly?” Mutual asked.

Jason leaned up and whispered in his ear, and Mutual blushed a bit.

“Oh,” he said. “I don’t really need any of those, though.”

I smiled.

“Neither does Jason,” Amber pointed out.

“That word wasn’t in the dictionaries?” Jason asked.

“Mine weren’t exactly unabridged,” he said. “Remember how Marianne Cleaver used to pick on me because my dictionary wasn’t big enough?”

“All boys worry that they should have a bigger dic … tionary,” said Jason.

We all cracked up, though it took Mutual a second to get the joke. He’d obviously come a long way since the days when he’d worn a blazer, a belt,
and
suspenders and had a bowl cut, but he still had a lot to learn.

And I couldn’t wait to teach him.

“So,” I said. “I want to hear about this thing where you stopped people from aerial hunting!”

He shrugged. “I didn’t really stop anyone,” he said. “The airport was a half-hour hike from my house, so I could sneak out there in the middle of the night and unscrew wheels and stuff and get back before my parents noticed I was gone. But it’s not like they couldn’t just replace the parts I stole.”

“That’s still awesome!” I said.

He shrugged again. “I needed to do something for excitement. But no matter what you do it for, unscrewing wheels isn’t terribly exciting.”

“Neither is spelling,” I said. “And look at the mess
that
got us into back in the day.”

“Do people still remember that around here?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Nah. Once the vampires came out of the coffin, everyone forgot all about it,” I said. “I would have, too, except that I couldn’t forget about you.”

He blushed again.

I got onto the interstate and headed toward downtown Des Moines.