How to Ditch Your Fairy (3 page)

Days walking: 60

Demerits: 4

Conversations with Steffi: 5

Doos clothing acquired: 0

I
t was such a long walk home that I almost wished I’d accepted the lift from Rochele. Then a bus got caught at the lights. There was hardly any traffic. I could cross against the lights, and if I ran flat out I’d make it to the next stop in time to catch it.

Two months of walking … I considered whether I was tired enough to give my fairy a sniff of parking possibilities.

Nope. I was not going to give in.

The lights changed and the bus zoomed away. I crossed the street at my own pace, walking by the basebal diamond, where littlies in uniform were doing catching drils and their coach was yeling encouragement. I walked past the bus stop and someone said
Charlie
in my ear. I dropped my lucky cricket bal.

“Gotcha!” It was Steffi, grinning. Black curls bouncing around his face.

I grinned back, wondering if it would be totaly weird if I reached out and touched one of his curls.

He retrieved my bal, rubbed it on his shorts, though it was a long time since that bal had any shine, and then tossed it back to me.

“Thanks,” I said, wishing I could think of something else to say, but al I could think of was his pulchiness.

“Saw you from the bus, so I thought I’d surprise you. How’s it going?”

“Not too horrendous,” I said, smiling. Especialy not now that Steffi was here walking beside me.

“That sounds grim.”

I smiled. In the five—five!—conversations I’d had with Steffi since he’d started school last week, he’d used a mountain of words like “grim.” Words so injured your parents wouldn’t even use them.

But somehow because he was saying them, they didn’t seem so torpid.

“You heading home?” Steffi and his family had moved into Bradman Court, just around the corner from my place. Convenient, yes?

“Yeah. Was shopping with Rochele.”

“Sounds like a ton of fun,” Steffi said sarcasticaly.

One of our five conversations had covered the topic of how tedious shopping is, but I’d meant grocery shopping—not clothes shopping! He was stil grinning, making his eyes even more intense than they already were. I’d thought they were light brown, but now they seemed to have gold streaks in them. Like a tiger’s or something. Not that I’d ever seen a tiger. Yum. (Steffi, not tigers—

though I’m sure tigers are also a pleasure to look at as long as they’re not trying to rip your throat out or anything.)

“So what does Rochele need al those clothes for?” Steffi asked.

“We have uniforms. Lots of uniforms! Ninety percent of the time we’re at school or at a meet.”

“She needs clothes to go shopping in.” I shot a look at him; he was looking back at me.

“Of course!” Steffi bounced from his left foot to his right, then skip- hopped in front of me.

I giggled. “I tried on this top and it almost strangled me.”

“Now that sounds more interesting. Did you kil it?” Steffi drew a finger across his throat. “You could have brained it with your cricket bal.”

I spun the bal the other way. As if I would deliberately damage a cricket bal. I mean in a way that wouldn’t enhance its spinning.

“No, but I shoulda. It was vicious! It even mooshed my spoffs out of place.”

Steffi stared at me. “Your spoffs?”

I gestured chestward, trying not to blush. “You know, spoffs.”

Why had I told him about the top?

“That’s what you cal them? Spoffs?” Steffi asked. “You people are crazy.”

What else would you cal them? “Anyway, I wrestled the top into submission. I think its strangling days are over.”

“Excelent.”

I giggled again. No one says “excelent.” It’s even more injured than “grim.” And here was Steffi teling me “spoffs” was crazy. Hah!

“What?” Steffi asked.

He mock punched me (much lighter than Rochele does) and I was so pleased he’d touched me, it was hard to keep from laughing. Then I worried that it was weird that I was happy that he’d just mock punched me. He’d probably do that with anyone he hung out with.

“What’s so funny?” he asked again.

“Nothing.”

“You people are always laughing at me,” Steffi said.

“Sorry.”

“I’m not mad. It’s just so different here. It’s hard to fit in when we don’t even seem to talk the same, you know?”

“I guess,” I said.

“Have you ever lived anywhere but here?” he asked, looking al serious, which made him even more pulchy.

“No. My family’s been here for ages. My parents and my grandparents and their parents were al born here.”

“Hmm,” Steffi said. “Wel, my city’s a lot different.”

I nodded sympatheticaly. There’s no place in the world like New Avalon. It’s one of the biggest cities in the world for one, and we have more sports, arts, design, and science stars than anywhere else. More of our politicians make it to the capital, and we have the strongest economy of any city in the world. It must be hard coming here from somewhere else and realizing how obscure your home is.

“And you Avaloids—”

“Avalon
ers
.”

“Avalon
ers
,” Steffi repeated. “Whatever. You act like I should know everything about your city and are suprised when I don’t know who some supposedly famous person is. You don’t believe me when I say that they’re not famous anywhere but here.”

“Like who?” I asked.

“Zora- Anne.”

“You don’t know Our Z-A?!”

“I do
now
, but I didn’t. No one back home’s ever heard of her.

Also, what’s with the
Our
thing? I never heard anyone say that before. Why is she always caled
Our
Zora-Anne and not just Zora- Anne? Do you only use it for famous people? Does anyone cal you Our Charlie?”

I laughed at the idea. “Maybe one day they wil, but not quite yet.”

“So only the famous people are
Ours
?”

“Uh- huh. What do you cal the famous people from your city?”

“We just cal them by their names. Stanislaw Leda is Stanislaw Leda, and Huntley du Sautoy is Huntley du Sautoy. No ‘Our’ in front.”

“Aren’t you proud of them?” I asked. I didn’t have the heart to tel him that I didn’t know who those people were.

“Wel, sure. I mean, some. But others are lame. We don’t worship them like you Avaloids do.”

“Avaloners,” I said. “We don’t worship Ours. We’re just proud of them.”

Steffi looked like he was going to say something and then flicked his hands instead. I wondered if it was supposed to be like shrugging, or teeth sucking, or if it was more like eye cutting.

“Is that why you said everyone outside New Avalon hates us?

Because we cal famous Avaloners ‘Ours’?”

Steffi laughed. His whole face changed and he looked even more pulchy. I started laughing too even though I wasn’t sure what was so funny.

“Not everyone hates you. Believe it or not some people don’t even think about New Avalon.”

“But last week in Statistics you said that everybody hates us.”

The whole classroom had exploded.

“I did, didn’t I?” he said, grinning. “Sure set everyone off.”

He had. Everyone told him to go back to where he came from, and demanded to know what kind of a name
Stefan
was anyhow. (

Just as wel they didn’t know about his nickname.) Demerits had been handed out left, right, and center, but it had been a welcome distraction from calculating the shift in batting averages from the twenties to the present day. I have no love for statistics.

“It’s true people hate New Avalon, but I mostly said it to annoy Freedom Hazal. He doesn’t seem to think anyone outside New Avalon has ever achieved anything.”

“Freedom can be a bother.” Which was an understatement.

Freedom’s good- skin fairy causes no amount of jealousy—fifteen years old and he’s never had a pimple, or blackhead, or the faintest hint of heat rash. He gloats about it too.

But wasn’t it true that most famous people were from New Avalon? I decided not to point that out.

“You stil trying to get rid of your parking fairy?”

I nodded, pleased that he’d remembered. “It is my life’s mission.”

“I thought getting on the basketbal team was your life’s mission?”

“I have two life missions,” I said. I wondered if I should ask him to sit with me and Rochele and Sandra tomorrow. Or if that would be too pushy. He’d spent last week hanging out with his soccer teammates.

“So how wil you know when your fairy’s gone?”

“The new fairy wil start doing new fairy stuff.” I hoped so, anyway.

“What about vegetarianism?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“I read an article in the
New Avalon Times
that says statisticaly vegetarians have better fairies than meat- eaters.”

“Realy?”

He nodded so solemnly that I wasn’t sure if he was mocking me or not.

“But Rochele’s not a vegetarian,” I pointed out. “Nor is Fiorenze, and they have the best fairies ever.”

“Who’s Fiorenze?”

“You don’t know? She’s in Fencing with us. Also Statistics and PR. She’s vastly popular.”
Sort of
. Not with the girls, she wasn’t.

Steffi looked blank. How delicious was that? If he didn’t know who Fiorenze was, that meant her fairy wasn’t working on him. He was immune! I bit my bottom lip to keep the joy from bubbling out.

“She has this fairy that …” I trailed off.

Steffi grunted, clearly unintrigued. “Anyway, the article said
statistically
. You need a bigger sample size than just two. Not that the article said where those statistics came from. Do you have any doubts about fairies?”

I stared at him. “What’s to doubt? Every time I’m in a car, there’s a parking spot waiting for it. Every single time.”

“I’m sure. I don’t doubt your parking abilities. But is it realy tiny little invisible people with wings? When my grandparents were alive they talked about luck, not fairies.”

“They were dumber in the olden days.” I wondered again what Steffi’s fairy was. Did he have one? Not everyone does. My little sister doesn’t. (And, pox, do we hear about it!) My dad doesn’t either, but he doesn’t believe in fairies or luck. “I just want to be lucky at something other than cars finding parking spots. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

“Nope. I guess not. Wanna shoot some hoops?”

“Sure,” I said. “Nothing I’d like better.”

“You can show me how crazy they were not to pick you,” Steffi said.

“I sure wil,” I said, slipping my lucky bal back into my pocket. I was starting to think Steffi might like me too. “Race you to my place?”

“You’re on!”

Days walking: 61

Demerits: 4

Conversations with Steffi: 6

Doos clothing acquired: 0

M
onday morning Steffi and Fiorenze were hand in hand walking past my locker. Steffi gazed up into Stupid-Name’s eyes as if the answer to today’s Public Relations quiz could be found there. It was only first recess! Yesterday afternoon he hadn’t even known she existed.

“Fairy dung,” I said under my breath.

“I hear you,” Bluey Salazar replied. He has a dog fairy (al dogs like him even if they bite or pee on everyone else). I hadn’t noticed him at his locker beside me. “She’s not even my type, but whenever that fairy- fluffed Fiorenze is in the room I can’t look anywhere else.

It’s so annoying. Gosh, she’s … it was so much better last week when she was out sick.”

“Oh,” I said. That’s why Steffi hadn’t known about Stupid-Name. She’d been sick al of his first week at school. Why couldn’t her ilness have lasted, say, til the end of high school?

“You realy think she’s pulchy?”

Bluey sighed. “Only when she’s around. There ought to be a law against a fairy like hers. Though I love what she’s done with her hair.”

Her hair was braided and the tips of the braids were dyed bronze

—almost the same shade as her skin. Our standard uniform is a bronzey brown, so she was now bronze from head to toe with only her eyes and lips standing out. In no way did she look adorable, pulchy, or doos.

I grunted. “Must have cost a fortune.”

“She’s rich. I heard her grandfather was a king in one of the old countries.”

“I heard he was a bank robber,” I muttered, though I hadn’t heard that at al.

“It’s a pity she’s so stuck-up,” Bluey said. “You know, I think it’s been weeks since she spoke to anyone other than a teacher. It’s an even bigger pity she’s already got the new boy.” He sighed again.

“I thought you said you don’t like girls?”

“I know. The whole thing is
so
annoying!”

We watched Steffi lean forward and bounce two of Stupid-Name’s braids against each other.

Aaaarggh!

I was so ready to beat her about the head until her obnoxious, fragged, make- my- life- a-misery, doxhead fairy curled up and died. What was she doing with Steffi?
My
Steffi! Had she had six conversations with him since he started school? No, she had not!

Fiorenze had never shown interest in a boy before. Not one. Why Steffi!? Other than him being the pulchiest boy I’d ever seen.

“See you,” Bluey said.

“Uh- huh,” I replied, staring at Steffi and Stupid- Name. They were definitely holding hands, which is an infraction. Stupid- Name was looking coy and glancing at her feet while standing so close to Steffi their fairies must have locked wings. Until now she’d been way too up herself to be linked with any of the boys at school.

Though she’s always happy to let them carry her gear or buy her lunch or whatever. I’d never seen her holding hands with anyone before.

Steffi leaned forward and blocked Stupid-Name’s face from view. I couldn’t tel if he was kissing her or not, but it sure looked like it. But they couldn’t be that insane, could they? Being caught kissing on campus or off meant instant expulsion.

My fencing coach, Van Dyck, came striding down the corridor in the gold and brown jacket al the coaches wore. Sandra claims that Coach Van Dyck’s gaze is so intense she can set students ablaze.

There are rumors that her fairy is a setting- students- on- fire fairy.

Adrenaline flooded through me. Steffi couldn’t be expeled! I’d just met him!

Without thinking about demerits or injuries I threw myself at the lovebirds, catching Steffi at the knees in a tackle that sent him crashing to the ground and Stupid- Name with him.

“Whoa!” Steffi began.

“You okay?” I asked, standing up, offering him a hand.

Steffi nodded. Stupid- Name sat blinking with her back to the lockers.

“What was that about?” Steffi asked.

“Charlotte Adele Donna Seto Steele!” Coach Van Dyck said, rushing up beside us. “Did you just attack these students?”

“No, Coach. There was a, there was a—”

“Wasp,” Stupid-Name finished for me, standing up. She started to describe the wasp’s huge dimensions.

“A wasp?” Coach repeated. “Which has now vanished?”

We al looked around for the non existent wasp. I was grateful that there were so many windows, making the wasp’s existence and disappearance slightly plausible.

“Apparently, Coach,” Steffi said. He looked confused.

Coach Van Dyck ran her fiery gaze over Steffi, then Stupid-Name, before coming to a rest on me. “Perhaps in the future, Charlotte, you might want to cal out instead of tackling people?”

“Yes, Coach,” I said, waiting for the demerit.

Van Dyck held her gaze on me for several very long wordless seconds before walking away.

“Thank you,” I breathed, “for the wasp thing.” I couldn’t believe I’d gotten away without a demerit. “I wholy appreciate it.”

Fiorenze nodded, but didn’t look at me.

“No worries,” Steffi said. “But why did you tackle us?”

“Kissing,” I said. “It’s against the school rules. You could get expeled. If Van had seen you …”

“Realy?” Steffi said, astonished.

Fiorenze stayed silent.

“Students aren’t supposed to engage in any public displays of affection.”

“How about that?” Steffi said, turning to Fiorenze. “A wasp, eh?

Wel done.” He kissed her cheek, then said, “Oops.”

Fiorenze looked down and then muttered something I couldn’t hear, which made Steffi laugh. He shook his head as if he could not believe how funny she was. It was wrong. Stupid-Name does not tel jokes. She is without joy or humor. Yes, covering for me was good of her, but I doubt she was thinking about it that way. She knew that kissing was expulsion worthy.

Doxhead.

I opened up my locker, remembered that my tennis gear was in the change room locker, and closed it again. Fiorenze finaly disentangled herself from Steffi. As she walked past, I looked up, and for less than a second we stared at each other. I started to say something—it seemed weird not to—but she had already turned away as if talking to me, or any other girl, might make her head explode.

Why was she so stuck-up?

I stomped off toward the changing rooms, where Rochele greeted me with a sympathetic smile. She was wearing black satin matching bra and panties, reminding me of how great her fairy is and how torpid mine is. She opened her mouth to speak.

“Don’t,” I said, holding up my hand in the universal sign for seal-your-lips-I-don’t-want-to-hear-it.

“She looks horr—”

I pushed my hand to within a fairy’s wing of her cheek. “Which part of the hand are you not comprehending?”

“The little finger. Also the lower part of the palm.”

I growled, opened my changing room locker, stared at my tennis gear, sweats, and tees in a crumpled stinking mess, and realized I hadn’t remembered to take them home to wash, or to bring in fresh ones. If I wore the pongy clothes, I’d score a demerit. And if I burst into tears on account of the general decrepitude of my day, I’d earn another one. Crying is vastly frowned upon. “Dung.”

“Erk,” Rochele agreed, stepping back. “Those are on the nose.

You can borrow some of mine if you like.”

As if. Rochele is almost exactly twice my height. Okay, slight exaggeration. But to make it clearer: I am a teenytiny point guard; she is a correctly sized center. If I tried to play in her giant tentlike tennis uniform, it’d be a demerit. “Very funny.”

“What about wearing your fencing whites? Or your cricket ones?”

“Or your swimmers,” Sandra said, opening her own locker.

Sandra Leigh Petaculo is my second-best friend at school. Her fairy is a serving fairy. No matter what, her tennis serves always go in.

Coach Ntini predicts that with some real speed and power, she wil be one of the best tennis players New Avalon has ever produced.

She wil certainly be one of the most sarcastic.

“Oh, yes,” I said, “everyone is laced with humor today.” Wearing incorrect attire is also an infraction.

“Except you, Charlie,” Rochele said, giving me her big-eyed, are- you- okay/ can’t-you- take- a-joke look.

“Fairy fragger,” I muttered, puling my fencing whites out. “Don’t laugh.”

Coach Ntini levied my demerit and noted that I was only three away from a game suspension. He did this without saying a word: he looked at my fencing whites sorrowfuly, turned on his tablet, noted the demerit next to my name, slipped the tablet back in his pocket, and held up three fingers.

I looked down at my clothing and mustered up an expression of shock, as if this were the first time I had noticed what I was wearing.

“I’m sorry, Coach.”

“Your sorrow changes nothing; only your deeds can.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Go.” He looked in the direction of Rochele, Sandra, and the rest of the B-stream tennis squad, who were warming up.

I slunk off toward them, wishing there was a way to execute my fairy, not merely make her go away. If I hadn’t been stuck with her I wouldn’t be walking everywhere, and I wouldn’t have racked up demerits, nor would I be so knackered al the time that I kept forgetting to do al the stuff I was supposed to be doing. Like washing my clothes.

Doxhead fairy!