Maggie Malone and the Mostly Magical Boots (2 page)

When I open my eyes, I am lying on a paper-covered mattress in a tiny room. I sit up and look in a medicine cabinet mirror next to me, which turns out to be not such a great idea.

CHIMICHANGA!
I look like I'm on my way to a Mummy's Revenge Halloween party. My forehead is wrapped in a mile of white bandages, and there's crusty blood all around the edges. The part of my head on top where there's no bandage is even worse. It's a huge, frizzy pouf that looks like a family of rodents got in there and built a ginormous nest right on top of my head. And what on
earth
am I wearing? I stand up so I can see myself in full, and my head starts spinning. I'm wearing an enormous red sweatshirt with Rudolph (yeah, as in the red-nosed reindeer) on the front. It hangs all the way to my knees, and the sleeves are about ten inches too long.

A woman wearing a white coat with a pin on it that says NINJA NURSE walks in.

“What happened to me?” I ask her.

“History book,” she says simply.

“A
book
did this to me?” I say. At least it wasn't a baseball bat.

“Yup,” she replies. “Here's your sweater. Now back to class you go. I've got seven kids waiting in line for that cot you've got there.” Then she bustles right out of the room.

I get my
second
late slip of the day and trudge out of the office, heading for my hateful locker. I get all of my books just as the bell rings. Doors fly open and kids stampede out into the hallways.
Where's that hole in the floor when you need it?
But a funny thing happens—and not funny in the
Crazy
Home
Videos
TV show way. Nobody even seems to see me. It's like I'm completely invisible. There are groups of girls all giggling and whispering and bunches of boys slapping each other on the back and shouting at each other over the girls' heads, and not one person notices that I'm there. Which I guess is better than the alternative.

I look down at my schedule: Spanish. At Sacred Heart, you could choose your language, so I picked Latin. Well, my mom picked it because she said it would help me with my vocabulary (and don't tell her I said this, but it totally did). I can't even ask to go to the bathroom in Spanish!

I find the classroom and slide into an empty desk in the back. I'm arranging my stuff when a pretty girl appears beside my desk. She has honey-colored hair with just the right about of bend in it and is wearing a black T-shirt that says DRAMA QUEEN in sparkly pink letters across her chest. I smile meekly at her and go back to my organizing.

But she just stands there, her arms crossed.

I feel a not-so-gentle hand shove me on the shoulder from behind. “You're in her seat,” the voice says, in a
you're such a doofus
kind of way. “Go find another one.”

Seriously?

Drama Queen takes a deep breath and looks around, like she's being overly patient with me since I've totally inconvenienced her. What else can I do? I gather up my things and slide out of the seat. She takes it without a word.

Yeah, you're welcome
, I think, taking a seat as far away from her as I can.

Not even the Spanish teacher seems to notice my ridiculous outfit or my banged-up head. I don't get it. If I looked like this for a skinny second at Sacred Heart, everybody and their mother would be totally freaking out. What kind of school
is
this? And what sort of people act like it's normal when someone walks around looking like the main character in
Grandma
Got
Run
Over
by
a
Reindeer
?

I watch the clock all through Spanish class. Lunch is next.
Gulp.
My stomach is already rumbling, and I know I'm going to have to get some food in there or I'll pass out. Again. I don't think Ninja Nurse would be too happy to see me.

The bell rings, and I get swept along in the sea of bodies rushing toward the cafeteria. Everybody just slings their books and bags outside the lunchroom door, so I do the same. Then I take a tray and slide it along the metal rail. I stare at platter after platter of brown-and-green mush, trying to figure out what exactly they could have on them.

“Corned beef hash or meatloaf?” a lady in a hairnet growls at me. “What's it going to be? You're holding up the whole line.”

“Oh, sorry! Neither, please,” I answer, because they both look like canned cat food. “Just some corn and fruit cocktail, I guess.” Yum. That should fill me right up.

Being pushed around in the lunch line is nothing compared to walking out into the big wide-open lunchroom. I've seen this scene in way too many movies, and I'm not about to go through the whole “this seat's taken” routine. I hold my tray tightly—
please
don't let me trip—
and walk straight out the double doors. There's a little patio out there, and thankfully, it's totally empty. It's gray and wet outside, and the cement bench feels like it's made of solid ice, but at least there's nobody to ignore me out here.

I
can't believe this is my new life.
When I was a little kid, I used to wish I were invisible. But now that I am, I'd give anything just to have things the way they were. I sure didn't appreciate what I had when I had it. The worst part is tomorrow is my birthday. Twelve! The big one-two. Who cares, right? Birthdays used to be so cool. Turning ten was huge, because of the double digits and also finally getting to order the full-size spaghetti at Luigi's instead of that skimpy kid's plate. And eleven was awesome because I finally got to ride the Super Screamer at Splashy's Water Park. But what do you get when you turn twelve? Nothing, that's what. It's still another whole year until I can see a PG-13 movie, and two more years until my mom will let me babysit. Plus, I have to spend my actual birthday here, at Stinkerton.

I pick up a banged-up metal spork that looks like it's gotten stuck in the garbage disposal a few dozen times and shove a bite of cold, mushy corn into my mouth. It would be completely bland if the tears streaming down my face didn't give it a salty flavor.
Happy
almost
birthday, Maggie Malone. Welcome to your worst year ever.

After lunch, I trudge to biology class.

“Find your partner and get your pigs out of the cooler,” says the teacher, Mrs. Shankshaw. She's old and brittle and has the scrunchiest face you ever saw. It's all pinched like she's outside on a bright, sandy beach and forgot her sunglasses.

Wait, did she just say
get
your
pigs
out
of
the
cooler
?

Just then, a kid plops a tray down on the table right next to me. On that tray—ten inches away from me—is a pig, all right. A puny, gray, totally dead pig. I turn my head away and gag.

“Does everyone have a scalpel?” Mrs. Shankshaw wants to know. I raise my hand to tell her that no, I don't have a scalpel—or a partner, or a stomach for dead pigs—but apparently I am invisible in here too.

“Okay, great then,” she continues, oblivious to me. “Your first incision will be from the top of the throat to the bottom of the umbilicus. Don't cut too deep or you'll hit the internal organs.” She sits down at her big desk and focuses on a stack of papers. I lower my hand and slump down in my chair.

Not getting noticed has one advantage: I have no partner, and no pig, and nobody even cares. I spend the hour holding my nose with one hand to escape the stench—there's a reason
dead
pig
isn't a popular candle scent—and sketching with the other. I draw a cute little smiling pig with wings and a halo. Finally the bell rings, and we're released from the slaughterhouse.

I make it through world history without any drama. After the day I've had so far, I consider that a major win.

My last class of the day is art. Maybe my bad luck streak is about to end. I love everything about art. I love the way colored pencils smell right after you sharpen them, and I love trying to paint a perfect circle (ever since I heard that's the hardest thing in the art world to do, I practice all the time), and I really-super-love sketching. At Sacred Heart, I won the school-wide Whiz Kids contest three years in a row, and last year, my self-portrait made it all the way to the state competition level. I got beat by some kid who built this 3-D multimedia diorama of the human body. His dad is a famous surgeon, so we pretty much know who did
that
project.

The art room looks a lot like the science lab, with big square tables instead of desks. The tables are covered with buckets of mangled paint brushes and cups of murky water. But still, there's not a dead pig in sight, which is not something I ever thought I'd be particularly thankful for.

The art teacher, Mrs. Kibble, walks around the room putting paper plates globbed with tempera paints in the middle of each table. Then she walks around again and places a bowl of sad-looking fruit next to the paints.

“As you are painting today, try to remember what we've learned about perspective and depth,” she tells us.

Sweet strawberry pie, finally a break! I take a dull, chewed-on pencil from a cup and start lightly sketching the rotting fruit. I don't want to brag, but my fruit bowl looks pretty darn good. My apples might be a little bit rounder than the ones in the bowl—thanks to all of that circle practice—but I'm really happy with the sketch. When I get to the painting part, my hideous day starts to melt away. I nail the shading on that bruised-up banana
perfectly.
I think this one might even deserve a frame.

I'm just about to raise my hand to show Mrs. Kibble my work when the girl across from me lets out the biggest sneeze you ever heard. There's no build-up or anything, just this gale-force, ear-splitting
achooooooooo
that sends me jumping out of my seat. Before I can recover from the shock, she lets loose with another gust. When she does, she knocks over two of the water cups between us. I watch helplessly as the murky liquid seeps across my perfect picture, smearing those circles into unrecognizable splotches of brown goo. I can't even cry. What would be the point? It's not like it would change anything.

I crumple up my soggy picture and wonder if this is just how it's going to be from now on. The final bell of the day rings, and I've learned exactly one thing today: this Stinkerton place officially
stinks
. Sort of like my life.

I've never been so happy to go home in my whole entire life. I'm just not up for unwrapping my skull at the moment, so I squish and smash and shove and eventually I get my bike helmet to fit over my mummy head. I pedal as fast as I can all the way home, trying to get some distance between me and Stinktown, USA. I'm breathless when I finally reach my street and look up to see my neighbor, Mrs. G, right before I turn into my driveway. Her last name is Galifianakis. Can you say that? I can't either—that's why she's Mrs. G to me and my little brother Mickey. I guess she can't see my bandaged-up head under my bike helmet 'cause I'm pretty sure she'd be concerned. And this Rudolph sweater? Not to be mean, but she might have one similar. Mrs. G may not have great fashion sense, but she's a wizard in the kitchen and bakes the best sticky buns you ever tasted. I live for a good sticky bun. Sometimes she's waiting with a plate of them outside for me when I get home, but today she's just sweeping her steps. Figures.

I swing my right leg over my bike and hop off. When I do, I spot a brown box next to the front door. I sling my bike between the bushes and the front porch and get a little bit excited. Maybe it's an early birthday present from Granny Malone or Aunt Fiona. Hopefully Aunt Fiona. My Auntie Fi is a world traveler. My dad calls her a professional vagabond, and I don't exactly know what that means, but I do know that she sends me supercool presents from far, far away—which is exactly where I'd like to be right now. Last year, she sent me a fancy red silk kimono from Tokyo. I keep it in the box it came in and save it for sleepovers. When I wear it, my friends are all, “Where'd you get
that
?” and I'm all, “Oh this? Let me see if I can remember…Oh yeah, it's from
Japan
!”

The box on the porch is wrapped in brown paper tied with a string and has tons of weird-looking stamps on it. It's
definitely
from Auntie Fi. Maybe this terrible, horrible day is going to have a surprise happy ending. Maybe Auntie Fi is sending me a plane ticket to join her in some distant land—even the dusty outback of Australia or some dilapidated village in Calcutta would be better than here.

I have, like, ten thousand chores I'm supposed to be doing the minute I get home, but considering the day I've had, I think my mom will understand if I try to squeeze a little something good into my afterschool wind-down.

I rip the brown paper off the box, imagining that inside there's a bottle of fancy perfume from Paris or maybe a set of those Russian nesting dolls. But when I lift the lid, all I find is a dirty, scuffed-up pair of old cowboy boots. In boring brown.
What?
I wasn't expecting any fancy wrapping paper or anything—Auntie Fi would never hurt a tree just so your present could look pretty. But still. Somebody's dirty old boots? And then I remember: I have a stinky, scuffed-up, super-not-fun life now. So it just makes sense.

I feel bad for not being more grateful for Auntie Fi's gift. It's hard to explain, but my aunt and I have this crazy connection. When we're together, she always knows what I'm thinking, even if it's about something
totally
random. And sometimes I find stuff she's given me in places I'm absolutely positive I didn't leave them. I'm not saying it's a haunting situation or anything, but there's definitely something different about Auntie Fi. The other weird thing is that we look nearly identical, which isn't that weird seeing as we're related and everything, but nobody else in the family looks one bit like us, with our wacky red ringlets and freckly, I mean
buttermilk
, complexions.

As the best gift-giver I know, I'm a little surprised that Auntie Fi thought I would love these boots, but times are tough and like my mom says, it's the thought that counts. I scoop up the paper and the box and tuck the boots under my arm. When I do, a rolled-up piece of paper falls out of one of the boots, along with a spider that scuttles away, probably off to spread some rare, incurable disease. I pick up the paper by a corner and give it a shake. It's a note from Auntie Fi. Those are always fun! I decide to read it in my room.

I close my door and flop down on my bed, unrolling the letter.

Dear Maggie,

Happy 12th birthday! I'm writing to you from a tent in South Africa, where I'm helping a Zulu tribe figure out a way to filter the water in their village. Can you imagine not having clean water to drink? Life is hard here, but it sure is beautiful too. I wish you could see it. I bet you will someday, if you decide you want to.

Listen, I know you're wondering why Auntie Fi sent you some dirty old boots for your birthday. Your dad will tell you it's because I'm crazy, but the truth is they were mine when I was your age. Those boots are so special that I've carried them around the world with me twice, just waiting for your 12th birthday. Turning twelve is a really big deal. You're not who you used to be, but you're not who you're going to be yet either. You're in between, and it's kind of like you've got a toe in two worlds. It's a time when YOU get to decide how big you want your life to be from now on. Does that make any sense at all? Probably not now. But it will.

I know these boots don't look like much, but trust me when I tell you that things aren't always the way they seem. You'll see what I mean.

Gotta run—there's a troop of vervet monkeys tugging on my tent! Have fun with the MMBs, and tell Frank I said
hi
!

xoxo,

Auntie Fi

My dad said it would happen one day, and I guess he was right: Aunt Fiona has officially lost it.
What
is
she
talking
about, having toes in two worlds? And what could that have to do with these dingy boots? What's an MMB? And who the heck is Frank?
Auntie Fi's probably eaten too many wild berries or sipped too much wacky voodoo tea at those scary tribal ceremonies she's always talking about. I pick the boots up off the floor, and a big dirt clod falls off one and crumbles all over my zebra rug.
Special? These things? Not so much. Okay, maybe they'd be cute cleaned up with my jean skirt and a sparkly tank top. I wonder if they'll even fit.
After I tap them one last time over my trash can to get the last bit of dirt off, I walk over to my tall stand-up mirror and pull the boots on.

“Hey there, kid,” says a strange man who is suddenly standing
right
behind
me
.