Magic Nation Thing (3 page)

Abby swallowed hard and said, “Okay. Great. I’m on my way.” All that was left to do was bolt down the rest of her lunch and leave a message with Tree, in case Dorcas got back early. And borrow a little bus money. The area where the Bordens lived was within walking distance of the O’Malley Agency if you had a lot of energy and a half hour or so to spare, but a long walk with lots of time to think was exactly what Abby wasn’t interested in at the moment.

In the office Tree was at her desk finishing her lunch, some microwave-type spaghetti thing with lots of gooey tomato sauce. In spite of a mouthful of spaghetti, she managed a smile that would have looked fabulous on the cover of any fanzine. “Hi, Abbykins,” she said. (Abby wouldn’t have allowed anyone else to call her Abbykins, but she didn’t mind when Tree did it.) “What’s up?”

Abby sighed. A wishful sigh that meant
Why can’t I look that good?
which was what most females thought when they looked at Tree Torrelli’s naturally curly hair, enormous dark eyes, inch-long eyelashes, and figure that Paige said was “absolutely insane.” Which, when Paige said it, meant like fabulous, only even better.

It was obvious that Tree hadn’t combed her hair since her windy walk to the store, and strands of crispy black curls straggled around her face, besides which there was a glob of tomato sauce in the middle of her chin. Not at her best, maybe, but probably good enough to get discovered as the next Hollywood superstar if a movie scout happened to walk in. But Abby didn’t say so. She’d found out a long time before that Tree didn’t like people to mention her good looks, which Abby didn’t understand at all until Dorcas explained it.

Dorcas said that Tree was from a large Italian family in which most of the kids got sent to college, but not Tree. Not Tree, because her family’s attitude was that any girl who looked like her didn’t need a career because she could just marry for money.

“Tree really resented her family’s attitude,” Dorcas had explained. “So she left home and worked her way through college. So if you want to compliment Tree, don’t tell her she’s gorgeous. I found out that if I told her she was a quick learner, or a whiz at the computer, she was absolutely thrilled. But believe me, as far as Tree Torrelli is concerned, the word
gorgeous
is a put-down.”

So all Abby did was grin at Tree and say, “Hey, I called Paige and she wants to see me, so could the agency loan me some bus money?”

Tree wiped the spaghetti sauce off her big beautiful mouth, grinned back, and said, “Good idea. It’s too nice a day to sit around home. I’ll tell your mom when she gets in.” As soon as Tree got some bus money out of petty cash, Abby was on her way to the Bordens’.

Abby always enjoyed looking at the Bordens’ mansion as she walked up the hill from the bus stop. She particularly liked the grand balcony right over the front door, and the spiraling columns that held it up. A balcony that always made Abby think of the ones on which English kings and queens stood to wave to admiring crowds below.

Abby had heard Dorcas telling Tree that the Bordens’ house was ostentatious, which, according to the dictionary, meant something like “overly elaborate and ornate.” But Abby didn’t agree at all. She couldn’t see what was wrong with any of it, including the modern computer-controlled appliances and all the interior decorator-styled rooms. Particularly Paige’s big beautiful bedroom with its velvet swag drapes and matching bedspread that you could barely see under all the matching velvety pillows.

As Abby walked up the broad staircase that led to the double doors under the “royal balcony,” she was remembering and resenting Dorcas’s “ostentatious” remark and thinking that there were a lot of good things about the Bordens besides their house—their
houses
if you counted the one in Squaw Valley. Of course the best thing about the Bordens was Paige.

As Abby pushed the doorbell and waited for someone to let her in, she thought about how Paige had been her friend ever since second grade. Her best friend, even though in some ways they weren’t that much alike. In size, for instance. Although they were almost exactly the same age, Paige was quite a bit bigger. She was taller and blond. Abby was small for her age with dark hair and eyes.

There were other differences too, such as Paige’s crazy imagination, and the headlong, fearless way she did everything, which could be a little scary at times except that she always had a kind of confidence that made Abby feel she’d be able to deal with whatever mess she might get herself, and Abby, into. Abby tended to be more cautious and to worry too much about things that might happen, or might not happen the way they were supposed to. Except when they were skiing, of course. The only place where Abby was the fearless one was on the slopes.

Abby had often wished she could be more like Paige, but Paige said she envied things about Abby. “Like how you get good grades without even trying,” Paige had said. “And the way you move, like a dancer or a champion athlete.”

And when Abby had protested, saying she was lousy at badminton and not too great at soccer, Paige had interrupted to say, “Well, a champion skier anyway. You know you are. Everybody says so. Or even a champion figure skater, if you’d had a chance to work at it a little more when you were young.”

So that was Paige, and as for the rest of the Borden family… Well, Daphne, Paige’s mom, had been the one who’d persuaded Dorcas to start letting Abby go with the Bordens to their Squaw Valley cabin. And she told everyone how much Paige’s skiing had improved since she’d had someone her own age to ski with.

When it came to Sherwood Dandrige Borden II, Paige’s father (Sher for short, pronounced like
sure
), Abby didn’t have as much to go on, since he usually wasn’t home when she was there. But at Squaw he’d always been nice enough, as long as everybody obeyed the rules.

Of course Paige griped about both of her parents a lot. Especially about how her dad never listened to her when she complained about her brothers. But she did seem proud of some things about her mom and dad. Things such as knowing what was the best stuff to buy and, of course, being
such
expert skiers.

Abby pushed the doorbell again and went on thinking about how much she liked the Bordens. All of them, even Sky and Woody, despite the fact that she was, at that very moment, standing in the
very
spot where she’d been hit by an egg that Sky had dropped from the balcony. Abby glanced up and was moving out of egg range when the door opened and there they were, both of them.

Six-year-old Skyler Hardison Borden, known as Sky, was pointing his favorite toy, a water gun shaped like an Uzi, at Abby’s midsection. Behind him was eight-year-old Woody, whose full name was Sherwood Dandrige Borden III. Woody the Third wasn’t carrying a gun, but with the fiendish grin on his face, karate outfit, and kickboxer pose, he really didn’t need a weapon.

Abby grinned, which as usual seemed to take both of them by surprise. “Hi, guys,” she said, getting ready to duck back out of reach in case Sky started to pull the trigger. “Where’s Paige?”

Skyler turned to look at Woody, who slashed the air with both hands and then struck a different karate pose before demanding, “Who wants to know?”

Narrowing her eyes and cupping her hands around her mouth, Abby whispered, “The FBI.” As Woody thought that over she pushed past him just as Paige came running down the stairs. Ignoring her warlike siblings, Paige grabbed Abby’s arm and pulled her away. “Come on in,” she said. “Sky, if you shoot that thing off on Mom’s Persian carpet you’re going to get killed.”

As Abby and Paige ran up the stairs, Skyler shouted after them, “No, I’m not. You are. You’re going to get killed.” But Paige only laughed and went on running.

O
NCE INSIDE PAIGE’S INTERIOR-DECORATED
room, Abby and Paige flopped down on the ankle-deep champagne-colored throw rug and talked. For a while they talked about clubs. Lately there had been a fad at school of making up secret clubs that no one except the club members were allowed to be in, or even know about.

“We ought to have one,” Paige said. “We could call it the P and A Club, for Paige and Abby. And we’ll have more secrets than anyone.”

“Okay,” Abby said. “What kinds of secrets shall we have?”

Paige thought for a minute before suggesting that they could have secrets about the fact that they were both adopted and their real parents had been wizards. Paige had been reading Harry Potter recently.

After they’d decided a lot of stuff about what had happened to their real parents and how they’d ended up living with Muggles, they switched to making up secret clubs for some of their classmates. They decided, for instance, that Margot and Heather should start a secret club called the Barnett Pets, which you couldn’t join unless you were the teacher’s pet in most of your classes.

In between making up clubs, they played a new computer game that Paige said was really insane (fabulous, that is), even though it seemed to be a lot like most of the other games they’d played recently. And then, wouldn’t you know it, Paige brought up the one subject Abby didn’t want to think about.

“Does your mother have any new clues about what happened to Miranda? You know, my mom says what probably happened was that she got into a car with a stranger. My mom says that’s usually how people get kidnapped. They get into a car with a stranger and that’s the last they’re ever heard of.” Paige’s blue-green eyes tipped mournfully. “I’ve just been worried to death about that poor little girl. It’s so much worse when something like that happens to someone you know.” Paige liked to make it sound as if the Mooreheads were old friends of the family instead of some people she’d possibly seen once in a grocery store check-out line.

Abby shook her head. “No new clues that I know about. But my mom flew up to Oregon yesterday, so she must still be thinking Miranda might be up there with her father. That’s all I know,” she added firmly. On one hand she really wanted to tell Paige about the locket, but on the other hand she knew she’d better not.

The problem with telling Paige about the locket, or anything having to do with secret powers, was that Abby knew she’d be totally fascinated. Paige’s interest in anything weird and scary was one of the few areas where she and Abby disagreed. Abby felt pretty certain that once she started the locket story, she would wind up telling way too much. Such as all about Great-aunt Fianna and the other weird ancestors and about how Dorcas seemed to think that she, and maybe Abby too, had inherited something that Dorcas referred to as psychic abilities. Abilities that Abby would be glad to trade in any day for a nice ordinary life with parents who lived in Pacific Heights and talked about normal things like golf scores and when to go on their next ski trip instead of who did what and whether it was a crime.

So Abby changed the subject back to how much one computer game could be just like five or six others. After that there was a long monologue by Paige about how lucky Abby was not to have any little brothers. Apparently it had been a particularly bad day for Paige, little brother-wise, and she told Abby about it in detail.

The worst part of the story was about how Sky had gotten into her makeup that morning while she had been out shopping with her mother. Paige had a great cosmetic kit with just about every kind of makeup you could imagine. Even things like glitter eye shadow and glow-in-the-dark lipstick. So far she hadn’t been allowed to wear any of it, except on Halloween, but she was saving it for the future, in a box at the back of her closet.

“When we got home Sky had lipstick and rouge all over his face,” she told Abby. “Of course he had to scrub it off as soon as Mom saw him. But he’d already messed up some of my best stuff, and then Mom took the rest of it.”

“All of it?” Abby asked.

“Well, all but one icky pink lipstick,” Paige said.

“What did she do with it?” Abby wanted to know. “Did she throw it away?”

“No, I guess not. But she might as well have. She said she was putting it away until I was older.” Paige shrugged. “Like twenty-one probably.”

“That’s awful.” Abby was sympathetic, but she couldn’t help grinning. “Now that you mention it, I did notice that Sky looked even cuter than usual. It must have been your makeup.”

“Sky is a monster,” Paige snorted. “They both are. But Sky’s the worst because he gets away with murder because of the way he looks. I mean, who else could go around looking angelic while he’s carrying an Uzi?” She sighed. “You’d think they could have settled for one. After they got their Sherwood Dandrige the Third, you’d think that would have been enough. But no, they had to go on and have another one. I mean, Woody would have been majorly monstrous all by himself, but having Sky to show off for just makes him a thousand times worse.”

Abby thought calling your little brothers monstrous was a bit harsh, but she could understand Paige’s point of view. And it was certainly true that Sky in particular got away with everything just by being cute. So darling that adults meeting him for the first time tended to make that
ahhh
noise that’s often used for puppies or kittens. And like puppies and kittens, Skyler Borden got away with almost anything—including dropping eggs on people who came to the front door.

“My mom and dad knew he did it,” Paige had told Abby after the egg attack. “They yelled at him a little but it was like they really thought it was kind of amusing. And of course, he knew they felt that way.”

“I know,” Abby told Paige. “It doesn’t seem fair. It really doesn’t.”

By the time Abby finished sympathizing, it was time for her to head for home—and on the way try to keep her mind on computer games and little brother problems instead of letting it slide toward Disneyland and who might be there.

Dorcas got home soon after Abby did, and at dinner that night (the usual microwave stuff), she didn’t bring up the Moorehead case or what she’d been doing about it. Abby had kind of been hoping she would, hoping Dorcas might mention that she’d been thinking about where a kidnapping father might have taken his six-year-old daughter if he was trying to get her to be on his side. But no such luck.