What I Wore to Save the World (24 page)

infinite loop is right, i thought wearily, spinning on the bar stool.
It just goes around in circles.

The pub was clearing out as people scurried to track down their loved ones and stockbrokers, though maybe not in that order. I was thirsty and jonesing for a Coke, but the bartender had disappeared too. For a moment I considered chugging the remains of Colin's beer. Bad idea. I needed a clear head to work this out, and I knew from past experience that Guinness and I didn't mix that well.

I repeated the prophesy for the billionth time. It was clear about one thing and one thing only: I had to
win
the throne from Titania. Not steal it, or take it or trick her out of it.
Win
it.

But how? I grabbed the cocktail napkin from under Colin's beer, and a pen that was rolling around the bar. Across the top of the napkin I wrote
Things a Person Could Win.
Then I made a list:

You've got my vote.
Colin's voice echoed in my brain.

Wait—an election?

It kind of made sense. I had to win the job of being the leader of a realm. Isn't that what elections did?

But could I win? Possibly. I spun around again, thinking. In a competition that required skill or endurance or talent I'd be hopeless, but running for office didn't require any of that. You just needed petitions and buttons and slogans, and maybe the chance to make a few speeches.

I wasn't Raphael's ex-girlfriend for nothing. I knew all about elections. I'd watched him run for student council from a ringside seat my whole sophomore year. I was the one puttering around quietly, the decorative girlfriend photocopying flyers as he strategized with his posse and made deals—like the time he traded the onetime use of his new Infiniti FX50 on a Saturday night for the endorsement of the school's top jock.

I mean, come on—could winning the throne of the Queen of the Faeries be
that
different than winning president of the senior class?

Find the exit, Morgan
, a voice inside me whispered.
Or rewrite the code. It's now or never.

I flipped the cocktail napkin over. First I wrote:

I thought hard. Then I added:

I stuck the napkin in my pocket.

As poetry goes it's definitely lame,
I thought, taking a last triumphant spin on the bar stool.
But for a First Amendment to the Rules of Succession, it's not bad. Not bad at all.

twenty-one

to make it official, i figured that my cocktail napkin amendment should to be added to the
Book of Horns
, since that seemed to be like the Dungeon Master's rule book of Faerydom. And I knew the
Book of Horns
was at the Bod, under Finnbar's care.

So to the reflecting pool I ran. I didn't have any bubble juice handy, so I folded the cocktail napkin into a tiny boat and wrote H.M.S.
Bod
on the side. Then I tucked a pebble in the boat for ballast and carefully placed it in the water. I gave it a nudge to get it started.

It sailed halfway to the center of the pool before it sank—first tipping sharply to one side and slowly going
down, down, down
. Just like the
Titanic
.

I knew Finnbar would find it. He could be flighty about some things, but so far he'd proven himself a very efficient part-time librarian.

Now it was time to launch my campaign. I didn't have any buttons or bumper stickers. Nor did I have much of a plan, exactly. But I did know what I believed in and what I wanted to say—shouldn't that be enough? And I was standing in a perfect spot by the reflecting pool, where the impact of my words would be doubled.

Better just do it,
I thought.
That fire-breathing dragon is probably halfway to Connecticut by now.

I climbed on top of the low wall surrounding the pool and took a deep breath. “Attention, citizens of all realms!” I yelled. “I, Morgan Rawlinson, hereby declare my candidacy for Queen of the Faeries!”

Strangely, that's all it took. The mere act of stepping out in front of the crowd and declaring myself was more than enough to make people pay attention. Call it a powerful yet totally democratic kind of magic.

First, a clique of tourists who'd been taking pictures of the ocean view put down their cameras and approached, shy but curious. Then another group wandered across the piazza to listen. The members of the second group were uniformly tall and good-looking. At first I thought they might be a bunch of supermodels on vacation, but then I realized they were elves.
Or maybe they're both
, I realized, thinking of Orlando Bloom.

Soon a dozen gargoyles flew in and arranged themselves neatly along the edge of the reflecting pool, as if they'd been carved there. They flexed their bat wings and stared at me with wide, slow-blinking eyes, awaiting my next utterance.

I wondered how long I should stall before making a speech. The bigger the crowd, the better, and I had a feeling that more people (and faeries, and trolls, and pixies and giants) would soon be arriving. And maybe a ticked-off faery queen too.

“Pardon me, make way, please! Part-time librarian coming through!”

It was Finnbar, laboriously making a path through the gathering crowd. Grunting with effort, he pushed an old-fashioned wooden library cart on squeaky casters. It held a cardboard box on the lower shelf and a single, massive volume on top.

“Sorry for the”—
huff
—“delay!” He parked the cart and braced himself, hands on knees, to catch his breath. “What a workout! I had to take the”—
huff
—“land route. I didn't want the
Book of Horns
to”—
huff, huff
—“get wet.”

“I thought the
Book of Horns
was non-circulating,” I said, grinning.

He nodded in between huffs. “The paperwork to get it out of the Bod was endless! But I thought it might come in useful under the circumstances.”

“Thanks for making the trip, Finnbar. I'm really glad to see you.” And I was. As faery half brothers went, Finnbar was all I had.

He beamed. “
De nada
, sister! Always glad to pitch in. Now, the faery realm has never had an election before, so remind me: Are beheadings involved? Because I think the Tower of London just showed up on the croquet lawn behind the hotel.”

“No beheadings,” I said quickly. “The candidates give speeches, and there are buttons and signs and that kind of stuff. And then everybody votes, and the candidate who gets the most votes wins.”

He looked relieved. “That shouldn't take long, then. We'll have it all wrapped up by teatime. Here—these are for you.”

He dragged the cardboard box off the bottom shelf of the library cart and proudly showed me its contents: campaign buttons, bumper magnets, T-shirts, baseball hats, you name it. The sayings on the T-shirts were very creative:

No More Mean Queens: Vote for Morganne!
This shirt had a picture of Titania's head in a circle with a slash through it.

Meet Morgan: “A Breath of Fresh Air in Faery Queens!”
It showed an illustration of me, but with my long, flowing goddess-hair and wearing a faery princess dress right out of a Disney movie.

Whether You're Human or Faery, Morganne Understands!
In this one I was pictured holding hands with a leprechaun on one side and Miley Cyrus on the other. Or maybe it was Hannah Montana; I could never remember which wig was which.

“I hope it was all right to put that singing girl on the shirt,” Finnbar said worriedly. “I found out later she has two names, just like you. She's not another half-goddess, is she?”

“No, she's human. As far as anyone knows.” Amazed, I poked through the contents of the box. “I can't believe you got all this done. But Finnbar, speaking of two names: half of this stuff says Morgan and half says Morganne. Isn't that confusing?”

He put his hands on his hips as if he were going to scold me. “Spelling, spelling,
spelling
! Honestly, Mor-Mor, what difference does it make? It's still
you.
”

Whoosh.
That was exactly the point I'd tried to make to Colin. Score two points for Finnbar. But I smiled at the nickname. “Nobody's called me Mor-Mor since Tammy was a baby.”

He folded his hands over his heart nostalgically. “I know! And she used to call me Bar-Bar. Your mother always thought she meant the elephant from those French picture books.” Then Finnbar gestured proudly to the massive tome that sat on top of the cart. “And speaking of books, may I present: the
Book of Horns
! Though after pushing it all the way from Oxford I think they should call it the ‘Book of Lead.' This thing weighs a ton.”

He patted the cover with pride. “
Love
the amendment, by the way. ‘Wrote' and ‘vote,' that's so clever and rhymey! I've copied it into the third appendix and it's cross-referenced and footnoted in eleven different places.” He flipped through the book. “Would you like to see?”

I shielded my eyes from the sun and scanned the piazza. While Finnbar and I had been talking, hundreds of people and magical beings had gathered. Some were standing, some were setting up portable folding chairs, some were unpacking picnic lunches. The humans and the magical types eyed one another with suspicion. Some got close enough to snap photos, others just looked grim. But for the moment at least, they were waiting peacefully for whatever it was that was about to happen.

In contrast to this low-key milling about, a tight formation numbering a few dozen human-looking types appeared at the back of the crowd and strode purposefully toward us. They gestured animatedly with small notebooks and pencils and were closely trailed by another group, armed with video cameras and boom mikes.

“I'll look at the footnotes later, Finnbar.” I gulped at the sight of the cameras and quickly tried to brush the dirt off my ripped jeans and my stinky Natalie Portman's Shaved Head T-shirt—
at least the band'll get some free promo out of this,
I thought. “Right now I think I have to uh, meet the press.”

Finnbar turned and saw the reporters approaching. “Oh, goody!” he squealed. “The media have arrived! Now we can begin.” He heaved the
Book of Horns
off the library cart and into the cardboard box. Then he flipped the cart on its side, turning it into an instant podium. One of the reporters ducked forward and stuck a microphone on top.

Finnbar stepped forward and tapped the mike.

“Testing, testing, check check. Am I on?” He cleared his throat. “Greetings, journalists! I am Finnbar, your friendly neighborhood librarian-turned-campaign manager, press secretary and now—television personality!” He blew a kiss to the cameras and went on.

“It is my distinct pleasure to introduce this remarkable candidate for Queen of the Faeries. Your questions have not been pre-screened, and the candidate's answers will be spontaneous and unscripted. It's possible they may make no sense whatsoever! We're really just winging it here, so fingers crossed.”

He pulled a large stopwatch out of his pocket. “I will permit one minute for questions, one minute for answers, thirty seconds for follow-ups, fifteen seconds for clarifi cations, five seconds for denials, two seconds for shouted objections—”

“Finnbar, thanks,” I interrupted. “But I think I can handle this.”

“You're the boss, boss!” he said agreeably, then turned back to the mike. “Meet the next Queen of the Faeries—Morrrrrrrrrrgan Rawlinson!”

There was some polite, lukewarm applause as Finnbar relinquished the podium. Hesitantly I stepped forward. Flashbulbs popped. The boom mikes were lowered until they hung right in my face.