Views from the Tower (3 page)

“That’s cause you’re not a fairy godmother!” He ran his hand through his curly brown hair in exasperation. He’d let it grow long enough to touch his collar. Probably part of his “to be cool” campaign.

“Why not?” I quirked an eyebrow at him. The quirking an eyebrow thing was new for me. It’d taken me hours in front of a mirror to perfect, but I thought it made me look more other-worldly. That’s also why I’d started adding a red wash to my otherwise drab brown hair. Auburn seemed like a much more fairy godmotheresque color than brown.

“Mags, you’re six months younger than me.”

I leveled a glare at him. “Irrelevant. Being a fairy godmother is more about benevolent magic than age. It’s a genetic thing; women in my family tend to end up as fairy godmothers.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “You seriously expect me to believe that you’re my fairy godmother? We’ve known each other since first grade.”

“Also irrelevant. Just because we’ve been in the same classes for ten years doesn’t necessarily mean you know everything about my family history. I don’t know everything about yours.”

“Yeah, somehow I doubt any of my family secrets would be quite as unbelievable as your ‘All the women in my family are fairy godmothers.’”

I sighed and uncrossed my arms. “Not all, just some. The unlucky ones.”

Justin stared at me for a moment. “Are you seriously not joking? Like you really believe you’re magical?”

“I don’t believe it, Justin, I know it. There’s a difference.”

“Okay, now you’re starting to get me concerned.” He closed his locker, looking up and down the hallway as if afraid someone would overhear our conversation and immediately cart me off to the loony bin. No one was going to hear us; I’d already put us in the middle of what my Aunt Linda always referred to as “the bubble spell.” I’m sure it had a real name but I hadn’t ever bothered to learn it. The point was less knowing the name of spells and more being able to successfully do them.

“Afraid someone is going to overhear us and think you’re as crazy as I am?” I grinned at him. I could see the truth in is eyes, even as he tried to deny it.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he replied grimly.

“Sure it is. I’m already a semi-social outcast, but you—you still have a chance for high school greatness if you play your cards right.”

Justin looked uncomfortable. His eyes darted once again to the stream of students flowing down the hall past us. Past us, but never quite too close to us. Bubble spell—it was a thing of wonder.

“Why are you doing this?” he almost hissed at me.

“What, helping you? I’m not entirely sure. I mean, to finish my levels and get my full license I have to help someone I know. It’s harder to make them believe, as you are demonstrating now. Why I chose to help you? Not sure. Nostalgia maybe?” And that I still kind of had a small, tiny, minuscule, itty bitty crush on him. Not that I said that.

“No. Not helping me. Whacking out on me. In public.”

“I’m not going to ruin your precious—and more precarious than you probably realize—social advancement. It saddens me to say this, but I’m actually prepared to help you in your quest to transition from relatively nice person to popularity.”

I could see he wasn’t buying it. Would I if I were in his place? Justin was bright, but he’d always been more math and science smart than imaginative. The arts weren’t really his thing. Somehow I figured it would be easier to convince an artsy person of the truth of my fairy godmotherness than someone who took advanced placement calculus for fun.

So that was my second mistake: picking a hard to convince subject. My first mistake was not just poofing right off the bat. Maybe there was a small part of me that just wanted him to believe me cause I was me, and not because of a magical demonstration.

“Look, no one can hear us, or even see us. Well, they can see us, sort of, but they aren’t going to notice us no matter what we say or do. I’ve got a bubble around us.” I turned toward the mass of humanity still milling through the hallway and yelled an obscenity, rather loudly, at a passing teacher. Justin looked shocked at first, and then confused as the teacher passed right by us without even glancing toward my shout. “See?”

“I think I’m done with this conversation. Sorry, Mags.” Justin shook his head at me one last time before turning to walk away. He made it about three feet. I stepped quickly to the side as he flew back toward me, landing in an untidy heap right where I’d been standing just a second before.

“Didn’t I just mention the bubble?” I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic and triumphant. At least not quite as much as I did.

Justin blinked up at me. A strange, glazed look in his hazel eyes. I remembered my first experience with magic. It had felt like grabbing hold of an electric fence in the middle of a rain storm. I’d ended up tossing my cookies and crying for an hour afterward. But then I’d also been the one making magic. And I’d been five.

I smiled sweetly down at Justin. “Are we a believer yet?”

He stood up shakily. “How in the heck did you do that?”

I shook my head slowly and made a tsking sound. “Seriously? Still no? I begin to think you don’t want to be helped.”

I was actually kind of enjoying using such a sarcastic tone with him. I don’t think I ever had before, because, well he was Justin and I’d been slightly googly-eyed over him for the better part of a decade.

Maybe a change of scenery would help. I fixed on a place in my mind, muttered under my breath, and let the magic spark out of me. The electric fence sensation was still there, even now after a few years of wrangling the magic, but it had dulled considerably. Or maybe I was just used to it by now.

Justin was not used it. He looked kind of like he’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket. But he couldn’t exactly ignore that he was no longer in one of the hallways of Adams High but standing under the big oak tree in his own back yard.

There was a long moment of silence.

“How, exactly, are you planning to help me?” His voice was surprisingly steady for someone who’d just experienced magical teleportation for the first time.

“That depends on you. You know Cinderella, right? She wanted to go to the ball—her fairy godmother made it happen. That’s kind of our gig. We’re not like genies that grant wishes, so I can’t make Stacey Fuller fall in love with you, for example.”

I saw the flash in his eyes as I mentioned the ever popular Stacey. Freaking typical. In fact, the annoyance I felt over the fact that Justin was interested in such a vapid, air-headed, walking and talking stereotype was just because it was so horribly, ridiculously, bad-1980s-movie typical. Jealousy had nothing to do with it.

“However, like Cinderella’s godmother (my great-great-great-great-aunt by the way, chew on that little factoid for a minute; that blew my mind even more than finding out I was a fairy godmother), I can ‘ease’ your way into places or events or outfit you with the right clothes or car. I can’t essentially change you, and I can’t change her, or the rest of them. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess. So like, you can make me look good, but you can’t make her, or anyone else, like me. That’s up to me.”

“Correct. I’m more about giving you the opportunity to work your own magic.” Wow that sounded really corny. I liked it though. I mentally added it to my list of “funny fairy godmother sayings.”

“So, you can’t, like, make her say yes if I ask her to the Junior Formal, for example.”

I briefly closed my eyes. Argh. He would ask that. And I couldn’t lie. “Actually, yes. I can arrange it so that she says yes. That doesn’t mean she will have a good time; that’s up to you, got it?”

“Got it.”

“So that’s what you want, then? Stacey Fuller to say yes to going to the Junior Formal with you? Would you like a carriage and a fancy dress too?”

He colored slightly. “So you think I’m Cinderella?”

“Not exactly; it’s just a very popular wish. Might as well get the whole package, right?”

“I guess. Then yeah, that’s my wish. Junior Formal, carriage and all that.” He grinned at me.

“Okay.” I held out my closed fist in front of me. “Bippity Boppity Boo,” I muttered under my breath.

Justin mouth dropped open. “You have to be kidding.”

“I’m being postmodern and referential. Oh never mind,” I sighed. I uncurled my fingers and held out my open palm to Justin. “Here.”

He stared at the key in my hand.

“Are you going to take it? The car is out front,” I asked somewhat impatiently.

“That key has the Porsche logo on it.”

“I don’t skimp on carriages, Justin. I’m a freaking fairy godmother.”

“Is it going to turn into a pumpkin? Like at midnight after the dance?” He was still staring at the key as if it were a snake that might bite him.

I laughed. “No, it’s yours. The pink slip and registration are in your name. It’s fully insured, and the insurance won’t expire. Cinderella didn’t really have anywhere to put a coach, or a coachmen and horses for that matter, whereas you have a two-car garage.”

He slowly reached out and took the key. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Also, your closet is now filled with a rather distressing amount of clothes from Hollister. You should probably change before you go.”

He looked up at me in confusion. “Go where?”

I rolled my eyes. “Back to school, cheerleading practice ends in thirty minutes. If you park in the east parking lot she will be able to see your car from the field.”

“Okay.” Justin still sounded a bit befuddled. He looked back down at the key in his hand, turning it over a few times. “Okay!” he said again, this time more excitedly.

“You know how to reach me if you need anything else. I’m kind of on Justin duty for the next two weeks, so don’t hesitate to call. The card,” I reminded him when he looked at me in confusion.

“Oh right. Oh my fairy godmother.”

I nodded, gritting my teeth against the responsive flare of magic his words caused. It was like an internal pager going off. Only I didn’t need to poof anywhere; he was right in front of me. I sent the excess magic into his mom’s prize rose bushes. She’d be shocked to come home to forty new blooms, but I needed to do something with the extra power. “Have fun.” I managed to sound sincere.

“Thanks.” He smiled at me warmly. “Really, thanks, this is pretty awesome.”

“No problem.” I walked over to the side gate and let myself out his backyard. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him sprint into the house.

*****

I walked home from Justin’s. I could have just poofed myself there, but I was feeling kind of flustered and annoyed. This must be why helping people you knew and cared about was level four. It wasn’t as satisfying as helping complete strangers. I didn’t find myself silently berating strangers’ stupidity. None of their choices made me jealous.

My phone buzzed. Even before I pulled it out to look I knew who it was. The magic flare never lied.

- O.M.F.G -

What in the world could he possibly need this quickly? I doubt he’d even had time to make it all the way to school. I gave in to the rush of magic.

Poof.

I materialized in front of Justin. He was leaning against the Porsche, which was parked—wait a minute, why was Justin parked in front of my house?

“Wow, that’s pretty...wow.” He sounded impressed.

“Huh? Oh, the poofing? Yeah. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to dazzle Stacey?”

Justin looked embarrassed. “Well, I was halfway to school when it hit me that I was driving a car I didn’t earn, wearing clothes I didn’t buy, going to ask out a girl I knew would say yes because she’d been magically coerced to.”

“It’s not really coercion,” I said. “Honestly, she’d probably say yes just based on the car. I don’t really have to force her to do anything.”

“But,” he continued, as if he hadn’t even heard what I’d said, “The part that really bothered me is that this girl, who was my friend—probably my best friend—for years, revealed to me that she was able to do magic, that she’d been going through some kind of intensive training, that her life was completely not normal anymore, and I was enough of a jerk to listen to how she wanted to help me and never ask how she was doing.”

I gaped at him. “It’s okay. That’s not really how it works, the whole fairy godmother thing.”

Justin pushed away from the car and walked toward me.

“I don’t really care how the fairy godmother thing works. That’s not how being a friend works. I’m sorry, Mags.” He was close enough now that he could reach out and tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear as I continued to stare at him, mouth hanging open like a fish out of water.

“What are you saying, Justin?” I whispered.

“I don’t want you to be my fairy godmother.” He reached down and grabbed my hand, pressing the Porsche key into it. “Thank you, though, for thinking of me.”

“What?” I’d never heard of anyone rejecting a fairy godmother before. The concept was taking a while to filter through my suddenly foggy brain.

“I don’t want you to be my fairy godmother,” he repeated. “But I do want to take you out for coffee. Want to walk to Java the Hutt with me?”