Maggie Malone and the Mostly Magical Boots (3 page)

“Before you freak out, I'm Frank,” the man says, holding up both hands. At least he doesn't have a weapon.

I scream like a banshee (actually I don't even know what a banshee is or if they even scream, but my mom says that all the time) and twist around, not sure if I should run or fight or just keep screaming. But when I do, the man is gone.

What
the
heck?
I back toward my door, ducking to see if he's hiding under my bed or behind my curtains. Did I just imagine him? I'm almost to my door when I see him again, in the mirror. Now he's standing
right
next
to
me!
I scramble up onto my bed, grab my dream catcher from its nail on the wall, and hold it up in front of me like a shield. Don't ask me why—it's all I can find. I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself for whatever is about to happen. When nothing does, I gather up enough courage to open my eyes. When I do, he's gone again.

I race to my closet, swing open the door. Nothing. He's not under my bed or behind my polka-dot chair or my curtains either. He's gone. Which leaves me with only one of two possible explanations for the mystery man in my room: either I'm totally losing it, or I have a concussion and it's making me see things that aren't there. I
did
get bonked on the head pretty good today. I'm praying that's it.

You
are
totally
safe
and
not
at
all
crazy
, I tell myself. I do another thorough scan of my room, but there's no weird man in here. Freaky.

Get
it
together, Malone,
I tell myself.
Why
don't you try to pick out an outfit for your birthday? That always cheers you up.
I pull my turquoise sparkly tank and my favorite jean skirt from my dresser. I'm holding the clothes up to try to see how they look when
the
man
pops
up
right
behind
me
again.

“We've got to stop meeting like this, Maggie Malone,” he says to me.

I wheel around, snatching up my piggy bank that's chock-full of quarters, and cock it back ready to fire when I realize he's gone again. I lean into the mirror to see if my eyes are dilated—that's a sign of a concussion, you know, which would explain everything—and when I do, there he is again. Maybe crazy runs in the family! Maybe it's in my JEANS! I drop my jean skirt to the floor.

“You catching on yet?” the strange man asks, trying to pull his faded jeans up over his big belly. Yeah, that's not happening.

“Huh?” I say, because apparently now I'm talking to the peculiar man in the mirror.

I haul my five-pound piggy bank over my head and hurl it right at him, but it just lands on the floor and shatters into about a zillion pieces.

“Really, kid?” the man says, like
you
really
thought
you'd clobber me with that?
“Maybe you wanna take five or something,” he says, shifting his weight from one boot to the other. “I'm Frank,
Frank
the
Genie?
Your Aunt Fiona was supposed to mention me in the letter she rolled up in those boots you're wearing. But of course she forgot to do that, didn't she? That's Fiona for you! These things never go like they're supposed to.”

“Wait, how do you know my Auntie Fi?” I ask, swinging around to face him. But instead I'm looking at my coat rack, filled with hats and scarves and belts.

“Your aunt said you were some smart cookie, but you seem to be a little slow on the uptake here, pal. No offense, of course,” Frank-the-genie says when I look back into the mirror.

He gives me a crooked smile and hikes his eyebrow up on the right side. I think it's the right side—it's hard to tell since I'm looking in a mirror. I decide to stay still this time and get a better look at this guy. He seems harmless enough. He's got a hound dog kind of face with tired-looking, droopy eyes like my Uncle Doyle. He's wearing cowboy boots that look a lot like the ones Auntie Fi just sent me, and he's got a big tarnished silver belt buckle that says “Aerosmith” on it, whatever
that
means. Maybe he's an alien, not a genie, and that's the name of his spaceship. To top it all off, he's wearing this huge, worn-out cowboy hat with hot pink and green peacock feathers on the front.

“Genies aren't real,” I tell him, putting my hands on my hips. “And if they were, I don't think they'd look like
you
. No offense.”
Well, they wouldn't
.

“Of course genies are real, or else you'd be standing here yapping to yourself, and that would just be nuts,” Frank says to me with a big laugh. “Oh, and no offense taken. But you shouldn't believe everything you see in the movies. I don't know a single genie who wears a turban or has a pierced ear. Just so you know.” He pauses to check his watch and looks a little bit freaked out.

“Oh shoot, I'm running out of time,” he continues. “Do you want to know about those boots you're wearing or not?”

“What about these boots?” I ask Frank, looking down at my feet.

“Those boots you're wearing,” he says “are
Mostly
Magical
Boots
.”

“These boots are supposed to be magical?” I ask with disbelief. I mean, they're not even cute!

“They're
mostly
magical,” Frank says. “And from the looks of that nasty head-wrap thing you've got on, you could use a little magic. Or at least, some help picking out hats.”

“For your information, I was struck down by a gigantic textbook on my first day at my rotten new school,” I explain. “I almost bled to death right there on the dirty floor.” I add this last bit for effect and because, well, I
am
a teensy bit of an exaggerator.

Suddenly I remember that Stella is supposed to come over this afternoon. She could be here any minute, so I quickly lock my bedroom door. I wouldn't want her walking in on
this
conversation!

“You wouldn't be telling a tall tale, now would you, Miss Invisibility?” Frank-the-genie asks me. How does he know about
that
?

“Look, mister, I don't know who you are or who you
think
you are,” I say, staring in the mirror. “Okay, you say you're Frank-the-genie, which, can I tell you? That sounds just plain crazy. Who goes around calling himself a
genie
? I've never seen you in my entire life or in my mirror ever before, but all of a sudden, you show up and act like you know me or something. For your information, there's a word for people who watch people when they don't know they're being watched, and it is definitely not genie
.
It's
stalker
!”

“Somebody's got her spirit back!” Frank says with a chuckle, adjusting his cowboy hat.

“That's a good sign,” he continues. “Okay, Maggie Malone, let's take it from the top. Like I was saying, those boots you've got on there are called Mostly Magical Boots—MMBs for short. They come with magical powers…a very special kind of magic.”

“What kind of magic?” I ask, getting excited, because who in their right mind (assuming I am, in fact, in my right mind) wouldn't be excited about possibly being able to wiggle her nose and turn her brother into a hamster or have her room all picked up?

“First things first,” Frank says. “I show up when the boots show up, and only in the mirror. You can't look directly at me or you'll turn to stone,” Frank-the-genie explains.

I shut my eyelids as tightly as I can. “Yikes!
REALLY
?” I stammer.

“No, not really, Maggie Malone,” he says with a big belly laugh. “That one never gets old. I'll never forget the look on your Aunt Fiona's face when I gave her the old
turn
to
stone
scare. Ever seen Edvard Munch's
Scream
painting? She looked just like that. Fiona was the last one to wear the MMBs, you know. Got 'em the day before her twelfth birthday, just like you.”

“
Really?
” I ask. “That's cool! But what—”

“Let me finish,” he says, cutting me off. “Where was I again?” He starts turning his head to the side as if he's tuning in to some special genie frequency.

Just then, there's a loud knock on my bedroom door. I jump about six feet.

“Maggie!” Stella yells. “Open up, buttercup! I'm already three months older than you and I'm not getting any younger out here!” Stella knows where the hide-a-key to the front door is, but my mom doesn't like her to use it so that's usually a last resort. I guess she must have been out there knocking for a while.

I look at Frank in a panic.

“This is definitely not optimal,” he says, rubbing his temples and shaking his head. “I guess it's time to see if you're as sharp as your old Auntie Fi says you are. Oh, and not a word about any of this to anyone, you hear?” Frank-the-genie says as he begins to fade away like a watery reflection in the mirror.

“Use this if you need me,” he tells me, leaning down and sliding a little folding pocket mirror across the floor to me right before he disappears completely. It hits the leg of my tall mirror and is still spinning when Stella gets the door open with a paper clip.

“For the love of double-decker moon pies!” Stella shouts when she sees me. “What in the world happened to you?”

“Bottom locker,” I tell her, stealing a glance in my mirror to make sure there's no genie there. I can't even believe I just did that.

“Ouch,” Stella says, leaning in to inspect my gash. I must not look as freaked out as I feel, because Stella doesn't seem to notice anything but my head. “Was Pinkerton as bad as everyone says?”

“Worse,” I tell her, still distracted by thoughts of Frank-the-genie. Did I dream that? I want to say something to Stella, but he
did
say not a word to anyone. Would that really matter if I imagined the whole thing in the first place?

“Want to talk about it?” Stella asks—referring to Pinkerton, of course.

“Honestly, I'd rather not,” I tell her, shaking my head and trying to forget about Frank.

“It was pretty lame without you at Sacred Heart too,” she says, noticing my bank all busted up all over the floor. “Hey, did you get in a fight with Mr. Piggy? Looks like he lost.”

“Oh, yeah, I needed some spare change for the snack machines at school—can you believe they have Twinkies for sale in there?” I say, scooping up some broken pieces and trying to change the subject.

“Hey, what's with the cowboy boots?” Stella asks, coming over to inspect them.

Flying
spider
monkeys, I'm still wearing the Mostly Magical Boots!

“Oh, these old things?” I say, making my way to my closet. “My mom got them at a garage sale and I was just trying them on. They're really stinky, so you might want to stay back while I take them off.” I slip the boots off and stuff them up into the way back of my closet and slam the door, wondering if my face is burning red. I
never
lie to Stella!

“Well, sorry about your day,” she says. “But I have something that might make you feel better.” She's holding both hands behind her back. I hold out my hands and close my eyes.

“Is it chocolate?” I ask.

“Nope,” Stella says. “It's the new
Tween
Scene
magazine!” Stella and I love
Tween
Scene
almost as much as we love watching music videos on VTV
.
She got a subscription for her last birthday, and the day her issue comes in the mail is usually our favorite day of the whole month.

“And the best part is,” Stella adds, waving the magazine around like a crazy person, “there's a whole huge section on Becca Starr!”

We flop down on my bed side by side and start flipping through the pages. “Becca Starr is the biggest rock star on the planet and she's only fourteen years old,” moans Stella, flipping through about 2,395 images of Becca plastered across the pages. “That's just two years older than us! It's totally not fair. Look at her here all hugged up with Justin Crowe. How lucky can you get?”

“You can say that again,” I say.
How
does
one
person
get
everything—fame, fortune, Justin Crowe—and another person gets a gash the size of Texas on her head and a weird, disappearing cowboy-genie showing up in her bedroom?

Which reminds me: Frank's pocket mirror. I'd forgotten all about it.

“I bet she's best buds with all the coolest kids in Hollywood,” I say, standing up casually and reaching down for the mirror.

“No, more like all the coolest kids in the
entire
universe
,” Stella corrects me. “She's huge in Japan, you know.” Stella points to a picture of Becca with at least four billion adoring Japanese fans surrounding her and making lowercase letter b's with their hands—the universal “I heart Becca Starr” sign.

I nod like I'm paying attention, but I'm sort of freaking out about the mirror. I turn it over in my hands. It's gold—and maybe even real gold since it came from a
real
genie
probably—and covered with sparkly jewels and has initials right in the middle. My initials. MM. I open the mirror and let out a little gasp. It's
Frank's face
in the mirror looking back at me, not mine. I snap that thing shut immediately.

“Hey, what's that?” Stella asks, eyeing the mirror.

“Oh, it's nothing,” I say, trying to slide it into my nightstand drawer. “Just a birthday present from my Auntie Fi.”

“A birthday present from your Aunt Fi?” Stella shouts. “Those are the
best.
Let me see it!”

The thing about Stella is that there's no point arguing with her, so I don't. I hand her the mirror, wondering if Frank is going to strike me down with a lightning bolt or something. In my defense, I haven't said a word.

“Super cool,” Stella says, flipping it over front to back and inspecting it closely before handing it back to me. Thankfully she's way more interested in
Tween
Scene
.

“Look at Becca getting into that limo in seven-inch high heels,” Stella says, pointing at a glossy picture.

I close my eyes and try to imagine living that life. Going to glamorous parties and signing autographs and never, ever, ever having to deal with dead pig parts.

“Becca Starr has got the life,” I say, shaking my head. “She can buy whatever she wants whenever she wants from whatever store she wants. She probably has a whole house full of designer shoes and dresses and fake-fur coats.”

“And accessories,” Stella adds. “Don't forget the accessories. Sparkly headbands, gold bracelets, diamond rings, crazy hats, feather boas… She probably has a closet just for earrings.” Stella leans back on my bed, picturing the piles of Becca's bounty.

“But only the clip-on kind,” I say. “I read that her body is a ‘no piercing zone.'”

“Oh, no, look at her here—those are definitely real holes,” Stella says, pointing to a picture of Becca in a gold evening gown with big, sparkly earrings that hang almost all the way to her shoulders.

I decide to let that one go.

“Doesn't she always look so amazing?” I ask. “Can you imagine getting your hair fixed perfectly every day and having your makeup done by real professionals, not your mom or one of those ladies with the carts in the mall?”

“And staying in fancy hotels—the ones where they bring food
into
your
room
on a tray? ‘Here you are, Miss Malone, hamburger and French fries with a side of jellybeans, minus the gross white ones, and a chocolate milk shake to drink.'” Stella stands, pushing a pretend tray across my bed before plopping back down against the mountain of stuffed animals on it.

“She probably has tutors that come to her so she doesn't have to worry about getting bonked on the head by books if she's got a bottom locker or accidentally bringing a Number One pencil to math class,” I say.

“I bet she doesn't even have to do PE
or
a science fair project,” Stella adds. “How great would that be? I'd give anything to be her—even for just one day.”

“Right?” I say in agreement, shaking my head at the unfairness of it all.

“I've got to go home now,” Stella says, slapping the magazine shut. “My creepy cousins are coming over for dinner.”

“The ones that bring their cats over on leashes?” I ask.

“Yep, those are the ones. See ya!” We high-five and she's out the door. I lock it behind her, open my closet, and pull the MMBs down from the shelf. Then I slip them on and flop down across my bed, waiting for something
magical
to happen.

Nothing.

Stella's
Tween
Scene
magazine crinkles underneath me, and I pull it out. I flip through the pages, imagining what it would be like to be a world-famous rock star.

“Ugh,” I moan, turning to my side and pulling my knees in close. “I want Becca Starr's life.”