Me, My Elf & I (11 page)

“I got called a faggot every day of junior high,” Ari says. “I know what it feels like. But I’m telling you, these girls bring it on themselves.” He types in a question:

We wait for what seems like a full minute, although it was probably a lot quicker, then a message pops up:

“Oh, now I get it,” says Ari. He thanks BellaHater, whoever that is, and clicks back onto Bella’s blog.

“I don’t understand any of this,” I admit, but then again, I can’t stop reading Bella’s entry either.

Below that, we read the comments:

When I’m done reading, my heart races and my palms are sweaty.

“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Ari asks me.

“They’re making fun of my tunic.”

“Yep and they’ve given you one of their illustrious nicknames. ‘FNO’—from now on—you will be known as ‘MooMoo’ to them.”

“They’re going to call me that?” I ask, horrified at the thought of walking through school while being lowed at like a cow.

“Not to your face,” Ari says. “Only behind your back, which is how they do everything.”

I skim the entry again, understanding it better this time. “And Bella thinks I’m no competition, right?” I ask.

“Right again.”

I’m furious. It’s the exact same feeling I used to get walking down the dusty street in Ironweed, trying to ignore the taunts hurled at us from erdlers in their cars. “Burn in Hell, Satan Worshipers!” “Go back to the commune!” “We don’t want your cult here!” So many times, my cousins and I planned the hexes we’d like to cast on those people, making their hair fall out in clumps, giving them all diarrhea for forty days, turning them into goats if our magic ever got strong enough. But our parents always told us no. That’s not what our magic’s for. It would be wasted on revenge. And we’d do ourselves harm in the end because if you cast spells only for evil, you can make yourself sick or lose your powers for a while or worst of all, you have to leave Alverland forever because your heart becomes dark.

I never thought anything could make me feel that bad, but this is a thousand times worse because Bella pretended to be nice and she
lied
, saying she’d help me. I want nothing more than to plague those mean girls with the Curse of Wrinkled Butts, Contagious Belching, Bloody Tears, and Swollen Tongues. I want their noses to grow long and twist into their mouths. Their ears to blow up like cauliflower and their hair to turn to straw. And at this very moment, if I knew how to send a spell through the wires of a computer, I’d zap them with everything I’ve got.

“So?” says Ari. “Still feel sorry for them?”

“No.” I grind my teeth until my jaw aches.

“You wanna kick some Bella butt? Waste her at the one thing that’s actually important to her?”

“What’s that?” I ask, thinking for a minute that he means Timber.

“The audition,” he says simply.

“I don’t know, Ari.” I shake my head. “How could I beat her? She’s a professional and I’m just . . . me. What if I end up making a total fool of myself ?”

“Look,” Ari says. “Mercedes and I are really good at this. I can make a résumé that would convince anyone to hire you and Mercy’s a great actress who could totally coach you . . .”

“If she’s a great actress, why isn’t she trying out?”

“Mercedes will have her chance someday,” Ari says. “But she and I both know this isn’t the time. The description of what the casting agents are looking for just doesn’t fit her. See, that’s the thing, Zeph. The biz, I mean TV and movies and stuff, is not just about talent or experience. These agents are always looking for something different. Something new. Something they’ve never seen before. You’re new. You’re gorgeous. You’ve got this quality, I don’t know what it is, but I’m telling you, you’ve got IT. Now, you just have to want it.”

I consider all this. I’m not sure I believe him, but it feels pretty good to have someone think I’m special, and not in a weird way. Plus, this is what I came for, to perform. Not to mention that I could get even with Bella.

“Or,” he says, leaning away from me, “you can just be MooMoo at the mercy of Bella like everyone else around here.”

That hurts. I look at him squarely. “All right, let’s write my résumé.”

“You don’t think it’s lying anymore?” Ari teases me.

“I want that ELPH part,” I say coldly, imagining how furious Bella will be if I get the part and she doesn’t.

“Yahoo!” Ari hollers. He dashes a note quickly to Mercedes:

She writes back:

“Let’s,” I say, and vow to myself that I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure that I beat Bella at her own game.

chapter 6

I’M STILL SHAKING
with anger as I walk home from Ari’s house through the park, so I cool myself off by casting silly spells. First I whip up a tiny leaf tornado beside the path. A group of kids playing nearby stop and stare at the spinning leaves, then run screaming toward their nannies who sit chatting on a bench. I didn’t mean to frighten them, so I flick my fingers at the leaves, and they float gently to the ground. The kids run back to the pile and poke it with sticks. A hawk flies above me. Seems like every time I’m in the park, I see this same bird, which is sort of comforting. Maybe its nest is nearby. I point to the hawk, trying to catch it in my power, but it soars higher beyond my reach. I settle for a yellow butterfly, instead, and bring it fluttering in a zigzag pattern toward me. I land it on my nose to stare cross-eyed at its wiggly antennae and long curled proboscis.

Kids do this kind of thing all the time in Alverland. Altering nature is the first way we use our magic and learn the consequences of using our powers for the wrong reasons. There’s always some ornery group of elf kids who dare one another to cast wicked spells on birds and frogs, at least until their magic dries up for a few hours, and leaves them with coughs and runny noses. I let the butterfly go and with it some of my fury about Bella’s blog. Even though I don’t feel as mad anymore, I’m still totally confused. I wish I could talk to my dad. I just don’t understand the erdler world. People act one way in front of you and then call you something horrible behind your back. Why? What good does that do?

I come out of the park and see the big pine tree in front of our house. It still feels funny to call this place our house. It’s not
our
house.
Our
house is in Alverland, in the middle of a grove of tall maple trees that we tap for syrup, next to the stream where I learned to fish for trout, not far from a tangled patch of black raspberries that we pick every summer and cook into jam for the winter. Now syrup comes in a glass bottle with a picture of a tree on the label, and trout is something dead on a Styrofoam tray with no head or tail, and we’ve eaten almost every jar of homemade jam that we brought with us because it tastes so much like home that we can’t keep our spoons out of it. This house is a strange place with its locking doors and shuttered windows and tiny patch of green in the back that we own but do not share.

I open our front door and trudge through the dark, gloomy living room. “Hello?” I call, hoping that my mom or Willow will answer because I need to talk, but there’s no answer.

I find my mom in the sunny kitchen humming one of Dad’s songs as she chops up vegetables. That’s a good sign. She hums when she’s happy. In Alverland, she was always humming, but I haven’t heard her pretty singing voice much since we’ve been in Brooklyn.

“Hi, Zephyr,” she says when I walk in. She stops what she’s doing and wraps me in a hug. “How was your day?”

I hop up on the counter beside her. “I just don’t understand erdlers,” I say, swiping a carrot from the cutting board.

“Why not?” She goes back to deseeding a cucumber.

“I can’t figure them out.” I wave my carrot around. “Are they nice? Are they mean? Seems like they’re both, all the time, at the same time.”

“I think that would be exhausting.” She slices open a juicy tomato.

“Exactly!” I say. “I don’t know how they keep track of who they like and who they dislike and who they’re friends with and who they hate, especially because it keeps changing all the time. I mean, one minute Bella is sitting next to me offering to help me and the next minute she’s telling everyone that I’m going to fall flat on my face!”

“Who’s Bella?” Mom asks. “Did I meet her the other day?”

“No that was Mercedes and Ari. They’re my friends. But see, it’s weird. How can Mercedes and Ari be so nice to me, someone they hardly know, but then hate Bella so much that they want to make her miserable?”

“That doesn’t sound very nice,” says Mom. “Are those the kind of erdler friends you want?”

“I think they’re all that way. And what worries me most,” I continue, “is whether my friendship with Ari and Mercedes is real or if I’m just a convenient way for them to get at Bella. What if Bella beats me at the audition? Will Ari and Mercedes like me anymore?”

“What audition?” Mom asks.

“Because if that happens,” I say, ignoring her question, “then I’ll be back where I started on the first day of school when I cried like a stupid baby in the middle of the hallway.”

“You cried?” Mom looks stricken at the thought of me upset, like she might cry, too.

“Yeah, but it was okay because then I met Mercedes and Ari and I wasn’t alone anymore.”

“I don’t know, Zephyr,” she says. “This all sounds very complicated and—” As she says this the phone rings. Without finishing her thought, she answers, as if she’s been waiting for the call. “Yes! Yes!” she says, and I can tell by the tone of her voice that it’s about her naturopath business. She hands me the knife and points to the veggies on the counter.

I cut a big hunk off the tomato and sprinkle some salt on it before popping it in my mouth. As I chew, I try to puzzle through why Bella makes Mercedes and Ari, the fairy girls, and all the people on the BellaHater blog hate her so much. Wouldn’t it be easier if she was just nice to everyone? But the weirder thing is, if all those people hate her so much, why do they spend so much time thinking about her, talking about her, plotting revenge against her? Then I realize, I’m standing here thinking about her right now, too! Aargh! I have to stop.

On the windowsill in front of me, I notice an envelope with Aunt Flora’s handwriting. That must be why Mom is so cheery. Suddenly I miss Alverland terribly. Especially my cousin Briar, whose love and friendship I’ve never had to question. I look out the open window over the sink and see that Poppy, Bramble, and Persimmon are in the garden building another bunny hutch out of scraps of wood. Up until now, that was my life in Alverland—happily building bunny hutches with my brothers and sisters and cousins and friends, never having to worry about who liked me and why. Poppy looks up and sees me staring at them.

“Zephyr’s home! ” she shouts, and they all run into the kitchen. They surround my legs and Persimmon reaches her arms up to me. I pop her on my hip and hand her a slice of cucumber.

“Come outside with us!” Poppy says.

Bramble wraps his arms around my thighs. “I missed you,” he coos up at me. I pat his head.

“Here Fephyr.” Persimmon shoves the cucumber in my mouth.

“Come on. Help us,” Poppy begs and yanks on my tunic.

Bramble tugs at my free hand. “Come outside.”

“Help Fephyr,” Persimmon says, pointing out the window.

“No, not right now,” I tell them, and set Percy on the floor.

“But why?” Poppy whines. “We need your help. We haven’t seen you all day. Did you go to school? Are your friends with you? Do they want to help us?”

I wish Mom would get off the phone so I can talk to her some more about Bella, Mercedes, and Ari. I want to tell her about the audition and ask her if it was okay to let Ari write a résumé for me. But she’s still blathering into the phone about primrose oil and black cohosh.

Persimmon whimpers up at me. “Help, Fephyr, help!”

“I need to talk to Mom,” I say, annoyed.

“You never play with us anymore,” Poppy shouts.

Mom glares at us and waves her arms frantically, shooing us out the back door, which makes Persimmon cry. I scoop her up and pull Bramble and Poppy outside with us. Mom slams the door behind us and we all jump, then Percy wails.

“Why is she mad at us?” Poppy cries.

“She’s just busy.” I rub Persimmon’s back to calm her down.

“She’s always busy,” Bramble mumbles. He picks up a hammer and bangs uselessly on a rock.

“It’s hard for her with Dad and Grove gone,” I say.

“Daddy?” Percy says excitedly and looks around.