Me, My Elf & I (17 page)

“Of course it’s me,” he says. “It’s my song.”

“I can’t really hear it,” I say over the noise in the cafeteria. “But I’m sure it’s good.”

“You don’t know what it is, do you?” Ari asks.

“Honestly, no,” I admit.

“Your dad’s on YouTube, Zephyr,” Ari says by way of explanation.

“He’s on there?” I ask, pointing.

“Everybody’s on here, Zephyr!” Ari snaps.

“Am I?” I ask.

Ari and Mercedes both stare at me, then look at each other. “This isn’t about you!” Mercedes tells me with no patience left in her voice.

I feel terrible. I don’t want Ari to think I’m not excited for him, even if I don’t get it. “That’s great, Ari!” I say. “Can I see it?”

He looks up and smiles. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll start it over.”

Before he can hand the BlackBerry to me, the pixie stomps by. “Put it away, son,” she barks. “Or it’s mine.”

“No problem.” Ari quickly stashes the BlackBerry in his bag.

“What was that all about?” I ask, watching the pixie bumping through a crowd of kids, throwing elbows and ignoring any protests.

“Not allowed,” Ari says. “Because God forbid any of us use technology that the teachers don’t understand.”

Actually, I’m glad he had to put it away. “So you guys . . . ,” I say, hoping to turn the attention to me.

“Featured spot!” Mercedes says to Ari. “That’s cold. GGJB’s gonna get like a million hits.”

“Not a million,” Ari says, but I can tell by his little grin that he hopes it’s true.

“Simon, Randy, and Paula are gonna call you. They’ll be begging you, ‘Ari Mendelbaum, please come on
American Idol
.’”

Ari shakes his head. “I don’t know, though,” he says. “Maybe I should’ve posted something else. Did you see some of those comments? People were saying, ‘You suck,’ and ‘Give me a razor so I can slit my wrist.’”

“People said that?” I ask.

“Like two a-holes said that,” Mercedes says. “And they’re probably just jealous because they posted something that didn’t get featured. Anyway, everyone else was saying it’s great and they loved it. Plus, who cares. You’ve got a featured video, which means it’s definitely good.”

The bell rings, sending everyone in a frenzy to gather their garbage and pick up their bags. I stand and follow Ari and Mercedes out the doors. My stomach gnaws at me since I didn’t eat, but then again, I don’t know if I could eat, I’m so upside down today. “What are you guys doing after school?” I ask.

“I have to get together with my band,” Ari says, without looking at us. “We have to strategize how to make this whole YouTube thing work for us.”

“And I have to babysit,” says Mercedes. “Can you believe that dookie? My
abuela
is going to the botanica for a coral shell reading, then she’ll come home with more of her crazy Santeria stuff and start burning a hundred candles to all the saints, praying for my poor lost soul. She always tries to get me to go with her, but I say no way! Then I get stuck taking care of Nellie and Marisol, the spawns of
el Diablo
himself. I’m just handing them a big bag of Cheetos, turning on Noggin, and telling them not to bother me unless one of them is bleeding!”

“Okay, but I sort of have something to tell you.”

“Call me later!” Mercedes says as she bops down the hall, waving good-bye.

I don’t wave back. My whole body feels heavy and slow. I turn and drag myself down the hall for the second half of this very long day.

 

Finally it’s the last class of the day. At first, I’m so relieved that my day is almost over that I fall into my study hall seat and sigh. I open my copy of
The Age of Innocence
for English class, but then I remember that Bella said she was going to come get me and I can’t concentrate. Why on earth does she want to practice with me? And why didn’t I say no? I know why . . . because I’m an elf. And elves are nice. We just are. It’s in our blood. When everyone is equally nice, you don’t have to worry about it. With erdlers though, everything is different. Maybe Bella didn’t mean what she wrote on her blog about me. Or maybe if you’re an erdler you can say mean things about other people and still be friends. Look at how Ari and Mercedes talk to each other sometimes, and they’re best friends.

Before I can puzzle through all of this confusing stuff, the door opens and Bella comes in. Ms. Crane’s eyes widen and she smiles as if a celebrity just walked into the room. She leans forward, expectantly, as Bella whispers to her. When Bella points toward me, Ms. Crane slumps back in her chair. She nods, but all the enthusiasm has drained from her body. Bella seems to have that effect on people. Then just like that, I’m walking down an empty hall with Bella.

“Why did Ms. Crane let me out?” I ask.

Bella flicks her hand. “Whatever. She owes me big-time. I passed her lame CD to my agent because he reps a couple of singers she likes. I only did it because I totally screwed up a midterm in her Government class. Can you imagine?” She looks at me and pretends to gag. “A high school history teacher making a CD of her sad sack songs? She’s like thirty years old.”

“My dad is forty-two and he’s a singer.”

“Whatever, every teacher here is a wannabe.”

“A wannabe?” I ask as we pass each classroom filled with students. “Sounds like a furry little marsupial.”

Bella laughs. “Are you joking? That’s funny. Tell me you’re joking.”

“I guess so,” I lie.

“‘Marsupial,’” she says, chuckling to herself. “That’s a great word.” She turns down the main hall and heads for the big green doors.

“I thought we were going to rehearse,” I say, suddenly wary of where she’s taking me.

Bella takes her big white sunglasses from the top of her head and covers her eyes. “I need a frappuccino.”

“But are we allowed to leave?” I ask.

When Bella looks at me I see my reflection in the dark lenses of her glasses. I look like a scared little elf. One that was too afraid to go to Ironweed, one that cried on the first day of erdler school, one that didn’t want to make up a résumé so I’d have a shot at winning the ELPH part. But that’s not me. I’m a Brooklyn girl—well, a Brooklyn
elf
—now and I won’t let Bella intimidate me. If she wants to play this little two-faced game, I’ll play along. What was it that Ari said? Know thine enemy. Well, Bella, let’s get to know each other.

“You don’t have to come,” she says, but her voice drips with scorn.

My stomach growls. “I did skip lunch.”

“Lunch is for fatties,” Bella tells me.

We’re at the doors. She’s pushing them open. I have to decide. Stay or go. “Just one question,” I say. “What’s a frappuccino?”

 

A frappuccino, it turns out, is the best thing ever invented by erdlers! “This is so yummy! ” I tell Bella for the hundredth time as we walk back from Starbucks, sucking up that half-frozen, sweet, creamy goodness. “I could drink ten of these!”

“God, you’re already hyper enough. If you drank ten of those somebody would have to peel you off the ceiling.”

“I’m hyper?”

“Oh my God! You’re like so perky all the time!” Bella bounces her head and says in a high squeaky voice.

My mouth goes from moist and sweet to dry and sticky. “I don’t mean to be,” I say. “I didn’t know it was a bad thing.”

“Why would it be a bad thing?” she asks, but I think I detect a little smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.

“Just the way you said it,” I mumble.

“You can
be
that way.” She steps into the intersection, ignoring the flashing red DON’T WALK sign. A white delivery truck blares its horn and swerves around us, but Bella doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “As long as you don’t act that way at the audition.”

“Why not?” I ask, determined to get as much out of her as possible.

“Oh.” Bella shakes her head sadly as we reach the other side of the street. “I keep forgetting, you’ve never done this before. Seriously, Zephyr. If you act like a spaz, Mr. O’Donnell will totally think you’re an amateur.”

I poke my straw down into the slush at the bottom of my cup and try not to grin. All I have to do is keep walking and talking and I’ll get her to tell me everything about an audition. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“I thought your friends, what are their names, that girl and that guy, were supposed to help you.”

“Ari helped me with my résumé, but his band got hit by a u-tube or something exciting like that so he’s busy,” I tell her.

Bella scrunches up her face. “Got hit by a u-tube?”

“Yeah, isn’t that what it’s called?” I try to remember. “U-tube or something? His band made a video and got a feature.”

Bella slows her walk and squeezes my forearm. “You mean he got a featured video on YouTube?”

“Yeah! That’s what I said.” I smile, triumphant. She lets go of me.

“What’s his band called?”

“GGJB,” I tell her.

“Never heard of them. What kind of music do they play?”

“I’ve never heard them either, but he says it’s goth, gay Jew boy music.”

Bella chokes and nearly spits out her frappuccino. “Goth, gay, Jew boy?”

I’m not sure why it’s funny but I’m feeling so zippy from the frappuccino right now that I giggle. “I think that’s what he called it.”

“So he’s gay? He’s not that girl’s boyfriend?”

“Mercedes?” I ask. “That’s what I thought at first, too, but no. They’re just friends because she’s only allowed to date Puerto Rican boys.”

Bella snorts a disbelieving laugh. “Why?”

“Well, I guess her grandmother came over on a boat and she’s really religious.”

“Oh my God, she’s racist,” Bella says.

“Not racist,” I tell her. “It’s called something else. She keeps an altar in her bedroom with candles and fruit and other offerings to the spirits.”

“Voodoo?” Bella asks, her eyes wide.

“No, I think it’s called Santeria.”

Bella shrugs. “Same thing.”

We turn a corner and walk beneath a fortress of scaffolding up the side of a building. I move closer to Bella so we can squeeze past three guys in hard hats who stop hauling bricks to ogle us.

“Hey sugar, what’s your name?” the tallest guy asks me.

“Um,” I say, but Bella yanks my arm.

“Ignore them.” She pushes past. “N.W.T.E.”

“N.W.T.E.?”

“Not Worth the Effort.” We step back into the sunshine, leaving the brick haulers hooting and laughing behind us.

“So what else do you know about Mercedes?” she asks.

“Not much,” I say, still trying to figure out what just happened, and how to steer the conversation back to the audition.

“Really? I thought you were friends.”

“We are!” I tell her. “But she can’t help me today because her grandmother is going to have a sea shell reading and buy some candles, so Mercedes has to babysit her twin sisters, who she calls the spawn of
el Diablo
.” I laugh because I love the way Mercedes says it.

Bella nods, slowly taking it all in. “What about you, Zephyr?” she asks. “What kind of religion does your family practice?”

“We don’t really have a religion.”

“You must believe in something or are you an atheist?”

“Well, I guess you could say that we believe in nature,” I tell her, simplifying things.

“Where are you from?” She cocks her head nearly to her shoulder.

“Just a little town in the upper peninsula of Michigan,” I say, because I have to be careful here. Everyone’s worst fear in Alverland is to be discovered.

“What’s it called?”

“Nothing you’ve ever heard of. It’s really really tiny and most of the people there are from the same clans, er um, families.”

Bella bumps me. “Watch out. Dog doo.” She points to a smear on the sidewalk.

“Gross!” I step around.

“Are your parents related?” Bella asks.

I watch the ground more closely. “Sort of. My mom’s great-grandmother and my dad’s great-grandfather were brother and sister, so somehow that makes them related but from a long long time ago so it’s okay.”

“Sounds like a very interesting place,” says Bella.

“Oh, it is!” I tell her. “I love it there. I mean, not that I want to go back or anything, because I’m totally in love with Brooklyn. New York ’s the best place ever, but I do miss Alverland.”

She whips her head around to face me.

“That’s what it’s called?” she asks. “Alverland?”

I’m flustered. I shouldn’t have told her the name. “Um, well yeah, but you wouldn’t find it on a map or anything like that.”

“Oh, please,” she says, looking away. “Every place is on Google Maps now.” We’ve made it back to school and she swings open the green doors. “You still want to practice?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” I say. As we head upstairs to find an empty studio, I rub my temples.

“I’m kind of regretting that frappie thing. What’s it called again?”

“Alverland must be the only place on earth without a Starbucks,” she says with a snort.

The buzzy feeling in my head has turned into a dull ache behind my eyes. “My head is starting to hurt.”

“Oh believe me,” says Bella. “There are worse letdowns than caffeine.” She peeks in the windows of the small practice studios. “You’ll be back for more soon enough.” We find an empty room and throw our bags down. “Oh, look at that. We’ve got only ten minutes left until the bell,” she says.

Even though my head is throbbing, I sit on the edge of a desk and ask, “Can you give me a few quick tips?”

Bella positions herself in front of me. “Of course. I said I’d help you, didn’t I?”

I have to admit that in some ways Bella is very kind, and she’s very pretty. I see why people like her, or like to hate her anyway. If she’s your friend she’ll probably do a lot for you—like take you out for a frappewhatsiwhosit, or pull you away from N.W.T.E. brickhaulers, or stop you from stepping in dog poop. And if she’s not your friend, you probably want her to be and maybe you get jealous that she’s not.