Saving Montgomery Sole (14 page)

I shoved the whole chip into my mouth. “Pass,” I said through the chip.

“Fair enough,” Momma Jo said. “I'll shut the door behind me.”

I gobbled down the rest of my treats. Then I pulled the stone off my neck. And looked at it.

I flipped it over in my palm.

The Eye of Know.

What did I know? Did I see the future or the past? With my third eye?

No.

No, I saw what I always saw, girls being mean for no reason.

But this time. Maybe this time, instead of just watching it happen, I made something happen. I made her stop. I made it go away.

Didn't I?

“Maybe I did, maybe it was something else,” I said. My voice sounded weird in my quiet room.

“It could have been an earthquake,” I said to my blank computer screen.

Either way.

No more selfies.

The stone swung back and forth on its string. What would I tell Thomas and Naoki?

Thomas wouldn't believe me, although this did feel more like a movie plot than anything else I had ever found.

A stone that could make things happen.

Monty's Stone.

Why not? Just because someone doesn't think something is possible, whether that's bending time or seeing the future, doesn't mean it's not.

What's impossible?
Impossible
sounds like a Madison Marlow word
, I thought.

I could see her clicking her nails on the desk.
Tick, tick, tick
. Rolling her eyes at me. “That's
impossible
, Monty.” Like “
Everyone knows, duh
.”

Well
, I wanted to crow,
guess what?

The Eye of Know was possible. Inexplicable but REAL. An unexplained phenomenon I could actually hold in my hand. I had seen that girl practically disappear in front of my eyes.

Hadn't I?

The world was bigger than Aunty, California. There were more possibilities out there than anyone at Jefferson, especially Madison and her crew, could guess.

It made me feel light just thinking about it.

I needed to talk to Naoki, I thought.

Naoki would get it.

I grabbed my phone from my bag.

No texts.

It was late, so she'd probably be on her computer.

Me: Hey you there?

Me: Hello?

Minutes ticked by.

I put the Eye on my bedside table.

Below me, the party raged.

A well-deserved victory party, maybe for all of us.

 

7

 
Mystics

 
Table-tipping (See also: Séance)

 
Why people put statues of angels on their lawn

Over the weekend, Tesla had soccer games back-to-back, so I had the house to myself. I spent my freedom watching online documentaries about American mystics and people who can talk to the dead.

One mystic used little plastic dolls to communicate with the spirits. Like the kind of dolls I would imagine grandmas collecting. With little painted faces and frozen china hands.

The dead are very forgiving and are never sad about being dead. Apparently that's something built into the system so that no one feels ripped off in the afterlife.

A couple of the mystics talked about Jesus a lot. About how Jesus was at work in the world of the living and the dead, shepherding people into heaven. Like Jesus was some kind of maître d' for heaven.
If he's so important
, I wondered,
why is he working the door?

These people have no logic.

There was this part in one documentary where all the mystics put their hands on the table and it danced around. It's called table-tipping.

Interesting
, I thought.

At one point, on my way to grab a slice at Tony's Pizza Pie around the block, I took the stone out to a crosswalk to see if I could affect when the lights changed, which is something this guy I found online said he could do with just his brain (which is part alien). Hard to say if it was working; people kept pressing the buttons, so it could have been them.

Naoki spent the weekend at a weaving seminar, sending me pictures every so often of layers of pink and blue and yellow threads. Thomas spent the weekend binge watching eighties romantic comedies, which apparently he can only do alone.

By Monday, I was kind of sick of just being by myself.

That morning, I came downstairs, and Tesla was sitting at the breakfast table in a sparkly pink leotard and tutu, next to a bowl of what looked like black spiderwebs.

I thumped down on my seat and pushed the bowl with my finger. “What's that?”

“
Don't
,” Tesla huffed. “It's my hair stuff. Mama's putting my hair up in a fairy bun.”

I had a flash of High Bun, her phone held out.

CLICK.

“Why a bun?”

“Because it's Halloween? Duh? And I'm a fairy.”

Halloween?
I poured myself a giant bowl of cereal and scanned the table for sugar.
How did Halloween sneak up on me? Weird.

I looked over at Tesla, suddenly noticing that her hair was already sprayed and pinned into place. “Fairies have buns?”

Also weird:

 
Kids' obsession with fairies

To be clear, every year, for Halloween, Tesla dresses up as a fairy, which, every year, involves some specific fairy thing that I've never heard of. When she was eight, it meant she had to have ballet slippers. Last year, when she was ten, she asked to be a “sexy fairy,” and my parents asked her to explain what a sexy fairy would look like.

She drew a picture.

Sexy fairy had a bra over her outfit.

“No sexy fairy,” Momma Jo said. “You're a ten-year-old fairy. A ten-year-old fairy doesn't need a bra.”

Neither does an eleven-year-old fairy, apparently.

Every year since this fairy stuff started I take the opportunity to explain to her what fairies were really like, and it bugs the crap out of her.

I leaned over my bowl and pointed at Tesla with my spoon. “Did I ever tell you that fairies actually looked ugly and mean?”

Tesla crossed her arms over her fairy chest. “No, they weren't.”

“Some people thought they were an omen of death!”

“Shut up, Monty.”

Unperturbed, I munched on my cereal. “Are you an omen of death, Tesla?”

It's true they were. Not always, but sometimes. Fairies, in the original stories about fairies, weren't these wishy-washy, wistful wish granters in tutus, like they are in kids' books today. They were mean, vengeful. Sometimes because they were cast out of their villages, sent to the woods without supper. In the first stories about fairies, they used their magic to disguise themselves. To do bad things. They were mess-you-uppers, enchanters.

 
Omens

 
Enchantments

And by
enchant
, we're not talking about a sprinkle of fairy dust so you can fly. We're talking
you will obey me
–type stuff.
Give me your wife
–type stuff.

There is actually a support group in Daytona for people who have been attacked by fairies. It has a very grim website. It also has a 1-800 number, which I have often considered calling.

It's funny, though, right, that a word like
enchanting
sounds so nice, like a really nice afternoon, like something special, but really, it's also a spell.

A trick.

None of which Tesla wanted to hear as Mama Kate continued to pin her hair into the toughest bun in California, but I made a mental note to mention it to Naoki because it sounded like a Naoki sort of thing. Enchanted.

In the car on the way to school I got a text from Naoki.

Naoki: Old Man Tree lunch OK?

Me: Working on Outsiders deco with T. After school?

Naoki: Just need a minute. OM at 12:30?

Thomas came to school in drag, which he takes the Halloween option to do sometimes. Over the years, Thomas has shown a preference for queens: Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Hearts. This Halloween he was the evil queen from Snow White, in a purple dress and cape, a black wig, a crown I think he actually welded himself, and a big, real red apple, which he would hold up when people wanted to take pictures.