The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell (8 page)

When they ate breakfast, she barely acknowledged it when her brother said, “Good morning.” During school, she stopped raising her hand as much. After school, she barely said a word to Conner while they walked home. And as soon as they got home, Alex would run up the stairs and lock herself in her bedroom for the rest of the day.

“Are you feeling okay?” Conner eventually asked her. “You seem different.”

“Yes, I’m just tired,” Alex said.

Conner knew she must be tired, because she didn’t seem to sleep anymore. Every time he had gotten up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water or use the bathroom that week, the lights in his sister’s bedroom were still on, and he could hear her rustling about inside, working on something.

He didn’t have to be a genius to know that his sister was dealing with more than just insomnia. He had seen enough health videos at school to know that girls his sister’s age were expected to start going through mood swings and changes, but Alex had become another person entirely. Something very serious was bothering her, and she was keeping it to herself.

“Can I borrow some of your pencils?” a wide-eyed and wide-awake Alex asked him late one night.

It was like a peacock asking to borrow some feathers. He wasn’t certain how to handle the request. Surely she wasn’t still doing homework at this hour?

“Don’t you have, like, hundreds?” Conner asked her.

“Yes… but I’ve lost them all,” she said.

He shared the few that he had with her. Alex took them and quickly disappeared into her room again; she didn’t even seem to mind that they were chewed on or were missing the erasers.

The next night, Conner kept waking up to a peculiar
humming sound coming from Alex’s room. It was quiet but had a strong vibration that he could feel as much as he could hear.

“Alex?” Conner said, knocking on his sister’s door. “What is that sound? I’m trying to sleep, and it’s driving me crazy!”

“It’s just a bee. I shooed him out the window!” a frantic Alex responded from behind the door.

“A bee?” a puzzled Conner asked.

“Yes, a very big bee. It’s mating season, you know, so they’re quite aggressive this time of year,” Alex called out.

“Err… all right…” Conner said, and went to bed.

But these happenings were nothing compared to the events during the next day at school.

“Can anyone tell me the names of the rivers that ran through ancient Mesopotamia?” Mrs. Peters asked the class during a history lesson. As usual, she had no volunteers.

“Anyone?” Mrs. Peters asked. Everyone was looking at Alex and expecting her hand to shoot into the air any second, but Alex was just staring at the floor. She wasn’t paying any attention to anything.

“The Tigris and Euphrates,” Mrs. Peters informed the class. “Can anyone tell me what the area between these two rivers is believed to be?” She asked the question in Alex’s direction, but it was no use: Alex was lost in her own thoughts.

“Miss Bailey, perhaps you know the answer?” Mrs. Peters pleaded.

“To what?” asked Alex, snapping out of her trance.

“The question,” Mrs. Peters said.

“Oh…” Alex said. “No, I don’t.” She rested her head on her hand and continued staring at the floor.

Mrs. Peters and the rest of the class didn’t understand what was happening. Alex
always
knew the answers. How was the class going to function without her?

“The cradle of civilization…” Mrs. Peters told the class, answering the question. “Many believe that mankind started there—
Miss Bailey!”

Alex sat up quickly in her seat. The most shocking thing that had ever happened in the classroom had occurred:
Alex Bailey had dozed off in the middle of class!

“I—I—I am so sorry, Mrs. Peters!” Alex pleaded. “I don’t know what came over me! I haven’t been sleeping very well lately!”

Mrs. Peters was staring at her as if she had just witnessed a gruesome rural animal give birth. “That’s… that’s all right,” the teacher said. “Do you need to see the nurse?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just a little sleepy,” Alex said. “I promise that’ll never happen again!”

Conner had been watching the whole thing like it was a train wreck. All he could do was shake his head. What had happened to Alex? Where was his real sister? She was turning into
him
!

The strange humming sound Conner had heard the night before suddenly filled the classroom. Alex sat straight up in her seat, anxious; her eyes grew larger than they had
ever been before. A few of the other students looked around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.

“Can anyone tell me the technologies Mesopotamia brought into the Bronze Age?” Mrs. Peters asked, oblivious to the humming. “Anyone?” she asked again.

Alex’s hand shot straight into the air.

“Yes, Miss Bailey?” Mrs. Peters happily called on her.

“May I use the restroom?” Alex peeped.

Mrs. Peters sighed with disappointment. “Yes, you may,” she replied.

Before she had finished granting Alex permission to leave the classroom, Alex had already jumped out of her seat, grabbed her school bag, and headed out the door.

Conner watched his sister leave. His eyes were bulging with suspicion. Why had she taken her backpack with her to the bathroom?

He had to know what was going on. He was going to confront his sister here and now at school, where she had no place to run and no bedroom to lock herself into.

“Mrs. Peters?” Conner called out.

“Yes, Mr. Bailey?” Mrs. Peters asked.

“Can I see the nurse?” he asked.

“What for?” she asked.

He hadn’t thought this far into his plan. “Um… my elbow hurts,” Conner said.

Mrs. Peters stared at him blankly. She may have believed him more if he had told her he was a dinosaur. “Your elbow hurts?” she asked.

“Yes, really bad. I banged it on my desk, and now it’s just killing me,” Conner said, clutching his perfectly fine elbow.

Mrs. Peters squinted and rolled her eyes, two of her trademark indications of annoyance in one expression. “Fine,” the teacher said. “But I’m going to have to write you a pass—”

Conner was out the door before she could finish her sentence.

Meanwhile, Alex burst into the girls’ restroom. She quickly looked underneath all the stalls to make sure she was alone. She zipped open her school bag, pulled out
The Land of Stories
, and set it on top of a sink; it was glowing and humming more than ever.

“Please turn off! Please turn off!” Alex said to the book. “I’m at school! I can’t get caught with you here!”

The sound and shine slowly faded, and
The Land of Stories
returned to being just a normal book. Alex sighed with relief but panicked once more when someone else suddenly charged inside the restroom. It was her brother.

“Bees don’t have mating seasons, Alex,” Conner said with a tightened brow and his hands on his hips. “I looked it up. They come from colonies just like ants, even the big ones. They don’t have schedules.”

“Conner, what are you doing in here? You can’t be in the girls’ bathroom!” Alex shouted.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on!” Conner demanded. “You’ve been lying to me all week. I know something’s up; I have ‘twin-tuition.’ ”

“ ‘Twin-tuition’?” Alex asked sarcastically.

“I made it up,” Conner said. “It means I know when something’s bothering you, even if you tell me nothing is. At first I thought you were just having
girl issues
—
”

“Oh, Conner, please!” Alex interjected.

“Then, after all the strange buzzing noises and late nights, I figured Mom must have gotten you a cell phone and didn’t want me to know about it. But then I remembered you have no friends, so who would be calling and texting you?”

Alex grunted. Now he was being accusative
and
rude.

“But I know you well enough to know that it would take something much worse to make you act this way,” Conner said. “You’re quiet, you don’t know any of Mrs. Peters’s answers, and you’re falling asleep in class! You’re acting like
me
! So just tell me, what’s your problem?”

Alex didn’t say a word; she just stared at her feet. She was so ashamed at how she had been acting, but she knew no one would believe her if she told them why she had been that way, except maybe her brother.

Conner looked around the girls’ bathroom. “Gosh, it’s so nice in here. The boys’ bathroom looks like the bottom of a hazardous waste barrel…. Wait, why do you have Grandma’s book with you?”

“I don’t know what’s going on!” Alex burst into the loud and awkward tears one cries when exhausted and overly stressed.

Conner took a step back for his own protection. He had never seen his sister so hysterical.

“At first I thought I was hallucinating!” Alex said. “I thought maybe I was having a reaction to something Grandma made us for dinner. That was the first night it happened! But then it kept happening, so I knew it wasn’t a reaction!”

“Alex, what are you talking about?” Conner asked.

“The
Land of Stories
book!”
Alex yelled. “
It glows! It hums! Every day it gets louder and brighter!
I’ve lost so much sleep trying to figure out how and why it does it! It breaks all the laws of science!”

“Ah…” Conner said with raised eyebrows. “Alex, I think we should go see the nurse—”

“You must think I’m insane!” Alex told him. “Anyone would come to that conclusion unless they saw it themselves. But I promise I’m telling the truth!”

“I don’t think you’re insane,” Conner lied, starting to think his sister was
definitely
going insane.

“It happens once or twice a day,” Alex said. “I was afraid Mom would find it, so I brought it to school; the last thing she needs to worry about is a possessed book lying around her house.”

Conner didn’t know what to say. He briefly imagined the future trips he and his mother would take to see his sister in the local asylum and the wisecracks he would make about the
cool white jacket
she got to wear.

Clearly, his sister had lost her mind, but after all they’d been through, he couldn’t blame her. He kept thinking about how his dad would have handled this situation. What story would he have used to comfort Alex?

“Alex,” Conner said with understanding eyes. “We’ve been through a lot in the last year. It’s perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed and—”

The humming started again. They looked back at
The Land of Stories
on the sink; to Alex’s relief and Conner’s horror, it was glowing.

Conner jumped back against the wall as if he were in the presence of an explosive.

“The
Land of Stories
book!”
Conner yelled.
“It glows! It hums!”

“I told you!” Alex said.

Conner’s mouth was opened so wide, it was almost touching his chest. “Is it radioactive?” he asked.

“I doubt it,” Alex told him. She reached for the book.

“Don’t touch it, Alex!” Conner shouted.

“Relax, Conner,” Alex reassured him. “I’ve been dealing with it all week.”

Using one finger, she flicked the book open, and the entire restroom was illuminated. All the illustrations and writing had disappeared, and the pages seemed to be made out of pure light.

Alex leaned closer to the book.

“Listen. Do you hear that?” she asked. “I can hear birds and leaves. I’ve never heard sounds come out of it before!”

Conner edged away from the wall and leaned down with his sister. The sound of birds chirping and trees blowing in the wind echoed off the tile and porcelain in the bathroom.

“How is this possible?” Conner asked. “Are you sure it doesn’t have batteries or something?”

“My most educated analysis, with all means of science and technology in mind, is that it’s magic,” Alex said. “There’s no other possible explanation!”

“Do you think Grandma knows about this?” Conner asked. “She had the book for years before she gave it to us. Do you think this has happened before?”

“I don’t think Grandma would have given it to us if she knew what it was capable of,” Alex said.

“You’re right,” Conner said. “She still cuts up my meat when she comes for dinner, because doesn’t trust me with knives.”

“There’s more,” Alex said. She reached into her school bag and pulled out a pencil. Carefully, she placed the pencil on the open book. It quickly sank into the glowing page and disappeared.

“W-w-where did it go?” Conner sputtered in utter astonishment.

“I don’t know!” Alex said. “I’ve been dropping things into it all week! Pencils, books, dirty socks, and anything else I could find that I knew I wouldn’t miss. I think it may be some kind of portal.”

“A portal to
what
?” Conner asked.

Alex didn’t have an answer. Of course, there was one location that she had hoped it might lead to.

The twins leaned down even closer to the book, their
noses almost touching it. They had to squint because it was so bright.

Suddenly, a bright red bird flew out of the book. The twins screamed and ran around the room in panic. They bumped into each other, into the walls, and into the sinks as the bird zoomed above them; it was just as panicked as they were. Finally, Conner opened the bathroom door and the bird flew out of the room and into the world.

“You didn’t say things came out of it, too!” Conner yelled.

“I didn’t know! That’s the first time that’s happened!” Alex yelled back at him.

The book slowly dimmed and returned to normal. Conner’s head was spinning. He couldn’t believe all the things he had just witnessed. No wonder Alex was having such a rough week. He now felt his own sanity might be slipping, too.

“We have to get rid of this book!” Conner exclaimed. “After school we should ride our bikes down to the creek and toss it in so no one ever finds it.”

“We can’t get rid of it!” Alex said. “It’s Grandma’s book! It’s been in our family forever!”

“Birds are flying out of it, Alex! I’m sure she’ll understand!” he said. “What if a lion or a shark comes out of it next? I know it drives you crazy when you don’t know about stuff, but this is one matter you need to let go. It could be more dangerous than we think! Who knows what could happen?”