Magic City Page 6

  “Yeah,” says Bugle. “I know.”

  “You owe me, too,” the green girl puts in.

  Now, I can’t quite see where she’s coming from on this, seeing as how she was all gung-ho to let Gnaw-bone have his fun and games before Bugle showed up. Not to mention calling me names. On the other hand, she’s obviously Very Important, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading all those fairy tales, it’s that it’s a very bad idea to be rude to people who wear live birds and squirrels like jewelry. So I shrug. Politely.

  “Seven months’ service should cover it,” she says. “Can you sing? I’m mostly into salsa these days, but reggae or jazz is cool too.”

  My mouth drops open. Seven months? She’s gotta be out of her mind. My parents will kill me if I don’t come home for seven months.

  “No?” Her voice is even more beautiful than it was before, like a fountain or wind in the trees. Her eyes sparkle like sun through leaves. She so absolutely gorgeous so not like anyone I can imagine having a conversation with, it’s hard to follow what she’s saying.

  “I don’t sing,” I tell her.

  “Dance, then?” I shake my head. “So, what can you do?”

  Well, I know the answer to that one. “Nothing,” I say. “I’m totally useless. Just ask my French teacher. Or my mom.”

  The beautiful face goes all blank and hard, like granite. “I said Gnaw-bone couldn’t have you. That leaves all his brothers and sisters. You don’t need much talent to entertain them.”

  You know how your brain goes totally spla when you’re really scared? Well, my brain did that. And then I heard myself saying, “You said I was under Bugle’s protection. Just because you’re Queen of the Fairies doesn’t mean you can do anything you want.”

  I was sure she’d be mad, but—get this—she starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs and laughs. And I get madder and madder, the way you do when you don’t know what you’ve said that’s so funny. Then I notice that she’s getting broader and darker and shorter, and there’s this scarf over her head, and she’s wearing this dorky green housedress and her stockings are drooping around her ankles and she’s got a cigarette in one hand. Finally she wheezes out, “The Queen of the Fairies! Geddouddaheah! You’re killin’ me!” She sounds totally different, too, like somebody’s Aunt Ida from the Bronx.

  “The Queen of the . . . Listen, kid. We ain’t in the Old Country no more. We’re in New York”—Noo Yawk is what she said—“New York, U. S. of A. We ain’t got Queens, except across the bridge.”

  So now I’m really torqued. I mean, who knows what she’s going to do next, right? She could turn me into a pigeon, for all I know. This is no time to lose it. I’ve got to focus. After all, I’ve been reading about fairies for years, right? New Age stuff, folklore, fantasy novels—everything I could get my hands on. I’ve done my homework. There’s a chance I can b.s. my way out of this if I keep my cool.

  “Oh, ha ha,” I say. “Not. Like that rat-guy didn’t say ‘how high’ when you said ‘jump.’ You can call yourself the Mayor of Central Park if you want, but you’re still the Queen of the goddam Fairies.”

  She morphs back to dreads and leather on fast forward.

  “So, Fatso. You think you’re hot stuff.” I shrug. “Listen. We’re in this thing where I think you owe me, and you think you don’t. I could make you pay up, but I won’t.” She plops down on the bench and gets comfortable. The squirrel jumps off her shoulder and disappears into a tree.

  “Siddown, take a load off—have a drink. Here.” Swear to God, she hands me a can of Diet Coke. I don’t know where it came from, but the pop-top is popped, and I can hear the Coke fizzing and I realize I’m wicked thirsty. My hand goes, like all by itself, to take it, and then my brain kicks in. “No,” I say. “Thank you.”

  She looks hurt. “Really? It’s cold and everything.” She shoves it towards me. My mouth is as dry as the Sahara Desert, but if there’s one thing I’m sure I know about fairies, it’s don’t eat or drink anything a fairy gives you if you ever want to go home.

  “Really,” I say. “Thanks.”

  “Well, dag,” she says, disgusted. “You read fairy tales. Aren’t you special. I suppose now you’re going to ask for three wishes and a pot of gold. Go ahead. Three wishes. Have a ball.”

  This is more like it. I’m all prepared, too. In sixth grade, I worked out what my wishes would be, if I ever met a wish-granting fairy. And they were still perfectly good wishes, based on extensive research. Never, ever wish for more wishes. Never ask for money—it’ll turn into dog doo in the morning. The safest thing to do was to ask for something that would make you a better citizen, and then you could ask for two things for yourself. I settled on a good heart, a really ace memory, and 20/20 vision. I didn’t know about laser surgery in sixth grade.

  So I’m all ready (except maybe asking to be a size 6 instead of the vision thing), and then it occurs to me that this is all way too easy, and Queenie is looking way too cheerful for someone who’s been outsmarted by an overweight bookworm. Face it, I haven’t done anything to earn those wishes.

  All I’ve done is turn down a lousy Diet Coke. “Thanks all the same, but I’ll pass,” I say. “Can I go home now?”

  Then she loses her temper. She’s not foaming at the mouth or anything, but there are sparks coming out of her eyes like a Fourth of July sparkler, and her dreads are lifting and twining around her head like snakes. The sparrow gives a startled chirp and takes off for the nearest bush.

  “Well, isn’t this just my lucky day,” Greenie snarls. “You’re not as dumb as you look. On the bright side, though,”—her dreads settle slowly—“winning’s boring when it’s too easy, you know?”

  I wouldn’t know—I don’t usually win. But then, I don’t usually care that much. This is different. This time, there’s a lot more at stake than my nonexistent self-esteem. I’m glad she thinks I’m a moron. It evens things up a little. “I tell you what,” I tell her. “I’ll play you for my freedom.”

  “You’re on,” she says. “Dealer’s choice. That’s me. What shall we play?” She leans back on the bench and looks up at the sky. “Riddles are trad, but everybody knows all the good ones. What’s black and white and red all over? A blushing nun? A newspaper? Penguin roadkill? Puleeze. Anyway, riddles are boring. What do you say to Truth or Dare?”

  “I hate it.” I do, too. The only time I played it, I ended up feeling icky and raw, like I’d been sunbathing topless.

  “Really? It’s my favorite game. We’ll play Truth or Dare. These are the rules. We ask each other personal questions, and the first one who won’t answer loses everything. Deal?”

  It doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me. How can I know what question a Queen of Fairies would be too embarrassed to answer? On the other hand, what can a being who hangs out with squirrels and fairies and rat-guys know about human beings? And what choice do I have?

  I shrug. “I guess.”

  “Okay. I go first.”

  Well, sure she does. She’s the Queen of Central Park. And I see the question coming—she doesn’t even pause to think about it. “So, how much do you weigh, anyway?”

  Now you have to understand that nobody knows how much I weigh. Not Elf, not even my mom. Only the school nurse and the doctor and me. I’ve always said I’d rather die than tell anyone else. But the choice between telling and living in Central Park for seven months is a no-brainer. So I tell her. I even add a pound for the hotdog and the Mr. Softee I ate the boathouse.

  “Geddouddaheah!” she says. “You really pork it down, huh?”

  I don’t like her comment, but it’s not like I haven’t heard it before. It makes me mad, but not so mad I can’t think, which is obviously what she’s trying for. Questions go through my mind, but I don’t have a lot to go on, you know what I’m saying? And she’s tapping her green boot and looking impatient. I have to say something, and what I end up asking is, “Why are you in Central Park, anyway? I mean, there’s lots of other plac
es that are more fairy-friendly. Why aren’t you in White Plains or something?”

  It sounds like a question to me, but she doesn’t seem to think so. “I win. That’s not personal,” she says.

  “It is too personal. Where a person lives is personal. Come on. Why do you live here, or let me go home.”

  “Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she says. “Okay, here goes. This is the heart of the city. You guys pass through all the time—like Grand Central Station, right? Only here, you stop or a while. You rest, you play, you kiss in the grass, you whisper your secrets, you weep, you fight. This ground, these rocks, are soaked through with love, hate, joy, sorrow, passion. And I love that stuff, you understand? It keeps me interested.”

  Wow. I stare at her, and all my ideas about fairies start to get rearranged. But they don’t get very far because she’s still talking.

  “You think I don’t know anything about you,” she says. “Boy, are you wrong. I know everything I want to know. I know what’s on your bio quiz next week. I know Patty Gregg’s worst secret. I know who your real mother is, the one who gave you away when you were born.” She gives me this look, like Elf’s brother the time he stole a dirty magazine. “Wanna know?”

  It’s not what I’m expecting, but it’s a question, all right, and it’s personal. And it’s really easy. Sure, I want to know all those things, a whole lot—especially about my biological mother.

  Like more than anything else in the world. My parents are okay—I mean, they say they love me and everything. But they really don’t understand me big time. I’ve always felt adopted, if you know what I mean—a changeling in a family of ordinary humans. I’d give anything to know who my real mother is, what she looks like and why she couldn’t keep me. So I should say yes, right? I mean, it’s the true answer to the green girl’s question, and that’s what the game is about, isn’t it? There’s a movement on my shoulder, a sharp little pinch right behind my ear. I’ve totally forgotten Bugle—I mean, she’s been sitting there for ages, perfectly still, which is not her usual.

  Maybe I’ve missed something. It’s that too easy thing again. Sure, I want to know who my birth mom is. But it’s more complicated than that. Because now that I think about it, I realize I don’t want Greenie to be the one to tell me. I mean, it feels wrong, to learn something like that from someone who is obviously trying to hurt you.

  “Answer the question,” says the green girl. “Or give in. I’m getting bored.”

  I take a deep breath. “Keep your socks on. I was thinking how to put it. Okay, my answer is both yes and no. I do want to find out about my birth mom, but I don’t want you to tell me. Even if you know, it’s none of your business. I want to find out for myself. Does that answer your question?”

  She nods briskly. “It does. Your turn.”

  She’s not going to give me much time to come up with one, I can tell that. She wants to win. She wants to get me all torqued so I can’t think, so I won’t ask her the one question she won’t answer, so I won’t even see it staring me right in the face, the one thing she really, really can’t answer, if the books I’ve read aren’t all totally bogus.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Like, how dumb does she think I am? Pretty dumb, I guess, from the look on her face.

  “Guess,” she says, making a quick recovery.

  “Wrong fairy tale,” I say, pushing it. “Come on. Tell me, or you lose.”

  “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “Yes.”

  There’s a long silence—a long silence, like no bird is ever going sing again, or squirrel chatter or wind blow. The green girl puts her fingers in her mouth and starts to bite her nails. I’m feeling pretty good. I know and she knows that I’ve won no matter what she says. If she tells me her name, I have total power over her, and if she doesn’t, she loses the game. I know what I’d choose if I was in her place, but I guess she must really, really hate losing.

  Watching her sweat, I think of several things to say, most of them kind of mean. She’d say them, if she was me. I don’t.

  It’s not like I’m Mother Teresa or anything—I’ve been mean plenty of times, and sometimes I wasn’t even sorry later. But she might lose her temper and turn me into a pigeon after all.

  Besides, she looks so human all of a sudden, chewing her nails and all stressed out like she’s the one facing seven months of picking up fairy laundry. Before, when she was winning, she looked maybe twenty, right? Gorgeous, tough, scary, in total control. Now she looks a lot younger and not tough at all.

  So maybe if she loses, she’s threatened with seven months of doing what I tell her. Maybe I don’t realize what I’m asking. Maybe there’s more at stake here than I know. A tiny whimpering behind my right ear tells me that Bugle is pretty upset. Suddenly, I don’t feel so great. I don’t care any more about beating the Queen of the Fairies at some stupid game.

  I just want this to be over.

  “Listen,” I say, and the green girl looks up at me. Her wide, mossy eyes are all blurred with tears. I take a deep breath.

  “Let’s stop playing,” I say.

  “We can’t stop,” she says miserably. “It has begun, it must be finished. Those are the rules.”

  “Okay. We’ll finish it. It’s a draw. You don’t have to answer my question. Nobody wins. Nobody loses. We just go back to the beginning.”

  “What beginning? When Gnaw-bone was chasing you? If I help you, you have to pay.”

  I think about this for a little while. She lets me. “Okay,” I say. “How about this. You’re in a tough spot, right? I take back the question, you’re off the hook, like you got me off the hook with Gnaw-bone. We’re even.”

  She takes her fingers out of her mouth. She gnaws on her lip. She looks up into the sky, and around at the trees. She tugs on her dreads. She smiles. She starts to laugh. It’s not teasing laugh or a mean laugh, but pure happiness, like a little kid in the snow.

  “Wow,” she says, and her voice is warm and soft as fleece. “You’re right. Awesome.”

  “Cool,” I say. Can I go home now?”

  “In a minute.” She puts her head to one side, and grins at me. I’m grinning back—I can’t help it. Suddenly, I feel all mellow and safe and comfortable, like I’m lying on a rock in the sun and telling stories to Elf.

  “Yeah,” she says, like she’s reading my mind. “I’ve heard you. You tell good stories. You should write them down. Now, about those wishes. They’re human stuff—not really my business. As you pointed out. Besides, you’ve already got all those things. You remember what you need to know; you see clearly; you’re majorly kind-hearted. But you deserve a present.” She tapped her browny-green cheek with one slender finger. “I know. Ready?”

  “Okay,” I say. “Um. What is it?”

  “It’s a surprise,” she says. “But you’ll like it. You’ll see.”

  She stands up and I stand up. Bugle takes off from my shoulder and goes and sits in the greeny-brown dreads like a butterfly clip. Then the Queen of the New York Fairies leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. It doesn’t feel like a kiss—more like a very light breeze has just hit me between the eyes. Then she lays her finger across my lips, and then she’s gone.

  “So there you are!” It was Elf, red in the face, out of breath, with her hair coming out of the clip, and a tear in her jacket. “I’ve been looking all over. I was scared out of my mind! It was like you just disappeared into thin air!”

  “I got lost,” I said. “Anyway, it’s okay now. Sit down. You look like hell.”

  “Thanks, friend.” She sat on the bench. “So, what happened?”

  I wanted to tell her, I really did. I mean, she’s my best friend and everything, and I always tell her everything. But the Queen of the Fairies. I ask you. And I could feel the kiss nestling below my bangs like a little, warm sun and the Queen’s finger cool across my lips. So all I did was look at my hands. They were all dirty and scratch
ed from climbing up the cliff. I’d broken a fingernail.

  “Are you okay?” Elf asked anxiously. “That guy didn’t catch you or anything, did he? Jeez, I wish we’d never gone down there.”

  She was getting really upset. I said, “I’m fine, Elf. He didn’t catch me, and everything’s okay.”

  “You sure?”

  I looked right at her, you know how you do when you want to be sure someone hears you? And I said, “I’m sure.” And I was.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Good. I was worried.” She looked at her watch. “It’s not like it was that long, but it seemed like Forever.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, with feeling. “I’m really thirsty.”

  So that’s about it, really. We went to a coffee shop on Columbus Avenue and had blueberry pie and coffee and talked. For the first time, I told her about being adopted, and wanting to look for my birth mother, and she was really great about it after being mad because I hadn’t told her before. I said she was a good friend and she got teary. And then I went home.

  So what’s the moral of this story? My life didn’t get better overnight, if that’s what you’re wondering. I still need to lose a few pounds, I still need glasses, and the cool kids still hate me. But Elf sits with me at lunch now, and a couple other kids turned out to be into fantasy and like that, so I’m not a total outcast any more. And I’m writing down my stories. Elf thinks they’re good, but she’s my best friend. Maybe some day I’ll get up the nerve to show them to my English teacher. Oh, and I’ve talked to my mom about finding my birth mother, and she says maybe I should wait until I’m out of high school. Which is okay with me, because, to tell you the truth, I don’t need to find her right now—I just want to know I can.

  And the Green Queen’s gift? It’s really weird. Suddenly, I see fairies everywhere.

  There was this girl the other day—blonde, skinny, wearing a white leotard and her jeans unzipped and folded back, so he looked kind of like a flower in a calyx of blue leaves.

  Freak, right? Nope. Fairy. So was an old black guy all dressed in royal blue, with butterflies sewn on his blue beret and painted on his blue suede shoes. And this Asian guy with black hair down to his butt and a big fur coat. And this Upper East Side lady with big blond hair and green bug-eyes. She had a fuzzy little dog on a rhinestone leash, and you won’t believe this, but the dog was a fairy, too.