Don't Expect Magic (11 page)

Flynn leans down and sniffs. “It smells like … baked apple.”

Shaggy sits up, curious. He swipes at the ooze, sniffs it, licks his finger. The other kids yell, “Ewwwww!”

“It
is
apple!” Shaggy announces. He tilts his gaze up. “Who the hell is tossing cooked fruit from the sky?”

“Maybe it’s, like, a promotion thing for a new dessert,” one of the Hello Kitty girls suggests. Now everybody’s looking up, waiting for some blimp to sail by advertising Birds Eye’s new microwaveable turnovers.

I’m not looking up, though. My eyes stay locked on the apple. It came out of nowhere. There was nothing and now there’s something.…

That’s not true, though. There was never
nothing
. There were always protons and neutrons and electrons. They’ve been rearranged, that’s all. It wasn’t what I pictured, but hey, it was my first try.

The crowd breaks up. Flynn tosses Shaggy a stack of napkins. Lunchers finish their meals and go back inside. I’m frozen in place as time moves past, until it’s only me and the empty tables and my memory of Shaggy lying there, apple spattered.

Apple + sugar + flour + butter …

I clutch the pencil a little lighter in my hand, and I feel a small smile spread across my face.

I did it.

I’m so hyped up from my success that I stop by Ms. Lammers’s class on my way to sixth period and ask her if I can do an extra-credit report on the Ch’ing Dynasty or scrub the dry-erase boards after school or walk her dogs for two weeks—if she’ll give me my cell back. And then, like magic, she gives it to me for nothing! (Except for the promise that she will never see it again in class, a wish I
grant immediately.) My confidence isn’t quite high enough yet to brave a plea to Madame K for my sketchbook, so I leave that miracle for later.

In seventh period, I text Posh from the library computers to tell her what happened. There are so many exclamation points and all-caps in her response that I glance around a couple of times, worried that her digital yelling is audible. We need to continue this conversion verbally, but not here, obviously.

After Ms. Insardi, the librarian, gives me a hall pass “for the bathroom,” I slip out the nearest exit, which opens onto the faculty parking lot. Too out-in-the-open. What if some teacher leaves early?

Around the corner is the lunch patio, now empty and apple-free. I’m right next to the window of the cafeteria kitchen, where the cooking class is learning how to make kiwi-mocha mousse or eucalyptus pesto or whatever. There’s a bench along the wall, and I sit down, out of view, and dial Posh. She starts talking before she even knows it’s me. “You need to keep a detailed record of everything that happens from now on.”

“I’m not going to have time to do that, Posh,” I whisper. “I’m going to be too busy granting wishes.”

“This is IMPORTANT research, Delaney.” She’s so excited, she’s even talking in capital letters now. “Nobel Prize–worthy. It’s your responsibility to science.”

“I only imploded an apple. It’s not like I split an atom or accelerated a particle or something.”

“But, Delaney. You sort of
did
.”

“Did I?” Maybe I did. I gaze out over the patio and the scene plays again in my mind. I can see myself holding the pencil, and Shaggy Boy falling, and the other kids calling out their amazement—and
I’m
amazed all over again too.

The memory fades a little, except for the image of me, which seems to grow sharper and brighter. I feel myself, my real, right-now self, filling with energy.

More than one chemical reaction took place out on that patio during lunch.

Delaney Collins → f.g.

“It was probably just a coincidence.” Hank swats away my news like it’s some annoying insect he can’t be bothered with. He doesn’t even look at me; he’s too busy squinting down at the veggie stir-fry recipe in
Easy Dinners for Two
. He’s added a big cup of “wise capable parent” to his usual “Dr. Hank” hyperanalyzing bossiness. It makes him doubly annoying, since both alter egos are so bogus. He’s obviously never cooked a meal in his life, and his lecturing sounds like he’s snatched a bunch of random phrases out of his books and then scrambled them together. “You wanted something to happen and so you sought evidence to support that desire, which you then extrapolated to conclude
that you had achieved the goal.”
Voilà
, the psychobabble omelet. If his writing is as convoluted as his speech then people must buy so many of his books because they keep hoping he’ll finally write one that they can understand.

“Right,” I say from my seat across the counter. “Because baked apples appear out of nowhere and torpedo random metalheads every day. It’s as common as fathers calling their daughters liars.”

Hank concentrates on slicing an onion into identical quarter-moons and doesn’t answer. I know he has no comeback. After a night spent convincing me that the illogical is logical, he can’t just rewind or else
he’s
the liar. It’s too late anyway, because I believe now, and that can’t be erased.

“Are you
sure
it was apple?” He carefully scoops chopped ginger into a tablespoon, then levels it off with the back of a knife. He tips the ginger into one of the little bowls he’s got lined up, one for each ingredient in the stir-fry he’s making, like he’s prepping for a cooking show.

“What does
that
matter? If it was peach, does that mean it was leprechauns who caused it and not a fairy godmother? Does blueberry mean wood sprites?”

Hank is now looking at his watch, timing the heating of the pan to the exact second. I can’t take it anymore, and I march over and hip-check him aside as he’s fiddling with the flame.

“
Delaney
.”

“This is
not
how you make a stir-fry.” Mom didn’t cook much either, but when she did, there was no measuring
spices, no whipping out the ruler to make sure the green pepper slices were exactly one-quarter inch each. She’d just grab a bunch of whatever from the fridge and the pantry, toss it all together, and make something amazing.
That
was magic.

A missing-Mom pang hits me, right in the chest, so I snap back to the two important tasks at hand: (1) stir-fry, (2) apple pie. “You overanalyze
everything.
” I pour oil into the pan and empty the bowls on top of it, sending up a smoky sizzle. Hank hovers nervously behind me and I can tell he wants to snatch the spatula out of my hand. I’d like to see him try.

“You shouldn’t have thrown everything in at the same time, Delaney.”

“Who says?”

“It’s right here in the recipe.” Hank taps the page and then keeps tapping like he can will me to read it. “There are steps. See? They’re numbered. There’s a precise way you’re supposed to do it.”

“Oh well,” I say with a sad sigh. “Too late.” I stir the vegetables. They snap and hiss in a cloud of ginger-scented steam.

Hank folds his arms. “Listen, Delaney, I’m not saying I don’t believe you about the apple—”

“Yes, you
are
.”

“There was only this one incident, correct?”

“One so
far
.” The rice boils over, and he has to stop arguing with me to deal with it.

He doesn’t say anything more while I finish cooking, but he starts right up again as soon as we sit down to eat.

“Okay, say this
was
proof that you’ve inherited—”

“It
was
.”

“It wasn’t something you achieved easily, however, or successfully.”

We’re sitting at the table opposite each other, the long way. It’s uncomfortable and weird. You can tell he never eats in here. Mom and I always ate dinner on the couch in front of the TV. Most of the time the TV wasn’t even on. We’d play music and talk, or sometimes not talk and just be.

No chance of “just being” during this meal. Not with the Master Pontificator holding forth over the meal and spouting nonstop negativity. “Most likely it was an isolated incident. You might have some stunted, recessive version of the gene, but if the ability hasn’t shown up before now, your experience today was probably a fluke.” He scoops up the rest of his rice, the king done with his proclamation, all smug and superior. He loved the stir-fry, obviously, since he’s practically licking the plate, but will he admit it? No. He’s not going to admit anything that gives me a little more power.

“You’re wrong. Let’s go out somewhere. Back to that mall. I’ll prove it.” I’m not sure
how
I’ll prove it, since I still don’t know what I’m doing, but I know the power’s not latent or dormant or suppressed or oppressed. It’s
there
.

“I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to tell you.”

“I understand,” I tell him. “You want to be the only fairy godmother in the world. Well, too late. You’re not.” I pick up my half-finished stir-fry and walk out.

I carry my plate into the den and turn on the TV. The couch is too stiff to curl up on, though, and it’s obvious Hank never eats in here either, with the white carpet and crystal-clean glass coffee table. The stir-fry’s cold now and it’s lost its taste and there’s nothing on TV I want to watch.

I flick around for a bit and then settle on an old movie that takes place in some medieval forest, with knights riding into battle on armored horses. It’s all dingy greens and grays, made when they liked movies to look ugly because that was more “real.”

Near the end, there’s a big speech about fighting the odds and overcoming obstacles. It’s the usual trite Hollywood garbage about not giving up and believing in yourself, but because the actors have those smart-sounding British accents, it’s hard not to be inspired. It’s like the captain (or top knight or king or whoever it is) is talking to me—and it’s exactly the encouragement I need.

Hank’s another obstacle to overcome, that’s all. Like the handsome knights in their rebellion against their troll-faced enemies, I’m not giving up.

The next morning’s Saturday and Hank suggests breakfast out, trying to make up for shooting me down at dinner. I throw him off balance a little by agreeing right away. Copying the knights from the movie, I’ve decided on
a sneak attack. I’ll pretend I’ve surrendered—and then hit him with all I’ve got.

We drive to a bakery/café, which, as I predict, is yet another “made in Santa’s workshop” place, with artfully arranged baskets of bread loaves behind the counter, so gorgeous they look like they belong in an art gallery. The display cases rise above my head, filled with shelves of glistening strawberry tarts, pinwheels of pistachio biscotti, gigantic muffins, tiny chocolate cream puffs and a dizzying multitude of cookies, croissants and scones, all shimmering in a glowing amber light, like the reflection of treasure-chest gold on a pirate’s face.

There’s a blackboard with all the breakfast items listed in pink and green and orange and yellow, with chalk illustrations up and down the sides. It’s a little too flowers-and-bunnies for me, but I admire the effort.

The place is crowded, even though it’s only nine in the morning, and while we wait in line to order, I scope the crowd for a possible wish. I’ve brought my charcoal pencil with me, since it brought me luck before. It probably looks a little weird to be holding a pencil in a café, but whatever.

I’ve already tried a couple of times. When we were parking, I noticed the lady behind us scrounging around in her purse for money for the meter. I willed her a quarter but it must not have worked, since she ended up asking Hank if he had change for a dollar. Then, as we were going in, a little girl at one of the outside tables was whining to her mother that she wanted sprinkles on her waffles. I waved
the pencil at her plate, but no sprinkles appeared, not even tiny imploded ones.

Those were just warm-ups, though. I’m ready now. When I see one of the café workers behind the counter try to grab a poppy seed loaf that’s an inch out of reach, I casually raise the pencil and point it his way.

Nothing happens.

I’m not feeling it. Not like yesterday. I can’t even seem to remember what the feeling was. Somehow I knew exactly what to do—but now I don’t know anything. Maybe Hank’s right, and it was only a coincidence. Maybe one of Shaggy’s friends pelted him with a hot apple pie from a gourmet vending machine in the cafeteria. Maybe something did fall out of the sky. Maybe it didn’t really happen at all.…