Don't Expect Magic (15 page)

The first thing I need to do is get Flynn alone so I can explain the situation to him. I’m not sure what the standard “f.g. reveals herself” procedure is, though. Cinderella’s fairy godmother appeared in a sudden
poof!
, which gave some credibility to her claims of being magic. Plus they lived in a world where supernatural stuff happened all the time, so it was no big deal if some lady popped into a kitchen out of nowhere and started turning rats into coachmen. Even if I wanted to try and prove to Flynn that I’m magic, there’s also the problem of my non-wand underdeveloped semipowers, which I haven’t used since the flying creamer, so who knows if they’re even working.

I’m going to have to be subtle. Ease into it.

“I can help you get Cadie.”

Flynn stares at me blankly. Hmm. I may not have been subtle enough.

We’re in Mrs. Bayshore’s room, after yearbook. Flynn is always the last to leave, because he stays to clean up. Nobody ever helps him, so he was pretty surprised when I volunteered. Surprised and confused.

Now he’s just confused.

“You mean help with the cheerleading squad photo? Elly’s going to be my assistant, but you can come if you want. You could give us some ideas on how to make the group photos less boring. A lot of them are already done, but we still have about half—”

“I mean
you
, and
Cadie
.” I raise my eyebrows in the international “you know what I’m
really
talking about” signal.

“What are you talking about?”

How can he not know the signal? Come
on
. “I know you like her.”

“Everybody likes Cadie,” Flynn says casually, the way you’d say “Everybody likes pizza.” He shoves a table back in place and I can tell by the force of the shove that the casual tone is a cover. Not that I don’t already know this from my f.g. radar.

“Yeah, but you
like
her.” I almost say, “You think she’s
awesome
,” but he might think (correctly) that I’m mocking him, which is probably not a good way to start off the client-f.g. relationship. “I can hook you two up.”

Flynn bangs another table against the first. “Brendan and Skids put you up to this, didn’t they? I’m totally skunk-spraying their lockers.” I dart to the next table and grab the edge across from him. He takes the other side, thinking I’m going to help him, but I hold it in place, forcing him to look up at me. When our eyes meet, I’m hyperaware that we’re the only ones in the room. This must be the f.g. energy Hank talked about, bouncing between us, because I get another hit of wooze.

“It’s not a joke. You and Cadie are supposed to be together.”

“How’d you come up with that? Read some tea leaves?” He does his stupid snorting boy laugh. I don’t even crack a smile.

“I happen to be very intuitive. It’s like a sixth sense … kind of. It’s genetic.”

Flynn pulls the table out of my grasp and shifts it over into place. “Sorry to break it to you, Madame Collinska, but the gene’s skipped a generation, because you are
so
wrong.”

“I’m not wrong.”

Flynn walks back to Mrs. Bayshore’s desk and shuts down his laptop. “You’re new here, so I’ll fill you in. Cadie Perez is the head cheerleader. Whenever there’s a new ‘Who’s Hot’ list, she’s number one. Always. She’s homecoming queen, prom queen and Most Popular. She’s out of my league. She’s not even in my universe. Cadie’s the type who goes out with the
star quarterback.
”

“She’s not, though! She’s not going out with anybody. Because the right guy hasn’t asked her.” I do the eyebrow-raise thing again. Maybe this time he’ll get it.

“And the right guy is me?”

I nod.

“Cadie told you this?”

“No. I don’t think she knows. That’s why you have to ask her out.”

“Oh! Okay, then. That makes sense.” Flynn loads his laptop into his messenger bag. “Not.”

“You have to trust me.”

“Why? Why do you care?”

“I … it’s something I feel compelled to do, that’s all. Like some people feed the homeless or rescue stray animals.” Flynn gives me a suspicious look and I’m guessing that my “don’t mess with me or I’ll flay you” attitude up to now may have wrecked my credibility as a do-gooder, or at least dented it a little (a lot).

“You need to find a different community service project, then. Maybe one that doesn’t involve people. How about Boots for the Shoeless!” He snort laughs again at his non-clever bit of non-wit.

“It’s not funny! I have to do this. And you’re the person I have to help.” I don’t add that “otherwise I’ll be stuck in a pre-barf state of f.g. yuckiness for the rest of my life,” because he obviously doesn’t care about
my
feelings or he wouldn’t be giving me such a hard time.

Flynn slings the strap of his messenger bag over one
shoulder, his camera case over the other. “I’m not asking out Cadie Perez. It’s not happening.
Nunca
.” He walks to the door. “Sorry.”

He leaves before I can say anything. Not that I have anything to say. This is not how I thought it would go. I expected gratitude. Praise, even. I wonder if this is a boy thing, and Cinderella was more cooperative because she was a girl. Of course, to be fair to Flynn, the fairy godmother in the story
did
tell Cinderella who she was first. And Cinderella didn’t exactly go along with the plan right away. The fairy godmother had to give Cinderella a total makeover and then do all that pumpkin-into-carriage stuff before Cinderella agreed to go to the ball. But Cinderella’s f.g. had the wand already. Granting wishes was a snap for her.

I’m getting off track. I can’t worry about the fairy tales anymore. This is
my
story: a beautiful, unattainable quasi princess; a snort-laughing, wish-blocking non-prince; and a fairy godmother without a clue.

“What am I supposed to do? Tell Flynn he has to go out with Cadie so I can earn my wand? I do that and five minutes later, Principal Lee will switch my seventh-period elective from yearbook to lockup in the psych ward.”

I’ve taken a break from homework, solving inverse functions, to call Posh for help. I’d ask Hank, but he’s out on an emergency Andrea call, and anyway, I’m not in the mood for another “inspirational” metaphor. (“It’s like becoming a juvenile delinquent, Delaney. You can’t launch
right into robbing convenience stores. You have to start small, shoplifting magazines, and then move up to vandalizing the school gym.…”)

“Oh my God, Delaney! I just downloaded this ‘professional project completion system’ from brainmania-dot-com. I’m going to use it to build a TV station in the garage. How it works is you figure out what result you want and then work backward. Like a reverse flow chart.”

“The result I want is to get this stupid Cadie-Flynn-together-forever job done and over with, and then go back home and move on with my life.”

“That’s like five steps, I think, but okay, write those down. Now go one step back from the first one you said.”

This seems like a waste of time, but Posh forces me to backward-list all my “goal requirements”: before Cadie and Flynn hook up, they have to go out; before they go out, Flynn has to ask Cadie out.

“And before that …” Posh waits for me to fill in the blank.

“He has to have a personality transplant?” This seems like too big a manipulating-atoms move—nuclear level—for even the
full
f.g. powers.

“
No
. They have to
talk.
” She’s right. I hadn’t thought of that. Based on what I’ve observed, Flynn and Cadie average maybe five words exchanged per week, and that’s counting when we have a chem lab.

I feel better. Less panicked and annoyed. This is something I can do. Creating situations where Flynn and Cadie
have to talk is much better suited to my prebeginner amateur “I can’t play Carnegie Hall yet” f.g. skills. It’s one of Hank’s metaphors without the metaphor: I have to begin at the beginning, because it’s the only way to end up at the end.

My first opportunity to put Operation Backward Wish Granting in motion comes the next day when I’m heading down the hall after second period. Cadie is carrying a stack of her flower-decaled color-coded folders—and Flynn is coming the other way. I duck behind a row of lockers and shift my backpack around so I can unzip it and grab a pen. I act like I’m writing a note on my hand in case anybody’s looking, but I really point it toward Cadie.

I make a tiny jerking movement with the pen, and all of her folders fall, spilling papers everywhere—at the exact moment Flynn passes by. Perfect timing! Okay, so I was only going for one folder, but this is better, because it’ll take longer for Flynn to help Cadie pick everything up, which means more time to bond.

But does Flynn rush to his true love’s side to assist her? No, he does not. Does he compliment her on her clever use of office supplies? Nope. He just stares down at the mess like a useless gaping bystander at a car wreck—while about forty other would-be male love slaves swoop in and rescue the damsel in distress.

No problem. This was only my first try. Maybe Flynn didn’t want to compete with the other members of the “I
Love Cadie” crew. Next time, I’ll wait until there aren’t so many people around.

In the meantime, I decide to work on sharpening my skills by trying some small wishes. At first I only manage to spot like one mini-wish per class period—a fallen eraser that I lift back up to the desk, a loose, slipping barrette that I push back into place. (Okay, so the eraser hits the guy in the head and the barrette goes up so far it makes the girl’s hair balloon out like there’s a tennis ball under it, but it’s the thought that counts. I think.)

I don’t always guess right and I know when I’m wrong because nothing happens. But over the next few days, I start to see more. And more. Once I really begin to study people, I
notice
them. They stop being a formless, interchangeable jumble of Happy Highers and come into focus, one by one. I realize that everybody has something they need, want, wish. Nobody’s life is completely perfect, even if it looks that way.

I start to learn their names too. Redheaded pencil-stealing cheerleader from Brit lit is Peri. The French snobs are Hunter and Kaitlynn. I can even tell the Hello Kitty triplets apart now. Elly’s a closet techno-geek whose wishes usually involve increased download speed for whatever device she’s on. Hallie’s a little OCD and is thrilled whenever she can dig exact change out of her backpack to pay for lunch (which, not surprisingly, tends to happen every time I’m in line behind her). Polly’s the best salesperson on the yearbook staff, but she’s totally absentminded and is
always showing up at school missing one earring—or she
was
until I came along.

The more I guess, the better I get at it. I can figure out what people want without having to stare at them so obviously. Soon, it almost seems like I know
first
and then I see it.

I will never in eight thousand years under threat of torture or electronics deprivation (same thing) admit it aloud, but Hank was right. It
is
like lifting weights. With every wish I grant, my magic grows stronger. I don’t have to try so hard. Eventually I barely have to try at all. I can move objects so fast now, it’s like they’ve disappeared from one spot and then suddenly appeared in another. When I finally get that wand, it’s going to be fully loaded.

If I can ever get Flynn to cooperate.

When my next chance for “Project Completion: Flynn” comes, I’m ready. I’m skating past the parking lot after school when I see Flynn, juggling his cameras as he retrieves his keys from one of the two thousand pockets in his army jacket. Behind him, Cadie and Mia do their giggle-chat-squeal routine on the way to Cadie’s car.

I spin around on my skates and draw a purple gel pen from the holster I’ve glue-gunned to the outside of my left boot. I aim the gel pen in Cadie’s direction, and Cadie’s car keys vanish from her hand—and land in front of Flynn a quarter-second later.

Cadie leans over and inspects the gravel at her feet. A few cars away, Flynn picks up the keys, but instead of
delivering them to Cadie, he glances around in confusion, as if the keys appeared out of nowhere. (They
did
appear out of nowhere, but that’s beside the point.) I try using the pen to move Flynn, but it doesn’t seem to work on people. This is definitely a flaw in the O.T. concept.