The Glitter Trap Read online

  “Won’t work. You’re too headstrong to teach.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “You don’t listen.”

  “From now on, I’ll listen to every single word you say.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m still listening. Actually, that’s not true. I stopped listening about ten minutes ago. Katarina is droning on and on about how being a fairy godmother is 99 percent about using the wand. I hear about the tradition of the wand, blah blah blah. The responsibility of the wand, blah blah blah. The style, skill, finesse, accuracy, blah blah blah blah blah. She’s talking about a magic wand. And she’s sucking every bit of magic out of it.

  Who needs training? I made the bedspread move, right? I decide to stop the blah-blah-blahing and show Katarina that I’m a natural at this.

  Looking around the room, I try to figure out what to zap. There’s a row of stuffed animals on my bookshelf; at the end there’s a cute plush shark that my dad brought me from a restaurant convention in Miami. I raise the wand.

  Katarina glares at me. “What are you doing? Don’t—”

  I say in a loud, firm voice: “Shark from the reef, please chomp your teeth!”

  And I point the wand right at the stuffed shark. Chomp! It makes a biting motion with its teeth. Just once, but that’s all I need to prove that I’m gonna be good at this. “See! It’s easy!”

  “Do you have any idea of the forces you’re meddling with, missy? It worked this time, but that shark could have…”

  She doesn’t finish her sentence, because the toy shark starts chomping its teeth like crazy. It bites the stuffed elephant. It bites the stuffed tiger. It bites my old teddy bear. There hasn’t been this much biting since carnivore night on the Discovery Channel. Luckily, the shark’s teeth are as fluffy and plush as the rest of it. So all it does to the other animals is plump them up like pillows.

  “How do I make it stop, Katarina?”

  “You can’t.”

  The shark wriggles around so much that it falls off the shelf onto my bed. CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP! It attacks my bedspread.

  “It’s going to do that forever?”

  “No, just until midnight. That’s how long fairy-godmother spells last. Don’t they teach you anything in school?”

  “I must have been absent that day.” I lean down closer to the shark to get a better look.

  “Careful!”

  Too late. The shark lunges off the bed and bites my ear as hard as it can with its soft teeth and strong jaws. I try to pull it off, but I can’t budge it. “Do something!” I say to Katarina.

  “Midnight, remember?”

  With one sharp yank on its tail, I finally pull it free. It sits on the floor looking at me with its beady little eyes. Maybe I’ve tired it out.

  Nope. The shark wriggles and flops out of sight under the bed. Not being able to see it is somehow a lot scarier than seeing it.

  Maybe it’s getting ready to jump out and bite me. Maybe…I suddenly feel a sharp poke on my leg. I can’t help it, I SCREAM.

  I turn around—and it’s Madison, who SCREAMS, too. (Madison screams louder than anyone I know.) Katarina puts her hands over her ears and hides behind a lamp.

  Mom comes in from the hallway, not looking too concerned. “Why all the screaming?”

  Madison says, “I screamed because Lacey screamed.” And they both stare at me.

  “Madison poked me.”

  “Madison, stop poking your sister. And Lacey, stop screaming. Now, get your things. Dad’s waiting for us at the restaurant. Lacey, where’s your sweater?”

  Mom doesn’t need to know that the sleeves got pooped on by a million pigeons, so I say, “I forgot it at school.”

  “Well, get your jacket, and let’s go.”

  Mom takes Madison’s hand and leads her out of the room. I walk toward my closet, completely forgetting not to go near the bed.

  CHOMP! The shark lunges out from under it and clamps its jaws around my ankle.

  “Come on, Lacey!” Mom yells.

  I tug on the shark, but its mouth has opened so wide that its jaws meet on the other side of my ankle. I pull and I pry.

  “Lacey! Right now! I mean it!”

  I spend the rest of the night with a toy shark on my leg. We tell everyone at the restaurant that it’s the “catch of the day,” and Dad sells a lot of extra fish-and-chips because of it.

  He wants me to wear the shark all the time.

  When I get home, I find that Katarina has pulled my Endangered Animals calendar onto the floor. She stands right in the middle of it looking up at me.

  “It’s about time you got home! We need to discuss your training schedule!”

  “Can I take my jacket off first?”

  “No.” Katarina points at a date on the calendar. “The play is eight days away and so is the full moon. Between now and then, we need to fix Paige’s voice, get her the part of Cinderella, and make sure nothing goes wrong with the performance. Understand?”

  I nod.

  “We’re just lucky Cinderella is on such an insane schedule. Eight days to stage a musical—madness!”

  “It was supposed to be six weeks. But Mr. Griffith messed up.”

  “Mr. Griffith’s not my problem, you’re my problem. You’re a hopeless amateur with the wand.” Katarina pulls herself up to her full three-inch height. “But no one ever accused Katarina Sycorax of being a quitter. I’ll train you from the second you get home from school tomorrow till you drop with exhaustion Sunday night. And if you listen to every single word I say, you might, just might, be able to use the wand by Monday.”

  I look at the calendar, suddenly feeling scared. It is just eight days till the play. But eight days is over a week. And you can do a lot in a week, right?

  Friday morning is sunny and bright, so when I show up to school in a raincoat, I get some funny looks. (I can’t tell the other kids it’s in case of a pigeon attack.) Luckily for me, everyone is distracted anyway, because Mr. Griffith is standing at the music room door taping up a piece of paper that says Cinderella Cast List. The second he steps away, the wannabe actors swarm in to look.

  A girl starts shrieking so loud that I’m surprised it doesn’t set off car alarms in the teachers’ parking lot.

  The shrieker, a girl named Ann Estey, jumps up and down like she’ll never stop. “I’m Cinderella! I’m Cinderella! I’m Cinderella!”

  Her friends hug her and jump up and down, too. “You’re Cinderella! You’re Cinderella! You’re Cinderella!”

  If this had happened last week, I would have thought, Great! Ann Estey got the part! I don’t know Ann all that well, but she seems pretty nice. She’s always been a quiet girl—at least before she started shrieking—but her singing voice must be really great. Otherwise, Mr. Griffith wouldn’t have chosen her ahead of all those tiara-wearing, one-shoed girls.

  Did Paige get a part at all? I push my way through the crowd and look at the list. Just like Sunny and I thought, Scott Dearden is going to be Prince Charming. And sure enough, Chloe Martin is playing the fairy godmother. I skim past the names of the kids playing the ugly stepsisters and the other big parts. Way down at the bottom is Dancing Mouse Number Four. And that’s the part Paige got.

  I wonder what Paige is feeling right now. Maybe she hasn’t seen the list, but I bet every single one of her friends has texted her about it. Messages that are all “Ooh, I’m so sorry,” but are really just rubbing it in. That’s got to be hard.

  If it were me, I would be hiding in the janitor’s bathroom on the second floor. I did that once when I farted during flute practice and totally ruined “Clair de Lune.” I snuck out the back of the class and cried in the bathroom until the end of the day. (Later, Sunny said that no one even thought it was me. They thought it was Mrs. Holmes, the band teacher, who had been telling everyone about her new diet where she only eats broccoli.)

  Paige might be in the janitor’s bathroom. I know I’m not wand-trained yet, but I could try to talk to her and make her feel
better. That’s probably part of a fairy godmother’s job, right?

  I go up to the second-floor bathroom and find two stalls with closed doors, but no feet in either one. This is such a stupid idea. There’s no way Paige Harrington would be in here. That would mean she’s a little like me, and we all know she’s not.

  I turn to go, but then I hear a faint sniffle from one of the stalls. With my luck it’s a rat with a cold who heard about me from the pigeons.

  There’s another sniffle. “Hello?” I call.

  Two feet suddenly appear at the bottom of the stall. They’re wearing really cute shoes.

  “Paige, is that you? It’s me, Lacey. Are you all right?”

  The cute shoes don’t move. And Paige says, “Yes, I’m all right. Now, leave me alone.”

  “But I think I know how you feel!”

  “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  Wow! If Paige talked to Katarina like that, she’d get zapped with boils and oozing sores.

  I give it another try. “Paige? Do you need some Kleenex?”

  The stall door slams open and Paige stomps out of the bathroom and out of sight. It’s going to be really hard to be her fairy godmother.

  At the end of school, Sunny waits for me by my locker. “Okay, so today’s the big day,” she says.

  My head is full of fairy godmothers, and Paige, and angry animals. Whatever Sunny’s talking about has been erased from my mind, so I stall: “Yeah, the big day.”

  “And you don’t think they’re going to make my eyes look too small?”

  I think I remember what she’s talking about. “A lot of kids get glasses. Their eyes look fine.”

  Maybe I was wrong about the glasses, because Sunny seems hurt and mad all at the same time. She says, “You forgot. I can’t believe you forgot.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did, too. You completely forgot that today’s the day we’re going to the mall, and I’m getting bangs.”

  Bangs. Right. Sunny has been talking about them for six months. And I promised to go with her to the salon to make sure they don’t butcher her. But I’ve got wand lessons as soon as I get home!

  So I have to tell Sunny a big lie, and it’s the first time I’ve told her a big lie since we’ve been best friends, and that’s forever. Sure, I’ve told her little lies, the kind friends are supposed to tell. Like saying her new braces are almost invisible. Or that a C+ in English is practically a B. But I’ve never told a lie that matters. I say, “I’m really sorry, but my mom is sick, and I’m supposed to go right home and help with Madison.”

  Sunny doesn’t suspect anything, she just looks worried. “I’ll come keep you company! We can do the bangs tomorrow.”

  I know I’ve got wand lessons all weekend and won’t have time for Sunny. So I do the math in my head and say, “My mom’s got the seventy-two-hour flu! She doesn’t want anyone but the family in the house. We’re practically quarantined.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’d better go without me. And don’t worry, the people at the salon are professionals. Bangs are their job.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Trust me, you’ll be fine!”

  If Sunny had my problems, she wouldn’t be worrying about hair.

  “Color new! Pea turn blue!” Katarina chants.

  “That’s not much of a spell, is it?” I say. We’re in the kitchen, staring at a single frozen pea that I took from the freezer. Katarina stands on my shoulder, and I can’t help noticing that her wings don’t seem to be healing very well. If anything, they look even more droopy and sad than yesterday.

  Katarina says, “You have to learn the basics. Transformation spells are the key to being a good fairy godmother.”

  “So why don’t I do something harder? Cinderella’s godmother turned a pumpkin into a coach. Let me turn the pea into a moped, or even just a tricycle. Madison would like that.”

  “No. Turn the pea blue. That’s enough.”

  “This is stupid.”

  “Do it!”

  I raise the little wand and aim it at the pea: “Color new! Pea turn blue!” And the pea explodes with a little popping sound, PLURP! I have to wipe a speck of green pea goo off my face.

  Katarina gives me an “I told you so” look. “That pea could have been Paige’s head. That’s why you have to learn the basics.”

  Paige is not my favorite person, but I don’t want to make her explode. So, for the next hour, I say “Color new, pea turn blue” again and again and zap pea after pea.

  PLURP! PLURP! PLURP! Every single one of them blows up until it looks like World War Pea in here. The counter, the floor, and I all get coated in pea innards.

  Katarina somehow manages to stay spotless while she watches one of those daytime talk shows where people toss chairs at each other. After every PLURP, she just says, “Again!” in a bored little voice. She’s not even looking at me.

  And I try so many times that my wrist gets sore and every muscle in my body tenses up.

  “For Pete’s sake! Just toss it!” For a moment, I think Katarina’s talking to the people on the TV. (Two women are very mad at their boyfriends.)

  But no, she’s looking at me. “Toss it. Think about what you want the wand to do, and then imagine using it to toss the spell where you want it to go.”

  Why didn’t she tell me that fifty peas ago? Besides, if the wand did what I was really thinking right now, Katarina would be in big trouble.

  She says, “I thought you were one in a million. Obviously, I was wrong. You’re not even one in one.”

  I’ll admit it, that stings a little. I look at the pea, think blue thoughts, and toss the spell.

  For the first time all afternoon, the pea doesn’t explode, but turns a beautiful shade of sky blue. “Katarina! I did it!”

  Katarina doesn’t even look away from the TV. “Finally. Now, blue up another hundred peas.”

  “But I know how to do the spell!”

  “Tell that to Paige when her head blows up.”

  This is a good point, so I count off peas as I zap them blue. By number sixty-seven, I’m so bored I can barely keep my eyes open. By number ninety-two, I think I actually do fall asleep for a second, just as I’m tossing the spell. My hand wiggles a tiny bit, so I miss the pea and accidentally aim at the shiny metal toaster on the counter next to it. An instant later, my face turns warm and tingly. I pat it. It feels normal enough.

  Then I get a glimpse of myself in the toaster: just like the peas, my face is a beautiful shade of sky blue. I shout “KATARINA!” and she looks over at me, not a bit surprised. “Did I not mention that you have to be extra careful around shiny objects?”

  “No!”

  “I thought I did. You need to be extra careful around shiny objects. Spells can bounce!”

  “Now you tell me! I’m BLUE!” I rub my face, hoping the color will rub off. If anything, it just gets bluer.

  Then, like things aren’t bad enough, a car door slams in the driveway. I look out and see Mom and Madison getting out of the car. I’m blue, and the kitchen still looks like World War Pea.

  I grab paper towels and wipe pea slime off the counter, the refrigerator, the floor, and the ceiling fan. I’ve never worked this fast in my life. As I stuff the last paper towel in the garbage can, I think, I did it! Except, I forgot one thing.

  Mom comes through the door. “Lacey! Why are you blue?”

  And Madison says, “Pretty! I want to be blue, too!”

  Mom waits for my answer, more curious than worried. (She’s a very calm mom.)

  Katarina peers out from behind the TV, covering her mouth with her hand and trying not to laugh.

  Thinking hard, I finally tell Mom, “I’m trying out for the school play. There’s a part for a bluebird.”

  To my surprise, Mom buys this. “Great, honey. That sounds fun.” But when she squints at me, I’m worried that she’s figured out it’s not makeup, it’s magic. Then she breaks into a big grin. “And at the restaurant tonight yo
u can push the blueberry pie! Maybe we’ll even put you out front with a sign!”

  Katarina GUFFAWS. I have to cough to cover up the sound.

  At a couple of minutes to midnight, Katarina and I sit in my bedroom staring at the clock and waiting for the blue spell to wear off. While the seconds tick by, I ask Katarina a question that’s been bothering me: “Why doesn’t everyone have a fairy godmother?”

  “Why doesn’t everyone win the lottery?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “And so am I. There are millions of needy girls out there, and only a few fairy godmothers. We do the very best we can, but you have a better chance of being simultaneously hit by lightning and run over by a bus than of getting a fairy godmother.”

  “So, Paige was the big winner. Typical.”

  “Yep, until you ruined it for her.”

  I look at my blue face in the mirror. “Are you positive it’s going to wear off?”

  She’s crawled into the jewelry box, pulling her battered wings around her like blankets. “Maybe not. Why do you think Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy is blue?”

  I’m horrified. “Because she bounced a spell off a toaster?”

  Katarina rolls her eyes. I wish she’d stop doing that. “I’m joking! For one thing, they didn’t have toasters in nineteenth-century Italy. For another, I know the Blue Fairy. She’s not blue like the color, she’s blue like she’s clinically depressed. A very sad girl.”

  Katarina suddenly goes goggle-eyed with shock: “Jiminy Cricket! Look at your face!”

  I whip around to the mirror. The sky blue has gone from my face, and it’s pink again. I look back at Katarina and see her smirking. “Dimwit,” she says. And then she shuts the jewelry box lid.

  Saturday morning, my eyes pop open, and I look at the clock. It’s 5:00 a.m.—why am I awake? I close my eyes again, and then Katarina pulls up my left eyelid and peers in. When you’re still almost asleep, it’s very disturbing to have a cranky little woman looking into your eyeball from half an inch away.