2 Deja Blue (10 page)

The ride home from Traverse City was short
,
and even though i
t was the most bizarre trip I had
ever had, I was kind of sad to get out of the car and leave Nick. He made me smile. And he made me feel all jittery…but in a good way. After our hugs and
a
quick kiss (his parents were watching!) I headed into the house to call Jeremy. He was going to flip out when he heard what I had to tell him. Plus, he’d kill me himself if I didn’t spill all the details about this crazy trip the second I got home. It was just after noon, so he should be
awake
. I always
slept in much later than Jeremy;
but
,
since we had to check out of the hotel and drive back this morning
,
I had to roll myself out of my couch-bed thing
y
pretty early this morning. 

I
walked through the front door, and cringed slightly as my eardrums suddenly felt like they were about to explode.
My mother was
blaring
her music, singing (screaming) along to the soundtrack from
“Wicked.”
(Oh goodie, yet another
Wizard of Oz
thing
for her to be obsessed with.)
  She had
seen the musical
“Wicked”
at the beginning of the summer
,
and now she’s added it to her repertoire. She must have had the volume set to “Make My Ears Bleed” level. It was even louder than I usually listen to my music. The walls were literally vibrating.
“
Maaaa
!
Hey,
Maaa
!”
I screamed
,
as I
kicked off my Converse, and
wandered through the house. I walked into the kitchen to see my mom wearing tho
se bright, yellow rubber gloves and
leaning over the suds-filled sink, surrounded by pots and pans.

It stunk.
“
Uggghhh
!”
I gagged. “What the hell is that smell?!” I shouted as I covered my nose with my hand.

My mother smiled but then got a stern look on her face. “Welcome home and watch your mouth young lady, or you’ll be
eating this soap,” my mother gestured to the sink. “I’m polishing all of the copper pots. You have to let the polish sit for a while. So
,
how was Traverse?” She continued scrubbing vigorously and humming along to the song, “
Popular
.
”

“It was great!” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. After all, it was fabulous spending all that time with Nick. Other than getting
Fairy
superpowers,
having
a
Troll
trying to kill me, nearly drowning
,
and meeting a
Mermaid
, it was a pretty good time. I shook my head and had to chuckle at the absurdity of it all. “
Where’s
Dad and Leo?” I asked.

“Where do you
think?” My mother looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Fishing.”
We both said at the same time and laughed. My dad and brother loved that stupid sport. I don’t even know how it can be considered a sport. You just sit there holding a stick. Oh. Sorry, a pole. That’s not very…sports-like. I hoped they wouldn’t catch much. I hate eating fish. I hate eating fish more than I hate eating coffee-flavored anything.
Fish sucks.

“I’m
gonna
go call Jeremy,” I shouted to my mother as I walked towards the stairs leading to my bedroom. My mother nodded and
began
screaming along to the music
once again
. I lugged my duffle bag upstairs and threw it into the corner of my room. Just as I was turning around to use the phone in the other room (I didn’t have a phone in my room
,
and my parents have
,
so
far
,
refused to grant my wish of owning a cell phone)
,
I heard the familiar soda-pop fizz sound of fairies appearing. Anya and Brennan emerged from the swirling mist.  You see, fairies can appear and disappear in their human form wherever and whenever they want. I can always hear them coming though. It sounds like
that fizzy
-
foamy sound you hear bursting t
hrough a soda-pop bottle after you shake it up and unscrew the cap. 
It’s accompanied by a kind of transluc
ent swirling mist that swirls
up in a whirlwind from the ground. I’ve always been able to sense them coming, even before
Sirrush
bit me. Part of my “
Fairy
sight” I guess.

“Hey you guys!” I exclaimed. The joy of seeing my
Fairy
friends was evident on my face. I was also flooded with the sensation of relief and comfort. Perhaps it was their calming spell that was somehow made stronger when I was near them, or the fact that I was more connected to Fey now. But whatever the reason, I felt safer and happier when they were close by. 

“I told you I’d talk to you as soon as you were home, didn’t I?” Brennan smiled. Then I suddenly held my hands up to halt them, “Wait! Don’t talk about anything yet!”

Brennan’s brows furrowed together
,
and Anya looked puzzled.

“If Jeremy misses out on this conversation, he is going to have the biggest hissy fit known to man,” I explained. “Just hang on a sec and
lemme
get his butt over here, ‘
kay
?” They both nodded in
understanding.  I used Anya’s cell phone to call Jeremy and then traipsed downstairs to the kitchen to scrounge around for some food.
Anya and Brennan had said they had already eaten, so I only had to grab something for myself.
I carried my bowl of cereal back up to my room where Anya and Brennan were hanging out. B
efore I could finish
my
bowl of c
ocoa
cereal
, Jeremy was boundi
ng up the stairs two at a time. He was shouting, “Ruby
Bluuuue
! Where are
youuuuu
???”
Leapin
g through the door like a super
hero, he yelled, “Okay! I’m here! Let the
f
airy
tales commence!” He threw his arm up over his head like he was a knight drawing a sword or something. Brennan chuckled, Anya giggled
,
and I rolled my eyes.

“
G
eesh
Jer
, you made it here in record time! How fast did you drive?” I laughed.

“Did 83.
My Ma’s old Buick
LeSabre’s
still got some pep in it!” He plopped down on my bed next to me, while Brennan sprawled out on the bean bag chair in the corner
of my room,
and Anya perched daintily on the footboard of my bed.

“And
,
who says ‘pep’ anyway?” I teased, playfully bumping his shoulder with mine.

“I do. Pep is a good word.
Pep.
Peppy.
Pepperpot
.
Pepsi.
Peanut Butter….
oooooh
!”
He clapped his hands together, smiling, “Let’s go get Peanut Buster Parfaits at DQ when we’re done here!” 

“I can always eat ice cream,” I said as I shoveled the last spoonful of
Cocoa Puffs
into my mouth.

“Yeah, and anything else in front of your face,” Brennan joked. I shot him a dirty look and stuck out my tongue.

“Oh, you two!”
Anya scolded as she shook her head. She was smiling though, so I knew she wasn’t really irritated.

“Okay, on with the
fairy
tale!” Jeremy prodded. I rolled my eyes at the use of his term.

“
Whhhhattt
?” he said, batting his eyelashes with an innocent look on his face. “It
is a tale, and it does involve F
airies…right?”

“Yeah, and it’s a tale that also involves
tails
.
As in
Mermaid
tails
.”
I quipped back.

Jeremy clicked his tongue as his mouth dropped open in shock. “Tell me everything.
Now.”
He smacked the palm of his hand down on my thigh. (A bit harder than he intended to, I think.)

“
Owww
!”
I whined as I rubbed the spot he smacked.

“Stop being a girl. You’re
sooo
not
a girl. Just tell me already!” Jeremy’s patience was wearing thin.

I let out a big sigh and scooted back to sit more comfortably on my bed, “Okay. Here goes…”

I told the tale of my weekend
adventure
and watched as Jeremy’s expression changed from surprise, to shock, to worry, to shock again. Brennan only interrupted one time, and that was when I got to the part about the tingling sensations I kept getting. I hadn’t really had the chance to tell them about that. Anya gave him a warning look
;
and
,
with my F
airy telepathy, I heard her tell him to
back
the hell down and shut his pie-hole
so I could finish. (Well, she
actually
said it nicer than that.
I’m paraphrasing.
) When I finished my story, Brennan exploded.

“What the hell!?
Really?
You couldn’t have mentioned the tingling-thing just a little sooner? If you would have told us about that, we could have told you that th
e
‘tingly’ sensation was like a warning bell…it was alerting you to the danger nearby. We could’ve avoided the whole n
ear-death-drowning incident al
together!” Brennan almost shouted.

“Chill!”
I said, tryi
ng to calm him down, slight
ly annoyed at his
angry
outburst.  “First of all, I didn’t think anything of it when it happened…Plus, it
happened
at the same time I sprouted my magical swimming powers. And it’s not like I had
time
to mention it later. I was
kinda
too busy getting boulders dropped on my ass, remember?” I gave him my
best smart-
ass look. Why was he so pissed at me anyway? I was the one who almost got killed!

“Yeah, and sucking face with Pretty Boy,” Brennan retorted.

Anger boiled in my blood.
It’s not like I left out telling them about the tingling sensation on purpose! I was about to
say more
when Anya broke in, holding up her hands. “Enough! We know it was
Grobel
, and we know that Ruby is developing her
Fairy
sensitivities. She’s still learning
,
and we can’t expect her to always know the right questions to ask, Brennan. There’s no use in hashing
it out again. Now that Jeremy’s up to speed, we need to tell you what we’ve learned Ruby, okay?”

I nodded, calming down a bit. Leave it to Anya to put things in perspective for everyone. She knew just how to cool off a hot situation.

Apparently, so did Jeremy. Just
then he said, “Let’s do this over some
ice cream
. I’ll drive.” I nodded again, realizing that a giant
,
chocolatey
ice cream
conco
ction
was just what I needed.

Chapter 12

We sat outside huddled around the picnic table, eating our ice cream while Anya and Brennan filled us in on what they had learned over the last 24 hours.

“Okay,
here’s the scoop,” Brennan said,
waving his spoon,
winking at Jeremy who laughed at his lame-ass joke. “Good
one!” Jeremy pointed his finger
at him and raised his eyebrows flirtatiously. I rolled my eyes.
He looked like
some cheesy game-show host flirting with the hot supermodel contestant.  Even though Jeremy had a boyfriend, and knew that Brennan didn’t roll that way, he flirted with him al
l the time. Brennan was like a god in Jeremy’s eyes, e
specially since he found out
that B
r
ennan
was a
Fairy
Prince. I mean, really? Could it be any more cliché? Gay kid has crush on Fairy Prince Not-So-Charming. Ugh. I irritatingly shoveled another spoonful of my chocolate creamy goodness into my mouth.
“
Jushh
geh
on
nnithit
!”
I mumbled with my mouth full of ice cream.