Me, My Elf & I (21 page)

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “I didn’t tell anybody.”

Slowly she puts a stack of pancakes onto a plate. “It’s not that,” she says, and hands me the plate.

“I’m sure a lot of moms do that,” I tell her. “And we deserved it.”

Mom snaps out of her dark mood and smiles gently at me. “That was a bad day.”

I nod as I smother my pancakes in real maple syrup. “Do you need me after breakfast?”

“No,” says Mom. “Just be back for lunch, okay?”

“Thanks.” I wolf down the pancakes in five big bites then wash my plate and take off.

I’m halfway down the trail that leads to the road to Ironweed when Briar catches up to me.

“Hey Zeph!” She calls. “Wait up!” She grabs my arm to slow me down.

“Go back,” I tell her.

“Why?” she asks. “Where are you going?”

The trees rustle above us, sending a chill across my face. “Ironweed. Now go back.”

Briar shrinks back into the shadows. “You can’t go there by yourself.”

I look at her with the same annoyed look I’m sure Mercedes has given me a thousand times when she thought I was being dumb. “Of course I can,” I say. “I live in New York now. I know how to handle erdlers.”

“I’m coming with you.” Briar steps onto the path beside me.

“Look, I just need to find a computer.”

“Are you going to get in touch with Timber?” she asks, her eyes wide.

“Yes,” I admit. “I have to. I could barely sleep last night. It’s killing me not to know what’s happening there.”

“Let me come, too. Please?”

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“If you don’t let me come, I’ll tell your mom and dad what you’re doing,” Briar threatens. “You know they’ll come get you.”

I sigh. “Fine. You can come.”

 

Ironweed used to seem so big and scary to me. But now, after living in Brooklyn for a while, I laugh when we step onto Main Street.

“What?” Briar whispers in my ear. She tucks her hand in mine and I know she’s nervous.

“It’s so small and ugly,” I say as I look out over one stoplight, four stores, seven houses, one grocery shop, a gas station, and at the far end of town the public library. “Come on.” I pull her down the sidewalk.

At first, no one is out, probably because hardly anyone actually lives here, but then an older woman comes out of the grocery store. She looks hard at us, staring, letting us know that she doesn’t like us in her town. Usually we drop our eyes, look away, and hurry on, but this time, I stare straight back at her. I have every right to be here if I want. She looks away, muttering, but I don’t care. I keep right on walking. Nothing is going to stop me from checking my e-mail.

The inside of the library smells musty. “I used to think this building was so huge,” I whisper to Briar, who huddles close by my side. Now I see that it’s small and run down. Yellow paint is chipping off the walls, the carpet has stains, and the windows are dirty. The librarian, an old woman with big glasses and a baggy gray sweater, glances up. Her mouth tightens into a frown before she looks down again, ignoring us. I walk right up to her desk and announce, “We’d like to use the computers.”

She pushes the sign-up sheet toward me. Which is silly because no one else is here, but I know the rules. I’ve gotten burned before because I didn’t sign in and then an erdler kid came in and wanted to use the computer so I got kicked off. I write my name, then give the dull pencil to Briar to sign up, too. She shakes her head, scared. “I’ll show you something you’ll like,” I tell her, and I put the pencil in her hand.

Briar and I sit next to each other. I open the Web browser on her computer first, then I pull up YouTube. “You can watch videos on here,” I tell her. As I scroll down through the featured videos I see Ari’s face staring out at me from a little box. My heart sinks. I miss him and still feel awful about what happened, but I can’t watch him right now because it’ll make me too sad. Instead, I click on a video of two puppies romping around with a tennis ball.

Briar cracks up. “They’re so cute!” she says as she watches the clumsy adorable dogs.

“See this box?” I point to the search box with the cursor. “You can type in ‘puppies’ or whatever you want and watch a bunch of different videos.”

“Wow!” she says, her eyes wide, and I know she’ll be engrossed in the videos while I check my e-mail.

I log on to the BAPAHS Web site. My stomach immediately tightens when I see the picture of the school with those big green doors. I glance at the clock on the bottom of my computer screen. It’s almost ten o’clock on Tuesday so I’d be in algebra right now. I wonder if anyone noticed that I’m gone? Will I be able to make up the work when we go back to Brooklyn? I’ll be so far behind! If we hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave, I would have brought my books with me. Then I’d have an excuse to come here every day to e-mail my teachers for my assignments and I could also e-mail Timber, or Ari or Mercedes, if they’ll ever talk to me again. I glance over at Briar. She’s having a great time watching a video of kittens batting around a ball of yarn. I take the plunge and open my e-mail account.

I gasp. I have fifty-six new messages! But when I look carefully, I see that most of them are forwards from the other day. I can’t bear to look at that horrible message again so I delete all the forwards and see what’s left. Only four. One from the site administrator reprimanding everyone for all the forwarding and another from Ms. Sanchez saying that she’s available if I need to talk to her about anything. The third one is a reminder about the ELPH audition next week. My heart sinks again. Even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it at first, now that the opportunity is slipping away, I realize how much I was looking forward to it. Not just because it was a chance to beat Bella, but because it was my first chance to perform in Brooklyn and figure out if I was good at something other than an elfin festival performance. The last e-mail is from Rienna the fairy girl.

I have to read it a few times to understand what she means but finally it dawns on me that Timber and Bella broke up! I pop out of my seat, then quickly sit back down.

“What’s wrong?” Briar leans over and whispers.

“Look at this.” I point to Rienna’s message.

Briar reads the message then looks at me confused. That must be how I look most of the time in Brooklyn. Now I see why Mercedes and Ari get so annoyed with me. I don’t have time to explain everything to Briar.

“I have to find out if they really broke up,” I whisper. “But how?” I mutter half to myself and half to Briar. “Who can I e-mail? Could I e-mail Rienna back? She did say that I suck. Maybe she doesn’t want to hear from me. Maybe I could e-mail Jilly, the fairy queen. But wouldn’t it look weird to ask her if Bella and Timber broke up?”

“I don’t really understand this whole e-mail thing,” says Briar. “But, if they did break up and he wanted you to know, then he’d e-mail you, right?”

I slump back in my chair. “You’re right.”

“Why would this Rienna girl be happy that this poor Bella girl is sad?”

“First of all,” I tell her, “Rienna has a crush on Timber so she’s happy that he’s free now. And second of all, there’s nothing poor about Bella. She’s the meanest one of all. ‘Bella from Hella’ is right!” Then I sit up straight. “Oh my God. I wonder if Rienna is BellaHater?”

“Huh?” says Briar.

“Never mind,” I say. “I just figured out what to do.” I’m about to type in the BellaHater blog address when I get a new message in my in-box. It’s from Timber! I let out a little shriek.

“Quiet down!” the librarian snaps at me. “Or you’ll have to leave.”

Briar and I slump down, giggling. “Timber must be online right now,” I whisper to her and point to the screen.

“Open it! Open it!” she yell-whispers back to me.

I click on the message.

Since I can’t IM on this stupid old computer, I start typing furiously, trying to get an e-mail message to him as quickly as possible.

I hit send, then wait for a minute until this e-mail comes back:

We continue our slow electronic conversation. I imagine him in the school computer lab, looking really cute slouched behind a screen.

Briar and I hold hands and grin at each other. “What should I say?” I ask her.

“Ask him if they broke up,” she says.

“I can’t just ask him that!”

“Why not?”

“Erdlers aren’t like that.”

“But you’re not an erdler,” Briar says.

“But he doesn’t know that,” I tell her. “I have to be more, you know, subtle. Not so honest.”

“Why wouldn’t you be honest?” she asks.

“I don’t have time to explain,” I say impatiently as I start typing again.

“I have to get this message to him before he logs off.”

I send it and we wait. And wait. And wait for so long that I’m sure I missed him. I’m about to cry when finally another message from him pops up. We both squeal, then cover our mouths so the librarian won’t kick us out.

“What!” I hiss. “What’s he mean nothing much is going on?”

“He probably thinks you left before all this stuff started happening,” Briar says.

I look at her, amazed. “You think just like an erdler.”

“Thanks,” she says, smiling.

“But what should I do?”

“You should ask him,” she says, poking my arm.

“I can’t,” I whine.

“Either he likes you or he doesn’t, Zephyr. Don’t you want to know?” Briar asks.

“No!” My stomach is gurgly and I’m starting to sweat. “It’s not that simple. Maybe he’s starting to like me, or he thinks he likes me but he’s not sure yet. I mean he did just break up with Bella.”

“Then we have to help him decide whether to like you or not,” she tells me.

“But how?”

“Move over.” Briar pushes me out of the way.

“Don’t ask him!” I whisper.

“I know what I’m doing!” She pecks at the keyboard while I chew on my fingernails.

I’m amazed at my cousin. She’s already picking up the abbreviations and she sounds more like an erdler than I do. We wait for his reply.

Briar’s fingers fly across the keys as she types in “Did u break up?”

“No!” I whisper and grab her arm, but she hits send anyway. I cover my face with my hands. “I can’t look. I can’t look,” I moan quietly.

“There’s his reply,” she says after a few seconds. I still don’t look, until I hear her gasp. Then of course, I peek through my fingers.

Briar and I grab each other’s hands and scream.

“That’s it!” The librarian marches toward us. “This is a quiet, respectable public library. Not a place for you little derelicts to come and make a ruckus.”

I know she’s going to kick us out so as quick as I can I type, “Gotta go. Getting kicked out. More later . . .” I hit send right before the librarian pulls the plug.

“You two get out of here,” she snarls at us. “And don’t come back, you hear? I don’t want to see you again!”

Briar and I run down the steps of the library, cracking up. “Did you see her face?” Briar says. “She was so mad. She looked like a snapping turtle!”

I’m laughing so hard I nearly fall over. I have to stop walking and lean against a light pole to catch my breath. “Do you think he got my last message?” I ask her between gasps for air.

“I think it went through. Don’t worry. But what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and suddenly the whole thing doesn’t seem so funny. “Did that librarian say we can’t come back?” I ask.

“Yeah,” says Briar. “We got banned!” She laughs.

“Oh no!” I moan. “How will I get in touch with him again?”

Briar gasps. “Oh dear. I didn’t think of that.”

Just then a car drives by. “Go back to the woods!” some jerky guy yells out the window.

“You don’t own this street!” I yell back. The car slows down and does a U-turn at the end of the dusty road.

Briar grabs my arm and pulls. “Come on!”

But I’m mad. “I’m not going to let these dumb erdlers tell me what to do anymore,” I tell her. “We have every right to be here,” I yell over my shoulder as Briar drags me down the sidewalk.

“Stop!” she begs. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

The car speeds up and now I am furious at the erdlers telling me I can’t be here. Banning me from the only computer in a hundred-mile radius. I’m not just some little meek elf anymore. I spin around and face the oncoming car. Quick as I can I zap them with a little hex to seal their doors for a few minutes so no one can get out of the car and a farting spell just to make them miserable. Then I grab Briar’s hand and yank her between two buildings. We run as fast as we can down an alleyway, through someone’s backyard, and duck into the woods. We don’t stop running until we get back to Alverland.

chapter 11

JUST WHEN I
think I can’t take it anymore—when I think I’ll die if I’m in Alverland another minute beyond the three days we’ve been here already, I overhear my parents arguing in our kitchen. I pause behind the door and eavesdrop, which I know is wrong, but I can’t help it.