"I'm your social worker. Jennifer Ishii."
"Hi," I said, thinking,
My social worker?
Then I remembered. A million years ago, when my mother, Sarafina, had gone mad and been sent to Kalder Park and I'd been sent to live with my grandmother, Esmeralda, they'd said a social worker would be along to check on me once a fortnight. They'd said lots of other things too. I'd been in such a daze I hadn't heard half of it. Yet it hadn't been a million years ago: it had been twelve days.
Two weeks ago I hadn't had a friend in the world; now I had Tom, Jay-Tee, and, back in New York City, Danny. Two weeks ago I hadn't been pregnant. Or known I was a magic-wielder.
"Did you forget I was coming today?"
"Er…" I didn't think Esmeralda had told me the exact day the social worker was supposed to visit.
"Can I come in?"
"Oh," I said. Tom came and stood behind me. Jennifer Ishii took a step into Esmeralda's house and offered her hand to Tom.
"And you are?"
"Tom. I'm Tom Yarbro."
"And you were in the same fight as Reason and Jay-Tee?" She leaned forward, peering at his cheek.
Tom looked confused. "Oh, you mean this?" He touched the bandage that covered the long scratch that had come courtesy of my grandfather, Jason Blake.
"She's my social worker," I whispered to him, which was silly, because she was right there.
Way back when, before I'd known about magic, all I'd wanted to do was escape my grandmother and rescue my mother. Back then, I'd planned on persuading the social worker that I was being mistreated, so they'd move me away from Esmeralda. And here I was with an incriminating bruise on my face. All I had to say was,
She belted me! She belts us all!
and Jennifer Ishii would snatch me out of there faster than a croc taking its prey. But I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay in Esmeralda's house. I still didn't trust her. Not entirely. But I felt safe there, with my friends and out of my grandfather's clutches.
"Social worker? Huh," Tom said.
"That's right. It's my job to report on Reason's well-being. How things are going, whether she's well looked after. Is she being fed? You certainly don't seem malnourished, Reason. How's your accommodation?" She looked around. "Seems quite fabulous to me."
"You don't look like a social worker," Tom said. "Shouldn't you be wearing a suit or something?"
Jennifer Ishii laughed again. "We're supposed to look presentable. I don't like suits and I find that most of my clients don't either."
"Clients?" Jay-Tee asked.
She shrugged. "That's what we call the people I check on. So how about these injuries you all have?"
"We were just…" I trailed off.
"Messing around," Jay-Tee finished.
"Reason fell in the cellar," Tom said at the same time.
I nodded. "I tripped."
"In the cellar?"
"Uh-huh."
"You were all mucking around in the cellar?"
"Oh, no," said Jay-Tee. "Not Tom and me. We were wrestling and it got a bit out of control. I won, though, 'cause Tom was cut, but I just got bruised."
"No way. You
so
didn't win! My cut's tiny! That bruise is huge. Practically your whole face. You can't call— "
"I see," Jennifer Ishii said, with a smaller smile. "Do you want to show me your bedroom, Reason? Give me a tour of the house? Or do you want to sit down first and have a chat? I think we need to chat, don't you?"
I blinked. Saw the faint light of Jay-Tee, the brighter one of Tom, and the nothing of Jennifer Ishii. She wasn't magic. Like Danny, she was entirely magic-free. No running out of magic for her. No dying young for Ms Ishii. "I guess. We were just finishing breakfast."
I led her into the kitchen and pulled up a stool at the table. She sat down, looking out the windows at the backyard and the huge Moreton Bay fig that, for some reason, Tom and Esmeralda called Filomena.
"Great kitchen. Nice backyard. Do you climb that tree?"
I nodded and then wondered if I shouldn't have. Was climbing trees a bad thing? Would it get Esmeralda in trouble? "I mean, only a little bit. Carefully."
"Do you want something to eat, Mrs Ishii?" Jay-Tee asked, saving me.
"Just call me Jennifer."
"Jennifer," Jay-Tee said, obediently. "There's fruit. Though some of it's kind of weird." She slid the fruit bowl even closer to the social worker.
"Or something to drink?" I asked.
"That would be lovely. Is that orange juice?"
Jay-Tee jumped up, got a glass, and poured her some.
"Thank you," she said, taking a sip. "So you both live here too?" she asked Jay-Tee and Tom.
Jay-Tee nodded. Tom shook his head.
"She's a friend," I blurted. "From America."
"I live next door," Tom said at the same time.
Jennifer Ishii smiled. "That's interesting. I didn't realise you'd ever been to America, Reason. How did you two meet?"
"Her parents are friends of Esmeralda's," I said, quickly, hoping she wouldn't ask to see Jay-Tee's passport or anything. I didn't think Jay-Tee had a passport. Or if she did, it was probably back in New York City, on the other side of the door.
"Do you always call your grandmother by her first name?"
I nodded, blinking again, and found myself surprised once more by Jennifer Ishii's total absence of magic. With my eyes closed, it was like she wasn't there. I dreaded the moment when Jay-Tee would disappear like that.
"We all call her that," Jay-Tee said. "I think she wants to seem younger or something." Jay-Tee held her hands out palms up as if to say,
I dunno
. "At first I thought it was an Australian thing. Reason never calls her mom 'Mom.' But then Tom does. Well, 'Mum' anyways. My parents said I could come visit. Seeing as how Esmeralda's never looked after a teenager before."
"Your parents thought it would be easier for her to look after two?" Jennifer Ishii didn't raise her eyebrow or change her tone, but she was definitely teasing Jay-Tee. I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"I think Mom and Dad were anxious and wanted Reason to have company."
"And how long will you be staying?"
"Dunno."
"How long have you been here?"
"Not long. Just a week or so. I really like it. Back home it's freezing right now. Plus we don't have flying foxes. I really like flying foxes."
"And where is home?"
"New York City."
"That must be wonderful. I've always wanted to visit."
Jay-Tee shrugged. "Yeah, it's pretty cool. Great…" She trailed off. I wondered what she'd been going to say.
"Great what, Jay-Tee?"
"Pizza. The pizza in New York's much better than the pizza here. The pizza here has all this weird stuff on it. And it's way too thin. There's even pizza without cheese. It's not pizza unless it has cheese on it."
"How do you get along with Reason's grandmother?"
"I really like her," Jay-Tee said. "It's much more fun living with her than with my parents."
Jay-Tee lied so effortlessly. Her parents were dead. Her mother had died not long after she was born, and her father she'd just found out about. She'd run away from him, hadn't lived with him for at least a year. Neither of her parents had known Esmeralda. I turned away from Jay-Tee before my next blink. I didn't want to see her smudge of magic again.
Jennifer Ishii sipped at her orange juice. "And what do you think of Esmeralda, Reason?"
"She's okay," I said cautiously. She'd have to know that I'd spent most of my life running away from my grandmother, that I'd begged not to have to live with her. I could barely remember feeling like that. It wasn't as if I trusted Esmeralda now. Not entirely. But there was nowhere I wanted to be other than here in her house. "It's not as bad as I thought."
"Esmeralda's ace," Tom said. "She's been great to me. Been teaching me, er, stuff, and— "
"Stuff?"
"Clothes," Jay-Tee said. "Esmeralda taught Tom how to make clothes. He's really good at it." She pointed at my pants. "See those? Tom made them. He's gotten better than Esmeralda."
Jennifer Ishii looked at my pants. "Wow, they're fab, Tom. You wouldn't want to make me a pair, would you?"
Tom opened his mouth and she laughed. It seemed genuine. "Just kidding. So, where's Esmeralda now?"
"At work," I said.
"Does she work long hours?"
"No," I said, but Tom said, "Yes," at the same time.
"Not really," Jay-Tee said. "Tom's just comparing with his dad. He works at the university."
I saw a smile flicker at the edges of Jennifer Ishii's mouth.
"But he's never there," Jay-Tee continued. "He's home practically all the time."
"It's summer," Tom protested. "Da's on holiday. I mean, he's not teaching, but he's working. He's writing a book."
Jay-Tee rolled her eyes. "How long's he been writing his book, Tom?"
"A while."
"Years and years," Jay-Tee told the social worker.
"So?" Tom said. "It's not like writing a shopping list, you know."
"Esmeralda will be back at lunchtime," I said just to shut them up. "She almost always has lunch with us."
"And brings us home yummy stuff to eat like chocolate— "
"And healthy things too," Jay-Tee interrupted. "You saw all the fruit, right?"
Jennifer Ishii suppressed another smile. "So what have the three of you been doing with yourselves over the holidays?" she asked.
We exchanged glances.
Let's see
, I thought,
I fell in love for the first time, with Jay-Tee's brother, Danny. Had sex for the first time, got pregnant, discovered magic was real, ran away to New York City, though back then I didn't know it was on the other side of Esmeralda's back door. What else? Discovered that my mother lied to me my entire life, met my evil grandfather, Jason Blake, also known as Alexander. Had my long-dead ancestor change me into I-don't-know-what. For all I know, he could be living inside me, turning me into—
"Studying," Jay-Tee said.
"That's commendable. What have you been studying?"
Magic
, I thought.
All about magic.
"Just about everything," Jay-Tee answered. "Well, mostly Reason's been helping me and Tom with math 'cause we're hopeless."
"Speak for yourself," Tom interjected. "My geometry is stellar!"
"And," Jay-Tee continued, ignoring him, "we've been helping her with everything else. Honestly, Ree doesn't know anything about anything."
"Yes, I do!"
"What's a Mormon, Ree?" Tom asked.
I blushed.
Jennifer Ishii grinned. "Ree? Is that your nickname, Reason?"
"Yes," I said, though before I'd met Tom and Jay-Tee no one had ever called me that.
"Do you prefer being called Ree or Reason?"
"They're both fine, I guess." I wasn't sure I wanted anyone but Tom and Jay-Tee to call me Ree. It felt kind of private.
"And when you three aren't studying, what do you do?"
Tom shrugged. "We hang out. I've been showing them around Newtown. They don't know Sydney hardly at all."
Out of nowhere my stomach somersaulted and my mouth filled with bile. I dashed to the downstairs bathroom just off the kitchen. I made it in time— barely— filling the toilet bowl with breakfast. Why was I vomiting? I didn't feel bad or anything.
"Are you okay?" Jennifer Ishii asked from the bathroom door.
I grunted, waiting a moment before looking up just in case there was more.
"Are you sick?" She came and felt my forehead. "You're not hot."
I shook my head.
Just pregnant
, I realised. That's what it had to be. Didn't being pregnant make you chunder?
"She's nervous," I heard Tom say. "She chunders when she's nervous."
I looked up, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "No, I don't." I rose unsteadily and flushed the toilet.
"Here, let me help you." Jennifer Ishii guided me to the sink. "Are you dizzy? Does your stomach hurt? Could it be something you ate?"
I wished she'd go away. I rinsed out my mouth, then washed my face and hands. My eyes stung so I closed them. Magic lights everywhere. I opened them again. "Must've been something I ate. But my stomach doesn't feel so bad now." Which was true. The horrible nauseous feeling had completely vanished. I stood up and wiped my hands on the towel.