Frogs & French Kisses #2 (25 page)

17

Blackout

I’m awakened by Miri’s screaming, “No, Tigger, no! Leave Billy alone!” and realize that maybe everything does not always seem better in the morning. I look at my alarm clock, but it’s black. Please don’t tell me that the power is still out.

And then I remember the goat, so I get out of bed to see how our houseguest is doing. I find Billy on the kitchen table, bleating like crazy, Tigger hissing on a neighboring chair, and Miri failing to manage the ménage.

“What time is it?” I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Eight-thirty,” Miri answers.

I groan. “I’m going to be late for school!”

“There is no school,” she says, pulling Tigger’s chair across the room to the sink. “Power is still out.”

She points to the radio next to the sink. I carry it to the kitchen table and turn the volume up. Hmm. Good thing we’re out of lithium batteries and not AAAs.

The voice coming from the radio is loud and crisp. “At 2:09 a.m. eastern time, the entire island of Manhattan was hit by an unexplained blackout. Subways stopped midtunnel, streetlights went out, and electricity consumers are still waiting to have service restored. The cause of the blackout is still unknown. All schools are closed today, and most businesses are expected to remain closed until power is restored, hopefully by tomorrow morning. The bell on Wall Street will not be ringing. . . .”

You’ve got to be kidding. Oh. My. God. “Miri! Are you listening?”

Billy bleats. The cat hisses. I sigh.

Instead of listening, or caring, Miri watches Tigger as he leaps off the chair and onto the countertop, and she scoops him up before he attacks the table. I sink into Tigger’s vacated chair and cradle my suddenly pounding head in my arms.

“What do you think
bleat
means?” Miri asks.

“I think it means ‘I miss my mother,’ ” I say.

“In other news,” the radio announcer continues, “exotic animals have been appearing in unexpected places all across the country. This morning, a dance troupe in Birmingham, Alabama, found a seven-thousand-pound elephant on the stage of the BJCC Arena.”

That’s it. I’ve had enough. “Sit down, Miri.” I must look serious, because she slithers into a chair, holding Tigger tightly on her lap. “Do you realize what you’ve done? By trying to save the circus animals, you caused a citywide blackout. Plus you’ve endangered the animals you tried to save! They just found an elephant in Alabama! There could be a alligator in Maine!”

“An alligator wouldn’t have been born in Maine,” she says, reddening.

“How do you know? Stranger things have happened! My point is, you have to realize that all your spells have consequences. You have to think, and I mean
really
think, about each and every action before you end up ruining everything!”

“B-but I thought the animals were b-born in the wild . . . ,” she stutters.

“I’m sure some of them were, but you didn’t do your research and lots of people—and animals—are going to get hurt.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “I just wanted to help.”

“I know you did, and that’s very honorable. But you’re not helping! You’re making things worse! What do you think is going to happen to that elephant? They’re not going to fit him with tights and ballet slippers and give him the starring role in
The Nutcracker
! He’s going to be tranquilized and could be hurt. Is that what you wanted?”

“No,” she whimpers. Billy bleats.

“Don’t you see? Everything comes with a price. The cows had to go
somewhere,
so they went to the school gym. The oranges had to come from somewhere. The Mercedes had to come from somewhere. Nothing comes from nothing. You’re not making something appear from nothing, Miri. Your magic just moves things from one place to another.”

“Stealing,” she says, and starts crying all over again. “You’re right. Helping just made everything worse. I’m the worst superhero ever!”

Finally, my message is getting through to her. “And I still haven’t figured out what happened to the oil you zapped. I’m hoping it ended up in a gas station or some lucky guy’s backyard. But don’t you see? You’re just like Mom. She’s a magicoholic. You’re a do-goodoholic.”

She nods. “From now on I’ll mind my own business. Keep my nose in my own books.”

Good. Well, not exactly. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Stop trying to make the world a better place,” she says sadly. “I’ll never help anyone again.”

Now she’s just going to extremes. “Miri, you don’t have to stop helping
anyone.
You have to stop helping
everyone.
”

“Huh?”

I walk over to the table and sit on it, facing my sister. “You have to learn that doing a hundred things partially means you’re not doing anything a hundred percent. In the past two months, you’ve tried to feed and clothe the homeless, stop the bushfires in California, fix the ozone layer, and save circus animals, among other things. It’s too much. You need to try to make a difference one issue at a time so you can give each issue your all. Every action has costs, even every nonmagical one. What you have to do to make a real, positive difference is plan. Map out your potential actions so you can figure out what the consequences are ahead of time. That way, you’ll do good, not damage.”

She dries her eyes with the backs of her hands. “That makes sense.”

I pat Billy on the head. “I know. I’m very smart.”

The phone rings and we both jump. I grab it before it wakes my mom. She needs her rest.

“Rachel? Are you okay?”

“Hi, Will. I’m fine. How are you?”

“Not so good. I just called Penthouse Fifty and the prom is officially canceled.”

What now? What else could possibly have gone wrong? Why is this prom so cursed? Why, why, why? “Because of the power?”

“Yup,” he says, sighing.

“But we still have the space, right? Can’t the band sing without a microphone? We could light up the room with candles. It would be really romantic!”

“We could, but the room we rented is on the fiftieth floor. So everyone would have to walk all the way upstairs.”

Oh, right. No elevator. “Don’t they have any rooms on the ground floor?”

“They do, but the other problem is that the doors all have key cards that don’t work without power.” His voice cracks. “I just can’t believe this.”

“But can’t they move the date?” I ask, feeling desperate. “We can have it tomorrow, or next week—”

“Rachel, everyone’s booked. The band and the rentals can’t make it another day and they won’t return the deposits unless it’s tonight. So unless the power comes back on, it’s over.”

Not only have Miri and I caused a major blackout in the metropolitan area, we’ve ruined the prom. Again.

I hang up with a depressed Will and recount the latest news to Miri, Billy, and Tigger.

“We have to wake up Mom,” Miri says.

“No,” I say firmly. “She’s recuperating. We’re not asking for her help. We have to deal with this on our own. Let’s try the spell reversal.”

“But the animals—”

“The
animals
will be better off. If we reverse the go-home spell and the animals return, maybe this whole chain of events will unravel. Billy wouldn’t have run into the subway, you wouldn’t have had to save him, and the power wouldn’t have gone out. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try.”

“Okay.” Miri sighs, and I follow her into her room. “But I need to recharge the crystal in the salt for an hour. And I can’t promise it will work.”

“I know. But let’s give it a go.”

By noon we buy new batteries and transport ourselves back to the convention center. Luckily, the goat is light, and Miri is carrying him in a satchel over her shoulder while I’m on her back wearing the crystal necklace and holding up the umbrella shield.

Bright light!

We pop up behind a police car. Good—no one seems to have seen us. Bad—there is a police car. Four officers and a crowd have surrounded the front door to the convention center.

“Damn animal rights groups,” someone says.

We head back to the side entranceway. “We’re actually going to circle the entire building backward?” I ask in amazement.

“Since the crystal is already enchanted,” she says. “Can you do it? I’m a jinx these days.”

I would, but I know that I’d be doing more harm than good. She has to learn to pay the consequences. I shake my head, and hand her the crystal necklace, and she passes me the goat satchel with a sigh.

“This had better work,” she says. “Billy misses his mommy. Ready?”

“Yup,” I say, and begin leading Miri around the million-square-foot block-long building, reflective shield hiding us from prying eyes.

Twenty minutes and six stumbles later, we’re back at the side entrance. As she takes the final step, we hear an explosion of roars, bleats, and howls from the animals now inside. A little cranky, are we?

A trainer throws open the side door and yells to a nearby policeman, “The animals are back! It must have been some sort of publicity stunt!”

I remove Billy from the bag and set him free toward the door. “Run, little goat, run! Let’s get out of here,” I say as a policeman and onlooker approach the door. We sneak back toward the street, hoping to see working traffic lights. To our disappointment, they’re still not on. So much for the great spell unraveler.

Miri sighs. “Next plan?”

We find a five-broomer light spell, but before we try it on the city, we test it on the apartment. Our curtains catch on fire.

My mom is now awake in her room, chatting on the phone, oblivious to our role in this catastrophe.

So we listen to the radio, which tells us that they’ve located the problem. Reportedly, a power blockage around Times Square caused a surge, which made the lights go out on the entire island. Who caused the blockage isn’t, of course, on the news. The newscaster also reports that the power is expected to be back up and running by early tomorrow morning. I give Miri a dirty look.

“Great,” I say. “One day too late.”

“Should I try another spell?” Miri asks.

“No,” I say, resigned. “It’s too risky. What if it goes wrong? They say they’ll have it fixed by tomorrow morning, so we’ll have to wait.”

“But your prom is tonight.”

I shrug. “It’s just a prom.” I try to smile.

“I feel awful,” Miri says. “If only you could have it someplace out of the city.”

“Like where? Disneyland?”

“Very funny.” Then she jumps up. “I know! I know! Didn’t you say the theme was Oscar night?”

“Yes. But I doubt we’ll be able to have it in L.A. Unless the entire class is going to climb on your back.”

“What about the drive-in? You know, the one we flew over? It’s only about forty minutes away. They’re not in the city, so they’d have power.”

“How would we even get there? We can’t fly everyone out there on brooms, and the subways aren’t running. It’s not like we know anyone who owns a car, never mind a bus.”

She sighs. “That’s true.”

We hear my mom’s door open and she comes out in a bathrobe. Her roots are back to normal (dark), her nails are back to normal (ragged), and her breasts are back to normal (small and saggy). But she’s smiling. “Morning, girls!”

“You seem happy,” Miri says gloomily.

“I slept very well, thank you. And I just had a very nice conversation with Lex. Remember him? He called to see how we three girls are holding up in the blackout. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

Aw! That
was
sweet of him. “Lex is a really nice guy, Mom. You should definitely go out with him.” Wait a sec. Lex is a tour guide. And a tour guide definitely has bus access. I start jumping up and down and I’m so excited that I can barely talk. “Call him back! Lex! Bus!”

As comprehension dawns on Miri’s face, she starts jumping up and down alongside me.

“We need to get to prom! Upstate! Because of the power failure! Do you think Lex will help us?”

My mom looks confused. “It doesn’t hurt to ask. Um, girls, you didn’t have anything to do with the power problem, did you?”