The Fairytale Curse (Magic's Return Book 1) (20 page)

“But I’d like to go,” she said, “and it wouldn’t be as much fun without you.”

“You won’t even notice I’m not there,” I said. I really couldn’t see why she was making such a big deal about it. “You’ve known everyone else for years, and you’ve only known me for a few days. If I hadn’t come you’d still have gone and had a fabulous time.”

She tipped her head to one side and stared at me with those big brown eyes, like a little lost puppy.

“I would have gone,” she agreed. “I’ve been working on my parents all year for this. You know what they’re like about parties, and mixing with people they think aren’t a good influence—which basically means everyone who’s not Indian. It’s only because there’ll be teachers there that they’d even consider it. But as for having a fabulous time—you know before you came most of my friends were guys, right?”

“Yeah?” I couldn’t quite see where she was going with this, but I let go my deathgrip on the pillow and sat up. She fiddled with the end of her long plait, not meeting my eyes as she spoke.

“Yeah. The cool girls think I’m weird because I like things like robotics and Star Trek, and the uncool girls are mainly Asian, with even stricter parents than mine, and tutoring up the wazoo after school, so they’ve got no time for friends. You know I used to be best friends with Julie Lee in primary school? Now she goes to Mandarin school all day Saturdays and has tutoring every afternoon. Even at school she’s always in the library at lunchtimes studying. What’s the point of a friend if you never get to just hang out together?” She turned those huge puppy-dog eyes on me. “Zac and the other guys are great, but it’s nice to have a friend who’s a girl. As much as I like geek stuff, there’s more to life than that, but guys don’t get that. And I don’t want to spend the whole Year 12 formal talking robotics and watching other people dance and have fun.”

Wow. That was quite a speech.

“So I guess you’d hit me if I said I’d rather talk robotics than dance?” Actually I’d rather stay home and out of trouble than do either, but my new friend had just turned out to be the queen of the guilt trip. And if CJ was going whatever I said, then I probably had to go too to keep an eye on her.

“You bet.” She smiled, a little uncertain. I hadn’t realised how important this was to her. “So you’ll talk to your mum?”

“Okay,” I lied. Mum was just as stubborn as CJ. There was no way she would change her mind. We’d just have to work around it somehow. I had a bad feeling I was going to regret this.

“Fantastic!” She threw her arms around me and squealed in my ear. Then she bounced up off the bed, dark eyes sparking with excitement again. “Let’s have a look at your wardrobe then.”

She threw open the doors and frowned. There were a lot of jeans and shirts hanging there, and only a handful of dresses. Her hand went straight to a sapphire-blue maxi dress that was probably the pick of the bunch. The fabric was nice and slinky, and a row of fake gemstones decorated the neckline. She held it up, glancing from me to it appraisingly.

“Could work.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit casual?”

She laid it on the bed and went back to the wardrobe. “What else have you got here? What’s this?”

It was a short black dress I’d worn to my cousin’s twenty-first a couple of years ago.

“I’m not sure I can even get that one done up anymore.”

“Try it on. You can never go wrong with a black dress. We could dress it up with some nice jewellery.”

I struggled into the dress to please her, but it was too tight. Sona managed to get the zipper done up after a heroic struggle, but then I couldn’t breathe.

“Get it off before I pass out,” I gasped.

If I had to be hit with a fairytale curse, why couldn’t it have been Cinderella? I could do with a fairy godmother to provide the perfect ball gown right about now—then I could dance the night away with my handsome prince. I bet Zac would look hot in a suit. I still hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him—there always seemed to be other people around—but I’d done a lot of looking.

“CJ and Ashleigh and all of those girls are wearing short dresses.” I contemplated the blue maxi doubtfully. This was why I liked jeans and T-shirts. It was so much simpler. I’d had enough of people staring at me for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to wow Zac. “I’d feel like an idiot if I was the only one in a long dress. What are you wearing?”

“Mine’s short too. It’s gold. Wait until you see it! My mum wanted me to wear a sari—can you believe that?”

“I bet you’d look great in a sari. Like something out of a Bollywood movie.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t comment, returning to the problem of the blue dress. “Maybe we could shorten it?”

“Maybe.” The length was what I’d liked about it in the first place, the graceful sweep of fabric making me look taller. I tried to picture it shorter.

“Has CJ got something you could borrow? Or your Mum?”

“No and God no. They’re both bloody Amazons. Everything they’ve got is too big for me. I’d look like a little kid playing dress-ups with Mummy’s clothes.”

“Okay. Well, in that case …” She sat down on the bed again and picked up her bulging shopping bag. “I hope you won’t be offended—promise you won’t get mad at me! I brought a couple of dresses with me.”

“Why should I be offended?”

She upended the bag, and two piles of gorgeous satin slithered on to the bedspread. One was a rich chocolate brown, the other a deep emerald green. I was drawn immediately to the green one. Such a beautiful colour. I held it against myself and checked the mirror. It had a ruched bodice, and a shortish skirt with an uneven hemline that swayed around my knees. The colour was amazing against my hair, making the orange glow like fire.

“Wow! Where did you get this?”

“I was bridesmaid for a family friend when I was thirteen.” She gave me an anxious look. “But it doesn’t look kiddie, does it?”

It certainly didn’t. I slipped into the dress, hoping it would fit. “Is that why you thought I’d be offended? Because you wore this when you were a kid?”

She stepped up behind me to do up the zipper and met my eyes in the mirror. “I didn’t know how sensitive you were about … you know … being short.”

I laughed and gestured at our reflections. Sona was nearly a head taller than me. “Look at us! There’s no chance I’d fit into your clothes now. You’re as bad as CJ. Sure, it used to bug me when I was younger, being short, but what can you do? You can get a nose job if you don’t like your nose, or have implants if your boobs are too small, but height? You get what you get, and that’s that. It’s a waste of energy being upset about something you can’t change. We can’t all have legs like supermodels.”

I smoothed the fabric over my hips and turned to admire the back view. It was a lovely dress, even if it had been made for a thirteen-year-old.

“Besides, even the supermodels don’t have legs like supermodels, by the time all their photos have been Photoshopped to death.”

“So you like it?”

“It’s beautiful.” I grinned at her in the mirror. “I feel like a million dollars in it.”

“You don’t think the straps are too babyish? The older bridesmaids had strapless versions, but Mum wouldn’t let me. We could cut the straps off, if you like.”

“You can’t do that!” I was horrified she’d even suggest hacking at her beautiful dress.

She shrugged. “Well, it’s not as if I’m going to wear it again. It doesn’t fit me any more. You may as well keep it.”

“Seriously?” The thought of Zac seeing me in this dress set my heart pounding with excitement. I turned and grabbed her in a bear hug. “Thank you! It’s perfect—and I like the straps.”

I also liked the fact that she hadn’t mentioned she’d grown out of it in more than just height. Her cup size was easily two or even three sizes bigger than mine. Which made thirteen-year-old Sona’s dress just about a perfect fit for seventeen-year-old me. Oh, well. At least the ruching made me look like I had
something
up top.

I twirled in front of the mirror, watching the skirt flare out around me. Now I was excited about going to the formal. Grounded? Who cared?

“Why don’t you take that collar thing off and try it with a nice necklace?”

I met Sona’s eyes in the mirror. “I—I can’t.” My stupid face started turning red as I scrambled for an excuse. “It’s a … bet. With CJ. Whoever takes it off first loses.”

“But surely you won’t wear it to the formal?”

I shrugged. “I will if she will.”

Sona shook her head. “You guys are crazy. But I guess I knew that already.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know—the frogs and diamonds stunt at school. How did you do that? It sure looked like you were spitting those frogs out. You didn’t really put them in your mouth, did you?”

“Of course not. It was probably just the camera angle.”

“But what was the point of it?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed like a bit of fun, you know?” God, this was awful. I hated lying to her. She stood there nodding, her big brown eyes trusting. How could I call myself her friend when every word out of my mouth was a lie? “We never expected to get so much publicity.”

“Where’d you get the frogs?”

“There’s a whole bunch in our backyard. You can come and see them, if you’re that interested.”

I changed back into my regular clothes and hung the beautiful dress in the wardrobe. We went downstairs and I took Sona out the back past the paved outdoor dining area to the garden where the fishpond was. It was after seven, but there was still plenty of daylight, and I didn’t expect to have any trouble finding the usual gaggle of bug-eyed little critters scattered around the pond and hiding in among the surrounding maidenhair.

But there were only two little guys enjoying the last of the sunlight on the rocks at the edge of the pond.

“There they are,” I said, frowning. “There’s usually more of them, though.”

I hunted around under the maidenhair, carefully pushing fronds aside, in search of their buddies.

“They’re so cute!” said Sona. “They looked bigger on the video.”

She sat on the edge of the raised garden bed and stared at the two little frogs, who stared back without blinking. A cockatoo screeched overhead, and I looked up to watch a flock of them pass. Had they been eating my little frogs? No, I had a feeling they were seed-eaters. Kookaburras ate meat, though. Or were the frogs just dissolving back into the aether, the way Dad said the diamonds would? The earliest ones had been around for five days now, so it was possible. I certainly wasn’t sorry to see the last of those horrible toads. I’d have to ask CJ if she still had all her original gems.

Sona looked at her watch. “I guess I’d better head off. Mum said to be home by 7:30 for dinner.”

“My Dad’ll be at the airport now, getting ready to take off.” A crow hopped down from the back fence and started pecking in the grass for something. “He’s going to Paris.”

“Lucky him! Still, at least we’ve got the formal.”

“I’d rather see Paris,” I said.

“Yeah, me too. We should go together when we finish school.”

“That’d be fun! Better than schoolies on the Gold Coast.” The annual booze-fest in Queensland was the pinnacle of the year for many Year 12s. In fact, I bet that’s where the caveman and his mates were headed as soon as they finished their exams. I could hardly think of anything I’d rather do less. Paris sounded way better. “We’d have to save up like crazy. Do you think your parents would let you do something like that?”

“Probably not,” she admitted cheerfully. “We might have to leave it a year or two—but that gives us more time to save up, right?”

“Right.”

We headed for the door. Sona squealed and ducked as something black flashed past her head. We turned in time to see the crow taking off from the fishpond, something small and green dangling from its beak.

“Get away from there!” I stamped and waved my hands, but it was too late. The crow landed in the lower branches of our neighbour’s big gum tree and tipped its head back. The little green legs disappeared. “Bastard.”

“Oh, the poor little thing!” Sona ran back to the pond. “Where’s the other one gone?”

“Hiding somewhere if he knows what’s good for him.” I glared at the crow. Knowing the little frogs weren’t truly real didn’t make it any easier to watch one get eaten alive. I hoped the stupid bird got magical indigestion. “Bloody bird. I hate crows.”

The crow stared back, its beady eye cold and unblinking.

Simon and Kyle were both on deck again next morning, with no mention of our disgrace yesterday. Maybe they didn’t know. I felt sure Simon would have said something snarky if he did. His mood certainly hadn’t improved any. Was he always this bad, or was it concern for Kerrie making him so dour? CJ was convinced there was a doomed romance there. I would have asked Gretel, except she seemed to fancy him too, so that might not be the most tactful move.

Maybe it was just all the fairytale attacks getting him down.

“How’s Warder Nabukov?” I asked. On the radio this morning they’d started calling him Shrek, even though he wasn’t green—and his situation wasn’t a joke.

“No change,” said Kyle.

They accompanied us to the senior study and took up their posts outside while we went in. Despite the name, there was rarely any studying done here. It was more of a common room where the senior years could hang out.

CJ and Ashleigh dumped their bags in a corner and started a conversation about hairstyles. The formal and the after party the next night was all anyone could talk about lately. I drifted away, wondering where Sona had disappeared to. I was sick of hearing about the formal.

“I’m
so
sorry about the limo,” Ashleigh was saying to CJ, “but we booked it weeks ago, and it will only take the ten of us. If only you’d been here we could have got a bigger one.”

“That’s okay,” CJ said. “I’m going with Josh in his limo.”

“Really?” Ashleigh’s eyes narrowed. “I thought that was just for Year 12s?”

“Well, I
am
his girlfriend.”

“Whatever.” Ashleigh shrugged and the conversation moved on. I watched her closely for a moment.
Be careful, CJ
. That superior tone didn’t seem to sit too well with the other girl. Ashleigh had seemed pretty keen on Josh herself, come to think of it. I remembered the way she’d said his name, that day on the bus, as if it was something so delicious she wanted to eat it. Maybe the green-eyed monster was rearing its ugly head.