A Present From Aunt Agatha

  Chapter 11. On Reflection

  During the week Michael asked Ryan and Andy if they were still keen to go water skiing. Ryan was surprised and pleased that, even though the effect of being super popular had worn off, the other boys still wanted to play with them. They spent most of Saturday attempting to ski as Michael’s father drove the boat. Andy managed it first time out but Ryan took three tries and swallowed a lot of seawater before he was up. On the Sunday, Ryan and Andy joined a group of boys at Aaron’s place for a rowdy game of cricket. After lunch they biked to the river behind Jason’s place, where they spent a happy afternoon jumping into the water from a large overhanging willow tree. Ryan and Andy agreed that the pen would have to wait until the next weekend even though Ryan groaned inwardly at the thought of continuing to be helpful to Tracey.

  The following Saturday Andy arrived at Ryan’s house and they knocked on Tracey’s bedroom door.

  ‘If that’s you, Ryan, you can go away,’ called Tracey. ‘I’ve already said I’m not lending you my CD player.’

  Ryan opened her door cautiously.

  ‘ I don’t want your CD player,’ he said. ‘Well I mean, I would like it but that’s not what I want. Andy would like you to write something for him.’

  ‘I’m doing my homework,’ said Tracey.

  The boys held a whispered consultation.

  ‘She didn’t actually say no,’ Ryan pointed out. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘Ah, please Tracey would you write something for me?’

  Tracey sighed dramatically.

  ‘Oh all right then. Fire it over here and I’ll do it when I’ve finished this essay for Mr Fletcher. It’s a three-page essay based on the Narcissus legend. I ask you, how pointless can you get? Think yourselves lucky you’re only in Year 7.’

  ‘Um, yeah. Bad luck. Look, could you write ‘Andy and Ryan have superpowers’ on this paper for me?’

  Tracey gave him a strange look.

  ‘Part of a game, is it?’ she asked

  ‘Yeah, a game.’ Andy looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Okay, but you’ll have to wait. I’m not doing anything until I’ve finished this page.’ She turned away and scribbled on her exercise book

  ‘Bother. The stupid pen has run out. Lend me your one will you? I only have a couple of lines to go.’

  Tracey plucked the pen from Andy’s hand, as he stood aghast.

  Tracey used the pen to write the last words of her essay;

  turned into a reflection.

  ‘There, done. Now what was it you wanted? Ahh.’

  She ended on a scream, as with a whoosh she suddenly disappeared then appeared again on the spot. Andy and Ryan blinked, unable to believe it.

  ‘Er, Tracey, do you feel any different?’ asked Ryan cautiously.

  ‘I feel fine,’ said Tracey briskly. ‘In fact I feel fantastic and I’m going out.’

  ‘What about doing the writing for us?’ wailed Ryan.

  ‘ I’m far too busy for little boys. I have things to do. A new haircut for a start.’ Tracey pushed her way past them out the door.

  ‘That is so annoying,’ howled Ryan. ‘What a miserable thing to do. Nothing’s happened at all.’

  ‘Um,’ gulped Andy, ‘I think it has. Look over there.’

  Ryan turned where he was pointing.

  ‘It’s Tracey’s mirror, so what?’ he said.

  ‘Look closer,’ said Andy faintly.

  Ryan took a step closer and his eyes widened.

  ‘It’s Tracey,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’ He whirled around. ‘She’s not in the room. Is it some sort of trick?’

  Tracey waved desperately at him from the mirror and pressed her face closely against it.

  ‘I think she’s gone into the mirror,’ said Andy uncertainly. ‘You know when she disappeared then came back, well I think she changed places with her reflection. That’s what she wrote with the pen.’

  ‘ Oh for heaven’s sake,’ said Ryan. He looked at the mirror again and saw Tracey mouthing words at him.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ asked Andy.

  ‘She wants to know how it happened. It’s the pen, Tracey, the one Aunt Agatha gave me for my birthday. It’s magic. Whatever it writes comes true.’

  Tracey clutched at her head and began frantically pointing to her desk where the pen was lying on her exercise book.

  ‘We’ll get you out of there,’ Ryan said soothingly.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ll have to find her reflection and get her to write that they change back again.’ He picked up the pen and scowled. ‘There’s hardly any ink left,’ he complained.

  ‘Put it away safely in your pocket so no one can use it,’ suggested Andy, ‘and come and we’ll find where she’s got to. It’s okay, Tracey,’ he reassured her. ‘We’ll go and get her.’

  Tracey nodded in understanding then sat down sadly on the bed behind her.

  ‘I wonder what it’s like being a reflection?’ Ryan said thoughtfully. ‘Do you suppose she can only go where the mirror shows, in the room I mean, or perhaps she can go off into other completely different places.’

  ‘You mean like Alice?’ asked Andy. ‘My little sister chose that video for her birthday,’ he mumbled, as Ryan looked at him with raised eyebrows, ‘and Mum made me watch it.’

  ‘Suppose so. Anyway she’s not doing anything much. Just sitting on the bed looking hopeless. She’d better hide if Mum comes in. She’d freak out if she saw Tracey’s reflection in the mirror when she wasn’t in the room.’

  ‘Your mum might not see her. She didn’t notice that food that came alive, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, I forgot.’

  ‘Let’s go and find her now. The reflection Tracey I mean, not your mum, and get her to give us superpowers before she changes places again. Otherwise we could ask the real Tracey when we change her back.’

  ‘Hey good idea. Let’s go.’

  The boys rushed out but Tracey’s reflection had made a quick get-away.

  ‘I think Tracey went off to the shops,’ said Mrs Hughes. ‘She didn’t say why.’

  ‘Didn’t she say something about a haircut?’ panted Andy, as he and Ryan ran down the street towards town.

  ‘You’re right’, agreed Ryan. ‘We’ll try there first.’

  Arriving at the Silver Scissors, Ryan and Andy had a brief struggle in the doorway as they attempted to get in as a well-dressed matron was leaving. Gasping apologies the boys rushed into the shop.

  ‘Are you here for a haircut?’ enquired the receptionist.

  ‘Um, no, er, I’m looking for my sister Tracey. Is she here?’

  ‘Oh yes, she’s in cubicle four. No you can’t go in there.’ The smile hardened. ‘No one is allowed to disturb Pierre when he is crafting hair.’

  ‘But we only need to see her for a moment. She has to sign a piece of paper for us,’ protested Ryan.

  ‘She won’t be long. You can wait over there.’

  The receptionist gestured towards a corner at two uninviting vinyl and metal chairs. The boys sat down in disgust.

  ‘This is awful,’ whispered Andy. ‘What if someone we know sees us in a ladies hairdressers.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. No one we know will come in here,’ replied Ryan. ‘We’ll have to make the best of it and wait.’

  ‘Perhaps there’ll be pictures of cars or something in these,’ he added hopefully. He picked up the stack of magazines on the coffee table beside him.

  ‘They’re are all on beauty and stuff and clothes,’ said Andy moodily, flicking through the pile. ‘Listen to this. How to attract a man and keep him. Why on earth would anyone read such rubbish?’

  ‘They’re pretty boring,’ agreed Ryan. ‘Nothing on surfing or cars or anything interesting at all. Pooh, this place is disgusting. It smells of perfume. Hey, here comes Tracey. Oh no! What has she done?’

  Andy looked up and gulped. Tracey swept radiantly up to them. Her once shoulder length brown h
air was now streaked with blue and silver and stuck up in spiky tufts over her head.

  ‘Oh, you’ve come to wait for me. How sweet,’ she cooed. ‘Pay these people for me.’ She flapped a hand at the receptionist, and the smirking young man who was standing behind her, and flounced out of the door.

  Ryan’s attempt to race after her was foiled by a powerful arm across his chest. Pierre was obviously a lot stronger than he looked.

  ‘You heard what the lady said. That will be forty-eight dollars. Pay up.’

  ‘But I haven’t got that much money,’ began Ryan. His protests were in vain. After ten minutes of arguing Pierre condescended to accept nine dollars, which was all the boys had between them, and a promise to pay the rest later in the day. He kept the boys watches as security.

  ‘Make sure you’re back here before four thirty,’ he called as the boys ran out the door.

  ‘Boy, is that reflection of Tracey’s ever going to be in trouble when I catch up with her,’ fumed Ryan as they escaped from the hair salon at last.

  ‘Where do you think she’s gone now?’ ventured Andy.

  ‘Probably to get some ghastly clothes to go with that hair,’ said Ryan bitterly. ‘Mum’s going to go berserk when she sees her.’

  ‘They might not see her at all, if we can get her into the mirror fast enough,’ said Andy comfortingly. ‘Come, on, we’ll go and look for her in all the clothing shops.’

  Tracey had obviously been in the first two shops the boys looked into. Clothes were strewn around in heaps while harassed shopkeepers scurried to hang them up again.

  ‘Third time lucky,’ said Andy encouragingly as they entered the last shop. Tracey was definitely in here. Here voice could be heard from the changing room issuing orders.

  ‘Not that one. Bring me the green one in the same size. And I’ll have the other pair of flares and that pink T-shirt to try on as well.’

  ‘We’re in luck,’ whispered Ryan. ‘It doesn’t sound as if she has bought anything yet. Tracey,’ he called, ‘you have to come home right now. Mum says so,’ he added firmly.

  A blue and silver tousled head emerged from the changing room.

  ‘Go away,’ said Tracey distinctly. ‘I don’t want you here.’

  ‘You have to come home with us now, Tracey,’ said Andy. ‘Your mum is getting really angry.’ He crossed his fingers behind his back as he spoke

  ‘Oh, very well. Just wait until I get dressed.’

  Tracey reappeared clad in white flared trousers and a startling pink sequinned halter-top.

  ‘ I’ll take these,’ she announced. ‘He will pay.’

  She pointed a long finger at Ryan and sailed out the door. Ryan lunged after her but the sales lady was too quick for him. Standing in the doorway in front of him she held out her hand.

  ‘That will be eighty five dollars,’ she said baldly.

  Ryan gulped.

  ‘ I’ve no money,’ he began, then felt Andy poke him in the ribs.

  ‘The pen,’ hissed Andy. ‘Use the pen.’

  ‘What?’ Ryan was bewildered.

  ‘Give her the pen. Tell her to write that we gave her the money,’ Andy insisted.

  ‘Oh!’

  Light dawned. Ryan took out his pen.

  ‘ Please write down the amount for us,’ he said.

  The woman looked at him suspiciously but wrote down $85.00 on a page of her invoice book.

  ‘Now put Paid,’ said Ryan.

  ‘But you haven’t paid,’ argued the saleslady.

  ‘Please, its important. Just write Paid,’ begged Ryan.

  The saleslady looked mystified but humoured him and with a sigh wrote Paid in large letters. Ryan thrust his hand into his pocket and found four crisp $20 dollar notes and a $5 note. He exchanged them for his pen and the boys left the shop in relief.

  ‘Brilliant idea, Andy,’ he congratulated his friend.

  ‘Aw, that’s okay,’ said Andy modestly. ‘It just sort of came to me.’

  ‘Hey, we can do the same thing at the hair salon and get our watches back. I just hope the money stays real and doesn’t turn into something else.’

  The boys ran back to the salon and argued with the receptionist until, in an effort to get rid of them, she agreed to write paid in her book. Ryan found the money in his pocket as she wrote and they happily left with their watches.

  ‘This pen is getting very low in ink,’ worried Ryan. ‘We have to find Tracey’s reflection and get her to write before it gives up completely.’