My Unfair Godmother

  I squinted at the elaborate lettering. Until the terms of thy wishes are met, if thou shalt tell an untruth, in consequence of such an act, a reptile or amphibian shalt grow upon thy tongue until such instance when thou spittith it out. Or if thou art an animal rights activist and considereth such an act to be inhumane to reptiles or amphibians, thou mayest choose instead to have flashing lights above thy head declaring thou art a blasted liar.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “The animal rights option is new this year,” Chrissy said. “The UMA is very progressive.” She waved her hand, showing a set of lavender fingernails. “Personally I’ve always thought telling the truth is overrated. Lies make the world a happier place, but rules are rules. So until I’m done being your fairy godmother, you need to choose. Which will it be—frogs or lights?”

  “Lights,” I said. I couldn’t bear the thought of spitting out a frog.

  She checked a box by the clause, and I skimmed through the next few paragraphs. Between the long sentences and old-fashioned phrasing, I couldn’t make sense of them. “What does the rest of this say?”

  “Telling lies is really the only thing you need to watch out for,” Chrissy said. “The rest basically states that all wishes you make are permanent and binding, their consequences lasting. Also you may suffer certain side effects, such as drowsiness, headaches, lethargy, or an intense desire to eat bugs if, during your magical journey, you’re turned into a frog.” She didn’t even pause for a breath before she went on. “You can’t wish for more wishes or for vague generalities like happiness that are impossible to grant. Your wish has to be something specific enough that I can use my wand to make it happen. Oh, and recently there’s been a ban on inserting yourself into the Twilight series. The Cullens are tired of different teenage girls pinging into their story every time they turn around.”

  Chrissy opened her lavender sequined purse and pulled out a quill. “It’s your standard fairy godmother contract. You make a wish, and I watch over you. Sign where it reads, ‘Damsel in distress.’ ”

  I hesitated. It seemed risky to sign a magical contract I hadn’t read.

  Chrissy glanced at a diamond-studded watch on her wrist. “Now I have four minutes until my job interview.”

  I found the signature line and signed my name. Chrissy was my fairy godmother. She wouldn’t ask me to sign something that could hurt me.

  Chrissy took hold of the end of the scroll, yanked it downward, and the whole thing rolled up like a window shade. It must have shrunk back down to its original size, because as she put one end into her purse, it disappeared. “All right then, on to the first wish. What will make you happy?”

  The way she phrased the question made me stop and think. I had been about to wish for a huge bank account—enough money to not only keep the library open but to name it in my honor. Would that make me happy though? It wouldn’t change being an outcast at school on Monday morning. It wouldn’t change my father’s disappointment in me. I’m not sure what money would change, except instead of moving in with Grandma, I could stay here and live with people who thought of me as a snitch or a criminal.

  For a moment I considered wishing for Kendall’s play to close so she, Mom, and I could go back to living in New York. But I couldn’t bring myself to take away my sister’s dream.

  I sat down on my bed. “I’m not sure …”

  Chrissy glanced at her watch again. “Wealth is always a popular wish.”

  I picked at my pillowcase dejectedly. “Money won’t buy me friends.”

  “If you wish for enough, it will,” Chrissy said brightly. “People like to say they can’t be bought, but they really can.”

  It sounded sort of horrifying when she put it like that. I didn’t want friends who were only interested in me because I was rich.

  I shook my head.

  “Revenge, then? You can wish to change city hall and the police station into toadstools.”

  I laughed at the image that presented. I could see Officer Frisk-meister, a half-eaten doughnut in one hand, staring with a baffled expression at what used to be the police station. Better yet, I could see Mr. Handsome Undercover Cop trying to figure out who’d stolen the building.

  Unfortunately, if I zapped away the police station and city hall, it would mean the mayor would have to take money from somewhere else to rebuild the buildings. Maybe they would close more programs.

  “I could change a few police officers into ravens,” Chrissy chimed. “Then they could be jailbirds.”

  Clover looked at the ceiling. “As if the world doesn’t have enough birds with enormous egos.”

  Chrissy waved a dismissive hand at him, but I didn’t want to hurt anybody. And with that realization, thoughts of revenge fizzled in my mind. So how did I fix things? “The problem is we have a mayor who doesn’t care what we want. How do we fight the system?” As I looked around my room, my eyes rested on my bookshelf. I had a copy of The Adventures of Robin Hood sitting there, nestled among a few other novels Dad had put in my room. He had given me that one because it had been a favorite of mine when I was little. I had always loved the way Robin Hood stood up to the Sheriff of Nottingham to help the oppressed people.

  I was only thinking out loud, trying to figure out a solution to my unhappiness. I spoke so quietly that Chrissy shouldn’t have been able to hear it. “I wish Robin Hood were around today. He would know what to do.”

  “Good choice,” Chrissy said. “He’s totally hot.” She swept her wand in my direction and a flurry of sparkles surrounded me, hundreds of tiny lights zinging everywhere.

  “Wait!” I sputtered.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she called, her voice sounding far away. “I wouldn’t let you meet him looking like that. I’ll throw in a free makeover.”

  When the light cleared, she and Clover were gone. And there in my bedroom stood a dozen scraggly-looking men.

  Chapter 4

  For a moment, I just stared at the men. They wore tunics and leggings, with bows and arrows slung over their shoulders. A couple were older, with gray in their hair and beards, but most were young with muscled arms and tanned faces. I guess I had never considered what a bunch of men who lived in the forest and never showered would smell like, but in the confines of my bedroom, the smell of sweat, dirt, and unwashed clothes hit me with nose-curling strength. I tried to breathe through my mouth.

  The men looked around my room, drawing swords and knives, then turned to me with fierce expressions.

  “Chrissy!” I hissed, both panicked and elated—panicked because a dozen scary men were brandishing weapons, and elated because—talk about superstar sightings—Robin Hood and his Merry Men were in my bedroom.

  Chrissy didn’t come back.

  “What devilry is this?” one of the men demanded.

  “This has the look of magic to it,” another said.

  Actually my room had the look of the JCPenney teen department. Sandra decorated it before I moved in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you here,” I said, gulping. “There’s been a mistake.”

  A young man with shoulder-length blond hair, a pointed green cap, and a dark green tunic stepped toward me, sizing me up. His features were sharp and flawlessly handsome. His eyes were startlingly blue in his tanned face. Chrissy hadn’t been exaggerating when she said Robin Hood was hot.

  His gaze ran over me, and he raised an eyebrow. I glanced at my reflection in my closet mirror to see what he was looking at. I wore a velvet green dress that swept around my ankles. My hair was pulled up into a bun with loose ringlets. No sign of tears or mascara streaks remained on my face. In fact, I wore bright red lipstick and smoky green eye shadow. This apparently was Chrissy’s idea of a makeover. I looked like I was about to go to the prom.

  “Who are you?” Robin Hood asked, his voice cautious. “Why have you brought us hither?”

  “I didn’t mean to.” I lifted my hands up to show them I didn’t have a weapon. “It was an accident. I’m trying to get her to c
ome back and fix it.” I glanced around the corners of my ceiling, hoping Chrissy might be floating around up there. “Chrissy, this isn’t what I meant!”

  Robin Hood sheathed his sword and folded his arms, but the other men kept their swords and knives drawn, which made them seem more menacing than merry. A burly man with a thick brown beard stepped forward. He stood at least six and a half feet tall, towering over everyone else. Little John, I guessed. “Who be this Chrissy you call for?”

  I took a step back from him. He didn’t seem to have any concept of personal space. Or hygiene. “Chrysanthemum Everstar. She’s my fairy godmother.”

  This caused a round of grumbling from the Merry Men. “I knew it was magic,” one of them growled, and then spat on my carpet.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re inside my bedroom. Don’t do that.”

  Robin Hood fixed me with a look. “And why, pray tell, did your fairy godmother bring us to your bedchamber?”

  “Well, you see, I had a run-in with the police tonight.” When I didn’t see any recognition on Robin Hood’s face, I added, “The police work for the sheriff.”

  “The sheriff!” another man snarled, and spat on my floor.

  I could see it sitting there all gooey and gross. I turned to Robin Hood. “Would you please make your men stop spitting on my carpet?”

  “What dost thou mean by a run-in?” Robin Hood asked.

  I ignored the spit soaking into my carpet. I would clean it up later. “Basically, it’s where they hauled me into their headquarters and threatened me.” And then, because I really wanted someone to understand what I’d been through, I told them about the whole ordeal with Bo and the officer who tricked me.

  Robin Hood and his men listened intently, and when I’d finished, Robin Hood nodded. “I see.”

  “Then while I was talking to my fairy godmother about it, I sort of wished that Robin Hood was around.”

  “To give the sheriff bigger game to pursue?”

  “No,” I said, blinking. “I wouldn’t have wished you into the twenty-first century for that.”

  Little John’s jaw dropped open. “The twenty-first century?”

  I shrugged apologetically. “It’s where I live.”

  The men turned their attention from me to my bedroom, examining it more closely. One used his sword to push the comforter off my bed, checking to see if it was hiding anything. Several others picked knickknacks off my dresser. They flipped through books, poked at my iPod, opened my drawers. Friar Tuck lifted a necklace out of my jewelry box.

  “If you don’t mind,” I said, shutting my underwear drawer and standing in front of it, “this is my personal stuff. I don’t want anyone touching it.”

  Little John pushed back my curtains and eyed the houses on the street with interest. “Robin, cast your eyes at those buildings. And behold the torches that light the road. They stand as tall as trees!”

  Robin Hood strode over to the window while I tried to keep the Merry Men from tossing things they found uninteresting onto the floor. I was able to rescue my cell phone. My box full of nail polish wasn’t as lucky.

  A man the others referred to as Will—I assumed Will Scarlet—took a book from my shelf, opened it, then held it upside down and shook it. His dark hair hung in greasy strands around his shoulders and his beard ended in a sharp point. “What odd, useless things you have in the future.”

  I snatched the novel from his hand before he could drop it. “It’s a book, and that’s not how you treat it.”

  This is what happens when you’re raised by a librarian. Even though I had refused to read books for years, I still couldn’t stand to see one ruined. I reshelved it with a forceful thud. “Chrissy,” I hissed toward the ceiling. “We really need to talk.” My giddy-fan feelings for Robin Hood were fading fast. These men didn’t belong here, and they had to go back before my dad or Sandra discovered them here.

  A car passed by our house, and Robin Hood and Little John simultaneously gasped.

  Little John leaned into the window until his nose touched the glass. “What strange manner of beast was that? Lights streamed from its face.”

  “A car,” I said. “They’re one of the twenty-first century’s very useful things. They’re faster than horses and easier to take care of.”

  Robin Hood put one hand on the glass and peered farther down the street. “Are they friendly?”

  “They’re not alive. They’re machines, like …” but I couldn’t think what machines they had back in the Middle Ages. “They’re tools. When you turn the key, they start up so you can drive them down the street.”

  Friar Tuck had finished going through my jewelry box and stuffed several rings and necklaces into the pockets of his robe. None of them were expensive, but still. “Hey, stop that,” I said walking over to him. “You can’t take those.”

  He smiled a nearly toothless grin. “I’m simply admiring them.”

  “Well, admire them in my jewelry box, not in your pockets.”

  Another of the Merry Men had thrown open my closet and pulled out shirts. “Behold the finery,” he called to the others. “Her wardrobe puts the king’s to shame.” And then he looked at me accusingly, as though I had been hoarding shirts.

  “Everyone has a lot of clothes now,” I said, and went to take the hangers from his hand. “I’m not one of the rich, if that’s what you’re thinking. Far from it.”

  Robin Hood still scanned the street. “Wench,” he called to me, “how can I procure one of these cars?”

  Wench? “My name is Tansy,” I said. “And will you please tell your men to stop pawing through my stuff?”

  Robin Hood glanced lazily around the room. He let out a bird whistle and the men grudgingly turned their attention to him. I winced. If Dad and Sandra heard weird noises coming from my room, they would come in. How was I going to explain the presence of a dozen smelly men dressed in ratty clothes and wielding swords?

  “Unhand the wench’s things,” Robin Hood said. “I want to go forth and discover what the world has become. Who is with me?”

  The men let out a shout of agreement, still clutching shirts, knickknacks, and scented candles.

  “Shhh,” I called to them. “My dad and stepmother are down the hallway.”

  “How many men at arms be at your castle?” Little John asked.

  I vaguely remembered from my reading days that men at arms were soldiers.

  “This is a small house,” I told him. “Only my family lives here.”

  Will Scarlet took hold of my doorknob and opened the door a few inches. I nearly threw myself against it. “You can’t go out there. Someone will see you.”

  Robin Hood gestured out the window to the neighbors’ homes. “And the other buildings nearby, are they small houses as well?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Mostly.”

  Robin Hood and Little John exchanged a look and grinned. Robin Hood, unlike so many of his men, had straight, beautiful teeth. Still, his smile made me uneasy.

  I stepped away from the door and held my hands out to Robin Hood, pleading. “Look, you need to stay put until I can get hold of my fairy godmother. She had a job interview to go to, which is probably why she’s not answering me, but that can’t take long. Then we’ll get this straightened out and she’ll send you back to your home. In the meantime, you need to be quiet.”

  I had barely finished speaking when I heard Nick at the door. He knocked then said, “Dad says to turn off your iPod and go to sleep.”

  I didn’t have my iPod on. “Okay,” I called back.

  I hoped he would go away, but he opened the door instead. “What are you listening to anyway? It sounds like—”

  He stared at the occupants of the room with wide-eyed surprise and then took in my long dress and hair. His voice dropped to an indignant grumble. “You’re having a costume party in your bedroom? Aren’t you in enough trouble already?”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes in dis
gust. “Whatever. It’s your life. Who am I to stop you from wrecking it?”

  He shut the door harder than he needed to.

  I turned back to Robin Hood. “That was my stepbrother, Nick.”

  “He bore no weapons,” Robin Hood said.

  “People around here don’t carry weapons. It’s illegal, and it’s not polite either. Which reminds me, could you ask the Merry Men to sheath their swords?”

  “The who?” Robin Hood asked.

  “Your Merry Men,” I repeated. “That’s what history calls them.”

  Robin Hood chuckled at his men. “Did you hear that? History knows us, and thinks we are merry.”

  “We’ve been called a far sight worse,” Friar Tuck said. He was standing by my jewelry box again.

  Another man snorted. “I’d be merrier if I had a spot to eat.”

  “I can get you food,” I said, then wondered what to serve them. In the movies, the Merry Men always ate fire-roasted rabbits and stuff like that. I would find something. “It will take me a few minutes,” I told Robin Hood. “Can you control your men until I get back?”

  “Of course,” he said, like it was a ridiculous question.

  As I put my hand on the doorknob, Robin Hood took hold of my elbow. “One question before you go. What does history say of me?”

  With his blue eyes staring down at me, and his hand touching my elbow, I felt like a giddy fan again. “You’re a hero. You robbed from the rich to give to the poor.”

  “Ahh.” He nodded, processing this. “History has been kind.”

  “I’ve got a book about you. You can have it if you want.” I went to my shelf and took down The Adventures of Robin Hood. “My father read this to me when I was a little girl.” I put the novel in his hands and felt myself blush. “I’ve admired you for a long time.”

  One of the men laughed and in a low voice said, “As have many women.”

  I hadn’t meant it like that, but there was no explaining that now. Besides, Robin Hood had smiled when I said I admired him. He flipped open the book, first looking at the pictures, then the text.