Polly Diamond and the Magic Spell

  I think about what I just wrote.

  Dad interrupts my thinking. His voice is loud as he makes another call.

  “Hi, Lori?” he says. “It’s time!”

  My heart floats like a balloon. Lori Arbul is Mom’s best friend. They’ve been best friends for a thousand years. She is also my teacher.

  Ms. Hairball is coming over! The baby is coming!

  And I am invisible!!!

  FOUR

  The Best Things About Ms. Hairball

  · Ms. Hairball is a published author. We have copies of her two books in our classroom. One book is called Flat Earth Theory. It’s about a girl who is certain the world is flat. It’s really funny.

  · Ms. Hairball has a voice that is sweet and soft, like marshmallows. I could listen to her all day. I could eat marshmallows all day, too.

  · Ms. Hairball is small and round, like an apple. Even her hair is red.

  · Ms. Hairball loves cats, photographs, and traveling—she sends cool postcards to us from all over the world. And she loves turquoise!

  I could go on forever, but Dad calls out, “Polly, Shaylene is coming first. Lori will get here as soon as she can.”

  My balloon heart pops. Shaylene? Blerk. Shaylene is Ms. Hairball’s niece. She’s fourteen. She thinks she’s a model. She is the worst babysitter ever. But she babysits us all the time because my parents love her. So does every grown-up in Utopia. (That’s the town where I live. Utopia means perfect place, which it is, if you mean PERFECT-ly ordinary.)

  Dad hunts for his keys. Like me, Dad is always looking for his stuff. I spot the keys on the counter. I pick them up, and they look as though they are floating. I jangle them.

  Dad doesn’t even notice that the keys are floating. He must really be focused on Mom and the new baby!

  Shaylene comes in the front door. Today her hair is blue.

  “Hel-looo-oooo,” she calls. Even her voice is annoying. “You must be sooooooo excited, Mr. Diamond.”

  I drop Dad’s keys into his pocket.

  “Oh, there they are,” he says, a bit confused. “Polly?

  Where are you? I have to go. Okay. I love you, Amazing Anna.” He grabs Anna and squeezes her tight. “Love you, too, Dolly P, wherever you are!” he yells. He rushes out the door wearing his gorilla slippers!

  As soon as he’s gone, Shaylene says, “Okay, kidlets, let’s hope I’m not stuck here all day.”

  An Endless List of Annoying Things About Shaylene

  · She calls us kidlets.

  · She changes her hair color every week. Which is cool. But then she talks about her hair all the time.

  · She’s always looking at her phone. Or talking on her phone. Or taking selfies.

  · She tells me often that when I was a baby, I had stinky poopy diapers.

  “Play with me!” Anna orders Shaylene.

  “Go play with Polly,” Shaylene says. “Where is she?”

  “I’m here!”

  Anna jerks her head in my direction.

  “Don’t be scared,” I whisper in her ear. “I’m just invisible.”

  “Where are you, Polly?” Shaylene calls out.

  “She’s invisible,” Anna says. For a three-and-a-half-year-old, she’s much smarter than Shaylene.

  Shaylene turns to Anna. “I see,” she says.

  I giggle because Shaylene doesn’t see at all!

  Then I hear a splashy-sploshy noise. Like water. And a flippy-floppy noise. Like a fish.

  It’s coming from my bedroom.

  I race upstairs and push open my bedroom door. Then I slam it shut behind me!

  My bedroom walls look WET. They shimmer. But there is not a drip anywhere. And REAL fish swim along the walls. Seaweed sways by the windows. Coral glows in the corners. The room looks like an aquarium.

  I spread out my arms. I spin around. Fish flash past. Big ones. Tiny ones. Yellow ones. Purple ones.

  A crab scuttles along the baseboard.

  I open my book and write:

  You turned my room into a real aquarium!

  Do you like it?

  I love it! What else can you do?

  Anything you can imagine. You just have to write it down.

  Ideas fizz into my head like bubbles in soda pop.

  · Heaps of chocolate

  · A cell phone

  · A bigger house

  · My own bedroom

  · More books

  · A flat-screen TV

  · A four-poster bed

  · A waterslide

  · A horse

  · A dragon

  · To go to the moon

  · Or Mars.

  · Or Hogwarts.

  Yikes! This list could get really long! Then in my head, Mom says: Tell me something kind you did today. Hmm. I think. I think a little more. Then I write: I wish for world peace.

  I fill up with happiness at how kind and thoughtful I am.

  Polly?

  I imagine a world with no war. Everyone would smile all the time. And, of course, everyone would be very grateful to me, Polly Diamond. I imagine getting a big award.

  Polly?

  What?

  I can’t make world peace happen.

  The image of me shaking the president’s hand bursts.

  I start to write: How about a—

  But the door swings open. Anna stomps in. “Polly! Where are you?”

  “Don’t you remember the rule?” I say.

  “No.” She scampers around my room like an excited puppy. “Pretty fishies.”

  “You have to knock before you come in.”

  “It’s my room, too. You have to share!” She reaches for a yellow fish.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I say.

  She snatches the yellow fish. FROM THE WALL. It flops out of her hand, like a bar of soap in the bath. The fish lies, gasping on the floor. Its mouth pops open and shut.

  “Look what you’ve done!” I run over and pick up the fish. It shoots from my hand toward the watery wall. It swims into the shimmering blue.

  Anna reaches for a striped fish.

  “Stop it, Anna!”

  “No,” she says. “I’m a mermaid.”

  “You’re not a mermaid. But I’ll turn you into a— into a—a banana if you’re not careful.” I grab my book.

  She dives for a fish. It darts away. Quickly, I write: Anna is a banana.

  There’s a POP! And then lying on the floor is a banana. A perfect, yellow banana.

  FIVE

  My sister is a banana! That’s bananas!

  “Kidlets, where are you?” Shaylene yells from downstairs.

  I pick up the banana. In my invisible hand, it— she?—looks as though it (she?) is hovering in the air. I carry it and my book downstairs.

  Shaylene is busy texting. I wave Anna the Banana in front of her. Shaylene is going to freak out when she sees a hovering banana! She will think there is a ghost in the house!

  She flicks at her phone’s screen. She is amazingly unobservant. (I love how adding un- to the front of a word gives it the opposite meaning.)

  I put the banana on the kitchen counter. I pick up Anna’s toy T. rex. I roar.

  Shaylene starts to look up. Then her phone blasts its annoying ringtone: it’s her own voice saying pickuppickuppickuppickup.

  “I have to babysit. BOOOORRRRINGGG,” she says into her phone.

  I make the T. rex roar again.

  She keeps chatting.

  I put the T. rex down and stick my invisible tongue out at Shaylene.

  Mom sometimes says: Always know when to quit. Dad normally replies: Never give up!

  Shaylene snorts into her phone.

  I shake my head at her. Sadly. Even sorrowFULLY! (I like how adding the word fully to the end of a word makes it even bigger. Bigger, bigger, bigger.) Suddenly, I remember how much I want a bigger house! I open my magic book. I write:

  My Perfect House

  My house is perfectly palatial. (Two P words!) It has a lot of r
ooms so Anna and I don’t have to share anymore. (Although now that she’s a banana, she doesn’t take up much space.) One room has a dance studio with tutus, beanbags, pom-poms, and rhythm sticks (for Anna). Or maybe not. Bananas can’t dance! There is a game room with board games, card games, and video games. One room is for crafts, with paper, stencils, stickers, pipe cleaners, glitter glue, and paints. A swimming pool is filled with floating toys!

  There is a spiral staircase. And there are birds on the wallpaper along the stairs (for Mom—she loves birds).

  There are loads of books (for all of us).

  My room has a bed fit for a queen. There is a waterslide (for me).

  Oh, and the roll of carpet in the hallway is—I think for a second. What do people do with carpet? Stick it? Fix it? I write:

  —fixed up.

  That’s about right. Anyway, my book will know what I mean. I’m about to write more. But the house begins to tremble. It’s like an earthquake.

  My glasses fall off. The floor beneath me shakes harder. I fall to my knees. I feel like I’m in a blender. Shake, shake, shake. I can’t open my mouth to yell. Not that anyone could hear me over the rumbling.

  There is a ripping sound. Like a giant pair of jeans is being torn apart.

  Then the house stops shaking. And everything is very quiet.

  SIX

  I fumble for my glasses. The whole house is completely changed!

  The hallway is the longest I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I can spot the end of it, even when I squint. There are hundreds of doors. Thousands of doors. Maybe a million doors. Stacked along the walls are a gazillion boxes. They are like large toy blocks scattered by a giant baby.

  The roll of carpet is stuck to the ceiling!

  I write: Double, triple awesome! But why is the carpet on the ceiling?

  You wrote, The roll of carpet in the hallway is fixed up.

  But I didn’t mean . . . never mind! It doesn’t matter! I can’t wait to see what’s inside all the boxes!

  I open a box. It’s jam-packed full of books. I open another one. Same thing. More books. I open five or six more boxes. Each box is full of books.

  Fantabulous!

  I turn to the squillions of doors.

  I imagine I’m an explorer. I can see the news headline:

  INTREPID AND DARING EXPLORER

  POLLY DIAMOND,

  DISCOVERER OF UNMAPPED

  OCEANS AND UNKNOWN ISLANDS

  Today Polly Diamond, the bravest explorer ever, will explore what is behind each of the squillion doors.

  I push a door, but it’s stuck. I shove harder. It opens a crack. Bottles tumble out.

  I go to the next door. And the next. There are three libraries jammed with even more books. I pause at a dance studio, which is loaded with tutus and pink shoes. I shut that door. I do NOT like ballet. Or pink. Another room is stuffed full of art supplies.

  I push open door after door. And door after door. After door.

  Then I see a SWIMMING POOL. It is so full of rubber ducks and inner tubes and inflatable dolphins that it would be impossible to swim in it!

  I find a spiral staircase and slide down the banister from fantastic floor to fabulous floor.

  Along the stairs the wallpaper has bird pictures. But the birds move. They twitter and tweet. They fluff their wings. Finally, I open a turquoise door.

  It’s my bedroom! The fish are still swimming along the walls. But now in the middle is a round twelve-poster bed. It looks like a crown. I leap onto the bed. OUCH! It’s very hard! As hard and as pretty as a crown.

  And there is a waterslide! I climb to the top. I whiz down. But it doesn’t get me wet. I go up and down ten times. Twenty.

  There is a huge flat-screen TV on my wall. I stop sliding and flick through the channels. I flip open my book and write: Thank you—I love the new house. It’s perfect!

  I am glad you like it!

  Actually, you know what? There are a couple of extra things we could do.

  Really? Like what?

  I tap my pen against my tongue. Ideas float around my head. I could write about a beach in the yard and a chocolate fountain in every room.

  My tummy growls. I’m so hungry, I could eat a cat. (That’s my dad’s way of saying he’s SUPER hungry. Ms. Hairball says this is called hyperbole. This means Dad is exaggerating. Eating a cat would be disgusting.)

  I write: We can work more on the house later. First, can I have a sandwich, please? Not peanut butter. I do NOT like peanut butter! Hmmm . . . Can I have a club sandwich?

  Sure.

  Next to me on the bed pops a very large plate. On it are two slices of buttered bread. Both are stuck to the sides of a wooden bat.

  What is that?

  A club sandwich. It’s what you wrote! A club sandwich. Definition of club: a heavy stick with a thick end.

  I giggle. Mom sometimes says: You get what you get, and you don’t get upset. It’s so rhymey, it must be true.

  I write: Believe me, that’s not a club sandwich. A club sandwich is—

  I got it. My mistake!

  Another plate pops onto my bed. On it is a thin sandwich. I inspect it. Between the slices of bread is a buttery playing card. An ace. The ace of clubs! I start laughing.

  I write: Not that kind of club, either!

  What, then? You mean like a group of people? People on a sandwich?

  Never mind! I’ll go make myself something to eat.

  SEVEN

  A loooong time later, I’m still looking for the kitchen. I’ve opened so many doors that my arm hurts. My tummy grumbles. I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse. An elephant. Two elephants.

  I hear Shaylene calling, “Polly? Anna? Where are you?”

  Shaylene! Anna! I forgot all about them.

  I run toward Shaylene’s voice. It’s faint. She’s down one floor from me, I think.

  Each step of the staircase plays a musical note as I run down. I want to run up and down to play a song. But Shaylene yells again, “Polly, where are you?”

  I follow her voice through a door. It’s the kitchen! A shiny new kitchen full of boxes. Shaylene is sitting on the floor, rubbing her head.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, climbing over a box.

  She screams like a thousand bees are stinging her. She jumps up. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” she yells. “I’m going crazy. I’m crazy. Where am I? Where are the kidlets? Who is talking?”

  Oh, right. I’m invisible!

  “Shaylene, it’s me!” I say.

  She spins around and trips over a box. She lands on the floor again. She grabs her phone. And presses 9-1—

  “No!” I snatch the phone.

  She screams again.

  “Stop yelling! It’s me! Polly!” I wave the phone around.

  “I must have really banged my head,” she says.

  “Do you want some chocolate?” I ask.

  She giggles. “A flying phone asking if I want chocolate.” Her voice is a bit dreamy, as if she’s half asleep. She rubs her head. “I am hungry. But I’m on a diet.” She gets up and reaches across the counter.

  She reaches for a banana.

  But not just any banana.

  She reaches for Anna the Banana.

  I imagine myself leaping across the room. I imagine kicking the banana from Shaylene’s hand.

  Sadly, I’m not a very good leap-kicker. Instead I shout, “STOP! DON’T TOUCH THE BANANA!”

  “Okay, okay,” she says, rubbing her head. “I’m putting down the banana.”

  I hurry over and take Anna the Banana.

  Shaylene blinks and looks around. She mumbles to herself, “Whoa. The kitchen looks different. Major renovations!”

  I look at the huge, shiny kitchen with its zillions of cupboards.

  I think about the squillions of rooms. The billions of boxes.

  “This place is too crazy,” Shaylene says.

  She’s right. It is.

  “No problem! I’ll fix it,” I say.

&nbsp
; I put Anna into the fruit bowl. Then I pull out my book and write: The house is like it used to be.

  The house shakes and rumbles. With one hand, I hold on to my glasses. With the other, I hold on to the counter.

  The cabinets crackle and burst like popcorn. The floor warps and reshapes. Shaylene stares with big, round eyes. Then she says “Whaaaaat?” and faints. The house stops shaking.

  I look around the kitchen. But it’s not our kitchen. I’ve never seen this room before. The floor is like a chessboard, black and white. The walls are mint-green. An old-fashioned pair of chairs and a small table are in the middle.

  A family photograph hangs on the wall. But it’s not our family. The photograph is black-and-white. In it are two kids, a mom wearing an old-fashioned dress, and a dad in a suit. Who are these people?

  EIGHT

  This is not our kitchen. I read over what I wrote. The house is like it used to be.

  I look around the kitchen. My brain tick, tick, ticks. Then, DING! It feels like an alarm clock is ringing in my head. I write in my book: When I wrote how the kitchen used to be, I meant earlier today. Not how it used to be in the past, before we lived here! We have to fix this. Right now.

  How?

  I want the house to go back.

  The whole house shudders, creaks, and shifts. It moves toward our yard. The walls shake. Boxes topple.

  STOP! I don’t want the house to go backward!