Free Don't Expect Magic by Kathy McCullough Page A

really, really far away. Too far away to talk to her. Too far away for her to hear me.
    I still can’t believe she knew all this and kept it from me. Whenever I got upset about not seeing Hank, she’d always cheer me up by saying we didn’t need anybody but each other. I believed that, but now I see that my knowing about Hank being an f.g., and my possibly being one too, would’ve meant more time spent with Hank and less with her, and this would’ve broken up our tight one-on-oneworld. But why didn’t she tell me at the end, when she had to know I would find out? Did she think I’d be mad? Was she worried she would lose me?
    I wish Mom were here so I could ask her. I wish Posh would remember to check her messages and call me back. I wish I could figure out what’s true and what’s not. I wish
I
had a fairy godmother to grant some of these wishes for me.
    And I wish I knew if I was one …
    Because what I didn’t tell Hank is that when I was little, I used to think I could make good things happen for people. I did it all the time, even for strangers. I’d sort of imagine something and it would come true. Mom used to say I was a good-luck charm. Later I realized it was a bunch of coincidences. If I were a good-luck charm, Mom would still be here.
    But now, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. My brain feels like it’s run a marathon and wants to collapse already. I let it zone out, but my eyes stay open, still looking up at Mom’s earrings for answers. After today, I wouldn’t be surprised if they
did
start talking, spouting advice through little pin-sized mouths in tiny tinny voices. Then the frog prince alarm clock and the Tinker Bell night-light will join in, and soon every object in the room will have gone all enchanted and magical.
    Except me.

chapter five
     
    “… In a chemical reaction, substances are changed into other substances.…”
    Mr. McElroy’s up at the front of the class lecturing. Thank God there’s no lab today, so I don’t have to pay attention. My thoughts are all jumbled, like I put my brain on backward this morning.
    More weird dreams last night, this time involving lots of twinkling lights and feathery wings and me in this horrific wedding cake of a dress, with boots made of glass. They magnified my toes, which was not pretty, and I don’t remember how they felt, but they couldn’t have been comfortable.
    Posh woke me out of my dream, calling my cell at predawn Pacific standard time. “Sorry!” she squealed. “I forgot about the time difference!” While I worked on achieving full consciousness, she gave me a rundown of the new examples of symbolism she’d found in
The Golden Compass
, after reading it last night for the thirtieth time.
    I debated whether I should tell her about Hank and his Grimm brothers secret, and the need to just
say
it, to make it concrete with words, won out. When she finally paused for breath, I quickly jumped in and told her everything, from finding the letters, to Andrea’s dress. From the chocolate-swirl ice cream to the refilled ketchup bottle.
    “Wow! That is so cool! It’s like you’re living in a graphic novel.” Just like that, she accepted it. Ms. Science. Of course, she’s also Ms. Science Fiction.
    “You don’t think there’s some other, rational explanation?”
    “It sounds rational to me.” She told me she’d seen this documentary on the Paranormal Channel about how there are people who’ve been scientifically proven to have unusually high levels of intuition, which translates as ESP. “And last week I read an article on the-psychic-report-dot-com that said you can train yourself to be telekinetic.” She’d tried to do it herself, but you have to sit still and focus for like eight hours—about seven hours and fifty-nine minutes over Posh’s limit. “Your dad is so lucky! He can extrasensory-perceive
and
telekinet. Or telekiness. Or whatever the verb is. Hold on, I’ll look it up.”
    There it was. My new