Free Mirrored by Alex Flinn Page A

shape, slowly. If I could do that, I could do anything. Anything. Anything except give Jennifer a pig nose. I’d ask Kendra about that. Clearly, I still had a lot to learn about magic. Thank God for Kendra.
    Finally, I felt my heart rate slow. And my breathing. It was hard to breathe through the snout. I sat on the toilet, breathing. Breathing. Breathing. Imagining my nose—not my nose, but Michelle Pfeiffer’s nose, Diane Lane’s nose, or model Brooke Shields’s adorable, famous nose. Yes, that was it. Perfectly upturned with not too much nostril. I’d once read that it was nearly impossible to achieve this surgically. But magic surgery had to be better. The breathing, the heavy pigsnout, the concentration made me feel weak, almost light-headed, and the metal stall walls began to blur around me. I held my hands up to my face and felt the snout shrink beneath them. Relief! I straightened my neck, held my head up, opened the door.
    Even though I knew I was late, I couldn’t resist a glance in the mirror.
    It was perfect, almost too perfect. No, there was no such thing as too perfect. I would be perfect, all of me!
    After school, I ran to Kendra’s house.
    “I tried to use magic, and it backfired on me.”
    “Backfired?” Kendra looked bemused—and maybe a little amused too, arranging herself on a red bench that looked like it belonged in the Museum of Modern Art. “How could it backfire?”
    “Um, I don’t know, turned my nose into a pig’s snout. That’s all.”
    Kendra chuckled. She was wearing a black lace ball gown that had barely made it through the door. “So you were trying to change your nose into this stunning creation—Diane Lane’s nose, I believe—and it turned into a snout instead? Is that exactly what happened?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “I didn’t think so. Perhaps you were trying to give someone else a pig’s snout?”
    “How did you know?” Kendra seemed to know a lot of things—even knowing I’d copied Diane Lane’s nose. Could she read my mind? Or was she spying on me with that mirror?
    “It’s about discretion.” She pulled me by the arm to sit beside her.
    “Discretion?”
    “‘Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout, is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.’ That’s from the Bible.”
    “You didn’t strike me as the religious type,” I said.
    “I have nothing against religion. Since I’m never going to die, I don’t have to worry about impressing God for the afterlife, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to use my powers for good. Also, if you go around turning your enemies’ noses into pigs’ snouts, you’ll get caught. That’s why it’s impossible to do.”
    “To do what?”
    She waved her hand and produced two plates. “Gingerbread?”
    “No, thank you. What’s impossible?”
    With another wave of her hand, the plates were gone. “Rules of magic. It is impossible to change someone without their knowing.”
    “You changed me the first day. You changed my nose.” Not as well as I changed it.
    “Ah, but you knew about it at the time. It was your choice. Once, I turned a proud, cruel boy into a beast, but he knew about it. To work magic on someone else, you must reveal yourself. It keeps others from being blamed. But had you changed your classmate’s nose, she wouldn’t have known how it happened. That’s not allowed by the rules of witchcraft.”
    “So I can’t even give her . . . zits? Diarrhea? A bad SAT score when she’s a junior?”
    Kendra shook her head. “Not without also giving those to yourself. It keeps you from abusing your power—and from making everyone suspect you. But you can do wonderful things for yourself, travel the world, give yourself incredible talents, never pay for cute new clothes.” With a wave of her hand, she changed her dress to fuchsia. “You should hear me sing opera—I’m like a mermaid.”
    “All I want is for Greg to love me again. I don’t care about that other stuff.” I sort of wanted the