Free The Children's Crusade by Carla Jablonski Page A

ago. Titania’s stinging words kept spinning around in his head. His shoulders sagged with each footstep, thinking what a mess he’d made of things. What’s the good of having magical abilities if you mess things up? And now he had the Faerie Queen on his case. As if Bobby Saunders at school wasn’t bad enough.
    As he turned onto his block, Tim spotted a slight, pretty, red-haired girl sitting on his doorstep. The sun was going down, and she shivered a little. Her arms and legs were bare and her pink dress looked thin. She stared down at a little statue. Her wide green eyes looked sad. Maybe she had a missing brother, too.
    â€œExcuse me,” Tim said. “Are you all right?”
    â€œAre you Timothy Hunter?” the girl asked.
    â€œUh, yes.” How does she know my name? he wondered. She looked nicer than the girl in the playground. There was something gentle in her eyes.
    â€œThen I am all right,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find you all day. But I don’t think your father wanted me to. When I talked to him on one of those phone contraptions he sounded angry and then he buzzed at me.”
    â€œHe buzzed?” Tim sat down beside her. He was having trouble making sense of what she was saying.
    She nodded. “Uh-huh. Then I walked here and found your house, but I knocked and knocked and no one answered. Even though there were voices inside.”
    Okay, that part he could figure out. “He probably never heard you over the television,” Tim explained. “Sorry about the phone part. He can be a real jerk sometimes.” Tim glanced over his shoulder at his front door. I guess the sensitive pseudo-dad act is over , Tim thought.
    â€œWell, maybe he can’t help it,” the girl suggested. “He’s a grown-up. They have problems.”
    â€œTrue.” The pretty girl had no idea how true that was. Especially all the grown-ups around Tim. “What’s your name?”
    â€œMarya.” She took two apples from her bagand held one out to Tim. “Here.”
    Tim eyed the apple warily. In Faerie it was dangerous to eat anything or to accept gifts from the Fair Folk. This could be doubly dangerous: It was a gift of food offered by a stranger. But this girl was human, not fairy, no matter how odd she seemed. And this was the real world—or at least his world, and not Faerie. Besides, if she had been magical, she would have bristled at being asked her name.
    Tim had learned that names carried power. He was supposed to ask What are you called?—it was considered more polite. But the girl never noticed his error in magical etiquette. That gave him confidence.
    He watched as she took a crunchy bite of her apple. They were probably okay then. Tim hesitated one more moment, then bit into his. It was the most delicious apple he’d ever eaten. Nothing seemed to happen to him, so he took another bite.
    â€œYou haven’t told me why you’ve been looking for me,” he said.
    The girl seemed very surprised. “You don’t know?”
    Tim shook his head. “How could I?”
    â€œI thought when you were magic you knew all kinds of stuff.”
    â€œDon’t I wish.” Ever since Tim had discoveredthat he was magic, he’d continually felt like a sham. Everyone acted like he had all this power, and maybe he did—or would—but he sure didn’t know how to use it. Or how to do anything much. He shook his head. “That’s not how it is. All it really is is confusing. And complicated. And people all seem to want something—like to kill me.”
    Then it sunk in—she knew he was magic. He went back on alert. Could she have been sent by Titania? “You don’t want to kill me, do you?” He peered at the apple through his glasses.
    The girl giggled. “Of course not.”
    â€œThen why are you here? And how do you know I’m, well, magic?”
    â€œThere’s a