Fairy Tale Read online

  Fairy Tale

  Cyn Balog

  Chapter One

  PE­OP­LE CALL ME spo­oky. May­be be­ca­use by ele­ven o'clock on that day, I'd al­re­ady told Ari­ana Mi­les she'd star­ve to de­ath in Hol­lywo­od, Eri­ca Fu­en­tes she'd bomb his­tory, and Wen­dell Marks that he wo­uld ne­ver, ever be a part of the A-list, no mat­ter how hard he tri­ed.

  Now, sit­ting in the ble­ac­hers af­ter scho­ol, half watc­hing a me­aning­less Hawks fo­ot­ball ex­hi­bi­ti­on Ca­me and wa­iting for so­me na­me­less fresh­man to bring me my French fri­es (psychics can­not work on an empty sto­mach), I've just abo­ut re­du­ced my fo­urth cli­ent of the day to te­ars (well, Wen­dell didn't cry; he just pre­ten­ded to yawn, co­ve­red his mo­uth, and let out a pat­he­tic snurg­le). But hey, so­me­ti­mes the fu­tu­re is scary.

  Si­er­ra Mar­tin won't lo­ok at me. Ins­te­ad, she's ta­ken an un­na­tu­ral in­te­rest in the He­ath bar wrap­per wed­ged bet­we­en the me­tal planks her se­qu­in-stud­ded flip-11 ops are res­ting on. A te­ar slips past her fa­ke-tan­ned kne­es and lands per­fectly on her por­no-red big-toe na­il.

  "Sorry," I say, of­fe­ring her a pat on the back and a co­up­le of oran­ge Tic Tacs for con­so­la­ti­on. "Re­al­ly."

  So­me­ti­mes this gift do­es suck. So­me days, I ha­ve the ple­asu­re of do­ling out go­od news-BMWs as gra­du­ati­on pre­sents, aced fi­nals, that sort of thing. To­day, it's be­en not­hing but to­tal crap. And yes, it ob­vi­o­usly must ha­ve co­me as a shock that I’d en­vi­si­oned Si­er­ra, who­se pa­rents had bred her for Har­vard, wal­king to Physics 101 on the Mid­dle­sex Com­mu­nity Col­le­ge cam­pus, but it's not my fa­ult. I just de­li­ver the ma­il; I don't wri­te it.

  "Are you… su-ur e?" she asks me, snif­fling and wi­ping her no­se with the back of her hand.

  I sigh. This is the ine­vi­tab­le qu­es­ti­on, and I al­ways ans­wer the sa­me thing: "I'm sorry, but I've ne­ver be­en wrong."

  I know that pro­bably ma­kes me so­und li­ke a to­tal snob, but it's simp­le fact. Sin­ce fresh­man ye­ar, I've cor­rectly pre­dic­ted the fu­tu­res of do­zens of stu­dents at Ste­vens. It all star­ted way be­fo­re that tho­ugh, in juni­or high, when I cor­rectly gu­es­sed who wo­uld win the mil­li­on-dol­lar pri­ze on every re­ality-TV show out the­re. At ti­mes I wo­uld ha­ve to think, re­al­ly think, to know the ans­wer, but so­me­ti­mes I wo­uld just wa­ke up and, cle­ar as day, the fa­ce of the win­ner wo­uld pop in­to my mind. So­on, I star­ted tes­ting my abi­li­ti­es out on my fri­ends, and my fri­ends' fri­ends, and be­fo­re long, every ot­her per­son at scho­ol wan­ted my ser­vi­ces. Se­ri­o­usly, be­ing a psychic will do mo­re for yo­ur re­pu­ta­ti­on than a dri­ver's li­cen­se or a he­ad-to-toe Marc Jacobs ward­ro­be.

  Si­er­ra tos­ses her friz­zed-out, corn-husk-blond spi­rals over her sho­ul­der and stra­igh­tens. "Well, may­be you saw so­me­one el­se. So­me­one who lo­oked li­ke me. Isn't that pos­sib­le?"

  Actu­al­ly, it isn't pos­sib­le at all. Si­er­ra has a to­tal­ly war­ped sen­se of style, li­ke Andy War­hol on crack. Every day things lying aro­und the ho­use do not al­ways ma­ke at­trac­ti­ve ac­ces­so­ri­es. I shrug, tho­ugh, sin­ce I don't fe­el li­ke exp­la­ining that hell wo­uld ha­ve a ski re­sort be­fo­re two pe­op­le on the fa­ce of this earth wo­uld think it was okay to tie the­ir pony­ta­il up in a Twiz­zler, and cra­ne my neck to­ward the ref­resh­ment stand. I’m star­ving. Whe­re are my French fri­es?

  "I me­an, I did get a twenty-three hund­red on my SATs," she says, which is so­met­hing she's told me, and the rest of the stu­dent body, abo­ut a bil­li­on ti­mes. She might as well ha­ve bro­ad­cast it on CNN. Ho­we­ver, she hasn't ta­ken in­to ac­co­unt the fact that the­re are tho­usands of ot­her stu­dents ac­ross the co­untry who al­so got tho­se sco­res, and to­ok col­le­ge-le­vel physics or cal­cu­lus ins­te­ad of Dra­ma­tic Exp­res­si­on as the­ir se­ni­or ext­ra­cur­ri­cu­lar ac­ti­vity. Ever­yo­ne knows that Si­er­ra Mar­tin scre­wed her­self by de­ci­ding to co­ast thro­ugh her clas­ses this ye­ar.

  See, I’m not that spo­oky; truth is, most pe­op­le don't use eno­ugh of the­ir bra­ins to see the ob­vi­o­us. Part of it is just be­ing ke­enly awa­re of hu­man na­tu­re, li­ke one of tho­se Bri­tish de­tec­ti­ves on PBS. It's ele­men­tary, my de­ar Wat­son. Co­lo­nel Mus­tard in the Bil­li­ard Ro­om with the cand­les­tick, and Si­er­ra is so not Har­vard ma­te­ri­al.

  "We ne­ed to do the wa­ve," Eden says, grab­bing my arm. She do­esn't bot­her to lo­ok at me; her at­ten­ti­on is fo­cu­sed to­tal­ly on the Ca­me, as usu­al. "They ne­ed us."

  I squ­int at her. "It's an ex­hi­bi­ti­on Ca­me."

  She pulls a half-suc­ked Blow Pop from her mo­uth with a smack and says, "So?

  "Okay, you go, girl," I say, tho­ugh I wish she wo­uldn't.

  She turns aro­und to fa­ce the do­zen or so stu­dents in the ble­ac­hers, cups her hands aro­und her lips, and scre­ams, "Okay, let's do the wa­ve!" Auburn ha­ir tra­iling li­ke a co­met's ta­il, she runs as fast as her skinny, freck­led legs can carry her to the right ed­ge of the se­ats, then fla­ils her arms and says to the hand­ful of pe­op­le the­re, "You guys first. Re­ady? One, and two, and three, and go!"

  I don't bot­her to turn aro­und. I know no­body is do­ing it. It's hu­man na­tu­re-do­ing a wa­ve du­ring an ex­hi­bi­ti­on Ca­me is to­tal­ly la­me. Ac­tu­al­ly, do­ing a wa­ve at all is to­tal­ly la­me. And no­body is go­ing to lis­ten to po­or Miss Didn't-Ma­ke-the-Che­er­le­ading- Squ­ad.

  She scowls and scre­ams, "Mor­gan!" as she rus­hes past me, so I fe­el com­pel­led to half stand. I ra­ise my hands a lit­tle and let out a "woo!" Si­er­ra do­esn't no­ti­ce Eden's fit of scho­ol spi­rit, sin­ce she's still bab­bling on abo­ut her three ye­ars as edi­tor of the ye­ar­bo­ok, as if gi­ving me her en­ti­re li­fe story will so­me­how get her clo­ser to the Ivy Le­ague.

  Eden re­turns a few se­conds la­ter, de­fe­ated, and slumps be­si­de me. The spray of freck­les on her fa­ce has comp­le­tely di­sap­pe­ared in­to the de­ep cre­vas­se on the brid­ge of her no­se. "This scho­ol has no spi­rit."

  It's true-and iro­nic, re­al­ly-that, tho­ugh my best fri­end, Eden McCarthy, pro­bably has mo­re scho­ol spi­rit in her pinky than the en­ti­re stu­dent body put to­get­her, she didn't ma­ke che­er le­ading. Be­ing a che­er­le­ader, tho­ugh, isn't just abo­ut ha­ving spi­rit. Eden co­uld ma­ke a cow lo­ok gra­ce­ful. I say, "Well, go­od try; A for ef­fort, and pat her back.

  "But, Mor­gan, " she whi­nes, "it's Ca­me­ron out the­re. He's abo­ut to sco­re anot­her to­uch­down."

  For the first ti­me in a half ho­ur, I lo­ok to­ward the fi­eld…And, wo­uldn't you know it, the Hawks are on the ten-yard li­ne. I watch as the ball is hi­ked in­to the hands of my boyf­ri­end, Ca­me­ron Brow­ne. He backs up on the to­es of his Ni­ke cle­ats and throws the ball per­fectly to the wi­de re­ce­iver, who is tack­led at the one. "Oh. Go­od."

  "You co­uld try be­ing a lit­tle mo­re sup­por­ti­ve," Eden says with a sigh.

  "But you ha­ve eno­ugh scho­ol spi­rit for the both of us," I say, gi­ving her a hug, even tho­ugh I'm kind of ir­ked by the in­si­nu­ati­on. Of co­ur­se I sup­port Cam. Ot­her­wi­se I wo­uldn't ha­ve spent every Sa­tur­day night in Oc­to­ber last ye­ar with my butt fro­zen to the ble­ac­hers, sip­ping wa­tery hot co­coa and watc­hing my ma­ni­cu­re turn all sha­des of purp­le. "And it's just an ex­hi­bi­ti­on Ca­me."

  Anyway, if you know Cam, which I do, sin­ce we've be­en
at­tac­hed at the hip sin­ce kin­der­gar­ten, you know that he do­es not ne­ed a che­ering audi­en­ce in or­der to kick ass. He's inc­re­dib­le, which is why he's the only sop­ho­mo­re on the var­sity fo­ot­ball te­am. In fact, the Sun­day Star-Led­ger on­ce sa­id, and I qu­ote, "It ap­pe­ars that Cam Brow­ne can do anyt­hing."

  And, ahem, he's all mi­ne.

  "That's my boy!" I sho­ut out, ma­inly to ap­pe­ase Eden, and gi­ve him a wolf whist­le. Few girls can wolf-whist­le li­ke I can, but that's be­ca­use I've had so much prac­ti­ce. Be­ca­use Cam Brow­ne "can do anyt­hing." And everyt­hing he do­es se­ems to de­ser­ve one. He turns, grins, then holds up three fin­gers, brings them to his mo­uth, and po­ints them at me. One, two, three. That's our sec­ret way of sa­ying "I lo­ve you." Sin­ce we we­re to­get­her when ot­her kids from our class we­re still in the "Ew! Co­oti­es!" sta­ge, we le­ar­ned to ke­ep everyt­hing corny and ro­man­tic a sec­ret. Back then, our li­ves de­pen­ded on it. Now, it's ha­bit.

  "First and ten. Do it aga­in!" Eden sho­uts anot­her one of the Haw­ket­tes' most po­pu­lar che­ers. She knows them all by he­art. Luc­kily, she do­esn't do the arm mo­ve­ments, or el­se I don't think I co­uld be se­en with her.

  Si­er­ra must ha­ve re­ali­zed I’m not lis­te­ning to her. She cle­ars her thro­at "I know you don't ca­re, but this is im­por­tant"

  That's the worst part abo­ut be­ing psychic to high-scho­olers: they're so in­se­cu­re. You can't just be the all-kno­wing prop­het who spits out wi­se for­tu­ne-co­okie sa­yings all day-you ha­ve to be part "De­ar Abby," too. "I do ca­re. Si. I fe­el re­al­ly bad for you, ho­nest. But you ha­ve to mo­ve on. Ri­se abo­ve it."

  "Easy for you to say. You pro­bably al­re­ady saw yo­ur­self at Ya­le," she says bit­terly.

  I sha­ke my he­ad. "I'm not very go­od at se­e­ing my own fu­tu­re."

  It's kind of li­ke be­ing a ge­nie; I ha­ve this ama­zing po­wer, and yet I can't use it on myself. But I'm okay with that. I'm only a sop­ho­mo­re, so, tho­ugh my col­le­ge cho­ice is pretty much up in the air, it's pro­bably the only thing that is. I know that my fu­tu­re is with Cam. I know he and I will go to the sa­me scho­ol, or at le­ast scho­ols clo­se to one anot­her. Af­ter all, we're next-do­or ne­igh­bors, and we've known each ot­her al­most sin­ce we co­uld walk. We'll both be tur­ning six­te­en on Oc­to­ber 15. We're so in tu­ne with one anot­her that I can de­tect when he's ha­ving a bad day from a fo­ot­ball fi­eld's length away.

  But Cam ra­rely has bad days. To­day, as usu­al, he's in top form.

  "Be…Aggres­si­ve. Be. Mo­re…Aggres­si­ve. B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-l-V-E!" Eden sho­uts as Sa­ra Phil­lips, an ac­tu­al che­er­le­ader, walks past and rolls her eyes.

  Eden do­esn't se­em to no­ti­ce. She is clu­eless in so many ways, which ma­kes her my po­lar op­po­si­te. For examp­le, she has had a crush on Mi­ke Ken­sing­ton fo­re­ver and can't se­em to get it thro­ugh her he­ad that he's ob­vi­o­usly gay. His sen­se of style, the fact that he spends way too much ti­me on his ha­ir… no­ne of this has thrown her off, and I re­fu­se to dis­rupt her plans to one day be­ar his child­ren. She clutc­hes my arm and screws her eyes shut as Cam sho­uts, "Hi­ke!"

  "Oh, this is so ner­ve-rac­king! I can't lo­ok!"

  I've lo­ved Eden al­most as long as I ha­ve Cam, but not only is she clumsy and clue chal­len­ged, she's al­so so ne­uro­tic that I'm surp­ri­sed I ha­ven't en­vi­si­oned her ha­ving a he­art at­tack at eigh­te­en. Her grip is eno­ugh to ca­use ner­ve da­ma­ge, so I pry her fin­gers up one by one and say, very calmly, "It's. Just. An. Ex­hi-"

  And that's when it hap­pens.

  Cam has the ball in his hands, and he's se­arc­hing for a re­ce­iver, but they're all bloc­ked. A de­fen­se­man bre­aks free from his left, and rus­hes in for the sack. Just as he's abo­ut to throw his hands on Cam's sho­ul­ders, my boyf­ri­end ta­kes three qu­ick steps for­ward, and be­fo­re he can step on the he­ad of a fal­len te­am­ma­te, he's air­bor­ne.

  He sa­ils, li­ke a fe­at­her on the wind, over the mas­si­ve pi­le of bo­di­es in his way, right in­to the end zo­ne.

  Instantly, the ble­ac­hers erupt in­to thun­de­ro­us ap­pla­use, which is we­ird, con­si­de­ring the ef­fect of Eden's re­cent Wa­ve Ef­fort. Even Si­er­ra jumps to her fe­et, her ble­ak fu­tu­re for­got­ten for the mo­ment.

  Eden opens her eyes and shri­eks li­ke a bans­hee. "Oh! He is so ama­zing!"

  I can't mo­ve, can't even bring my hands to­get­her for ap­pla­use. I think even my bre­at­hing stops, for the mo­ment. Am I the only one who no­ti­ced so­met­hing stran­ge abo­ut that last play?

  Am I nuts, or did my boyf­ri­end just fly?

  Chapter Two

  MAY­BE OUR NEWS­PA­PER IS RIGHT. Cam Brow­ne re­al­ly can do anyt­hing.

  The Hawks win the Ca­me, which sends Eden in­to a sta­te of eup­ho­ria I tho­ught co­uld only be ac­hi­eved by do­ing meth. Even if it's just an ex­hi­bi­ti­on Ca­me. And, hel­lo? The win was no surp­ri­se.

  Her best fri­end is a psychic, af­ter all.

  Fol­lo­wing every win, we go to the Par­so­na­ge Di­ner and the boys eat. A lot. I get a ce­leb­ra­tory cho­co­la­te milk sha­ke. I’d ne­ver tho­ufht the­re was such a thing as too much cho­co­la­te, but last ye­ar, I had so many milk sha­kes that now I can't lo­ok at one wit­ho­ut get­ting a lit­tle qu­e­asy.

  This ye­ar, the J. P. Ste­vens Hawks will pro­bably be New Jer­sey's fi­nest aga­in, tho­ugh I ha­ven't ac­tu­al­ly en­vi­si­oned that. My gift can be a lit­tle tricky to cont­rol so­me­ti­mes, be­ca­use I ne­ver know exactly to whe­re in the fu­tu­re it's go­ing to ta­ke me. Plus, Cam do­esn't want to know. He's one of tho­se "let the chips fall whe­re they may" types.

  After twir­ling my ha­ir in­to a pony­ta­il in the lav, I spot Cam at a bo­oth, and im­me­di­ately I catch my bre­ath. When he's scrub­bed up li­ke that, his bro­ad chest pres­sed so­lid aga­inst his T-shirt, sho­ots of black ha­ir fal­ling ca­re­les­sly in­to his ca­ver­no­us brown eyes, he can still ma­ke my he­art flut­ter. I’d li­ke to say that, lo­oks-wi­se, I'm just as show-stop­ping, but asi­de from my psychic abi­li­ti­es, the­re isn't anyt­hing re­mar­kab­le abo­ut me. So, tho­ugh we've be­en to­get­her this long, the pha­se "Is he re­al­ly mi­ne?" al­ways se­ems to re­pe­at in my mind li­ke a bro­ken re­cord. He's using so­me fo­re­ign fo­ot­ball lan­gu­age with Scab and the ot­her ma­ni­acs on the te­am that mostly inc­lu­des a se­ri­es of grunts and growls, so I part the sea of tes­tos­te­ro­ne by sli­ding in next to him and gi­ving him a kiss. "Just as I pre­dic­ted," I te­ase.

  He ta­kes a crink­led en­ve­lo­pe with to­day's da­te on it out of the back poc­ket of his je­ans and te­ars it open with his te­eth. Pul­ling out a slip of pa­per, he re­ads to the tab­le. Twenty-fo­ur to se­ven, Hawks." Mor­gan wins aga­in."

  I grin pro­udly as the rest of the guys cong­ra­tu­la­te me on anot­her col­lect pre­dic­ti­on. This ti­me, it's even mo­re half­he­ar­ted than it was last we­ekend. Sigh. My po­wers imp­res­sed them li­ke crazy my fresh­man ye­ar, but the ef­fect must be we­aring off. When I comp­la­ined to Cam last we­ek abo­ut how no­body re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ates my gift any­mo­re, he sug­ges­ted that may­be they still wo­uld if I ga­ve them the pre­dic­ti­ons in my un­der­we­ar.

  Eden sta­res at my boyf­ri­end dre­amily. She says to him, "That to­uch­down in the se­cond qu­ar­ter was ama­zing"

  That was when he'd do­ne the Su­per­man.

  The thing I lo­ve most abo­ut Cam is that, tho­ugh the en­ti­re war­ped lit­tle mic­ro­cosm that is Ste­vens High ado­res him, he re­ma­ins humb­le and shy. He blus­hes and says, "Well, thanks."

  "Ye­ah," I add, you prac­ti­cal­ly flew."

  Cam
turns to me for a se­cond, a da­zed exp­res­si­on on his fa­ce, then nud­ges Scab. "Scab put that play to­get­her."

  Scab, Cams best fri­end, fits the fo­ot­ball-pla­yer mold per­fectly. When we we­re yo­un­ger, he used to pick all his mos­qu­ito bi­tes un­til he was just one big, ble­eding so­re. Now, he has a ro­und, ruddy fa­ce, and he's big­ger than a Mack truck and ro­ugh aro­und the ed­ges. His nick­na­me, stran­gely; has al­ways su­ited him. He po­lis­hes off a su­per de­lu­xe bre­ak­fast with sa­usa­ge, ba­con, eggs, and a do­ub­le stack of pan­ca­kes, punc­hes Cam on the sho­ul­der, and la­ughs li­ke a cha­in-smo­ker, a kind of "haw haw haw." The­re's a red ring of ketc­hup, li­ke lips­tick, on his mo­uth. Blech.

  Just then, Sa­ra Phil­lips pran­ces by in her che­er­le­ading out­fit. Eden calls, "Gre­at job, Sa­ra!" to her, sin­ce she's still hol­ding out ho­pe that the squ­ad will gi­ve her a pla­ce juni­or ye­ar. Scab gi­ves her a ketc­hup-so­aked grin, and she wa­ves and says swe­etly, "Hi, Mar­cus!" He is so in­fa­tu­ated, and has be­en fo­re­ver. At this po­int, it's kind of a joke,

  He turns to Cam and says un­der his bre­ath, "She to­tal­ly wants me."

  Cam and I lo­ok at each ot­her, then burst out la­ug­hing,

  "What? She's just pla­ying hard to get."

  "Sin­ce kin­der­gar­ten?" Cam asks.

  Scab co­mes to me for de­fen­se. "Hey, Morg. Don't any of yo­ur vi­si­ons show us to­get­her? You saw the way she lo­oked at me."

  I pass him a nap­kin. "May­be she was je­alo­us of yo­ur lips­tick." De­j­ec­ted, he wi­pes his mo­uth and sha­kes his he­ad. "Be­si­des," I say, "I told you, I see you pla­ying de­fen­se at so­me col­le­ge with palm tre­es."

  That perks him right up. "Mi­ami, baby!" And they all start grow­ling and high-fi­ving aga­in. Blech. Eden stalls tal­king to John Va­ughn, who is sa­fety. He's re­al­ly cu­te and ni­ce, and I think they'd ma­ke a gre­at co­up­le, which me­ans they'll ne­ver get to­get­her. I, un­for­tu­na­tely, en­vi­si­on Eden be­ing thirty and li­ving in a cram­ped apart­ment with no­body but fo­ur­te­en cats and a col­lec­ti­on of Pre­ci­o­us Mo­ments fi­gu­ri­nes to talk to. Es­pe­ci­al­ly sin­ce she do­esn't se­em li­kely to fi­gu­re out that her ma­j­or crush is pla­ying for the Ot­her te­am any­ti­me this cen­tury. John, who so bla­tantly has a thing for Eden that he might as well print up T-shirts ad­ver­ti­sing the fact, says to her, "It's co­ol you co­me to all the Ca­mes and prac­ti­ces."