The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [9]
“As what?” I asked curiously. “Dinner?”
Tiffany flipped back her shining hair. “Is that the best you can do, Wild Child? Because, I have to say, I’m so not impressed.”
One of the boys said, “Um, Tiffany. Rule 386?”
“I am being polite,” Tiffany said. “I’m just showing the Wild Child what life is like out here in the real City.”
Before, I’d been playing. Now I was mad. “Oh, is this the real City? I thought it was just a place to store mortal changelings who are too stupid to survive outside their own Neighborhood without their fairy godmothers holding their hands.”
Tiffany turned a deep rose color that unfairly made her eyes look even bluer.
“Stupid?” she hissed. “For your information, I have a hundred and twenty gold stars. All I need is Urban Legends, Diplomacy, and Advanced Talismans, and I’ll be ready to leave school. How many gold stars do you have, Wild Child?”
“Tiffany,” a new voice said sternly. “Would you please recite Rule One for me?”
Like magic, Tiffany went from scarlet Queen of the May to little white lamb. All in one smooth movement, she backed away from me and sank into a deep curtsy. I wasn’t surprised. Except for her mortal solidity, the newcomer looked like one of the Daanan sidhe—long, pale face, high-bridged nose, finely cut lips, eyes as dark and hard as asphalt. Beside her, Tiffany looked gawky and unfinished.
“Rule One,” Tiffany said primly. “Students must never fight among themselves.” She came up again without a wobble, which was pretty impressive, considering how tight her jeans were. “We weren’t fighting, Diplomat. We were simply sharing observations on the customs of our respective Neighborhoods.”
“I see,” said the Diplomat. “You do realize that if the new student had any magic at her disposal, you would most probably now be a frog, a snake, or a sheep-headed freak?”
At the thought of Tiffany with a sheep’s head, a tiny giggle bubbled out my nose. This was a mistake. The Diplomat pinned me with her granite eyes.
Heart beating like a drum, I curtsied—not as gracefully as Tiffany. “I’m Neef of Central Park.”
“Charmed. Bergdorf?” The Diplomat turned to the second blonde girl. “Shouldn’t you be taking Neef to her next lesson?”
The horn blew again, and Bergdorf grabbed my arm. I shook her off. “You are such a fairy,” she said. “And I totally mean that in a bad way. Come on.”
She barreled through the double doors and pulled me up the steps three at a time.
“Where are we going?” I panted.
“You’re going to Talismans,” Bergdorf said. “I’m going to Organizing Fairies. And if you don’t move it, I’m going to be gigantically late, and that would be just so human.”
Two floors up was another hall lined with doors. Bergdorf pointed me at one, then sped back the way we’d come.
When I entered the room, a Chinese man with a long gray braid down his back turned from writing MAGIC TECH on the big slate. “Welcome,” he said. “Come in and sit down. I’ve got an exciting lesson planned.”
The Magic Tech loved talismans like ravens love shiny things; he wanted us to love them, too. He opened the nine times nine magic locks on the talisman cabinet and brought out three pairs of boots, taught us how to tell which ones were seven-leaguers, and how to put them on without transporting ourselves out of state.
All the changelings in Talismans had gold stars on their sweaters, too, but not as many as Tiffany and Bergdorf. I was glad to see that almost all of them wore jeans, though there was one girl in a long skirt with a scarf over her hair and another in a saffron-colored sari. They seemed pretty friendly, too. While we were waiting our turn with the boots, a boy about my size asked me where I was from.
“Central Park,” I said.
Suddenly there was a little circle of emptiness around me, and the boy was talking to someone who wasn’t me.
Folk try and kill you when they don’t like you. Being ignored was way better than that. Still, I was relieved when the horn blew again and everybody boiled out