it’s really important,” he said in his smoothest voice before unleashing his lopsided grin and brushing his blond curls out of his eyes. “It’s just that I didn’t get to finish taking all my notes on this assignment the other day and it’s worth twenty percent of our final grades.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already told you that Principal Kessler doesn’t—”
“Principal Kessler doesn’t what?” Professor Vanderbilt poked his head around the corner. Normally when Principal Kessler was away, the weapons teacher was acting principal.
“Curtis and Emma want a pass-out so they can do a Saturday-afternoon patrol at the mall,” Mrs. Barnes informed him in a foreboding voice. Ironic that when Emma didn’t want to go to the mall with Curtis, Principal Kessler couldn’t send her there fast enough. She paused and considered what would happen if she simply repeated this behavior.
“Hey, I never said I wanted to go,” she suddenly piped up as she winked at Curtis, hoping he would realize what she was doing. “I hate fairies. They are stupid and dumb, and if you think there is any chance I’m going to show Curtis how to slay them, you’re very much mistaken,” she said in a firm voice while shooting Curtis a disdainful glance. “In fact, I might call Principal Kessler right now and—”
Curtis looked at her and tried to hide a smile.
“Mrs. Barnes.” Professor Vanderbilt cut her off and turned to the secretary. “Give Emma Jones and Curtis Green a pass-out and make sure that the minibus takes them. They have two hours maximum.” Then he turned back to Emma and folded his arms. “And no more arguments.”
“Yes, Professor Vanderbilt.” Emma obediently dropped her head and studied her shoes as Mrs. Barnes slowly shook her head in disagreement and pulled two passes out of her drawer. She then called the driver to arrange for him to meet Emma and Curtis at the front gates in fifteen minutes.
“So?” Loni was waiting for them in the quad, as arranged. Emma had sent her friend a text the minute she and Curtis had left the library to let her know what Brenda had unwittingly told them about the soul box. “Did you get them? Tyler tried to bet that you wouldn’t.”
“Oh really. Well, I hope you got good odds on it,” Emma said as she pulled out the pass-outs and grinned. “So how did you guys do? Did the computer program narrow down the list?”
“Not yet,” Tyler said. “I’m pretty sure that the dinosaurs became extinct quicker than this thing is taking to download. But hey, hopefully by the time you come back here, the darkhel will be banished and we’ll just be able to use the extra paper to make airplanes to throw at Brenda when she tries to make an induction speech tomorrow.”
“Not that I don’t have complete faith in us, but I really don’t think we should be doing the chicken-counting thing just yet,” Emma said before glancing at her watch. “Anyway, we only have two hours before we’ve got to be back, so we’d better hurry.”
“So where do you find fairies at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon?” Curtis asked after the minibus dropped them off at the mall and the driver made arrangements to pick them up at four o’clock.
“They’ll be at the movie theater. Let’s see. What’s playing?” Emma rubbed her chin as she studied the list of movies that were showing before finally settling on the new James Bond flick.
The movie had already started, so it was dark as they made their way down the aisle of the half-empty theater. A couple of heads turned around and scowled at the sound of Curtis’s crutches. At that moment Emma’s phone started to beep and there were a few more angry hisses. Not exactly the stealthy approach she had been hoping for.
Emma paused for a moment to check the cell-phone screen. An e-mail from Nurse Reynes wanting to know why Emma hadn’t called to arrange a new appointment. Because she wasn’t a masochist. Delete. The second was from her dad, wanting to make sure everything was okay. Oh yeah, never been better. Except for killer invisible fairies and soul boxes and having to talk to annoying ten-inch fairies in the middle of a movie theater. She switched off her phone and scanned the theater; it took a while but she finally saw about eight fairies right up in front, sharing a giant Diet Coke.
“Gouge out his eyes,” yelled Rupert, who was wearing a tiny David Bowie