Me, My Elf & I Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  chapter 17

  Caught!

  “Zephyr!” Mercedes points straight at me, her eyes wild.

  I am freaking out. I’ll have to make a run for it. Get away. Hide in the subway like a rat. But what if I get caught? Where will they take me? What will they do to me?

  “What about her? ” Ari demands.

  “The ELPH camera! ” Mercedes yells.

  At the mention of the word “elf ” I spring to my fingers and toes in a runner’s stance. When I hear the word “camera” I scan the room for recording devices, then locate the doors, planning my escape, praying I can outrun whatever surveillance they’ll use to track me so I can get home in time to warn my family. We’ll have to flee. This is terrible. My mom and dad were right. This was too much for me to handle. I should’ve never thought I could be normal. Now I’ve ruined everything. Just as I push into my feet to take off, I slip on a paper napkin and wind up sprawled on the floor like a squashed bug.

  Ari grabs my arm and pulls me up. “Perfect!” he yells. He looks deeply into my eyes. “Zephyr,” he says urgently. I squint, turn my head away, afraid of what he’ll say. “Do you have an agent?”

  I open one eye and peek at both Ari and Mercedes, who are inches from my nose. “Huh?” I ask, trying desperately to figure a way out of this mess. This is the time when knowing how to lie would come in handy. Or being able to cast a backward timespell. But since I can’t do either, I’m stuck.

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  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

  Copyright © Heather Swain, 2009 All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Swain, Heather.

  Me, my elf, and I / by Heather Swain.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Zephyr, a fifteen-year-old elf, moves with her family from

  their home in the Michigan forests, determined to adjust to living in

  Brooklyn among humans so that she can attend the Brooklyn Academy of

  Performing Arts High School.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-03285-5

  [1. Elves—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction.

  4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. Conduct of life—Fiction. 6. High schools—Fiction.

  7. Schools—Fiction. 8. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S9698934Me 2009

  [Fic]—dc22 2008054209

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume

  any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Many thanks to Jennifer Bonnell, Kristin Gilson,

  and their fabulous team at Puffin/Speak,

  plus Stephanie Kip Rostan and

  Monika Verma for all their help.

  4 LJ + Em. BFF. Thnx.

  chapter 1

  “ARE YOU LOST ? ” The man is big. Bigger than any other man I’ve ever seen in my life and for a moment I can’t say anything. My grandmother, back in Alverland, would call this man an ogre, even though he’s the only person out of all the people rushing past me in this subway station nice enough to notice that I’m completely confused.

  Everyone else just jostles on by, jabbing me with elbows and banging me with overstuffed shoulder bags. I feel as if I’m caught in the middle of a moose stampede during a forest fire. (Only instead of being surrounded by burning trees, I’m in a smelly underground passage with dirty walls covered by advertisement posters for a million things I’ve never heard of.) I hug my bag to my chest and nod without making a sound. The man leans down closer to me. It’s not just that he’s tall. I’m used to tall people. Everyone in my family is tall. He’s also wide, soft, pillowy. I think of sinking into my grandparents’ large goose-feather bed with my brothers and sisters and cousins surrounding me, anticipating my grandmother telling us a tale about giants and ogres.

  The man’s skin is dark, too, and I’m captivated. Everyone in Alverland is fair. Our hair is light and straight and our eyes are almost always green. Drake, my father, who’s been out of Alverland more than anyone else, told us that there are many kinds of erdlers (that’s what we call people who aren’t from Alverland) and you can judge them based only on their actions, not on how they look. So I know I shouldn’t stare at this guy. Or any of the people rushing past me. Especially because I know how it feels to be different.

  “Where are you trying to go?” he asks.

  It’s bad enough that I took the wrong subway three times. I mean, how was I supposed to know? I’d never even ridden a bus before today. But now that I’m finally at the right station, I can’t find my way outside. I unclutch the piece of paper wadded in my fist and show it to him. I clear my throat and try out my voice. “The Brooklyn Academy of Performing Arts High School,” I tell him, but the words come out tiny, as if I’m six years old. Great, my first time alone in Brooklyn and I can’t even talk like a regular fifteen-year-old girl. How will I ever make it through a day of high school?

  He takes the paper from me and studies it with a frown. “Never heard of it,” he mumbles, and I think he’ll walk away, leaving me stranded forever. I wonder if I give up now, could I find my way back to our house near the park? Tell my mom and dad that they were right. I’m not ready for a regular school. I should let them teach me at home like they wanted to in the first place.

  Then the man looks up and nods. “But I do know this street, Fulton Avenue. Come on. I’m walking that way. I’ll show you.” He takes off and I hesitate. Everyone back in Alverland warned us not to talk to strangers, never to go with people we don’t know, and to keep to ourselves. But this guy has my paper with the school’s address on it. So I force my legs to move and I skitter after him, weaving through the rushing people in this dingy underground passage.

  He leads me to a stairway and I can see sunlight again, although the air doesn’t smell any cleaner up there than it does down here. I press my sleeve over my nose and mouth to keep from gagging on the car fumes. He takes the steps two at a time and I run to keep up with him. He glances over his shoulder and smile
s kindly at me.

  “New to the city? ” he yells over the roaring traffic. I see him chuckle.

  “Yeah,” I yell back, defeated. “First day of high school.”

  “Sheez.” He shakes his head. “Rough start. But it’ll get better.” He points to a street packed with cars, trucks, motorcycles, blue-and-white buses, and bicycles. A flood of people spill out of the underground stairways. Like ants on a mission, scurrying over rocks, past sticks, through gullies just to get their crumbs, the people keep moving along the crammed sidewalks, across the streets, and into the hulking buildings surrounding us. He and I join this throng and I realize that his size is a plus because at least I won’t lose sight of him. On the opposite corner he stops and points. “This is Fulton Avenue. The address says four thirty-six, which has to be down this way on the left side. If you get lost, ask somebody. New Yorkers aren’t rude. They’re just in a hurry, but somebody’ll always help you if you ask.” He hands me my piece of paper and walks off into the crowd.

  “Thank you!” I yell after him. “Thank you for helping me!” I wave my paper over my head as he disappears beneath the shadows of skyscrapers. Then I’m alone again in the middle of hundreds of people. For a moment I consider zapping everyone around me with a hex, maybe some kind of skin pox or limping disease of the knees so that they’ll all fall down moaning and I can step over them, one by one, as if walking on rocks across a stream to find my way to school. But of course I don’t. First of all, I’m not really old enough to hex an entire crowd of moving people, and secondly, my mother warned me, No magic in Brooklyn!

  I finally find the school, but I’m late, of course, even though I left my house hours earlier. In Alverland, nothing is more than a ten-minute walk away, so spending this much time getting anyplace seems absurd. Standing in the middle of the empty hallway I wonder why I insisted, fought, begged, bartered, made promises, and endlessly cajoled my parents into letting me attend public high school in a new place. Am I out of my mind? Did somebody put the donkey hex of stupidity on me? I thought this was going to be easy. All I’d have to do is dress like an erdler and I’d fit right in. As if I could waltz into this school, playing my lute, and everything would be fine. Obviously I’m an idiot.

  I’m about to turn around and head out the big green doors of the school. Back into the chaotic, smelly street, where I’ll probably wander around lost for years before I find my way to the subway, let alone all the way home. I’m about to chuck it all, tell my parents they were right, and hole up for the rest of my existence in my new cramped bedroom at the top of the stairs in our house, when someone says, “Why are you out of class?”

  I turn around to face a tiny, angry woman scowling at me. She has small sharp features like a mouse. Her hands are balled into fists, which she holds on her hips like weapons. Plus she’s wearing all green. She looks just like the mean little pixies my grandmother used to tease us about. “I said, what are you doing out of class? Do you have a hall pass? What’s your name?” the pixie lady demands.

  That’s when I lose it. Lose it like a snot-nosed, diaper-wearing, thumb-sucking, toothless, babbling baby. I drop my bag to the floor, let my knees go weak, slump over into a heap of quivering jelly, and cry miserably. The pixie lady stares me down while I wail. I swear she checks her watch and taps her foot impatiently until I pull it together enough to lift my head and squeak, “I don’t know where to go.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Do you always get this worked up when you’re lost? ”

  I suck back the snot streaming down my face, wipe my hands across my moist eyes, and say, “I’ve never been this lost before.”

  “For God’s sake, girl,” she hisses. “You’re inside a school. How hard can it be?”

  This only makes me cry harder, because I know she’s right. “But I, but I, but, but . . .” I sputter. “First the trains . . . and I went the wrong way . . . was it the F or the A or the 2 or 3 . . . and who can figure out those maps with all the colors? Red! Blue! Orange! How was I supposed to know which platform, which staircase, which end of the train I’m supposed to get on? Not to mention the subway stations! There are rats down there. And it smells. Terrible. And all those people? Where are they all going? Where could so many people be going?” I come out of my rant clutching my hair and stamping my feet as if I’m having a temper tantrum, which, actually, I am.

  The pixie grabs me by the upper arm and pulls. I scoop up my bag and go tripping behind her. “How many drama queens can one school hold?” she mutters to herself as she drags me down the empty hall.

  We pass closed doors through which I hear teachers’ voices over groups of kids laughing. I also hear music (drums, pianos, a trumpet from far away) and feet stomping in unison as if dancing. Posters cover the walls inviting me to “Join Student Government” or “Come to the First Chess Club Meeting Tonight” or “Help Plan the Halloween Dance!” I drag my feet to slow the pixie down so I can read every flyer on a large bulletin board. This weekend there’s going to be a film festival and an “open mic night,” whatever that is. And today after school I could go to a free talk about poverty in Africa or even learn how to crochet. I could never do those things in Alverland, but here, I can do anything, and that’s why I came today.

  The pixie stops and I bump into her, nearly sending her to the floor. “Good God!” she says to the ceiling. “Not even nine o’clock yet and this is my day already.” She points to a half-open door and gives me a little shove. “In you go,” she says. “Tell it all to the shrinky dink, drama queen.”

  I’m inside a bright, sunny office with a wilting jade plant in the window and sad yellow daisies in a vase. Without thinking I whisper one of the first incantations my grandmother taught us, “Flowers, flowers please don’t die, lift your heads up to the sky!” Slowly the jade plant unfurls its drooping leaves and the daisies stand tall in the vase. Then I remember that I shouldn’t be casting spells, no matter how harmless. What if someone saw me? How would I explain? I consider undoing the incantation, but that would be more magic. I have to be careful now. I must remember to act like an erdler.

  I hear quick footsteps in the hallway. I peek out the door and see a couple hurrying by, holding hands. The girl’s hair flies over her shoulder as she looks up at the guy. “We’re so late,” she says, and they both laugh, then they’re gone around a corner.

  I’m left with a tingly feeling in the pit of my stomach. Before my family left Alverland, my cousin Briar and I spent hours in the branches of a sycamore tree, talking about how erdlers fall in love, date, fight, and break up with broken hearts. Or so we’ve heard.

  “Do you think you’ll have a boyfriend there?” Briar had asked me a hundred times.

  “That’s not why I want to go,” I told her as I picked layers of shaggy bark off the peeling tree trunk. “I just want the chance to see another part of the world, try new things, eat food I’ve only heard of.” But secretly I wondered if I would find an erdler boy in Brooklyn. Then again, I can barely find my way to school, so how will I ever find a boyfriend? I need to focus on the real reason I’m here: music, art, experience! All of the things missing in Alverland.

  I drop onto a little couch and try to regroup. I need to break the problem into manageable steps, as my mother likes to say. I take a deep breath and try to remember My Plan for Life in Brooklyn. First, make friends. (But how?) Second, get a boyfriend. (Yeah, right!) Third, and most important, find as many ways to perform as possible. I have one year here, and I’m not going to waste it.

  I look around the office again. Beside me on a little table is a big black binder titled “Upcoming Auditions.” It’s filled with dozens of pages with information about trying out for plays, musicals, bands, ensembles, improv troupes, and commercials. I get prickly chills up and down my back. This is it! I think. The real reason I’m here. In Alverland we do the same pageants and plays every season—to welcome in the harvest, to give thanks for bountiful hunting, to celebrate the equinox. It’s always the same songs, in
the same order, on the same day. Nobody writes plays about a different topic or makes up new songs except my dad. It’s not that I don’t like singing in the sugar shack when we make syrup for the Festival of Maple Trees, but there’s more to life than pancakes!

  As I browse through the binder of possibilities, a door across the room opens and a woman walks in. She’s too preoccupied with reading the paper in her hands to notice me, so I take a second to get a good look at her. She wears a full, rippling purple skirt with tiny bells sewn on the hem that jingle as she moves. On top she wears a long flowing white shirt, not unlike what we wear in Alverland. She has three necklaces of brightly colored beads, lots of bracelets on both wrists and even around one ankle above her soft leather sandals. She tucks a loose strand of her brown hair behind one ear and I see that she has silver rings on nearly every finger. I like her already.

  “Are you the shrinky dink?” I ask.

  “Yow!” she shrieks, and gives a little jump so that all her bracelets, necklaces, rings, and bells clink and clatter. “The shrinky dink?” she asks, as if she can’t believe I said that.

  “Sorry.” I cringe. “That’s what that woman told me.” I point to the door where the lady in green left me, but of course she’s long gone, vanished just like a mean little pixie would. “Am I in the wrong place?”

  She narrows her eyes to study me. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Zephyr,” I tell her, then remember how the erdlers always use last names, too. “Zephyr Addler.”

  “Ah ha!” She grins. “So you are Zephyr. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  “You have?” I ask, and for the first time since I kissed my mom good-bye this morning, I smile.

  She nods. “I’m Ms. Sanchez, your guidance counselor,” she tells me carefully. I get the hint that “shrinky dink ” is not what I should call her. I imagine how the pixie will look after I zing her with a nasty little hair-loss spell for embarrassing me like this. Then I remember my no-magic promise to my mom.