Oh God, oh no! I thought desperately. Where was my magic when I needed it? What could I do? I felt hopeless, but I wasn’t about to give up without a fight.
“Let me go!” I shouted again, yanking on his arm. “You’re horrible! I just wish people could see how awful you are on the inside by looking at your outside!”
At that point, I wasn’t really sure what I was saying, I was just shouting whatever came to mind—mostly because I was hoping that someone might somehow hear me through the still-cracked front door.
“I wish…I wish how awful you are was as clear as the nose on your face!” I shouted.
And then, finally, something happened.
51
At first I didn’t notice—though Mr. Groperson sure did.
He frowned and started groping frantically in his boxer shorts.
“Hey!” he shouted at me. “Hey, what did you do? Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” I yelled back, still tugging at my trapped wrist.
He pulled down his shorts, looking frantically between his legs. I looked too—I sort of couldn’t help it—but all I saw was a short, stubby nub that looked kind of like someone’s nose in a place that a nose really shouldn’t be.
No, not just a nose, I realized—Mr. Groperson’s nose! But if his nose was between his legs, then where was the thing that was supposed to be there?
And then I got a good look at his face.
Remember that thing I said I didn’t want anything to do with? The thing in his boxer shorts? Well it was there on his face—right where his nose should have been.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure to start with what I was seeing. Like I said, I was as virgin, so I hadn’t exactly had much experience with male equipment.
What it reminded me of was this old book I had when I was a kid—The Elephant’s Child, by Rudyard Kipling. It tells the story of how the elephant got its trunk. But to start with, the little elephant child doesn’t have a trunk—he just has this kind of squidgy, saggy, lumpy thing where his trunk ought to be.
That was what Mr. Groperson looked like to me—he had this saggy little sad looking thing dangling down where his nose should be. Honestly, it didn’t even touch his top lip.
“Where is it? What did you do?” he bellowed, still groping frantically between his legs.
“Your…your nose.” I pointed to where his nose should have been.
At last, he dropped my wrist and started feeling around his face with the hand he’d been holding me with, while his other hand was still groping between his legs.
I should have gotten out at once, but I felt frozen to the spot—glued to the action as I watched the nasty landlord fondle his own face.
“Oh my God!” he howled, when he finally understood what was going on. It can’t be! It can’t be!”
But it was. And the way he was stroking and pulling on the dangling limp thing on his face seemed to have an effect because it suddenly began to get longer—though still not much bigger.
Now he no longer looked like the Elephant’s Child—instead, he reminded me of an obscene Pinocchio.
Mr. Groperson ran to the bathroom. It was set up like ours, so there was a full-length mirror on the outside of the door. He stood there looking at himself, fumbling between his thighs and staring at his nose with a look of horror and disbelief on his pudgy face.
“What did you do?” he howled, whirling around to glare at me. “What did you do to me, you little bitch?”
My paralysis broke and the frozen feeling melted all at once. I turned and ran out of his apartment as fast as I could.
I didn’t even try to get to my mom’s apartment—I didn’t want to take the time to use the key and I knew she wasn’t up yet to let me in. Instead, I jammed the cash back in my pocket and hopped on my bike.
I felt his fingers grab for the back of my t-shirt but by then I was pedaling for all I was worth and I got away, the gravel squirting out from under my bike tires as I made my escape.
I had finally gotten my magic to work—but look what I had done!
What in the world was I going to do now?
52
“Emma! Emma, what’s wrong?” Bran asked, catching me as I stumbled into the Norm Dorm.
“We felt that something was happening to you but we didn’t know where you were,” Lachlan said.
“Which is why I’m up—doing a location spell on you,” Avery added from the fireplace, where he was making magical patterns in the ashes with a long stick.
“Are you all right? Bran and Lachlan thought something was the matter!” Megan exclaimed.
“Emma, we were so worried about you!” Kaitlyn added.
In fact, the whole Norm Dorm was up and buzzing—everyone in our coven was worried about me because Lachlan and Bran had woken them up when they felt something bad was happening to me.
“Oh, guys,” I said, talking mostly to Lachlan and Bran, who both had their arms around me, but also to everyone in the Common Room at large. “I…I did some magic by accident and I…I made such a mess of everything!”
Then I burst into tears.
53
“Okay, let’s go over this again,” Avery said, after I had finally calmed down. I had gotten out some of the awful story but it was pretty garbled because I was crying so hard when I told it.
He and Megan and Kaitlyn had made everyone hot chocolate and we were sitting on the couches and overstuffed chairs as we spoke. Though everyone was there—even Griffin and Ari who had come over when they felt the worry of Megan and Kaitlyn through their respective Blood Bonds—there were plenty of seats for everyone.
“So you went to pay your Mom’s landlord the double rent that he demanded which you didn’t tell us about,” Avery said, frowning at me. “And then what?”
I swiped at my eyes and sniffed. Bran and Lachlan were on either side of me, Bran with an arm around my shoulders and Lachlan with an arm around my waist. Having them there was very comforting, although I knew they were upset with me for the same reasons Avery was. I had been keeping secrets from everyone—all because of my pride.
“What exactly did he do to you, Emma?” Bran’s voice was low and angry. I thought I had never seen him so enraged before—he was usually so mild-mannered and kind but now he looked like a Fae warrior, ready to go out and cut off Mr. Groperson’s head if I asked him to.
“He…he dragged me into his apartment and tried to…to attack me,” I said in a low voice.
My coven-mates gasped and Griffin and Ari and Avery looked extremely angry. I was like a little sister to all of them and I knew they would avenge me if I asked. That was if Bran and Lachlan didn’t kill Groperson first.
“He didn’t succeed, did he?” Lachlan asked earnestly, looking at me in concern. “I mean, Bran and I would have felt it if he had, but please, little one—I need to hear it from your lips.”
“No, he didn’t,” I said, sniffing and wiping at my eyes again. “Because I…I did some magic. Only I don’t know how I did it or how to undo it either! And everything is such a mess!”