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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "The Real Rescuers"  You don't really want to talk to either Lacie or Carson. But at least Lacie is offering free food. And maybe you can get some of the anger you feel off your chest. So as you are leaving church, you tell your parents you got an offer for a free lunch at the Bavarian Forest. They both seem impressed by that. Robert, your little brother, is less happy about your good fortune, and spends the drive back to your house making faces at you from the other side of the back seat. * * * * * The restaurant is pretty crowded when you get there, and as you wait to be seated you start to get nervous when you don't see Lacie or any of her friends around. You ask about her as the waitress takes you to a booth in the back corner by a window. Your anxiety spikes when she tells you that Lacie doesn't come in on Sundays until five. "Well, here's the thing," you tell her. "I got a text from her, um, offering to comp my meal. And I don't have any money on me." "Uh huh," the woman says, and she doesn't look very sympathetic. "Well, I tell you what, I'll bring you some complimentary pretzels, and you can text Lacie." You don't even touch the pretzels—as soft, warm, and inviting as they appear—as you wait for Lacie to reply to your carefully worded text asking if she meant you could eat free at the restaurant today. You don't hear direct from her, but you do hear from the waitress, who returns to your table after ignoring you for ten minutes, to ask with a smile if you want to order something, as she just heard that Lacie is on her way and that you are to be given anything you want, on the house. Relief gushes over you, but you ask for a couple of minutes to study the menu as you grab one of the pretzels. Lacie herself bustles in about twenty minutes later—you have asked only for a single cheese bratwurst, as you want to confer with Lacie herself over what would be the best thing to get—and drops breathlessly into the seat opposite you. She is dressed in a lavender blouse with her hair done in loose curls, and a black choker about her throat. She smiles at you with warm eyes. And then she seems to see you for the first time, and with a sharp squeal leaps up to come over to your side of the table, there to grab your head in an awkward hug and kiss you sloppily on the top of your cap. "Oh my God, I can't thank you enough for what you did last night!" she says she beams at you while resuming her seat. "I owe you so much!" She even sniffles a little, and a little wetness comes into her eye. "You didn't even have to do that, and you did!" "Um ... sure," you stammer. "What did you order? Not just that, right?" She frowns at the sausage, and turns to signal the waitress. "Sandra, what's Will getting?" she asks. "He hasn't ordered yet. Just the appetizers." Lacie looks at you. "I wanted to get your recommendations," you tell her. That causes her to turn a little pink, and after grabbing up the menu she rattles off about seven items to Sandra, who scribbles them all down before running away. "Okay, so," Lacie says, and she plants both elbows on the table and puts her head in her hand, leaning forward to drink you in intently. "What happened when you got out to the Warehouse?" You lick your lips, and start to give a recital of events: How you only got in because a girl interceded, and how she got one of the "guys in a red shirt" to bring her sister and her boyfriend out to you. "So," you interrupt yourself at this point, "I didn't even really do anything. It was this guy, and the girl who asked him, who really got your sister out." But she shakes her head impatiently. "That's the way you'd have to do it anyway," she says. "You'd've started trouble if you'd tried it yourself. Have you ever been out there before?" "Uh, no." That causes her to rear back, and her jaw drops. "You've never been out to the Warehouse?" she squeals. "And you still went out there, to get my sister?" She twists around in her seat, her curls flying as she swings her head around, looking this way and that. "I'm giving you a cake to take home! A whole, freaking cake! And a coupon for another free dinner! Two— No, five coupons!" * * * * * You insist that's not necessary, but she says that it is, and that you're not getting out of it. But she asks you to continue the story, particularly how Bree and Jonas reacted. You do your best to gloss over Bree's behavior, telling her only that she was really mad—and assuring her, in answer to her question, that Bree didn't break anything in your car. As for Jonas, you're less shy about telling her that he cussed you out hard, and jumped from your truck before reaching his house. She doesn't sound surprised, and she doesn't apologize for Jonas, but she does apologize for her sister. "I really hope you're not too mad at her," she pleads. "She just wants to have fun. And it's kind of hard on her because—" She bites her lip. "We're all supposed to be looking after her, me and my friends. But we're all seniors, and she wants to hang out with us, because we're older and we get to do stuff. So she tries to go off and do stuff, like going to the Warehouse, that she shouldn't. "And some of it is Jonas's fault," she adds. "I mean, he's a good kid and all, we all like him. But he wants to do what his friends are doing. So, if they're going to the Warehouse, then he does too, and then— Well." You assure her that you understand. "Do you?" she groans, and stretches halfway across the table to clutch your hand with both of hers. "Because you are soooo sweet, and it was sooooo good of you to do this! I really can't believe it! When I got that text from my mom last night, and I found out what happened, I was so, like—" She struggles, looking for the right word. And when she finds it—"aghast"—she says it like she's proud to have thought of it, and says it a few more times. "Just aghast! You must be," she concludes, and touches her eye again, for she is in obvious danger of bursting into tears, "the nicest, the most considerate guy I've ever met!" Her face curls up into a tearful smile. You repeat that it was really the others at the Warehouse that did the hard work. "I'll talk to them too. Who was working there, that made them leave? Oh yeah, I think I know Blake," she says when you tell her the name. "I'll do something for him. But it was really you," she insists, "because he wouldn't have done anything except you went out there!" Then she starts asking you about yourself, with a lot more attention than any of her friends—or any girl, really—has ever really given you. * * * * * Lunch is amazing, and huge. Rather than a particular entree, Lacie ordered you a little bit of everything: a cup of German potato soup; jagerschnitzel with mushroom-bacon gravy; a slice of pork loin; a leg off a rotisserie chicken; sides of spaetzle and sauerkraut and cucumber salad; and she sends you home with a doggie bag containing two pretzels you didn't eat and two sausages that you had to push away. She also gives you a box containing a whole German chocolate cake. Your dad practically starts drooling when he sees the latter, and keeps flashing it covetous looks, even after your mom warns him to stay out of it on account of his "diet." Both of them ask what you did to get such a reward, and you are able to explain it without lying by telling them that you went and picked up a classmate's sister last night when she was stranded. They both accept this, and seem rather proud of you. As for you, you've forgiven Lacie and her friends for the whole debacle; and you would even forgive Bree and Jonas except you're pretty sure they'll never forgive you. You are even expansive with Patrick when he texts you that evening: Lol herd lacie gave u free food for getting bree home last night. Could of been urs if u gone get her dood, you reply with a grinning emoji. But his reply gives you pause: Rotfl no do that shit for them anymore too hassle u better get used doing it they gone ask u now all time. Could that be true, you wonder. Will Lacie and her friends expect you to do those kinds of favors for them? You try laughing it off in your reply: Ok if I get free food! Dream on! Patrick replies, with a string of laughing emojis, which really disconcerts you. But then adds, Maybe u get date w her cousin tho. What abt her cousin? you ask. Omg go out her house c her sometime! Maybe I will, you reply. That elicits more laughing emojis from Patrick, which end the conversation. But maybe he texted something to Lacie, because she texts you a little later, inviting you to come hang out at her house tomorrow after school. An acceptance would seem to be order. But Patrick's jeering about how she and her friends might start using you for all kinds of favors gives you pause. It would be very easy—if untruthful—to tell them you've already got plans, and to slowly try to disengage. * To go out to Lacie's after school: "A Favor from Lacie" * To back away: "Staging an Escape of Your Own" |
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