Curses, Inc. And Other Stories Page 3

  ***

  All day Friday Bill enjoyed himself because he knew that while he was the only person in the Thomas Jefferson eighth-grade class not planning to go to the dance, there was someone else who wasn't going to make it.

  He went to sleep that night thinking how miserable Denise was at that very moment.

  Saturday, when he came down for breakfast, his father said, "Hey, isn't this your girlfriend's picture in the paper?"

  "I don't have a girlfriend," Bill said, but he glanced over anyway.

  The picture was labeled: RAGS TO RABBITS. And there was Denise, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and somebody who had to be her Spanish duke—wearing a tuxedo, of all things. The two of them were grinning and holding between them what had to be the hugest stuffed rabbit Bill had ever seen, about the size of a chubby seven-year-old.

  "What?" Bill yelped, snatching the paper from his father.

  The article explained that Denise Bainbridge and her date Rafael-with-three-or-four-last-names-that-Bill-didn't-bother-trying-to-decipher were going to an eighth-grade graduation dance. Getting out of the limousine that Rafael had hired (apparently the guy really was rich), Denise had caught her dress on the door handle, ripping the skirt section half off from the top.

  "I was all upset," the paper quoted Denise as saying, "and I had nothing else appropriate to wear, so Rafael suggested we skip the dance and go to the fair instead."

  Once there, the paper went on, Rafael—who described himself as an expert marksman—had gone to the firing range, winning prizes that he kept trading up, till they ended with the amazing twenty-five-pound rabbit. When the fair manager came out to congratulate Denise and Rafael, they told him how they had come to be there, and the manager felt so sorry for Denise's disastrous date that he called the office at Thomas Jefferson and told principal Sol Washburn to announce that "any of Denise's friends who wanted to come to the fair after the dance would get unlimited free rides."

  There was a second picture, which Bill hadn't even noticed before, with a bunch of his classmates mugging for the camera.

  He crumpled the page, despite his father's startled "Hey!" and walked very slowly back up to his room, where he turned on the computer.

  Once again it was Edanna who came on-line when Bill indicated he needed to speak to someone directly. Perhaps she was the only employee—perhaps she was Curses, Inc. Bill was so upset he kept hitting two or three keys at once.

  "I WANT HER AS MISERABLE AS I AM," Bill typed in all capitals to indicate he was shouting. "SHE'S MADE ME USE UP MOST OF MY MONEY AND RUINED MY SUMMER. I WANT TO RUIN HER SUMMER, TOO."

  Edanna, as always, remained calm.

  I'm sorry, sir, a Ruined Summer Curse is one of our most expensive MALEDICTION curses and would cost $475.

  How about an Unhappiest Day Curse?

  "You mean," Bill typed, still fumbling with the keys, "I can name one day that would be the unhappiest day of her life?"

  Well, I'm afraid an Unhappiest Day of Her LIFE Curse would cost considerably more than you have at the moment, sir. But we could guarantee your presence on the unhappiest day of her SUMMER.

  "How much?" Bill typed.

  Normally, the cost for an Unhappiest Day Curse for an entire season would be $200.

  Checking our records, I see the balance of your savings account is $185. Since you're such a valued customer of long standing, I'm willing to bend the rules just a little.

  Bill had learned to be suspicious in his dealings with Curses, Inc. He typed, "But it'll still be her unhappiest day? You aren't going to make it her second most unhappiest day?"

  No. sir, of course not. It will be our standard Unhappiest Day Curse, just offered at a slight discount, because it's you.

  Bill got an unaccountably sentimental feeling at the thought that he'd become someone special to Edanna, that she was trying to look out for him. "Thank you," he typed. He shut his eyes, trying to block out the picture of the balance of his savings account going down to all zeros. "Do it."

  The day Bill scheduled to be the unhappiest day of Denise's summer was that Monday, the last day of school. There were no classes; it was a field day: They spent about half an hour cleaning out their desks and lockers, got their report cards, then the rest of the time was just a bunch of running around and games.

  Even under normal circumstances, Bill hated field days, but this one was worse than usual because nobody was talking to him. Everybody was talking to Denise. She was still the big hero for getting everybody those free fair passes. All the while he kept waiting for something to go wrong for her: for somebody to kick the ball so that it hit her in the mouth and broke her front teeth, for her to get her arm pulled out of its socket during tug-of-war, for her to get into an argument with her best friend.

  None of that happened. Denise won every game she played, so that all the kids were continually begging for her to join their team, be their lucky player. She was laughing and being the center of attention and having a great time.

  Maybe she'll get run over by the bus, Bill thought hopefully as the day finally ended.

  But Denise didn't go home by bus that day.

  Rafael, riding a bicycle built for two, came to pick her up.

  Even if she DIES today, Bill thought all the long, lonely bus ride to his house, it's still been a good day for her.

  Furious, he turned on the computer and clicked on the Curses, Inc. icon. There was no way they could refuse his money back after this.

  The familiar blue background with stars came on, accompanied by the tinkling of those infuriating bells.

  WELCOME TO CURSES, INC.,

  BILL ESSLER.

  AND HOW WAS YOUR DAY?

  This screen faded away without waiting for a response, which was a good thing, for Bill was too furious to respond coherently. Words appeared on the screen and slowly scrolled upward.

  I imagine you have some questions, and I imagine I know exactly what they are, so here's some answers without your even having to ask.

  The answer to your first question is:

  Yes, this WAS the unhappiest day of Denise's summer.

  Tomorrow she will get a call from a reporter on the local TV news, who saw her picture in the paper. They'll do a feature on her and find her so photogenic and so congenial that...

  ... the day after, they will call her and ask her to do a daily five-minute segment on teen news. Then...

  ... the following day, Denise will get a call from a department store fashion coordinator who has seen her on television and who wants her to model clothes for their fall catalog, which is being photographed even now, so that...

  ... the very next day they'll fly her to Hawaii for location shots, where she'll be introduced to a Hollywood director who's...

  Well, I'm sure you get the picture, Bill. Denise is going to have a very exciting and wonderful summer, and she's going to love every minute of it, so that's why today was the worst day of her summer.

  As for your second question, the answer is:

  Yes, I have to admit I knew all this yesterday, but you never asked.

  And the answer to your third question is:

  Because Denise took out a Lose All Your Money Curse on you before you ever contacted us. First come/first served, you know.

  A bit of free advice. Bill:

  You really ought to learn to loosen up a bit.

  After all that scrolled away, the smiley face with the witch's hat appeared, and the message:

  Don't call us, we'll call you....

  Then that faded away, slowly.

  And when Bill frantically looked for the Curses, Inc. icon, that was gone, too.

  Skin Deep

  ARDDA LIVED IN A COTTAGE in the woods a half day's journey from the village. This arrangement suited Ardda for two reasons. One was because this way she didn't have people hounding her day and night with spur-of-the-moment requests for frivolous wishes: Let me win at cards (a request that frequently came from several people simultaneously); I need a b
reeze so my laundry will dry faster; we need less breeze for our picnic; make my cake rise; mend my cracked pot; and on and on.... By making people travel half a day to her cottage and half a day back home, Ardda knew that they had at least spent some time thinking about whatever they were asking for.

  There was a more important reason why Ardda lived away from the village, however. Though she was sixteen years old, and though she had memories going as far back as when she had been about two years old, she couldn't remember a day when some villager hadn't said—or whispered—"What an ugly girl,"

  For Ardda had eyes that were narrow and squinty, a nose that was too big, and hair that was a muddy brown color and hung perfectly straight and limp so that—no matter how clean it was and how she'd fussed with it—she always looked as though someone had just dumped a pail of dirty water over her head.

  All of this was nothing. The first thing anybody noticed about Ardda was the purple-colored birthmark that covered half her left cheek. Children were always coming up to her, pointing, and demanding in an accusing voice, "What's that?" Or strangers passing through the village would ask if she'd been burned when she was a baby. Or people would pat her on the head and murmur, "Poor thing."

  Often, during Ardda's growing-up years, she would hear the adults whisper to one another, "Such a pity. And she's such a sweet-natured and kind thing." But the young people Ardda's own age were less sympathetic and much, much crueler. No amount of generosity or helpfulness would win them over. They had only stopped openly tormenting her when it became obvious—sometime around her twelfth summer—that she had the ability to change things with her wishes.

  One of the things she changed—of course—was the way she looked. She couldn't make a permanent change; in fact, it wasn't even a real change, it was only a glamour: When she leaned over the washbasin in the mornings, she could still see reflected in it the awful purple mark that covered so much of her face and the nose that seemed to cover most of what was left. But she could make other people think they saw a smooth pink cheek, a discreet little nose. She made them see—she wasn't greedy—not luxurious curls, but hair that didn't lie exactly flat against her forehead and down the sides of her face.

  But the people knew what she really looked like. She heard them laugh. She heard them mutter, "Who does she think she's fooling?"

  She considered a much stronger wish: She considered making them all forget she'd ever been any different than she appeared now.

  But then she worried. Should she make her parents and brothers and sisters forget, too? And if they couldn't remember protecting her from the younger children's taunts, how much of her growing-up years would she have to erase from their minds? Should she make everyone believe she'd always been beautiful and they'd always loved her?

  In the end she simply let go of the glamour, and—as soon as she was old enough to be on her own—she moved to the cottage in the woods.

  That was how Ardda came to be alone one December afternoon of the year she was sixteen. As the snow began to fall thick and fast and Ardda was indoors safe and warm and comfortable, with a fire in the fireplace, a wool shawl around her shoulders, a purring cat on her lap, and a cup of tea in her hand, she heard a thumping sound from outside.

  Somebody, she thought—or actually two or three somebodies from the amount of noise—was on her porch. What could have caused anyone to set out in such weather?

  Ardda tried to shoo the cat off her lap. But the cat was lazy and comfortable and pretended not to understand, and it clung on to Ardda's skirt so that Ardda had to stand up to prove to the cat that she was serious about wanting it off.

  And in all this while, Ardda realized, no one had knocked at the door, but the thumping from the porch continued.

  Ardda opened the door and found herself face-to-face with a horse.

  "Well, hello," Ardda said, grabbing the horse's bridle because the creature seemed ready to walk right in and make itself at home. "Aren't you a fine fellow? How kind of you to visit, but I'm afraid you can't come in."

  The horse shook himself, making the tiny gold bells on his bridle jingle. He had obviously, Ardda thought, run long and hard through the woods. Despite the cold, he was lathered, and he had fresh scratches from bolting through the close-set trees.

  "Do you have a master?" Ardda asked. "I see you must."

  The horse was a magnificent stallion: big and well cared for—despite the scratches—and beautiful. The reins, the saddle, the decorative trappings all were made of the finest materials and must have cost a fortune.

  "Did you leave your master behind?" Ardda asked, thinking maybe something in the woods had startled the horse, causing him to rear and throw his rider. But then Ardda saw that there was blood on the saddle and the reins and on the horse's neck and mane. Not the horse's blood, she surmised, not from the scratches, but as though someone had been injured, and had clung on for as long as possible before falling off.

  Ardda forced the horse to bend his neck, to place his head against hers. "Tell me," she whispered, wishing for her mind to open to images from the horse's mind. The horse pictured himself walking through Ardda's open front door into a nice warm stable, fresh straw, fragrant hay, with Ardda herself—the horse fervently hoped—standing there holding a plump, juicy apple.

  "Tell me," Ardda repeated, picturing in her own mind the woods, someone's arms around the horse's neck, the horse running.

  The horse thought those were scary thoughts. He wanted to think about that warm stable.

  Ardda pictured in her mind the small barn that was up against the back of the cottage. She pictured the goats she kept, and the chickens. She pictured herself leading the horse there, and rubbing him down, and giving him an apple. Then she pictured, again, the woods, and running, and the hurt rider.

  She got a jumble of pictures: an enormous stable with stall after stall of other horses, a kind two-legs-who-provides-oats, who must be the owner. The horse wasn't clear on faces, but he recognized hands—and the owner had gentle hands, and apples often hidden in pockets. Then the horse was remembering riding through the woods, enjoying the crisp air, the running for the pure joy of running.

  And then it got darker, and much colder, and the cold-white-little-things-that-sometimes-melt-and-sometimes-form-a-cold-blanket-on-the-ground started falling, and the two-legs faced him toward home—which the horse pictured as the stable. But other two-legs jumped out of the shadows of the trees and threw sticks-that-fly-and-are-sharp at them.

  The horse—with a certain amount of self-satisfaction—pictured himself carrying his two-legs away to safety. But the two-legs was making hurt-sounding noises and leaking red-stuff-that-belongs-inside outside. The horse gave Ardda the image of the two-legs sliding off and falling into a pile of the cold-white-little-things-after-they-haven't-melted-but-have-formed-a-cold-blanket-on-the-ground.

  "Good boy," Ardda told the horse. "You are a brave fellow to have gotten away from those bandits." She led him into the barn, rubbed the lather off his back and legs, and threw a blanket over him. It was too soon, after all that running, for him to eat, but she rested her forehead against his and sent him a picture of her presenting him with a whole armful of apples as soon as she came back.

  She stopped back in the cottage itself just long enough to gather her cloak, a knife, a small clay cook pot, and some healing herbs.

  Then she set out, following the horse's hoof-prints in the snow, and hoped that she would find the injured man before he bled to death from the arrow wounds and before the snow covered up the horse's tracks.

  With her cloak wrapped around her and her head down against the wind, Ardda came to a point where—between the failing light and the falling snow—she could no longer make out the horse's hoofprints.

  She continued walking in the direction from which the horse seemed to have come.

  The snow, though getting deeper by the moment, was not yet deep enough to cover a man lying on the ground, even a man not moving. Periodically she called out in
to the absolute stillness, "Hello? Hello?" But the snow seemed to eat up all sound, so that she couldn't be sure how close she'd need to be for anyone to hear her—if there was anyone alive to hear her.

  All the while she walked, she wished fervently for the snow to stop. But this was a full-blown storm, much slower to turn away or kill in its tracks than some simple picnic-ruining breeze. The storm wouldn't end for hours, and she realized there was no way she could make it back home tonight.

  She came to a lean-to, one of several the villagers used when collecting wood every spring and autumn. There'd be no wood now, but it would provide some shelter. She would just go a little beyond, she determined, and then she must give up the search.

  It was just as she was turning back that she noticed a lump up ahead. She had seen several lumps, which had all ended up being tree stumps or piles of wind-driven leaves or snowdrifts, and she told herself no, she'd gone far enough, she'd said she'd stop here. But then she told herself how awful she'd feel if she'd come so close only to give up seconds before finding the horse's lost rider. Sure she'd find nothing, she made her way to the lump.

  And found the missing man.

  He was still breathing—barely—and he had an arrow shaft sticking out of his shoulder, perilously close to his heart.

  A prince, Ardda thought at the sight of his fine clothes and the gold and jewels he wore. Or a very, very wealthy merchant.

  But there aren't merchants that wealthy, Ardda decided, even in the port cities. Definitely a prince.