He yanked on my arm, pulling me forward and I saw we were heading for an open door that showed a messy, unmade bed.
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.