Page 41 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

“Igor in accounting? He. Um.”

“What?” She was acting like something huge and horrible would happen to me. “Bad interest rates?” I’d sat through a lecture about those with Samantha while watching her cut up all but one of my credit cards—which I now had to pay off in full each and every month like a smart adult. “Or do I get eaten by the dragon who ate Paxi?” I laughed, but Josie froze beside me.

I could have sworn Estelle went pale, muttering something about Igor eating someone or something. I wasn’t totally sure, but the lightness was definitely gone from the room. “Sorry,” I croaked. “What happens to me?”

“Nothing, nothing!” Estelle said brightly. “In all likelihood, your past, present and future will be placed on the scales in the Magical Court of Rules and a determination will be made at that time.”

“What does that mean?”

“My advice is do your best, and stay off of Mrs. C’s naughty list.”

“Who’s she?”

“A witch. So, are you good with the plan?”

“Um.” I looked to Josie, whose brows were furrowed in thought. I didn’t dare glance Tamara’s way. The fingers on the hand she was holding had lost their feeling thanks to her killer grip.

“It’s the only way, isn’t it?” Josie said, her question more like a statement.

“Other than sending an e-transfer for the balance, yes,” Estelle replied.

“Then that’s that.” Josie shifted, facing me. “We’re done here.”

As we got up to leave, I stopped at the office door. My mind was running around like an excited Felipe when we brought out a bag of Spitz—his favourite sunflower seeds—only I wasn’t excited. I was confused, and I was having trouble wrapping my head around all of this new information.

“My wish about James?” Estelle nodded. “That’s worn off, right? Everything he says and does—that’s him, right?”

Estelle gave me a sweet, reassuring smile as she nodded.

Feeling relieved, and with my feet practically floating like the fairy crossing the pink carpet, I coasted along after Josie and Tamara. My smile grew as we made our way to the doors. James found me beautiful and, by some happy miracle, I was that sweet man’s type.

* * *

Outside YFGM,Samantha and Gabby were gone. Josie tried to explain the time differences between worlds and portals. Basically, what I gathered, was that our friends hadn’t actually been frozen, but time had done a slow-down and speed-up thing around the portal as part of a protection spell.

Still concerned for their wellbeing, as well as their mood for being ditched by us without apparent explanation, I called them only to discover that they were happily having drinks in a nearby Irish pub.

I still didn’t get it. But they told us to go on home without them, so now Tamara was driving us back to the apartment in her convertible, Benjamin, with the top up, the May evening still too chilly for letting the wind tousle our hair. As she drove, I considered how many good deeds I needed to perform over the next three months in order to pay off all of my stupid, thoughtless wishes. If each good deed was worth a buck, I needed around one-hundred thousand of them. If my math was on target, that was over twelve-hundred good deeds a day.

I turned, looking into the back where Josie was sitting. “Josie, can you do the math on my account for me? How many good deeds do I have to do to clear my account before August 15th?”

“How much is a good deed worth?”

Tamara had been clutching the dusty, yellowed list Estelle had given us from accounting when we’d left, and I found it on the dashboard, wrinkly from being in contact with her clammy hand. I held it up to the window to catch the waning evening light.

“Gimme that,” Josie demanded. She hunched over the list, mumbling numbers. “The average seems to be about seventy cents. Canadian.”

I let out a squeak, causing Tamara to swerve around an invisible obstacle.

“What?” she gasped. “What?”

“Seventycents!” I complained. “Why is the Canadian dollar always so weak?”

“Exchange rates suck,” Josie muttered. “Although, I’m not sure what currency this would be exchanged from. Galleons? Spacebucks? Latinum?”

“Seventy cents is an outrage,” Tamara complained. She was still pale and had been since the door for YGFM had appeared. I hoped this wasn’t a permanent affliction, and that I hadn’t accidentally broken my bestie.

“That can’t be right.” I reached into the back seat for the price list, but Josie pulled it further away, refusing to share. Why hadn’t we noticed the prices back in Estelle’s office? And why had she sold this karma plan as something feasible when it clearly was not?

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