Page 43 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

“Pyramid scheme?” I teased.

“No, yeah, maybe. You need a snowball you can push down a hill so it can grow and lead to more beneficial effects. Karmic energy is an action cycle. It’s cause and effect, cause and effect. If you can get that going, then it’ll start to do most of the work for you. Sorta like compound interest.”

I laughed, appreciating her optimism. “You sound like Samantha. She loves her compound interest.”

“Yeah, well, even though she’s a bit spoiled, she’s helped me grow my inventory business’s bottom line with all of her tips. I may even get to retire one day. Imagine that.” She bumped her shoulder into me.

“Yeah. She sucks.” We laughed, the warmth toward our friend unspoken, as was our appreciation and loyalty to her. “What will she and Gabby remember about us going into the office-portal thingy? From their perspective, did we ditch them or just vanish into thin air?”

“They won’t question it. There’ll be a rational story they both believe for why we parted ways outside YFGM.”

“But they don’t believe in…” I waved a hand in the general direction of Estelle and the office filled with fairies “…all of that?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.” She winked at me, clearly loving all of this.

What a weird day.

We passed a group of teenagers milling about, aimlessly kicking their skateboards against the curb, one of them dribbling a basketball, then bouncing it off a nearby boarded up building, leaving round ball marks on its siding. The wind pushed an empty pop can across our path, clanking along before getting caught in the fence that stretched in front of the vacant lot. At least the kids weren’t playing in the lot’s trash again. I could still see the slide they’d made earlier though, like a tempting invitation that would surely woo them back.

Josie and I hunched further into our jackets, and for the first time, the city didn’t feel full of possibilities. Our neighbourhood, Everstone, felt dirty and slightly unwelcoming. I still wished Everstone would get cleaned up and given a good dose of community pride.

That wasn’t a real wish, though. I was done with those. It was more like wishful thinking, which certainly had to be different.

As the streetlights came on, three kids missing their front teeth ran by, playing tag in the street, all smiles and shouting. I thought of them growing up here with the street as their playground.

Cleaning up our neighbourhood could be one of those big snowball ideas Josie had mentioned, but the question again was, how did someone like me do that?

A car tooted at the boys as it crawled past, and I muttered to Josie as we stuck to the sidewalk, “They’re going to get run over.”

A dog barked in the distance, reminding me of the shelter a block over and smaller, more achievable karmic ideas. “How much do you think volunteering at the shelter would earn me?”

She shrugged. “A dollar each time, maybe?”

“But I’m taking care of a poor, defenceless, surrendered animal!”

“You have to think bigger. There’s got to be something.”

I sighed and hooked my arm through hers, grateful not to be walking alone tonight.

While we walked, I took in our neighbourhood. If I were to walk dogs, where would I take them? There were no green spaces in Everstone. Just sidewalks and parking lots. Were city dogs really supposed to do their business where everyone walked? That didn’t seem right somehow, and I felt as though someone ought to do something about that, too.

Sighing with an internal feeling of defeat as we reached the end of the block, I paused before crossing the street. I turned to Josie. “Do you hear that?”

“Sounds like crying?”

We both pivoted to face the direction we’d come. The kids were no longer playing tag in the street, and the teenagers were gone.

“Shh!” She grabbed my arm. “There it is again.” From somewhere around the middle of the block, someone was crying.

Josie and I looked at each other and took off running, stopping in front of the abandoned lot, scanning for the kids we’d seen earlier.

“Right there.” I pointed to that awful barrel and sheet metal slide they’d made last week. I bent down, cramming my curvy body through the hole in the fence, getting muddy hands as I clawed my way into the lot. I cursed under my breath. “This lot!”

“You okay?” Josie called to the three boys once we were through the fence. Josie, being tall and slim, had made it through without apparent issue, popping to her feet at almost the same moment I did.

A boy’s head appeared over the barrel, his voice filled with panic. “He cut his leg.”

We came around beside the children and I sucked in a breath. A boy in sweatpants, about ten-years-old, had a bad gash in his thigh.

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