Page 48 of Witch You Would
“Might be something in the soil. Could also be solar?”
True. The glass ceiling let in plenty of light.
He sat down next to me. Hopefully wardrobe had cleaning charms for the dirt we were collecting on our pants. My jeans mighthide it, but Leandro was wearing loose khakis.
“You okay?” Leandro asked softly. “Want me to leave?”
Weirdly, I didn’t. I shook my head.
“What are you thinking?”
A tiny yellow butterfly landed on an orange milkweed flower across the path from the sculpture. I watched it for a bit, thenexhaled loudly.
“I used to come here when I was younger,” I said. “With school, and my abuela. I don’t have time to anymore, or money, and,like... I’m not the same person I was then, either, I guess. But I have a lot of nice memories, and it’s still really beautiful.”
“It is. I came here, too, growing up.”
“You’re from here?” Why had I thought he wasn’t?
“Yeah.” He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure how much more he should say. “I’ve done some demonstrations here, too. For kidson field trips.”
More depths to the lake. “On the bus you said you liked casting with kids.”
“Kids are great,” he said. The more he talked, the more cheerful he got. “Especially the little ones. They’re so hyped to see magic, and they love to correct you and tell you what to do. The teenagerssometimes are trying to be cool, you know? I have to work harder to impress them.”
“Sounds like you do this a lot.”
“Mostly through the charity I’m competing for. Have you ever heard of Alan Kazam’s Schools Are Magic?”
“Are they still around?” I asked. “They came to my school in third grade. I used to see commercials on TV, and before movies.”
He looked up at the sculpture. “Yeah, they can’t afford ads anymore. I need that prize money to keep them going.”
“That sucks.” I could tell he cared about this a lot. I wanted to winCast Judgmentfor selfish reasons, and here he was, trying to save a struggling charity.
Now who was the shallow, muddy puddle.
He stared at the shifting glass like he wasn’t really seeing it, like he’d gone to a dark place inside his own head again.I didn’t like it. I wanted to pull him back out, here, into the butterfly garden with me.
“What kinds of spells do you show the kids?” I asked.
Leandro grinned, and for a second, it was like seeing myself put on my customer service smile.
“Simple, flashy stuff,” he said. “Jumping water tricks, basic circle work to make feathers levitate, animating popsicle-stickdolls and robots... usually I’ll do some silly finale like trying to make a giant indestructible bubble dog, and insteadI make enough little bubble puppies for them to chase around and bring back to me.”
Okay, that was adorable. “They don’t freak out when the puppies pop?”
“I spin a whole story about summoning them from Bubble Land and sending them back. They don’t pop, they go home.”
“Nice. That must be really fun.” Did I sound jealous? Maybe a little.
“You could always volunteer. We provide the spells and reagents, you just have to show up.”
“I wish I had time...” I sighed and hung my head. “I guess I do have time now that I don’t have a job. I should probablyfocus on getting a new one when this is over, though.”
“No way.” He poked my arm. “We’re going to win, and then you’re going to spend a year making awesome stuff, and some CharlotteSharp–alike is going to hire you.”
“Hopefully the universe is listening. My friend Rosy—the one who was at the park with me—always says I need to stop catastrophizingand”—I made a rainbow shape with my hands—“maaanifest.”
