Faire Exchange: Chapter 11

Nadia has just one small critique.

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That was the worst art class Nadia had ever experienced. It made her want to hate drawing, and she loved to draw. Who didn't like to draw? Rina sure liked to draw, judging by how she pounced for the watercolors when given the chance.

If only Rina had stopped there.

No, instead, she'd used her magic to lift the drawings off her neighbors' pages and lay them on her own like she was cutting and pasting. It was an interesting trick, but it was also blatant plagiarism! Just like what happened to that artist Nadia followed online! Nadia had to spend the whole class huddled over her paper so Rina couldn't get to it. How can you enjoy art when you're too busy trying to protect it?

Earlier, Gregg had told her what he and his friends decided, about acting like nothing was going on. Easier said than done. Sure, in those classes that didn't mix kids from both rooms, that was simple enough. But you always had to watch out when Rina was around.

Now it was time for lunch, and as long as Rina stayed at her table and didn't try to steal anything else, maybe it would turn out the boys had a point.

She sat at her usual seat, with Gregg at her right and Lian and Diane across from each other at her left. Everyone from Mrs. Horn's class had gone back for their lunches. Gregg was alternately staring at his tray and watching out for Rina. Poor guy. Must be absolutely terrified of her. "How's the 'ignoring Rina' plan?" Nadia said.

"Huh? Oh, I guess it's going okay. She didn't steal any of my drawings."

"And I was really proud of mine, too," Diane grumbled.

"I guess we'll know for sure when Mrs. Horn's class gets here," Nadia said. "Where are they, anyway?"

"There they are now." Gregg pointed to the door.

Rina strode like a queen, tall and strong, to the lunch line, with the third-graders whispering in awe.

The fifth graders from Mrs. Horn's class were trudging in behind her like a horde of zombies—and they were so lifeless that Nadia wondered if they had become zombies. Thankfully they were still gathering in line or carrying their lunchboxes instead of going after anyone's brains.

Jeremy Vlachos and Martin Caesar sat down with Gregg without saying a word.

"You guys okay?" Gregg said.

"I wanna go home," Jeremy said.

"After she got back from art class," Martin said, "Rina decided to lock all our lockers."

"No way," Nadia said. Both the fifth grade classrooms had lockers, but none of them were ever actually locked. You'd have to bring your own lock from home, and hardly anybody ever did that. Locking them for everybody just seemed downright petty. "Why?"

Martin shrugged and answered, "She literally said, 'They're lockers, so shouldn't they lock?' It only wore off when she left the room."

"Ugh, somebody's gotta do something," Diane said. Lian, chewing a bite of her chicken salad, nodded.

"Well, until Mrs. Horn gets that Bangle, we're stuck," Jeremy said. He hardly touched the leftovers his mom had packed. His only comfort seemed to be glancing over at Zoe Walters (and thinking no one noticed). "We did our best to ignore her, though."

"Right," Martin said. "Barely even looked at her. And it was so hard."

"You have no idea how much I wanted to scream at her," Jeremy said. "Is that bad? That I wanna scream at a girl?"

Nadia looked over Jeremy's shoulder. "I don't think I should answer that."

"So it is bad?"

"I dunno, just—"

Rina lowered her tray between Jeremy and Lian. "Hello, Nadia." She sat down. "I enjoyed our time together yesterday, so I thought I'd join you."

Nadia's sandwich froze on the way to her mouth. Her hands went cold and her head went hot with panic. Gregg knew about yesterday, which meant by now the boys probably knew. But she'd never uttered one word to Diane or Lian, who now both stared and inched away.

Nadia could only stammer. "I… Ri—Lady Rina… Wait, Diane!"

Diane and Lian had already gotten out of their seats.

Rina peered closer at Nadia. "Where's your phone? I wanted to try more of those games."

"Um… I didn't…" Nadia stayed put. She wanted so much to go with her friends, but she couldn't refuse Rina, either.

Diane and Lian fled to another table.

"Oh forget them," Rina said. "Want me to make their food start talking to them?"

"N… No, that's okay, Lady Rina. You can leave them alone."

"If you say so." Rina turned toward the boys. "What about you? Are you going anywhere?"

Jeremy, Martin, and Gregg all gave a start and shook their heads. Their attention stayed squarely on their meals. Only Gregg even attempted to glance at her. So this was how far they were willing to go to pretend nothing was wrong. At least Nadia wasn't completely abandoned.

"So what happened to the phone?" Rina said.

"I-it's fine," Nadia said. "I left it at home." Just wait until Rina figured out almost everybody had one.

"Could you bring it tomorrow? I had fun with it."

"I… I guess so." Nadia could only speak by reflex now. Couldn't Rina tell how nervous she made everybody? "We'd have to be careful."

"Of course, of course! You love it so much, I wouldn't dream of hurting it!"

Nadia felt herself calm down a little. That was the most concern Rina had shown anything related to a human being. What's more, she seemed genuinely concerned about how Nadia felt.

Maybe this could be a chance to reach out, show Rina she could do more with human children than play tricks on them. "Sure," Nadia said, "I'll bring it."

"Good." Rina finally started eating. "Art class was fun. I would have liked some infrared paint, though."

Nadia squeezed her fist. No… don't get provoked, and don't provoke her… Still, Nadia couldn't hold it in. She had to speak up. "About that… Why did you lift the drawings from the other kids?"

The boys all bent down further.

Nadia steeled herself for whatever curse she had coming to her. Why, why did she think she could get away with that?

But no curse came. "Oh, that?" Rina said. "Everyone does it back home. One boy or girl draws, another one adds it to her drawing, draws more around it. I thought I'd show how it's done in Faerie."

"Oh. That's… actually very interesting, Lady Rina." Nadia hoped it didn't sound sarcastic, because she didn't mean it that way. What Rina described sounded like a round robin project, or… what was it called for writers? An exquisite corpse? All you need is one image, and the world could make an infinite number of different things with it. "You never mentioned that."

"Couldn't you tell?"

Nadia shook her head. Just how little did anyone know about Faerie? How much of what they were dealing with was Rina's personality, and how much was just culture shock?

Nadia would have pressed further—she'd done this much so far and hadn't been cursed yet—but then a wiry little red-haired girl ran up to Rina, swinging her lunchbox from the tip of her finger. Nadia recognized her.

The same third grader whose knees Rina had healed…