Faire Exchange: Chapter 6

Nadia makes a friend.

New to the story?

---

At long last, the day was over.

Not that Nadia could go home right away. She had to wait for Mama to pick her up after work. Mama and Papa were both optometrists, both working together in the same busy office, and Mama couldn't leave when school let out. Their house was too far from the nearest bus stop, so every day Nadia spent an hour at after-school care in the cafeteria. Which wasn't as bad as it might sound. Not many people from Nadia's class were here, which meant she got some measure of privacy, and plenty of time with her new iPhone.

Most days she'd spend the hour playing puzzle games, or watching music videos, or practicing her piano fingering. Today, she was searching for any news about the exchange program Rina was part of. And now, news was finally starting to pile in.

It was a post on a British message board where Nadia hit the jackpot. "Why is there an elf at my child's school?" And there were a ton of replies, including from American parents—the East Coast had started to catch on. No one knew much, or at least much more than Jeremy.

No telling how widespread this was. Had elves appeared in China or Japan? If so, what were they like? One post mentioned a Nunnehi student, and when Nadia googled that term, she read about the magical people known to the Cherokee. So of course they wouldn't all be weirdo-Celtic like Rina.

Finally, a BBC News article turned up about 'Faerie' children appearing in schools—or 'Wyrdnin,' as they called themselves. The Prime Minister and the President of the United States were still preparing statements.

So what Jeremy had said at lunch was true—it wasn't just Northport Elementary. This was a real thing, and parents, schools, and governments were caught as much by surprise as the kids here.

There was just one thing Nadia couldn't find, and it wouldn't stop eating at her.

Not one post she read mentioned anything about an elf, or fae, or Nunnehi, or Wyrdnin, picking on or bullying or terrorizing their schools.

Just Rina.

And now Rina was standing right next to Nadia's table.

"Argh!" Rina swung her fist in the air, flinging back her cape. "You can't go meggle anywhere in this world!"

Nadia scooted her seat away and watched. Any false move and Rina might cover her face with warts.

Growling, Rina's head swirled to and fro, until her eyes landed on Nadia. "You. You were in Gym class."

"Uh… uh… yes." Nadia put the phone to sleep, holding it tight. It was a birthday gift. Mama and Papa paid hundreds of dollars for it. If anything happened to it, Nadia was dead.

"I'm trying to get home," Rina said, "and I'm having trouble finding my way. I'll do better if I go outside. Show me the way out."

"Um… okay. I guess." Nadia stood, and shook. This could go wrong so, so fast. She never thought it could be that hard to leave this school, but then, she'd been here for years. Rina was here all the way from another world. "This way."

"What's that?" Rina pointed at the phone.

"Oh, it's nothing." Nadia had never gotten around to putting it in her pocket. Her five-year-old cousin had already broken her Switch. Who knows what Rina would do?

"It's something. I saw you do something on it."

"I… uh… It's just a cell phone." Nadia started to lead Rina toward the cafeteria exit.

"Show me," Rina said.

Slowly, as if her joints were filled with rust, Nadia woke up the phone. "See? You turn it on, and you can play games, read books, draw pictures—"

"What games?"

Nadia tapped an icon. "Well, like this one. You have to pop as many balloons as you can."

Rina grabbed the phone, and started tapping. This was it. Goodbye phone. Goodbye parents' trust. Goodbye to any chance of anything halfway fun for Christmas. "Careful with that," Nadia whimpered.

Rina managed to stay focused on the phone and yet keep walking without ever veering off or bumping into anything. She tapped and popped the balloons, including the flashing ones, and finished the first round. As she did so, she swerved around a column without even glancing at it. Her thumb found the Home button. "I like it. What else is on here?"

Without waiting for Nadia, she tapped the camera icon.

"Ohh." Rina admired her face on the screen, waved it around, shook it around. "It's like a mirror."

"It's a camera." Nadia said. She had left it on the selfie setting. "You press here"—she tapped the circle on the screen—"and presto."

The screen flashed, and a photo of Rina zoomed down to the corner.

"Remarkable." Rina stopped, and held the phone directly in front of her, and took another picture.

It wasn't every day you taught an elf how to take a selfie.

Rina tapped the photo in the corner. "Oh. I see you can alter it."

"Uh, yeah. You can add sepia or stretch your eyes out like this…" Nadia reached over, tapped a button, and caused Rina's eyes to grow twice their size.

Rina laughed. "This is amazing!"

"Do you have cameras where you're from?" Nadia pushed open the front door.

"Normally I just use mirrors for this. Ha ha, I put a funny nose on."

Nadia supposed you could do some interesting things with mirrors when you knew magic.

Rina left the camera app, and found the piano. Her fingers found the keys and rattled out a quick tune. "Oh!" She mashed her fingers and sounded out a few rough doubles, but they didn't sound half bad.

"I use that for practice," Nadia said. The screen was small, but it was good for quick exercises.

"Show me." Rina handed back the phone.

Victory! Nadia had it safe in her hands! Rina had actually handled it pretty well, too.

But Rina wouldn't stop leaning close.

Nadia twiddled out a little Rondo alla Turca.

Rina smiled. Nadia had hardly seen her smile all day… at least, without cruelty.

"You're very good," Rina said.

"You should see me at a real piano. Do you play any instruments, Ri—Lady Rina?"

"I've been taught the flodot, and the spangloss, and the noodfloot. What's that called?"

"The piano. Real ones are way, way bigger."

"They must be glorious. That screen is such a remarkable device. I never would have thought humans were capable of something like that."

"Well, I guess there's stuff like this all over your world."

"Of course. My grandmother invented some of them. But we use magic. You humans did this using only machinery. Just putting inanimate parts together. No one in Faerie could have imagined it."

"Wow. I mean, thank you. I like it a lot, too." Nadia slipped her backpack off her shoulders and stashed her phone inside. Sweat poured out under her bangs. "We're outside now. You all right from here?"

"Yes," Rina said. "I tried going meggle from the classroom, but since no one uses that direction in this world, it's always so cluttered. What was your name again?"

"N-Nadia. Nadia Xu." So meggle was a direction?

"Very well, Nadiashoo." That was how Rina said it, as a single word. "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Be well."

And Rina disappeared. Seeing it was like watching a drop of water slip into a crack in the ground, except in midair.

Nadia stood at the door to the school, with an intact iPhone worth hundreds of dollars and a face uncursed with warts or mushrooms. She had encountered Lady Rina Algruent, exchange student from another dimension, and lived.

She felt relieved, but also a swirl of dread and dismay in her stomach.

Did…

Did she just make friends with Rina?