Sumi's Book Read online

  Through the window, I saw that dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky. I turned on my bedside lamp, rushed to my desk, turned on my computer, and opened a blank email. It was evening in Japan.

  Hisako!

  I am soooo sorry I couldn’t talk at lunch. I fell asleep. Are you there now? Can you set up a chat with Eiko?

  Sumi

  I tapped my foot, hoping Hisako didn’t take too long to answer. Two minutes later, she sent me a link to a private chat room.

  HISAKO: Sumi! I’m so glad to hear from you!

  EIKO: Do you like New York? Are American boys cute? Did you get any new clothes?

  SUMI: I love New York! It’s different than Kyoto, but very exciting. I haven’t met any boys yet. :(

  I couldn’t tell them about Aventurine or Kano or the fairy wardrobe, but that was okay. I didn’t want to talk about me. I wanted to know everything that was happening to them.

  SUMI: Tell me about Akiyo. Is he as fabulous as Hisako says?

  EIKO: OMG! Akiyo is totally in love with her!

  HISAKO: ::blushing!:: I am soooooo happy!

  SUMI: I am soooooo jealous! ;)

  We chatted for an hour, and before we signed off we set a time to talk again. Then I set my computer and my phone to remind me. Next time I’d have some good stuff I could talk about. School started tomorrow.

  I had heard Okasan walk down the hall a bit ago. She always made a traditional Japanese breakfast to get us up early on Sunday, and I was famished!

  My room was now flooded with morning light. Although I still loved my pink, yellow, and green color scheme, I thought it might be fun to add some sea-life accents. Curtains and a throw pillow would be easy to find. As I stood up to leave, I glanced at my dresser.

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  The Bristolmeir snow globe was sitting beside my picture of Hisako, Eiko, and me. I picked up the globe, shook it, and smiled as glitter snow fell around the tiny towers. I didn’t know if Kano or one of the queens had saved it for me. I was just thrilled to have it. “Thank you!” I said, in case any lingering magic could hear.

  I was so anxious to show the Aventurine artifact to my mother, I didn’t stop in the bathroom to comb my hair or brush my teeth. I raced into the kitchen.

  “Look, Okasan!” I shook the snow globe in her face.

  “It’s beautiful!” Okasan set down her wooden spoon and took the snow globe from my hands. She turned it over to make the snow fall, then frowned. “The bottom is chipped.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t care. I love it!”

  “You do?” Okasan’s eyes widened with surprise. “Where did you get it?”

  “I think Queen Patchouli sent it.” I put the snow globe on the center counter. “Or maybe Kano. I don’t know.”

  A slow smile brightened Okasan’s face. “Did you go to Aventurine?”

  I smiled back and nodded. “Last night. I fixed the Yugen mirror, stopped an evil queen, and saved a whole city!”

  My mother gasped. “An evil queen in the fairy world? Now that’s a story I want to hear!”

  “Can I tell it while we eat?” I asked. “I’m starved!”

  “This is such a special occasion, I’m glad I made your favorite breakfast,” Okasan said.

  “As long as it isn’t fuzzy blue fungus or eel eggs, I’ll be happy!” I made a face.

  Okasan gave me a confused look and set a tray on the counter in front of me. There were bowls of hot boiled rice and miso soup, toasted seaweed with steamed vegetables, grilled fish, and an omelet roll. She handed me a soup spoon and chopsticks and sat down.

  “So you met Queen Patchouli,” Okasan said.

  “Yes, at the end. I didn’t start out with the Willo-wood Fairies,” I explained. “I was in a cave with Queen Kumari, and she gave me Queen Patchouli’s gifts.”

  “What did you get?” Okasan asked.

  “Magic words, a cake, and a boy.”

  “A boy!” my mother exclaimed. “How did you get so lucky?”

  I shrugged. “Kano is a shape-shifter, so he was sent to teach me how to shape-shift.”

  Okasan nodded. “Did you like it?”

  “I loved it! Especially being a mermaid and a bird,” I said. “Being an octopus wasn’t so great, but it saved me from being Sumi sushi.”

  Okasan dropped her soup spoon. “Something almost ate you?”

  “A big fish, but I turned into an octopus and got away.” I paused, then asked, “Kano said that I am a shape-shifter. Did he mean in this world, too?”

  “Sort of,” Okasan said.

  “So I can change into a toad?”

  Okasan blinked. “Do you want to be a toad?”

  “No!” I laughed.

  “Good, because you won’t be able to change physical forms,” Okasan explained. “But you’ll be better at the shifting abilities our lineage has always had.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Your grandmother developed the talent of young artists and helped shape their careers,” Okasan said. “I find and restore lost treasures and antiquities, which shapes other people’s perceptions of history and the world.”

  “So in a way, changing clothes does count!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Okasan said. “Creating a fashionable look and designing clothes definitely counts. You’ll just be better at it than you were before. Your awakened awareness of others will affect your sense of beauty and improve your style.”

  I was disappointed that I couldn’t change shape in the waking world, but I guess that would have been too good to be true. At least it would help me with my career as a fashion designer.

  “So tell me about this evil queen,” Okasan said.

  “Queen Mitsu wasn’t always evil,” I explained. “She wanted everything to be perfect, but there’s no such thing, so everything around her started turning rotten. She lost her power when Takara claimed the fifth shard.”

  Okasan clasped my hand. “I’m glad you completed your mission, Sumi.”

  “Me too.” I sighed, a little sadly. “But I wish we could keep the mirror.” The snow globe was a nice souvenir, but it wasn’t the Yugen lineage talisman. It didn’t seem fair that others could keep their family artifacts—

  My chopsticks fell from my fingers as I jumped up and touched my face.

  “What’s wrong?” Okasan asked, alarmed.

  “The crescent scar!” I exclaimed. “I completed the mission, but when I looked in the Yugen mirror, the mark wasn’t on my face!”

  “Takara doesn’t reflect what’s on the surface,” Okasan said.

  “Is it …” I didn’t wait for my mother to answer. I raced through the living room to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. A soft cry escaped me when I saw the half-moon scar on my cheek.

  “Are you upset?” Okasan asked softly from the doorway.

  “No way!” I grinned. “The mark proves I completed my first fairy godmother mission. You and I are the only two people in the whole world right now who can say that, right?”

  Okasan nodded. “Right.”

  I had been looking forward to entering the Girls’ International School of Manhattan for weeks following my trip to Aventurine, but now I was a little worried. For one thing, I wasn’t sure how to explain the perfect crescent scar on my face—if anyone was rude enough to ask. Okasan had the same problem when she was thirteen, and she gave me some great advice: tell the truth. The crescent was a family mark, sort of like a birthmark but not exactly.

  Then I couldn’t decide what to wear. The shocking pink sweater, black skirt, black tights, and ankle boots I had chosen before I went to Aventurine seemed a bit too much for a first day now. I didn’t want to stand out for the wrong reasons, and I didn’t want to blend in, either. I wasn’t a small fish trying not to be lunch for a big fish now. I was the new girl, and I had to wear something that established my identity as a fashionable trendsetter without being too outrageous.

  I finally chose my favorite skinny jeans that I’d carefully di
stressed earlier that year and a deliciously soft V-necked graphic tee that I’d found at the mall with Okasan. It was a gorgeous emerald color and had a design of a white bird pressed onto the front and a white feather centered at the nape of my neck on the back. I pulled my hair into a messy bun so that it wouldn’t hide the feather detail, and then laced up my new silver sandals. The white bird and lace-up sandals were straight out of my recent adventures, like an inside joke that only I got. As the final touch, I slipped on a large, formal cocktail ring that clashed with my laid-back jeans look, but totally worked because it was my only piece of jewelry.

  My mother and I took a taxi Monday morning. I got out in front of the school, and Okasan continued on to a meeting at the Asia Society Museum. As I spun around to run inside, I bumped into a boy. He dropped his backpack.

  “Watch it, Sawyer!” A girl standing at the top of the steps laughed and shook her head.

  The boy and I both ignored her and stooped to pick up the pens and pencils rolling out of the backpack.

  “Are you okay?” Sawyer asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Sorry I ran into you. It’s my first day—I wasn’t really watching where I was going.”

  “Um, it wasn’t entirely your fault. I sort of … well, I sort of deliberately stepped in front of you,” Sawyer confessed with a shy smile.

  “What?” I asked, mystified.

  “When I saw you get out of the cab, I wanted to meet you.” Sawyer shrugged. “Somehow, saying ‘Hello, my name is Sawyer, I think you’re gorgeous’ didn’t seem dramatic enough.”

  “I would have remembered that, though,” I said, smiling.

  “You mean you won’t remember this?” Sawyer asked, faking a sad face.

  I laughed, and Sawyer relaxed. He had kind eyes, a warm smile, and a sense of humor. If everyone I met in New York was as nice, I was going to love my new life.

  Sawyer stood up and slung one strap of his backpack onto his shoulder. He walked backward as he left so he could keep talking. “I go to the boys’ school down the block.”

  “So maybe I’ll see you again?” I asked.

  “I hope so,” said Sawyer.

  I watched until he turned and jogged away. Then I took a deep breath and started up the stone steps. The girl who had teased Sawyer was still there, waiting for me.

  “Hey, I’m Cameron. My brother is impossible. He thinks he’s smooth, but with those big ears, he can’t really pull it off,” she said.

  “I didn’t notice his ears,” I said. “But all boys are impossible!”

  “That is so true!” She sighed.

  I followed Cameron into the school. A week ago, I might have been nervous. But after the adventure I’d just been through, I knew that my first day would be a piece of cake.

  A Little Piece of Sky

  I dove off the edge of sleep

  Into the arms of a circus king

  He was there

  To understand me

  Explain the takeoffs

  And harder landings

  In my dreams I fly

  I’m the girl

  Who gets the guy

  I could bring you a souvenir

  Next time

  A little piece of sky

  Put it in your wishing box

  Take it out when you’re sad or lost

  Take it out and hang with it awhile

  Guaranteed to make you smile

  In my dreams I fly

  I’m the girl

  Who gets the guy

  I could bring you a souvenir

  Next time

  A little piece of sky

  A little piece of sky

  Promise me

  A love that lasts forever

  And if you can’t

  Then just

  Promise me

  A dream

  Acknowledgments

  Finding and holding a sense of my own beauty has been a lifelong struggle—as I am sure it is for many girls and women. The pictures we see in magazines and of ourselves often don’t match reality. What if there were a magic mirror that only reflected how we feel inside? Would we strive to feel good about ourselves instead of looking good for others? Thanks to my family and friends, who are my “magic mirrors.” They reflect back the love I give. I shape-shift over time and come out shining with each metamorphosis. Thanks to my friends for sticking by me while I realize my dreams as well as during the times when I don’t realize them. Thanks to Lurleen, Dee, Meredith, Jesyca, and Sherry for being there. And finally to Tim, who taught me how to love myself no matter what shape I am in.

  About the Author

  Jan Bozarth was raised in an international family in Texas in the sixties, the daughter of a Cuban mother and a Welsh father. She danced in a ballet company at eleven, started a dream journal at thirteen, joined a surf club at sixteen, studied flower essences at eighteen, and went on to study music, art, and poetry in college. As a girl, she dreamed of a life that would weave these different interests together. Her dream came true when she grew up and had a big family and a music and writing career. Jan is now a grandmother and writes stories and songs for young people. She often works with her own grown-up children, who are musicians and artists in Austin, Texas. (Sometimes Jan is even the fairy godmother who encourages them to believe in their dreams!) Jan credits her own mother, Dora, with handing down her wisdom: Dream big and never give up.

  Coming soon!

  Meet Trinity—she’s always daring herself to climb to new heights, but her trip to Aventurine might just push her over the edge.

  Have you read the first Fairy Godmother Academy book?

  Will Kerka learn the right Kalis moves in time to save her sisters? Find out in

  Will Zally’s ability to talk with animals be enough to save a fairy queen? Find out in

  Will Lilu’s talent for weaving the elements be enough to stop a magical hurricane? Find out in