Wizard for Hire Read online

  “This is mine?” he asked.

  “Unless you don’t want it,” the woman replied.

  “Oh, I want it.” Ozzy was gleeful about having a full plate of real food.

  “That’s great,” she said, thinking his enthusiasm was sarcasm. “Happy to hear it meets your needs. Give the attendant your number.”

  Down the line there was a row of plates with cake, cups of Jell-O, and corn in little round dishes, then cartons of milk and juice.

  He took one of each as he slid his orange tray towards the cashier. He listened as student after student told the cashier a number and then walked off with their food. The boy in front of him said, “2527.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “Next.”

  “2528?” Ozzy asked.

  “Thank you. Next.”

  Ozzy picked up his tray in disbelief. What he didn’t know was that three weeks before, a student named Emily Reardon had moved to Idaho, and when she’d left Otter Rock High she’d also left a balance of $31 in her lunch account. It was by luck alone that Ozzy had said her number.

  He found a long table half-filled with students and sat down at the empty end. The table was next to the back wall of the cafeteria near the windows. As much as he might have enjoyed the company of friends, he was too enthralled with the food in front of him to care. He’d never had food before that wasn’t canned or freeze-dried or straight from his garden. He had eaten a lot of fish, but the school turkey tasted like something out of a celebration at Hogwarts. And the warm potatoes and gravy seemed like spoils that only the wealthiest in the world could ever afford. By the time he got to the fruit punch, his mind was properly blown.

  He drank every drop and upon completion let out a terrific and grateful “Ahhhh.”

  The kids at the other half of the table stared at him.

  “What’s your problem?” a red-headed boy asked.

  “Have you tasted this stuff?” Ozzy asked.

  Everyone laughed.

  Ozzy didn’t know enough to be embarrassed. He cracked open a chocolate milk and, after a small sample sip, downed that as well. It was so much more enjoyable than the powdered milk he’d mixed with water all these years. He laughed after finishing it off.

  “Dude, you’re messed up,” a boy sitting near the redhead said.

  “Am I drinking it wrong?”

  “And what’s up with your finger?”

  Ozzy held up his hand and looked at his birthmark.

  “That’s wrecked,” the redhead said.

  Everyone laughed again and then they got up and left.

  “I don’t think they like you . . . yet.”

  Ozzy looked down. Clark was standing next to him on the edge of his bench.

  “What are you doing here?” Ozzy whispered.

  “It’s boring out there. The flagpole’s a bust, and I was perched up in that window and saw you blowing it. I thought I could help, seeing as how I’m pretty good with the opposite sex . . . or alloy.”

  Ozzy scooped up Clark and hid him under the table.

  “I’m doing just fine on my own,” Ozzy said defensively.

  “Well, everyone just got up to get away from you.”

  “It doesn’t matter—they give you food here. All I had to do was say a number.”

  “Well, the food looks too soft and there’s no texture, but your fork isn’t unattractive. Maybe you could bring it home.”

  “I’m pretty sure it belongs to the school.”

  “That’s too bad. Have you found your parents?”

  “Did you think it would be that easy? I can’t just go around asking people if they happen to know about two grownups who were abducted years ago. That would be weird.”

  “Are you talking to yourself?” someone asked.

  Ozzy shoved Clark under the table and looked up. There, standing across the table from him looking every bit as mystifying as she had the day at the beach over a year ago, was Sigi. Her dark, curly hair was longer, and she was older in the way that a person should be. Her brown skin stood out against the dull walls and she had a smile that didn’t match the mood of the room. Sigi’s eyes were so deep Ozzy needed new words to properly describe them.

  “I mean, if this table is reserved for you and your invisible friends,” Sigi said, “I can always go away.”

  “No, no,” Ozzy stammered, still not believing his eyes. “I don’t have any friends.”

  “Interesting. Not really something most people admit. I’m Sigi, by the way.”

  Sigi took a seat on the long bench right next to Ozzy. It appeared that she didn’t remember Ozzy from their beach encounter. As she sat down, Clark crawled inside Ozzy’s pants pocket. Hoping to motivate him, he bit down hard on his leg with the tip of his metal beak.

  “Ahhhhhh!”

  Sigi slid back a few inches and stared for a moment.

  “Again,” she said, “not a normal reaction to someone sitting down by you. What’s your name?”

  Ozzy swallowed as if there were food in his mouth.

  “Ozzy.”

  “That’s all right. What’s your last name?”

  “That’s the last one I had. Actually, it’s the only one I’ve had.”

  Sigi smiled, showing more patience and compassion than most high schoolers.

  “Right,” she said. “I mean . . . do you have a name that comes after it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Toffy.”

  Ozzy executed the kind of nervous smile someone might display if they were holding a bomb but still trying to be polite.

  “Should I leave?” she asked.

  “No!”

  “Good. Then I’ll eat my food right here.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sigi smiled again.

  “You know, your name sounds like an eighties dance move or a cooking technique. ‘Ozzy Toffy.’”

  “I don’t really know how to dance or cook.”

  Sigi took a bite of the small sandwich on her tray.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  Ozzy nodded.

  “I’m always glad when new students come. I’ve lived my whole life in Otter Rock and, to be honest with you, I find most people around here played-out and boring. Are you a sophomore?”

  “They said I was.”

  “That’s an odd way to say that.” Sigi smiled. “But I’m a sophomore too. How long have you been here?”

  “I moved here recently, but my family has vacationed on and off here in the summers,” Ozzy answered, reciting the story he and Clark had planned. “We’re going to be here for a while now.”

  Sigi looked okay with his answer.

  “Hopefully we move before I’m played-out,” Ozzy said, making his first real attempt at a joke with another human being.

  “Yes, hopefully. There’s nothing more dreadful than running your course to the point where no one cares anymore.”

  “I’ll use my words sparingly.”

  Sigi actually laughed.

  “Can I ask you something, Ozzy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course? I like that. Why you are so dressed up?”

  Ozzy looked down at himself. He glanced at his sleeves and his pants and then finally at his shoes.

  “I wasn’t sure how people dressed here.”

  “Well, they don’t dress like that,” Sigi said. “You’re lucky you’re tall and good looking, because even I’m tempted to make fun of what you’re wearing.”

  “This is wrong?” Ozzy asked while trying to stare at himself.

  “It’s not a totally bad thing, it’s just . . . different. I mean, it’s not like I always fit in, but you don’t seem to want to match at all.”

  “Okay, tomorrow I’ll wear a T-shirt and shorts.”

  “There’s a cool cl
othing shop off Main Street. They sell all kinds of cool clothes that most people here wouldn’t bother with. I think you’d like it.”

  Ozzy kept quiet.

  “What’s it called?” Clark said from the pocket and mimicking Ozzy’s voice as best as he could.

  Sigi looked up from her sandwich.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Ozzy cleared his throat. “What’s it called?”

  “Zell’s. Not that you have to go there, but you seem interesting enough to shop there. Is that a birthmark on your finger?”

  Ozzy nodded.

  “Very cool; it makes my hands look boring.”

  Ozzy thought her hands looked just fine, but he liked the compliment.

  Sigi finished her sandwich.

  “So what’s your next class?” she asked.

  Having no idea, Ozzy asked her. “What’s yours?”

  “Chemistry, with Ball.”

  “I have the same.”

  Sigi took a drink of her white milk.

  “You know, they have that in brown,” Ozzy told her. “And it’s amazing.”

  “You’re an interesting guy, Ozzy.”

  A tall boy with spiky hair in a group of friends called out to Sigi from across the cafeteria.

  “I gotta go, Ozzy,” she said. “See you in Chem.”

  “Okay, that’s okay. You go and I’ll stay . . . and then I’ll see you in that thing you just said . . .” Ozzy wanted to stop, but the words just kept coming out. “You know . . . that ball class where I guess we’ll learn . . . and listen . . . and whatever.”

  Sigi was standing now.

  “You’re quite a poet, Ozzy.”

  She smiled one last time and walked off.

  “That could have gone better,” Clark whispered from Ozzy’s pocket. “In fact, I’m not sure if it could have gone worse. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for you and fall in love with you that way.”

  “I’ve never talked to people before,” Ozzy said defensively.

  “Well, I hope you improve quickly.”

  Ozzy gathered his tray and dumped the garbage, then took the rest of the lunch period to randomly ask kids what room Chemistry with Ball was in.

  By the time he figured it out, the bell had rung and he was five minutes late. He took the only vacant desk left—four rows back and five rows over from Sigi.

  From the Tapes of Dr. Emmitt Toffy: Subject #2

  Tom

  Paris was unseasonably warm. Tom stopped at the souvenir store with his family and questioned the shopkeeper about a snow globe.

  “Is this the best one you have?”

  “The very best.”

  “What about that one?” Tom asked, pointing to a large snow globe on the shelf behind the man. A detailed sculpture of the Eiffel Tower was inside the globe, surrounded by ornately carved flowers.

  “That’s even better.”

  “Better than the best,” Tom said happily. “And how much?”

  The snow globe cost more than a night in their hotel, but it was a piece of art. And as a collector of globes, Tom had to have it. It took a little bit of haggling with his wife, but then she consented and happily watched him purchase it.

  Tom held the snow globe so his family could admire it.

  “Just beautiful,” his wife said.

  Tom had a vast collection of snow globes back home. He had collected them since he was a child, and this globe was by far the finest.

  “You need to wrap it up,” his wife said. “We’ll take it back to the hotel and put it in the safe.”

  Tom smiled at his family and then walked across the street, where two policemen were standing. Without warning, he threw the globe down at their feet, shattering it in a tremendous burst of water and glass. The two officers threw Tom to the ground immediately and handcuffed him as everyone around screamed and ran for cover.

  Tom was taken to the police station and questioned for hours. He had no history of mania or vandalism. He was the president of a small company in Florida and, aside from one parking ticket he’d paid at age sixteen, his record was clean.

  The strange thing was that he had no idea why he’d done it. In fact, he couldn’t remember a thing about it.

  He was given a ticket, charged a fine, and asked to leave the country.

  For the next week and a half Ozzy got up, hiked two miles to the Mule Pole Highway, and stood by the railroad tracks every weekday. When the bus stopped and Mr. Goote, the driver, opened its doors to check for oncoming trains, he’d hop on. At the end of the day he would get on bus number 1015 and hop off when it stopped at the tracks again.

  He went to the same classes he had attended the first day and turned in homework and took tests. Teachers treated him just like they treated everyone else. Nobody bothered him because he was tall, strong, and kept to himself. And nobody talked to him because he was tall, strong, and kept to himself.

  Some days Clark would wait for Ozzy near the train tracks. But most days he would stow away in the front pocket of Ozzy’s pants and attend school with him.

  Today was a stowaway day.

  Ozzy had spent as much time as he could in the school library using the computers. At first the machines had blown his mind, but now he knew what they could do and how they could help him find his parents.

  There was very little information online about Emmitt and Mia Toffy, just a few newspaper articles about his father and mother teaching in New York. One link took him to a picture of both of them at a banquet where they were given an award for achievement in scientific studies.

  The lack of information made Ozzy uneasy.

  Ozzy also didn’t enjoy the lack of Sigi. Since their first conversation they hadn’t talked much at all—a couple waves in the hall, a half dozen nods, and five or six smiles.

  The lunch bell rang while Ozzy was in the library. He logged out of the computer and headed to his locker. The school hadn’t actually assigned him one, but he’d taken over an empty locker in a corner by the stairs. He’d even found a padlock at home and brought it to use.

  “Anything else on your parents?” Clark asked from Ozzy’s pocket.

  “Nothing. I think we need help.”

  “I’m pretty sure we do.”

  Ozzy opened his locker, put his stuff in, then made his way to the cafeteria. Once there he grabbed a tray and loaded it up. Then, as he’d done every day so far, he gave the woman his number.

  “2528.”

  “Your account is out of money,” the woman said.

  “What?” Ozzy asked.

  “No money. You need to put more in your account.”

  “How?”

  “Really?” the woman said, disgusted. “Have your parent or guardian give you some money, or they can come here themselves and pay the office.”

  “Money?”

  “Just leave your tray here and take this.”

  The woman handed Ozzy a brown paper sack. “It’s free today, but not tomorrow.”

  Ozzy took the bag and left the line. He retreated to his normal spot by the back wall and windows. At first he was sad to lose what had been on the tray, but he was delighted to open up the bag and find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips, and white milk.

  Clark wriggled out of his pocket.

  “I could use some air.”

  “You don’t breathe.”

  “Still, that pocket’s the worst. I know I can’t smell, but I imagine it stinks in there.”

  Ozzy set an open book on the table and looked down. It was the best way to talk to Clark at lunch without anyone else noticing.

  “My food number doesn’t work anymore.”

  “I heard that.”

  “Yeah, well, I need some money.”

  “What about that box you found in the basemen
t?”

  The box Clark was talking about was a square metal one Ozzy had discovered the other day. It had been hidden inside another box that was covered in piles of more boxes in the basement. There was a lock on the front and whoever had taken his parents must not have seen it, because it looked like it was worth stealing. Plus, it had the word Funds written on it.

  Ozzy had tried to pry it open but with no success so far.

  “There has to be money in there,” Ozzy whispered.

  “That’s what I’m thinking. You could buy some lunch—or better clothes. Or a series of assorted metal objects.”

  “Let’s find out if there’s money in it before we start dreaming.”

  After school, Ozzy took the bus home, hiked to the cloaked house, and headed straight to the cellar. There were no lights in the cellar, and the four small windows it did have were high and covered with so much outside growth and vegetation that they barely let in any light at all anymore.

  Ozzy grabbed a candle and struck a match. The room lit up, displaying his father’s long metal worktable and hundreds of boxes. Most of the basement boxes had contained food at one time, but empty boxes were still stacked all over, stealing room and blocking the view.

  The locked metal box was under two boxes in the corner. Ozzy pushed them off and lifted the large, heavy square box up. He carried it upstairs and put it down on the kitchen table with a thunk.

  “Have you ever found any other metal boxes here?” Clark asked.

  “Well, the box you were in was . . . well, that’s not metal, right?”

  “I don’t find it attractive, so . . . no.”

  “Then I haven’t found any other metal boxes.”

  Ozzy located a flathead screwdriver from one of the kitchen drawers and tried to pick the lock again.

  “That’s not going to work,” Clark said. “Let me try.”

  Clark closed his beak and stuck the tip of it in the keyhole. His head twitched and his beak got stuck. Ozzy sighed, grabbed hold of Clark, and yanked him free.