To Prevent Smart Choices (Magical Mayhem) Read online

  Glancing across the playground in front of the school, Ellen caught sight of Juliette saying goodbye to her mother. Her fingers tightened around the wand, and her hands shook.

  Don’t notice me . . . she thought. Everybody else, please see my wand be impressed, but Juliette, don’t notice me . . .

  Too late. The most popular girl in the non-remedial class for her age group had turned around and seen her. Ellen tried to hide the enormous wand behind her back, but that only made Juliette grin and hurry over.

  “What’s that?” the popular girl mocked. “Did you buy that at a toy store?”

  What’s she saying? Ellen thought frantically. Juliette always talked too fast for her to understand. Did she say the word “toy”?

  Just in case, Ellen frantically shook her head. “I power up the new . . . thing,” she said in broken French. “Thing of magic doing.”

  Juliette burst out laughing. “You don’t expect me to believe that’s your new focus item, do you? I’ve seen that in a toy store!”

  Ellen blinked back tears. Why was Juliette always so mean? Why couldn’t she understand a word Juliette was saying?

  “You’re a wicked liar, and liars shouldn’t be saintes,” Juliette said, snatching the huge plastic wand away from her.

  “Give me!” Ellen cried, diving for it.

  “Ask grammatically first,” Juliette said, holding it high above her head. She was taller, so she could do that.

  Ellen didn’t understand her. “Give me!”

  “Ask grammatically,” Juliette growled.

  Ellen leapt up and smacked the wand, which tumbled out of Juliette’s grip. She lunged for it, but Juliette stomped her foot on top of it.

  “Give me!” Ellen wailed, trying to yank it free.

  “You’re stupid!” Juliette shouted. “And you’re ugly! Someone should make you talk properly!”

  Ellen yanked her enormous plastic wand free and tumbled backwards. She clutched the wand to her chest, shouting one of the few things she knew how to say. “Juliette’s MEAN!”

  Then, because that wasn’t enough, she started shouting it in English, too.

  “Mean, mean, mean, mean, MEAN!”

  High above their heads, Kendra was startled.

  English? An Australian accent . . .? Excitement dawned. Hey, great! That girl can translate for me!

  Now, if only she hadn’t lost track of the girl with dark, curly hair a minute ago. Her target had been right . . .

  Oh. Kendra felt a little idiotic. Annnd the bully’s with her. That’s convenient.

  There was an adult Kendra hadn’t noticed before moving to separate the two girls, probably a teacher, so she’d have to move quickly. This was likely the best opportunity she would get.

  Kendra dove off the building, flipped in midair, and landed in a crouch. That was something she had gotten very good during her days as a magical girl. She pulled back her arm with the spiky halo . . .

  “VILLAIN!” a dozen voices shouted, and a dozen weapons shoved right into her face.

  Oh, great, Kendra thought.

  She had to admire the creativity of the weapons surrounding her. One looked like a lance with swirling clouds twisting around it. One looked like a cross between a tiara and a frisbee. One was a sword with pearls and ruffles on the handle. One was a shotgun with a teddy bear hanging from it.

  She didn’t admire all of them. The huge plastic wand looked like it had come straight out of a toy store, and the lacy glove and diamond-encrusted scarf were lame.

  Kendra leapt straight above their heads, flipped in midair, and landed several feet away. “I’m not a typical villain!” she called. “I only fight corrupt magical girls!”

  The circle of magical girls all had blank stares.

  “You,” Kendra said, jabbing her thumb in the direction of the Australian girl. “Translate.”

  “Me?!” the girl yelped.

  “YOU!” Kendra shouted.

  “Um . . .” the girl said, her eyes wide. She looked around as if still hoping Kendra was talking to someone else. “Ummm . . . Not bad girl. Fight bad saintes?” she said hesitantly.

  The blank looks shifted to an assortment of angry, confused, and offended. Several girls shouted comments in French.

  Not waiting for the response, Kendra bolted over, grabbed the bully by the back of her collar, and held the spiked halo threateningly at the girl’s throat. “Now, let’s talk about bullying your classmates.”

  “She’s threatening to kill Juliette!” the girl holding the frisbee-tiara screamed.

  Chomp. Kendra screamed herself and flung the bully away from her, too startled at being bitten to think clearly. The little girl transformed in midair into a magical girl with antennae and butterfly wings. A stream of angry butterflies shot towards her.

  “Die, villain!”

  Kendra dodged to the left, but the diamond-encrusted scarf swung forward like a hissing snake. She rolled to the right, but lightning flashed by her. She leapt in the air, but flowers bloomed from nowhere and exploded into large fireworks.

  This is not working!

  A wall of autumn leaves burst past her.

  Lightning smashed against the ground exactly where she had been a second earlier.

  A wave of pink hearts surrounded her.

  Bullets whammed past, wrapped in some sort of — poison mist?

  The girl who had the shotgun now seemed to be using it as a blowgun. The teddy bear swung back and forth ominously.

  Kendra leapt in the air, flipped forward, and landed in front of her translator.

  “Explain it to them!” she shouted, knocking the plastic wand the girl aimed at her aside. “I just have to stop the bully! If I kill her magical girl form, she’ll never bother you again —”

  The little girl’s eyes glowed, and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver bracelet.

  Light flashed.

  Kendra gasped, realizing she was blinded. In her moment of incapacitation, the diamond-encrusted scarf lashed around her arm, lifting her in the air. A crackling of thunder began above her —

  “Teleport!” Kendra screamed.

  She landed on her rear end on the floor of their lair.

  “I take it trying to fight an entire school of magical girls was a stupid idea?” Chronos asked calmly, walking past with a sandwich in her hand.

  “Shut up!” Kendra snapped, checking herself over for injuries. There were, unfortunately, a lot of them. Minor cuts, terrible bruises, and worst of all, a slice right through her left boot. She couldn’t simply detransform and retranform and heal her costume that way.

  Tiffany’s power could probably fix it, Kendra thought. But ugh, if I ask her for a favor, that’ll be like admitting that she’s really part of our team.

  “May I suggest, next time, that you not try to trick your way into a mission I don’t intend to send you on?” Chronos asked, looking distinctly smug.

  Kendra glowered at the born mage. “It wasn’t the mission that was the problem. It was the language barrier that was the problem!”

  “Then, helpful hint,” Chronos said dryly: “don’t pick fights with people who don’t speak your language.”

  “Or at least hire translators who know what they’re doing!” Kendra said furiously. “I don’t think that girl was even trying!”

  “Or that,” Chronos said cheerfully.

  “It’s too bad we don’t have someone on our team who speaks French,” Kendra muttered as the soothsayer ambled away.

  Chronos hid a grin as she slipped into the plotting room to return to the crochet project she had been working on. She spoke fluent French, given that her mother had been French, but she wasn’t going to volunteer that to Kendra.

  She checked the futures at the Rouen Académie des Saintes. It looked like Ellen was going to be the center of attention for several weeks, having dealt the decisive blow to the unknown villain, and eventually she and Juliette were going to end up friends because Juliette thought Ellen had save
d her life.

  Not bad, all things considered. And Kendra being humiliated was just a bonus.

  Chapter 4: The Dream

  Two friends were talking.

  “You didn’t know that Joan of Arc is the patron saint of magical girls?” the girl with blonde hair was saying in a snobby, know-it-all voice.

  “No,” the black girl said defensively. “Should I have?”

  “You’re the one who’s Christian,” the white girl smirked. “You ought to know stuff about your own religion.”

  “I’m not Catholic!” the dark-skinned girl snapped. “Why would I know that, or care?”

  The scene changed. Both girls looked a year or so older.

  “Don’t you love it?” the black girl was squealing, holding up a handful of tiny braids.

  “What was wrong with dreadlocks?” the white girl complained. “I told you you should get those!”

  “And I decided I’d prefer braids,” the black girl snapped.

  “Should I do my hair in dreadlocks?” an anxious-looking girl asked from beside them, twirling a pair of brown pigtails on either side of her shoulders.

  “NO!” both of her friends said immediately.

  The scene changed. All three friends looked a few months older, and the brown-haired girl now wore her hair in a shorter ponytail.

  “And he’s so cute, and his name is Daniel!” the brown-haired girl was squealing, barely stopping to take a breath. “I think I’m in love! It’s true love!”

  The black girl scowled, took a french fry off her cafeteria tray, and took a vicious bite.

  “Maybe talking about love in front of Florence is not the best idea right now . . .” the blonde girl said nervously, glancing over at her scowling friend.

  “But it’s true love!” the brown-haired girl squealed, hugging herself.

  The black girl stood abruptly and walked away from the table.

  The scene changed. Now all three girls looked a year older, and the blonde one looked close to tears.

  “I’ve decided . . . to become . . . a villain instead.”

  The halo the blonde girl was holding grew spikes. Thick iron spikes jabbed out of the gold ring.

  “WHAT?!” her two friends shouted.

  “If magical girls can betray the world, then someone has to stop them!” the blonde girl shouted. “So as of right now, I’m officially defecting!”

  “Are you insane?” the black girl yelped. k'1`2

  “Teleport!” the blonde girl screamed, raising the spiked halo and a watch that looked very familiar over her head.

  The scene changed. Not looking any older at all, the blonde girl was now wearing a very familiar villain costume.

  “Explain it to them!” she was shouting. “I just have to stop the bully! If I kill her magical girl form, she’ll never bother you again —”

  A little girl reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny silver bracelet. A blinding light flashed, and it was instantly obvious the blonde girl had been blinded.

  “Teleport!” the blonde girl shouted again. Then the scene slid away as if careening into something impossible to see.

  Rhea awoke.

  Rhea blinked, a little fuzzy-headed due to having just been asleep. Huh . . . I remember that costume . . . who did I make it for?

  She sat up, yawned, and spread her hands before her. Her memory was quite good, but not when she’d just been asleep.

  “Nothing about when I made it?” she muttered out loud.

  That made no sense. Rhea’s power always worked. Except for —

  Oh! Of course! I made it when Chronos was there!

  Rhea giggled. She should have remembered immediately. She’d had such fun with those buckles. If she hadn’t been asleep, she would have recognized it immediately.

  A slow smile spread across Rhea’s face.

  Rhea’s dreams were never dreams. They were her born mage gift acting out of control. Rhea could see the past, which wasn’t the best part.

  The best part was that it never stopped.

  Rhea beamed as she settled into a comfortable position with her hands folded on her lap. The only problem with her power was that she couldn’t always find what she wanted if she didn’t know enough specifics to look for. The chaotic, random nature of her dreams often brought things to her attention that she would never have known to look for before.

  For the past two months, she had been searching for her sister’s defector, but she’d had nothing to go on except the costume she’d made, which hadn’t been enough. If her sister had been anyone else, she could have searched through Chronos’s past to find a common scene between them, but her sister was annoyingly immune to her power.

  I’m glad the defector isn’t spending all her time with Chronos, Rhea thought with satisfaction. Now let’s see how much of her past will be laid bare to me.

  Rhea started from the beginning, since she was in no hurry and context was everything. She scanned through the girl’s early years at high speed, seeing nothing interesting, and stopped only to watch one of the newly-transformed magical girl’s first battles against the most pathetic-looking villains Rhea had ever seen.

  Rhea’s eyebrows rose. The Terrifying Flea-Boys? Really?

  She had never seen those villains before, but if she had, she would have advised them to name themselves after something that didn’t sound like a minor pest just waiting to be swatted. And then there was the atrocity of their costumes, which were prison jumpsuits with enormous flea wings stitched on, as if they were some sort of winged magical girl wannabes.

  On a whim, seeing Kendra with her parents, Rhea flicked back to see what her parents’ pasts were. Her mother had apparently been a dull, insipid magical girl singer — nothing interesting there. Her father had been a Deathwave minion, which had fantastic blackmail possibilities, but then she discovered that he’d already confessed that to the police and gotten his boss thrown in prison decades ago. Quite a disappointment.

  Returning to Kendra, Rhea skimmed through three years of the magical girl’s aggravatingly superior attitude, then landed headlong in a scene she couldn’t reach.

  Wha —?

  Rhea stared at her hands in bafflement.

  This has to be the point where she and my sister met. But why? I can’t see any reason why Chronos would have chosen this girl. No reason that girl would become a defector, either.

  Rhea shook her head. There was no point in trying to extrapolate before she’d watched everything she could. Perhaps this had just been a chance meeting, and Chronos had returned with a good reason later.

  But no. When Kendra became visible again, the girl was noticeably shaken, sobbing as she walked home.

  What in the world?! Rhea’s mouth fell open. How did my sister break that irritating arrogance?

  She skimmed backwards again, desperate for some clue, but there was nothing. She skimmed forward, and at last found one single hint: “The world does need me to save it. I see . . .”

  Rhea stared at her hands. That made even less sense than before. What was going on here?

  There had been no empty spaces before this, which meant that Chronos had started whatever had happened.

  Chronos had started it.

  Chronos had come out of hiding in order to do it.

  And wait a minute — was that Chronos’s watch? How had the defector gotten that?!

  Rhea closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Okay, it was a mystery, and one she couldn’t simply clear up by asking her sister, because Chronos tended to get surly and refuse to answer questions about anything. Perhaps it would be best to enjoy what she could do right now, which was to see what the defector was currently doing.

  She snorted with laughter as she saw a political rally in which Kendra swooped down and broke the focus items of both magical girls posing and performing on behalf of their party’s candidates.

  She chuckled at the undercover magical girl police aide Kendra blew the cover of.

  She howled at the two
magical girl friends who started fighting one another as soon as Kendra left.

  Rhea skipped around randomly, hopping from one scene to another, not bothering to watch them all the way through.

  “I wonder what else her defector’s been up to?” Rhea giggled. “Hee hee! I love spying!”

  For extra fun, she skipped as far to the future as possible, finding a scene from early yesterday, when Kendra had killed —

  — the magical girl form of Crackling Bluejay?!

  Rhea’s hands went numb. She’d spent months carefully corrupting that magical girl, leading her to believe that magic and her family’s poor financial situation (which Rhea had triggered) gave her the right to steal anything she pleased. All that effort, the lovely inevitable backlash against magical girls that would have happened when Rhea made sure the police “accidentally” caught her in the act . . . gone.

  No sense of the big picture, Rhea thought angrily. Can’t she see that that particular magical girl form was worth more to villains alive than dead? She was fencing half of her profits to the Deathwaves, for crying out loud!

  Rhea flipped back to a scene that had made her laugh, wanting something to cool her rage.

  But it wasn’t funny the second time. Not when she watched it all the way through.

  The embarrassment of a villain swooping down and breaking both Red Elephant and Blue Donkey’s focus items had caused the police to tighten up security tremendously. At the next political rally, that had made the difference in their stopping an unanticipated assassination attempt.

  The magical girls who had started fighting after Kendra left had also been fighting before Kendra came. And then Kendra had come back, beaten them both, and forced them to apologize to one another.

  The undercover magical girl whose cover Kendra had blown had been secretly taking bribes. Once her cover was blown and she was pulled off the investigation, she stopped being able to sabotage it. And then, as if to be completely unambiguous about the fact that she had done that on purpose, Kendra had called the police with an anonymous tip about the bribe-accepting.

  Worst of all was when Rhea found the defector’s first mission, which turned out to have been the final scene in her dream: