1. Eye of newt and dragon’s breath, combined in equal volume, can cure the common cold.
2. The juice of forget-me-nots, distilled, will restore a lost memory.
3. One should never lick the spoon.
By the time we pass in the quiz, I’m quite pleased with myself, and awfully grateful for the time I spent in the wizard Orville’s cabin, watching him craft his concoctions.
I manage to sit through class, nodding along and takingnotes as Delilah instructed, although I really have no idea what the point of a table is if it’s periodic rather than constant. As the teacher speaks, I let my attention drift, marveling as I look around the classroom. With the exception of Chris, I don’t recognizeanyone.It’s as if this world keeps reproducing new people, as if they are coming out of the woodwork. Having grown up with the same cast of thirty, I marvel at features and clothing and faces I’ve never seen before. One girl, sitting in the front of the room, has a ring through the side of her nose, like the oxen in the fields behind our castle. A boy carries a wheeled board strapped to his satchel, as if he must be ready to zip away at any instant. I glance at the girl to my left; in place of notes, her tablet is filled with swirling images that stretch from corner to corner—she must be an artist of sorts.
The bell rings, startling me. It seems to serve as a cue; everyone stands up and starts packing away their books.
Chris glances at me as he zips up his satchel. “So what made your family move here?”
I don’t really have the answer to that. After I realized that Edgar was in the book and I was really, truly out of it, my first step toward becoming real was to masquerade as the boy whose life I stole. That meant getting Jessamyn Jacobs, the author of the fairy tale and Edgar’s mother, to believe that I was her son—and I do not think there is anything more challenging than trying to fool the one person who knows a child best, namely, the mother, who’s been there from the very first moment of his life. There were many near disasters when Jessamyn seemed on the verge of discovering that I was not Edgar. She would stareat me for long moments, a curious expression on her face. I caught her once going through the drawers of the furniture in Edgar’s chamber. Each night at dinner, she’d ask me if I was feeling all right, because I didn’t seem quite like myself. That was troubling enough, but even more devastating was the fact that this foreign world was so much bigger than the sixty pages to which I was accustomed: the girl I’d traded everything for lived four hours away. I had to get Jessamyn to believe that it was necessary for us to move to Delilah’s hometown—and I had to do it in a way that Edgar might have. After weeks of shooting down my creative excuses (Less air pollution! Struck by Cupid’s arrow! Better school district!), Jessamyn suddenly announced one afternoon that moving to New Hampshire would indeed be a good idea. I still don’t know what changed her mind. I’m just incredibly relieved that it changed.
“My mom’s, um, a freelance editor. She was ready for a fresh start, and she can work anywhere.” I look at Chris. “How about you?”
“My dad got a job here, and my mom liked the idea of raising her kids in fresh air,” Chris says. “Detroit’s kind of the anti–New Hampshire. In lots of ways. I’ve never seen so many white people in my life.” He grins at me. “So how long have you and Delilah been together?”
“Technically, three months,” I reply.
“Ooh, serious, huh?”
“Well, I’m tryingnotto be. She wasn’t too thrilled when I proposed. She wants to do something calleddating.”
Chris looks at me. “Where are you from, again?”
“Wellfleet,” I say. “Have you found true love?”
“It’s only second period,” Chris laughs. “You’re the closest relationship I have in this school so far.”
I follow him into the hallway, and we both turn toward the staircase. “I’ve got trig with Baird,” Chris says. “Apparently she only wears black and keeps rocks in her desk drawer. I hear she’s a total witch.”
“Really?” I say. “Then how come she isn’t the one teaching potions?”
Chris smiles. “Dude, you’re weird, but you’re entertaining. See you later.”
He heads downstairs and I turn to the staircase, nearly colliding with just the person I hoped to find. “James,” I say as his eyes slide away from mine and he starts up the steps. “Wait.”
“Honestly, I think you’ve said enough for today.”
“But I said the wrong things.” I wait for him to stop moving and face me. “I never meant to offend you. Where I come from, that word means something different.”
“And where is that? Never Land?”
“Something like that.” The sea of students parts around us, as if we are stones in a river. I think about how I would have done anything to be with Delilah, how there was no point being in any world unless she was with me. “The very reason Imovedhere is because I believe that everyone should have the right to be with the person they love.”
James stares at me for a long moment, as if he is trying to gauge my sincerity. Finally he nods. “You should think about joining the LGBT Alliance,” he says. “We could use more allieslike you.” He fiddles with a pin on the strap of his pack and affixes it to my chest like a knight’s medal.
I glance down and see the rainbow fastened on my shirt.
James glances over his shoulder as he walks off. “Sorry I messed up your face.” He grins. “It was pretty.”
Inside room 322, a woman with frizzy gray hair stands facing the whiteboard, scrawlingMs. Pingreein perfect cursive. She turns around as the bell rings again and surveys the class, her eyes lighting on each of our faces. “ ‘What’s in a name?’ ” she asks. “ ‘That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet; / so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d / Retain that dear perfection which he owes / Without that title. . . .’ ”
The other pupils in the class are fidgeting and yawning, ignoring this impromptu performance. But I recognize a great actress when I see one . . . and I even know the script from which she is quoting. It was one of the books on Rapscullio’s shelves that Queen Maureen read over and over—the most classic of classic love stories.
Ms. Pingree finishes her recitation and I jump to my feet, strolling up the central aisle until I stand only a few feet away from her. I fall to one knee, professing my undying love. “ ‘I take thee at thy word,’ ” I say, letting loose the reins on my British accent. “ ‘Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d; / Henceforth I never will be Romeo.’ ”
