Warning: If
Divine's Emporium doesn't like someone, they don't hang around Neighborlee very
long. People who resist the "go away, we don't like you" sensation long
enough to become conscious of it describe it as itching powder under their skin.
If they dig their heels in and stay in town, they usually go kind of crazy. Not
a fun, genial, wacky old favorite aunt kind of crazy, either. The nasty, megalomaniac,
"the world owes me" mindset that deliberately picks fights over stupid,
worthless matters. If there was a Wikipedia listing for Neighborlee, and a definition
of the Neighborlee defensive effect, here there would be a note saying, “See: Grandstones.”
Divine's welcomed
me, though. I stood staring at the Wishing Ball, my hand firmly tucked in Mrs. Silvestri's,
just amazed. I wanted to get up there, and I was playing with the idea of using
my trick to get up to the counter for a closer look, when Angela walked into
the room.
I had discovered
my trick quite by accident, just a few months before. I was momentarily unsupervised
in the cottage, wanted a cookie, and didn't want to wait for someone to open the
cupboard and get it for me. So I climbed up onto the table in the kitchen and walked
across it to the counter. A logical progression for a nearly-five-year-old, right?
The problem was the four-foot gap between the kitchen table and the counter. I didn't
stop to think, I just took a running leap, like I had seen someone do on TV the
night before.
My jump took
me up to the top of the cupboards. I hung in the air for a good ten seconds before
drifting down to the shelf where the cookies sat out in plain view.
I could fly. Kinda-sorta fly. Not zipping through the air like a jet or a certain alien superhero. More like controlled gliding, or going straight up, hovering, and coming straight down. When I got older, that talent made it possible to get incredible photos. Again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
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