Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates by Kristine Grayson Read Free Book Online

they hurt my feet)—and I’m not intelligent. I know a lot of big words in more than one language, I like to read like Mom does, but I had no idea until Thursday that the French and Indian Wars happened in the United States (only it wasn’t the United States yet, which I also find confusing, and how come people from India and people from France were fighting in the U.S.? No one would explain that either, not that I asked).
    And as for my dad’s charisma….um, what? My dad has charisma? I guess he’d have to, to get all those women into bed with him, but I always thought it was because most of them (my mother excluded [ick. Mother. Father. Bed. Ick]) thought he was a real god—I mean, Zeus, Supreme Ruler, Lord of the Sky, Rain-King, Cloud-Gatherer. The guy who controlled the thunderbolt. You know, that Zeus. The one Homer wrote about. (Dad always brags about being in Homer and those other famous writers. Dad says he wouldn’t have had half the power he did if he hadn’t been able to fool those men [Homer, Socrates, Euripides, and those guys] into thinking he was really terrifying.)
    Hera always said it’s not hard to fool a blind man and his little friends, but she always says stuff like that, especially when Dad gets too pompous. And as he reminded me once when she said that, Homer made her a goddess, number two in the power structure, actually (even though Dad says she’s not—I think he’s wrong, but what do I know? It seems like I know less and less).
    “You can snort,” Megan is saying, “and you can ignore me and disappear into your thoughts, but that won’t help you.”
    “The only thing that’ll help me,” I say, “is some magic.”
    “You opted not to have any.”
    I flounce onto the sofa, and almost bounce back to my feet. I forgot how springy it is. “Well, I changed my mind.”
    “You can’t. I didn’t cast the spell taking your magic away. The Powers That Be did as a collective, and the deed is done.”
    She says that like it’s a good thing.
    “So we have to deal with your feelings as they come up,” she says, “without magic.”
    I cross my arms.
    “When you cross your arms,” she says, just like I knew she would, “you’re not listening.”
    I shrug.
    “I know it’s hard to be without magic,” she says.
    Yeah, right. She’s never had any except this empath stuff, and she’s never been without that.
    “But that’s not all that’s bothering you, is it?”
    I don’t say anything. What’ll she do if I’m quiet for the whole meeting?
    She stares at me for a long time. We sit like that for maybe five minutes and it takes all of my control not to fidget. I think I’m going to hold to this silence thing.
    “That’s amazing,” she says. “You have no magic, and yet you can just disappear.”
    “Huh?” I ask, then curse myself silently. She got me to speak, the wily woman.
    “I just watched you,” Megan says. “When you’re quiet like that, you vanish. It’s as if you take your personality and hide it.”
    I frown at her. I’m not sure what she means.
    “Have you been quiet at school?” she asks.
    “I’m stupid,” I snap.
    This time she doesn’t contradict me. She says, “You’re being quiet because you feel stupid?”
    “Because I am stupid,” I say. “Everybody knows how money works. Everybody knows where their next class is. Everybody knows that Skinner Butte is a hill in the middle of town. Except me. Every time I open my mouth, I prove how damned dumb I am.”
    She doesn’t stop me from swearing like my mom did yesterday. Megan doesn’t even seem to notice that I learned that word this week on top of everything else.
    Instead, she’s looking at me like I’m a particularly attractive puzzle and she’s trying to unravel me.
    “How does it feel,” she asks, “being ignored like that?”
    “I’m not being ignored,” I snap. I like snapping. I’m good at it. “Nobody even knows I’m there.”
    “How does that feel?” she asks in the same