The Geek's Guide to Wizarding Mastery

Chapter 3

3

We played for a few hours until the pizza was gone and we knew Devon’s dad might freak if we were out much longer. We always had to be really careful not to push it too far. If Devon’s parents said he couldn’t come with me anymore, I would be stuck hanging out at my dad’s all by myself once a week. No one else from school really knew about Dad. Well, I guess they knew I must have one somewhere, but no one but Devon knew my dad was super rich. When you’re already the dorky outcast, the last thing you want is to be the rich dorky outcast. I mean, sure, more people might be nice to you, but only because they’d want you to buy them stupid things and take them to fancy parties.

Devon was the only one I trusted to know my dad picked me up in a helicopter to take me upstate for Thanksgiving lunch last year without treating me like a human piggy bank.

So, reluctantly, Devon and I went downstairs to catch a cab home. It felt like throwing money away to travel fifteen blocks, but Dad insisted and paid, so I guess it didn’t really matter.

There were no cabs lurking out front, and since it was October, it was a little cold to be standing around waiting.

“Let’s start walking,” I said, and Devon nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I can arrange for a cab if you’ll only wait inside, Mr. Adams,” the new doorman said, but I darted past like I hadn’t heard him. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like a Mr. Adams, and I definitely didn’t want some dude with polished brass buttons pretending he actually knew who I was.

As soon as we got a block down, Devon and I started hailing cabs. A couple sped past. One slowed down, realized we were teenagers, and pulled away. Devon reached all the way to the back of his vocabulary to cuss out the driver.

“Keep walking, Devon,” I said as rain fell in a cold mist.

“We should have waited for the new doorman to call a cab.” Devon popped his collar.

“Somebody will stop.” I raised my hand again without looking back at the street.

It was like a cue in a play. As soon as I held my hand up, a cab stopped, letting out a guy, who stepped gingerly into the rain as though it offended his sensibilities.

The ex-passenger couldn’t have been much older than twenty, but he wore a black suit with a black bowtie and white shirt. His hair was darker than his tie, and his skin an even paler white than mine. He stared right at Devon and me for a second. His eyes were dark, too. The dude seriously looked straight out of a black and white picture. There was no color to him at all.

Devon climbed into the cab while the guy stumbled away.

“Bryant,” Devon shouted, “stop watching the drunk dude, and let’s go!”

The guy looked back at us for a minute, glowering like he was about to say something. I hopped into the cab and shut the door behind me, giving the cabbie Devon’s address. We pulled away as the guy stumbled into a restaurant with a shining purple awning.

“Somebody’s having a good night,” I muttered.

“Maybe not,” Devon said quietly enough to not be heard over the blaring country radio. He flipped his palm to show a phone.

“Everything okay back there?” the cabbie asked.

“Fine.” I took the phone from Devon and shoved it into my pocket.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. What about lost and found? Why didn’t you turn the phone in? I’ve lost enough things in cabs to know that once they go into that logbook in the front of the cab, no rightful owner ever sees any of them again. And, even if the photocopy guy was about to get into a screaming match with me on Central Park West, losing a phone in Manhattan sucks, and I do my best to be a good Samaritan.

But if I had known what that stupid cellphone would lead me to, I would have thrown it out the window of the speeding cab and into the nearest gutter. Not even a rate-jacking, country-blasting, onion soup-smelling cab driver deserved the hell my life was about to turn into.