“We would buy you cosmetics,” my father said.
“You didn’t use magic?” my mother asked. “You just took it?” And then she said, “Oh, Agatha, purple varnish. How common.”
Penny only lets me ignore her for twenty minutes or so before she bursts. “I thought you’d want to be included, Agatha!”
“You didn’t,” I say.
“I did! I could tell you missed Simon. I could tell you were sad. Are you really saying you’d rather we just left you out and ignored you for the rest of the year?”
“No!”
“Then what, Agatha? What do you want?”
“I want to be friends,” I say, “but I don’t want to be, like, comrades-in-arms. I don’t want to have secret meetings! I just want to hang out! Like, make biscuits and watch telly. Do normal friend stuff!”
“We’re supposed to watch telly while Simon fights the Humdrum? And Baz gets kidnapped by numpties?”
“No!” I lean forward, squeezing the steering wheel. “In the scenario I’m describing, none of that would be happening!”
“But it is happening.”
“Well, then, yeah, I think I would rather just stay home. Because I can’t actually do anything to help. When have we ever been any help, Penelope? Like, real help. We’re just … witnesses. And hostages. And, like, future collateral damage. If we were in a movie, one of us would have to die while Simon watched. That’s all we’re good for.”
“Speak for yourself!” she shouts.
“I will!” I shout back.
But neither of us speaks for the rest of the trip.
*
I drop Penny off at her house, and she’s still so pissed off that she slams the car door. I’m really late, but my parents are busy getting ready for their party, and hardly notice when I walk in.
They do a travelling party every Christmas Eve. It starts at one house, then moves on to the next house, then the next … until everyone’s so trolleyed, they have to spell the cars to drive them home.
Simon and I are always expected to say hello when the guests get here; then we hide in the lounge and watch telly and eat hors d’oeuvres until we fall asleep by the fire.
Except for once, four years ago, when we snuck out on Christmas Eve to track werewolves through Soho. They’d stolen some key—or maybe a gem, I can’t bloody remember. I’ve never been colder in my life! We nearly died outside Liberty, and then, after it was finally over, Penny made us stay out and collect werewolf fur, so that she could make these grotesque premenstrual talismans. I gave mine to the cat. Wait—the moonstone. That’s what it was, the werewolves stole the moonstone. What a load of rubbish. Thank magic we were back before my parents got home.
(Should I tell Mum now? What I know? What Simon is up to?) (No. Simon will be fine. Simon is always fine. And Penny will love bragging to me about their adventures with the numpties. Maybe Baz is their new third wheel. Have fun hanging out with a vampire, Simon! Good job making your life even more stupid and dangerous.)
“I think you can come along with us tonight,” my mother says. She and Helen, our housekeeper, are getting things set up. Our house is first on the party circuit this year. “Since you don’t have Simon to entertain.”
“Mum.”
“Don’t whine, Agatha,” my father says, plucking a crab claw from a platter. He’s on the phone with a patient. “No, no, I’m listening, Balthazar, but it all sounds quite normal. No, I don’t mean Normal—I mean normal.”
I sigh and follow my mother into the kitchen. “But I’m not dressed for a party.”
“Then get dressed.”
“Mum, I’m knackered.”
She’s leaning into the refrigerator. “You’ll get your second wind. Is Simon coming round tomorrow, then?”
I frown and fidget with a tray of prawn cocktails. “I don’t think so.…”