Geeks and the Holy Grail Read online

  “No.” He shook his head. “Ashley’s fine. She’s actually been helpful, weirdly enough.”

  Sophie snorted. “I know, right? Who would have thought?”

  Stu tried to laugh. It came out more like a sigh.

  “Come on. I can totally tell something’s bugging you,” Sophie pressed. “Can you just tell me what it is? Did I do something to make you mad?”

  “No! Of course not!”

  “Then why are you acting all weird? Is it your mom? Is she still texting you? What does she want, anyway? It’s not even her week to have you.”

  Her question hung in the air as silence fell over the room. Stu swallowed hard, not sure how to answer. Because this, he realized, was it. The opening he’d been waiting for since they started this whole thing. The perfect opportunity to confess everything. She was going to be furious at him for not telling her sooner. But that couldn’t be helped. Better to just get it out in the open and—

  “GLITTER BOMB!”

  Ashley burst through the door, dancing across the room, tossing handfuls of gold sparkles everywhere. A good portion of which landed directly on Sophie’s head. Ashley giggled. “Oops!”

  Stu groaned. And…there went his chance to confess. No way was he going to break such big news in front of Princess Sparkle.

  A weird sense of relief rushed through him. Yup, this was definitely not the time—or the place. Which was no big deal, of course. Because he could just tell Sophie later tonight. After the show. Or just before bed. Though then she might not sleep well. And she needed a good night’s sleep before going to Fairyland. Maybe he’d wait until the morning….

  He could feel Sophie’s questioning eyes on him; she was clearly not ready to drop the conversation. He needed to distract her somehow. Like he had in the airport. Make her forget anything was up until he was ready to explain.

  He forced himsef to scramble to his feet, his heart pounding a mile a minute. “Whoo-hoo!” he cheered. “Now, this is Vegas!”

  He danced around the room, grabbing fistfuls of fallen glitter and tossing them up in the air. From the bed, Spike squawked with excitement, sticking out his little black tongue, trying to catch glitter flakes as if they were snow.

  “Isn’t this stuff great?” Ashley gushed. “It’s from the craft store I told you about. They have the best glitter ever.” She grinned. “Our avocados are going to be epic.”

  “The Epic Avocados,” Stu pronounced. “That sounds like a great band name.” He could feel Sophie still looking at him, but refused to turn around. He knew he was being kind of obnoxious, but desperate times and all that.

  “Please tell me you got the face cream, too,” she said.

  Ashley gave a dismissive nod. “Obviously. I got everything we could possibly need. Including genuine unicorn poop!” She presented Stu with a large tub of glitter that did, indeed, claim to be the excrement of a certain horned horse of legends.

  Sophie jerked to her feet. “Glitterific,” she muttered. “I’ll go let Merlin know we’re set,” she said stiffly. “Stu, do you want to come with?” She shot him a meaningful look.

  Stu swallowed hard, his heart pounding in his chest all over again. Everything inside him told him he should go with her.

  Though…hadn’t he just determined it would be better to tell her tomorrow? Tomorrow would be a way better time. Or maybe when they got back from Fairyland?

  Because, he realized with dread, when he finally did tell her? It would change everything. And he wasn’t ready for that just yet.

  “I’m good,” he said, waving her off, refusing to meet her eyes. “I…need to keep an eye on Spike. Um, like you said.”

  He waited for her to argue. To remind him that Ashley would easily watch Spike in his stead. But instead she just stood there, in the doorway, silent. Then she turned and walked out the door, letting it slam a little too loud behind her.

  Stu’s shoulders slumped. Good going, dude. First he’d worried her. Now he’d made her mad. This adventure was going just about as well as the first one they’d had together—when she’d thought he was ditching her for the soccer team. And now he really was ditching her—for California. Even though that was so not his fault.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  He looked up to see Ashley. She’d put the glitter back into the bags on the table and was now watching him with a curious expression on her glittery face.

  “Nothing,” he said with a shrug. He walked over to the bed and flopped down on it.

  “You two have a fight?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ashley said, not sounding at all like she believed him. Probably for good reason. She sat down next to him on the bed, where Sophie had left her mother’s spell book. She picked it up and flipped through a couple of pages. “Whoa. There are some legit spells in here. Can Sophie actually do all of these?”

  “I think so,” Stu replied, wondering if there might be a make-someone-not-mad-at-you spell in there. Because that would be super useful right about now. He wondered if he should go after Sophie—try to catch up with her. But try as he might, he couldn’t get his cowardly legs to move.

  Ashley stopped on a page. “Ooh! An invisibility spell!” she cried, her eyes sparkling along with the rest of her. “How useful would that be?” She grabbed her phone and took a photo of the page. Then she grinned at Stu. “For emergencies only, of course.”

  “Don’t let Sophie see you do that.”

  Ashley groaned. “Ah yes. Our lovely fun police.”

  “She’s really not that bad,” Stu protested, not knowing why he bothered. “It’s just…this is important to her.”

  “Isn’t it important to all of us? I mean, we’re all part of the team here, right?”

  “Right. It’s just…” Stu didn’t know how to explain. Especially since Ashley was kind of making sense. Still, Sophie was the official Companion here. They were just her helpers.

  Though, in truth, he hadn’t been very helpful so far.

  “Whatever. I don’t even care,” Ashley declared. She threw the spell book back on the mattress. “Now where’s that Nintendo thing you had on the plane?”

  Stu raised an eyebrow. “You want to play Switch?”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “Of course not. It’s just—”

  “That I’m a cheerleader? Insanely popular?” Ashley made a face. “Way to stereotype, dude.” She fiddled with the ring on her right finger. “Anyway, I play when I visit my dad, okay? It’s, like, the one thing we can do together without fighting.”

  Stu nodded, thinking of his own dad and soccer. “Sure, I’ll play,” he said. Anything to get his mind off Sophie and the move.

  They propped up the screen with a pillow and loaded up Mario Kart, choosing their characters and cars. Ashley surprised Stu by picking Toad over Princess Peach. He picked Dry Bones for himself and the game loaded at the starting line.

  “Prepare for a butt whipping of epic proportions,” Ashley declared, her eyes glued to the screen.

  “You think so, huh?” Stu shot back. “Well, it’s on, gamer girl. It’s so on!”

  And with that, they were off, racing down the track for the first loop. Stu gripped his controller tightly, swerving right to grab an early power-up, then zooming forward, leaving Ashley in his dust. He flashed her a triumphant grin, only to slam straight into Mario and lose his momentum. Ashley laughed, zipping past him. Stu watched in dismay as his character spun out of control.

  “Lucky break,” he muttered.

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Spike watching them with curious eyes. He was about to suggest they pause to check on him, when his cell phone buzzed loudly.

  Mom. Again.

  He gritted his teeth, narrowly avoiding crashing into Luigi’s car. Didn’t Merlin say he was going to take care of the parental units? Well, he needed to get on that, stat. At this point his mom had sent a billion text messages and he hadn’t answered more than two of them.
Mostly because he had no idea what to say. Like, Sorry, Mom, I can’t talk about your new job and our big move because I’m busy saving the world. Also playing Nintendo. In Vegas.

  She would so not understand.

  “Your mom still harassing you?” Ashley asked, her car launching off a jump, collecting coins in its wake. She was still in the lead, though not by much. Stu was sure he could catch her on the next corner.

  “What can I say? The woman has a gift.”

  Ashley snorted. “By the way. I’m sorry you have to move. That really stinks.”

  Wait, what?

  BAM! Stu slammed his car straight into a wall. Dry Bones flipped from the track and fell into the abyss. Stu dropped his controller, turning to Ashley.

  “How do you know that?” he demanded. “Did you read my texts?”

  “Of course not!” she said, sounding offended. She sent her car leaping over a jump, grabbing at least seven coins in the process. “Lucas texted me and I told him I was hanging out with you. He asked how you were taking the move. I guess you didn’t answer his texts, either, and he was starting to worry.”

  Dry Bones appeared back on the track. Stu grabbed his controller and tried to keep going, but his heart was racing faster than his car. How could Lucas tell Ashley—when Stu hadn’t even told Sophie yet? But then, of course his stepbrother would have no idea he hadn’t told Sophie. Because normally Stu told Sophie everything. Immediately.

  This was not good. And yet, at the same time, he felt a weird sense of relief. The secret had been bottled up inside him this whole time. Now he could finally talk about it to someone. Someone who already knew. (And didn’t care one way or the other.)

  “My mom got a job in California,” he explained. “She wants me to live there with her and only go back to my dad’s for summer and holidays.”

  “Ugh.” Ashley made a face as she hit a power-up and zoomed into the second lap. “I’m sorry. Believe me, I know how much that blows.”

  “You do?”

  “Uh, yeah. My mom did the exact same thing to me. We were living here in Vegas. I had tons of friends. I was on the Pop Warner cheer team, about to start a new football season. But then my mom, out of nowhere, decides to up and move us clear across the country, just to get away from my dad.”

  “What did you do?” Stu asked.

  “When you’re nine, there’s not much you can do. I begged her not to go. I asked if I could stay with my dad. But he was…having difficulties,” she said hesitantly. “He gambled a lot. He wasn’t really home enough to deal with a nine-year-old.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, glancing over at her. “That must have stunk.”

  “It wasn’t a day at the spa,” she said. She hit another speed power-up, sending her blasting over the finish line. She raised her fist in triumph. “Take that, gamer boy!”

  “Argh!” Stu fell back on the bed, clutching his heart with his hand. “Defeated by a cheerleader! There goes all my geek cred.”

  “Don’t worry.” Ashley smirked. “I’ll never tell.”

  She tossed her controller onto the nightstand and lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Anyway, don’t sweat it too much. It’ll all work out in the end. In fact, don’t tell anyone, but I actually like Massachusetts now,” she confessed. “Except the snow. I will never like the snow.”

  “True. They don’t get much snow in Southern California,” Stu mused. “And there’s a beach, of course.”

  Ashley poked him playfully in the arm. “See? California has everything you need!”

  “Yeah,” Stu said. “Everything except my best friend.”

  The ache rose inside him again, so strong he felt a little like he was going to throw up. He’d been trying not to think of it all this time, but now reality was crashing over him like a tidal wave. For almost his entire life he’d had Sophie as a neighbor. Anytime anything happened—a bad day at school, a humiliating defeat in the Math Pentathlon, the time he’d accidentally deleted his Minecraft world, whatever—she would be there. To make him laugh, to make him forget. To make him realize everything was going to be okay.

  But now she would be living across the country. And that was never going to be okay.

  Ashley’s face clouded with sympathy. “Leaving friends is tough. Not gonna lie.” She propped herself up on her side with her elbow. “What did she say when you told her?”

  Stu winced. “Uh, I haven’t told her.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I know, I know.” He sat up, scrubbing his face with his hands. “I was totally going to. But then this whole quest thing came up and she was so excited. I didn’t want to ruin it for her.” He rose from the bed, then paced the floor. “I figured I’d tell her the second we got home from Vegas. But now we’re going to Fairyland first and it’s getting really awkward. Like, I need to tell her. But if I tell her now, she’s going to know I didn’t tell her earlier and…”

  He kicked the bedpost in frustration. Spike squawked, looking alarmed. Stu sighed. “Sorry, boy,” he said, scooping the dragon up into his arms. “It’s not your fault I’ve made such a mess of things.”

  Spike looked up at him with big dragon eyes, cooing softly, as if trying to comfort him. Stu felt a small smile flutter at his lips. He scratched the dragon under the chin. “You think she’s going to forgive me?” he asked.

  “She’s your BFF. Of course she will,” Ashley assured him, stepping off the bed and joining him in petting Spike. “And if she doesn’t? She’s not much of a friend.”

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t been much of a friend, either, keeping it a secret.” Stu pushed the dragon into Ashley’s arms. “She’s going to kill me if she finds out you knew before she did.”

  “Your secret is safe with us,” she assured him, holding Spike out. “I mean look at this guy. Does he look like a snitch to you?”

  Spike farted happily—the gas hitting Ashley square in the face. She screeched, dropping the dragon on the bed.

  “Gross, gross, gross!” She hopped up and down, pinching her nose.

  Stu started laughing. “Come on! In the bathroom! Quick!”

  They ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind them. Stu grabbed a towel, sticking it in the crack under the door to try to block the smell. When he rose back to full height, he realized Ashley was giggling like crazy. He started laughing, too. He couldn’t help it.

  “So gross!” Ashley cried. “So, so gross!”

  “Seriously, what does he eat to make it smell so bad?” Stu asked.

  Suddenly they heard the hotel room door open. Then Sophie’s voice.

  “Hello? Where is everyone?”

  Stu kicked the towel aside and headed out the door, Ashley behind him. Sophie gave the two of them a weird look as they emerged from the bathroom together.

  “What were you doing in there?” she asked.

  The two exchanged glances. Ashley started to giggle. Stu tried to keep a serious face, but then another wave of stink rose in the air and he couldn’t help laughing.

  “Sorry!” he cried. “It’s just…” But he couldn’t get the words out he was laughing so hard.

  Sophie looked less amused. In fact, she looked kind of hurt. As if they had some private joke they weren’t sharing with her. She walked into the room and sat down on the bed, staring down at her hands. Stu stopped laughing. He shot a helpless look at Ashley. She patted him on the shoulder and nodded in Sophie’s direction.

  “Go talk to her,” she mouthed. “I’ll wait in the other room.”

  She made a move to leave. Stu sucked in a breath, trying to steel his nerves. Time to come clean. “Look, Sophie,” he began.

  But he never got a chance to finish, because at that moment there was a knock on the door. Ashley pulled it open to reveal Merlin, standing on the other side. The wizard had changed out of his robes and was wearing an I <3 T. S. T-shirt paired with some dark-rinse jeans. He had a trucker cap on his head that read I am not weird, I am limited edition and a pair of Ray-Ban
sunglasses over his eyes.

  “Well, that’s quite the fashion statement,” Ashley said, wide-eyed.

  “I’m in disguise, obviously,” Merlin explained, looking a little offended. “So I can take you to the show. Can you believe that Merlin wannabe with the fake beard put up a ‘wanted’ poster with my picture on it backstage at the arena?” He huffed. “I mean, really! Because of one little mistake! And how was I supposed to know that random door I walked through led onstage just as he was about to perform his grand finale?”

  “Well, you definitely look disguised,” Ashley assured him, patting him on the arm. When Merlin turned away, she shot Stu a horrified look. He stifled another laugh.

  The wizard stepped through the door. “So let’s see this face cream,” he said. “I want to make sure you have the right thing. The fairy queen is very particular.”

  “Oh yes!” Ashley said, scrambling over to her bag. “Actually, I picked out a whole skin-care regimen. Cleanser, toner, some exfoliator. And this amazing magnetic mask.” She held up a small tub. “My mom swears by the stuff.”

  Merlin took the bottle and scanned the ingredients. “Not this. It has iron particles in it. Fairies are very allergic to iron.” He handed it back to her and looked over the rest of the products. “But everything else is perfect. I even use this one myself! Works great on faces with real beards. And, uh, others.” He put all the products back in the bag. “Good work, fellow Swiftie. We might just charm the fairy queen yet.”

  Then he clapped his hands. “Now, who’s ready for the show?”

  Walking behind the rest of the group, Sophie dragged her feet, watching Stu with miserable eyes. What was his deal? Why had he been acting so weird this entire trip? All she wanted was to get him alone, to ask him what was wrong. She was sure he was about to tell her before Ashley had barged in. But now she’d lost her chance again. If only she could get him alone for five minutes to demand some answers.

  But no. That was impossible with Miss Glitter Giggles around. Ashley had barged her way into their special adventure, just as she’d barged her way into Sophie’s everyday life. Sure, she’d proven herself useful a time or two. But that didn’t mean Sophie and Stu couldn’t have figured things out without her. Sophie and Stu against the world. That was how it had always been. That was how it should always be.