whispery, just saying weird words and stuff? And in the middle of it, I did my Spanish counting. And the glassfogged up, all the way across the cabin, and it looked
just
like some ghost was passing in front of the light out there.â
âWhoa,â breathed Ben, admiring the prank.
âOh, yeah, it
rocked,â
said Ricky proudly.
âDid it scare the other kid?â Abby asked.
âOh man, he started crying! He was totally completely scared. And heâs fourteen! He gets out of bed and goes and wakes up our counselor and tells him what happened. And heâs all, like, âDonât worry, little guy, itâs just a trick, itâs not real, thereâs no ghosts, go back to sleep.â But the next day, our counselor came over and talked to me, and I showed him how I did it? And I guess that was it. After lunch, he took me to meet this other counselor, and
he
asked me if I wanted to go to super camp. And I said, sure.â
âWho was it, Ricky? Who was the other counselor?â asked Ben.
âYou know.
Him,â
he said.
He was pointing at Ferd.
CHAPTER
13
Eliza
T HE CAMP CADABRA VAN WAS ROOMY AND MODERN , but it wasnât designed for all-day drives. The seat benches made your butt sore after a couple of hours. As a result, the kids kept shifting positions, crossing and uncrossing their legs, turning around and leaning on the seat backs, and generally avoiding holding the same position for too long.
Fortunately, Ferd made plenty of stops, too, for bathroom breaks, snacks, and lunch.
At around noon, they picked up some Tex-Mex Express, to go, and piled back into the van. As they started chomping their burritos and tacos, Ricky reminded them that not everybody had told their stories yet.
âLike Eliza,â he said, with a stringy scrap of lettucehanging from the corner of his mouth. âI wanna know what your power is.â
From the back seat, most of what heâd seen of Eliza was the back of her crinkly red hair; she had spent most of the ride listening to the conversation, but looking out the window, too.
âI donât know. Itâs private,â Eliza said without even turning around.
âAw,
come
on!â Ricky exclaimed. âI told you about mine!â
âYeah, really, Eliza,â Abby added. âI thought we had a pact. I thought weâre a team.â
âThrow us a crumb, Eliza,â added Ben from the back seat.
Even Ferd chimed in. âFairâs fair, little lady,â he said. Abby was astonished, because Ferd had been wearing ear-buds for the whole ride. She had figured that heâd been lost in his world of classical bagpipe music.
Eliza sniffed. âWhat do you want to know?â
âWhatâs your
power?
â said Ricky impatiently.
âFine,â she said, a little standoffishly. She looked out the window and pretended to be bored. They were passing through a town. Like so many American towns, it had a main drag, a strip of shops and restaurants where, if you were really, really hungry, you could eat at Wendyâs, McDonaldâs, Taco Bell, KFC,
and
Friendlyâs without having to walk more than half a mile.
Finally, after a moment, Eliza said: âI can levitate.â
What?
Abby thought. She turned to look at Ben, who was equally shocked. Sheâd thought that all of these powers would turn out to be pointless little silly things like hersâand like Rickyâs.
But levitation? Floating in the air? That would be another story. Thatâd be more like the magic you read about or see movies about.
Real
magic. That would be historic! People had been dreaming about flying for thousands of years. And there was someone in the van who could do it!
âWhoooooooaaaa,â breathed Ricky. âLike, for real? Like, rising in the air?â
Ben was also having trouble with the concept. It had been hard enough for him to believe in Abbyâs teeny-tiny power. Even Rickyâs power
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