The Gate Thief (Mither Mages) by Orson Scott Card

though, he came as if he had graduated, then found out he had flunked a test after all and had to come back. Only nobody knew he had been gone. Nobody knew he had failed. His friends didn’t believe him when he told them.
    They were gathered in the old smoking area—the one that the teachers regularly checked. But since they were only talking, not smoking anything, it was a good place for Danny and his friends to gather.
    “So can we use the gate?” asked Pat.
    “I told you, nobody can.”
    “I thought you said it was wild,” said Wheeler. “Anybody could use it.”
    “We’re not letting anybody get near enough to use it,” said Danny.
    “Then what’s the big deal?” asked Hal. “Is it, like, the last gate you can ever make?”
    “No, I can make as many as I want.”
    “So can you take us to that other world?” asked Laurette.
    “Why would I do that?” asked Danny. “You’re not mages, it wouldn’t do you any good, and what if you got stranded there? It isn’t a safe place.”
    “You’re right,” said Pat. “Here, you can only get run over by cars or catch some hideous disease or get blown up in chemistry class.”
    “I didn’t blow anybody up,” said Hal.
    “But you tried ,” said Wheeler.
    “I tried to get them to cancel school for the day,” said Hal.
    “Can we stop talking about your failures, Hal?” said Xena.
    “Yeah, let’s go back to talking about mine,” said Danny.
    Xena gripped his arm and spoke so earnestly and pressed so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek. “You haven’t failed at anything, Danny North,” she said. “You’re, like, a god.”
    “The god of screw-ups,” said Danny.
    Xena kissed his cheek. “Your screw-ups are better than other people’s successes.”
    “So you went to the other world. Westil,” said Laurette. “That was supposed to make you more powerful.”
    “I don’t feel any different,” said Danny.
    “Well, can you do stuff you couldn’t do before?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “ Why don’t you know?” asked Laurette.
    “There isn’t a manual,” said Danny. “They kill mages like me. They don’t exactly provide me with instructions.”
    “Who reads the instructions?” asked Laurette. “Haven’t you tried anything?”
    “I wouldn’t even know what to try,” said Danny. “I made gates before. I can still make gates.” He shrugged.
    “So you can take us to Disney World?” asked Sin.
    Danny hadn’t expected that—not from the goth with constantly infected piercings. “You want to go to Disney World?”
    “I’d say Paris, but I don’t speak French,” said Sin. “Come on, I’ve never been.”
    “Me neither,” said Xena.
    “I don’t want to go,” said Pat.
    “I don’t like using gates to steal,” said Danny.
    “Who said anything about stealing?” asked Sin. “Just get us in.”
    “And then get us through all the lines and into the rides without tickets,” said Laurette. “Is that so much to ask?”
    “They’ll catch me,” said Wheeler. “I always look guilty.”
    “How about Cape Canaveral?” asked Hal.
    “You provide the security badges, and I’ll get us in,” said Danny.
    “This isn’t even fun,” said Pat.
    “What about all those people trying to kill you?” asked Xena. “Are you safe now?”
    “I don’t know,” said Danny.
    “And what about teaching us how to help you?” asked Hal. “Or is that off, just because you screwed up and made some gate angry?”
    “I can’t have you help me,” said Danny. “I’d just screw that up, too, and then you’d get killed.”
    “Wow, he’s really down on himself,” said Laurette.
    “He needs cheering up,” said Xena. She kissed his cheek. Not a sisterly peck. Her lips brushed his cheek and lingered. It made him feel a tingle in his legs and in his butt. He didn’t know that tingling could be so weirdly dislocated.
    “Don’t go there, Xena,” said Hal.
    “Even if you are a warrior princess,” said