Principal Gonzalez called an assembly first thing on Tuesday morning. He announced it over the loudspeaker. He told the teachers to bring their students to the gym.
Ms. Starr asked the UDM students to breathe deep and stay strong. “I don’t know what he’s going to announce,” she said, “but we are not ashamed of who we are. We will hold our heads high. Who’s taking Andres? Okay, thank you, Pepper. Now everybody do a quick headstand before we go to the gym.”
Nory was nervous. She could tell Bax was nervous, too, by the way he kept twirling his pencil in his fingers. The students were quiet as they filed out of the classroom.
Except Willa. And Elliott. Because they weren’t there.
Where were they?
Why were they never where they were supposed to be? Nory couldn’t believe Elliott was still keeping secrets.
“Students of Dunwiddle Magic School!” Principal Gonzalez boomed from the platform in the gym. “We have all had an unusual couple of weeks.”
Nory’s skin got clammy. If the UDM program was going to get canceled, what would they do? Would they all be separated? Where would she go to school?
At the podium, Principal Gonzalez coughed. “Due to the nature of recent events, a petition was created by students and signed by many people. It was left on my desk yesterday afternoon.” He held up the petition.
“Those who signed it feel that the magic of the upside-down students poses a danger. They feel that danger is worse than the dangers of Flare magic, fluxed carnivores, Flicker invisibility pranks, and objects dropped by Flyers. The people who signed the petition wish for the Upside-Down Magic program to be shut down, and the students within it to be moved to other schools, starting next Monday.”
“No!” Nory whispered.
Pepper reached over and squeezed her hand.
“To the students who put together the petition, I would like to say that I admire your effort,” the principal continued. “If there’s something you care about, and you voice your opinion respectfully, then I will extend the same courtesy by listening to what you have to say.”
“We got fifty signatures,” said Lacey Clench. “That means you have to do what we wrote.”
He held the petition high. “I am sorry, Miss Clench, but it does not mean that at all.”
He ripped the petition straight down the middle.
“It is not for students to decide the worthiness—or unworthiness—of their classmates. We at Dunwiddle believe that an Upside-Down Magic program is an asset to everyone. It is not any more dangerous than other daily magical accidents. When I was your age, I made my chair invisible. It was all very funny until my classmate tripped over it and broke his nose. True story.”
He waited for the laughter to stop and went on. “I also made countless things invisible that my parents never found, including car keys, the lawn mower, and once, for a terrifying five hours, my little brother.” He took a deep breath. “My point is that the Upside-Down Magic program encourages all of us to embrace and understand difference. Loyalty to your school means loyalty to every member of our community. Upside-Down Magic will stay.”
Many of the kids cheered and clapped and stomped their feet. As they did, more joined them.
“We’re still here!” Nory cried. She turned to Bax and shook him back and forth. “Bax! Bax! The petition didn’t work!”
“I know,” Bax said with a grin. “I heard.”
“I trust we will move on in a spirit of good fellowship,” Principal Gonzalez said. “And now, I turn the stage over to Carmen Padillo from the eighth grade, for an announcement.” He gestured at the microphone. “Carmen?”
He stepped down from the podium, and Andres’s sister, Carmen, stepped up. She wore a jacket and had her hair neatly pulled back. She carried a clipboard and looked like she was ready to give a speech.
Nory saw Elliott and Willa take their seats in the gym. Both were smiling like idiots.
What are they up to? Nory wondered.
Carmen leaned toward the microphone. “On behalf of the eighth grade, and with special thanks to two members of the UDM class, I would like to say—”
She paused dramatically, and the eighth graders finished her sentence with one voice. “PRANK!”
A crew of students rushed onto the platform at the front of the gym, pushing wheelbarrows full of snowballs. They wore gloves and parkas. They picked up the snowballs and pelted the audience.
“Eeek!”
“Pow!”
“My hair!”
“It’s cold!”
Elliott ran over to Nory and told her, “We made the snowballs! Me and Willa!”
“You did?”
“That was why I kept going to school early without you! Carmen saw us at our first tutoring session. Ms. Cruciferous was helping Willa do indoor rain in just one tiny part of the room instead of the whole thing, and I was turning it into snow as it came down. Carmen saw us, and got the idea that with our unusual magic, we could help do a prank that was different from any eighth-grade prank in the history of Dunwiddle!”
“We’ve been making snowballs all week and keeping them in the cafeteria freezer,” said Willa.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nory said.
“Der. Because it was a secret,” said Elliott.
“But I—I thought you were—I don’t know,” said Nory. “I felt really left out, is all.”
Elliott’s eyes widened. Nory knew that he knew how it felt to be left out. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you.”
“It’s okay,” Nory said, and realized it was true. “You couldn’t reveal the eighth-grade prank.”
“Yeah. But I probably could have kept the secret without making you feel bad,” said Elliott. “If I had just thought about it a little more.”
Bam! A snowball hit Elliott in the ear.
Nory picked it off the floor, repacked it, and flung it at Pepper.
Elliott beamed.
Pepper dumped snow down the back of Nory’s shirt.
Bax combined several snowballs into one giant one and wound his arm in circles, like a baseball player. He seemed to be aiming carefully. Nory stood on her tiptoes in order to follow his gaze.
Bax’s snowball arced high and true and hit Lacey Clench with an icy thwunk. Lacey squealed and jumped to her feet, brushing snow from her shirt.
“Bax!” Nory cried, delighted.
“What? You think I did that on purpose?” he said.
Nory’s smile wavered. “You didn’t?”
“Are you kidding? I would never. My arm did it. My arm is out of control!”
Bax threw his next one at Coach, who bellowed and pelted another right back at Bax.
Nory soaked it in.
The Upside-Down Magic class was here to stay. She and her friends would continue figuring out their magic. Sometimes they’d succeed and sometimes they’d mess up. Sometimes, unfortunately, they’d do interpretive dance.
She couldn’t wait to see what the future would bring.