Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
Fog has had her eye out every day at Oz for whoever has been pranking other students with magic.
The teasing has continued. Capes get yanked, pants get pantsed, hair gets dyed funny colors, eyebrows vanish, and personal belongings move as if they got up and walked away. The last is arguably the worst. People are always looking for stray notebooks, finding school supplies they had placed on the left side of their desk now on their right, or on the floor, or gone altogether.
In levitation class, when she sees a student levitating a pen out of another student's backpack and floating it over to snatch out of the air and stow it away in the outer pocket of a zip up binder, Fog thinks it's teenage pranks again. So do many of the other witnesses because the thief, who everyone calls Sapphire, winks and lets the class see.
Fog keeps an eye on that girl, whose hair twinkles like strings of gemstones, as if braids have been transmogrified into precious stones. Part of her wonders what anyone needs to steal for when magic can offer up whatever the heart desires, so long as you don't get caught.
In the cavernous tunnel outside class, Fog waits for Sapphire. The drip of the catacombs could be heard in the silence before the rest of the class poured out into the tunnel, but it's now covered by the high volume chattering of students leaving and gossiping and the pattering of footsteps. Ahead of the pack comes Sapphire and she tears off further into the depths of Oz, a maze of caves and cellars Fog has only stepped through an iceberg's tip of.
She's tailing Sapphire but the thief is only heading to her next class, and she stops outside the cellar door when she gets where she's going to pull out her red Nokia flip phone and laugh at a text message.
As if passing by, Fog will congratulate the thief on her winnings and, if Fog knows this brand of petty thief, the girl will show off the pen.
"Nice take. It's Sapphire, right?"
The eyes that looked up from the cell phone were questioning, not answering.
"Not the pen," clarified Fog, "Your code name is . . . Sapphire, right?" as if clearing up a misunderstanding, as if she wasn't sure the girl's name was Sapphire and if her name isn't Sapphire, the girl won't have the first idea what she's talking about. "I'm Fog."
"You had me at a disadvantage. Yeah, it's Sapphire." Her eyes, with gemstone irises to match those braids of diamond chains, begin to smile for only a second before the phone's telegrams draw her back. But before Fog has to press further and risk sounding obvious, Sapphire sticks the phone in a pocket of her blue camo cargo pants (she's not exactly disguised like a superhero or video game character unless it's Street Fighter). From the actual cargo pocket comes the loot.
Having caught only a glimpse of the sailing pen from her seat in the back, Fog had imagined it to be a cheap ballpoint. Blue or white barrel or see-through. One of those bulky thick plastic things. The fountain pen Sapphire withdraws to show her is not a dollar store ten-pack kind of writing instrument. Its whole shiny gold tip might be real. The whole shaft glitters a marbled multi-colored crystal. Pinkish.
Fog's new camera phone is in her hand but she pretends it's a plain old dumb phone. "Damn, I wouldn't have thought I'd ask this, but can I take a picture?" She's already going into her backpack as if getting out a digital camera. Fog knows Sapphire will say no so she wants to make it look like she would need a camera to take a picture — like the cell phone is too old to have a camera.
"No, please don't," says Sapphire. Though she refuses, she's not so threatened by the fawning Fog, not enough to pay her much attention.
"Cool," says Fog.
Up comes Sapphire's phone again, the pen still held out in one hand for Fog to admire and she's back to checking messages, smiling at some incoming thread (reception in these tunnels is surprisingly solid).
As if she's checking her messages too, Fog snaps three shots fast with the brand new camera phone in the split three seconds before Sapphire glances back up, slides her own cell phone back away, and then carefully, with two hands, slides the fountain pen into its own special pocket in her backpack.
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Thank you for reading Frost and Fog. This story updates often! Come back next week for more adventures in Oz. To fuel the magic, please leave a star on each chapter ⭐️
