A Box of Gargoyles by Anne Nesbet

Author:Anne Nesbet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

11

NEVER TRUST GARGOYLES. REALLY. DON’T.

Few things in life are as nerve-racking as heading off to meet (for the first time) the parents of someone who, although a boy, has become one of your best friends in the whole world. But the fates must have really had it in for Maya Davidson, because on top of the meeting-a-nice-boy’s-parents-for-the-first-time worries, they had decided to toss in the following further complications:

His parents were Bulgarian.

They ran an embassy in Paris.

They had just announced they wanted to send Valko back to Bulgaria because he wasn’t Bulgarian enough, and being friends with Maya was certainly not helping him be more Bulgarian.

The dinner was going to be a formal embassy banquet, probably involving hundreds of mysterious little forks and spoons that Maya would not know how to use.

And, finally, it just so happened that another 137 hours would be elapsing at six p.m. this evening, and that meant the laws of physics would be slightly suspended, in highly unpredictable ways, at more or less the same time as Maya was about to start reaching for the mysterious little forks she didn’t know how to use.

Maya’s mother didn’t know about the spreading strangeness, of course, but because she knew or guessed most of the other items on this list—and because she was on an intense and obvious campaign to keep Maya from worrying so much about everything—she had been trying for several days to be especially kind and reassuring, and that, for some reason, had made Maya feel even more anxious.

Basically, thought Maya as she raced to get into her fancy clothes on Monday after school, no one in the long history of dinner invitations had ever been more full of twitchy, itchy nervousness than she was right now.

She pulled the comb through her nondescript brown hair and put on her party shoes, but when she dropped a barrette on the floor, she caught a glimpse of the Summer Box under her bed, and before she knew it, the gargoyles’ egg was cradled in her hands. The warmth of it was so comforting.

There was a new word inscribed on it, she noticed. Now what did that say?

Valko would know.

She emptied all her school books out of her backpack and popped the egg in instead, wrapped in an extra sweater just in case it got especially cold by the time they were walking back home.

“You look lovely,” said her mother, as Maya spun around for a quick inspection in the living room. “Don’t forget your scarf and gloves; it’s cold tonight. Look, I’ve got some nice flowers right here, ready to go.”

Somehow she made it out of that apartment. The sun was setting as she trotted across the avenue Bosquet, feeling foolish with the bouquet of flowers in her gloved hands. Flowers (odd number only)—shake hands firmly—eye contact! She was remembering all the rules for meeting parents from Bulgaria. Oh, and it was five p.m. already. One hundred and thirty-six hours gone; one to go. If the strangeness hadn’t evaporated into nothing and spontaneously gone away.

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