“You stopped paying attention quite a while ago.”
“It’s my ADD.”
Annabelle laughed. “I think you got bored because of Nell’s lack of adventure.”
“I shouldn’t have spent so much time playing Hacky Sack,” Zing added.
“Well, there was that. And messing up the Zen garden.”
“And getting chased by rakes.”
“And putting kale in the water jugs.”
“You have to admit that was pretty funny,” Zing said, chuckling.
“But the point is that you weren’t learning how the world works.”
“True dat,” Zing said.
“Dat?”
“It’s how cool people talk,” Zing said. She held out her fist. “Here, bump your fist with mine. Cool people do that. It’s called fisting.”
“Um. . . That’s not what fisting means.”
“Oh? What’s it mean?”
“Never mind.” Annabelle fist bumped her then she said, “I think we need to get back to your problem. Now, I’ve read the book and it doesn’t have one reference to what just happened.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Here’s my take on it. You didn’t rescue Miracle from being beheaded—”
“I most certainly did. If I hadn’t caught her, her head would be rolling around on the floor like a bowling ball,” Zing said, furrowing her brow.
“Don’t furrow. You’ll get wrinkles in your forehead.”
Zing huffed. “There sure are a lot of things you shouldn’t do when you have a body.”
“Yeah, well get used to it. Okay, so you did save Miracle, but you did it as a human not as a guardian angel.”
“Oh, I see where you’re going with this! It won’t even be on the books, right?”
“Right. And I have no intention of reporting it, either.”
“So, I’m safe?”
“Yes, but you need to watch yourself from now on. Promise me?”
Zing put on her most serious face. At least, she thought it was a serious face. She’d have to practice faces in the mirror so she’d use the right one. “I promise.”
She held up her fist. Annabelle smiled and they bumped fists.
***
“So, when I’m sad I’m supposed to do this?” Zing asked. She turned the corners of her mouth down and raised her eyebrows. They were sitting in the living room on the couch. Miracle’s living room was crowded with Victorian vases, busts of famous people, and a lot of other antique stuff. The couch was large, overstuffed, and covered in a burgundy fabric.
“Don’t raise your eyebrows. Scrunch them down lower. Then make your lower lip tremble a bit,” Miracle said. “I did summer stock theatre when I was younger. I used the method acting technique. So, I’ll pretend like I’m a guardian angel. I will become you and you will become me.”
Zing remembered when Miracle tried her hand at acting—Annabelle had told her it hadn’t gone well. Annabelle had watched the play—excited by this new interest of Miracle’s. She’d gotten the role of Wendy in Peter Pan and during the flying scene, her flying wire had gone haywire and she kept smacking into Peter Pan. A high-wire argument had ensued between Peter Pan and Wendy. When they got down to the stage, Peter had to be prevented from beating Wendy about the head with his wooden sword. Annabelle intervened by making Peter trip, which sent his sword skittering across the stage. Both Miracle and Peter were fired and their understudies performed to rave reviews.
Zing said, “I don’t think you could be me. Guardian angels are special, but I don’t know how we get that way, so I can’t really tell you how to be me.”
This was all getting very confusing. And to make matters worse, Zing didn’t know what a confusing face looked like. She’d be sure to ask Nell because if she were going to be hanging around Miracle, a confused face would come in handy.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just be an honorary guardian angel, not a real one. Now practice making your lower lip tremble.”
Zing trembled her lip. Once she mastered that, Miracle had her practice being angry. Zing learned to scowl and ball up her fists and huff and stomp her foot. Then they worked on compassion—which was by far the easiest emotion. All she had to do was tilt her head and lightly touch the other person’s arm.
“You’re doing an excellent job, Zing. I think you’re ready for the hardest emotion of all: Broken-heartedness.”
“Will I need that one? I don’t have a sweetheart,” Zing said.
“Definitely, because you never know when you will fall in love. And after you fall in love it always ends with a broken heart.”