So you've heard of magic. Who hasn't? I mean, it's the main element that shapes the beloved fairy tales from our childhood. You know, like fairies, Peter Pan and all that jazz. It's all just happy fiction.
Well, not really.
Somehow I got stuck smack dab in something that isn't even my problem. I'm with you people, come on, magic?! It's totally nutso. Really. I'm just your average sixteen year old American girl and one day, I get home from school and, boom, a character I thought was fiction is sitting on my sofa. Then she tells me I have this super amazing magic, have to team up with another fictional character that I saw die on TV with my own two freaking eyes that apparently isn't dead. Oh, and there is no such thing as fiction, the truth is twisted a little, but it's all true. Seriously, people, that's more than messed up.
By the way, the fictional character on my doorstep was Violet Wood, which confuses me because I read a fan fiction where she turned this supposed- to-be-dead villain good with the power of love. Uuugg, that's just swell, that isn't true but the rest is. The villain is Peter Pan. Not the happy, goody-two-shoes, Disney version from Jake and the Neverland Pirates that whisks Lost Boys off to Neverland where all their dreams come true but the evil guy who kidnaps innocent children over that illusion and, oh, murder is a hobby of his. The Once Upon A Time version. Except, like I said, he'd didn't get stabbed in real life. Now for the fictional book character everybody loves. Artemis Fowl the Second. For like two years I was so obsessed with that series, I would quote it left and right, it was so insane. I even had a giant crush on him because I just have a thing for geniuses. And sarcasm, especially sarcasm. So, ya' know, finding out he's real is like HOLY MAC'N'CHEESE awesome!
Anyways, my name is Magnolia Grant. Nobody special, really, just plain old Maggie. I'm very imaginative, though. Actually, very is me being modest. So I guess Bill Nye is right, opposites attract! My big fat, creative. Imagine-y kinda brain has a ginormous crush on the guy with the big, fat logical, thinker kinda brain. It's science, people! Oh, yeah, and I'm sixteen (I think I already said that) though sometimes I act like I'm eight. Hardy har har.
Ahem, sorry about that, I get carried away sometimes. I just have too much going on in my cranium and I'm not that organized so . . . yeah, it's a mess up there. See what spinning around and around in a vortex of twisted fairy tales you don't belong in does to a person! Everything logical is thrown down the garbage disposal. Uuugg, the weirdest things happen to normal people. I like to eat, sleep, read, write, draw and sometimes, if I'm kinda slap happy, sing. Even my freaking appearance is simple. I have shoulder-length brown hair and am kinda tannish but not really. Average height, not skinny or fat just in the middle somewhere. Even my name, people, seriously, Maggie. The only weird thing about me is my eyes. They're blue green but the left one is slightly bluer while the right is slightly greener, giving the illusion I have one blue eye and one green. Other than that, I'm awfully simplistic. But according to the organization, Operation Fudge Cookie (I know, that name. Really), they think there's some prophecy Artemis Fowl and me defeating Pan. To me, it sounds like it's one guy except for the fact it says her instead of him once, but that could just be a typo. This is that stupid prophecy, by the way.
In thy times of trouble
Thy foe's very intelligent brother
And her powers so strong
They meet each other
Both together as only one
Intelligence and power
Will destroy thy foe
Cheesy medieval poetry.
But anyway, here's the big, bad plan. Artemis Fowl is Peter Pan's little brother (I know, what is with all the surprise siblings?!)so he has magic and Pan called teaching him. Then I show up, poof, on his doorstep, ignorant as ever on my powers and Pan thinks I could be useful so he teaches Arty and me magic together. We form a happy, little alliance and Pan won't see the dagger coming it's through the part of his chest where his heart should be. They left all the specifics for Fowl to work out 'cause he's sooooo brilliant.
So now yours truly is floating just off the Neverland shore, pretending to be unconscious so some Lost Boy will get me and take me to their psychotic leader, Peter Jonathon Pan.
Ah, good times.
The ocean swells and swirls around me, dancing in the current, sparkling in the sunlight. The waves rock me slowly in their salty embrace and the sun shines through my closed eyelids. Eventually I drift off into Dreamland, my mind only semiconscious. None of those stupid worries that always end up clawing their way desperately into my thoughts no matter how hard I try to escape them. Just me, with nobody else to stress me out.
My quiet moment of rare bliss is shattered by the swish-swish of a paddle in the water. Immediately, I'm sucked back into reality like a rubber band that was stretched out all the way, but then was let go. I crack my eyes open a tiny bit and see good old Felix, Pan's most devoted follower, or rather, the only mind control experiment that worked, paddling toward me. His face is hidden by that trademark shaggy curtain of white blonde hair and the hood of a ragged black cloak, but I know he's scowling at me. He scowls at everyone except Pan. He looks at Pan like a nut looks at a squirrel.
Completely mindless.
"You alive?" he mutters, glaring at me. I sit up and sink into the water, blinking rapidly. I grab the boat dramatically and gasp in exaggerated breaths, "No," I say, my voice oozing with sarcasm.
His cold fingers wrap around my wrist, yanking me head first into the canoe and tosses me a paddle as soon as I hit the rough wood.
"Well, if you're alive, then you can paddle," he snarls.
I glare at the back of his head. Gosh, he's annoying. We cut through the water and collide with the shoreline. Felix climbs out and starts toward the dense jungle. He turns to me still sitting in the canoe.
"C'mon, girl," he smirks, "Pan wants to meet you."