After leaving Crumpet's office, I head back toward the beach, but I hear explosions and laughter emanating from the cafeteria. I must've missed the rest of the math class! I know this isn't like the universe feeling sorry for me and giving me a break, but it is a small consolation for being utterly mortified in front of my father.

I hurry across the courtyard toward the cafeteria to find my cabin mates. Maybe one of them will have an idea about how to break the unbreakable fairy spell, or at least know what will happen if I try to walk through it.

There's a new golden Cupid statue in the courtyard. It's way better than the pastels we did in Life Drawing and Sculpture class. Must've come from the advanced art class. The Cupid figure holds a bow and arrow poised and ready to fly at the statue of The Glorious Goddess Gaia that's always been there.

The minute I step into the cafeteria, I have to duck to avoid being hit by a raw meatball that splats on the door to the gym across the hall. It's chaos in here. Of course, I've heard of food fights, but apparently, at West Marin Heights, a food fight involves food directly in combat with other food—while the students, walls, floor, and even the ceiling are collateral damage.

There are about thirty students inside the cafeteria. A group of gods is safely protected by some kind of magical barrier. The vampires, fairies, and werewolves are hiding under the tables, laughing and pointing at the midair explosions of food, except for Pickles, who's awhirl in the center of the caf, swirling her wand in the air and cursing in a way that I am reasonably sure is prohibited by the F.G. Training Manual. A pile of raw meat (the werewolves love the stuff) forms itself into balls, which launch into the air and collide with fairy cakes, bottles of blood, kelp smoothies, hot dogs, pizza, and goblets of ambrosia. The combatants burst apart, leaving frosting, cake, tiny sugared unicorns, meat, and blood everywhere. It looks like a crime scene.

I grab a tray from a cart near the door and use it to block the onslaught as I sprint across the room, yelling as loud as I can, "I wish the food would stop fighting!"

All at once, the food hangs for a second in midair, trembles, then falls to the floor with horrible sounds of squelching and shattering. Everyone boos. It smells like the boardwalk at the end of a hot summer's day when the trash cans are overflowing with half-eaten hot dogs, food wrappers, and flies.

"Thank you, Wave. I don't know how this happened," Pickles says. "All I was trying to do was make some special meat cupcakes for Thunder."

"That's okay, Pickles. I wish this were all cleaned up."

Pickles waves her wand, and now half the room is clean. She tries to clean the rest. Beads of sweat form on her forehead.

"What's up, Pickles?"

"I don't know. Something is wrong. Oh, no!"

"What? Pickles, what's wrong?"

"I might have the fairy flu." She sneezes sparkles of fairy dust. "Oh, sorry," she says, picking up an ambrosia-soaked napkin from the table.

Lily-Bella waves her wand; a clean, white handkerchief appears. "Here you go, Hon."

"Thanks." Pickles blows her nose.

"What's the fairy flu?" I say.

"It's very rare, but it kind of makes sense," Pickles says. She glances at Fintan and then at her flip-flopped feet.

"How do you get the fairy flu, Pickles?" asks Fintan.

"Well ..."

"Maybe it's something embarrassing," I say. "Like a girl thing that she doesn't want to announce to half the school. I wish you didn't have the fairy flu."

"If only it were that easy," Pickles says, sneezing again, this time into the handkerchief. "Fairy goddaughter magic, though strong, isn't enough to cure the fairy flu."

I want to hug Pickles, but she's covered in random food stains, and it's kind of gross. "I'm so sorry, Pickles," I say, hoping she hears the level of empathy in my tone.

"Can we talk about this later?" she whispers to Fintan and me.

"Of course." Fintan clasps Pickles' hand, totally ignoring the grime. He's a much better person than I am. Obviously. Pickles returns the gesture with a weak smile.

"Can you clean up the rest of the room, Lily-Bella?" I say, wiping some frosting from my shorts.

"I can't. Not my spell. Maybe one of the gods could?"

"Hey, gods," Thunder thunders. "Clean up in the meat aisle."

A goddess from my Lunar Studies class, I think her name is Khione, looks over her bare togaed shoulder, waves one arm, and the room is clean—except now it is snowing. Big, thick, freezing flakes.

Speaking of big, thick, freezing flakes ... "Hey, does anyone know where Pierce is?" I say.

"He went with Shelly and Cupid to check out party venues," Lily-Bella says.

"What?" I guess I yelled that, because everyone in the room is looking at me. "Without the rest of the committee?"

"You were with Crumpet, and Fintan and I were supposed to come here and figure out the food for the party."

My hair sparks purple. Right to 'super pissed.' I really don't like the idea of Pierce being almost alone with Shelly. I suppose I should totally trust him, which I totally do, but Shelly? She, I do not trust at all. And Cupid? I'm not sure. Okay, I need to focus on what's important right now, which is figuring out a way of getting off campus to spy on the yacht tonight. "Hey, Lily-Bella, Thunder, Pickles, I could use some help."

"Sure, Wave. What's up?"

"Maybe we should go somewhere a little more private ... and less ... freezing."

Our legs are buried to the ankles as the room fills with a carpet of snow. The other students have taken sides and are making snowballs at breakneck speed, arming for what will probably be the snowball fight of the millennium.

"How about the boys' bathroom?" says Thunder.

Lily-Bella wrinkles her nose. "No offense, Thunder, but maybe the girls' bathroom would be better."

We are squeezed into the girl's bathroom, which consists of two pink stalls, two sinks, a Roman-tiled floor, and mirrors on the walls and ceilings. There is magical graffiti on the stall doors. Apparently, the words change into whatever is the most offensive to the reader, so I see something different from the others. I try not to look; it's so embarrassing it makes me cringe. All I'll say is, I've never seen an octopus do anything like that. No one else seems to care about the graffiti that much. Maybe they're more used to it. "Okay, I am super glad we said nothing to the headmaster about what's going on around here because I think he might be involved." I explain what happened in Crumpet's office. Jaws drop all around. "So, does anyone have any ideas on how to break Princess Iridessa's spell?"

"We could tie her to a tree and force her to remove the spell," Thunder suggests.

"Or we could ask her nicely," Pickles says, sneezing.

"Well," Lily-Bella says, checking her hair in the mirror. "Ugh!" She waves her wand, and her hair rearranges itself into a gorgeous French twist with tiny lilies tucked into the twist. "Blech! I really need to practice that more. Anyway, there's only one way to break the spell."

"There's a way to break the spell? I had no idea it would be this simple. What do we have to do?" I could burst with joy.

"We have to steal Princess Iridessa's wand," Lily-Bella says.

"What?"

"The only way to reverse the spell is to use the same wand that created it."

"How do we steal her wand?" I ask.

Pickles shakes her head. "Princess Iridessa takes her wand everywhere like all fairies." Her voice is scratchy and has dropped almost an octave. "We keep our wands in a fairy dimension where they follow us and are ready to be summoned at any time. And a fairy can only summon her own wand."

"Okay, then I will go into the fairy dimension and find the wand," I say. "Tell me how to get there and how to identify Iridessa's wand. I promise not to touch anything else. But I'd better go now. We only have a few hours until sundown, and that's when they're meeting on the yacht for dinner."

Lily-Bella laughs. It sounds like bells. "You can't go to the fairy dimension, silly. Only a fairy can go there. I'll do it."

"I'm one-eighth fairy. On my mother's side," I say. Maybe my fairy heritage will finally pay off.

"You are? Wow! That's totally cool. I wondered when I saw your hair spark for the first time. Anyway, one-eighth isn't enough. Only a full fairy can go. And it's guarded by hungry dragons and peevish fire-spirits. If I get past the dragons' fiery breath and survive the fire-spirits' ear-splitting screams, then all I have to do is snag Iridessa's wand from the caldera of an erupting volcano." She smiles like she's just given us her recipe for fairy cakes instead of describing a venture into, well, essentially, Hades.

"I don't think this is a good plan." Thunder shakes his great head. He looks as white as foaming surf. "My plan is safer."

Lily-Bella puts her hand on Thunder's arm. "You're very sweet, Thunder, but trust me. Your way is not safer. You do not want to get on fairy princess Iridessa's Bad List."

"That's really a thing?" I ask.

"Oh, yes." Her eyes are shining in that feral, crazed way they do whenever she thinks about something risky and unsafe.

"Wait," says Pickles, sneezing again. "Fairies can't actually go into the fairy dimension. We call our wand. It comes. We release the wand; it goes back. We don't ever go inside."

"They tell you that in F.G. training?" Lily-Bella purses her lips. "It's a lie. You can go, only it's extremely dangerous. But we must keep Iridessa occupied while I'm there. She cannot summon her wand."

"I could arrange a fire to distract her," Fintan offers. "In the glade where we had Enchanted Dance class."

"What? No! No to all of this," I say. "We'll figure out another way."

"Don't worry, Wave. It'll be a small fire," says Fintan. "I won't burn down the entire school ... I hope."

"But won't Iridessa summon her wand to put out the fire?" I say.

"Nope," Lily-Bella chimes in. "Fairy magic doesn't work on fire. It has something to do with fire being a fairy's natural enemy. If she tries to extinguish the fire with fairy magic, with her massive powers, she could end up torching the entire state of California." Lily-Bella makes a kaboom sound and throws out her arms. "It's why the fairy dimension is guarded by dragons and stocked with volcanoes and fire-spirits. Don't bother fighting, Waverly. Because I'm stealing that wand, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." Her eyes are flashing, and her jaw is tight.

"I want you to know, I don't like this idea at all."

"It's okay, Wave," says Lily-Bella. "I'll slip into the fairy dimension, steal the wand, reverse the spell, and sneak back while Fintan sets fire to the glade. Now there's only one problem left to resolve."

"What's that?"

"Pickles, can you still do the camouflage spell for Waverly and Pierce when they go to the yacht while you have the fairy flu?"

"Yeah. I think so." More sneezing.

"Uh, no offense, Pickles," I say. "But maybe Lily-Bella should do it."

"I wish I could. It's totally awesome, but it's strictly an F.G. spell."

I exhale in frustration. What if the spell doesn't hold, and Pierce and I are caught spying? I don't think the Sharkweathers will chuckle about it and serve us tea. "Maybe we should test it out," I say.

"Good idea," says Pickles. She starts chanting and whipping her wand through the air as if she's swatting away an irate seagull.

"Nothing's happening," I say. Eels meals! Now, what am I going to do? No way am I letting Pierce do this alone while Shelly's on that boat tonight. And what's to keep him from being discovered? He also needs this spell.

"Where's Waverly?" says Thunder, wagging his head back and forth.

"See that toilet?" says Pickles.

"Yeah."

"That's her."

"You turned me into a toilet?" I say indignantly. Sure enough, I look in the mirror, and there is no reflection of me—only a toilet.

"I didn't turn you into a toilet," says Pickles. "It's just that you look like a toilet because that's what you're standing in front of."

Thunder guffaws like a lunatic and smacks his leg, as tears roll down his ruddy face.

"Get away from me!" I yell. But there is nowhere to go in the small room. Thunder tries to sit on me, and we end up crashing to the floor. "Aarrgh!" I'm squished beneath him. Have I mentioned that Thunder weighs nearly as much as a giant squid?

Pickles sneezes, and I know the spell has dissolved because I can see myself in the mirror again.

"Oh, fickleheart!" Pickles stomps her foot. "I dropped the spell."

The bathroom door opens.

"What's going on?" Pierce growls. He's showing Thunder some fang. Poseidon's beard, vampires are as territorial as werewolves!

Thunder jumps off of me, and I can breathe again. "Nothing, bro," says Thunder.

I'm struggling to stand. Pierce squeezes into the room and helps me up. I feel that now-familiar spark of electricity when he touches me. "Are you okay?" he says, hugging me, his voice full of concern.

"Thanks, yeah." I don't want him to know that the spell didn't last. He might nix the whole recon mission tonight, and I'm sure we'll get it working soon. The best thing I can do right now is put him on defense. "Can I ask you a question, Pierce Knightguard?" I say indignantly.

"Sure."

"How often do you visit this girls' bathroom?"

"Very funny," he says. "I visit the girls' bathroom whenever my girlfriend decides to get squashed by a werewolf and needs rescuing."

"How did you find me?"

"The usual. Followed your delicious mermaid smell. Though I have to say, it was kind of disguised under the scent of raw meat and snow. Care to explain?"

Just my luck that the vampire I fall for is smart. "No. I don't care to explain. Look, I'm fine. We were just ..."

"Testing the camouflage spell?"

How does he know? He better not still be able to read my mind. That's impossible. It's been weeks. I think.

"Yeah. It's great. Anyway, where have you been?" I take a step back and hit my head on the towel dispenser but quickly straighten up, pretending my head isn't throbbing.

"Looking for places to have the Halloween party. Sorry I didn't tell you. You were in Crumpet's office. Did it go all right? Don't look at me like that, Wave."

"Like what?"

"Like you want to gouge out somebody's eyes. Or toss somebody into a tank of hungry sharks."

"I'm perfectly okay. I don't mind at all that you took off with Shelly. I'm sure you two had lots to talk about."

"Waverly. Nothing happened." He gently kisses the top of my head. "Now, have you tabled this ridiculous idea of yours, and let me do the yacht mission alone?"

"Not at all, Pierce. I am so going. Do you really think I'm going to let you and Shelly be on the same boat without me there to protect you?"

"Protect me from what?"

Maybe he isn't that smart after all.

Pierce, Pickles, Thunder and I are standing on the beach in a grove of palm trees. It's getting late. The sun is a squashed orange on the horizon, and the air is chilled. The yacht is floating in the middle of the bay, beckoning and threatening—as solid and white as an iceberg.

"Hey, look," Pickles says, pointing to the smoke rising from the forest and sneezing. "He did it." She's obviously proud of Fintan's handiwork.

Even from this far away, we can hear the students and teachers shouting. The glade is burning. The school is absolute mayhem. Everything is going along as planned. Except that Lily-Bella hasn't returned from her ... uh ... errand. I'm getting worried.

Pickles hasn't yet invoked the camouflage spell. We're waiting until the last moment so it'll hopefully last the whole evening. She's been practicing for hours. So far, besides the toilet, I've been hidden in plain sight as a bunk bed, a potted plant, and a naked sculpture of Cupid in the school courtyard. The spell has held for up to an hour. I hope that will be enough time to do our spying.

Suddenly, the air in front of us tears apart into a slash of orange flame, and Lily-Bella steps through. As soon as she's fully in our dimension, the slash disappears. Her hair is scorched, her normally creamy face smudged, her pink gown in shreds, and smoke is wafting from the singed hemline. She's smiling like a zealot.

I gasp. "Lily-Bella! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Wave. I'm fine. Look, I reversed the spell, but I think Iridessa might suspect something. I gotta go. Good luck!" She kisses Thunder on the cheek and disappears in a cloud of fairy dust. Thunder is grinning and practically floating three inches above the sand.

"Okay, Pickles. Let's do this," I say.

Pickles waves her wand, and Pierce disappears. Now all I see is the palm tree he was standing in front of. I feel Pierce's arm wrap around my waist.

"Good job, Pickles," I say.

"Thanks. You two are the cutest palm trees I've ever seen! Pixie pies and sneaky spies, I hope it holds."

"It will," Thunder says. But he doesn't look convinced.

"It better," says Pierce.

"I love you guys." Pickles leans close to me.

"Pickles, why are you patting my nose?" I ask.

"Sorry, thought it was your shoulder."

"That's okay. See you soon," I say.

They head up the hill to give Fintan the 'all clear' so he can snuff the fire before it consumes the forest.

"Waverly, we can't even see one another," says Pierce. "For safety purposes, before we fly off on this insane venture of yours, I recommend that I drink just a little of your blood so I can hear your thoughts."

I shudder. "Are you crazy?" I wriggle out of his arm. "Not ever, whatsoever, in a million billion years is that going to happen, vampire."

"Look, Waverly. I'm not asking for nutritional purposes. I'm asking because if I can read your mind, even if I can't see you, even if we get separated, I'll be able to communicate with you silently. It's much safer."

"Safer for me? Seriously? You could lose control and turn me into some weird mermaid/vampire hybrid. That's assuming I could even be turned into a vampire which I'm sure I can't, because it's freaking never happening. More likely, I'll be dead. And then, I'm telling you, Pierce, if you kill me, my dad will kill you. And it won't even matter that you're already dead. You will be all the way dead. So for your own good, no freaking way."

"Uh, Waverly?"

"Yes?"

"You owe me a wish."

"What? I don't owe you anything."

"If you'll remember the first day we met? We had a friendly race. I won. You lost. Loser owes the winner a wish."

"You totally cheated! You could fly! You didn't tell me that."

"You didn't ask, mermaid. So I did nothing wrong. You owe me a wish, fair and square. And I'm wishing for a tiny sip of your blood. You won't even feel it. You might even like it."

Though all I see is a palm tree, I can feel Pierce's body move against mine, generating that delicious jolt of electricity.

Yes! Yes! My body is saying. Let him have our blood. Please!

Shut up, body. It's only a vampire trick. He's making us think we want this, and we totally don't.

This is when I feel fangs scraping along my neck. I am getting goose pimples and pulling him closer. Hmmm. Maybe he's right. Perhaps if he can communicate with me telepathically while on the mission, it would help. And it'll wear off in a week. Once we return, I'll just have to avoid him for a while.