Ellray Jakes the Dragon Slayer Read Free

know,” I say. But I narrow my eyes to look jokey-mean.
    “Why don’t you go talk to your little sister right now?” Mom says, her voice getting soft. “I think she could use some cheering up, don’t you?”
    “I guess,” I say, hiding my sigh, because cheering up Alfie usually involves a whole lotta listening to a whole lotta Alfie-talk.
    But sometimes, like my dad says, you just have to “man up.”
    And this is probably one of those times.

3
OVER THERE
    Alfie’s bedroom door is open, but I pretend-knock anyway because I’m trying to train my little sister to knock before she barges into
my
room. Fat chance. “ KNOCK, KNOCK ,” I call out.
    Alfie’s room is an explosion of pink and purple, her two favorite colors. I’m not against a person having favorite colors, even if they’re not sports team colors. But that doesn’t mean you have to decorate your whole life with them. That’s what Mom did, though, repainting Alfie’s baby room when she turned four. And Alfie’s got silver stars on her ceiling now, too.
    I wouldn’t mind a few of those silver stars on
my
ceiling.
    Alfie is sitting cross-legged next to a tangled heap of dolls in front of the long mirror on hercloset door. She’s watching herself play with one of the dolls. Alfie waves a pale, skinny doll arm in the air like it’s saying “Hi.”
    “Come in, EllWay,” she tells me, not sounding very happy to see me. She can’t say my name right, but I know who she means. She goes back to watching herself play in the mirror.
    “Watcha doin’?” I ask, collapsing next to her onto the shaggy rug. I can see Alfie’s new pink jacket stuffed way back under her bed. “Didn’t you like your tacos?”
    “They were okay,” Alfie says, shrugging.
    Alfie just puts cheese in her tacos. No meat, just cheese. But that’s her decision, and you should get to choose how boring you want to be in life.
    “Look,” Alfie says, staring into the mirror as she waves her doll’s arm again. “It’s almost the same over there.”
    “
Over there
” means in the mirror, I guess.
    “It’s
exactly
the same,” I say. “Only it’s opposite, because you’re seeing a reflection in a mirror.”
    “That’s not true. It’s not the same,” Alfie says, scowling. “Because this is my left hand, right?” sheasks, holding her left hand up in the air. “Mom put a red rubber band around my wrist once, so I’d always memember.”
    That’s Alfie-speak for “remember.”
    “Right. I mean,
correct
,” I tell her, so we don’t get mixed up.
    “But over there, for the mirror girl, it’s her right hand,” Alfie says.
    “Correct. It’s opposite,” I chime in, only now I’m trying to sound more sure of myself than I’m feeling. Because—how could left suddenly turn into right like that? “And the mirror girl is you, by the way,” I add.
    “But that’s not the only thing that’s different,” Alfie informs me, ignoring what I just said about the mirror girl. “Sometimes things move a little over there, or they change, and you can barely notice. You have to look real hard.”
    “Huh?”
    “In the mirror,” Alfie explains, her voice patient.
    “No. Things don’t change,” I tell her. “Everything there is exactly the same as here, in real life.”
    “Nuh-uh. It’s better,” Alfie says, still staring atherself in the mirror. “Because no one’s invisible over there.”

    “Nobody’s invisible
here
,” I say, wishing again that I could kick Suzette Monahan—in the shins or something, only kicking is girly. And like I said before, boys don’t kick or hit girls. Not in my family. It’s wrong, and my dad would freak. He has very old-fashioned—and strict—manners. He likes everyone to behave.
    If Dad knew Alfie was being picked on at day care, for example, he would go nuts. And then he’d start an official Oak Glen committee to investigate the matter. I’m sure my mom hasn’t told him yet. I’m positive.
    “They’re invisible at day