Page 85 of The Good Boy

“Genie,” he says softly. “I...”

“I’m just so glad you were there, Miles. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You could have,” he says. “You can do anything you set your mind to, Eugenie Wilson. And I think that maybe, just maybe, you are beginning to see that for yourself.”

Just as we are about to leave a busker across the street starts singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

“Mate, it’s August,” I call out to him.

“I know,” he calls back. “I just saw you and this song came out of my mouth. Don’t know why, but hey, all I want for—”

“Fine, let’s go,” I tell Miles. I get in the car but he crosses the road and gives the guy a tenner, they talk for a while and shake hands, and then he gets back in the car.

“What was that about?” I ask.

“Saying goodbye,” Miles says cryptically. Well, I suppose it is the day for it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Well, your aura has changed color,” Nanna Maria says the moment we walk into the shop. She is scrutinizing me with a frankly alarming squint.

“By that do you mean that you talked to Mum?” I ask her. The really weird thing is that when I look at Nanna I see her surrounded in turquoise and gold, shimmering like a sort of full-body halo. Am I seeing an aura? Are auras a thing?

“I did talk to your mother,” Nanna Maria admits as she comes over to me and envelops me in a soft hug. “And I want you to know that I am so proud of you, darling. It’s hard to do what you did yesterday, deciding to face those difficult times. But also, your aura has changed color. It’s looking much healthier, for certain. Nice and pinkish now. Positively peachy. And if I’m not very mistaken, you are coming into your powers with the family magic. I always said you were a late developer.”

“I’m not sure I like it,” I tell her. “Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it’s painful, and a lot of the time I have no idea what’s going on.”

“That’s not the family magic, dear,” Nanna says. “That’s just being human. As for the magic, it is all of those things too, but youwill learn how to interpret what you see. To understand what the universe is showing you.”

“Are you sure? Because I barely passed English at school, and if I’m honest it still doesn’t seem really real. Even though I know it is.”

“It is always harder to believe in the impossible,” Nanna says. “That’s why they call it faith.”

“Will I start talking a load of old cobblers too?” I ask her, with a smile.

“Definitely,” Nanna tells me. “And get used to people looking at you like you are rather eccentric.”

“Sorry about that, Nanna,” I say. She waves my apology away.

“What about Rory?” Nanna Maria says, looking him up and down. “I’d hoped that now that you’d started your spiritual journey to fulfillment that the power of the wish might be broken, but nothing, Rory? No tail down your trousers? No sign of a wet, shiny nose?”

“Nope,” Rory says, forlorn. “If anything, I feel a little bit less dog and a little bit more bloke with every day that passes. This morning I woke up thinking about football, and I don’t even like football, Nanna Maria. You can’t get a whole one in your mouth.” Nanna turns her healing hug powers to Rory, who rests his chin on the top of her head. “I’m worried that if I spend much longer in this body I’ll stop being able to understand what my friends are saying, and I’ll start wanting to do DIY. And then one day... one day I might be stuck as a man forever! A man who likes men things, Nanna. And I don’t want to be rude, but from listening to every woman who ever talks about men I get the impression that most of them are NOT GREAT.”

“Not all men,” I say, thinking about Miles again. “Not even most of them. On a case-by-case basis most of them are okay. You’re a great man, Rory.”

“I DO NOT WANT TO BE A MAN, GENIE.” Rory lets go of Nanna Maria and paces away. I have never, ever seen him really angry before. He’s right, the man in him is starting to take over the dog.

“I’m sorry.” Rory hugs himself tightly. “I don’t know where that came from. I scared myself.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “We will figure this out.”

“Hmmm,” Nanna says, thinking. “There must be something else that is holding you back, Genie—something more you have yet to accept or confront. Or could it be something that Rory needs to do?”

“Rory hasn’t got any unfinished business,” I say. “Not unless you count my blue heels. He’s only eaten one.”

“It was an accident,” Rory mutters. I ruffle his hair and he musters a smile.

“I don’t think there is anything I have left to do,” I go on. “I’ve forgiven Aiden, I’ve enrolled in a design course starting in October, and I was considering getting a pink... like streak put in my hair, an edgy one... but other than that, nothing to see here apart from a peachy-auraed girl with not a care in the world.”

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