Bras & Broomsticks (10 page)

I have to ask Miri. Today. I can’t take not being popular anymore. Calm down. I have to wait for the right time. I climb onto the table so I can see what she’s up to. “What are you doing?”

“An anti-love spell isn’t going to work,” she says, bursting my one dream of happiness. “I can’t do it. It’s too advanced.”

“Don’t try. Just do,” I say.

“No, I’m serious. See the five broomsticks next to this spell?”

I see five miniature icons of broomsticks. “Yesssssss.”

“That means it’s advanced. One broomstick is for beginners. I don’t think the first spell I try should be a fivebroomer. And this one looks particularly intricate. I’d need a black candle, a small cauldron, Dead Sea salts, and something called
Achillea millefolium
. Oh, and a lock of the person’s hair.”

“Dad doesn’t have any to spare.” I chuckle. “He’s pretty bald.”

“That’s another problem.”

“You can do it.” This is the same girl who figured out that if we suspended a hanger over our television, we could get thirty-two channels and not have to pay for cable. I’m sure she can figure out a teeny-tiny anti-love spell.

Miri shakes her head. “I don’t want to start with a five-broomer. When we tried snowboarding in Vermont, we started on the bunny hill, not the advanced. What if it doesn’t work?”

“Then you’ll turn Dad into a rabbit?”

Miri doesn’t laugh. “Not funny. Really, it’s too advanced. And I don’t even know what
Achillea millefolium
is or where to get it. Is it a food? A spice? A lizard? And anyway, the anti-love spell is temporary. It only lasts a few weeks. Most of the spells that have to do with people’s emotions are temporary. So eventually he’d snap out of it and reschedule the wedding.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe by the time the spell wears off it’ll be too late,” I wishful think out loud. “He’ll have figured out that he doesn’t love her after all. Infatuation isn’t love. So, for a while you’ll remove the blinders, and once he sees the truth, he’ll never go back.” I sigh. I can tell that Miri isn’t buying my reasoning. “So what are you saying? Don’t tell me the plan is off.” No, no, no!

“I’m trying to find an alternative.”

Phewf. “You’re so good. And smart. I bet you could do anything you set your mind to.” Here it comes. The moment of reckoning. The witching hour. I give her my big-eyed-little-girl innocent look. “I bet you could even find me a tiny little popularity spell while you’re searching.”

She snort-laughs. “Nice try.”

“Oh, come on! Please, please find a popularity spell for me? Please? Please, please, please?”

She shakes her head. “There is no make-me-popular-in-high-school spell.”

“Why not?” I flip onto my back, leaning my feet against the apple-patterned wallpaper to get comfy. I probably should have taken off my shoes. Oops. Do black smudges come off?

“Because the book was transcribed in 1304,” Miri says, leafing though the pages. “High school didn’t exist.”

“It doesn’t have to be
high school
popularity, precisely,” I say reasonably. “Is there a spell for winning popularity among the peasants? Can’t you whip up something that would make the knights and vicars think I’m cool?” I hop off the table in search of a cleansing solution. “I thought the book was modernized!” The footprints on the wall would lead one to believe that I can walk sideways. Hey, how awesome would that be?

“It’s the language, not the content, that’s modernized,” Miri says. “Do you even know what a vicar is?”

“You’re the one doing the research.” Must I do everything? I begin to swipe at the telltale smudges.

“Fine, I’ll keep an eye out, but I make no promises.”

Yes! “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I give her a big wet kiss on the cheek and then continue cleaning.

You’d think she could offer to zap the stain. Which leads me to a pertinent question. Why do witches have broomsticks? Can’t they just raw-will the dirt away?

Two hours later Miri opens my door. “I got it.”

“Don’t you knock?”

“Don’t you want me to get rid of you-know-who?”

I’m stretched across my pink carpet, doing my math homework. The carpet used to be orange before Tigger managed to bring fleas back from wherever he runs to when we hold the door open too long. At first, we didn’t even know we had fleas. All we wondered was why we had small red bites around our ankles. The whole experience was pretty vile. Anyway, the exterminator left my blinds open by mistake and the sun bleached my carpet. Now my room fully clashes. I have a sherbet orange dresser, comforter, and desk, and a cotton-candy carpet. The various pairs of jeans and sweaters that hang over every available item of furniture don’t help the décor.

Miri shuts the door behind her. She presses her finger against her lips as a warning to be quiet, as Mom is in the kitchen cooking spaghetti and tofu balls. Miri sits down next to me, the book in her lap.

“You figured it out?” I ask, excitement rising. “Did you figure out a popularity spell, too?”

“Forget about your cool spell for now, okay? I’m concentrating on Dad’s issue. And I half figured it out. Since we can’t put an anti-love spell on Dad, we have to use a spell that will make him realize how awful STB is so he’ll fall out of love with her on his own.”

Perfecto.
“What kind of spell?”

She shrugs. “That’s all I got.”

“That’s it?”

“I had homework, and Tae Kwon Do to practice, too,” she huffs. “Besides, I can’t come up with
all
the ideas.”

Now is not the time to argue. “Well . . . what can STB do that can make Dad stop wanting her? What if she robs a bank?”

“Should I wish for a pistol or a machine gun?” Miri gives me a you-left-your-brain-at-school look. “I’m trying to make the world a better place, not more dangerous.”

Maybe that was a bit much. I rub my thumbs against my temples. “Let’s think. What does he see in her?”

“He’s attracted to evil?”

“Get real, Miri. He’s attracted to her looks. Those eyes, that skin, the smile . . .”

Miri claps. “That’s it! We hit her with an ugly spell.”

“But is Dad that superficial?”

“He must be,” Miri says. “What else could he possibly like about her? He’s blinded by her”—she pretends to gag—“beauty, and he can’t see what an evil person she is. The spell will cast her in a new light. We’re looking after his best interests. What happens when she gets old and her face sags? Is he going to get divorced? If he’s remarrying, he has to love the woman for who she is inside, right?”

Wow. That was some speech. “Right.”

“So, let’s do it,” she continues excitedly. “I saw something that might work.” She flips frantically through the book. “Here it is. It’s called the Mask of Repulsion. Sounds good, huh? Let’s make a list of the ingredients we need.” She jumps up, ready for action.

Does having magical powers excite Miri? Oh, no. But making a list? Be still my heart!

“Mir, we don’t have to do it this second,” I say, remembering my math homework. “We’re not going back to Dad’s until next weekend.”

She narrows her eyes. “Do you think it’s going to be easy to locate these ingredients? I don’t have a clue what
Taraxacum officinale
is. And we have to practice.”

Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch.
Meow
. “Your groupie is trying to scratch his way into my room,” I say. Wait a sec. “Who are you practicing on?”

She winks at me.

Is she crazy? “No way! You are
not
using me as your ugly-spell dummy. I can’t be A-list looking like an ogre!”

She opens the door a crack, and Tigger dashes inside and plops himself directly on A
²
.

The halogen bulb in my brain flicks on and I see my next play. “I understand that you’re nervous,” I say, backpedaling. “You could turn STB into a tree by mistake. So . . . why don’t you practice doing another spell on me? Like say, perhaps, a popularity spell.”

She waves her arms like white flags in defeat. “All right, fine. Whatever you want. I’ll find you a popularity spell. But for the record, you’re being pathetic.”

Touchdown! “Yes, I’m pathetic. Pathetically happy!”

“And,” she says, smiling, “you’re going to owe me. Big.”

Ah, the witch turns mercenary. Isn’t that always the case? “What do you want?”

She whips out a typed list from the spell book. Apparently, she’s been waiting for just the right moment to spring it on me. “For the next two weeks you will, one, set the table and clear the dishes.” My mother has us on an alternating schedule of setting and clearing the table, so we’re both only supposed to have to do one each day. I wonder if dear old Mom will notice if I take over both duties. Probably not. “Two,” Miri says. “You’re on trash duty.”

“Sure, sure, whatever.” It’s not as if anyone can tell whether I recycle properly. I can cut a few corners without her catching me.

“And you can’t cut any corners with the recycling.”

I give her the evil eye (essentially squinting with my right eye while raising my left eyebrow) to ward off future mind-intrusion spells. “I’m on to you.”

She ignores me. “Three, you have to come with me to the peace rally on March twentieth in Washington Square.”

“Can’t Mom take you?”

“I’d rather go with
you
. It’ll be fun,” she pleads.

“I doubt it.” I hate rallies. My mother has dragged me to a slew of them. All you do is stand there and freeze your butt off. “You sure you don’t want me to take you shopping? We can go to Bloomie’s. I’ll buy you that every-day-of-the-week underwear you’ve always wanted,” I add, dangling the only carrot I can come up with under the circumstances.

“Peace rally. Final offer.”

Any way you add it up, it’s worth it. “Deal.”

We shake on it. Hip, hip, hooray! I’m going to be popular! I do a little victory dance.

“Don’t do that. You look like you’re drowning.”

Humph.

“And you can’t ever tell Mom we traded,” she adds.

Is she nuts? “We can’t tell her about any of this. She’d turn us both into frogs. Or cats.” I nudge Tigger with my foot. “Maybe she had another daughter before me. And she did magic. And Mom turned her into a cat. A male cat, just to be mean.”

Tigger meows.

“Why would she turn her into a male cat only to have her neutered?” Miri asks.

“Girls!” my mother hollers from the kitchen. “Time to set the table!”

It’s Monday and therefore . . . my turn. But it’s worth it. Every time I doubt that, I’ll just think of my name at the top of the A-list.

Tigger follows me into the kitchen and almost trips me while I’m taking the plates down from the shelf. Hmm. Who knows? What if I wasn’t far off about Tigger? What if he really used to be human and was cursed by my great-grandmother to spend eternity as a not-too-bright feline? Creepy. Especially considering how many times the perv has watched me change.

My mother licks tomato sauce off a wooden spoon while she checks the garlic bread in the oven and stirs the pasta. When she makes dinner, she looks like the Tasmanian Devil. She’s an excellent multitasker. She’s the same at work. I’ve seen her type, fix the jammed fax machine, make coffee, and book a trip to Costa Rica on the phone simultaneously. And that’s without using magic. Imagine if she did—her clients would all have sunny, turbulence-free vacations. She’s crazy for not using it. What’s the point? Why not? Why not be happy? Why not have a perfect life?

When she was married to my dad, she used to take better care of herself. She used to get manicures and visit the hair salon. Now that she’s so busy working, she seems to have decided that she’d rather spend the energy on her new agency, and on us of course, rather than on what she looks like. But why shouldn’t she have it all? “Mom,” I blurt out, “why not use your magic to have great hair?”

“Why are there black smudges all over my kitchen walls?” she asks.

“Tigger’s been acting up.”

Tigger meows, wraps his body around my leg, and tries to bite me. Bet you wish you were still life-sized so you could tell on me, big sis (or evil nemesis of my great-grandmother).

“Bad Tigger,” my mother scolds, waving the wooden spoon at him. “Will you clean him off? He must have stepped into mud on the stairwell. And I told you,” she says, and waves the wooden spoon at me, “magic isn’t a game, Rachel. I won’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”