Bras & Broomsticks (13 page)

In an attempt to suck up, I pull my bio homework out of my schoolbag. We have an assignment due on Friday.

Twenty minutes later there’s a rustling of voices outside the door. “They’re not going to be able to find anyone,” a girl’s voice says.

“But we have no choice,” says someone else. Someone who sounds like . . . Jewel?

“Putting these posters up is such a waste of my time.”

If I were just a fraction farther up, I’d be able to see them. I try to covertly scoot my desk up an inch. Nope. Another inch. One more. Five more.

Science Man glares at me.

I smile.

I spot Melissa’s long red hair. Melissa and Jewel are outside my detention room.

“Stop whining, Bee-Bee,” Jewel says.

Bee-Bee?
Bee-Bee?
I feel nauseous.

“If they weren’t good enough to get in the first time, they’re not good enough to get in now,” Melissa snaps.

What are they talking about? The
click-clack
of their shoes tells me they’re about to pass my door, and I quickly scoot my desk backward so they won’t see me.

I must see that poster.

The remaining thirty-five minutes of detention takes at least three hours. Finally,
finally,
the hands of the clock above the door say 4:00. Freedom! I grab my bag and launch myself like a rocket from the chair into the empty hallway. In the distance I hear the muffled voices of students with far more energy than I have.

As soon as I see the poster, I feel giddy, fizzy, like a soda can that someone shook and opened.

freshman replacement dancer needed
tryouts friday after
school in the caf
citygroove

So that’s the crisis. Someone dropped out. Or broke a leg. They’re missing a dancer. Whoever the new dancer is, she’ll receive automatic A-list status. She’ll be able to hang around Jewel. She’ll be able to hang around Raf. She’ll definitely have a date for Spring Fling.

My heart pounds in my chest. I want to be in the fashion show. I want to have automatic A-list status. I want to hang out with Jewel and Raf. I want to be so cool that I don’t have to capitalize.

I’m going to try out.

I clap with glee and do my hooray dance (which looks a lot like my victory dance) in honor of my new plan. In mid-twirl I trip and fall on my behind.

So what if I have six left feet and the show is primarily a dance show?

I know someone with a cure.

9

RUB-A-DUB-DUB, GREEN SLIME IN MY TUB

I poke my head into Miri’s room. “Are you finished yet?”

She throws her pencil case at me and nails me on the head. Since she’s started martial arts, her aim is much improved. “If you’d stop harassing me every four seconds, I would be. Can’t you just sit on the bed and wait?”

“Miri, it’s been two days. The tryouts are
tomorrow
.” I close her door behind me so Mom won’t see the trouble we’re brewing in here. And I mean brewing, literally. Between Miri’s smelly feet is a white plastic bowl. They make her go barefoot in Tae Kwon Do, and I wouldn’t let her waste any time showering until she finished the spell. “What are you doing now?” I ask.

“Mixing.” She’s sitting on her deep-green carpet, leaning against her bed.

The blinds are closed. Wow, she’s even more paranoid than I am. Does she really think the sixty-year-old woman and her eight cats who live directly across from us care what we’re up to?

Funny, the neighborhood watch would definitely peg her as a witch before Miri.

I peek over the bowl’s edge to see what she has going on. The mixture is a weird orangey green. “You’re using the popcorn bowl? Gross.”

“This
was
the popcorn bowl. It’s now a cauldron.”

“Guess I’ll be having chips for a snack tonight. You should probably buy a new popcorn bowl.”

“You get it, then. I’m doing this for you, in case you’ve forgotten.” She points to the spell book. “I need you to help with something. What is eighteen twenty-fourths of a cup?”

“Three quarters,” I answer automatically.

“Perfect.” She fills her mixing cup with some sort of crushed fruit. “The spell book is like a deranged math test with all these fractions.”

I take a sniff. Yum. “It smells like an orange.”

“It is. And a cup of crushed pistachio and two-fourths of a cup of butter, which is a half, right?”

I nod. I got the math gene while she got the magic gene. Not fair.

“And,” she says, dumping in the final cup, “ground red pepper.”

Hmm. That actually sounds tasty. I do love pistachios. “Need any more help?”

“I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

I find my math homework. I’m suddenly in the mood.

While I’m clearing the table after dinner (of course I’m clearing the table—these days I’m always setting or clearing the table. “Where’s Rachel? She must be in the kitchen setting or clearing the table”), Miri sneaks up behind me. “It’s done,” she whispers, and hands me the bowl, which is now greenish brown.

“Am I supposed to eat this?”

She laughs. Actually, it’s more like a cackle. Something I’ve noticed as part of her repertoire lately. “Only if you want major indigestion.”

Witch humor? “So what do I do with it?”

“Bathe in it.”

“Are you insane?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “That’s the dancing spell. If you don’t want to do it, don’t.”

“I’m just kidding, Mir,” I say, feeling guilty for giving her a hard time. “Thank you. I appreciate your cooking it up for me.”

“You’re welcome. Want to test it out?”

I smile. “Definitely. So that’s all I have to do? Bathe in it?”

“Yup.”

“Do you think Mom will wonder why I’m taking a bath for the first time since I was six?”

Worry clouds her face. “Good question. What should we do?”

I have a plan. I finish putting the dishes into the dishwasher, then knock on Mom’s door. She’s under her covers, her face peeking out, reading a romance novel. My mother loves romance novels. I think she’s waiting for Prince Charming to magically appear.

She
could
have him magically appear if she wanted to. Just poof him up. Tall, strong, and a cleft in his chin. Why not, huh? What’s wrong with her?

“Mom,” I say, “can I take one of your pills? The robo whatever? My back is killing me.”

She rests her book against her stomach and waves me over. For a second I think she’s on to me, but then she asks, “Did you pick up something too heavy?”

“Um . . . yeah. My desk.” Why in the world would I pick up my desk? I am useless at coming up with believable lies.

She sighs. “Rachel, you only get one back in life.”

“Thanks for the advice, Mom,” I say in my earnest voice. Under normal circumstances I would make fun of her for being such a cheeseball.

“The pills are in my medicine cabinet.” She resumes her reading.

“Thanks.” And now for the epiphany/performance of a lifetime . . . hands caressing back . . . eyes light up with an idea . . . eureka! “Wait a sec. Do you think taking a bath would help my extremely sore back muscles?”

“Good idea,” she says, already lost on a beach with Prince Charming and no longer paying attention.

Mission accomplished. I back out of the room, making sure to close the door behind me, and then I run back to Miri.

“All set. Pass me the bubbles.”

“They’re not bubbles,” she says, and hands me the popcorn bowl.

I open the bathroom door and try to shut it behind me. She pokes in her hand.

“Do you mind?” I ask.

“I have to come in with you.”

“I prefer my privacy.”

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Without my incantation you’re just bathing in fruit salad.”

I let her in. “Lock the door. And stay quiet. If Mom sees you’re in here, she’ll know something’s up.” I sniff. “Gross. It smells like smoke. She’s been smoking in here again. Why does she think she can hide it from us? It’s so obvious.”

Miri shrugs. I don’t know why she doesn’t care about the smoke as much as I do. She never has. I was the one who used to cry myself to sleep because I was convinced my mom would die of lung cancer. I was the one who, when I was seven, found a pack of her cigarettes that she was hiding from my dad and broke each one in half and flushed them down the toilet. Miri never gets mad at Mom. They’re always on the same page. I’m more like my dad. Maybe that’s why I never get mad at him. How can I get mad at someone who’s just like me?

“What do we do for the spell?” I ask.

“We fill the tub with water, add the mixture, then I recite the spell.”

I turn on the hot water. Miri shakes her head and twists the knob. “The spell book says the water must be cold. Probably written before indoor plumbing and hot-water tanks.”

“I’m supposed to sit in a freezing cold bath in the middle of winter?”

Miri shrugs. “That’s the spell.”

I’m going to get sick for sure. “Let’s get this over with.”

She sits on the edge of the closed toilet seat and opens her spell book. Then she dumps the concoction into the bathwater and waves her hands over the tub.

I pass her my toothbrush. “Do you want to use this as a wand?”

She shakes her brown hair. “No.”

“Maybe a pointy hat? I can make one out of the tissue box.”

“What I need,” she says, “is for you to be quiet so I can concentrate and access my raw will.” She closes her eyes, purses her lips, and gets a constipated look on her face. After a few moments of quiet (as quiet as you can get in New York with the constant honking and car alarms in the background), I feel the familiar cold rush as Miri chants:

From Heaven to Earth,
From America to France,
Let this potion
Make Rachel dance!

She opens one eye and peers at the water.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I burst out laughing. “That’s the spell?”

“That’s what it says.”

“That’s the worst spell I’ve ever heard! Ever hear of alliteration? And it barely even rhymes. No Pulitzer for whoever wrote that one. And how come you didn’t say abracadabra?”

She gnaws on her thumbnail. “Will you just get in the bath?”

“Can you leave now?”

“I’ve seen you naked a million times. We’ve taken baths together since we were born.”

“First of all, Mom will find it odd if we’re both in here. Second, there are some things you stop doing as you mature,” I say haughtily. “Such as biting your nails, for example.”

“Fine, I’ll leave if you’re going to be such a baby.”

“How long do I have to stay in here?”

“At least a half hour,” she snarls, slamming the door.

I lock the door behind her and then undress. I decide to start small. I hesitate before dipping my right big toe in. Ahh! It’s colder than snow. I take a deep yoga breath and drop my entire foot in. Ahhh! I whip it back out and then thrust it back in. Ahhhh! Does the thirty minutes count from now or from when I’m immersed? Slowly I put both feet into the water. And then my calves. And then my knees, my thighs, my butt, my stomach, my nonexistent breasts. Teeth are chattering. Lips shaking. Fingers turning blue. My skin is tingling as if it’s asleep, but I can’t tell if it’s from the spell or the frigid temperature. The water looks as if it’s been mixed with green slime, and it feels sandy against my skin. Am I supposed to dunk my head? I want my head to have rhythm. I want to be able to swing my hair side to side. I’d better do it. I dunk, keeping my eyes tightly closed.

Cough, cough. Sputter, sputter. Oops. I bet I was supposed to close my mouth.

Miri pounds on the door. “You okay?”

Cough, sputter. “What happens if I swallowed some by mistake? Will my colon do the Macarena?”

“You’ll be fine. You can get out now, if you dunked your whole body.”

“I thought I was supposed to soak for thirty minutes.”