Crush Control (33 page)

“Who's there?” Quinton asked again, walking briskly to the other side of the room.

Without hesitation, Georgia and I slid out from under the bed, crawled hastily on hands and knees across the carpet, picked up the banishment tool, and flung ourselves out the window. Georgia scurried down the ladder. But when I heaved my legs across the windowsill, I missed the swaying top rung, and my leg crashed into the side of the house. I held onto the top edge of the ladder as it started to lean, then slide, then fall, scraping me along the scratchy brick and mortar of the house until I plunged into the spiky leaves of the shrubs. The ladder slammed down into the grass beside me in a racket. Suddenly, the sprinkler system turned on, sending a misty waterfall down on me, as I hovered in the shrubs.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” Georgia was by my side.

Above us, Quinton stuck his head out the window. “Who's there?” he called down.

We stayed hidden in the bushes until he disappeared back inside his room.

Quickly we got up and hoisted the ladder up off the ground. My hip ached, but we had no time to dawdle. So I hobbled as fast as I could, awkwardly clutching my side with one hand and the ladder with the other.

We made it back to the truck, breathless from exertion and relief.

“Holy crap,” Georgia said when we were far enough away to feel like successful fugitives. We both burst into a fit of exhaustion- and anxiety-induced giggles.

Georgia drove quickly across town. In the distance, the first slivers of sunlight were peeking over the horizon.

The next morning Quinton picked me up for school. As I climbed into the car, I noticed it right away: Quinton's sideburns. They were singed from the banishment tool! I started to panic.
He has to know. He knows we were there last night. He thinks I tried to hurt him.

I was stiff. Rigid. Like if I moved even an inch, Quinton was going to snap his head toward me and say,
I know everything!
I wished he would talk to me. Instead, he had his attention focused on his driving and the damn ESPN announcer on the radio. I could feel the tension in the air. I wasn't caught by the police, but I was caught by Quinton. And that might have been worse.

He pulled into the student parking lot and parked. He sat in the driver's seat for a minute and I braced myself. He turned to face me. “I dreamed of you last night,” he said.

“What?” I asked, thinking I heard wrong.

“I dreamed that you were an angel floating around my head and sprinkling me with light beams of love.” He smiled and unbuckled his seat belt. Then he walked into school in a delusional stupor.

As we walked, I texted Georgia.
OMG, his sideburns are singed! He has burn marks on his temples!

She texted back.
Does he look like Frankenstein?

More importantly,
she texted,
was he at all suspicious about last night? Did he mention anything?

I glanced over at him, happily walking toward his locker with a dopey grin on his face.
He said he had a weird dream, that's all.

Still lovey-dovey?
she asked.

Still lovey-dovey,
I texted back.

In English class we began our oral report presentations. First up was Kayleigh Mathews—a quiet girl whose topic was the character Hermia's idea of love.

When Kayleigh finished, Mrs. Stabile announced that Quinton was up next for his report. He walked to the front of the room looking relaxed and assured. He sat down on the chair at the front of the room but then angled it so it was facing directly toward me. He cleared his throat.

“Let me sing you a love song,” he said without reciting his topic, and I tensed a little. “About what's in my heart.” He touched his chest with two fingers. “Irises refuse to bloom whenever we're apart.”

My stomach knotted.
What was he talking about?

There was a general murmur of confusion.

“I've held others before, but it was never like this,” Quinton's eyes bored into me. “My thoughts revolve around you in heavenly bliss.”

Mrs. Stabile shuffled through papers on her desk. “Quinton,” she interrupted. “I'm a little confused. Your assignment was to do a character analysis of Puck.” Quinton looked at her blankly, and she sighed. “You know, the quick-witted sprite who sets the play's events in motion with his magic?”

Quinton just smiled at me, holding his index cards in his hand.

“I'm sorry if you accidentally thought you had a different topic,” Mrs. Stabile said. “Do you think maybe you could just talk off the cuff a bit about Puck's capricious spirit and humor? Maybe touch on how he is good-hearted but capable of cruel tricks like using the magic flower and love spell to create wild confusion?”

“I'd rather just finish my love poem for Willow,” he said. “It came to me last night in the middle of a bizarre dream—like an electric jolt of inspiration.”

The muffin I ate for breakfast felt heavy in my stomach.

“I have to feel your tender touch. . . .”

“Mr. Dillinger,” Mrs. Stabile said sharply, “I'm willing to give you some leeway here, but no, you may not recite a love poem to Ms. Grey in my classroom. Now speak a little about Puck's character or I'll have no choice but to give you a zero.”

But Quinton kept on spouting lines of mushy devotion. Mrs. Stabile shook her head and used her red pen to scratch notes in her book. But what she didn't realize was that Quinton really should have gotten some credit after all.

Because, sadly, the description of Puck and his cruel tricks sounded an awful lot like me.

“It didn't work,” Georgia said into the phone that was resting on the table between us. “We've given it two days and nothing has changed.”

Silver Rain breathed heavily on the other end. “Did you follow the instructions precisely?”

“Precisely!” I cried.

“And you're absolutely sure you made direct contact?”

“Oh, we're sure,” I answered. “There are burn marks to prove it.”

“Hmm,” Silver Rain mused. “If banishment didn't work, I think the answer is a Cut the Mojo love charm.”

“Huh?” Georgia and I both said at the same time.

“You need to create a talisman—that's a charm made out of dough....”

“How much?” I cut her off. “Because I'm going to be broke by the time this is all through.”

Silver Rain sighed. “Well, since the banishment didn't work, I'll give you the recipe and instructions for free. You just need to provide the materials.”

Georgia grabbed a pen and paper and together we took notes as Silver Rain assured us that this would work. She was positive.

I called Quinton and told him I'd be unable to attend his football game Friday night, but Georgia and I had a pressing matter to take care of. I thought maybe he'd be aggravated, but of course he wasn't.

“I'll pick you up Saturday to go to Mia's competition,” he said cheerily.

“Okay. Good luck,” I said, and we hung up.

Georgia and I mixed the dough recipe using salt, flour, and water. We shaped the dough into a small, charm-size heart then used a knife to carve an X through the center. I held my hands over the dough and recited Silver Rain's words: “
You were once my burning desire. You once lit my heart on fire. I loved you then you see, but the flame is gone: Let me be. But together we stay, friends all the way.
” I carved my initials into the back of the charm and placed it on a sheet of aluminum foil. I slid it into the hot oven.

Twenty minutes later Mom walked in. “Yum, what are you baking?”

“Cookies,” I answered, and smiled at Georgia: It had been her idea to slip out to the grocery store to buy some slice-and-bake chocolate chip cookies.

Saturday, when Quinton picked me up, I had the Cut the Mojo charm safely wrapped in tissue and nestled in the pocket of my jeans. Georgia was going to swipe a chain from her mother's jewelry store long enough to let the charm hang right above his heart. We drove forty-five minutes to the high school where the regional cheerleading competition was held.

When we arrived at the gymnasium, Quinton spotted Jake and Hayden high in the bleachers and climbed up toward them. I saw Hayden sitting next to mousy Sarah. They were laughing and flirting with each other. Well, I thought, at least there was that. With all the mayhem I had created with Quinton, at least I could tell myself I had helped Hayden and Sarah. And I had helped Mia. I hoped God graded on a bell curve where some of the good could cancel out a lot of the bad.

I scanned the bleachers looking for Georgia but my eyes fell on Max. He looked over and saw me. I tentatively waved. He smiled and gave a quick wave back. Then he turned and sat next to Minnie. It made me sad to think that we had crossed the line from friends with potential to barely friends at all.

Across the gym, Georgia spotted me and began to wave. I flagged her over. She climbed the bleachers and squeezed in next to me. Sarah smiled at Georgia.

“Heard you did great at drama tryouts,” Sarah said.

Georgia smiled. “Thanks.”

After a few minutes of chatting, Georgia gave me a knowing look and said, “I need to go to the bathroom before it starts. Want to come?”

“Sure,” I said. We got up and walked back down the long set of bleachers, deciding to find a bathroom that would be empty and quiet. As we wormed our way through the shuffling crowd, a woman caught my eye, sitting on the opposite side of the room. She was wearing a powder blue top and her silver hair was coiffed into a glossy bob.
Could it be?
My heart thumped.
Why would Grandma drive all this way?
I squinted and thought of her unanswered invitation to the Junior League luncheon and the two more voice messages she'd left since then. It was unlike me to ignore her calls—we both knew that. But as the mess with Quinton escalated out of control, I found myself pushing Grandma away. It seemed inevitable that this fiasco would soon erupt, and if Grandma found out I had used hypnosis just like Mom—actually, in a worse way than Mom ever had—I didn't even want to imagine what she would think about me.

Georgia tugged on my sleeve, and the next thing I knew, I was swept through the open doors away from the crowds and down a long hallway. We ducked into a girl's bathroom, and crammed into a stall together. Georgia pulled a thick silver chain out of her pocket and we threaded it through the round opening we had punctured in the dough love charm.

I held it in my hand with a determined look on my face. “It has to work.”

“It
will
work,” Georgia said.

We nodded one sharp nod of solidarity, then headed back into the gymnasium. As we squeezed through the ever-thickening audience, I scanned the opposite bleachers for powder blue, but it was just a sea of colors, all blending together into a hazy rainbow. We climbed toward the top, and I sat next to Quinton. Georgia took her seat just behind us, next to Sarah and Hayden.