Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 01 The Salem Witch Tryouts (12 page)

They looked at me as if I were a baby going goo goo goo and drooling all over my bib. “The high council is supposed to approve all witch weddings,” Denise explained. “They can get testy when it doesn’t happen.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really have anything to say about that, so I just listened to the rather horrible stories of what happened
when the high council got angry (I started picturing twelve Agathas in a white room and gave myself a headache).

I confess I was glad when lunch was done and it was time to visit my lovely locker 666 and pretend to get something out of my backpack. Maybe a tissue this time, since I didn’t need a tampon or lipstick.

I listened to the squeaks and slams of everyone else opening their lockers. It made me miss my old school, where we actually needed our lockers. Not that some people didn’t treat them more like a second home than others.

In my old locker, I’d had a box of tissues and one of tampons, a sweater in case I got cold, and a cute little case of emergency makeup. Not to mention pictures of the team taped to my door so I could get a quick pick-me-up in between classes.

I was thinking about popping a picture of my boy into my locker when I realized it didn’t really matter. The stupid lock—supposedly keyed to the touch of my finger—refused to open, no matter what I tried. I popped back into class tissue-less. It wasn’t a big deal. I could always materialize one if I needed it. After all, it was good practice, and I needed plenty of that.

❊

MADDIE: New look work on the Salemites?

ME: Im not a scud Yet

MADDIE: Ha Bet they think U rock

ME: As if! I want 2 come home Did Brent make first string?

MADDIE: Of course

ME: Send pix?

MADDIE: On the way Send me some of Salem hotties!

ME: Not 1 is clickworthy Boo hoo

MADDIE: Look harder

I changed the subject when Maddie asked me about hotties at my school. The question was getting annoying.

Shouldn’t my best friend get that I wasn’t anywhere near ready to give up my hopes for a life—and boyfriend—in Beverly Hills? Why was she pushing me? Of course, she was probably just curious—and I was definitely afraid to let her see random pics of the kids at Agatha’s. She’d know something was way weird if I did, the way even the kewl kids dressed at witch school. Sigh.

If only we could talk on the phone or e-mail. But, no. Her mother had grounded her sometime during the two weeks it had taken my family to make the trip to Salem. For what, Maddie hadn’t said. But her mom was still so up and down from her divorce, it could have been because Maddie looked like her dad.

It would be a month before I could hear Maddie’s voice. Life sucked. At least her mom had forgotten to ban text
messaging (she’d never ban the cell phone for incoming—how would she make Maddie’s life miserable if she couldn’t reach her 24/7?). Which meant I’d have to face another day at Agatha’s without a major gossip fest with Maddie.

In any new school, you feel like an alien newly landed on another planet for the first week (for some people the feeling lasts forever, but I trusted that wouldn’t be true for me—I’m not completely clueless). I hadn’t had too much sympathy for new kids before, but by the third day at Agatha’s, I wondered if I needed to apologize to a couple of people.

I was finally getting used to being popped from class to class, and starting to get the hang of the second of transition that popping required. Even going to school hadn’t been such a hardship (turns out getting lost in the locker room wasn’t really my fault—Mom was supposed to pop me to the office that first day, but she didn’t read the manual in time to know that, just like she forgot to give me the spell book).

Parents only have to pop you the first day. The rest of the time the students are supposed to home in on their lockers. I don’t know what might happen if I couldn’t concentrate on the locker—just because I was, say, thinking about Mr. Bindlebrot.

Fortunately, I hadn’t popped into the boys’ locker room again, though the thought had been so tempting, I worried that I might do it by accident, despite all the binding spells
the school had in place to prevent such things.

And no wonder. The sight of Mr. Bindlebrot in a towel was definitely not on the approved Agatha curriculum. It was never going to leave me, I consoled myself, as I managed to make it to the main hallway, where once again I had to fight with the stupid locker 666 to get it to open. Maybe I’d have to bring in some oil for the hinges—or would Agatha’s consider that contraband?

Apparently, according to the whispers and giggles, even in witchland a triple six was not a fortuitous number. And I’d gotten it on my very first try. Go figure. I thought about changing lockers, but instincts honed by eleven years of school told me that I’d need to build up my reputation before I did something so wimpy.

“Hey, 666 Girl!” Anonymous Boy was starting to get on my nerves. Big-time. I hated being the new girl, but 666 Girl seemed like a nickname that puts a Teflon coating on one of those steep, spirally slides at the kiddie playground. Straight down to loser land. Leave it to Anonymous Boy to gift me with a name based on something I couldn’t help. Not to mention a nickname that would likely stick, because it was easy to say and I was new enough that only a very few people knew my real name. Sigh.

I turned, knowing that it is 100 percent loser to pretend you hate whatever inane nickname has been bestowed upon you by the gods-to-be. Not that Anonymous Boy was a true
god-to-be, but it was clear he believed he was one, I thought, as I turned around.

As it happened, he was not a god-to-be. Nope. He was a full-fledged god himself. In a bad-boy way, with tousled hair and big brown eyes that said “I don’t want to be here, and neither do you. Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

My stomach did one of those little flip-flops. Not a big one like with Mr. Bindlebrot and the towel. But close. “Hi.”

No Longer Anonymous Boy smiled, revealing beautiful teeth with just a hint of sharp edge, and leaned in close. “Need help with the combination?”

“I should have brought some oil for this door.” I wasn’t going to let him know I had thought, for one second, that he was going to kiss me. “It’s just a bit sticky.”

“Haunted.” His brown eyes were focused on me, and I knew he was pure trouble. If it weren’t for the hallway of people watching us, I’d have turned and run. Maybe.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s haunted. Hironymous Tuttle. He was the first to have the locker number and he was teased so much by the other dudes that he shut himself in the locker, refused to eat, and died there.”

He was cute, but he was making fun of me, and that ran his hottie factor down to below zero. “Really?” I said in my most Hollywood dismissive voice. It was one thing to tease someone behind her back, but to her face?

“Really.” He hit the locker once. “Hi, old buddy, open up for this nice girl, she’s in remedial class and she’s not up to handling your hijinks … yet.”

Oh. So he hadn’t been kidding about the ghost, then. “How do you—?”

He leaned in, clearly disinterested in whatever inane question I was about to ask. “Sorry about the eraser trick. Skin and Bones gets to me sometimes.”

He apologized with his eyes just slightly narrowed, as if to up the sincerity factor, and my stomach did another quick flippity-flop. “Teachers. They haven’t got a clue how annoying they can be. So you’re …” How do you ask a cool boy with a pirate’s earring in his left ear why he’s in remedial spells? Simple. You don’t. “… not fond of him either?”

The lock in my hand started spinning and snapped open. By itself.

Bad Boy, formerly known as Anonymous Boy, tapped the door in a mock salute. “Good deal, Hi. Behave yourself.”

I didn’t know if he had aimed the cautionary advice at me or at the ghost that haunted my locker, because the cutest boy in the school popped away without a fare-thee-well. Which, in his case, would probably have been a “See ya.”

So Anonymously Bad Boy was a hottie. And I had a class with him. Suddenly remedial spells didn’t seem as horrible
as it had at first. Although I’d have to ask around about why someone with such familiarity with the ways of ghosts was still in remedial spells. Had he been raised by wolves? Or was he half mortal, like I was?

I didn’t find out the answers to those questions in the morning class, but I did find out his name. Daniel. Daniel Murdoch. (No, I did
not
ask him. Mr. Phogg said it because Daniel at last perversely refused to answer to
boy
—not that I blame him in the least.)

Despite knowing that there was a grade-A hottie in class, I still wanted out very badly. So I did something I shouldn’t have. I asked Mr. Phogg if I could talk to him after class. He nodded impatiently, which made me hold my breath until I was sure his white-haired head wasn’t going to snap off his bony neck from the sharp force of that motion. At the end of class I wondered if he remembered—until he popped the rest of the class away and we were alone in the classroom.

Mr. Phogg leaned down. I think he meant to make himself friendly—or at least more approachable. Unfortunately, up close there was a cool wave of air from him, like he’d been in a refrigerator for about a hundred years and hadn’t quite warmed up. “Are you feeling unable to handle the material, Miss Stewart? I could always put you back a grade—or even two, if you like.”

Back a grade? Was he kidding? No. He wasn’t. He looked
so grave, he could have been lying in a coffin. “Do you offer extra credit?”

Most teachers at my old school would have been weeping with pride that they’d brought out my ambitious side. But Mr. Phogg just lifted the heavy, wrinkled lids of his eyes a bit more—just enough that I could see his eyes were a milky white color. Yuck.

“I mean, I’m only in remedial spells because I was in the mortal realm for a long time. I want to do whatever I can to get into regular magic class ASAP.” Yes, I was babbling. But it was his fault. Those eyes could turn The Rock into a babbler.

“Patience is a virtue, Miss Stewart.”

No. Patience is my mom’s name—and it’s her fault I’m here in the first place. “I don’t want to rush in a sloppy way,” I assured him. “I just don’t want to waste any time.”

“Just like your mother was at your age, as I remember.”

He waited for me to respond, but I didn’t have a clue. At last I gave just the faintest giggle, hoping that if I’d guessed wrong, he’d think I was coughing instead of giggling.

He took it as a giggle. And he was not happy. “Not a good thing in my class, I warn you. Slow and steady is the way you want to go when you’re a bit behind the curve.” He laughed, a creepy laugh that sounded like the wind going through rusted metal. Kind of like the tape my dad played for our trick-or-treaters at Halloween.

“But—” I scrambled to think of a killer compliment, but all I could think of was that he knew my mom when she was my age. And I didn’t think that was a point in my favor.

“Your regular homework will offer you sufficient growth and progress, Miss Stewart. And perhaps teach you the value of patience.”

He waved his hand before I could open my mouth. It was annoying how dismissive the teachers at Agatha’s could be—literally. Mr. Bindlebrot and the rest of the math class popped in before I could blink. So much for a little wellplaced brownnosing.

MADDIE: R U really gonna try out 4 their team?

ME: If ur mom decided to move U across the country wouldnt you?

MADDIE: I guess Thank goodness her custody agreement w Dad wont let her

ME: Lucky

MADDIE: Maybe U should convince ur dad 2 divorce ur mom and move back

ME: As if! Hez so stuck on her its gaggin

MADDIE: OK If ur parents arent coming 2 their senses I guess U dont have ne choice Good luck

ME: Thx I need it

MADDIE: Noway U R captain quality

ME: In Beverly Hills Not here

MADDIE: U better not be sayin they R better than us

ME: Noway Maybe Ive just lost it already

MADDIE: U need a big scoop of Rocky Road

ME: I need a tractor scoop of it! If no team I dunno know what 2 do Maybe join chess club

MADDIE: Id have to come kidnap U if U went all chess on me

ME: Please!

❊

“Take this liquid of life I hold,
And tinge it with berries so sweet
That drink it children beg so bold
And crave to taste it with tongues so fleet.”

Okay. So there’s a reason I’m in remedial summoning and spells. I admit it—but I don’t have to like it.

Four hours of homework practice it took me to turn water into strawberry iced tea. I’d got the iced tea part straight off, but for some reason I kept getting grape instead of strawberry. Since I intended to show Skin and Bones I could do anything and everything he asked, it was important to get it right.

Just when I thought I wasn’t ever going to manage it—I was so desperate that I almost asked Dorklock for help—I changed one word in the spell and got strawberry iced tea, perfectly sugared. Who’d have thought that substituting berries for fruit would have made that much difference? Someone not in remedial magic class, I guess.