Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 02 Competition's A Witch (21 page)

“I shouldn’t have given it to you in the first place, Pru. There’s nothing wrong with you doing things like a witch or a mortal, or combining the two. It’s what makes you special. It’s what makes you
you
.”

I handed him the ring, and he tossed it up in the air, where it disappeared in a flash of light at the top of its arc.

“Feel better?” he asked gently.

“Not yet.” Okay, a little, but I had one more thing to clear up. “Tell me one thing—and don’t lie to me.” I held up my other hand, with his bracelet still on it. “Do you think I have what it takes to be a decent witch?”

He looked me right in the eye. And then he took off his glasses and looked me right in the eye again. Much better. “Pru, if you don’t have what it takes to turn the mortal-witch mix into dynamite, nobody does.”

My bracelet didn’t give even the slightest tingle. Although my toes did. Weird.

We popped into the school hallway together, and Samuel stood by my locker while I opened it and gave the ghost who guarded my lock his daily brownie.

No one said anything. I don’t know if it was because they didn’t have anything to say, or because Samuel had put a muting bubble around my locker. And I didn’t care. I had one friend for sure. And he thought I could—eventually—get the witch thing down. The Pru way.

Witches! Stop playing!
Let’s turn it out!
Everyone! Start praying!
Witches will smash the doubt!

The school day wasn’t horrible. The other kids in the remedial classes didn’t react to me at all. And lunch was spent in heavy duty me-time in the library. I know I wanted to take the school by storm and be Proud Pru. But I needed a little time to get all my resources together before I could pretend to be upbeat about the chance I’d aced—or even squeaked by—the test. Or so I told myself.

I’d thought—for about a micro-minisecond—about
claiming a migraine and ditching practice. But Coach Gertie would only wonder why I didn’t know the potion for curing migraines. Knowing her, she’d show me. So I went to practice not knowing what I’d face there, friend or foe. But I went.

I’d faced my team back in Beverly Hills after some bad test grades (nothing less than an A minus, of course, but that had been
bad
back then). And I’d always known that I needed to shake off the disappointment and put on a happy face for practice, or game time, or whatever I was doing.

But how was I going to shake off the questions? How was I going to tell them I didn’t have a clue if I’d passed or failed the test? So Agatha hadn’t announced it publicly … yet. She could in five seconds, five days, or five months. Hecate, even if she whispered it privately into my ear, failure was failure. It would be like me failing the test to be a girl. There’s nowhere to go from there except the limboland of losers.

I walked into practice expecting that everyone would be looking at me, reading the big L on my forehead. But, no. They were waiting with a big cake. A cake that said:
CONGRATULATIONS
!

Tara was grinning—so I guess she’d had fun with Angelo. “You said we should all celebrate everyone’s victory like it was ours. So how’s this.” She spread her arms wide, and fireworks buzzed through the air for a moment, popping out before they could fizzle back down to the floor and ruin the finish the basketball coach prized more than his best player.

“Great!”

Everyone crowded around. I was prime gossip, and they wanted every delicious drop. “Was it exhausting?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I guess my lack of enthusiasm must have shown. Because then, tentatively … “You did pass, didn’t you?”

“Mr. Phogg had to consult with Agatha. I haven’t heard yet.” I waited for the shunning to begin, even while I was trying to figure out how they hadn’t known. Oh, yeah, the only one I’d told was Samuel. And he wouldn’t have said a word.

Yvette said softly, “
Agatha
has to decide if you pass or fail?”

There was a small silence, a spontaneous moment of mourning. Not very encouraging. I’d hoped for more from cheerleaders.

Okay. So they thought Agatha would choose to fail me because she hated me. I considered coming clean. Confessing that I really didn’t think there was much chance I’d pass. But then I reconsidered. We had a competition to win in a week.

So I put on my best cheer face. “Let’s not worry about Agatha and tests right now. We have a competition to win. Everybody ready to get down to hard work?”

All the positive energy drained from the room immediately. “Do we really have to practice all the dirt shuffler moves?” Elektra moaned.

I’ve been mad before. But I’ve never been so mad that I
felt like I could take out a Wal-Mart with the tornado of fury raging inside me.
Dirt shuffler. Mortal
. They didn’t have a clue. And I
didn’t
have anything to be ashamed of. Those dirt shuffling mortal cheerleaders would clean this team’s clock in competition. Guaranteed. Clean
my
clock too, because one person can’t make a team.

I stared at them all, trying to hold it in. I’d never worked so hard to get nowhere as I had with this team. So, really, who could blame me when I snapped and tore a pom-pom apart with my bare hands? A quick peek in the rearview mirror probably would have told me to use magic, but I was way too fried to think of that. At first.

The squabbling girls slowly got silent as I furiously tore that pom-pom apart until there was not one strand joined to another.

I summoned a pom-pom that was still intact and shook it over my head. “This is a team who knows their dirt shuffling moves.” I pointed to the floor, at the scattered bits of orange and black and red. “That’s us.”

They just looked puzzled. With a touch of fear. Good.

Now that I had their attention, I had to do more than have a temper tantrum if I had a hope that we wouldn’t be laughed off the floor at the Regionals.

I zapped one strand of pom-pom to each girl’s hands. “Here! Let’s cheer.”

They were like sheep. Staring at me. Staring at the pom-pom
strand in each hand. Some of them tried to drop it, but I chanted a quick spell to keep the strands in hand.

“Victory stance.” I took the stance, sharp, perfect lines. I held up my two strands. They goggled at me. “Victory stance.” I sent a mini-tornado whirling the leftover strands into the air.

They took the victory stance.

I put on my best lead cheerleader stance. “Shake it, girls. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.”

“This is stupid.” Tara had found a way to counter my simple spell. She tossed her strands of pom-pom away. “One strand doesn’t do any good.” She waved her hand, and the pom-pom I’d shredded came back together. She held it up.

“Right. Thanks, Tara, for pointing out to everyone what they’re missing.”

She looked at me with a frown that indicated she didn’t have a clue what I was getting at.

“The squad works best with all of us
together
.” I shook my pom-pom. “Together. Get it?”

Unbelievably, they did. At last. I had a feeling it was too little, too late. Surprisingly, it still felt wonderful to have my team on the same page for the first time since I’d been at Agatha’s.

Wait. Second time. We’d all agreed on the calendar, too.

Maybe it was crazy of me, but suddenly I was hoping for a third time’s the charm moment at competition.

I’d thought the Tara-Angelo hookup had gone unnoticed. I’d thought wrong. Mrs. Kenton had noticed, and she had taken her displeasure to Mom. Mom, in her turn, had decided that the problem of Angelo needed to be fixed. She had decided to head off Angelo’s next visit to our house by taking care of the lawn herself in the dead of night.

I could have told her it wouldn’t work. You’d think she’d have known that, after living next to Ms. Darbley in Beverly Hills.

Mrs. Kenton came over about two hours and fifteen minutes quicker than Ms. Darbley would have. She rang the doorbell twice and smiled a broad—and totally fake—smile. “I see you’ve hired a yard service.”

Mom blinked. “Yes, I didn’t want to take advantage of Angelo any longer. He’s been so attentive to our yard that I’m afraid his studies will suffer.”

It was Mrs. Kenton’s turn to blink. “I understand. How very thoughtful of you. Whom did you hire?”

Mom clearly had not expected this level of nosiness. “Midnight Gardeners,” she mumbled.

“Midnight Gardeners?” Mrs. Kenton repeated. She looked … occupied … for a moment, like she was flipping through the big Rolodex in her mind. Evidently, she didn’t find a listing, because she asked, “They’re called midnight because they work at night?”

“Yes.” Mom was keeping her answer to one word. She used to babble to explain things to Ms. Darbley in Beverly Hills, but she’d learned long ago that short and sweet was safer.

Mrs. Kenton smiled, as if she had an answer she could compute. “That must explain why I didn’t see the truck or the workers.”

Mom looked sick. She really hated lying, and yet she had no choice here. “Yes.”

“I like that concept.” Mrs. Kenton was completely unaware of my mother’s discomfort. I wasn’t sure whether that was because she was just insensitive, or whether Mom hid things well, except from me. “Very forward-thinking. That way, there’s no visible sign you’re having work done. It truly happens like magic.”

Mom didn’t say anything. I don’t think she breathed. I know I didn’t. Usually, back in Beverly Hills, with Ms. Darbley, this was the moment that Mom had to decide whether to do the whole mind-wipe thing or just let Ms. Darbley think she was seeing things.

Mrs. Kenton didn’t seem to notice the tension. “Do you have their card?”

“Card?” Mom said blankly.

“Business card?”

“No, I’m sorry, I misplaced it.”

“I saw where you put it, Mom.” I ran over to the entry table, where Dad slings his keys when he comes home. As I ran, I popped a little card onto the table that said, very elegantly,
MIDNIGHT GARDENERS
. I added a tiny black cat in the top-right corner and a fake phone number in the bottom left. Then, ignoring my mother’s glare, I picked it up and gave it to Mrs. Kenton. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Prudence.” She took it like it was gold and seemed quite impressed. “Very nice card stock.”

When Mrs. Kenton left, Mom looked at me. I could sense the lecture coming on.

I held up my hand. “Wait. She isn’t going to call, Mom. She can’t. Angelo is her son. She has to use him.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “What if she calls for rates, just to see what we’re paying?”

Okay. I should have thought of that. “True. But I can fix
that.” I walked over to the window and watched as Mrs. Kenton strode down the walkway and through our one-of-a-kind gargoyle gate. Just as she reached a particularly troublesome bush, I summoned the card from her pocket. I tried to be delicate and give just a little nudge until the breeze caught it and blew it into the bushes. Mrs. Kenton continued on, oblivious.

I turned to Mom. “There. She knows we gave her the card and she took it. When she can’t find it, she’ll give up. Bonus: There’s no mind-wipe needed.”

Mom shook her head. “I think you may just be beginning to think like a real witch, Pru—with a very clever mortal twist, too.”

It was probably the highest compliment she’d ever paid me. For a second I wanted to cry, it felt so good to have her say it aloud. I just wished I believed it.

I noticed Angelo coming home from raking the neighbor’s yard. Mom caught me looking.

“You can go talk to him if you want.”

“Really?” I could hardly believe my ears.

“I’ll even lift the alone with a boy charm.”

“Why?” I was suspicious.

“Because you have to say good-bye to him for a while, Prudence.” She didn’t even give me a chance to protest. “A mortal boy is only going to be a distraction when you take up your regular magic classwork.”

“But, Mom …” Then what she said registered. “My regular—”

“I got the letter from Agatha while you were at practice.”

“Let me see it.” I could barely breathe. I had to read it for myself to be sure. Yep. It did indeed say I’d passed the test and was now assigned to regular magic classes. Of course, there were phrases like “skin of her teeth” and “barely squeaking by” and “will be watching for signs of trouble.” But none of that mattered. I had passed!