Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 02 Competition's A Witch (4 page)

“Nonsense. No one new in this neighborhood will ever say that Myrna Kenton shirked her duty to roll out the welcome mat.” Even if she had to roll it out right over the wishes of her newest neighbors.

Mrs. Kenton was highly annoying, with one of those cheerful snoop personalities that took stock of the teensy bit of dust on the baseboards as she extolled how wonderful the neighborhood was. She instructed her son to give the casserole to my mother and immediately began trying to convince Mom to join the Neighborhood Watch. As if.
Since I wasn’t too fond of Mom for landing us in the witch’s brew that is Salem, I enjoyed watching her squirm this way and that to avoid agreeing to a mortal form of torture worse than detention at Agatha’s.

I was only mildly curious about the mortal boy standing in my living room. Until Mrs. Kenton waved her arm like a circus ringmaster and said grandly, “I want to introduce you to my son, Angelo. He’s known around the neighborhood as the one to go to when you want your yard work done well.”

“That’s great.” Mom smiled warmly at him. She approved of people who work hard, even if they were cute teenage boys who might distract her daughter from her vow of mortal celibacy. “This is my daughter, Prudence.”

Angelo looked at me and smiled. “Hello, Prudence. That’s a neat name.”

And the world stopped. I mean it. Despite the fact that no one in his right mind would think Prudence was a neat name, Angelo’s attention had turned on me like a hot spotlight on a stand-up comedian. Tag, I’m it. And it feels good.

Mrs. Kenton ignored the vibes that had to have been flashing neon bright between her darling son and the new neighbor girl. She had a mission and she wasn’t going to let a little teenage chemistry experiment interrupt her. “As a welcome to the neighborhood, Angelo will rake your leaves this week. We leave them out on the curb on Friday by 6
A.M.
”

Mom’s smile wasn’t so big anymore now that she had looked away from Angelo and back to Mrs. Kenton. “How generous. But you don’t have to do that for us.”

The idea of a mortal in our yard, possibly looking in our windows, was not something any of us wanted. We’d been there and done that back in Beverly Hills, even before we were allowed to do magic inside our own home.

Mrs. Kenton turned out to be the type who couldn’t take a hint unless you followed it by pointing a can of pepper spray in her face and counting to three. “Nonsense! I’m sure you’re busy moving in and just haven’t had time to get to it. Think of it as a welcome to the neighborhood gift.”

I took my eyes off the gorgeous Angelo for a second to look at his mother. Mrs. Kenton reminded me of Ms. Darbley, a neighbor we’d had back in Beverly Hills. Maybe every neighborhood had one—the busybody who kept an eye on things and never thought anyone else kept their yard or house well, parked their car in the right place, or put their trash out at the right time. Of course, Ms. Darbley hadn’t had a son who was so hot, he could scorch a girl’s bread to toast in about two seconds flat.

“Really, you don’t have to do that.” Mom, never one to give up even in the face of intractable busybodies, pointed to Tobias, who just happened to be sitting in the living room playing his favorite video game. “We have our own resident raker and mower.”

This was an out-and-out lie. Sure, Tobias took care of the yard—after Mom and Dad nagged him enough and forbade him video games until he did it. But now that we were in Salem and embracing all things witch, he acted like doing anything the mortal way was beneath him. Brat. That was just one of many reasons why I preferred to call him Dorklock.

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Kenton was as pushy as Ms. Darbley had been. Poor Mom. I bet she’d been glad to escape Ms. Darbley, who’d always been dropping in at inconvenient times. I couldn’t remember how many times Mom had had to wipe Ms. Darbley’s mind when she saw something she shouldn’t have. And that was back in Beverly Hills, when we only did magic when Mom was “helping” Dad out, Tobias was misbehaving, or when my grandmama visited. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like now, when Tobias and I were popping and summoning and casting spells every day. If Mrs. Kenton wasn’t careful, she was likely to have her mind wiped on a daily basis.

The trouble was, Mom hated wiping mortal minds. She only did it when there was absolutely no other way. Which meant she would not want Mrs. Kenton dropping in unannounced or Angelo doing our yard work. All I could say, in the case of Mom versus Kenton? Good night and good luck, Mom. And maybe I was just a teensy bit glad that Mrs. Kenton would win this round. Angelo could be fun—and a little dangerous—to have around.

I left Mom and Mrs. Kenton to their polite social standoff and turned my attention back to Angelo. He was looking at Tobias, who was playing his video game with less than zero interest in what was going on with the rest of us.

Angelo was tall. Over six feet for sure, although I wasn’t great about judging height. He shaved. I could see the faint blue-black stubble on his jaw. I guessed he was probably a junior or senior at least.

Lots of words came to mind the first time I saw Angelo. Forget “cute,” it was so not up to the task of describing him. Try hot. Scorching. Sizzling. I wanted to see if the rest of him lived up to the first impression.

And yes, I was playing with fire. So sue me.

I aimed my best cheer-worthy smile at Angelo. “How long have you lived in Salem?”

He looked away from Tobias and focused his blue eyes on me. “Oh, my mom’s side of the family came over on the
Mayflower
. So I guess that means I’ve been here forever.”

Suddenly I didn’t care about the new mortal-free rules. That boy could smile. It was like a beacon, and all I wanted to do was spend a little quality time with a mortal very appropriately named Angelo.

I’ve had crushes before, on a couple of mortal boys back in Beverly Hills, and one on my math teacher at Agatha’s, Mr. Bindlebrot. And a really big one on Daniel. I knew crushes come on hard and strong, like the rush of a cheering
crowd when the quarterback runs twenty yards for an unexpected touchdown. But when I looked at Angelo … wow! I’d never had a crush that came on like a bolt of lightning. For a second I forgot to breathe. And I definitely suffered a moment of amnesia about the witch/mortal thing that Agatha had warned me about.

Despite the fact my brains were so scrambled, I probably sounded like a total spaz, we managed a little back-and-forth info dump in the time it took my mother to convince his mother she wasn’t interested in participating in the Neighborhood Watch. I started with the basics. “Are you still in high school?” I was pretty sure he was, but I found that boys liked it when a girl thought he might actually be old enough for college.

He nodded, and a dimple curved in his left cheek. I took that as a sign he was pleased I had to ask. Score one for me. “A junior.”

Even though I knew I shouldn’t be happy about it, I was. “Me too.” That meant he wouldn’t be heading off to college next year. If I was still stuck in Salem, at least I’d have a hottie neighbor to keep me warm.

“I haven’t seen you around much.” The way he said it, it sounded like he thought that was way too bad.

“I’ve been busy studying. My new school is tough.”

“Don’t tell me you’re at Salem High and I haven’t noticed you yet. I don’t believe I would have missed you.”

Oops. The compliment made me feel a little melty. But it panicked me too. Already we were encountering a big rift in the mortal-witch divide. Sigh. “I go to a private school. That’s why my mom and dad moved us here in the first place.”

“Oh?” His dimple disappeared, which I refused to believe meant anything besides that he was disappointed. I knew I sure was.

I shrugged, to show him it wasn’t my choice. “Parents. What can you do? They think the school is the best.”

He nodded, with a quick glance at his mother, who was still extolling the virtues of serving on Neighborhood Watch. “Do you like it?”

A normal boy might have gotten points off for such a dumb question. But even a dumb question like that couldn’t take any of the heat out of Angelo’s hottitude. “Does
anyone
like school, except teachers and parents?”

The dimple came back. “Good. Then you’re normal, even if you do go to private school.”

“As normal as any other girl stuck following her parents across country and starting a new school in junior year.” If you consider a witch normal. Which, I guess, I still didn’t. I wondered how long it would take me to accept that I can do magic? Probably a really long time if I kept flirting with mortal boys. The conversation gets tricky, fast.

For example, when Angelo, in all his sexy innocence—is
that what they mean by oxymoron?—asked, “What’s the name of your school?”

Great. Do you think the “witches” in Agatha’s Day School for Witches might be a clue that I wasn’t as mortal as I looked? Sigh. “Agatha’s School for … Girls.”

“Oh. You go to an all-girls school.” That seemed to be a plus, judging by the way his dimple deepened.

Unfortunately, I needed to erase the plus factor. “No. We have boys, too.” I had to confess that, just in case Angelo ever ran into Samuel, the mega-geeklock from Agatha’s who was tutoring me a couple of nights a week. No way was Angelo going to believe Samuel was a girl. “The school is actually called Agatha’s Day School for Girls and Boys. I just always leave off the ‘boys’.”

“That’s harsh.” He was grinning, so I knew he hadn’t taken it personally.

“Just realistic.” I teased. “Guys care more about cars and sports than classes, don’t you agree?”

“No, I wouldn’t, actually.” He got serious for a second, but there was still a twinkle in his eye and the dimple hadn’t completely disappeared. “Take me. I get good grades, I play for the basketball team, I edit the student newspaper, and this year I’m even student council vice president.”

“Wow. So where do you want to go to college? Harvard or MIT?” That may not have seemed like the next logical
question, but only if you weren’t in high school and weren’t driven to get out and make a success of yourself. Which Angelo obviously was, because he was exactly where I had been before I’d been yanked out of Beverly Hills and my nice comfy life in the mortal realm. I felt a little twinge of envy. Okay. A
big
twinge.

He grinned again. “Wrong on both counts. Berkeley.”

“Aha. California. You’ll love it.” So he wasn’t as strait-laced as he seemed, was he? Interesting. Too bad he was still a mortal and thus completely and utterly out-of-bounds for me as boyfriend material, the crush that was making it hard for me to breathe notwithstanding.

There was just a beat before he returned my interest. “What about you?”

I loved being asked, even though I really didn’t know the answer. “I want to be a pediatrician. I thought I might go to Duke.” True enough, before my life turned upside down. But now? Who knew.

“Not Harvard?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s not my first choice. I’ve only second-listed it on my SATs.”

“Me too.”

I spent a moment contemplating what it would be like if both Angelo and I got second-listed to Harvard together. But as soon as I got to the part of the daydream where I wanted to pop myself from here to there rather than waste
time walking or driving,
snap
, I was back to reality—witch reality, á la Agatha.

Mrs. Kenton glanced over at us and, I guess, got a little worried about how cozy Angelo and I looked. She stood up straighter—which I would have said was impossible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. “Angelo. We’re going to be late for the dojo.”

She smiled at Mom as she hustled to the door. “He’s going for his third-degree black belt next week.”

Angelo glanced at his mother before he reached out and took my hand. His was warm and strong, and if he’d been a witch, I’d have guessed he had a Fire Talent because there was a current vibing between us. “I’m so glad my mother made me come over here with that casserole.”

“Me too.” I didn’t want to let go of his hand. He didn’t seem to notice or try to pull his hand away. “I could use a friend who gets the importance of second listing Harvard on the SATs.”

“Me, too.” Okay, so I sounded less original than a parrot. But in my defense, when Angelo was around, my brain just melted into a puddle of me toos. It must’ve been the lightning-crush effect. I have to confess, I liked it way more than I should. Because Agatha was watching, and Angelo was definitely on the no-no list.

I said, Brrr, it’s cold in here!
Witches must be in the atmosphere!
I said, Brrrr, it’s time to light a flame!
Witches, burn the court and shout our name!

Confession time: Practice was more fun in Salem than it had been in Beverly Hills. Don’t get me wrong—my old team was awesome, and they deserved their three national championship wins. And I’m not saying it wasn’t a ton harder to cheer in witch 3-D. But the special effects were beyond rad. For example, when we did our take on the traditional brr, it’s cold cheer, we made snow fall from the ceiling and land gently on our heads and shoulders—and then made it disappear before it
hit the floor and turned things slippery. My old team would wear last year’s style for a chance to do something like that.