Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 03 She's A Witch Girl (19 page)

He shook his head. Stubborn.

I sighed. “He couldn’t help it. He manifested the Attractivity Talent without even knowing he was a witch. He’s lucky we moved next door to him in time.”

“I wouldn’t call it lucky,” he muttered.

“Who knows what might have happened?” I think I might have been flattered at Samuel’s jealousy, except that To-Do was pinching me to make sure I had my study session, and I couldn’t do that until Samuel agreed to let Angelo join us. He desperately needed to learn massive amounts of magic.

“Yeah. Just think. If you hadn’t moved in here, you might never have met and set him up with Tara the Terrible.”

I almost broke it to him that Tara was no longer interested in Angelo now that he was a witch with a zero on the personality scale.

“Setting Angelo and Tara up was a strategic move, and it worked, too. Didn’t we get a spot at Nationals with our regional competition routine?”

Samuel nodded. “You guys are really good. Everyone could see it. Agatha really robbed you guys, not letting you go to the competition. You totally won the parents over.”

“Tell me about it.” I frowned. “Or better yet, tell me how you can help me find a spell to put Agatha in a good mood.”

He laughed, lightening up at last. “That’s not going to happen, so forget it. I think the last time she was in a good mood was at least five centuries ago.”

Too true. “So could you try to be a little sympathetic here? You’re trampling on big dreams of mine, you know.”

“You’ve improved a lot. Although I think your magic
routines are so spectacular, I don’t know why you can’t give up this need to beat the mortal teams.”

Oh no, not another voice of “reason.” Good thing he was the one who’d instigated the sit-in. Otherwise I’d have to cross him off my friend list.

“Hey!” I let him know I wasn’t going to tolerate that line of thought. “It’s personal now. Me and Maddie. Tara and Chezzie. It’s going down, on mortal terms, because that’s the only fair way.”

“It’s not going down at all, Pru.” He flipped his glasses at me before he said, ruefully, “Which I guess you could say are Agatha’s terms.”

I gave him the raised eyebrow of doubt. “We’ll see.”

“Are you going to try to change her mind again?” He shook his head like I was wasting my time.

Which I would have been, if I’d intended to try to change Agatha’s mind. But that wasn’t my plan. In fact, Tara and I had come up with a much better alternative. And I wasn’t sharing with Samuel. “Agatha hates me. But we’re going to that competition somehow, no matter what I have to do to get us there.”

“And after?”

I grinned. “And after, Tara and I start lobbying for a competition for cheering witches. We’ll have a good head start on the other teams. I bet we clean up in the win column.”

“I bet you do too.” He flipped his glasses at me. “You’re
really amazing, Pru. Who knows what would happen if you turned your abilities on something that mattered?”

I resisted the urge to turn his hair green. I needed him. Angelo needed him. “You mean, something like science?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s your thing, Samuel, and I’m glad it is. You’ve gotten me out of more scrapes since I came to Agatha’s than I ever thought I could get into.”

He grinned. “You
are
good at getting into scrapes. I think it’s because you want so much to be perfect.”

I could feel him softening toward me, but he wasn’t quite ready for me to ask about Angelo again. “What else should I aim for? Almost? Good enough?”

“Sometimes.” He looked sad.

“Do you?” I regretted the question the minute it was out of my mouth. He ran errands for his own mother every week, and she didn’t even know who he was. Of
course
he settled for good enough sometimes.

I’m sure he thought about her too, but he didn’t mention it aloud. “Sometimes my stuff doesn’t work perfectly. Look at the bracelet that tingled when someone was lying to you—it just made you miserable at your sweet sixteen sleep-over.”

“Well, of course there are problems. I didn’t say you got to perfection, just that you aimed for it.” I sighed. I hated explaining the obvious. “Just like Angelo. So be a friend and
help him out like you helped me out when I was trying to figure out this whole witch school thing.”

“I don’t know.” His resistance was wearing down, though, so I knew I was close to getting him where I wanted him.

“Angelo doesn’t even have a mom and dad he can tell anything to. This whole switched-at-birth thing is a shock to the system. It sounds like something out of a soap opera and it’s his real life.” I appealed to Samuel’s generous side. “We’re all he has right now.”

“You mean Tara’s all he has right now.”

“Not so much.” I had to confess the true situation now, or he would assume that Tara would be someone for Angelo to lean on. “Now that he’s not forbidden mortal flesh, she’s gone a little cold on him.”

“She has?” He didn’t look happy, just as I’d predicted, but I could tell he was feeling for the situation Angelo was in. Samuel wasn’t hard-hearted. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to encourage Angelo-and-Pru-time. I totally understood. “So are you and he . . . going to go out?”

“You need to pay less attention to the ridiculous gossip. I can’t believe you haven’t heard the real deal. Agatha and the witches’ council put a Talent damper on him until he gets up to speed. He isn’t interested in me, and I’m not interested in him because . . . well, because we can’t be right now.”

He gave a low whistle. “I hadn’t heard that,” he said.
“Sucks to be him, now that the girls aren’t all about catching his eye. Maybe we should convince him to pack up and head back to mortal world.”

Awkward-moment alert. I sighed, prepared for it, and prepared to combat it. Maybe that was my Talent? Pru the Prepared? Gah. I hope not. First, it would be boring. Second, how would I demonstrate it at the Graduation Talent Pageant next year?

“I don’t know. It must be a pain to have girls all over you all the time, even when you don’t act like a player.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Think about it”—I played innocent, with eye bats and all—“I mean, he gets a break from all that while he learns to handle his magic. No girls allowed.”

“Some of us come by that naturally,” Samuel sneered. He still wasn’t getting the picture. He was too busy not feeling sorry for Angelo having to live the life Samuel had been living his whole high school career.

I decided to step it up a notch. “I guess it must be a relief, huh. Not to have girls always after you? More study time that way.”

“Study time’s good.” He watched me, knowing I was going somewhere, but not sure where.

“Then maybe he’ll be able to master his Talent and magic more quickly so that Agatha and the council lift the spells.” I frowned, as if this wasn’t a totally pleasant idea. “Of
course, if he does, all the girls will want him again, including Tara. Then it might be just you and me studying together, like old times.”

“I guess.” He flipped his glasses once, then stopped. He smiled. Hah! He’d taken my point. At last. For a smart guy, Samuel can be slow at the old psychology math. One guy who attracts tons of girls, including his former girlfriend, just may equal one girl—me—left over for the geek who tutors the guy with the Attractivity Talent.

So maybe I was treading into dangerous territory again, making Samuel think he had a shot with me. If it happened, I’d handle it. After all, I almost had all my old Pru magic back. A little higher on the success chart, and I had a lock on being captain of the team next year. Perfect grades, or headmistress’s favorite? Not so much. But one thing I’d learned in this whole turn-my-life-upside-down adventure was that a girl shouldn’t be greedy. It’s soooo last millennium.

Tara popped in to see me right after my study session with Angelo and Samuel. We’d agreed to meet outside of school, to avoid the risk of being overheard. Even the library wasn’t safe, given that my mom was the librarian and she knew I’d never be caught there for something as simple as a book. Tara showing up here? That shouldn’t set off any mom-alarms. She’d been doing it while we got ready for the Regionals, and even after. Nothing to see here, parents, move along now.
Which didn’t keep me from looking around to make sure Mom hadn’t popped in while I wasn’t looking.

I stuck To-Do back in my pocket, having already agreed with him that I would recommence work on the newest routine I had thought up for Nationals. “Perfect timing! I just finished studying with Samuel and Angelo and I was just about to start sketching out this new routine. Want to see?” I waved my hand, and the routine glowed in the air in front of me.

“I like that.” She watched for a second, but then quietly clued me in on the latest. “I’ve talked to everyone. They’re in. The secret practices are a go.”

I closed my eyes. “Perfect!” ... and perfectly scary. I opened my eyes, suddenly worried. “Did you tell Charity, too?”

Tara shrugged. “Yep. I decided that she’d hear about the practices, anyway, and I don’t want her to guess the bigger plan—which she would, for sure, if I kept this a secret from her.”

“True.” Sometimes the best way to keep gossip down is to pretend to tell the whole truth and that there’s nothing left to hide. “So, you don’t think anyone else knows we’re planning more than secret practices?”

To-Do, at the mention of more time that needed to be scheduled, pinched me. I pulled his hair, which was a new feature Samuel had added—it gave me an hour until I had to update, and saved me from being pinched until I bruised when I didn’t have time to update the schedule. The only
downside was that To-Do inevitably said, “Goodness gracious!” in a proper British accent.

“Not a clue.” She smiled at me with that look bungee jumpers get before the first plunge. “It’s a big deal, Pru. Going up against Agatha. I hope you’re up for it.”

“Up for it? I can’t wait.” Secret practices were only the first step of our evil plan to thwart Agatha’s evil plan. We were going to go to Nationals without school sanction. If Agatha had been worried I was going to corrupt the magic instincts of her students before . . . ? Well, let’s just say her discovery of this broken rule would guarantee that she’d be justified—in her own mind, at least—in expelling me. But if I couldn’t compete, I knew I didn’t care.

Tara said, “That Maddie girl is so going to wish she’d never messed with you.”

“She shouldn’t have messed with a witch if she didn’t want me to call her on being a backstabbing beeyotch. I’m going to enjoy taking her down,” I agreed.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t done a visual sweep for parents until one second too late. Dad was standing at the doorway, a tray of hot chocolate and cookies in his hands.

“Hi, Dad. Thanks!” I said, hoping he hadn’t overheard.

Unfortunately, Dad
had
overheard. He didn’t say anything while Tara was there, but afterward, he let me have it.

Being Dad, he had to have the conversation while Mom was in the room. While he started in, she just shook her
head at me. “Pru, I’m disappointed in you. Do you think being a witch makes you better than Maddie?”

“Of course not. I was only kidding. She just dropped me like a rock when I moved.”

“So your feelings are hurt and you want to get back at her. That’s understandable. Have you ever thought about things from her perspective?”

Well . . . not until I spied on her from her closet, but that wasn’t something I could admit to Dad if I didn’t want to be grounded until I was two hundred years old.

“Pru. You have to give us mortals a break when it comes to understanding.”

“Dad,
you
don’t understand—”

“Maybe I do. You and Maddie have been friends forever. Don’t burn your bridges because you moved away and things changed. Things always change. Look at me. Haven’t I adjusted to living among witches?”

Well, come to think of it. . . “How did
you
flip from the ‘not my thing’ to the ‘I’m cool with it’ side? You’re not even able to do magic.”

“No. And for a long time, I thought magic wasn’t necessary for anyone, witch or mortal. But I’ve seen the way you and Tobias have grown since we’ve moved. This change was the right change for you, no matter how hard it was.”

That was almost like Dad saying he was wrong. Not an everyday occurrence in my house. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“That’s the human condition, whether we’re witch or mortal. We’re always wondering.” He smiled. “But I can tell you, I’m sure that it has been good for you to live and go to school among witches. Get in touch with your witch side, so to speak.”

“I wondered what mellowed you out.”

“You did, honey.” He looked serious for a moment. “But now I’m worrying that you’re losing touch with your mortal side. I think it’s time I do something about that.”

I had the horrible feeling he was resurrecting his threat of taking me back to Beverly Hills. “I can’t go back, Dad. I just can’t.”

“Not permanently. But I think a visit is just the thing.” He hugged me. “People are like onions, Pru.”

“They stink?” I’m not a big fan of onions—or my dad’s lame metaphors, either.

“They have many layers.”

“Deep, Dad. Did you use that one on an ad campaign?” Really, I have no idea why he’s so creative at work and such a cliché-spouter at home.

He didn’t get mad. “I’ve just learned that over the years. Think about where’d you’d be if I hadn’t taken the time to appreciate your mother for all of her layers.”

Pretty much nowhere. Which, I couldn’t help thinking, might even beat being here right now.

“Let’s ask your mom what she thinks,” Dad said, looking
She’s a Witch Girl at Mom. “That way, you can balance your inner witch and your inner mortal with advice from your outer witch and your outer mortal.”

That Dad. Sometimes I wonder how he ever made so much money in advertising. I guess cornball is where the money is.