Rhymes With Witches (20 page)

As I was brushing my teeth, it came to me that I no longer doubted that all this was real. The offerings, the siphoning of power. Lurl. No longer was I saying to myself, “Oh, baloney. You don't really
believe
this stuff, do you?” Because I did believe, I guess ever since
that moment in geometry when the world slipped to the side. When I saw how just a shimmering shadow separated what could and couldn't be.

My toothbrush stilled as I thought again of Sandy, whose need for affirmation ran too deep. Who died for her sins. But that would never happen to me, because I wasn't like that. Maybe I used to be, but not anymore.

I brushed hard to combat the sudden sourness of my breath. When I spit, my toothpaste was tinged with blood.

“Um, no,” Keisha said. She dangled the J from her slender fingers, then yanked upward on the cord, caught the pendant in her palm, and shoved the whole thing into the pocket of my denim jacket.

“Not cool,” she said as I stumbled backward. “Lurl told me you put it on her desk, trying to pass it off as a proper offering. Did you honestly think she wouldn't know?”

“I just thought … I mean, I was only—”

Keisha waved her hand. “Don't.”

I knew I was bright red, because I could feel the heat in my face. Being scolded by Keisha was horrible, worse by far than if it were Mary Bryan or even Bitsy.

Keisha walked farther away from Hamilton Hall, indicating with a head jerk that I was to follow. She stepped around a tabby cat basking in the sun. It regarded us with indolent amber eyes. When we were clearly, absolutely alone, she said, “It's been a week, Jane. You're neglecting your responsibilities.”

“I know. I'm sorry. It's just …” I knew that nothing I could say would make it better. “I don't like that part.”

She put her hands on her hips. “What part?”

My voice went even tinier. “The stealing.”

The look Keisha flashed me was wounded as well as pissed, as if I'd been incredibly tacky to mention it.

“It's the way it works,” she said in clipped tones. “For one to rise, another must fall.”

“But
why
? Why can't we just rise, and everybody else can stay where they are? I wouldn't care!”

“And you think I would?” Keisha demanded. She glared at me, then visibly pulled herself back. When she exhaled, her nostrils flared. “Say you've taken a math test. Or an English test, since you love books so much. And you get a hundred. You're psyched, right? ‘Mom, I got a hundred! I got the highest grade in the class!'” She raised her eyebrows. “But say everybody else gets a hundred, too. Are you still as proud?”

“Of course,” I said stubbornly. “I'd still have my A.”

“Bullshit. You like your As because other people get Cs. Because that means you're smarter than they are. Better than they are.”

“I don't think I'm better than anyone.”

“Then you're an idiot.”

Behind us, kids ambled out of Hamilton on the way to their next class. Two girls giggled loudly from the other side of the quad.

“I'm not saying it's fair,” Keisha said. “But
life
isn't fair. Some
people are boring and stupid no matter how you cut it. You can try to make conversation with them all day, and they're still boring and stupid.”

“So, what? They should be shot?”

“Yeah, they should be shot,” she said sarcastically. “Steal a barrette, shoot them in the head—what's the difference?”

Keisha's cell phone jingled. Her eyes flew to mine.

I held out my hands, like,
Hey, it's not me calling you.

She dug for her phone. Turning her body from mine, she muttered, “This better be important. I'm at school.”

I walked a couple of feet away and feigned interest in the giggling girls on the quad. By the sound of it, they were pretending to be dinosaurs. “Aaaah-roooo!” one bellowed, dipping her voice way down and then raising it up into her higher register. “Aaaah-
roooo
!”

“No,” Keisha said. “I told you, six o'clock.”

“Mmmm-waaaah!” the other dinosaur girl responded.

Keisha hunched her shoulders and put her hand up to her ear. “Call your sponsor,” she said, raising her voice over the noise. “Call your
sponsor
.” She paced in a tight circle. “Fine, I'll be there. I said I would, all right? I have to go, Mom. I've got class.”

She hit the end button.

“Mmraah-wah-oooo!” trumpeted girl number one.

Keisha scowled. “What the hell are they doing?”

“I have no idea. Pretending to be dinosaurs?”

Her scowl deepened. She looked at me, and she didn't have to say it.

“Maybe it's for a play,” I said feebly.

Keisha strode back toward Hamilton. “You're one of the lucky ones, Jane. Don't blow it.”

I hurried to catch up with her. “Just one quick thing.”

She didn't stop. “What?”

“Why did you really pick me? The truth.”

Now she stopped. She turned around. “Because you were broken. Just like us.”

Bitsy snuck up on me in the library, where I'd gone to muddle things out. Because what did Keisha mean, “broken”? My thoughts flitted again to Sandy's neediness—was that the kind of “broken” she meant? But in my case Keisha had spoken in past tense, as in I used to be broken but now was fixed. I thought of that gospel song Mom sang when she did laundry:
I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see.

“Amazing Grace.”

Was that how it was for me?

“Boo,” Bitsy said.

I jumped.

“Ha,” she said. “Gotcha.” She came around the back of my chair and lounged against the work surface of the carrel. Her Powerpuff Girls shirt hugged her body.

“What's up?” I said, trying my best to act cool. “Have you come to yell at me?”

“Pardon?”

I swallowed. This was the first time I'd seen Bitsy since Anna Maria and Debbie had tormented Camilla during PE, and it made me feel weird. I kind of wanted to talk to Bitsy about it, but at the same time I kind of really didn't.

“Keisha got all mad at me about the Lurl thing,” I said. “She was like, ‘You're neglecting your responsibilities. You're letting us down.'”

“And right she is,” Bitsy said. “Trying to pass off your own necklace as someone else's, you poor sod. Think no one's tried that one before?”

I looked at her from under my bangs.

“Bet you about wet your pants putting it on Lurl's desk, too. And now you have to do it all over again. Life's a bitch, eh?”

Was she teasing me? I got the strangest feeling she was teasing me.

“I don't want everyone to hate me,” I said. “I didn't mean to let you guys down.”

“I know, luv,” Bitsy said. “And that's why I've decided to help you out.” She fished into the pocket of her jeans. She drew out a brown bobby pin. “Here.”

I looked at Bitsy, then back at the bobby pin.

“Don't go getting used to it,” Bitsy said. “I'm not going to bail you out every time.”

I gazed at the bobby pin's brown ridges. Finally I said, “But … I'm not the one who took it.”

Bitsy tilted her hand, and the bobby pin dropped to the floor. She lifted her eyebrows.

“Whose is it?” I asked.

“No one's. Not your darling Alicia's, if that's what you're worried about.”

Still, I hesitated.

“Fine. If you don't want it—”

“No, I do,” I said. I bent to retrieve it, my face at Bitsy's shoes. Strappy black sandals, even though fall was officially upon us. A silver ring on her second toe.

“Brilliant,” Bitsy said. “Lurl will be so pleased.”

On the way to Lurl's office, I spotted Alicia trailing out of her geometry class. The other kids strolled out in groups of two or three, chatting and laughing, and then there was Alicia, all alone. I knew in my gut that I should go talk to her, but I didn't want to.
Not the right time,
I told myself.

Except that unfortunately, she'd spotted me, too. “Jane!” she called.

I walked faster, eyes straight ahead, then gave up when she touched my shoulder.

“Jane,”
she said. “Jesus, are you deaf?”

I turned around, trying to tell myself that the yuck factor I
felt didn't have to do with her. I was in a hurry and she was interrupting me, that's all.

“Alicia!” I said. “Hi! So how'd it go Saturday night? With Tommy. Oh my god, I've been dying to hear.”

Alicia narrowed her eyes, her black hair lanky around her face. “Yeah, which is why you've been avoiding me all week.”

“I haven't been avoiding you. Why would you even say that?”

“Uh, because it's true?”

My smile cracked. If I were in Alicia's shoes, I would at least try to be nice. “So are you going to tell me about Tommy or not?”

“He canceled,” Alicia said. “An hour before he was supposed to pick me up.”

What cheerfulness I'd mustered crumbled to dust. It was like a lead weight dropping down inside me, and not only because I was sad for Alicia—if I even was sad for Alicia. It was more the tiredness of realizing,
Oh shit, now I have to deal with this on top of everything else.

“That sucks. What a jerk.”

“He said he'd gotten the date wrong. He was like, ‘But let's do something another time, okay?'”

“Oh, well that's different.”

“How? He totally blew me off.”

“He didn't blow you off. He just, you know, rescheduled.”

She made an extremely irritating face. “Do you have any idea how fake you sound? I'm serious. Do you?”

I gritted my teeth. If she wanted to be this way, fine. It wasn't my job to coddle her. “Look,” I said. “I'm trying to be supportive, but it's hard when you're so nasty all the time. You ever think maybe that's why Tommy canceled?”

She flinched. Like she was honestly surprised, when here she was acting like a grade-A prat, as Bitsy would say.

Then her eyes went small. “Screw you,” she said.

“Screw me?” I said. “Screw you! All I've done is try to help!”

She poked my chest. “Rae was right. You've lost your soul.”

Anger flamed through me—anger and fear and other things, too. But instead of retaliating, I stuffed it down and walked away.

Keisha was right. Some people
were
boring and stupid no matter how you cut it.

Still, I couldn't quite catch my breath. I almost wanted to go back and shove her, spill her backpack again so I could snatch a pen. Or another tub of her pointless lip balm, because who would ever want to kiss those lying lips? No one, that's who.

She was the toad. Not me.