The Hex Breaker's Eyes (7 page)

We’re eating
lunch in the cafeteria when the student council election campaign
begins. While everyone’s eating, Wayne and some of his friends are
at one side of the room, running an extension cord to the closest
outlet. Not many people are paying attention to them, but I am. I’m
sitting with Tam and Marlene, who both bought hot lunches from the
caf’ today, while I’m eating a sandwich I brought from home. Tam
said Ryan had a basketball team meeting about some upcoming
tournament, so he’s not around.

Suddenly
there’s blaring music from the side of the room, and everyone turns
to see Wayne climbing up onto a table while AC/DC blares from a
small CD player next to him. He steps a little too hard, and the CD
skips as the tabletop bounces under his feet. After everyone is
looking, Wayne’s helper (his girlfriend? I don’t know anything
about seniors) turns off the music and he waves to everyone. He
talks really loud, almost shouting, as he delivers his pre-scripted
speech.

“Hi everyone!
I’m Wayne Shepherd, your student council president for the first
semester. As you may know, the election is coming up in two weeks
to choose a president for the spring semester. I just want to say,
that under my leadership, we’ve seen increased turnout for dances,
and for football and basketball games. We’ve also sold more
official Laurier High shirts and sweaters than ever, money which
goes to funding the junior and senior proms at the end of the year.
Considering that, I’d say I’ve accomplished an increase in school
pride, and am announcing today that I am running for re-election
for the SC president in the spring term. I hope you all vote for
me, and Go Wildcats!” there’s an awkward moment where everyone
watches him climb down from the table, and nobody claps or
anything. A few people shout encouragement, but mostly my fellow
students don’t care. Gradually the cacophony of a hundred
conversations picks back up and it’s as if Wayne had never spoken
at all.

This is our
chance to spark up some conversation with our suspect.

I get up and
pack my lunch into my backpack, and get the girls to come with me
toward the table where Wayne is organizing a bunch of photocopies
and one of his friends is gathering up the extension cord.

“Hello,” I say
as we approach, making a little wave that I immediately regret
because it looked stupid. Wayne looks up from his photocopies. He’s
got blue eyes and when he looks at me he makes
really good
eye contact. Jeez, this guy’s handsome. (Good God, get over it,
Mindee.)

“Oh, hey,” he
says. He points at us, naming us from memory as he looks at me,
Tam, and Marlie. “Vefreet, Abel, and… darn I lost it.”

“Leonardson.
Marlene,” she says, almost apologetically.

“Leonardson.
Guess I just lost your vote, huh?”

She shakes her
head. “It’s OK.”

“So what can I
do for you girls? Gonna vote in the election?”

I want to say
something, but I’m busy noticing that Wayne has a bit of stubble on
his jawline and it’s sort of like something you see on hunky
romance-book-cover guys. Tam clears her throat and jumps in to save
me. “We were wondering if we could help with your campaign at
all.”

“Really?” he
asks, genuinely surprised.

“We’re very
interested in school politics. Mindee might even run for a council
seat.”

“Oh yeah?” he
asks, turning those eyes back at me.

“Not this
election,” I manage to say. “But in the spring, like, the election
for next fall’s council. Maybe then.”

“Very cool. And
yeah, you can help.”

Wayne points to
the various stacks of pages on the table. They are different
campaign posters, each with a picture of Wayne, his name in big
letters, and the election date. Every poster is themed like a
different joke, with Wayne’s face photoshopped on different bodies.
There’s a Santa Wayne, with the line “Makes a great stocking
stuffer;” a surfer dude Wayne captioned with “A wave of school
pride;” Wayne’s head on a werewolf body and the line “Transforming
student council.”

“You guys can
help us put up some posters. We’re allowed one poster in each
classroom, but it’s tough to get into each class since most of them
have fourth period classes right now.”

I laugh at the
surfer guy poster and tell Wayne that I like those. “Yeah, Sydney
did all the work on these,” he says, pointing to the blonde-haired
girl sitting in front of the posters. She’s pretty but too thin,
with a really strong jaw and a pointy nose. She’s looking at us
like we’re a bunch of stupid little girls trailing after her
boyfriend, and I guess that’s the role we’re playing.

“This is my
girlfriend Sydney, Sydney this is…” he smiles apologetically.
“Sorry, I try real hard to memorize names but your first names
escape me.”

We all say our
first names, and Sydney nods and smiles a little.

“I’m gonna take
the CD player back to communication tech lab, and I’ll let Sydney
get you girls sorted out with some posters, OK?”

Wayne and his
friend take off, and we’re alone with Sydney. We didn’t even get a
chance to start talking to Wayne about his rivals for the
presidency, or specifically about Dina. I resign myself to talking
to Sydney.

“So how can we
help?” I ask, sitting down across from her. Marlie and Tam sit on
either side of me.

“We have to get
posters up in each class, but we can only do it in the five minutes
between periods,” she says. While she might look a little severe,
her voice is actually very warm. All three of us sit across from
her and she explains how we should each take a hallway and try to
put posters up in as many classes as possible between fourth and
fifth period. She gives us each an assortment of posters and a roll
of scotch tape.

“So, who else
is even running?” I ask. “I know last year we had the same
president both terms.”

“Lots of people
are running,” she says. “Even people who haven’t been on council or
volunteered to sell clothes tried to run. Fortunately you have to
have council experience to run for president so that limits the
field to Wayne and a few others.”

“Anyone else
have a shot to win?” I ask.

“Al Kwan has
been on council for years and he’s got lots of friends since he was
on the football team. That’s like 60 votes just from teammates. And
Dina Jennings is running. I bet she’ll get a pity vote after she
electrocuted herself.”

“Oh that girl?”
I say, trying to act like I didn’t realize who Dina was. “She’s
kind of a bitch though, right?”

Sydney laughs
out loud, actually having to cover her mouth with one hand to
contain herself. “You got that right. Last month she actually
proposed that council should arrange more assemblies first thing in
the morning because she doesn’t like her first period math
teacher.”

We laugh a
little. Tam interjects, “But really it doesn’t seem like anyone can
beat Wayne. He’s so good at all those speeches.” Thank God Tam’s
willing to sound like she’s the one all gaga over Wayne. Sadly, I
might be a little too fawning if I had to say something like
that.

Sydney shrugs.
“You should see him rehearsing. He’s like a little kid with all his
notes. Memorizing everything all the time. He works really hard for
council.”

“So you figure
he’ll win?” I ask.

“I dunno. I
half expect Dina to show up for the debate showing a bunch of
cleavage and then all the boys will vote for her just so they can
see her at all the assemblies.”

“You guys got
any,” I try not to sound too suspicious, “tricks up your sleeves?
Anything to help Wayne win?”

“Campaigning
like maniacs,” she says, waving at the flyers. “We have the next
two weeks to bother everyone and plant Wayne Shepherd in their
brains. We’ll be coming in early, staying late. It’s how we won
last year.”

“Cool.” I say,
standing up and taking my stack of posters. “I hope you guys
win.”

My friends
stand up too and we head off toward the stairs.

“So what do you
think?” I ask the girls as we walk down the hallway.

“That Wayne
seems way too into school spirit to be casting magic curses on
people,” says Marlene.

“But maybe his
total school spirit-ness is the reason why he casts curses,” says
Tam. “I mean, the guy’s a total cult leader.
‘Here, look at my
dimples and do all this menial labour for me.’
”

“What?” I say,
sounding a little more shocked than I had intended to. “I thought
he was very, um, earnest.”

“Very what?”
she mocks. “You mean you thought he was very scrumptious. Mindee’s
mancandy!”

“Did not,” I
say, feeling childish.

“OK, let’s just
agree that he’s still a suspect,” offers Marlene.

“Deal,” Tam and
I say at the same time.

As we walk past
a recycling bin, Tam holds her handful of posters over the bin. “So
can we dump these?” she asks.

“No, we have to
put them up,” I say. “Or else they’ll know we didn’t really want to
help.”

“You mean I
have to chores for Mr. Perfect too?” Tam scoffs. Marlie pats her on
the shoulder and now, thanks to our undercover investigating, we’re
stuck taping posters to chalkboards in other people’s classes. I
tell them which hallways they should take for postering.

We split off in
three different directions, and set to work selling Wilfred Laurier
High on re-electing a guy who might be a dangerous hex caster. This
has been a strange week.

With no school,
I might finally have a day where I don’t have to see those freaky
yellow lights. There’s always a chance of seeing Dina around town,
so I’ve decided I’m going to stay home today. It will be nice to
have a day where I don’t see something that makes me feel
crazy.

Still, we can’t
pretend everything is OK just because there’s no school. Tam and
Ryan are off doing something with his family, so I’ve invited
Marlene to come over so we can research hexes in more detail. She
brought a backpack completely full of occult books.

“Where did you
get these?” I ask.

“I have a
collection. Mostly I need them because I like to do research when
I’m a dungeon master.”

“A what?” I
don’t understand what she just said, but she’s blushing a little so
I hope I didn’t offend her.

“I play role
playing games with my brother and some friends. Usually I’m the one
who writes it and they call the writer the dungeon master.”

“Oh,” I say.
She’s still blushing, perhaps ashamed to admit her nerdy hobby. I
realize that maybe I’ve made her uncomfortable. “That’s cool. I
don’t do anything with my brother,” I say in an attempt to make her
feel better.

“But I also
just like this sort of stuff. Never really thought that magic and
curses and stuff were actually real, though. I mean, I believe in
psychics and UFOs and disembodied spirits, but’s that all science,
not superstition.”

“Right,” I say.
I realize that I’ve never hung out with Marlene one-on-one outside
of chem class, and maybe it’s because she’s a bit of a weirdo.
Still, it turns out I’m a weirdo too, so I’m glad to have her.

“I also emailed
you a list of websites,” she says.

“Great.
Hopefully we can figure out how to find our bad guy.”

We’re up in my
room with the door closed, because I really don’t want to have my
dad or brother walk in and see the pile of witchcraft books. You
might expect witchcraft books to be huge and old, with
leather-bound covers and a strong ‘old book’ smell. One of Marlie’s
books is like that, but most are new printings, soft covers, with
colourful pages and a lot of talk about positive energy. It seems
modern day witches are much more positive and helpful than the old
Macbeth style of witches. I’m flipping through one of these newer
books, and see a page titles “Cures.”

“Hey, check it
out,” I say. “This book has cures.”

She doesn’t get
up to come look, since she must have read that already. “It’s not
cures for spells and hexes. It’s cures for ailments like the common
cold and sore knees.” I read the page a little more and see that
she’s right. Apparently if you burn a certain kind of incense, say
a specific incantation, and carry a smooth black stone in your
pocket, you can break a fever faster than if you take aspirin. Of
course, the book cautions that you should also take aspirin and
follow your doctor’s orders. I switch to another book.

Marlie’s
hogging the cool old leather-bound book, but I think she probably
spent a lot of money on that one, so I don’t mind that she’s
protective of it. I start flipping through a book about ‘The
History of Witchcraft,’ but it seems to be more of a bunch of
biographies than a how-to manual.

“Here’s
something,” Marlie says. “I think this is the same spell that I saw
people mention online.” I’m up on the bed and Marlie’s sitting in
my desk chair, so I get up to go see what she’s got. This book is
very old, with thick yellow pages. Marlene points to a spell on the
bottom of a page.

“Turn Luck
Against Thy Foe,” I read. “This is the bad luck hex?”

“Looks like it.
It says here that you need a personal item from your ‘foe,’
something of importance to yourself, feathers from a black bird,
and wax from a black candle. You tie your object, your foe’s
object, and the feather together, then drip wax on it while reading
the incantation three times. As long as your ill will holds strong,
and this talisman you’ve just created holds together, your foe will
have luck turn against them at every opportunity.” She’s
paraphrasing a bit, but I can see where she’s reading it from.

“Where did you
get this book?” I ask.

She holds it up
proudly, and smiles. “I got it on eBay. Three hundred bucks but
totally worth it.” Personally, I think her game-playing hobby is a
little on the expensive side, but I don’t criticize her for it.
Marlene’s a bit of a geek and I think she’s happy to be sharing
this part of herself with another girl, so I try to be
encouraging.