The Popularity Spell (6 page)

S
amantha and I spend the rest of the week sneaking in conversations about the you-know-what we're going to put on you-know-who. You-know-who stays away from me, probably because she knows I could always grab her hair again! Sometimes, across the classroom or playground, I see her and her friends looking in my direction with their faces scrunched up like unfriendly weasels, but that's way better than picking on me.

Dad grounds me, sort of, for saying the bad word in Recreational Wellness. He actually makes me
do
all my chores (instead of doing them halfway), and I can't use our tablet for drawing or playing games. But it's not so bad; I spend the extra time with my millipedes. I add twigs and grass from the backyard to their terrarium to make it a real home. I learn online that there are both boy and girl millipedes and, using a magnifying glass to look at their private parts, I discover that Millie is a boy. The one I named Marty is a girl. I think so anyway. It's hard to tell because everything's so small.

I also watch them crawl around in their box and chew on little pieces of apple and banana. Because millipedes have weak mouth parts, Dad and I had to slice and peel the food, then leave it out for a couple of days. They like rotten fruit best, which is funny because I don't even like fresh fruit.

In bed on Friday night, I can't stop thinking about how tomorrow is Saturday. This charm is going to be so much bigger and more important than Sam's pizza. That only brought her happiness for thirty-five minutes, the length of lunchtime. The next one could bring us happiness for more minutes than we'll ever be able to count! I've heard people say that they feel like they have butterflies in their stomach when they're excited, but I don't have tiny, feathery butterflies. I have hummingbirds buzzing all over. Or ostriches running around.

The hummingbirds and ostriches are keeping me awake, though, pecking at my brain with questions. What if it wasn't real? What if the pizza was a coincidence? What if I'm getting my hopes up for nothing?

I want to talk to someone about all this stuff, but I can't call Sam. It's late and her mom might hear her phone ring. There's only one other person in the world who knows what I'm going through, and once I get
that
thought in my head, I can't shake it. I won't be able to sleep until I actually talk to him.

I sneak through the house to the dining room, where Dad's desk is. I turn on his main computer and it makes a loud musical sound. I jump back, then scramble to turn down the volume.

I see the link Dad uses to call Uncle Arnie, and I click on it. It rings five, six, seven times, seeming louder with every ring. Finally, the screen on the other end of the line pops up. It's just black, though, until one little light turns on and a stream of light hits a table or a desk. Whatever it is, it's crammed with papers and files and wind-up toys and who knows what else. Exactly like my dad's desk.

“Helloooooo?” a voice asks. It's a guy off camera, sounding kind of like an owl.

“Hi,” I whisper. “Is that Uncle Arnie?”

His face suddenly fills the screen. He's got fuzzy black-and-gray hair shooting off his head from every angle, making my messy head look as beautiful as Madison's. Similar-looking hair shoots off his chin in tufts. It's not enough to be called a beard, though; it's just fuzz.

“Is that my little niece? Cleooooooo! I don't think I've ever gotten a call from you before. Look how grown up you are! What's up, mah girl?”

“Shhh! My dad's asleep,” I warn him.

“Okay, I'll keep it down,” he says, quieter. “But do you mind if I turn on another light?”

I doubt that would be a problem, so I say okay. That's when I see the rest of his room. It's a little like our house—but even messier. There's shelf after shelf crammed with books from the floor to the ceiling. But there are also picture frames and snow globes and voodoo dolls and other fun things, like a guitar and a banjo and a couple of keyboards on the floor, and a fat black-and-white cat strolling across the desk. Everything looks dusty, even the cat.

“I bet you have some questions about your birthday present,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. Then all the words come flooding out of my mouth; I have no control over them. “My friend Sam and I did a charm and it worked—at least, I'm pretty sure it worked—but now we want to do another one and Dad says it's not real and not to get mixed up in it, but it wasn't bad, it was good! Really good! So it might be real. Is it, Uncle Arnie?”

He smiles big and I'm pretty sure I see some spinach or something between his teeth. “Of course it's real, honey! Positive Happy Voodoo Doll is the next big thing in voodoo. It does good instead of evil. You have to be focused, be strong, and
be-
lieve. Get it? Believe!”

I'm not totally understanding what he's saying, but he's got so much enthusiasm, I could listen to him forever. Then suddenly I'm remembering that I'm in our dining room in the middle of the night using a computer I'm not supposed to use. Now I'm more worried about getting caught than about asking a bunch of questions about voodoo.

My uncle doesn't know that, though, so he keeps blabbing. “You had moved to a new state—California of all places, with all those strange rangers—and I thought the doll would be a great way for you to bond with a friend and create some fun mojo….”

“Okay, thanks, Uncle Arnie.” All I really wanted to know was if our hex was real, and it was! “I guess I'd better go back to bed….”

“Cleo, don't go yet!” he shouts, then quiets down again. “There's a rule I forgot to put in the instructions. You already know that Positive Happy Voodoo Doll is all about the power of two, the power of friendship, right?”

I nod and let him go on. “Here's the thing. Once two friends have lain…laid? Once two friends have lain—no, laid—their hands upon the doll's body with their hex, no others shall touch the doll until the spell has come to fruition. That one's a biggie.”

I don't know what
fruition
means, but instead of asking, I think about the context of the sentence, like we once learned in English class. It must mean when the spell comes true.

“You're not saying much, little niece,” Uncle Arnie says. “Do ya get it?”

I'm sure my face is saying,
Huh?
But I just nod and say, “Yeah.”

“Don't forget that. No others!” He nods, like he's convinced himself he made his point. “Okay, I'll let you go, then. Tell that fancy-pants brother of mine to get in touch more often, okay? And tell him Fuzzer says hello!” Uncle Arnie scoops up his fat cat and holds him next to his face, making his paw wave goodbye. I say goodbye, and realize as I turn off the computer that Uncle Arnie and Fuzzer look exactly alike.

Inside Sam's condo building, Dad rings the doorbell and Samantha's mom answers it, dressed up again in a skirt and a tight blouse—on a Saturday! I don't know how she does it. At our house, Saturday is for sloppiness. Actually, every day is for sloppiness in our house. Fashion wasn't particularly my thing before now, but maybe I could learn something from spending time with Samantha's mom. It might be good for Dad too, since he only wears T-shirts and shorts. Paige is exactly the kind of person you want to know when you live in Los Angeles. If I looked as glamorous as she does, I bet I could be popular
without
voodoo.

“Nice to see you, Cleo. Bradley. Come on in.” She asks if Dad wants to stay for a while, but he says he can't; he has work to do.

“Come a little early to pick her up, then. Have a drink or something.”

“Thanks, Paige, I'll see if I can,” says Dad. I notice her perfect fingernails again as she squeezes his arm, and I wonder if Terri would like Dad having a drink with Paige. I wish he would!

After he leaves, Samantha's mom asks if we'd like some Cokes. I know
I
would, but Dad doesn't let me have high-fructose corn syrup; he says it's not healthy for you. But when I ask Samantha's mom if she has anything without high-fructose corn syrup, she laughs like it's the funniest thing she's ever heard. She doesn't think my dad would get mad if I had only one. I don't know if she's right, but I decide to believe her because, well, I want a Coke!

Sam and I pop open our sodas and run to her room, which is perfect for voodoo hexing. Unlike the rest of their perfectly clean white condo, it's a dark purple cave with the windowsills and door painted black. Her comforter and pillows are black with bright pink splashes all over them. And her posters and decorations have a cool skeleton theme. She told me her dad sends her tons of little skeleton toys from Mexico, where he lives. I guess when you look around Samantha's room, it's not all that shocking that she was so interested in my voodoo doll.

“So. Did you bring it?” she asks.

I unzip my backpack and Samantha pulls out the doll. We both stare at it for a second. Dad thinks it's still a toy with yarn hair, button eyes, and a pin in its stomach. But we know what he really is. We know he's powerful.

“Did you bring Madison's you-know-whats?” Sam asks.

“Of course, duh!” I say, taking out the clear folder with the three hairs inside.

I carefully pull out one piece of hair. I hand it to Samantha, who wraps it around a piece of yarn on the doll's head. We're so careful; it's like we're surgeons on one of those hospital shows Dad and I sometimes watch. “So, should we do this one the same way as last time?” Sam asks.

“Yep,” I say. “All we need to do is
be
focused and
be-
lieve, and something else that starts with
be.
I forget.”

Sam has no idea what I'm talking about, and I don't bother to explain. Instead I pull the instructions out of my backpack and look at them carefully. “Number one. We've decided who deserves it.”

“Right. Popularity is deserved by us!” says Sam.

“Number two, you put the hair on the doll. So for number three, we have to decide where we would like the desired result to occur, and put the pin there.”

“Well, we want the popularity, but Madison needs to be embarrassed first. That could happen anywhere on her body. So I guess we can put it anywhere, right?” Sam asks.

“Sounds good to me,” I say. “Where should we put it?”

“His butt!” Sam says happily.

“Why?”

“Well, the instructions say it doesn't matter, but maybe something embarrassing could happen to Madison, like she pulls a butt muscle or falls on her butt.”

“And when we become popular, people will kiss
our
butts!” I laugh.

“Right!” Sam agrees. “So, are we ready?”

We put the doll on the floor between us. “Can I do the pin this time?” I ask Sam.

“Sure,” she says, handing it to me. I hold it between my fingers and take a deep breath. The doll's butt is a few inches away from me, waiting for a pin. But I can't poke it, not yet, because I'm wondering if this is the right thing to do. Uncle Arnie said the doll is meant for good things, and this hex isn't good for Madison. It won't make Madison's life better. But then I remember her perfect hair and puffy lips and piggy snorts and clown comments, and I know what I need to do. Madison's life doesn't need to be better;
ours
does! And when I imagine me and Samantha being popular—no one calling us names or making fun of Focus!—I do it. I poke the pin in the doll's butt—and it feels good.

I look down and start concentrating. What will it be like to be popular? I never have been, not even in Ohio, so I don't know how it works. First I imagine people waving at us when we walk across the courtyard and wanting to sit with us at lunch. Kids would come to our houses on weekends and we'd have our own special inside jokes. And if Madison got embarrassed by something, especially something butt-related, everyone would stop thinking she was so great.