T*Witches: Building a Mystery (6 page)

The crowd parted suddenly. Kids started backing away. "All right, boys and girls, let's all get to our classes now. No one wants to be late." Alex recognized Mr. Shnorer's irritating, high-pitched voice. "People, what's going on here?"

"Nothing," Dylan blurted. "Nothing's going on—"

"Barnes? You again?"

True to his promise not to rat out Cam or Alex, Eddie pointed his chin—one of his few still-movable parts—at Cam's brother. "He hit me!" the twisted bully hollered.

"Oh, baloney!" Alex and Cam heard Madison squeak before they could see her. "Yeah, right, like Camryn Barnes's brother would even touch you. Oh, boy, what a liar."

The scrawny girl pushed her way to the front. "Oh, wow. Like, how long can your nose grow? Mr. Shnorer, that's the boy who tried to steal my wallet yesterday."

"You. Get up," Shnorer ordered Eddie.

"I can't!" the bully raged.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Madison chanted. She was wearing a fluffy white sweater in which she looked far more like a guinea pig than a rat.

"Shut up! You blind or something?! Just look." Eddie pointed to his legs—then realized, just as Alex and Cam did, that he could move his arms, that they'd somehow unlocked. He looked at his feet. They were still twisted into a position that qualified him for
Ripley's Believe It or Not.

But he could wriggle his toes. And then flex his ankles. And finally, straighten his legs. "Thanks," he whispered to Alex and Cam, and scrambled to his feet.

The twins looked at each other, stumped.

Neither of them had set the boy free. They turned to stare suspiciously—Alex at Mr. Shnorer, who was hauling Eddie and Dylan to the principal's office, and Cam at Madison, who was grinning a triumphant, hamster grin.

The homeroom bell rang and kids were suddenly dashing off in all directions. "I'm going to try to bail Dylan out," Cam told Alex. "We'll... talk later."

"Deal," Alex agreed, taking off down the other end of the hall.

"Alexandra, Alexandra!" Madison came bustling after her. "Are you going to team tryouts this afternoon?"

"I don't think so," Alex said over her shoulder, then rounded the corner and crashed into Cade.

"Guess you aced your fitness test." He held her at arm's length and laughed.

"Huh?" was Alex's brilliant response.

"You know. They check you out in the gym," Cade explained. "See how far and fast you can go on the treadmill before you fade. Monitor your blood pressure. I'm scheduled for today, last period."

"Oh." She came back to her senses as best she could, considering Cade's nearness and the delicious aroma of soap and old leather drifting from him. "Cam and I did it yesterday—"

"You must have passed with flying colors," he teased.

"Oh, please, Alexandra. Say yes. Please, please, please." Madison caught up with them. "I'm going out for volleyball," she squeaked, looking up at Cade. "But there's basketball, softball, soccer—"

"Soccer's Cam's sport," Alex said.

"Oooo, then do volleyball with me. Please, please, please. I'll be your best friend."

"Tempting as that offer is—" Alex began.

"That'd be cool," Cade cut in. "Then I'd get to see you at the gym. I mean, if you're trying out for a team, and I'm there taking my fitness test. Catch you last period, okay?"

"Sure," Alex agreed.

"Hooray!" Madison squealed, jumping up and down between them.

The rest of the day passed slowly for Alex. Dylan showed up for English grumbling about Mr. Shnorer. Luckily, Mrs. Hammond was out of the school for the morning so he and Eddie were scheduled to see her later in the day. By then, Dylan figured, he could round up enough kids who'd seen what had happened to prove he hadn't done anything wrong.

During class, Alex studied Mr. Shnorer, worked so hard at reading his mind that she wound up with a killer headache. All she got out of the tawdry teacher were a bunch of questions like,
What am I doing here?
and
Why me?
And, reacting to students' wrong answers, he'd silently ranted,
Think, you toad! It's a metaphor, moron, metaphor!

Once, Alex caught him looking at her and heard him decide,
That one is trouble.
None of which helped her figure out whether the bozo was Thantos's evil messenger. Definitely not, if she was supposed to feel drawn to him.

Madison was waiting outside math, Alex's last subject before the tryouts. "Ooo, I am so majorly psyched. Aren't you?" the quivering girl gushed, taking three little steps for every one of Alex's and still not quite keeping up with her. "That we'll be on the same team all term. And with your mojo, we'll totally win every game. And if you showed me how you do it, then, in case you got sick or whatever, I could, like, mojo for you. Then Marble Bay would never lose and everybody'd know that I was tight with the twins."

"Cam's the mojo-meister." Alex snuck a sentence in sideways, then spotted Cam and Beth coming toward them.

"Camryn! Camryn!" Madison screeched as if she'd found her long-lost best friend.

Cam gave Alex a questioning look. Alex shrugged. "You going out for soccer again?" she asked her sister.

"I guess," Cam said vaguely. "I've just got to... um, stop by the computer lab first."

"And then she's going to get back on that horse and ride," Beth teased.

"Horse? Oooo, you mean Camryn's going to play soccer again, even if she did choke last season and blow the championship for Marble Bay. I heard." Madison clutched her heart in sympathy. "You had, like, a major mojo glitch, right, Camryn? Zoned in on the clutch. Tanked totally. Blew the big one—"

Cam's perfect complexion was growing mottled, Alex noticed, and her gray eyes were practically smokin'. Another minute and Madison would be toast. Literally.

"How does that mojo thing work anyway?" she nattered on. "I mean, can you make it happen whenever you want? Whoops. I guess not. Otherwise that'd mean you wanted to lose the game. I guess it's kinda—like what?—out of your control and all?"

Beth was staring at the new girl, horrified. "You'd better see your veterinarian," she advised. "Hoof in mouth disease can be fatal."

"What fun," Cam told Alex. "We've got to do this again sometime."

"Yeah, like..." Beth took Cam's arm and led her away. Over her shoulder she called, "Never!"

Madison looked genuinely surprised. "What's wrong with Camryn?" she asked.

It would have been funny it if hadn't been furiously annoying.

There was Cade, sitting in the stands, waiting to be called for his fitness test. He was beaming at Alex. Every time she mashed a ball over the net, he gave her a thumbs-up.

And there was Madison, on the other side of the volleyball net, chirping nonstop in her piercing, breathless way. She'd seen Alex's half-moon pendant when they'd changed into gym clothes in the locker room. Now she wanted to know:

Where had Alex gotten that totally to-die-for necklace? Like, what happened to the punked-out skull she'd worn yesterday? Didn't Cam have a necklace just like—well, almost just like—Alex's? How choice—twins with matching necklaces. Did they have, like, a special meaning? Did they have anything to do with Cam's mojo? What was mojo anyway?

"I mean," the small but surprisingly powerful player persisted, "is it like magic? Like real witchy stuff or just, you know, a feeling?"

Alex wished Madison would shut up.

No such luck.

"Do you think mojo would work in volleyball? Or is it just a soccer thing?"

The ball was passed to Alex.

She set it up for the tall girl next to her at the net.

Who spiked it over with all her might.

Right onto Madison's head.

Madison's legs went all rubbery. Her dark eyes crossed. She sank to the floor.

Oh, no,
Alex thought.
I didn't mean for that to happen.

Oh, yes, you did,
a man's voice angrily charged.

Alex stared at the fallen girl. The echo in the vast gym had made it seem as if the accusation had come from Madison—who was frowning up at her, looking extremely peeved. Others on Madison's side of the net rushed to her aid.

Alex looked over at the bleachers. Cade was no longer there. Nor was anyone who could have spoken those words. She looked around and found him. He was standing with his back to the volleyball court, waiting in front of the coach's table to fill out a form for his fitness test.

Alex ducked under the net and put out her hand to help Madison, but the girl refused her aid. Then, clearly feeling wobbly again, she leaned against Alex to steady herself.

And there was the buzz. The funny electric tickle that Alex had felt the first time she brushed against Doc's sleeve. She stared hard at Madison, half expecting to find Doc's bony white face lurking beneath Madison's flushed features.

"Did you feel that?" the small girl asked.

"What?" Alex challenged.

"A shock. It's been happening all day. Between the new shampoo I used and this itchy sweater, I'm staticky."

The second of three volleyball tryout games was just ending when Dylan ran into the gym. Spotting Alex, he paced impatiently on the sidelines until the game was over, then dashed onto the court. "Eddie just got picked up by the police. They think he's the one who did it."

"Did what?" Alex glanced at the bleachers. Cade was back. He waved to her.

"Did the breaking-and-entering thing. Robbed the Richman house—"

"Oh, wow!" Madison was instantly at Alex's side. "Cade's house..." The gym door swung open. "Oh, hi, Camryn. Camryn, did you hear?" the hyper teen shrieked as Cam entered, trailed by Beth.

"They think Eddie did all the robberies," Alex told her twin.

Cam seemed happy to hear it. Too happy. "Beth told me," she acknowledged, grinning.

"What's up with you?" Alex wanted to know. "If I said they were going to give him twenty to life, would you, like, bust out laughing?"

"No. It's just... I got an e-mail I've been waiting for." She didn't say, didn't even dare think:
from Doris Bass, who said she'd try to help in any way she could
. The librarian had suggested that Cam send her a list of questions. Which Cam had immediately done.

"An e-mail? You are way too easy to please," Alex noted.

"I was in the office," Beth jumped in, "getting my schedule changed. I heard them talking to Mrs. Hammond, the policemen. The same ones who showed up before. They've got footprints that match Eddie's, muddy sneaker treads inside the house—"

"It was beyond weird," Dylan said. "Eddie was freaked. Yelling and warning them they'd better not bother his dad about it! He was out of control. Swearing at the cops and all. He says he's gonna sue them 'cause he didn't rob the place—"

"He didn't," Cam said very softly.

No one seemed to have heard her but Alex, who was about to ask whether she'd had another one of her premonitions, when Cade ambled over.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked.

"Oooo, you don't know? Your house. The robberies. Edgar Robins did it." Madison's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Only Camryn doesn't think so, right, Camryn?"

Everyone turned toward Cam, except for Alex, who was studying Madison's feral little face.

"Is that true? You don't think Eddie did it?" Dylan asked his sister.

"But why?" Beth demanded. "I mean, I told you what the police said. How come you don't believe them?

Cam was staring oddly at Madison. "How do you know what I think?" she asked.

Madison shrugged. "I heard you. I've got excellent hearing," she claimed. "I'm right, aren't I?"