Bewitching (21 page)

“You stole it?”

“It escaped. But I didn’t give it back. I just couldn’t.” I closed the box. “So, anyway, after school, I have to get my mom to take me to PetSmart. If she doesn’t have a heart attack, at least.”

“You could release it somewhere.”

I shook my head. “I don’t like the odds for a white mouse in the wild. No camouflage. Besides, I’m sort of attached to him. I named him Ralph.”

“You know what they say—don’t name the food.” He smiled. “That’s pretty typical of you, though.”

“What is?”

Ms. Meinbach strolled by again, and Warner said, “So it’s typical to have one short story per issue, or more than that?”

I pretended to think. “Sometimes one, sometimes two if they’re short. It depends. Oh, and sometimes we put a personal essay.”

Warner was writing all this down, like a good student. When Ms. Meinbach left, he turned the paper toward me. It read:

Let me take you to PetSmart
.

I wrote:

You have a car?

He must be sixteen. I wasn’t yet. I wouldn’t be getting a car anyway. Lisette had gotten one for her birthday, a Saab, and Daddy told her to drive me to school and to share it with me once I got my license. What Daddy didn’t know was, Lisette dropped me off at the bus stop every morning, then picked up her friends. I knew she wouldn’t share either.

Yes
, he wrote back.

I thought about it for a second, no more. Mother had told me to ask permission to go in someone’s car, but I knew she’d say yes. She was always harping on how I had no social life. She’d probably be happy to see me join a motorcycle gang if it got me out of the house.

So I wrote back,
OK
.

“The student parking lot is like
Animal Planet
,” I said to Warner as we walked to his car after school.

Okay, I was trying to be clever. Which is not to say I’d spent the whole rest of the period thinking of something funny (I hoped) to say.

“How so?” he asked. “I mean, not that I think you’re wrong.”

“It’s the whole food chain. At the top are the girls with Audis or boys whose parents buy them a big SUV and don’t care how many people they pack into it.”

He smirked. “The no-rules kids. My favorites.”

It occurred to me that, for all I knew, he could be walking me up to a new SUV, but he said, “And their friends are like the rest of their pride, right?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Then, the next step down are kids with their parents’ old cars or something. They’re like tortoises and skunks, not predators, but at least they have defenses.”

“Right,” he agreed. “Crawl into their shell.”

I nodded. “Then, there are pedestrians, which are the equivalent of bugs. Their only hope is that maybe no one will notice them.”

He actually laughed. “And what are you?”

“I take the bus. We’re not even part of the animal planet. We’re like cattle, bound for the feed lot, heads down, texting each other, trying to pretend it isn’t happening as we trudge to our doom.” I saw Lisette getting into her—our—white Saab with five friends, one more than the car could hold.

“Lioness at four o’clock,” Warner said.

He meant Lisette. “You got that right.” I should have told him that she was my stepsister, but then I’d have to introduce them. I did not want to introduce Warner to Lisette. Like, obviously, I’d have to if we got married, but not before then.

I called Mother. Her joy at hearing that I was going out with a boy was so loud I had to pretend to drop the call to keep Warner from hearing. I turned my ringer off. That done, I took shotgun in Warner’s not-new-enough-to-be-spoiled-but-not-so-old-it-looks-gangsta Honda Civic.

“Nice car.” I tried to check my hair in the side view without being obvious. It actually looked pretty good.

“Spoils of parental guilt. My parents got it for me to make up for moving again.” He smiled. “Though, maybe I don’t actually mind being back here. Now.”

I smiled. “Do you mind if I take out Runaway Ralph? I promise he won’t eat your dashboard.”

“Go ahead.”

I opened the box and petted the mouse’s head. He stared up at me with wide, frightened eyes. I’d thought all white mice had red eyes, but his were black. “It’s okay, little guy. Really, you’re a lot better off in my purse. It may not seem that way, but sometimes, things work out for the best.”

“Like me, moving back here.” Warner handed me a package of Cheez-Its that were sitting in his cup holder. “See if he wants these.”

I took out a cracker. The mouse hesitated, stuck his head into the corner of the box, then turned around and took a few tentative nibbles.

“He’d be dead by now,” I said. “Fischer lets students watch him feed the snake right after school.”

“Yikes. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

“Yes.” I took the mouse and the cracker out and cupped them both in my hands.

“So, now you can tell me why my mouse-napping was typical. Do you think I’m generally involved in animal trafficking?”

My voice sounded different to me. I actually did sound confident.

Warner laughed. I noticed that when he laughed, he showed both rows of teeth, and they were very straight. I remembered he used to have braces. “You just seem like a really compassionate person.”

“Because of the mouse?”

“No. I remember in seventh grade, that kid, Nate, in our civics class.”

I nodded. Nate had actually been in my class most years since kindergarten. He had some learning problems, and sometimes he got overwhelmed and cried. Most teachers tried to help him, but our civics teacher, Ms. Hill, seemed to
try
to fluster him, asking questions in a baby voice you’d use for a stupid person or loudly pointing out when he wasn’t going fast enough. “Ms. Hill was so mean.”

Warner nodded. “I always wanted to do something. It was like one of those nature shows, where the cheetahs are attacking the baby gazelle, and all you can do is watch.”

“I hate that.”

“But you actually stood up to her.”

“Got in big trouble too.” I looked out the window, remembering. One day, Nate wasn’t copying an assignment off the board. It was a long assignment, guidelines for a project, and Hill was screaming at him for not doing it. People—the usual suspects—were snickering. Finally, I copied it myself and just handed it to him.

“Hill saw me copy the assignment, of course,” I said to Warner. “She turned on me, saying, ‘He’s never going to learn if people do things for him.’”

“You remember what you said to her?” Warner asked.

“Remember? I had to repeat it to the assistant principal. I said, ‘Yeah, obviously he learns a lot better when people like you scream at him.’”

“I don’t think you said ‘people,’ though. I almost applauded.”

I looked down, embarrassed. “I’m not usually like that, all assertive, I mean. That’s practically the only assertive thing I’ve ever done.”

“And freeing a mouse, and breaking out of hoedown jail.”

I laughed, flattered he remembered me as some kind of Rebel Girl, even though I wasn’t. Usually, I figured no one noticed me at all. “She just made me so mad. I had to say something.”

“I know. That’s what made it awesome. You were like this perfect student, and there you were, talking back to the teacher. I thought, ‘I want to know that girl.’”

“Really?”

“It took me a year to ask you out, and then you blew me off, but I never forgot it.”

I gazed out the window because I didn’t want him to see my face, see how much I was smiling. We’d finally cleared the parking lot and were on the road. The oaks filtered the sun, making the street glitter like hundreds of diamonds. Was it possible that this was my life, that something was finally going right as it never had since I’d met Lisette?

Possibly
.

“What do you think of
Jeopardy
?” It just popped out of my mouth.

“Huh?”

“Never mind. It’s stupid.”

“The TV show
Jeopardy
?” When I nodded, he said, “It’s my favorite. My family watches it every night. We actually schedule dinner around it. I’m taking the online test for the teen tournament next month. Dorky, right?”

I shook my head. “I love
Jeopardy
.” I could hear the theme music in my head, feel Daddy’s arm on the back of my shoulder. It seemed like I should be able to yank back a curtain and be there again.

“I knew it,” Warner said. “The perfect girl.”

We spent an hour in PetSmart, choosing a cage, cedar shavings, and a mouse wheel, then another hour at Panera drinking coffee before the manager noticed Ralph and asked us to leave. By the time I got home, I had a new pet and a date for Saturday night—my first ever for both.

I cleared a place for Ralph’s cage on my dresser. The mouse was afraid of me and ran whenever I reached into his cage. Still, I was sure he’d get used to me. And, more important, I had a date for Saturday. Saturday!

“Whatcha got there?”

“Oh!” I turned and saw Lisette standing in the doorway of the bathroom that connected our rooms. “What do you want?”

“Now, Emma.” Lisette strode into the room. “I don’t always want something.”

I stared at her.

“Cute guy,” she said. “Do I know him?”

I shrugged, trying to look casual, but my hands were shaking. “I have no idea.”

“Maybe I should get to know him.”

Amazing. No longer content with stealing my jewelry, my books, my friends, and my father, Lisette now wanted to steal Warner. And she could. She was so pretty any guy would go for her. He’d pointed her out: the lioness. Runaway Ralph jogged on his mouse wheel, and I felt like I was on a mouse wheel. I just wanted off.

“Don’t you ever get tired of it, Lisette?”

“Tired of what?”

“Tormenting me, taking my stuff. You even take stuff you don’t need, like my glasses, or makeup that’s the wrong color for you. Doesn’t it ever get old?”

“Does it get old living in my house with my father?”

Lisette awaited my answer, even though she was sure she knew it. I surprised her.

“Yeah. Yes, it gets really old. If it was up to me, I’d move out and leave you to him. You don’t care about Dad anyway, and we have no relationship left. There’s nothing in it for me.”

She did look surprised. “Nothing? A big house, nice clothes?”

“Are overrated compared to pride. Maybe I used to be spoiled, but I’m not anymore. It’s who you are that’s important.”

“And who are you, Emma?” Her blue eyes, piercing as the snake’s, met mine.

“I’m someone who works hard at school, who’s nice to my mother, and who is loyal and has integrity. I’m someone who’s going to be fine as soon as I get the hell away from you. Who are you, Lisette?”

She laughed. “God, you’re so lame. I’m loyal, blah, blah, blah.”

“I have homework, Lisette.” Much as I feared turning my back on her, I did. I stuck my finger into Ralph’s cage. He cowered in fright.

“I could have him, you know, that guy of yours. I could have him, if I wanted.”

I shrugged and didn’t look at her. Obviously, she wanted me to beg her to leave Warner alone. “But do you want him, Lisette? I mean, you’ve won, haven’t you? Do you really need to torture me, like a cat with a mouse?”

Or are you more like a snake who swallows the mouse alive?

“You’re right. He’s probably not worth my time. I mean, he’s a total geek with those freckles.” She brushed past me to Ralph’s cage. “Isn’t that the mouse that disappeared from Fischer’s classroom?”

“Yeah. You going to rat me out?” I smirked, realizing the unintentional pun.

“Of course not. I love animals. I’d never want this little guy to be fed to a big, hungry snake.”

She reached over and unlatched Ralph’s cage, then stuck her hand in. The mouse, who had been hyper and frantic every time I touched him, became still upon seeing Lisette’s hand. Then, he hopped into it.

“Aw,” she said. “What a cutie.”

The mouse nuzzled her finger. Even the mouse loved her.

A minute later, she put Ralph back inside. She shut the cage door and left without saying a word.

My cell phone tone signaled that I had a text. I picked it up.

It was from Warner:

HAD FUN TODAY. LOOKING FORWARD TO SAT NITE
.

I texted back:

ME TOO
.

3

The search for the missing mouse fizzled pretty quickly. Turned out most people at school liked mice better than snakes, so they weren’t too upset about the escape. Ms. Meinbach considered having the paper write an article about the jailbreak, but she decided against it. It wasn’t news if no one cared.

Still, I was impressed that Lisette hadn’t turned me in. Maybe she really did like animals.

I had other things to worry about, like my date with Warner Saturday.

He was taking me to a party at the home of Brendan Webb, a guy who went to our school but was way too cool to notice me. “We were best friends when we were kids,” Warner explained.

“Sounds fun.” I tried to pretend that it did, in fact, sound fun. It didn’t. I hadn’t liked parties since people stopped having skating parties in seventh grade. There were too many people at them, too many opportunities to mess up. I didn’t even know what you did at a high school party. If movies were any indication, you got drunk, got molested or arrested, had drugs put into your drink, got pregnant, or jumped off the roof.