Seriously Wicked (17 page)

Whoever he was, he waggled his fingers and grinned cheekily at me. “Four more to go,” he said.

*   *   *

I booked it to Celestial Foods. Grabbed the ever-growing list of ingredients for various spells off the metal shelves, panting. I had no idea how many oysters or eggplant the demon-loosening spell needed so I grabbed a tin of the former and ten of the latter. I desperately wanted a new jar of peanut butter so I could eat some lunch, but I didn’t have enough change. As it was I had to put one of the eggplants back.

“Another trip for your aunt?” said Celeste. Her wooden hippie necklaces clacked reassuringly as she leaned over to scan my produce. It was a homey sound.

“The weary grind never ceases,” I joked.

Celeste studied the display screen while sliding my grocery items across her scanner. “I suppose things change all the time,” she said casually. “You know, back when Alphonse was at Hal Headley they had half an hour lunch breaks.”

“Oh?” I said. I had no idea where she was going with this.

“Well, you know my boy. He’s always been an activist, always taking up someone’s cause. At that time they didn’t have a vegetarian option in the cafeteria, except for a pathetic salad bar containing wilted lettuce and soggy veg. Can you imagine?” She shook her head, graying ringlets bobbing.

“No,” I said. “They’ve got several options now. Every day.”

“That’s all Alphonse,” Celeste said proudly. “He didn’t have all sorts of time, because he helped me after school for an hour and a half each day, and he had his homework. So he had to balance school and helping his mum just like you do. But he took part of his lunch break every single day to work on it. He researched what other cafeterias across the States were doing. He took polls of students. He blogged about it. He made friends with the cafeteria workers and got their input. It was nobody’s idea but his own. It was something he was passionate about and he spent all his spare time doing it.”

“That’s cool,” I said. I didn’t know what she was getting at but I liked hearing stories of her family. “Go Alphonse.”

Celeste handed me my bag of ingredients. “I hope your aunt appreciates everything you do for her,” she said.

*   *   *

I barely made it to American history and yet another scintillating video. I tuned out and tried to decipher what Celeste was trying to say with her Alphonse anecdote. That she appreciated him? That she let him live his own life? Certainly she thought the world of Alphonse, even when they disagreed. I knew she hated the dangerous tactics he and his friends used. She was terrified that he would come to harm. But at the same time she was proud of him for standing up for his beliefs. It must be hard to be a mom in those gray situations, where nothing was black-and-white, and nobody was 100 percent right or 100 percent wrong.

I didn’t know. It was so hard to concentrate on anything without lunch. I was so hungry I was seriously starting to think about eating the spell ingredients.

By gym I was so desperate for food that I ate an airline cracker pack I found squashed at the bottom of my backpack. I shoved my feet into my gym shorts and hurried out to see if Zombie Reese had made it to gym class.

Reese was cross-eyed, but she was there. We were still doing track, so even Zombie Reese could handle a slow jog around the track, telling all her friends, “He kissed me.” They swooned.

I guess I was wrong that people would notice.

Reese jogged next to me for a while in happy cross-eyed silence. I’d been pissed at her this morning, but it’s impossible to be angry at a blissful zombie. At least she’d been taken in by a punk-band demon and not a pelvis-shaking demon.

“Soooo. How’re the plans for the dance going?” I said through my panting. “The Halloween Dance Committee has everything under control?”

“Dunno,” Reese said.

“Blue Crush still the band of choice?” I said.

“That’s Devon’s band,” she said.

“I know,” I said. It was hard to talk to zombies. “What do you want to do with your life?”

“Kiss Devon,” she said.

That sounded like a hope and a dream to me, if a dumb one. “Do you remember what you used to want to do?” I said.

Reese looked up at the sky and stumbled a bit. “Um,” she said. “Be a kindergarten teacher?”

“But now?”

“Kiss Devon,” she said firmly.

“I hear you,” I said.

“You want to kiss Devon, too?”

“Look, have you thought about this?” I said. “Maybe what you think you want isn’t really what you want. Maybe what you want is just someone else telling you that that’s what you want. And what you
really
want is buried so deep that it’s hard to figure it out. You can barely remember what you want, because other people’s needs and wants are so squashed on top of it.”

“They are?”

I wiped sweat from my forehead. “You spend all your life reacting to what this other person wants of you,” I said. The words bubbled up from the deep, a carbonated explosion. “Fulfilling their needs and helping them, or stopping them, but either way it’s all about
them
. When is it going to be about you?
You’ve
got to ask the questions in life.
New
questions. ‘Where are
my
hopes and dreams?’ Do you know what I mean, Reese?” The words tore through and out of me until I felt empty, exhausted with the effort.

Or maybe that was the jogging.

“That cloud looks like Devon,” said Reese.

I stopped dead in the path and grabbed her shoulder. “Is that him down there?”

Reese squealed and ran down the hill in the direction I’d pointed. There was a boy at the bottom of the hill with a younger girl, one I didn’t know. I hurried behind Reese as she plowed down the hill and smacked full stop into Devon, wrapping her arms around him. I skidded on the wet grass and almost fell into both of them, but I stumbled back against the side of the hill instead, muddying my butt and hands.

The other girl reeled away. Her eyes were crossed.

“He kissed me,” she said.

“He kissed you?” said Reese.

“He kissed me,” said the other girl.

This could get tedious. “Reese, you need to finish jogging,” I said. I tried to brush off my gym shorts but the mud and grass smeared the shiny polyester. “And you, what class should you be in right now?”

“Computer Programming Three,” the girl said.

“So you like software?” I said. “You want to be a hacker? You’re clever with code? It’s your whole life, right? All the hopes and dreams you have are centered around computers?”

“I like him,” she said. “He kissed me.”

“Yes, we know. Both of you, scoot.” I pried Reese from Devon and shoved both girls up the hill. Luckily, they didn’t seemed inclined to fight. I just heard them informing each other that they’d been kissed as they wobbled up the hill.

I turned back to Devon, but he was gone. Vanished, and I think literally. All that was left was an echo of a voice saying, “Two down.”

Hells.

I trudged up the steep slope to the end of gym class and the showers. What was I supposed to do, quarantine all the girls in school until I could get Devon into a pentagram? I pulled my list out of my backpack and made some notes.

•
Solve Ye Olde Demon-Loosening Spell (MOST IMPORTANT)*****

•
Get demon-loosening ingredients and self-defense ingredients

•
Retake algebra test

•
Figure out how the demon is planning to steal “the
hopes and dreams of five”

•
Figure out why Devon is hanging out with Reese and
her blue bra

•
Trap Devon in a pentagram

Well, there was one thing I could do now. When the bell rang, I crammed my muddy gym clothes in my bag, went straight to Rourke’s classroom, and laid it out for him.

“Mr. Rourke,” I said. “About the test I bombed…?”

“Work your session with my tutor this afternoon and I’ll let you retake it tomorrow. This once. And don’t think you’re getting away with anything. I know you were an A student in math last year, so I assume there’s hope for you.” Rourke chugged the last of a two-liter and tossed the bottle in the trash can.

“Right.” I twisted my fingers and wondered if it would’ve done any good to buy Rourke a bottle of root beer. “So Kelvin’s a really good tutor. After he explained it yesterday I really got it. I went home and worked.” A few problems plus a self-defense spell was work. “I may be a bit slow, but … I’d like to take that test now.” The thought made me nervous, but I hoped my show of confidence would convince Rourke to let me get this situation over with.

“Right now,” said Rourke. “
Really
.” He grabbed another two-liter and thoughtfully twisted the cap back and forth, loosening it in tiny
crack-crack
s. “This would be your only chance.”

“Once you understand that algebra’s logical, then it’s just working through the steps,” I said. “Even with word problems.”

“A plodding approach, but true enough,” conceded Visible Undershirt. “All right then. Your gumption hurts no one but yourself.”

Rourke handed me a new test from a locked drawer and I sat down at my desk. There was a moment of panic—why did I think this would be a good idea?—but then I stopped. Swallowed.

Compared to a self-defense spell written by a paranoid witch who added in seven extra ingredients and used jokes about body parts to solve steps, algebra was nothing.

Step.

By.

Step.

*   *   *

I didn’t get 100 percent, though probably if I were a boy-free nun on a witch-free island with three days to take the test, I could have. There was one problem where I suddenly forgot how to add exponents, and another where I added six and seven and got eleven. As you do. Long and short of it, I got a 91 percent. I was bummed when Rourke said he was going to average it with my 61 percent, but then he didn’t completely. He gave me an 81 percent and said next time to ask for the tutor before I got behind. Then he offered me a celebratory root beer in a paper cup.

When I went out into the hallway, swigging my root beer, Kelvin was standing stiffly across the hall, watching Rourke’s door. He was in his trench coat and it made him look like a poker-faced giant.

“Kelvin!” I said. “You’re seriously the best. I got an A.”

“I was only the catalyst to remind you that you could do it,” Kelvin said. “The Post-it note on the refrigerator of your brain.”

“Step. By. Step,” I said. I slugged his arm. “You should totally become a math teacher. You got the chops and you’ll have all the root beer you can drink.”

“Mmm, root beer and chops,” said Kelvin.

“Okay, look,” I said. “I have one more favor to ask you. I’ll pay you the usual and I don’t need it till tomorrow, but it absolutely truly has to be goat’s and not cow’s blood. Can I get one ounce from you?”

Kelvin swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing into his trench collar. He closed his eyes and he said, “Will you go to the dance with me?”

My heart sunk into my belly.

Looking back, I guess I should’ve known.

I should’ve known, right? You probably saw it coming a mile off. But I had no idea. When you’re focused on another boy, this kind of thing happens.

And then you feel awful.

“Kelvin…” I said. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

His eyes were still closed. “Then no goat’s blood.”

I touched his arm and he flinched. “You don’t really want to trade a dance for goat’s blood, do you?”

Kelvin opened his eyes and deadpan he said, “It’s fitting for a Halloween dance.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “I’m kinda going with someone else,” I said.

“Who?”

“Devon.”

“The one who’s been kissing all those girls?” he said.

“Well. Yes. It’s not entirely his fault.”

Lines furrowed Kelvin’s brow. “Love is not logical,” he said in his robot voice.

“I think you’re nice,” I said, which I know is a totally unhelpful thing to say. “Maybe we could, um, eat lunch together some time. Please, can you get me the goat’s blood, though? I really am desperate for it.”

“Not desperate enough to break your date with Romeo Lothario Especialo.” Kelvin shoved his hands in his trench pockets. “I’m tired of being the helpful guy.”

“Now wait, I always pay you,” I said. “That’s not a favor, that’s a business transaction. And how did I know you were Rourke’s algebra tutor? That’s something you must have volunteered for a whole month ago.”

He didn’t say anything to that, just looked at the tiled ceiling, lips set in a thin stubborn line. Fleetingly, I wondered if I’d let slip earlier in the school year that I was having algebra problems.

“Gah!” I said. “You want me to break my date? Fine, I’ll break it. If that’s the only way to get the supplies I need. But I think it’s a lousy way to get a girl to go out with you.”

His wide face kind of trembled and he looked too embarrassed to speak. He grabbed his backpack and lurched away from me. “You never know when I’m joking,” he said in his robot voice. “World never knows. World not understand robot Kelvin.”

“You were joking?” I said. I wasn’t sure if it was really true, but I wanted to believe it. “Thank goodness. So we’re cool and you’ll bring the goat’s blood?”

He backed down the hall. “No more goats. Goats die of pig flu. This transaction is finished.”

“Kelvin!” I said.

But he turned and ran.

13

Kiss Me

This is what I did Thursday evening while all the other kids in my school did homework and watched TV and texted each other and practiced violin and wrote poems and goofed off and painted self-portraits and leveled up and played basketball and practiced their stand-up and stared cross-eyed at their ceiling saying, “He kissed me.”

I combed the garden for one earwig and four dandelion roots.

What I first did in the afternoon was take care of Wulfie and Moonfire, and then I sat down to solve the demon-loosening spell. But as soon as I started copying out the list of things I knew, I saw at the bottom that if the dandelion root was used, it must be gathered before the sun went down. So back outside I went to grab it before the sun set.