The Popularity Spell (10 page)

Plus, there's something more important to think about right now.

A hex.

I
hold up the voodoo box to build the excitement. I open it and lift the doll over my head with a dramatic wave of my arms, singing, “Bom-bom-BOMMMMM!” like in a preview for an action movie.

Sam does not appear impressed. Her mind is on something else, I can tell.

“I wonder if there's a way to make this charm work even better,” she says. “The farts were awesome, but what if we could do something…”

“Bigger?” I suggest, knowing that the email from Uncle Arnie is going to help us do exactly that.

“Yeah! Something that would go down in the history of Friendship Community School.”

“Well, I've got something huge to show you! My uncle sent me an email. It's sort of a recipe—”

“A recipe for what?” Samantha cuts me off. She always likes to know things right away. No waiting for Sam.

“To make your hex better,” I tell her. Without asking, she leans over and turns on my computer. Computers are pretty private things, but when we're sisters we'll share things all the time, so I guess it's no big deal.

“Well, that sounds interesting.” Sam goes straight to my email in-box and clicks on the message from Uncle Arnie. It's the first time she's seen him, and she jumps back from the computer. “Whoa! Is that your uncle?” Sam asks. “He looks crazy.”

I'm getting used to Uncle Arnie, but to a person seeing him for the first time, I would have to agree.

“Is that the recipe?” Sam asks, pointing at the paper. I nod. “Why did he send a picture of it instead of typing it out?”

I sigh. “With Uncle Arnie, who knows?”

“So what does it say?”

I blow up the photo so we can read it more clearly. The instructions are in an old-fashioned-looking font.

Increase the strength and vibrancy of your hex quickly and easily with three simple ingredients! Take your Positive Happy Voodoo Doll and dip it in vinegar, wheatgrass juice, or an equally unpleasant liquid. Roll your doll in cinnamon and steel-cut oats. Place your doll back in its box and hide it in darkness until your spell comes to fruition. Have fun hexing!

“So, are we trying it?” I ask Sam.

“Of course we're trying it! Do you have any of that stuff?”

“Probably. Or something close.” I'm already up on my feet and heading toward my door. “Let's go.”

Sam and I walk down the hallway toward the kitchen. Dad and Sam's mom are sitting in their same seats at the table, not saying anything. It's weird that it's so quiet. If Terri were here, there would probably be some music on, and she and Dad would be singing or laughing. But those are the kinds of things friends do. Dad and Paige are acting more like adults. Maybe that's a good sign. Maybe when you're busy falling in love, you don't have to talk too much.

“Hey, Dad, do we have any vinegar?” I ask. They both look startled by the interruption.

“That's a strange dessert,” Dad says, and looks at Paige. She laughs loudly, but it sounds sort of fake. If Dad keeps saying dumb things like that, she's never going to like him.

“Ummm, no, it's not for dessert, it's for—ummm…”

Sam jumps in with, “Our science experiments!”

“Oh, great,” Dad says. “I'm not sure, but check in the cabinets over by the fridge.”

“Near the cinnamon?” Sam asks.

“What kind of experiment
is
this?” Dad asks, but I say I'll tell him some other time. Now I'm on the hunt as Sam watches. I find the cinnamon easily because I love cinnamon toast on the weekends. I don't know exactly what steel-cut oats are, but on our breakfast shelf are packets of oatmeal, the kind where you add hot water and suddenly have a meal. I'm sure that's close enough. I grab one of those and bury my head farther into the cabinet. I push things around and knock over a few items, but I don't see any bottles of vinegar or anything else unpleasant-tasting.

When I turn around to tell Sam, I can't believe what I see.

She's holding an open bottle of wine (this one's red, not yellow like pee) and pouring some of it into a cup! I look at her in shock, but she makes a “shhh” mouth at me. She quietly puts the bottle back on the kitchen counter and holds the cup down low. “I think we've got everything we need,” she whispers, keeping her back to her mom and my dad.

Now we have to walk right past them with Samantha holding wine. But for once I get a brilliant idea. Toby is sitting under the table between Dad and Paige, waiting for scraps of food that he doesn't realize are already in the trash. “Toby, Toby, Toby!” I shout, and he jumps up instantly, barking back at me. He tries to run but he can't get through the adults' legs that are like prison bars between us.

“Oh, Cleo, why did you get him all riled up?” Dad asks. He and Paige both have their attention on the dog pushing against their legs under the table as Samantha slips past holding the wine.

“Sorry, Dad. He looked bored.”

“Hush, doggy, hush,” Sam's mom is saying to Toby, but that's not a command he understands. We'll have to turn her into a dog person when she joins our family.

Sam's already out of the dining room and is zooming down the hallway to my bedroom. I follow her, holding the oatmeal packet and cinnamon tin, saying “sorry” again to Dad as I go.

When I get to my room, I close the door behind me, relieved but laughing. When Sam and I are sisters, we'll sneak around and make up pranks and do this kind of stuff all the time.

“That was fun!” Sam says.

“I can't believe you poured their wine!”

She takes a big sniff of it. “Well, it smells unpleasant, like your uncle wanted. Come on, let's get hexing before our parents decide they're done.”

Our parents. It definitely sounds nice.

I find my science notebook and fish out the V.I.H.—very important hair—from the plastic folder. I wind the real hair around the yarn hair and look at the doll. I feel bad that he's going to be covered in wine and cinnamon and oatmeal, but I pick him up and take him to Sam, who's still holding the wine. The cup is too small to fit the whole doll inside, so I dunk him up to his tutu.

“My turn, my turn,” Sam insists. I hand her the doll, dripping some wine on the floor. I grab the closest piece of paper I see. Unfortunately it's one of my unfinished Pandaroo drawings, but it's all I can find, so I place it over the red spots on the floor.

“Hold the doll over the paper,” I say as she hands me the cup. She dunks his head and shoulders in, dripping even more wine on my drawing.

“Let's put the other ingredients on your picture and roll it around on there,” Sam suggests. Since it already has spots of wine on it, what's the difference if we make an even bigger mess? Dry oatmeal flakes join Pandaroo as he flies around in space; then I add a few dashes of cinnamon “for flavor,” I joke. Sam and I each take a turn rolling the doll in the mess, our fingers turning red from the wine.

We leave the doll on the paper and sit on either side of him. Since we hope Madison will say nicer things when her personality changes, Sam decides to put the pin on the doll's mouth. I set my cell phone's timer for five minutes. We don't want to risk concentrating for too short a time when we want this charm to be even bigger and better—and getting Madison to be nice is a major goal. From far down the hallway I hear the sound of dishes being washed and Dad talking to Samantha's mom. Then I remember I need to focus. It's hard to imagine Madison being nice, but I think about how the girl in the bathroom said “see you around.” That's all Madison would need to do. No more piggy and clown comments; no more sneering and making faces. I think about how amazing it'll be if this hex works like the last one. Everyone in school will be so excited, and if they ever found out Sam and I were behind it, they'd laugh and joke and be our friends forever. Not that I really
need
any more friends besides Samantha—she's the best—but now that I've experienced over five hours of popularity, I know that a few more friends would be a positive addition to my life.

I realize I need to concentrate more on Madison, and I do. Then the alarm goes off and we're finished. I feel a little uncertain, but when I look at Samantha, her eyes are wide and happy, as if she's saying
“This is going to be awesome.”

The doll is still dripping with wine, so we roll him up in my Pandaroo picture, which is big enough to wrap around him a few times. We put the doll in his box and tuck him away back under my bed. We rush to the bathroom with the cup of wine after glancing down the hallway to make sure no one's coming.

The wine smells like dirt and looks like blood as it goes down the drain. Why would anyone want to drink that? We wash our hands; then I wipe off the sink and we run back to my room to pretend like we've been doing other stuff the whole time. I get Millie out of his terrarium, and though Samantha is nervous at first, she lets him crawl across her arm.

That's when her mom knocks and, without waiting, walks in. She gasps when she sees my wormy buddy crawling up her daughter. “What's that?” she asks, shocked.

“Millipede,” we both say.

“His name's Millie. He's for my science project. I'm showing him to the class on Monday,” I add, but she doesn't look interested.

“Is that…
smell
coming from it?” she asks, her nose all wrinkled.

“No, that's from his food. He eats fruits and vegetables and he likes them best when they're rotted,” I tell her.

She takes a breath and then sips from her almost-empty wine glass. “O…kay. Well, Sam, please take that…
thing
off your body, then go to the bathroom and wash your arm. Thoroughly. I mean it. Use hot water. But don't dawdle. It's way past your bedtime, and mine too. So get your things and come out and thank Mr. Nelson again for the lovely dinner he made us.”

“Okay, Mom,” Sam replies without whining at all, and heads right to our bathroom.

We all say goodbye at the front door. Paige says how nice it was to see us and gives Dad a hug. Dad looks surprised but hugs her back and says we'll have to do it again soon.

They must be falling in love already!

“Bye, sister,” Sam says with a wink.

“Bye, sis,” I say. I like the sound of it. A lot.

I
'm nervous going to school on Monday for a whole bunch of reasons. (1) I didn't practice my science presentation very well at all. I forgot about it all day Saturday and I only did it in my head when I was in bed on Sunday night. Then I fell asleep halfway through. (2) Now that Samantha's mom mentioned it, I've noticed how smelly Millie's box really is. Maybe I should have chosen a lovable animal that would make Madison and her friends say “awww” or “kewwwwt” instead of “ick” and “ugh.” (3) I'm worried about the hex. I'm sure it will work. The only question is when. And how?

I walk into the classroom and, as I predicted, my terrarium does not go unnoticed.

“Ewww,” sneers Madison. “Did you forget to put on deodorant today, Cleo?”

“I don't
wear
deodorant!” I bark at her, though right away I wish I could take it back. Dad says deodorant is for twelve years old and up, unless I start stinking sooner, which I haven't. But I didn't need to
say
it—out
loud
—to Madison and her friends.

“Oh, we can tell!” Lisa Lee says, grinning at Madison. Kylie Mae, her blue eyes staring at nothing, nods like usual. That's no life.

“It's not me, it's my millipede,” I say, holding up the box, but I'm already realizing I'm not going to win this one. Things are back to normal at Friendship Community School. Samantha and I didn't concentrate on how long our popularity would last, and now I'm sure it's over.

Luckily that's when Samantha comes in and stands next to me, straight and proud, glaring at Madison. “Yeah, Cleo's got the coolest millipede in the world and she's going to do a killer presentation today—with lots of other surprises!”

“I'll be surprised if I don't pass out from the smell,” Madison says. Then Kevin shouts for us all to sit down, so we don't get to say anything else. I'm glad I have Samantha, though; I never know the right thing to say. Obviously.

When science class starts, Kevin calls on Scabby Larry to go first. He holds up a big piece of cardboard with a black-and-white picture of an old guy on it—a guy who kind of looks like Uncle Arnie. His hair is whiter, but it's fuzzy like Uncle Arnie's and standing straight up. This guy doesn't have Uncle Arnie's scruffy beard, but he does have a mustache. Plus he's sticking his tongue out—something I can definitely picture Uncle Arnie doing.

“This is Albert Einstein,” Scabby Larry says. Wow. I know Albert Einstein is a famous old scientist, so I didn't expect him to look like a kook. “You've probably heard of him, but you might not know that he changed the way we look at matter.”

Matter, according to Scabby Larry, is really just “stuff,” and he says matter never really goes away; it only changes form and becomes something else. Scabby Larry is actually pretty smart and interesting sometimes. I kind of wish Samantha liked him more—maybe he could even be a friend—but I don't think I could ever change her mind about him.

As Scabby Larry continues talking about energy and the speed of light, there's some noise behind me. A chair scrapes on the floor, and I hear a loud, high
woo-woo
squeal. Everyone turns, and Kevin sits up in his seat like my dad does when he's falling asleep watching TV. “What's going on back there?” he asks.

Madison suddenly jumps out of her seat, and her screaming gets higher and louder. What I hear next is something I
do not
want to hear. Madison, her face all scrunched-up and red, screams, “Cleo's worm!”

Now
I
jump out of my seat. Millie's box is on its side! There's dirt and grass on the floor, and Millie is nowhere to be seen! Madison is bouncing around wildly. She could step on Millie and kill him if she's not more careful!

“Stop jumping!” I shout. “He's just a millipede! He's not gonna hurt you!”

“It's gross! Gross, gross, gross!” Madison's batting her hair with both hands. “Did I get it out? Is it out?” she screams to Lisa and Kylie, who both run away to the corner of the room. Then it hits me.

Millie is in Madison's perfect hair! I have no idea how he could have gotten up there, but I don't have time to care about that because I don't want Madison to hurt him! I run to Madison, shouting, “Stop hitting yourself! I'll get him out!”

Madison is breathing heavily and saying “Oh my God” over and over again. I tell her to calm down and I touch a section of her perfect, silky hair, now slightly messy because she was hitting it all around. I hold on to her hair with one hand and gently pick Millie out with the other. “Are you okay?” I ask Millie, using one finger to pet his back so he won't be too upset. He's curled himself up in a ball like millipedes do when they're in trouble.

“Is
it
okay? What the
bleep
are you talking about?” screams Madison. But she doesn't say “bleep.” “Kevin! This is
bleepity bleep
ridiculous!
Bleepy
Cleo, and
bleepity bloop blap bleep
your worm!”

I almost start to cry. “He's not a worm, and don't talk about him like that,” I say, backing up to take Millie to my seat where he'll be safe. Kevin walks over to Madison, but she doesn't calm down—at all. Now the
bleeps
are coming even faster and longer, and some of the
bleeps
I've never even heard before, but I can tell they're curse words by how everyone in the room is acting. Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae are huddled together in the corner, and I swear their mouths are so wide open that a hummingbird could fly right inside.

Madison is now hopping around like a Mexican jumping bean and batting her hair like Millie's still in there. Her
bleeps
keep coming, but it's not like when I pigged out and Terri said the bad word; Madison is serious and loud and not stopping anytime soon.

Kevin talks to her in a slow, calm voice, puts his hand on her shoulder, and starts guiding her toward the door. “Come on,” he says, “let's go call your parents.” As they leave, Kevin tells us to put our heads down on our desks and be quiet until he gets back. I bet none of us have done that since we were in kindergarten, but we all do it, slowly, until he and Madison can't be seen anymore. Then everybody's head comes up and they start nervously talking about what just happened. Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae stay in the corner with sour looks on their faces. Some evil henchwomen they are, running away when Madison needed them. Everything is pretty quiet until Scabby Larry says loudly, “That was even better than the farts!” and almost everybody laughs.

I can't laugh, though. What we just saw wasn't funny; it was freaky. Too freaky. My face is hot and I feel sick to my stomach. My body is all tight and nervous, like something even worse is going to happen. Madison definitely wasn't acting nicer—she was doing the opposite, for sure—but I still have a creepy feeling it had something to do with our voodoo.

While Kevin is gone with Madison, kids in class take turns standing guard near the door. As I'm cleaning up the dirt and grass on the floor near Madison's desk, I hear Kylie Mae and Lisa Lee whispering about how they've never heard Madison say any of those words before in their lives, and maybe they don't know her like they thought they did. Samantha's on guard and she hisses to everyone that Kevin's coming back, so we all run to our chairs and put our heads back down on our desks.

Kevin tells us to lift our heads and everyone does, looking like a bunch of little angels in a classroom in heaven. He says there won't be any more presentations today, since our science period is over. We'll start them again tomorrow. “Cleo,” he says, “it might be better if you did your presentation tomorrow without your worm.”

“It's a millipede!” I'm getting tired of everyone calling Millie a worm, and if I could do my presentation right now I could make them understand.

“Right, right, right. I think it's for the best, though, Cleo. Don't worry, it won't affect your grade. I can see you're very passionate about your millipede and I'm sure your classmates will benefit from a great presentation.” He gives me a sympathetic look and a nod, and I feel better. Then Kevin turns to the class. “Let's get out your history books; we're going to talk about the Emancipation Proclamation today….”

But he's interrupted—by Samantha! “Kevin,” she says with a sweetness in her voice that doesn't sound normal. “What happened to Madison?” That's Samantha—not afraid to ask the thing everyone in class wants to know.

Kevin takes a big breath, then tells us that he took Madison to Frederick's office, and Frederick called her parents to take her home. He says she's going to need a “rest” and won't be coming back to school until next week at least. I don't know if that's code for getting in trouble, or what. But later, as we're sitting in our usual spot under the jungle gym, Samantha says, “It looked like a nervous breakdown to me.”

“What's that?”

“It's when someone freaks out and they have to go away and spend time with a psychiatrist or psychologist or somebody.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Maybe,” Samantha says. “But who cares? She may not be any nicer, but at least she can't be mean to us when she's not in school. And that's nice for us!”

“So maybe it did work,” I say…but I'm not happy about it like Sam. “Isn't it weird, though? Madison became a completely different person. That wasn't what we meant to do.” Maybe the voodoo doll got things a little confused. But if that's the case, it scares me. We couldn't have predicted that the hex would turn out this way. “It didn't seem like she could control it. And I think we're the ones who did it to her.”

“I'm sure we did!” Sam says. “You should be more excited!”

I force a smile and tell her I'll try to be. But inside, I know that's going to be hard.

At the end of the day, Samantha's already gone home and I'm standing on the sidewalk at the edge of school, holding Millie's terrarium and waiting for Dad to pick me up. I'm about to text Sam, just for something to do, when I hear an adult's voice coming toward me—a mean one. “Do you understand how inconvenient this is for me, Madison?” a man says. “I had a meeting with one of my investors in Beverly Hills, and I had to drive all the way out here because your mother insisted we do this together. Do you know what traffic is
like
at this time of day?”

“I'm sorry, Dad.” It sounds like Madison's been crying. I hate hearing that kind of sound in
anyone's
voice, even hers.

“You should be!” a lady says. That must be her mother.

They sound close, and I don't want to be seen. I back up slowly, one step at a time, until I'm smashed between two overgrown rosebushes. Even through my T-shirt and jeans, the prickers of the roses poke at me like pointy little voodoo pins.

They're walking quickly as they pass me, Mr. and Mrs. Paddington in front with Madison trailing behind them. They don't notice me at all. But I can see them perfectly and hear everything they're saying. Madison's mom is wearing a white sweater and short skirt like she should be playing tennis. Her legs are dark orange and don't quite match her face. And her blond hair looks like a marshmallow Peep at Easter—yellow and poofy and perfect, but not in a normal human way like Madison's. She must go to the hairdresser every day.

They get to their big, clean, fancy car, which is parked close by. Too close. I squeeze back even farther into the roses. It hurts, but I turn to my side so there's less of me to see.

“Everything you've wanted, we've provided!” Madison's dad is saying, but it's more like yelling. “What was it first, Heather? Acting lessons?”

“Acting lessons, then ballet, then tap.”

“
You
wanted me to do ballet,” Madison says.

“Well, what's the point of being in the business if you can't dance
and
act? And you need to sing! She said she was too busy reading! Reading those big giant books she likes. Henry, she wouldn't even
try
singing lessons.”