The Popularity Spell (14 page)

B
efore Kevin even tells us to get out our homework, there's a knock at the classroom door. It's Andrea, the principal's secretary. She hands a note to Kevin, who reads it and then turns to me! “Cleo, your presence is requested in the principal's office.”

“Why? What did I do?”

Kevin doesn't know. “Maybe it's an important message from home or something. Follow Andrea to the office, please.”

Andrea walks way ahead of me, I bet to avoid my smell. When we get to Frederick's office, I stand in the doorway.

“Come in, Cleo,” he says from behind his desk. I take a step inside. That's when I see three people sitting on some chairs to my right.

Madison, her dad, and her mom.

Now I'm worried. What am I doing here? Did they figure out that I did hexes on her? Why just me and not Samantha too?

“Cleo, go ahead and sit down,” Frederick tells me. “You know Madison,” he says.

Duh,
I think, but of course I don't say it. Madison and I nod at each other.

“Madison is coming back to school today, but I wanted her to talk to you first.”

“
And
he wanted to have her parents here,” Madison's dad says rudely. I don't know why he's mad at me. I didn't ask him to come.

“I've asked Madison to say a few words to you before she goes back to class,” Frederick says.

Madison looks over at me and turns her chair a little. It makes a loud scraping sound that makes me jump.

“Ummm, well, Cleo…,” she starts slowly.

“Madison, I have a meeting at ten over in Santa Monica and traffic is brutal,” her dad says. “Please don't draw this out.”

Madison takes a breath and looks like she's thinking for a second. “I'm sorry, Cleo.”

Wow. I don't know what to say. One word does fall out of my mouth, though. “Why?”

“I've been mean to you since you got to our school,” Madison says.

“Unfair, not nice,” Madison's mom whispers.

“I know, Mom,” Madison whines; then she turns back to look at me. “It was unfair and not nice. I had a lot of time to think while I was away from school, and I'm going to be nicer to you from now on. It's not your fault that you're new and you don't have the coolest clothes or friends. You can't help it.”

Well, she
is
right about all those things.

“I'm not going to say bad things about you anymore. And I'm sorry.”

She's
sorry? This is crazy. I'm sorry for
her
! She farted up a storm in Focus! and then went crazy in science class, all because she said I had a clown's name and made a bunch of piggy jokes about me. She missed almost two weeks of school, and she had to stay home with her unpleasant and overtanned parents. And now, she's being nice. Maybe she's being forced to do it, but she's actually being nice.

It took a while—a week and a half, to be exact—but now I know for sure: the hex worked! So if I manage to really get a piece of Terri's hair this time, and Samantha and I concentrate and focus super seriously, we'll be able to get Terri away from Dad for real. Then we'll all be happy and we won't even have to do hexes anymore because life will finally be perfect. Everything can go back to the way it used to be before Terri—except for one extra-awesome addition: Sam will be my sister! I'm so full of positive juju that I want to jump out of my chair!

“So Madison is going to make the same apology in front of the class today,” Frederick is telling me. I wasn't even paying attention, but I use one of Roberta's Focus! tips and try to fill in the blanks of what he was saying.

“You mean Madison is going to say the same kind of thing she just said to me? To the whole class?” I ask.

“Yes, that's what he just said,” Mr. Paddington says in a jerky tone of voice.

“Oh, she doesn't have to do that.” She's been through enough, having to stay home with that dad for more than a week. Plus, she's given me the best gifts of all time—more proof that voodoo works and the chance to have Samantha as my sister. Eventually.

“Cleo, are you sure?” asks Frederick. “We want to put this all behind us, once and for all. If that means Madison needs to apologize in front of the whole class, she will do it.”

Madison looks at me with an expression I've never seen on her face before. Not snotty. Not scowling. She looks like she's making a wish. Like she's hopeful.

“I'm sure,” I say. “I'm okay with her if she's okay with me.”

Madison smiles—the first nice one I've ever seen. “I'm okay,” she says.

Frederick stands up. “Then I suppose we're done here.”

“Thank God!” Mr. Paddington says loudly as he gets out of his chair, which makes a louder noise than Madison's did. He walks out the door without even saying goodbye to Madison. Her mom follows but turns around.

“Bye, honey,” she says, leaning down to give Madison a kiss on the cheek. “You did that really well. I'll have Sonia make a special snack for you at home.” As her clicking heels get quieter in the distance, I hear one more comment from her.

“What was that
smell
?”

Ha! I almost forgot about my skunking. Well, at least I made Heather and Henry Paddington sit in a room with me and suck it all in! I hope they take the stink home with them.

Frederick calls for Andrea to take me and Madison back to class. Madison and I walk next to each other but don't say anything. I go into the classroom first, and when Madison comes in after me, everyone gasps in surprise, even Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae. Didn't they know she was coming back today? They're her friends. If I had been out of school for over a week, you can bet Samantha would know when I was coming back.

“Welcome back, Madison,” Kevin says. “Please take your seats. We're in the middle of the math homework from last night. The assignment was emailed to you.”

I sit down. As Madison opens her backpack and pulls out her books, Sam gets my attention. I can tell she wants to know everything, but Kevin begins talking about fractions so she's going to have to wait. Inside, I laugh a little. It's kind of fun to know something she doesn't for once.

Over the next couple of days, Madison gets back into the school routine. I guess the only difference is that she doesn't call me a piggy or a clown. Sam thinks it's the coolest thing ever that Madison had to become nice and apologize to me, but she doesn't focus on that for long.

“You know what you're doing tonight?” she asks me Friday after school as we're waiting for our parents to pick us up.

“Dinner. Homework. Internet, I guess.”

“Nope!” Sam says, excited. “My mom and I are following you and your dad home, and we're going on a hike and having dinner and then we're going to figure out a way to hex Terri. For real this time. I mean, now that Madison is back and nice, we know the doll is really, truly working. We'll be sisters…who knows how soon?”

“Maybe by summer!”

“We could go on vacation together!” Sam says.

Though our charms have put me in close contact with bad things, like smelly skunkings and parents like the Paddingtons, when I picture a trip to a Mexican beach or Disneyland or Africa, where African millipedes come from, I'm ready to do our next one. Our last one and our best one.

It's hard to believe that Dad agreed to me and Samantha hanging out again, but when he pulls into the parking lot he shouts through his open window, “Hey, Cleo, are you ready for a fun night?”

“Yeah!” I say, getting in the car.

“Sam, do you know the way to our house from here?” Dad asks.

“I sure do, Mr. Nelson,” Samantha says with a super-sweet look on her face.

Sam and her mom get to our house a few minutes after we do. Paige walks in like a supermodel in her hot-pink zip-up hoodie and tight matching yoga pants. Dad asks me if I want to change into shorts before our hike, and before I answer, Sam interrupts. “Hey, Mr. Nelson? I was thinking on the way over here that maybe you and Mom could go on the hike by yourselves.”

I look at Sam, my mouth wide open.

“Cleo and I have a lot of stuff to do for school, and I'm sure we'd be okay on our own if you were only gone for an hour or two.”

Not only did Sam manage to create this date for Dad and Paige; she's getting us time to be on our own. She's so good at planning ahead. I need to focus on learning more from her.

“I don't know, Sam,” Dad says. “I've never left Cleo alone like that.”

“But she's not alone,” Sam says. “We're together. We both have phones and you're not going very far, right?”

Dad looks at Paige, who says, “As young as Samantha is, she benefits from a strong independent streak that will make her a formidable young woman.” I'm not sure what all that means, but I hope Paige lets me be independent and whatever formidable is when she's married to my dad! Paige keeps talking. “So maybe we take a short walk instead of a full hike…”

“And you can still go to dinner too!” Sam adds. “You can order food for me and Cleo.”

Dad and Sam's mom talk it over for a minute, and though Dad doesn't seem very sure, he eventually says YES! He calls our favorite Thai food place and asks for delivery, and leaves me money to pay. Before he and Paige leave, they give us a million other instructions: if anyone comes to the door, look through the peephole before answering…call one of them if we have a question…call 911 if it's life or death…tip the Thai delivery guy five dollars…blah blah blah. It's all pretty boring and stuff we already know, but I can't help but be excited because Dad's letting me stay alone—well, almost alone. When Sam and I are sisters, this will happen all the time!

Finally they tell us to be good, and they leave. I watch as they walk down the path to the garage, Paige's butt swinging from side to side in her hot-pink yoga pants.

“Woo-hoo, they're gone!” Samantha shouts, running down the hallway toward my bedroom, her arms shooting out in all directions. If a spaz contest were being held right now, she might actually beat me. “And I have a great idea!” Her sneakers squeak as she slides to a stop by the bathroom door and runs inside.

I follow, but before I get there, Sam steps back out holding a hairbrush. “Do you see what's in here?” she asks, pulling a clump of tangled hair out of the brush.

“Ewww,” I say, but that doesn't stop Sam from pulling strands of hair out of the clump one by one.

“Black hair,” she says, letting it fall to the ground. “Gray hair,” she says next, dropping it. It's followed by a black hair, another black hair, another gray hair…

I watch as Samantha finds the one hair she's looking for and tosses the brush back onto the counter. I look closely at her hand. She's pulled a piece of long red hair out of the clump, and now it's hanging between her fingers. “I don't think
this
is Toby's,” she says.

She's right again, of course. I wonder if I might get tired of that. Because I'm almost never right. “Let's get started,” she says.

I'm ready. And after how wrong it went last time, I am determined to do this hex perfectly. Then the doorbell rings.

Toby barks and runs around in circles. “Ugh! Terri's fate postponed!” Samantha groans in a joking way as she pushes the red strand of hair into her jeans pocket.

“It must be the Thai food!” I say and run for the door, asking Sam to pull Toby into the bathroom and close the door so he won't jump on the delivery man. And that's who I expect when I peek through the peephole.

That's not who I see, though.

Who I see is Terri.

T
erri is standing on our front step, holding a small pink cardboard box. It's the kind that usually comes from a bakery, but I'm so shocked and scared that I don't even care what kind of goodie she has.

I open the door. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

I must not say it in a very welcoming way, because she laughs and says, “Well, that's a fine way to greet someone who's stopping by to give you some cake!”

“Yum, cake!” says Sam, who is suddenly standing right next to me. “I love cake,” she continues, sort of phony-sweet. “What kind is it?”

“It's birthday cake, left over from a party at my office.” Terri hands me the box and turns to Sam. “You must be Samantha.”

“Yep, you're a smart one!” says Sam, as cool and casual as if she were talking to a kid at school, not an adult she's about to hex!

“Well, nice to meet you,” Terri says. Samantha shakes her hand with the hand that was just going through the hair in Dad's brush. Gross.

“Nice to meet you too,” Sam says. “Thanks for the cake, but we're busy, so we'll see you later.”

Samantha starts closing the door, right where Terri is standing! Terri holds out her hand and says, “Cleo, is your dad here? I'd like to say hi before I go.”

“No, he's out with my mom,” Sam says.

I don't know much—anything, really—about boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, but I don't think Terri is supposed to know that Dad is basically on a date with Paige right now.

Then I realize why Sam is saying it.

“Yeah, they're going for a hike and then having dinner,” I add. Like Sam, I'm trying to make Terri jealous too, though deep down I feel mean saying it. Being mean is the kind of thing Madison and her friends are supposed to be good at, not me.

“My mom said they might get a drink too, but I don't know if she meant coffee or wine or what,” Sam says.

Terri's face changes. She's not her usual perky self. “Oh,” she says. “I thought he said he was working on a project here at home tonight.”

“No, he's out with my mom,” Sam repeats happily. My face gets hot and I cough a little. This is definitely mean, and I've never been mean to anyone, not even a bug. It feels weird. And not comfortable at all. But inside I tell myself we're only doing this so Sam and I can be sisters, and then everything can be normal again. Even better than normal. Perfect!

“Okay,” Terri says, her mouth so tight it barely opens. Then she takes a breath and says, “Well, Cleo, let him know I came by, and save a little cake for them.” I nod, though I know Paige wouldn't eat it anyway. “Be careful here all alone, okay? You can always call me if there's an emergency.”

“Okay, see ya!” says Sam, all cheerful. “But we'll call our parents if there's a problem.”

Terri says goodbye and walks down the same path Dad and Paige walked down just a couple of minutes earlier. Her shoulders look slouchy and I feel a little sick to my stomach.

With Terri gone, Samantha is ready to put our plan into effect. “That was a close one!” she says, pretending to wipe sweat from her forehead. “Come on, let's do the hex!”

Sam runs down the hall. I follow more slowly. “Maybe we should wait until the food comes; I'm hungry,” I say, though I'm really not.

When I get to my room, Sam is sitting at my desk, poking around on my computer. I'm really starting to be glad I don't have too much private stuff on there! “What are you looking for?” I ask.

“I think we should call your uncle Arnie before we do this one.”

“Really?” I never pictured Samantha and Uncle Arnie talking to each other face to face. My dad calls Uncle Arnie “an acquired taste,” meaning certain people don't get him right away…and I think Sam could be one of those people. “Why do you want to talk to Uncle Arnie?”

“Well, the last hex did not go well….”

“But that's because we used the wrong hair!” I have a feeling Sam is blaming me, without saying it, for the last hex. She acts like I don't take it as seriously as she does, like it's not as important to me as it is to her. But it is! Anybody could have made that mistake with the hair! Anybody with a dog whose hair looks exactly like the hair of her dad's girlfriend who she wants to keep away by using a voodoo doll.

“It's time we got some professional input,” Samantha says.

Though I have serious doubts that Uncle Arnie is a “professional” at anything, we decide to call him. Dad has set up my computer so I can dial him from my room now. After two rings, his screen comes on. If I wanted Sam to see him in his full weird glory, my wish has been granted. He must have just gotten out of the shower. He's wearing a light-blue robe with yellow duckies, and his hair makes him look like a wet cat. Like
his
cat, actually. “What's up, little niecey?” he asks, cleaning out his ear with his pinkie.

“Hey, Uncle Arnie, this is my friend Sam.” Sam waves and Arnie waves back. “She and I were about to do another positive happy voodoo charm, but we wanted something extra special for this one. Like the time you sent me the recipe.”

He thinks for a second, then snaps his fingers. “Okay, I know what you need.” He starts to talk, but I have trouble listening because I notice that he doesn't have patches of hair on his chin or ears anymore, but there
is
a little bit growing out of his right nostril. With Uncle Arnie, it seems like hair doesn't go away; it just changes location.

When I pay attention again, he's in the middle of explaining something. “An incantation is a chant used for magic and sorcery,” he tells us, “and when two friends use it together, the spell is certain to work better than ever before. After you put the pin into your doll, recite this five times, with more speed each time:
‘As the thorn pierces the poppet, the juju opens the locket. You are free. So mote it be.
' ” He pauses for a second, then grins like a goon. To my surprise, his teeth are gleaming white—no food particles in between! “I wrote it myself,” he says. “Come on, say it with me!”

Sam joins right along immediately. It takes me a second, because (1) I don't even know what “mote” means, and (2) I'm thinking about how our first hexes worked fine without cemeteries and incantations. Well, sort of fine.

“Come on, say it!” Sam says. I feel uncomfortable but I do it anyway. What choice do I have? This hex has to work for Sam and me to be sisters. At first I mumble, but after a few times it gets kind of fun to say. We say it and say it until we're giggling, then laughing, then making mistakes because anything can become a tongue twister if you say it enough times in a row.

Uncle Arnie cheers us on from his sloppy living room in Louisiana. “I think you've got it!”

“Thanks, Uncle Arnie,” I say. “We're gonna go now and try it out.”

“All right, be careful, you two.” Uncle Arnie lifts his cat up to the camera. “I've got to give Fuzzer a bath, and it's a perfect time. My tongue is perfectly clean right now!” He pretends to lick the cat and the screen goes black.

“So, that's your uncle,” Sam says uncertainly. “He's pretty weird.”

Well, she's not wrong, but he
is
my uncle, and I like him. And now that I think of it, once Sam and I are sisters, he'll be her uncle too. So she'll have to accept him no matter how strange he is. I hope she can.

“Okay, time to get serious,” Sam says. So I do. I slide under my bed and take the doll out of his box. We sit on the floor, cross-legged as usual. Sam pulls Terri's strand of hair from her pocket and winds it around a piece of the doll's yarn hair. Then she pulls the pin out, holds it up, and asks, “Do you want to do it?”

“Ummm…okay,” I say, slowly taking the pin from her. For a second I sit there, still remembering Terri's face when she heard about Dad being out with Sam's mom.

“Well, come on, do it!” Sam urges.

Deep down I don't want to, but when I look into Samantha's eager eyes, I know I don't have any other choice. Since I don't want Terri and Dad to see each other anymore, I decide to push the pin into the doll's face. Then I pull my fingers away, happy to be done with it. All that's left is for Sam and me to say the incantation together.

“As the thorn pierces the poppet, the juju opens the locket. You are free. So mote it be.”

As we say it, I concentrate on Terri walking to her car just now. That's good—in my imagination, she's walking away. She and Dad are apart. She's wearing regular jeans and a T-shirt, not tight yoga pants and lots of makeup. Her red hair looks nice, but not perfect like Paige's.

“As the thorn pierces the poppet, the juju opens the locket. You are free. So mote it be.”

I think about Terri and Dad laughing together on the beach and how Dad never laughs at the stuff Sam's mom says. I know my brain shouldn't be going down this path, but I can't help it. Dad doesn't laugh with Paige. He doesn't want to have a drink with her or stay at her house when we hang out together. They only went on a hike and had dinners together because Sam and I forced them to, not because Dad wanted to. Dad likes Terri. Terri likes Dad. And now that I've seen Terri walking away from our house tonight, I feel bad for messing with that.

“As the thorn pierces the poppet, the juju opens the locket. You are free. So mote it be.”

I definitely want to be sisters with Sam, and live in the same house, and maybe share a room and spend all our nights and weekends and free time together, but is this the only way it can happen? Maybe Sam's mom and my dad should get together if they
want
to, not because we make them.

“As the thorn pierces the poppet, the juju opens the locket. You are free. So mote it be.”

But even if it's not what Dad wants,
I
want him and Paige to be together. I want me and Sam to be sisters. So I hurry and imagine Terri in her car, driving to a big house far away, with a new boyfriend and a great job, but I can't concentrate because it's the fifth time I'm saying the thing about the poppet and the locket and I know my time is running out….

“As the thorn pierces the poppet, the juju opens the locket. You are free. So mote it be.”

And then the incantation is over. Sam locks eyes with me and I force a smile. I'm relieved I don't have to think about anything anymore—just fun. The Thai food arrives and Sam and I stuff our faces with noodles and shrimp and chicken and rice. Afterward, we eat two pieces of the cake Terri dropped off, and we play a game of Pig Mania. I feel guilty eating Terri's cake and playing Terri's game with Sam, but we still have a pretty fun time.

An hour or so later, Dad and Paige come back. I tell Dad that Terri came over and brought cake and there are two pieces left. Dad looks surprised for a second, then says to Paige, “Would you like a piece of cake?”

Like I predicted, Sam's mom says no. “After that meal we had, Bradley, I may never eat again,” she says, holding her hands over her stomach.

“Oh, you barely ate anything,” he says back, and she giggles. He doesn't laugh.

“Well, thanks, but I doubt the girls did any homework while we were gone, so we'd better go home and start on it.”

Sam doesn't complain like I would; she just says okay and runs back to my room. She's ahead of me and by the time I join her, I see something I don't like at all.

Sam has the voodoo doll in her hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I want to keep it with me for a while,” she says. “For safekeeping.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “It's safe here.”

“Look, if we're going to be sisters, we're going to have to share things, so I should get to keep the doll this time.” I have a hard time arguing with that, but still, it's my doll, not hers.

“What if your mom sees it?”