Under a Spell (11 page)

“Um, yeah.” Melissa nodded her head. “The reason Donna broke her leg was because her foot got caught around a necklace that Amber Smith was wearing, so now it's a new rule. And since Miss Carson came up with the rule, she might take points off if you ignore it.”

Sophie quickly started to tug at her watch and her other jewelry and passed them over to Melissa. “Will you hold them for me while I do the tryout?”

“Of course I will.” Melissa beamed. “Anything to help you make the team.” Then she walked back to the judging table, where she and the other cheerleaders were sitting. Once she was gone Sophie loosened her shoulders and headed to the center of the floor. She took a deep breath before she concentrated on visualizing herself doing the routine. She could do this.

She was a strong and positive person. Not to mention a djinn. She was going to nail this routine. For herself. For Jonathan. And for her dad.

She grinned as a familiar tingle went racing through her and she felt her physical body and the image in her mind merge into one. The music started, and Sophie
made her first move. Her body twisted and prepared to turn andthen…
she felt herself fall into an undignified heap on the floor.

Okay, so that definitely wasn't part of the plan. She tried to ignore the laughter that was springing up from all around her. Instead, she focused on getting to her feet and trying to redo the move. However, despite visualizing every step, the second time she attempted the turn she fell to the ground even harder.

“Right, Sophie, well, that was an
interesting
routine.” Miss Carson blew her whistle to signal that the tryouts were over. “Thank you to everyone who came out today. We'll be posting the name of the new member outside my office tomorrow.”

Without another word Miss Carson headed toward the exit as Harvey came racing over.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I've got no idea.” Sophie shook her head as she awkwardly got to her feet. “I mean, one minute everything was perfect, and then suddenly it wasn't. I guess I haven't quite mastered the transcendental conjuring stuff after all.”

“I knew this was a bad idea,” he reminded her before letting out a sigh. “But don't beat yourself up about it. It could've been a lot worse.”

“Worse than humiliating myself in front of the entire school?” Sophie raised an eyebrow.

“Well, first of all, it wasn't the entire school, it was
about twenty people; and second, it could've happened in front of the Djinn Council,” he pointed out.

“You're right. I can't believe I lost my focus like that.” Sophie flushed as she realized she had been so concerned about Jonathan and trying to make Melissa like her that she had forgotten about fine-tuning her skills. “I wonder if we have time to go see Malik before next period? Maybe he can tell me why my routine didn't work.”

“If it involves leaving the gym, then I'm all for it,” Harvey said as they headed for the exit. Sophie glanced at her watch, only to realize it wasn't there. She let out a groan.

“Oh, man, I forgot to get my stuff from Melissa. I had to take all my jewelry off and give it to her just before I did my routine. I'll be only a second,” Sophie said as she hurried back to the table where the cheerleaders had been sitting.

Sophie waited until Melissa closed the folder she had been writing in, and when she looked up, Sophie gave her a little wave. However, instead of returning it, Melissa stared right through her before standing up and heading for the exit.

“Hey, wait up,” Sophie puffed as she hurried to catch up with Melissa and her long legs.

“I beg your pardon?” Melissa suddenly stopped and turned around, her brown eyes narrowed and menacing and her tone dripping with icicles. “Are you speaking to me?”

“Er.” Sophie paused and blinked for a moment as she
realized that she had been a bit premature to think that Melissa had started to like her. Was this because she had screwed up the tryouts? Then she remembered that she had more important things to worry about. Like learning to nail her magic so she could impress the Djinn Council. “Um, yeah, I wanted to get my jewelry back from you. I gave you two rings, a bracelet, my watch, and, of course, the necklace with my Neanderthal Joe guitar pick on it.”

“Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.” Melissa shrugged before she folded her arms tightly in front of her chest.

For a moment Sophie just stared at the other girl as she tried to figure out what was going on.
And what had Harvey told her about arm folding being a declaration of war?
A prickle of alarm went racing through her.

“B-but you do. I gave them to you. Right before I did my routine,” Sophie reminded her as she thought how much she loved her guitar pick. Granted, she didn't think it was a good-luck charm like Ben Griggs did, but it still symbolized when she and Jonathan had first had their moment.

“I don't think so.” Melissa shot her a blank look as she flicked her perfect blonde hair over one shoulder and started to inspect her fingernails. “Oh, but come to think of it, now that you don't have that stupid guitar pick, you'll no longer have an excuse to hang all over my boyfriend.
Gee, that's too bad
.”

“Is that what this is about?” Sophie widened her eyes
as she started to understand what was going on. “The guitar pick? Because I thought I explained that it wasn't my fault that Ben keeps wanting to touch it. I even tried to talk him out of it before because I didn't want to make you mad.”

“Really?” Melissa gave a disinterested sniff. “Well, unfortunately, I don't believe you. Still, now that you no longer have it, I guess it's not a problem.”

Sophie stared at her. “But what happened to the whole trying to get along with me because I'm a friend of Jonathan's?”

“Please, you're so gullible.” Melissa rolled her eyes. “Now seriously, I need to go, because talking to you is giving me a headache.”

“You are unbelievable! If you think for a minute that I'm going to let you keep my guitar pick, then you've got another think coming. Besides, Jonathan told me that you don't even like Neanderthal Joe. Now I want you to give me back all of my stuff right now.”

“Um, I don't think so. Even if I did have them—which I don't—what could you possibly do to make me change my mind?”

“Let's just say that you don't want to find out,” Sophie retorted as a flash of annoyance went racing through her. Honestly, she was tempted to give Melissa a hooknose and split ends, but as she glanced over to the door, she realized that Harvey was impatiently waiting for her. Fine.
Instead, she looked directly into Melissa's dark eyes. “I
wish
you would give all of my jewelry back to me.”

As she spoke a familiar tingle went racing through her. Ha. Suck on that, Melissa Tait, Sophie thought as she held out her hand so she could retrieve her stuff. However, after a moment she realized that Melissa was just staring at her.
Okay, so that was weird.
This time Sophie closed her eyes and concentrated.

“I
really
wish that you would give me my stuff back.” Again there was the familiar tingle, but instead of the wish manifesting itself like it normally did, Melissa just narrowed her eyes and glared.

“Okay, since you seem to be particularly stupid today, let me spell it out for you.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
Oh, and FYI, whatever little tricks you've been doing to impress people aren't going to work anymore. Do you understand me?”

Then, without another word, Melissa marched out of the gym. As soon as she was gone, Harvey ran over, and this time Kara was with him.

“Harvey told me what happened. You poor thing.” Kara gave her a hug, her pale green eyes full of concern. “I knew I should've come here instead of going to the stupid audition. Anyway, Harvey seemed to think that Melissa looked angry, though I'm pretty sure that she always looks like that. Is everything okay?”

“No, everything's
not
okay.” Sophie shook her head in
disbelief. “Melissa Tait won't give me back my stuff. It's because she's annoyed that Ben keeps wanting to touch the guitar pick. But that's no reason to steal it from me. I mean it's Eddie Henry's guitar pick. I can't believe she thinks that she can just keep it.”

“So why didn't you just wish for her to give them back?” Harvey pushed his long bangs out of his eyes.

“I did.” Sophie tried not to panic. “But for some strange reason it didn't work. I-I think my magic's gone.”

W
HAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S GONE?” HARVEY BLINKED
a few minutes later as they all huddled together in the janitor's closet. “How can it just be gone?”

“I don't know.” Sophie shot him a helpless look.

“Okay, so the important thing is not to panic,” Harvey said in a panicked voice.

“Look,” Kara chimed in, “I'm sure there's a completely logical explanation for all of this. Maybe Malik forgot to tell Sophie that there's a limit on how much magic she could use in one day? I mean, that totally sounds like something he would do.”

“Actually, it does,” Harvey said, looking a bit less worried.

“None of this is helping me,” Sophie pointed out. “Especially since Malik isn't here.” She clapped her hands, but there was no sign of the djinn ghost. “Where is he?”

“I don't know,” Kara wailed. “He said that if he had to watch one more person murder “We're Off to See the Wizard” at the auditions, he would eat his iPod. Then he
got a phone call and went off to take it. I just assumed he had come here.”

“Maybe he went to the bathroom?” Harvey suggested.

“He's a ghost. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't need to use the bathroom anymore,” Sophie reminded her friend before letting out a groan. “I still don't understand. I made Mr. Pugsy fly, but now I can't even make that mop lift off the ground.” They all stared at the mop, but it refused to move. Harvey gave a polite cough.

“Maybe you should try something simple like wishing for a bag of M&M's?” he said.

“Harvey, I don't think—” Kara started to say, but Harvey shook his head.

“No, I didn't mean for a snack, I just meant as an experiment.”

“Oh.” Kara looked embarrassed. “Actually, that's a good idea.”

“I've been trying to wish for things for the last few minutes, but I've got nothing,” Sophie said, barely resisting the urge to panic. “Not even a bag of Cheetos—and I swear I've conjured up so many of them that sometimes I make them appear in my sleep.”

“Like I said, I'm sure there's a logical explanation for all of this,” Kara responded in an unusually firm voice just as the bell rang. “But until you speak to Malik, you're just going to have to stay calm and try not to panic.”

Despite Kara's pep talk, the next two classes went by with agonizing slowness, with still no sign of either Malik
or her magical powers. By the time the last class was finished, Sophie jumped to her feet, eager to get home to try to figure out just what was going on.

Kara had promised to go to the Art Department and work on Colin the winged monkey, and Harvey was going to view another apartment with his dad after school, so Sophie ended up catching the bus by herself. They had both asked if she wanted them to cancel their plans, but she had refused. Not because she could panic just as easily on her own, but because she had to babysit Meg, and she was sure her friends could do without playing three games of shark.

She ignored the jostling and yelling of the kids around her as the bus made its stop-start journey. Instead, she continued to try to figure out what was going on.
Maybe Kara was right and Malik had forgotten to warn her about using too much power in one day? Or could it be some kind of test that the Djinn Council was giving her?
Actually, that kind of made sense, Sophie decided, as the bus pulled up to her stop and she got off. Not that she really understood what they could achieve by testing her on how she coped without her powers, but then again, according to Malik, the Djinn Council wasn't exactly logical.

“So how did it go?” Her mom immediately wanted to know as Sophie walked into the kitchen. “Are you going to be the next Paula Abdul?”

“Not quite.” Sophie shook her head as she tried not to notice the large collection of toilet paper rolls with
shark faces drawn on them that were sitting on the kitchen table. Meg had obviously been raiding the recycling closet in her classroom. “Let's just say it didn't quite go as planned.”

“Ah. I think I know what this is about.”

“You do?” Sophie, who had just bitten into one of the Oreos that her mom had passed to her, looked at her in surprise.

“I do.” Her mom nodded. “You're worried that Jonathan saw you trying out and that now he will think less of you.”

Sophie felt an Oreo crumb lodge in her throat as she stared at her mom. She had been too busy worrying about the fact that Melissa had taken her guitar pick and that she'd lost her powers; she hadn't stopped to consider if Jonathan had seen her embarrassing performance.

“But trust me,” her mom continued. “If you two are meant to be friends, then nothing will stop that.”

“I hope you're right.” Sophie sighed as she idly fiddled with a piece of paper that was sitting on the table. Then she wrinkled her nose as she studied it more carefully. It looked like some kind of building quote. “What's this?”

“Oh.” Her mom winced as she plucked the piece of paper out of Sophie's hands. “That's how much it's going to cost to get the studio leak repaired. I knew it would be bad, but I wasn't expecting it to be that bad.”

“What?” Sophie spluttered, since there were a lot of
zeroes in the figure. Especially considering that she could fix the leak with a wish.
Well, when she had her magic, she could.
She looked at her mom in concern; normally it was a big deal if they got Chinese takeout, let alone made a big repair like that. “What are you going to do?”