Under a Spell (15 page)

“O-of course there isn't. I just like it,” Sophie stammered. Then she looked up and realized that Jonathan was grinning at her from across the court. He did a goofy twirl of the ball, which made Sophie giggle. Melissa immediately stiffened, as too late Sophie realized her mistake.

“Please, don't let me stop you from pulling stupid faces at my brother,” the cheerleader snapped in a tight voice, just as Principal Gerrard started to address everyone over the loudspeaker system.

“I wasn't—” Sophie started to reply, but before Sophie knew what was happening, she poked her tongue out at Jonathan Tait and then made her eyes cross.
Nooooooooooooo.
She tried to put her hands across her face to stop it from happening, but instead of covering her face, she found herself putting her hands on each side of her mouth and then wriggling her fingers like there was no tomorrow. Even Meg wouldn't do something so juvenile.

For a moment Jonathan just stared at her in confusion; thankfully, someone suddenly threw a basketball at him, and he turned around to make a shot. Sophie let out a mortified groan while Melissa stared at her in disbelief.

“You are either very stupid or very smart, but either
way I don't really care, as long as you sort out this mess.”

“W-what do you mean?” Sophie asked, sure that her cheeks were burning with embarrassment.

“I mean that since it's your fault Ben's mad at me, you can fix it or you can wave good-bye to your precious ring. Oh, and don't try to go blubbing to my brother either. In fact, I don't even want you to look at him again until you've fixed things with Ben and me. Are we clear?”

“No, you don't understand—” Sophie started to say, while trying to ignore the irony that if Melissa would just give her the ring back, she could actually sort the problem out right away. However, before she could say anything else, Melissa suddenly walked away and joined the cheerleaders as Principal Gerrard's speech finally came to an end.

Sophie raced back to where her friends were and sank down into her seat. It was obvious they had figured out what was going on.

“Soph,” Harvey started to say, but she shook her head.

“Don't,” she begged. “Please, it was too awful for words. She commanded me to make stupid faces at Jonathan. And so I did. It was honestly beyond my control. And it gets worse,” she wailed as she filled her friends in on everything that happened.

“See, the girl really is a natural,” Malik announced once she had finished. “Notice how she managed to command you to find the solution, while also restricting your chances of actually succeeding in the task itself. It's a classic
sahir response. Truly, it's uncanny how skilled she is.”

“It's not uncanny, it's evil,” Harvey corrected. “I mean, it's not Sophie's fault that Ben sucks at Spanish. It's so unreasonable.”

“Er, you do remember this is Melissa Tait that we're talking about,” Kara said. “I think she specializes in unreasonable behavior.”

“I know.” Sophie gave her shoulders and neck a shake to try to get rid of her negative vibes. She turned back to Malik. “Are you sure there isn't another way to get Melissa to give me the ring back? What about that elixir thing you mentioned?”

“You mean the elixir that all djinns have been searching for since the dawn of time?” Malik remarked drily before shaking his head. “Yeah, I think we can safely assume that we won't be finding it before ten o'clock on Saturday.”

Sophie felt the desperation rise up and clog in her throat. “Okay, so what about Rufus's Bazaar? He sells everything that a djinn could want through his Web site. Do you think he would have anything that would give me my powers back, even temporarily? Or maybe a mind-control drug so that I can convince Melissa to give me the ring back?”

Again Malik shook his head. “Unfortunately, the Djinn Council banned mind-altering spells about a thousand years ago. It was a very sad day. As for temporary power boosters, I'm afraid that there's no such thing. Oh, but you know what might work? A petrified lucky date.”

“A petrified lucky
what
?” Sophie blinked.

“Date. You know, they come from palm trees and are considered a delicacy? Of course, I'm not saying they are as good as Cheetos, but they do have their moments,” Malik said as he emptied a packet into his hand and crammed the remaining Cheetos crumbs into his mouth. Finally, he continued to speak. “Anyway, long before four-leaf clovers and rabbit feet, petrified lucky dates were all the rage.”

“Yes, but what do they do?” Harvey looked confused.

“Why, they bring people good luck, of course.” Malik looked at him like he was stupid. “I kind of thought it was implied in the title.”

“You think a petrified lucky date will help me get Melissa to give me my djinn ring back?” Sophie asked to make sure she was hearing right.

“Well, first you have to get one,” Malik reminded her. “Last time I checked, Rufus was charging fifty bucks, which, if you ask me, is a little steep. Besides, how else are you going to make things right between Ben and Melissa if you don't have your magic
or
a lucky date?”

“I don't know, but I guess I'll just have to figure something out,” Sophie said in a positive voice while trying to ignore just how disastrous the day was becoming. Thankfully, before she could think about it further, the whistle blew, and the team jogged out into the middle of the basketball court.

Once again, Sophie started searching for Jonathan.
But before she could find him, her hand flew up to her eyes and covered them. If he had looked surprised to see her pulling faces at him before, he must've been really shocked to see this. Unfortunately, thanks to her fingers, she couldn't see his expression.

She desperately tried to pull her hand away, but she couldn't budge it.

“Er, Sophie. Why do you have your hand over your eyes?” Harvey asked in a low voice. “Because not that I care what people think, but they are starting to look at you funny.”

“I can't help it,” Sophie started to say before remembering Melissa's last command.
In fact, I don't even want you to look at him again until you've fixed things with Ben and me.
Sophie slunk further down into the bleachers and let out a long groan, her eyes still covered. And here she was thinking that things couldn't possibly get any worse.

M
AYBE HE DIDN'T NOTICE?” KARA SAID IN A KIND
voice as they all piled onto the bus once the game was finished.

“I had my hands across my eyes for the entire game. Even Mr. Morton the janitor noticed, and he's half blind,” Sophie wailed as she rubbed her temples and reminded herself that it was lucky she was a positive thinker, since she was pretty sure that any other eleven-year-old who had been forced to sit through a basketball game looking like an idiot—
while her crush was playing
—would've died on the spot. Whereas Sophie knew that the best thing to do was to look for the positive part of it all. She still hadn't found it yet, but given time she was sure she would.

“Yes, but when this is all over, you can just explain to him that you had something in your eye,” Harvey said. “But right now we need to concentrate on getting Ben and Melissa back together. Which, for the record, goes against everything I believe in, since evil like that should never be encouraged.”

“I know. It's hardly ideal, but we have to make it work,” Sophie said as she glanced around. “Actually, I was hoping Ben would be on the bus so I could talk to him.”

“I don't see him.” Harvey, who was half a head taller than Sophie, craned his neck. “Maybe he went out with the rest of the team to celebrate their win?” Then he caught Sophie's look of alarm. “Or he might've gone to the library to study for his quiz tomorrow.”

“It's going to be okay,” Kara said in a soft voice as the bus pulled to a halt. “You just need to go and see him first thing tomorrow and explain to him why it's not Melissa's fault he failed his Spanish quiz and got benched. Then once you've convinced him, Melissa will be so happy that she'll give your ring back.”

“I hope so,” Sophie said as she waved good-bye to her friends and made her way up the front path. There was no sign of Malik, but Sophie was actually pleased to have a little bit of Malik-free time. Especially since she still had to finish redoing her history assignment to hand in tomorrow morning. She had stupidly thought that she could just reprint it from her computer before remembering too late that it wasn't on her computer because she had created the first one using magic. And it turned out that her magic didn't have a hard-drive backup, so she was going to have to do this assignment the hard way.

Then she still had to talk to Ben, get her djinn ring back, apologize to Jonathan for being a freak, fix the studio leak, and practice her transcendental conjuring so
that she could see the Djinn Council on Saturday. Even for such a positive thinker, this was a very big to-do list.

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?” Sophie said the following day as she stood in front of Ben Griggs. She'd been so busy working on all the reasons why Ben shouldn't blame Melissa for his failing his Spanish quiz that she'd forgotten to give any thought to what his answer might be.

“I said no. You want me to tell Melissa I'm sorry I blamed her, but I'm not sorry at all. She was the one who put the bad mojo on me. It's totally her fault.”

“Yes, but she wasn't the one who put down the wrong answers,” Sophie reminded him as a hint of panic bled into her voice. “It was nothing to do with Melissa
or
the guitar pick. It was you.” However, Ben was oblivious to her logic, and Sophie couldn't help but appreciate the irony that, like Melissa, he didn't seem to have a better nature.

Normally, at this point she would've used her magic to bribe him with something, but, of course, thanks to his girlfriend—make that ex-girlfriend—using magic wasn't an option.

“Look, Campbell, there's just no way I'm saying sorry to her. Now if you don't mind, I need to go and get ready.”

“Oh.” Sophie nodded. “Of course. You mean that
you've got to get ready to retake the Spanish quiz. Sure. I understand, but just remember, if you pass it, it's because of your own merit, not because of something that Melissa or a guitar pick did for you. Er, so did you study much?”

“What? Why should I study for a quiz that I had in the bag before Melissa came along and ruined it? I'm going to see Sam Henderson. We've got this most awesome joke planned…
and why are you covering your eyes with your hands?
” he asked. Sophie let out a groan since she could only take it to mean that Jonathan Tait had just walked past.

Sophie desperately tried to pull her hands away from her face, but they wouldn't budge until she heard Harvey shuffle up next to her. She finally tugged her fingers from her eyes, but there was no sign of either Jonathan or Ben. She tried not to cry.

“I'm taking it he wouldn't agree,” Harvey said as he studied her body language. Not that he needed to be much of an expert to figure out that slumped shoulders and quivering lips meant failure.

“Don't feel so bad,” Malik said, suddenly appearing next to them. “At least you got your history assignment handed in, and apart from all the weird stuff you wrote about Gallipoli, it was pretty good.”

“Malik, I don't care about the history assignment,” Sophie said while trying to ignore the fact that once again Jonathan must think that she hated him. “There is no way
Ben is going to pass that quiz. This is such a disaster. I wish I could sneak into his class and do it for him. Well, actually,” she corrected herself, thinking of her less-than-stellar Spanish abilities, “if only Harvey could go in and do it for him, then he would be sure to pass.”

“Gracias.”
Harvey gave her a reluctant grin before frowning again. “Unfortunately, since I'm not invisible, I don't think that plan will work. Maybe we should concentrate on convincing Melissa again?”

“Hang on a minute.” Malik suddenly looked up. “I'm invisible—well, not to you guys—but to everyone else.”

“I certainly hope so.” Sophie quickly glanced around to check that no one was looking at them as if they were talking to a Zac Efron look-alike ghost. However, no one seemed unduly interested in them and so she turned her attention back to Malik. “But what are you talking about? Is this another one of your ideas that involves magic?”

“No. I was thinking that I could go and help Ben with the Spanish quiz. It would be the helpful thing to do.” Malik clapped his hands together, clearly impressed with his idea.

“Are you saying that you want to help him cheat?” Sophie leaned forward to check she was hearing right.

“Of course not. Cheating goes against all of my ethics as an ex-djinn who is now recently deceased and come back to life as a ghost.”

“Last week you stole Meg's candy because you were
feeling hungry. You don't have any ethics,” Sophie patiently reminded him. “But that's not what I meant. I just don't understand how you could help Ben pass if he doesn't even know that you're there?”

“Oh. That's actually very easy. You see, Eric the Giant taught me this trick where I can help guide a mortal's hand. I haven't used it before because—
regardless of what you think
—I'm very ethical. Okay, and yes, I admit that I have to concentrate really hard and it gives me a headache. Anyway, it works like this.” As he spoke, he reached out and gently nudged Harvey's hand toward his backpack, and the next thing they knew, Harvey was pulling out a packet of Cheetos and handing it over to Malik.

“What the—” Harvey protested as his hand suddenly dropped back down into his lap and Malik happily opened up the Cheetos. Harvey stared at him in wide-eyed confusion. “How did you do that?”