Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 01 The Salem Witch Tryouts (6 page)

Timewise, anyway. In culture, they’re light-years ahead. If Maddie approved, I felt sure that I was dressed well enough-even if I was going to have to take remedial classes. Building a reputation on fashion alone is tricky, but it can work for the smart new girl—the one who knows it’s the girls she has to impress, not the boys. Choosing the right look is not exactly like signing a non-compete clause, because of course any sensible girl wants to get a hot boy. But you can dress like you’ll only go for the available ones-not too short, not too clingy, and no cleavage at all.

“Hurry up, Prudence, you’ll be late.”

“I can always whip up a turn-back-time charm for us, like
Uncle Buzz showed me.” My brother was chirping like crazy.

Mom sighed. “No turning back time until you’re in college, young man.” She looked at us both as if she were sending us into the jaws of death. “Ready?”

Weird. It was all her idea, so why was she acting like she didn’t want to do this now? We stood there for a second, no one doing anything. I had a brief stab of hope that she would come to her senses and use that turn-back-time charm to bring us home. But no such luck.

“Okay. First you, young man. Close your eyes and think of Bart’s Middle School.” She waved her arm, and he stopped chirping abruptly.

“If I don’t like the GNT class, can I transfer to the regular ones?”

“We’ll talk about that if it happens.” She must have seen the way his nose twitched—a sure sign of trouble to come-because she added, “And if I hear you’ve caused any trouble, I won’t make you chirp next time, I’ll make you emit an ear-blasting siren.”

“Cool.” My brother closed his eyes and popped out of the kitchen. The little twerp wasn’t afraid of anything.

“He’s really going to give those remedial teachers a chance to earn their paychecks.” If witch teachers got paychecks. One more thing I didn’t know—and didn’t want to know. My head must have been in fashion-no-no worry
mode, because I didn’t even catch Mom’s nervous expression. And I almost didn’t catch it when she said, “Actually, Prudence, Tobias was put into a gifted-and-talented class.”

Ah. G
and
T—Pd wondered what he was talking about. Now it made sense. My troublemaking brother was in the gifted-and-talented magic classes while I was in the remedial ones. “It’s not fair. I was good and obeyed all your stupid rules and I get punished, while he—”

“Are you asking me to hold your brother back because you don’t want to stand out?”

“Could you? Just for a little while.” Great. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to pop myself to the moon. That’s just what I need. To look jealous of my little brother. “Never mind.”

“Don’t worry.” Mom smiled at me. “You are going to survive the humiliation.”

“That’s what you think.”

I sighed. At least the Dorklock was only in seventh grade and in a completely different school. I wouldn’t have to deal with him for at least seven hours a day. Nine, if I was lucky enough to make the cheerleading squad.

First things first, though—conquering the great unknown and coming home queen of kewl. “It’ll be okay, honey, I promise.” She hugged me, even though I didn’t hug her back. “Just close your eyes and think ‘Agatha’s.’”

“Should I tap my ruby slippers three times too?”

“Prudence—”

“Never mind.” I closed my eyes and thought of Agatha’s, trying hard not to shiver at the huge iceberg that came to mind. After all, I didn’t want to be the
Titanic
. Not on my very first day.

MADDIE: Can U stand the new school?

ME: III survive Barely

MADDIE: Kewl Me 2

ME: Why? Whatz changed in the same old same old?

MADDIE: Mr Whidbey still hasnt retired Chemistry = a waste

ME: Bummer

MADDIE: Yep Gtg Coach is making us do mega pushups

I stared at my cell phone screen. Great. No one to commiserate with me on my horrible, rotten, no good, very bad
day. Alexander had nothing on me. For once I really got what that dumb book was about. Too bad the kids I’d babysat (who’d made me read the stupid book umpteen times a night) weren’t around to benefit from my enlightenment.

How bad could the first day of school be, you ask? Well, let’s begin at the beginning. The no good, very bad part of the day. With a skill that suggested Agatha had been right to doubt me, I’d popped myself into a closet somehow. A broom closet. What a cliché

Rather than risk popping into some even more heinous area, I decided to use the common sense I’d learned living in the mortal world and look before leaping … or even leaving the closet. I opened the door just a smidge and peeked out.

Lots of lockers. Obviously a gym locker room. The question was, which one? The answer was, I didn’t have a clue. The lockers weren’t painted pink or blue, just puke greengray.

At least no one was there to witness the humiliating proof that I belonged in remedial magic classes. Thank goodness. Since I wanted to keep it that way, I stepped out and headed for the only door I could see.

Mistake #1. As I reached the halfway mark, success just within my reach, the door opened and a man came through, wrapped in a towel and nothing else. He stopped
short, but the soap-scented steam that poured from the room didn’t, making my hair frizz on the spot.

I didn’t pop myself back home, or at least back into the broom closet. Mistake #2. Why didn’t I? Because the man was—how to say it—you know how they do the lighting and makeup so that Orlando looks like he’s some kind of young god on screen? Well, this guy looked like that, without lighting. Without makeup. Without clothes.

I was frozen, unable to take my eyes from a bead of water that clung to his left shoulder, just above his collarbone. I was, I admit it, waiting for the downward slide that gravity tends to exert on drops of water on skin.

Apparently, he was not willing to wait that long. “Excuse me, young lady,” he said, his voice vibrating on a frequency that got to me. “I do believe you’re lost.”

“Completely.” I agreed. I. Was. Lost. Utterly. Head over heels, lost-my-heart lost. Somewhere inside my head, I knew this was the time I should stammer out an apology and peel off. But I just couldn’t. Instead, I zapped the frizz out of my hair and smiled. Mistake #3.

He wasn’t steamed—except by the shower. I looked at his face, surprised to see him smiling back. Definitely a starquality smile.

He held out his hand—the one not clutching the towel to his hip. “I’m Mr. Bindlebrot. Math and physics.” He didn’t seem to mind that he wasn’t exactly dressed for formal
introductions. It was hard to say if he even noticed, except that he waved his hand and he was suddenly fiilly dressed. Which made him look a little more like a teacher. Too bad. He still smelled like fresh soap, though, so I knew I hadn’t been hallucinating.

I shook his hand. “I like math.” Lame.

“Excellent.” When I didn’t move, he said, “Shouldn’t we be getting to class, now?”

“I’m new.” I glanced at the broom closet, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain. I didn’t want the love of my life to know I was a complete dork. Not until he knew me better. A lot better.

“Aha. Miss Stewart, then, I presume. You have the look of your mother about you.”

The look of my mother? What? Did I look like I knew what I was doing? Hardly. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there. Hoping it was a bad dream—and I’d wake up remembering only the part about him in the towel.

He smiled again, and a dimple as big as a parking lot dent formed in his left cheek. “Well, let’s get you where you belong, shall we?”

If only he meant Beverly Hills High. But, no. He pointed his index finger, and I thought he was going to pop me to wherever it is that new students go. Then he said, “Go through those doors”—doors that hadn’t been there just a minute ago, I might add—“turn right, and you’ll see the main office ahead of you.”

“Of course.” I went through the double doors, but I couldn’t remember whether he’d said to turn left or right, and I was just about to pop myself home—if I could—when I heard voices. Right. Main office.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only new student. There were two other kids my age standing there. A guy who was so tall, he had to stoop to get in the door, and a girl who looked exactly like what you’d expect a witch to look like if you were hooked on TV sitcoms from the 1950s. “Ethereal,” I think the word is. At least, that’s the word my mom uses, followed by the phrase “As if a witch has no use for muscles.”

My mom is strong—she goes to the gym every day and works out. She made sure my brother and I did too. She says a witch who depends too much on magic isn’t living up to her full potential. Grandmama always rolls her eyes when she says that. Not that Grandmama could be called ethereal. More like man-eater, if you ask my dad.

The two other new students looked at me as I came up to them, with that desperate “Is this a friend or foe?” look that all new students have on the first day, apparently even those in witch school. Gross. I hope I had concealed my desperation better than they had. But maybe I hadn’t. Because, come to think of it, Mr. Bindlebrot had immediately known my name.

The secretary behind the desk scowled at me, “You’re
late, Miss Stewart.” And then she touched her finger to the foreheads of the other students. “Welcome, obey the rules, and off you go.” They vanished.

“Now you.”

She was surprisingly unfriendly, and I was still dazed from finding the man of my dreams—the nearly naked man of my dreams, at that—so I didn’t move.

“Hurry up-do you want detention your first day?”

“Detention?” I hated the word itself. “They have detention in witch school?” Ooops. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

But apparently I had, because she shook her head. “Of course they do.” She reached for me impatiently, and her hand was cold as it touched my forehead. “Welcome, obey the rules”—her finger must have been doing more than poking at my forehead because the school rules flooded into my mind—“and off you go—”

Just like that, I was in the front of a classroom. I was lucky that I’d thought to unfrizz my hair when I was in the locker room with Mr. Bindlebrot, because this was it. The spotlight. The moment when the first lucky group of juniors got to see that I was kewl … or not.

The teacher was not Mr. Bindlebrot. In fact, where Mr. Bindlebrot had looked like a young god, this guy looked dead. He was fish white and skeletally thin. A real-life Skeletor, my brother would have said.

“Glad you could join us, Miss Stewart. I’m Mr. Phogg.” Even his voice echoed like his lungs were empty of air. Great. And I’d get to listen to him every morning first period. I wanted out of here.

If I’d had any confidence in my popping skills, I would have been out of there for real. Except, as I now knew, unauthorized popping from or to school was against the rules. The last thing I needed was to end up back at the desk with the cranky secretary, who would no doubt send me right to Agatha. I tried not to show the panic that was taking the express elevator from my toes to my scalp. That would be a sure way to get the school buzzing about the new girl—and not in a good way.

Skeletor was getting a little impatient with me. “Please take a seat.”

I looked out into the classroom and noticed another no good, rotten thing. Apparently witch kids weren’t into goth as much as human kids were. I didn’t clash—it would be impossible for my hip but casual look to be at odds with a room full of kids dressed in every style ever popular in the last century or two. Not to mention the ones who looked like they came from outer space. But I didn’t fit in either. I could feel it in the way they looked at me with the classic poker faces of kids greeting the new kid in class. And these were the remedial students.

I could have wished myself a new outfit, of course. I
knew how to do that, from all those years of playing dress-up by myself in my room when no one was looking. It was even tempting for a moment, but then it occurred to me that everyone would know I felt out of place. I’d be better off just falling on the floor and drooling if I wanted to make a fool of myself.

And I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Unless it was in front of a naked love of my life, of course. After he’d declared his love for me. And after my mom lifted all her protective spells, more than one of which could cause very embarrassing things to happen if I was to be alone with anyone of the male persuasion for more than a minute.

Of course, she’d never lift the spell if she knew I found a teacher cute. She didn’t even like the fact that I’d had a crush on a senior last year, which was nothing compared to a teacher in witch school. But crushes didn’t notice little things like the student-teacher divide. Not to mention, since he knew I looked like my mother, the probable five-hundred-year age gap between us.

Skeletor sighed and pointed his finger at the empty desk. Before I could make a move toward it, it swirled up the aisle, circled me, and snapped me up. The ride back down the aisle was excruciatingly slow, as it gave me every opportunity to see the smiles and laughter replacing the deadeyed looks of boredom.

“Welcome to remedial summoning and spells, Miss Stewart.”