Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 03 She's A Witch Girl (9 page)

Sunita said it best. “It’s more exciting now that we know what to expect.”

Of course, Charity, Tara’s # 2 girl, was happy to chime in. “And scarier, too.” This wasn’t negative. When you’re about to compete, the fear runs through your veins right along with everything else, fueling the perfection you’re aiming for, as an individual and as a team.

Two girls responded with, “Chicken.” Everyone laughed, again, which was absolutely glorious.

Charity veered into ego-ebbing territory, however, when she said, “Hey. I’m not the one who did a backflip into two people acting as bases for a flyer, now, am I?”

The guilty party—normally mild-mannered Jakeera—said, “I said sorry, and I’m the one with bigger bruises, so why are you complaining?”

I stopped all the nervous bickering with a solemn pronouncement. “We won’t make any mistakes today. I can feel it in the air.”

Everyone oohed. I was guru Pru today, and I liked it.

I only told the truth as I knew it, though, “Competition is going to sharpen us.”

Tara said, in a rare moment of camaraderie, “I think we’re pretty sharp already. When you came, it was like you stuck us into a cheer sharpener and here we are, pointy and shiny.”

We all laughed, even though it wasn’t exactly the best analogy ever. Like I said, that level of unity can be dangerous or powerful, depending on how it’s used.

“Pru! Our cheer-whisperer.” Tara held up one of my arms. “Let’s do it for Pru.”

Sunita asked, “Are you going to whisper to us today too?”

“Yes.” Tara and I had decided we couldn’t risk taking chances with everyone’s confidence level.

Charity frowned. “Is that fair?”

“I think so. There’s no harm in it, I’m just backing up the music cues. I can do it aloud, if you think that’s more fair.”

Tara shook her head. “No, aloud will sound stupid.”

Charity argued with Tara, which was probably a first. I guess her ego count was going through the roof right now. “But we’re doing something mortals can’t do.”

I pointed to the team that had just finished. “They can have headsets if they want.” I shrugged. “Same thing. But maybe we should bring it to a team vote?”

Smooth Pru. I was so humble that I didn’t act at all smug when the vote was unanimous: I was whispering to the team. Tara and I smiled at each other. Manage the team, safeguard the win.

Or, at least, the invitation. Our routine was solid, with some nice moments. We placed in the top five, but we hadn’t quite taken the risks we needed to take first place. Or second. Or even third or fourth. I didn’t like being fifth, but the team was even unhappier.

Charity complained as we waited for the other teams to clear out so we could pop home unobtrusively, “We haven’t got a chance to win.”

Tara fielded the complaint with a huge sigh. “We just wanted an invite to Nationals so we can compete again. We got that.”

Charity huffed, “Right. We get the chance to compete— against Pru’s old team, the, what, three-time champions?”

“Four,” I corrected her. So she didn’t like that her number-two place and her probable head cheerleadership
for next year was in jeopardy. Deal with it, weeyotch.

Sunita asked, a little timidly, “Do you think we can beat your old team?”

No. But I wasn’t going to say that aloud. “We can do anything if we work hard enough.” Was that diplomatic enough? I hoped so. I knew the truth was deadly when we had such a short time to get up to speed before the national competition at the end of December.

Charity wasn’t done being a downer, it seemed. “So can your old team, then.”

“They can,” I replied, since everyone already knew she was right. “And they will. Which means we need to do our best.”

“I’ll get that triple, Pru, I promise,” Celestina said, holding up her hand to cover her heart.

“Great!” And it was, too. You had to know what you had to beat if you wanted a chance to do well in competition. Pulling off a triple-triple would give us a leg up, so to speak, on the difficulty level.

As I popped back home, to the living room where Dorklock was playing his video games, Dad was working on his next big ad campaign on the laptop, and Mom was reading, I wondered whether Chezzie and Maddie had bothered to check the results and were worried about us—or whether they thought we’d just be a good laugh.

Dad looked up from his laptop. “Hi, princess. How did the team do?”

“We were in the top five, so we got our invite to Nationals.”

“Doesn’t that mean you’ll have to go up against your old team?”

Duh. “I guess so.” No way did I want him to guess that I was eager to grind my old team’s ego into the dust—especially Maddie’s. Dad was a softie about a lot of things, but friendship was not one of them. You treat your family like gold and your friends like silver, and look out if you do something petty just because you had a fight.

Mom intervened before he could give me a lecture. “I’m sorry about that, Pru, but I suppose there isn’t anything you can do about it. You have a new team to work with now.”

Apparently, Dad saw the logic of that. Which was great— because it was his fault, and Mom’s, that I’d had to switch teams in the first place.

It occurred to me that if I really wanted to know what Maddie was saying about me, I could find out. All I’d need to do was pay her a little visit every now and then before Nationals wearing my
très
chic invisibility bubble—the fashion must for any good gossip spy/witch. I’d perfected it for the test I’d had to take to get out of remedial classes. Even though I hadn’t needed it for the test, I knew it would still come in handy someday.

Besides, if Dorklock could do it, I knew I had to—no way was my little brother going to run rings around me with his magic for long.

Mr. Bindlebrot kept me after class. Sure, he’s
Orlando Bloom hot, but my former crush on him is cold, so I was not feeling the love as he stood there looking at me with disappointment.

“Pru, you missed the test on Friday while you were helping Coach Gertie with the pep rally. You need to make it up quickly if you want the grade in by the end of term.”

“I will.” I pulled out To-Do, hoping to score a few teacher points and lighten the disappointment in his eyes. “When can we reschedule?”

“Today. Right after school.”

To-Do shook his Troll doll swath of hair. “I’m afraid that time is already scheduled. You have practice after school, a
study session for transfiguration directly after practice, a tutoring session on scrying after that, and—”

Sigh. So much for points for being organized. “When
do
I have free time?”

To-Do grumped and groaned a bit as he searched his data banks. “June sixteenth is free.”

Of course it was. That was the first day of summer break.

Mr. Bindlebrot frowned. “Pru, this test is very important. If you don’t do well, you will fail the term.”

“I know.” I hadn’t really known, but no way was I going to confess that to the man who held my grade in his hand. “I’m still getting used to this whole magic curriculum idea.” I smiled. I so needed him on my side. “Math used to be one of my easy subjects, Mom always said.” It was a little sneaky using the Mom card—she and Mr. B had been classmates way back in the Dark Ages (technically, more like the Middle Ages, but still, it was so long ago, they not only didn’t have iPods, they didn’t have indoor plumbing).

I stuck To-Do back in my pocket. “I’ll juggle my schedule around the makeup test. Just tell me when.”

“I’ll give you some time to clear that busy schedule of yours. How about Monday? Directly after school.”

“Great. I’ll be there. And I’ll ace the test.” Which meant scheduling in study time as well as test time. To-Do would grumble, but he’d handle it.

Our next game after Regionals was a mortal game. We were stoked about getting an invitation to Nationals, but Tara and I were even more stoked that we were playing Angelo’s school. I’d arranged with Angelo that we’d go get burgers after the game. It was a way to keep completely off the parent radar—witch and mortal. Angelo’s mom would probably pitch a fit if she knew that he was seeing Tara. Tara’s parents— they’d pitch a fit that might level a town if they found out their daughter was seeing a mortal boy.

First, however, we had decided that we needed to prepare killer routines for the games. There’s something about practice that makes even the most wowalicious routines seem less than fab. An audience to wow? That adds sparkle to the simplest cheer, and gives our football players the spirit to crush the opposition.

Not that our team needs much spirit. The cheerleaders at Angelo’s school were okay, but their football team was much worse than ours. That could have gotten messy, if Angelo cared about football. There’s nothing that will ditch a romance faster than rival football rooting.

Fortunately, Angelo was so nonchalant about the game that he even hung out on our side of the field, which had its upside (eye-candy factor in the double digits) and its downside (eye-candy factor in the double digits means cheerleaders who are paying attention to the eye candy rather than the routine or the game).

As head cheerleader, Tara was a bad person to have distracted during our game. But you’d never have known she’d given the score or the play on the field a thought, the way she interrupted every move to wink at Angelo. Anyone in the stands could see that every bounce and kick and flip was aimed right at him. He, being sixteen, ate it up with a fork and two spoons.

I have to be honest: I know what Tara sees in Angelo, but I don’t have a clue what Angelo sees in Tara. At first, when I got them together for some playacting at the Old Salem Village on Halloween, I didn’t think he was that into her. But now I don’t know. I wasn’t the happiest to see them flirting. But that was nothing compared to the unhappiness of the other cheerleaders. And noncheerleaders.

“Does it ever bother you the way girls keep looking over at you?” I asked him while we were on break—a much-needed break for his side, because our football team was making short work of theirs. I didn’t mention his team’s poor performance to Angelo, because it was his school, but I actually wondered if this would be the first football game to last not much more than the one hour set on the clock at the start of the game. “Are you this popular at all the games?”

“No.” He seemed embarrassed by the attention, but not surprised. “I’m not that into sports.” He held up his hands belatedly, realizing that he was talking to cheerleaders. “No offense.”

Tara laughed. Tara—the cheerleader who once released a bloodcurdling scream on the sidelines of a game because someone in the bleachers leaned down to say, “Cheerleading, the sport of pigeons!” while we were cheering on our team.

I shrugged, looking at the way that the girls—never mind girls, there were middle-aged, double-chinned women staring at him. Creepy. “Yeah, you’re more into gardening and studying, right?” No wonder he liked the solitary pursuits. I thought of the times I had sat at my window and watched him rake our yard or mow our lawn. Did I look as moony as these girls? I hoped not.

“I guess you could say that. At least, until I can get out west and start making films.”

He’d told me that before—that he wanted to be an actor. I hadn’t been sure he’d actually get his chance, though—his mom was a bit on the bossy side, and she wanted him to go to Harvard and be a doctor. “How do you know that filmmaking is really what you want, anyway?”

He shrugged. “I don’t. All I
am
sure of is that I want to grow up and get my mom out of my business so I can figure out what I really want.” He grinned, an infectious grin that I felt in my toes. Then he looked at Tara and said, “Right, babe?”
Gah.

One of the other team’s cheerleaders wandered over to our side of the field. I didn’t have to wonder what brought her past enemy lines without thought of consequence. She
was staring straight at Angelo and smiling a bright smile only a truly happy cheerleader can manage. “Hey, Angelo.”

“Hey, Nadia.” He wasn’t totally clueless. He glanced quickly at Tara and moved close enough to sling an arm around her so that anyone would know they were an item.

Anyone but this Nadia girl, I guess. “We have a bet going, and I’m supposed to find out who’s the winner. Who did you ask to the winter dance?” She glanced at Tara with an expression that said, “clearly not this weeyotch.”