The Unwilling Witch (9 page)

Around me, everyone was hard at work, scribbling away. I thought about what I'd read in the books I'd borrowed. It helped to have an object to focus the power. That was one of the keys. Lance had been hurt because I'd just let the power loose without any direction. I wouldn't do that again. But I had to find out whether I could control my power.

I held up my own pencil and broke the tip with my thumb.
Snap.
Then I blew on the tip. Energy flowed from me into the air, spreading in all directions.
Snap, snap, snap.
Two dozen other pencil tips snapped. I couldn't help grinning as the whole class headed for the pencil sharpener. I noticed that my thumb was a bit sore, as if I'd actually used it to break every single one of those pencils.

Mrs. Pushbind looked like she wanted to say something, but all the kids held up their pencils to show her.

“I did it,” I whispered to Jan as I got in line behind her.

“What was the point?” she whispered back.

I realized she was making a joke about the pencil points. But I still answered her. “The point is power,” I said.

Life at school was about to get very exciting.

 

Twenty-one

PRANKS A LOT

I didn't break the pencils again. I felt that I wouldn't learn anything by repeating myself. As I walked down the hall with Jan on our way toward lunch, I thought about what else I could do. The cafeteria was loaded with possibilities.

“Lunch is going to be interesting,” I told Jan as we took our seats. We always brought sandwiches so we wouldn't have to stand in line.

“Hardly the word I'd choose.” Jan peeked into her bag and said, “Nope. Nothing interesting in here. Nothing edible in here, for that matter.”

We sat at an empty table. I didn't want anyone to notice what I was doing. I looked over at the noisiest table. A bunch of kids were laughing and shouting and horsing around. Kenny Volst was standing up, leaning on the edge of the table, saying something to Mike Howardson. I took a drinking straw and balanced it on one end.
Slip,
I said to myself. I blew a puff of air, knocking over the straw. Kenny's hands slipped and he fell face-first into his plate of food. Lunch today was what the cafeteria people called Hungarian goulash, but it was really just noodles with red sauce and chunks of mystery meat. It looked great on Kenny.

Jan stared at Kenny, then back at me. “Was that you—?”

“Yup.” I tried to turn everyone's milk sour. But nothing happened. Only about half the things I tried actually worked. I did manage to make Cody Perez spill juice all over his pants. And I got Melissa Canutti to burp real loudly. Three times! She looked around like she couldn't believe what had come out of her mouth. All her stuck-up friends got very embarrassed.

“One favor,” Jan said after Melissa's third ear-shattering belch.

“What?”

“Just don't do anything like that at the other end. Okay?”

“Jan! I'd never stoop so low.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I started laughing.

Jan was laughing, too. Then her face lit up like she was suddenly struck with a great idea. “Why don't you cast a spell on
him,
” she whispered, pointing past me.

I glanced over my shoulder. Danny Gleason was at the table right behind me.

“I couldn't,” I whispered back.

“Sure you could,” Jan said.

Why not?
Trying not to giggle or attract attention, I got out my notebook and drew a heart on a piece of paper. Then I tore the heart into tiny pieces and gathered them in my hand. I was pleased that I was getting so good at using the power.

I turned and puffed the pieces of paper toward Danny.

“Watch out. Coming through!”

“Make way!”

I jerked back as someone ran between me and Danny. Then I cringed as all my fragments of heart scattered across my two worst nightmares—Clem and Clyde Mellon.

If ever I'd hoped to fail at something, now was the time. I held my breath—my magical, powerful, witchy breath.

 

Twenty-two

HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

Clem and Clyde stopped running and stared at me as if they were watching a sunrise over a mountain lake or a rare flower blooming.

“You sure are pretty,” Clem said.

“Saw her first,” Clyde said. He pushed Clem.

“Did not,” Clem said. “I saw her first.” He pushed back.

Clyde took a swing at Clem. Clem ducked and tackled Clyde. They went flying like a sack full of melons, punching and shouting and hitting. Another hulk rumbled past me as May dived in, yelling, “Break it up, you two!” In an instant, she was hauling them apart, clutching each by an ear.

“I'm not hungry anymore,” I said to Jan. Part of me felt guilty about pulling these stunts, but I had to admit, except for the part with Clem and Clyde, I was having fun. And then I felt guilty for enjoying myself.

As I left the cafeteria, exhaustion dropped on me like a mountain of rocks. I staggered, then leaned against a wall.

“What's wrong?” Jan asked.

“I'm tired,” I said. I felt better after a moment, but I realized it took a lot of energy to use my power. I held back from doing anything else for the rest of the school day, and I made sure I avoided Clem and Clyde whenever I walked through the halls.

I went with Jan to her house after school. “So, what's it like?” she asked when we got to her room. “I mean, how do you do it?”

I'd been trying to figure it all out myself. “It's sort of like imagining. I have to pretend that what I want to happen is already real. But it's also like wishing.” I looked around for something to use as an example.

“Sounds kind of like daydreaming,” Jan said.

“Yeah. That's not a bad description.” I went to Jan's dresser and got a white handkerchief. I held it and imagined that it was green.

“Wow,” Jan said as the handkerchief changed color. “Can you change it back?”

“I don't know.” I tried, but it didn't work. “Hey,” I said as I thought of a good way to explain it. “Remember when my dad took us bowling?”

“Yeah. How could I forget?” Jan grinned. “I kept throwing the ball into the next alley. What's that got to do with this?”

“Near the beginning, I threw the ball perfectly once. I knocked all the pins down. I thought—hey,
this is easy
. But as soon as I tried to do it again, I couldn't.”

“Yeah.” Jan snapped her fingers. “That happened to me with tennis. I hit a great shot, and as soon as I try to do it again, I can't. But with your power, if you think about something the right way, you can do anything, right?”

I shook my head. “Just small stuff. Big stuff is harder. I need to use something to help my mind focus.” I got up and faced the bed. I imagined the bed rising, and at the same time I lifted the handkerchief.

“Hey!” Jan shouted as her bed started to rise.

As the bed rose an inch from the floor, I could feel myself getting tired. I relaxed and the bed fell with a crash.

A moment later, Jan's phone rang. She picked it up and said, “Sorry.” Then she hung it up and told me, “My dad says to keep the noise down. He's thinking about the universe and needs peace and quiet.”

She was the only person I knew who got phone calls from her folks when they were all in the same house. “Sorry.” I dropped the handkerchief. “There's more, but I haven't really figured it all out. Words seem to have some kind of power. I mean, they can help me focus, but they seem to have more use than just that. I wish I was better with words.”

We talked awhile longer; then I went back to my place and got started on my homework. I couldn't resist trying to do it the easy way. I managed to make all the math answers appear, but that didn't save me any work, since I had to check everything to make sure it was right. Then I tried to create an essay for English class. But when I read it, I wondered whether it had come from somewhere. What if it was a famous essay? I'd get in trouble for copying. In the end, I wrote my own essay.

Nothing unusual happened until that evening when I walked into the living room. “Can you help me clean up?” Mom asked. She was in the middle of one of her assaults on dirt and disorder. The furniture had been moved out so she could get to the whole floor, and the windows were wide open, allowing a breeze to blow through the room.

“Sure. What do you want me to do?”

She pointed to the closet. “I spilled some dirt when I was repotting those plants. Could you get the electric broom and sweep it up? I need to go fold the laundry.”

“Okay.” I went to the closet. The electric broom is like an upright vacuum. As I grabbed the handle, it tugged against my grip. I probably should have let go. But I held on.

 

Twenty-three

SWEEPING THE SKY

The broom shot out of the closet, dragging me across the floor. “Hey!” I shouted.

The front of the broom lifted into the air and headed toward the window. I tried to stop, but I just kept sliding along. Mom had done a nice job waxing the floors. By the time we reached the window, I was nearly off my feet.

The broom flew outside, zooming up like a jet taking off from an airport. Then the front flipped back between my legs, and I was riding it.

I tried to make it turn back to the house, but it didn't pay any attention to me. This wasn't a spell I'd cast—this was the power running wild. I wasn't in control. We—the broom and I—climbed higher, soaring in an upward spiral.

The air grew cooler as we rose. We slowed, and we were no longer alone. Birds flew toward us from all directions. Crows, wrens, sparrows, and cardinals sped across the sky. A red-tailed hawk joined us. It was beautiful.

I was in my element—I was in the air.

We flew far above Lewington. I tried to spot my house. I found the school. The track was a tiny oval far below. The breeze whipped my hair as I traced the streets back to my house.

I stopped clutching the broom and just held on lightly to the handle. I didn't think I'd fall, even if I let go. I relaxed and enjoyed the ride, scanning the ground for more places I knew. The park was easy to spot—a large rectangle of green plunked near the houses and streets. And across from it, sure enough, the mall really did look like a giant turtle, its five corridors stretching from the Hub like arms, legs, and a head.

After circling the whole town, the broom swooped sharply downward, leaving the birds behind. We picked up speed as we got closer to the house. Air blasted past me, rippling my shirt and tugging my hair. It felt fabulous. By the time we reached the living room window, we were going so fast, I could hear a
whoosh
. We shot into the room and turned in a tight circle, zooming around so rapidly that the breeze pulled up all the dirt. The circle grew tighter and tighter, until we were spinning like an ice skater in the middle of the room.

We stopped.

The cyclone of dirt spun away from us, then danced across the room, up the wall, and out the window.

Wow.

“Hey, good job. Looks like you got all the dirt,” Mom said as she walked into the room.

“Thanks.” I waited a moment to steady myself, then carried the broom back to the closet. My head was still in the clouds; my feet were still a mile above the earth.

Things started to get a little wild in my room again that night. Mostly, the stuff on my dresser and in my closet began shifting around. But I stood there and said, “No!” and concentrated on keeping the power under control. It worked. It sort of reminded me of when Dad fixes a dripping faucet. At first, there's water leaking out where it isn't supposed to. Then Dad tightens something and makes it better.

While I was thinking about Dad and the faucet, I glimpsed a train in the mirror again. The sight of the train, all wrapped in fog, and the scream of the whistle, shook me pretty badly.

As I was falling asleep, I heard this horrible screeching noise. At first, I thought it was another burst of uncontrolled power. “Sounds like a cat fight,” I said to Darling as I looked out the window.

It was much worse than that. Clem—who I could tell from Clyde because he had shorter hair—was under my window. I think he was singing to me, but it was hard to tell. Before I could yell at him to leave, Clyde showed up.

“Get out,” Clem said. “I was here first.”

“You stole my idea,” Clyde said. He grabbed his brother and they started wrestling. The fight carried them down the street and away from my house.

That night, I dreamed of birds and brooms. But someone kept throwing melons at me.

In the morning, when I went down for breakfast, I saw a box on the table with my name on it. “The package from your father arrived,” Mom said.

“Where's Sebastian?” I asked, noticing that my brother had already opened his box.

Mom shrugged. “He left early. First time I ever saw that boy eager to get to school.”

I suspected his eagerness had to do with avoiding me.

“Look at mine,” Rory said. He held up his gift—a plastic bird with wings that flapped. Rory wound it up and let go. It flew across the kitchen. Rory laughed and chased after it.

I tore open my package and lifted out a bracelet made of woven strips of colored paper. “It's beautiful!” I couldn't wait to show it to Jan. I grabbed a quick breakfast, then headed off toward school.

When I got there, I saw Clyde Mellon standing by the front entrance, holding a bouquet of flowers. His hair was combed, he was wearing a clean shirt, and his eyes had the look that reminded me of the puppies in the pet shop. I could tell it was Clyde because he had all his front teeth.

I shuddered and sneaked around toward the side door. Clem was waiting there with a huge box of chocolates and a grin like a piano keyboard. I slunk to the back of the school and started to climb in an open window. As soon as possible, I had to find a way to remove my spell.