Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 01 The Salem Witch Tryouts (11 page)

I am ashamed to admit that I actually asked the Dorklock to show me how to home in on the locker. He did. Or so I hoped as I closed my eyes, stood on my toes, and whispered, “Me, Pru the wow wow wow, to locker now now now.”

I felt a split second of stomach up the nose, and then nothing. I opened my right eye just a tiny crack. Wonder of wonders, he’d actually told me the truth. Maybe I should start calling him Tobias?

Nah.

I opened my eyes all the way. Locker 666. Great. Even better, it took me three tries to get it open and stuff in it my nearly empty backpack, all the while worrying that I’d get sucked out of the hallway and into class before I got the door closed again.

I kept out only the huge family spell book for my first class. The spell book weighed twice as much as the backpack,
anyway. Other than tampons, tissues, a little lipstick, and mascara—the typical emergency supplies for a female of sixteen—there was nothing else in the backpack.

We didn’t need paper, because we wrote in the air, except for homework essays and tests—for which, oddly enough, we used the prosaic mortal technology of laptop and DSL. Go figure.

We didn’t need pencils because we used our fingers. We didn’t need books, except the spell book, because we were hands-on learning all the way. Studying the Salem witch trials? How better than to have your teacher zap you into the past to observe the proceedings? Two-minute oral presentation at the end of class. Twelve-page paper due next week.

You might wonder why witches need lockers. Why not just zap our spell books to and from home as we need them (no more forgotten homework, a big plus for all involved)? But the mortal world’s television has colored even the witch idea of what is appropriate.

And a school lockdown to “protect the innocent children” has nothing on Agatha’s. Forget metal detectors and hall passes made by the shop teacher. Every student is bound to the school with a series of spells that would make your eyes cross if you had to recite them.

Last night, I had decided to read the student-school agreement I’d signed under duress (a stack of small print that gave away all my freedom and stuck me with a ton of
responsibilities that I didn’t want). I’d thought the rules that had popped into my head when the school secretary stuck her finger on my forehead were bad. But the fine print was even worse. Nevertheless, I read on. Know your enemy, Dad always says. In school—as in the advertising business—the enemy can be anyone.

No unauthorized popping of any kind. No flying faster than a walk. No interference with any and all of the magic spells that keep us in line. In other words, we had all these great skills we had to master, but we better not have any fun doing it, or else. It must be really frustrating to the kids who aren’t still learning remedial skills.

Of course, like schools anywhere, at Agatha’s they made concessions to make it seem less like prison. You know, like making nasty medicine purple and pretending it’s really grape flavored? Ergo, lockers, desks, and pep rallies. Oh, joy.

The high school not only had a football, basketball, hockey, and soccer team, it was in a vast cooperative with mortal schools. Although the biggest competition was with the other witch high schools, there weren’t all that many of them in the country, so the Salem team practiced against the mortals, with magic strictly prohibited, in preparation for the witch-witch matches, where magic was not only allowed, it was necessary (when the Area 51 Flyers got mad at a ref call in a contentious soccer game and conjured a fire-breathing dragon, the plaque in the trophy hallway proclaims, the
Salem Witches matched and beat it with a fire-eating hippo with fireproof hide and a nasty temper).

The pep rally for the upcoming game (against the Washington Black Arts) answered all my questions about what to do to get to “it’ status. But not so much about how to do it.

“If you think you have what it takes!” Coach Gertie, the cheerleading coach, shouted as she waved pom-poms.

“If you think you can add to the team!” the football coach shouted and rallied his returning players.

Together, the coaches shouted, “Then try out!”

I watched the cheerleading team closely. They were cute girls, but they were mondo uncoordinated. They did a basket toss that looked more like a basket-with-a-hole-in-it toss (the flyer didn’t hit the ground—but only because she used magic when the four girls who were supposed to catch her misjudged her landing by at least three feet).

“I’m going to try out for soccer,” Maria leaned over and whispered to me. I’d managed to snag a seat next to her somehow—the one person I knew in the crowd. Although Agatha’s wasn’t as big as you might think. Witches aren’t rabbits when it comes to kids, I guess.

I smiled, suspecting strongly that soccer in the witch-world was as basic as it was in the mortal world. Kicking a ball. How hard is that? But then the soccer team came out on the field and I changed my mind. Apparently in witch
soccer, you weren’t allowed to use your hands or feet—only magic and, occasionally, your head. “Good for you. I’m going out for the cheerleading squad.”

She looked at the girls on the field, who were at the moment misspelling victory—the Y was missing. It seemed like an omen. Like fate saying I was meant to be the Y in victory at Agatha’s. Maria’s eyes widened. “You’re brave.”

“I was on the team at my old high school.” I didn’t mention that I would have been captain this year if it weren’t for my Dorklock brother and overprotective parents. Maria might spread the news around. And while that could give me kewl points with the rest of the school, it would make the cheerleaders hate me. Big-time. That news had to wait until I was one of them.

“But that was a …,” she whispered, “mortal school.”

“So? Cheerleading’s cheerleading, isn’t it? Hurrah for the team! Win! Win! Win!”

“I guess so.” She shrugged. “Good luck.”

For a minute I wanted to point out that one couldn’t be an it kid if one didn’t go for it. But I suppose that’s something Maria the fringie soccer player, wannabe or not, could never understand. I mean, I get that some kids don’t really want to be kewl. Obviously. But I’ll never get why. That’s beyond me.

Tryouts started on Friday. Signups were in the main hallway, natch, since other than the disappearing and reappearing lunchroom, that was the only place we’d all be at the
same time. The only hitch was that Friday was three days before I’d know whether the Mercedes would up my kewl factor or not. It was a calculated risk. And, if I thought it would sway the decision, I could always anticipate my father’s agreement and lie about the Mercedes.

I zapped my signature onto the tryout sheet, and a big index card with moving pictures on it appeared in my hand.

The card said
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE TRYING OUT FOR THE TEAM
. I stuffed it into my pocket because the lunchroom doors had finally appeared and everyone was filing in from the hallway. I’d been a cheerleader since the sixth grade and I’d only been magicking food for about a nanosecond.

Feeling confident that my work with last night’s dinner had made me lunchworthy, I looked carefully over the crowd in the lunchroom today.

I’d seen the current cheerleaders at the pep rally. Many of them sat at a table together. They just looked like cheerleaders, laughing and commanding the attention of whoever looked in their direction. Soon, I thought. But not today. Not until after I made the team.

But where then? Not at the tables where Anonymous Boy lurked. It was a real pain, I realized, that I hadn’t manifested my Talent yet. I’d have a place then. Of course, I might not like it, if, for example, I had to wear those earth tones everywhere I went just because I happened to manifest an Earth Talent.

I stood dithering for too long. At last, judiciously, I decided to sit near Samuel, Maria, and Denise again. I had yet to finish the invite I’d started to give Samuel to dinner.

Speaking of which—I’d reconsidered the dinner thing. I needed more than a little munch time with him if I wanted to get out of remedial classes. I needed us to be study buddies. Lunch would give me the time I needed to make him think he was asking me for a favor (a trick I learned from watching Grandmama).

I sat down with them as if it were expected, popping a chair for myself without breaking a sweat. I doubted anyone watching would guess I’d practiced the move for an hour and a half the night before. “Hi.” I dialed the smile up to bright for Samuel. “I wanted to thank you for the curry yesterday. It was delicious.”

“No problem. It’s my mom’s favorite recipe. She made it a lot before she died.”

Died? Was his mom a mortal? Not likely. But when Maria and Denise both looked at me with crazy big eyes to warn me off, I remembered how he’d said witches sometimes get killed by mortals. Not a subject to surf at lunch.

Which didn’t mean I wasn’t insanely curious, but if I asked, I could forget him as a study buddy, never mind get him to come around to thinking the favor I needed from him was a favor he needed from me. Dilemma.

Stalling, I said, “Can I offer you a slice of my mom’s
chocolate cake? It’s to die for.” Great.
To die for
. What was I thinking?

He stared at me for a moment. Fortunately for me, he wasn’t the type to take offense when a cute girl (I’m not being vain, just accurate) said something truly dumb (see, I don’t have a problem with my good points or my bad). “Sure. I love chocolate cake.”

Excellent! I had practiced this last night until even the Dorklock had asked me to stop. I popped a perfect piece of chocolate cake in front of him—and one in front of Denise and Maria, since they had added the brownie and whipped cream to my lunch yesterday. All three ooohed with appreciation. Very gratifying.

Then, without blinking, I quickly popped a roast beef wrap in front of me. It was only three simple elements: roast beef, mustard, and a spinach wrap. It looked perfect.

I bit into it casually, as if I didn’t really want to whoop it up because I’d managed to whip up something slightly complex. But as soon as I took the first bite, I regretted my showoff tendency. I’d wanted it to look as if I’d popped them simultaneously—which was a skill beyond my grasp at the moment. But I’d switched from chocolate cake to roast beef wrap so quickly, there’d been bleed through. Instead of mustard, I had chocolate icing. Surprisingly, roast beef and chocolate icing don’t go together well. But I was just going to have to pretend it tasted like mustard. Yummy.

“You’ve been practicing.” Samuel seemed most impressed, although all three of them smiled at me.

“Don’t you?”

“Not really.”

“Comes easy to you?” Yes, said my careful intelligence work (Maria was truly gabby at the pep rally). “You’re lucky you don’t have parents who didn’t let you practice your magic.”

All three of them looked shocked. “They didn’t—”

“Mortals get freaky about stuff like that.” I looked right into those eyes of his—which, speaking of freaky, the lenses of his glasses made his eyes seem to float outside his head when I looked that close.

“Right. What you need is a good study group—like we have.” I could have kissed Samuel right then and there—if it wouldn’t have given the entire lunchroom the wrong idea, never mind Samuel himself.

Maria and Denise nodded, and I was glad I had picked their table yesterday. It had been sheer luck—and a smidge of good instinct. They didn’t say a word about me being in remedial magic classes. I felt a little twinge about using them. But I had a goal, and it wasn’t hanging out at the geekoid table forever.

“I hadn’t thought of that! Samuel, you’re brilliant.” Perhaps I shouldn’t take advantage of being a cute teenage girl. But, hey, at the moment it’s the best thing I’ve got going for me. “I wish I knew some people, but so far I’ve
only met you guys. And you’re way too advanced for me. Do you think Marlys Bledsoe might be a good choice?” In class this morning, Marlys had turned a rabbit—and herself—bright blue.

Samuel had perked up as the discussion veered away from death and into the realm of study groups and getting together outside of school. And I was sure it had nothing to do with the word “study.” My casual mention of Marlys was just to nudge him over to the idea that I would be doing him a favor instead of vice versa.

“You have all this mortal stuff you could show us—we’d be lucky to have you.” Done. He had now asked me to do him a favor and join his study group.

“Great! And you can come to dinner and meet my dad, then, too.” My dad was the only really “mortal stuff” I could think of to show him, not that I’d let on. If I played it right, he’d never realize that what I wanted was to pick his brain and learn everything I hadn’t learned in the last sixteen years in the shortest time possible. “Is Saturday good?”

“I can’t,” Maria said. “I have to go to my mom’s wedding.” I could tell she was disappointed, so I tried to look disappointed, too, despite the fact I really wanted Samuel alone—boys on their own are much easier to manage. If the girls were there, we might actually end up doing regular homework instead of the mega-fast-track tutoring I’d need to get out of remedial classes.

However, I’d obviously missed something, because the topic had shifted while I was doing an inward touchback. Both Samuel and Denise were staring at Maria as if she’d just announced she was the one getting married, not her mom. “
Who’s
getting married?”

Maria blushed and whispered, “Mom is getting married again—but don’t repeat that to anyone. She and her boyfriend are going to Vegas to elope.”

Denise whistled. “Wow. I’m sorry for you.”

“Is he a jerk?” I asked, trying to be sympathetic. I knew that game. I’d held the hand of all my friends as they dealt with all the changes in dads and moms. Everyone in my school had gone through it, it seemed, except me.

“No. She doesn’t have the approval of the high council.” Maria kept her voice low, and then shrugged as if she needed to apologize for her mother. “What can I say, she’s two hundred years old and this is her fifth husband.”

I couldn’t really get into all the drama about eloping. Or even fifth husbands. “What’s the big deal? People elope all the time. Life goes on.”