Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 01 The Salem Witch Tryouts (5 page)

Agatha didn’t seem happy with my explanation, even though I’d smiled my best head-cheerleader smile—the one I’d been practicing all summer and was never going to get to use. Another mark on the scroll, and I was already getting tired of the testing. It’s never a good sign when you get tired of testing at the beginning.

She looked at me with cold blue eyes. “Do you need extra help?”

“No. I’m fine.” I would have said no if she’d sent two hungry lions at me. She had that effect on everyone, I suspected.

“Good.” And we were off again.

All I can say is that the test was exhausting. When things weren’t flying at my face, orders were flying out of Agatha’s mouth. She wasn’t just the oldest, meanest witch I’d ever met, she was also the headmistress of a school that wanted students who could fly, materialize huge objects with the lift of a finger, and play an orchestra of instruments with just a few lifts of the eyebrows and a twitch of nose. I, needless to say, was definitely not one of those students. Although I’m proud to say that my smile did not slip once, not even when the violin bow squeaked across the strings and tangled in my hair.

Somewhere during the hell that was my entrance exam to Agatha’s Day School for Witches, she let it slip she had been born during the days of Genghis Khan. And she was the one in charge of running a school for young witches. Not a surprise at all—if you were looking to turn out heartless dictators and megalomaniacs.

Somewhere in between not flying and drawing ungodly sounds from a clarinet and a flute without touching them, I realized witch school was going to be even less fun that I’d thought it would be. Agatha assured me, with a sadistic smile, that the only way to remain on the cheerleading squad—if I made it—would be to maintain passing grades in all my classes.

For the first time since I’d joined my preschool class with
a lunch box and a drive to be the first to be potty trained, I would have tried to fail a test—if I knew what I was being tested on. As it was, I just hoped I’d last long enough to see the end of Agatha and her frozen wasteland of a testing room.

Too bad Agatha didn’t see fit to reject me. Although I know she wanted to, since the letter about whether or not I’d passed the test didn’t arrive until the night before school was supposed to begin. The spidery handwriting on the official Agatha’s letterhead had had to be translated by a reading spell my mom cast.

I thought Dad was going to have a heart attack when the letter just appeared with a little puff of smoke in the middle of dinner—right next to the dish of green beans. But he settled down quickly—he was trying so hard to take this move and all the changes well. “It looks like we have mail.” It’s amazing that he can come up with ads that make people want to buy things, because I sure wasn’t buying his casual attitude.

But that was nothing compared to what happened next: Mom took a quick sip of her wine and summoned the letter to her with a little smile to Dad that she always used when she wanted to say “I’m sorry” without saying it in front of “the kids.” After trying to read it with and without her reading glasses, she sighed and muttered a spell under her breath.

The letter rose from her hands, and a booming voice recited what Agatha had written:

“To the Parents of Applicant Prudence Stewart,
“Greetings and good evening.

“It is with some apprehension that we are admitting Miss Stewart to the junior class of Agatha’s Day School for Witches. While her academic skills in math and reading are acceptable …”

“Acceptable! She has a 4.0.” Dad stood up and shook his finger at the letter, which gently wafted away from the breeze of his fury. I was glad that he defended me, even if he did look silly doing it. The translation spell continued without pause.

“… we feel that she may have difficulty with her schoolwork in even the most basic subjects of spells, summoning, and potions due to her unorthodox upbringing.

“Despite our apprehensions, we admit Miss Stewart because it is our higher duty to do our utmost to fill in the gaps that sometimes occur when parents cannot, or have not, seen fit to bring up a young witch to use magic in a way that improves the world.

“Please be aware that young Prudence will be required to take remedial magic classes in order to make up what she has missed given her mortal education. We look forward to helping young Prudence become the fine witch we know she can be.

“As outlined in our student-parent-school agreement, to arrive under separate cover, please be advised no tardiness will be tolerated. All illnesses will be investigated by a member of our volunteer medical team before an absence will be excused.

“Yours truly,

“Admission Committee

Agatha’s Day School for Witches, East Branch”

It was more a letter of resignation than acceptance. They didn’t want me. But school duty meant they owed me a chance to learn what my neglectful mother had failed to teach me. Not that Agatha, from her letter, seemed to think I could learn it.

MADDIE: School starts 2moro Sure U dont wanna grab a broom n fly back?

❊

ME: No brooms only remedial classes 4 me

MADDIE: Noway

ME: Way

MADDIE: Is Salem that advanced? I know we know more about boob jobs and sides but

ME: Mom n Dad werent happy just movin us away from everything They had 2 send us 2 this really hard school 2

MADDIE: Sux Want me 2 ask Foxy the paperboy if he will write papers for U long dis?

ME: Thx but lets just hope my rents realize the error of their ways n bring us home soon!

MADDIE: Def Saw ur boy at football 2day Hez hotta than eva

ME: I heart Brent Send pix

MADDIE: On the way

ME: Sigh

MADDIE: More 2moro gtg

Brent
was
hotter than ever. I stared at the picture of my not-quite-boyfriend in his football uniform. He’d gotten taller and had broadened out in the summer he’d been
away with his family. I plugged the phone into my computer and printed out an eight-by-ten glossy and taped it to my headboard. The wonders of modern technology did nothing for this witch. I wanted to pop home. Not that I knew how. Yet.

You’d think it would help to know I could be in close contact with Maddie even though we were on opposite sides of the country. But facing the idea of the first day of school in a new school—in a witch school—I had to admit, it didn’t help at all. After all, Maddie knew what she was getting into. Maybe a teacher or two had gone over the wall and escaped, but most of them would be back, teaching the same classes the same way they had forever.

I knew what she was getting into, what I should have been facing. Mom and Dad just really didn’t get it, or they’d never have made me move across the country to go to a stupid new school where I was going to be the dumbest student in the bunch. Not to mention the one with the fewest shortcuts to the top skills. I mean, I knew all the workarounds for Beverly Hills. Which teacher to suck up to, which one to use humor on, who absitively posilutely would not accept a late assignment. But Agatha’s? Total mystery. Except that I’d be in remedial magic classes. Yuck. Honor society was out, at least until I could get my magic up to speed. And who would elect a class officer from the
shallow end of the pool? Thank goodness for cheerleading.
That
was my way to kewl.
That
I was going to ace with a proper cheerleader glow.

I had a momentary twinge of regret that I’d told Maddie. But she wouldn’t tell anyone … I didn’t think. And, besides, she didn’t know the remedial classes were magic, so no harm, no foul.

Back in Beverly Hills, it had been almost normal to worry about letting the witch thing slip with my friends. But now it just felt plain weird. Because here I was heading for a school where everyone knew I was a witch and expected me to do magic, and yet I’d never be able to show my face in Beverly Hills again—even if Mom and Dad came to their senses—if Maddie told everyone I was in remedial classes. After all, I wouldn’t be able to explain it was remedial magic—Mom would just wipe their memories and leave me back at square one.

It didn’t help that Agatha didn’t think I could cut it even in remedial magic classes. For that matter, after all that testing—not to mention the inch-thick agreement that landed on the flan just as we were recovering from the shock of the iffy acceptance letter—neither did I. Which is why I spent two hours before school trying to find the perfect outfit. If I’m not going to excel in academics, I’m going to have to find a way to be popular until I make the cheerleading team. Surely, given the fact
I’m from Beverly Hills, fashion is the next best thing.

I didn’t think “Agatha white” was the hottest thing for young witches, but I wasn’t sure how much black was too much. In fact, I wasn’t sure there was such a thing as too much black at all. But I wasn’t going to go for the Wicked Witch of the West look—or Glinda the Good Witch, for that matter. One thing I know for sure about fashion: You have to like what you’re wearing or you won’t pull it off.

In the end, I wore a cute black miniskirt over a pair of fishnet tights paired with my favorite black tee over a turquoise tank top. Casually elegant in an “I’m not desperate to fit in” kind of way. I hoped.

I managed to pump up my confidence enough to make it to the kitchen, where Mom had breakfast waiting. Not that I could eat. My stomach was in knots.

“Are you planning to wear that to school?”

You have to understand my mother doesn’t ask with the tone that other mothers ask. There was never any outrage in her voice. She says she’s seen everything, but she says it low so my father won’t hear her. It bothers him that he’s mortal. That he dyes his hair black while she touches gray into hers. I noticed there’s a jar of antiwrinkle cream in his medicine cabinet. Which is kind of sad, because Mom could zap him as smooth as any of those nipped, tucked, and liposucked movie stars. If he let her.

But Dad is deep into denying reality. Just like the
Dorklock. Who my mother also asks, with a teensy-tiny lift of her eyebrow, “Are you planning to wear that to school?”

Now, in contrast to my very reasonable goth-lite look, Dorklock is wearing a bright yellow jersey with black shorts.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t even have a clue we’ve crossed a continent to reach a primitive land that has things like snow and ice and cold weather. This nexus between the witch realm and the mortal world is just another place to explore. He even asked, the very first day we moved in, if we would use the fireplace to travel, like they do in
Harry Potter
.

Mom said no, Harry Potter was a fictional wizard, and we’d learn to pop from place to place in school, like other witches. When he started asking what would happen if we tried to pop somewhere there was a wall, I left the room. There are so many things I don’t know that I don’t even want to think about it.

Knowledge is power, not that the Dorklock knows that, despite all his questions. But you can’t be an info garbage dump. You have to focus on the important things. Like how you look. “You don’t have to dress like you’re in remedial classes, Dorklock.”

“Whatever.” He grabbed up his skateboard and a bagel and lifted his finger to pop himself into school.

But Mom had other plans. “Wait a moment, young man.”

He looked down. “Is my fly open? Nope.” He took a bite of bagel and sighed. He was clueless about what her next words would be, although I could have recited them aloud if it wouldn’t have gotten me trash duty for the next month straight.

“Let me sniff.”

He rolled his eyes and lifted his arm. The stench nearly knocked me over, and I was standing two feet away. I sneaked away from the familiar battle-to Tobias, stick deodorant is something to smear on mirrors, not pits. The Dorklock is not one to look ahead more than a moment or two. Which is why he has broken his arm twice and his leg once in accidents that he could have used magic to save himself from—if he ever had a clue what was going to happen before it did.

Mom said he’d grow up soon enough, that he was just young. But I’d never been like that when I was his age. And don’t give me the girl/boy thing either. I didn’t act like he does when I was four, and he can’t be eight years delayed emotionally, even if he is a Dorklock.

Letting their arguments and counterarguments fade away, I checked the time. It was now or never, because as soon as Mom got Tobias’s pits cleaned up, we’d be zapping to school. I took out my cell phone and sent a text message to Maddie. Would she be awake like she’d promised? Or had her alarms failed to wake her so early?

ME: Day 1 C pix How do I look?

MADDIE: U hot chicklie!

ME: Wish me luck

MADDIE: Luck Me 2

ME: Luck

MADDIE: Dont know what III do w/o U

Her reply was only a little delayed. Clearly she had been waiting for my text to come in. I felt guilty when I saw the typos, though. Maddie had practically been born texting perfectly. But not when she was up at 4:30 in the morning. If it wasn’t for school, she’d probably never get out of bed until noon. I hate that Beverly Hills is three hours behind us.