The Trouble with Secrets (4 page)

Enchantress Le Fay whipped her hat off her head, and held it up for all the audience to see that it was empty. She pulled a wand out of her sleeve and tapped the upturned brim of the hat.
“Hoobedy doobedy fizzledy-hop!”
she cried, then pulled a white rabbit out of her hat.

There were
ooh
s and
aah
s from the crowd as Enchantress Le Fay held up the squirming bunny for all to see, but George wasn’t impressed. “Any magician could do that with a trick hat,” he said. “Easy peasy.”

“Hmph,” Enchantress Le Fay snorted. She handed the rabbit to Jason and shooed him away. With a long paddle, she stirred whatever was in her
great black cauldron. Wafts of vapor emerged, which she waved through the air with strange hand motions. “Tell me, Cauldron,” she cried, “is there anyone here, besides me, who possesses a witch’s skill and talent? Boil once for yes, and twice for no!”

Her cauldron bubbled up, releasing more jets of vapor, not once, but twice.

“I thought not,” Enchantress Le Fay said smugly.

A lot you know,
B thought, but she kept her mouth shut.

“There’s probably a button she’s stepping on,” George said. “C’mon, B, let’s go ride the rides.”

But Enchantress Le Fay wasn’t done with George yet. “You,” the fake witch said. “Boy with Glasses. You’re not
afraid
of my powers, are you?”

George pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “As if! You’re about as scary as a stomachache.”

The would-be witch pulled two large bottles from a table behind her. She poured amber liquid from the first bottle into an old-fashioned goblet, muttering “dragon’s tears… .” She shook
some powder from a pouch around her neck and swirled it into the cup. “Serpent’s teeth …” Then she uncorked the second bottle, and with trembling fingers, prepared to pour some of it into the cup. “Morning dew.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, should I do it? Is it too cruel? No! He needs to be taught a lesson!” Her eyes flew open. “Stand back, everyone!” she cried. “This potion” — she glared at George —
“curses
the unbelievers who deny my power. Beware!”

George laughed aloud.

Enchantress Le Fay poured the other bottle into the cup. It bubbled and frothed instantly, pouring over the mouth of the cup in foaming blobs.

“Just as I feared,” she hissed. She pointed a green-tipped finger at George. “This curse will remain in force upon you, until the day you crawl back to me, declaring my powers are real and begging me to reveal my secrets to you!”

She threw the contents of the foaming goblet into her cauldron. There was another burst of stifling green smoke.

A handful of people clapped. The smoke cleared, and Enchantress Le Fay’s triumphant face appeared.

What a phony,
B thought.
A mean, annoying phony.

But George only laughed. “Vinegar, detergent powder, and soda water,” he said. “Anybody can do that trick.”

“C’mon, George,” B said. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah,” George said, following B toward the rides. “I’ll bet you’ve seen enough this afternoon to know for sure that witches aren’t real, right?”

Um
… B forced a laugh. George would never know just how much proof she had that witches
were
real! Time to move the conversation to safer ground. “Look!” she said, hurrying away from the tent. “There’s not much of a line by the go-carts.”

They paid for their tickets and went roaring around the track, kicking up clouds of dust thicker than Enchantress Le Fay’s smoke screens. But when George’s go-cart was halfway around the track, it
stopped, and B bumped into him. George tried and tried to restart the car, but it didn’t respond. Cars piled up behind them, and people hollered out to see what was wrong.

A fair worker with “Snowball” tattooed in big letters on one arm came over to investigate. He ordered George to climb out of the cart and then moved it off the track. He pulled B’s car off, too, as she joined George.

“Well, look who’s here,” a voice said. “Bee Sting and her sidekick, Georgie-Porgie.”

It was Jason Jameson, leaning over the fence to jeer at them, a candy straw dangling between his teeth.

George ignored Jason. But when a group of teenagers who’d been stuck in the traffic jam zoomed by and yelled, “Hey, little kid! Learn to drive!” and Jason started laughing, B could see George’s patience start unraveling.

“I
know
how to drive it,” George said, kicking a tuft of grass. “The stupid car stalled.”

“That’s ’cause you’re cursed,” Jason said. “Enchantress Le Fay got you good.”

“Don’t you have a plastic cauldron to scrub,
apprentice?”
B said.

“Yeah,” George said. “Go refill her bottles of vinegar and soda. Potion, my eye. That’s the oldest chemistry trick in the book.”

“So what if it is?” Jason said. “When a real witch does it, it still makes a curse. And you’re the one that’s cursed.”

The next day, George wasn’t on the bus. B watched for him all morning, but when she arrived in Mr. Bishop’s room for English class, there was still no sign of George. B fed Mozart a baggie full of celery sticks, and laughed as the hamster snarfed them like a kid eating Halloween candy. But all the while she wondered, where could her friend be?

Mr. Bishop started reviewing last night’s homework, and a few minutes later, George burst in. His “La Zebra Italiana” jersey was inside out, and his hair, which was always a bit of a shaggy blond mop, was practically standing upright. He ran into the room just as Mr. Bishop was collecting the preposition packets.

“Mr. Bishop, can I call my mom? I can’t find my homework, I think I must have left it at home. My mom might be able to drop it off for me.”

“No need to interrupt your mother’s day over this,” Mr. Bishop said. “Stop by my desk after class and we’ll figure out what to do about your assignment, okay?”

George sat next to B. His face was drawn, his lips pressed tight together.

“Cursed
…” Jason hissed, just low enough for Mr. Bishop not to hear.

Later, when Mr. Bishop stepped out into the hall for a second, B whispered, “George, what’s up?”

He shook his head. “I can’t say.”

B gave him a friendly jab with her elbow. “You’re not keeping secrets, are you?”

George sighed. “Later, okay?”

On their way to lunch, when Jason was nowhere near, B asked George again what was wrong. He looked away, but B teased him for an answer. Finally he relented.

“I overslept this morning and missed the bus,” he said. “Burned my toast. Broke a glass. Banged my
head on a cupboard door, and my mom got a flat tire driving me to school. And, I forgot my homework.”

“I’m sorry,” B said, squeezing his shoulder. “What a rotten start to your day!”

“It’s that curse,” he whispered. “I didn’t think so last night, all that mumbo-jumbo and the vinegar trick. But after this morning, I don’t know. Maybe it is real!”

“But that’s ridiculous, and you know it!” B burst out. “One: You’re always running late in the morning. So that proves nothing. Two: Anyone can have a bad day. Three: Enchantress Le Fay is not a witch.
That’s
obvious!”

They reached the lunch line. B glanced at the board where the entrée was displayed. Oh, no. Shepherd’s pie. A fancy way to say dried-out potatoes over gray meat glop, with the occasional pea that was even grayer than that meat. George hated shepherd’s pie day, and B worried that he’d see it as more proof he was cursed.

B put a hand over her mouth. “L-A-S-A-G-N-A,” she coughed. A tray of carrots turned into a hot
pan with melting mozzarella slathered over ruffly noodles and bubbling sauce.

“Look, George,” she said, trying to sound surprised. “One of your favorites!” Without waiting for his response, B told Mrs. Gillet, the server, “We’ll both have the lasagna, please.”

Mrs. Gillet scratched her chin, frowning at the hot pans. “Marge,” she called to the back kitchen, “how’d you have time to make a lasagna this morning without me knowing?”

“They don’t have any garlic bread,” George commented. B bent over, pretending to tie a shoe, and spelled “garlic bread,” thinking hard about the breadbasket.

“Are you sure?” she said, popping up. “Check again.”

“I’ve gotta get me some more sleep,” Mrs. Gillet mumbled, loading up their plates and looking as if she’d seen a garlic bread ghost.

“That’s lucky, isn’t it?” B said on their way to find seats. “Lasagna on today’s menu?”

“I guess.” They found a table and sat down.

B dived into her food, hoping George would follow her lead, but he barely nibbled his lunch. Soon B’s garlic bread felt like stale crackers in her mouth. She hated to see George so down, and for such a stupid reason, too. What good was magic if it couldn’t even cheer up a friend? She thought of Mr. Bishop’s reminder that friendship was a magic stronger than any spell. Maybe what George needed more than potions and “luck” was a best friend who cared.

“You haven’t told me any corny jokes all day,” B said. She reached over and felt his forehead. “I think maybe you need to see the nurse.”

George perked up a little. “What’s black and white and green and black and white?” he said.

B grinned.
That
was more like it. “I dunno, what?”

“Two zebras fighting over a pickle.”

“Aw, man!” She crumpled her napkin and threw it at him. “That wins a new prize for cheesiest joke ever.”

A smile was doing battle with George’s face, and
winning. He took a big bite, then another, and said, “I got another one.”

B gulped a mouthful of lasagna. “Let’s have it.”

“What’s green and black and white and green?”

“Um, what?”

“Two pickles fighting over a zebra!”

“I was wrong,” B said.
“That’s
the cheesiest joke ever.” Her old pal was back! She’d broken the so-called curse.

George wiped up the last of the lasagna with his garlic bread, then stood to leave. “C’mon, let’s get to gym early and play Horse,” he said. But on his way to dump his trash, he tripped on a shoelace. His untouched cup of butterscotch pudding went flying … and landed,
plop,
all down the front of his jersey.

Every kid in the cafeteria burst out laughing.

B picked up the things that had fallen from George’s tray and helped him dump his stuff. Then they hurried out of the cafeteria.

“I’m doomed, B,” George said, looking shaky. “What if the rest of my life is like this? I’ll be like
the cartoon character who has a piano drop on his head every day!”

“Don’t be silly!” But B wondered … could it possibly be true?

Later in science class, George and Jason were randomly assigned to be lab partners for a project involving a Bunsen burner. “I don’t want to work with him,” Jason said, hamming it up for the whole class. “He’s cursed! I’ll end up burned like crispy bacon!”

B knew she shouldn’t take magical revenge on Jason, but she got through her anger by thinking of the words she’d use if she did. “Chicken pox” was high on her list, as were “blistering warts” and “soaking wet.”

Mr. Lorry, the science teacher, who most days seemed half deaf, didn’t even try to stop Jason from bragging, “I’m going to have Enchantress Le Fay make me a curse-repellent potion to ward off any contagious evil sticking to this guy.”

Jenny Springbranch tittered.

When the dismissal bell rang, George and B headed for the bus.

B had to do something to cheer him up. “Want to go to the fair again?” B asked. “We never did try the roller coaster.”

“No, thanks,” George said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near Enchantress Le Fay.”

“Oh, come on,” B began, but she stopped when she saw George’s stricken face. Now wasn’t the time to tease him.

A clap of thunder struck, and in a matter of seconds, from seemingly nowhere, a rainstorm rushed in, drenching them. B shielded her head with her bag while George fumbled in his backpack for a travel umbrella. The sidewalk danced with raindrops as sheets of wind-blown rain slashed across the parking lot.

“Hurry!” B called. “I can’t believe this storm.”

When George finally popped his umbrella open, gusting winds took hold of it and flipped it inside out.

“Holy cats!” B cried.

“Unbelievable,” George said, looking at the umbrella corpse.

“Where’s the bus?” B said, shielding her
face with her backpack. “We’re gonna get soaked!”

“We’re already …”

“Watch out!” B cried, leaping backward as a car drove by, close to the curb. A huge puddle had formed in the flash-flood conditions, and B and the others in line for the bus managed to jump back in time.

But not George.

A sheet of muddy water plastered him as the car sped past.

“You see what I mean?” George said, looking despondently at his shirt, which was now the color of butterscotch pudding. “Plain and simple: I’m cursed.”

After dinner and homework time that night, B showered early and got into her pajamas. She crawled under the covers, and Nightshade, recognizing his usual invitation, jumped up and started kneading her belly with his paws.

“Geez, cat,” she told him, scratching between his ears, “I’m not a pillow.”

After reading for a while, she turned off the light and lay in the dark, worrying about George. Finally she picked up the phone.

“George isn’t feeling well, B,” his mother told her. “Let me check to see if he can take your call.”

When he came on the line, George’s voice
sounded thin and raspy, like he was 110 instead of 11 years old. “H-hullo?”

“What’s the matter with
you?”
B asked. “You sound terrible!”

“I’m sick.” He wheezed. “It’s getting worse. The witch’s curse did me in.”

“Oh, for the love of chocolate,” B said. “Stop being so melodramatic! One teensy little cold, and you’re getting hysterical!”

George didn’t say anything. He only coughed.

B fumed. Here she was, calling to be a comforting friend, but that stupid curse kept getting in the way.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, anyway,” she said.

“Doubt it,” George said. “I’ll probably be under quarantine.”

B gave up. “If you say so,” she snapped. “G’night.”

“It’s been nice knowing you, B,” George said gloomily. “You can have my lucky soccer ball. You know. Just in case.”

“Good night, George.”

“ ’Night.”

B hung up the phone, then thumped her mattress with her fists. “Aaaargh!” Nightshade stalked away in disgust, the tip of his tail refusing to curl.

B lay in her bed for a long time, thinking. This had to stop. She wasn’t about to let magic, real or fake, come between her and her closest, best, most loyal friend. And the first order of business was to get rid of Enchantress Le Fay’s fake curse. The only question was how.

Sure enough, the next day George was absent from school. B spent the morning debating with herself what to do about him. By the end of English class, she’d made up her mind. She hung back after class to corner Mr. Bishop.

“What’s on your mind, B?” he asked after the room had cleared.

“It’s George,” she said. “I need your help.” B explained about Enchantress Le Fay casting a bogus curse on George at the fair, and about how George had been on a downward spiral ever since. “I’ve tried to use magic — and just plain old friendship — to cheer him up, but so far nothing’s worked.”

Mr. Bishop straightened his eggplant-colored sweater. “What would you like me to do about it, B?”

B wasn’t sure she had an answer. He was a witch, wasn’t he? An expert? He should know what to do.

“Well,” B said, “I’ve been wondering. You said that witches couldn’t be public about their powers without breaking all the rules. Right?”

Her magic tutor nodded.

“Could it be possible that Enchantress Le Fay is a real witch after all, hiding behind the costume of a fake one? Because as soon as she cursed him, bad things really did start happening.”

Mr. Bishop stood up and stretched, like a cat waking from its nap. “B, I really don’t think that’s likely.”

“But it’s not impossible, is it?” she said. “You’d be able to tell if you met her, wouldn’t you? Or if you tested one of her potions?”

Mr. Bishop sighed. He took off his glasses and nodded.

“Then, will you come with me after school today, and prove once and for all if she’s a real witch?”

Mr. Bishop twirled the curl of his pointy goatee around his finger. “I suppose …” he mused. “This could be a useful part of your magical education. We’ll meet at the fair just after school.”

Right after the last bell, B rushed to the fair and was surprised to find things quiet. It looked desolate, with soda cups and French fry trays cluttering the ground, and all the game stalls empty or with only one customer. There was no sign of Mr. Bishop, and B guessed she must have gotten there before the afternoon rush. She decided to look around while she waited. Maybe she could find out some things for herself about Enchantress Le Fay.

Behind the fairground stood a row of Dumpsters, and beyond that, a dozen or so trailers and campers were parked. That, B figured, was where the traveling fair workers lived. She walked along, reading the crazy bumper stickers from the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, Niagara Falls. What a life it must be, traveling the country with a caravan of colorful characters!

Then B saw a small trailer painted with black and green stripes and a license plate that read
RCH WTCH
.
Rich witch? That must be Le Fay.

A flickering light shone from one of the windows. Was the light a sign of something magical? She had to get a better look.

B tiptoed closer and could hear Le Fay muttering to herself. What was she up to in there? More potion making? B peeped through a gap in the curtains. The light flashed again and B saw that it was a television playing an infomercial for some magic makeover cosmetics.

Enchantress Le Fay was flitting around the trailer, trying on rings and bracelets. Only it looked nothing like her. Her hair was short and blond. She wore a long, faded T-shirt and a red bandana in her hair. Every now and then she took a bite from a jelly doughnut. She wasn’t brewing up potions after all.

Maybe Le Fay wasn’t a witch. B decided there was one more place she could look for clues, especially while “the witch” was off duty.

She rushed back to the little tent, hoping to get a good look before Enchantress Le Fay came out
for the afternoon show — and before Mr. Bishop showed up. It was busier now, but the area around the Enchantress’s stage was clear. B looked around, saw that no one was paying any attention, climbed the steps to the stage, and parted the curtain.

There stood the huge cauldron, looking a lot less impressive up close. It stood on a black rug. B lifted one corner of the rug and saw electrical cords running from the cauldron’s bottom to a power strip at the rear of the tent. Another cord connected to a foot pedal that lay obscured by the rug. This, B felt sure, was how Le Fay operated the cauldron.

She peeked inside the cauldron and saw a coiled-up mess of plastic tubing, with ends attached to the inner lip of the pot. Looking closer, she saw one tube labeled
FOAM
and the other,
SMOKE.
A plastic lid fit over the top, making it look like a boiling kettle of green goo. It was easy to see how this top, vibrating a bit, with bubbles spilling over the side, would look from a distance like a witch’s cauldron from a scary Halloween movie.

“Holy cats,” B murmured.

Just then, B heard voices approaching. She ducked behind the cauldron. It was Enchantress Le Fay, talking to …
Jason!
Jason Jameson. And they were approaching the tent.

B looked around. Was there a back way out? She couldn’t tell in the dim light. There was a footstep at the back of the stage.

B went the only place she could go. Face-first, into the cauldron.