Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 01 The Salem Witch Tryouts (10 page)

I figure I have a month before the infamy fades. A month to figure out the spell books, the witch kid hierarchy, and how I can get to the top. If I can’t, then I hope I’ve convinced Dad about the car, because I’m going to need it to drive back to L.A.

First, though, I have to figure out how to make my own lunch appear in the cafeteria tomorrow. I didn’t want Anonymous Boy making fun of me again just because I couldn’t feed myself.

“Any homework?” Mom asked, trying to pretend a car was no big deal. Sometimes she acts übernormal when my eccentric grandmother is around. I can’t be blamed that I decided to tweak her.

“I have to learn how to conjure different dishes. So I thought I might make dinner tonight.” Nothing like adding a few brownie points to the record.

Mom looked at the carrot that she was scraping. “I was going to make beef stew ….”

“I need to use magic.”

She bit her lip. I think Mom was having more trouble with the new rules than I was. Good. She deserved it for moving us all here.

“It’s homework, Mom.” Which wasn’t strictly true—but if I wanted to be an it kid, I darn well better be able to whip up more than pb&j at lunchtime. So I felt justified.

She smiled. “I guess I’d better get used to this new reality, hadn’t I?” She dashed her hand, and everything she’d had on the counter to make the stew quickly went back into storage.

“How do you manage to control so many objects at
once? I can barely summon one thing at a time. I was the worst kid in my remedial class today.”

“A little practice will put you ahead of all of them, Prudence. Don’t be discouraged.”

Seeing an opportunity to lay guilt, I sighed. “Oh, right. You mean I wouldn’t be in remedial spells if I had been allowed to learn and practice my powers when I was young.”

“You’re still young.” Mom often refused to admit she wasn’t perfect. “And I think it is wonderful that you intend to practice what you learned at school tonight for your family.”

Oops. Problem was, I hadn’t learned it. I just knew I needed to. Second problem was how to get Mom to show me what I needed to know without letting her know that.

I pointed to the dish cabinet and painstakingly set the table one dish at a time. When Mom didn’t help right away, I let a dish wobble.

“Here, honey, let me give you a tip.” She held up her hand. “You know how you learn to count on your fingers when you’re little? The principle is the same.” She extended her index finger and a dish rose from the table, then her middle finger and another rose, then her ring finger and a third plate began to hover above the table. She used her pinkie to raise the fourth and last plate and
then quickly sent them back to the cupboard.

“Now you try.” The door to the cupboard containing paper plates opened. “But not with my good dishes.”

I felt like a baby, but the finger method worked surprisingly well. I moved four paper plates at one time, four plastic cups, and four napkins.

By the time I got to the silverware, I was ready to use both hands and moved forks with one hand and knives with the other. I felt like I’d run a marathon. Not that I’ve ever run a marathon, but I’ve seen the runners at the end panting and exhausted. I felt like they looked. And all I’d done was set the table.

At least Mom hadn’t caught on. She thought she’d offered me a tip, not given me a crash course. Let’s hope she continued to think that.

I pointed to the table and thought about beef stew. A pile of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches appeared on one plate.

“I think your father and brother would like—”

I didn’t even let her finish. I lost it, right then and there. Which meant, of course, that I burst into tears. “I was thinking beef stew.”

Mom clucked her tongue in that annoying way she has when she thinks she understands what’s bothering me. As if she could. She’s never been half witch/half mortal, and when she was my age she could summon a dozen objects
without breaking a sweat. And that was while wearing that itchy, heavy, Puritan wool too. (She’s shown me her old school clothing—it was when we were arguing over whether I was allowed to wear belly shirts to school or not … ended up not, of course.)

“I’m going to fail!” I wailed, knowing that Mom would think I meant my “homework.” What I really meant was finding a place in my new school.

“Nonsense.” Mom waved away the pitiful pile of sandwiches—which were grape jelly, not even strawberry, my favorite. “A stew is ambitious, honey. Start with something simple. How about a nice roast beef? That’s easy, and your father loves it.”

I stopped sniffling and closed my eyes, picturing roast beef like my mom serves my dad on his birthday. Crackly, sizzling, I could smell it. I opened my eyes. I
was
smelling it, because there it sat. Right in the center of the table on my mom’s favorite serving platter. “Did I do that?”

“You did.” She smiled so indulgently, I was suspicious.

“Did you help? At all?”

“Not even a smidge, honey. It’s easier in the beginning if you use something you know really well, which is why I suggested roast beef. Now try something to go with the roast beef.”

I closed my eyes again and thought of roasted potatoes
like my mom usually makes to go with the roast beef. Garlicky, crispy outside and sweet and tender inside. I peeked, and was gratified to see a bowl of potatoes on the table. Maybe this wasn’t as hard as I’d thought.

“Don’t forget a vegetable. Every balanced meal should have a vegetable.”

I’m not that fond of vegetables. But broccoli was least objectionable. My brother used to call them trees when he was younger, and I’d softened toward it. Somewhat.

I closed my eyes and thought of broccoli: green, tree shaped, cooked to the point that it was not too chewy or too soft. My mom gasped and there was a cracking sound. My eyes flew open. There was a gigantic head of broccoli planted in the center of the table, which had buckled under its weight.

“Mom!”

She raised her hand as if she was going to wave it away, then stopped and shook her head. “Close your eyes and think of it smaller.
Much
smaller.”

I closed my eyes and thought of it gone. Then I thought of peas. Tiny, perfect, round green peas. When I opened my eyes, there was a bowl of peas on the table—sliding toward the huge crack in the center of the table, along with the roast beef and potatoes.

Without consciously thinking of what I was doing, I chanted:

“Table, table, cracked tonight,
Mend and restore to whole again.
I need to make things right,
And practice perfection.”

It was probably the ugliest spell I’d ever heard, and certainly not worth recording in the family spell book for posterity. However, the table fixed itself with a soft creaky sound. Just in time, too, because Dad and Tobias came in.

“What’s going on here?” Dad smiled his “I’m not suspicious, not me, unh-unh” smile and waited in the doorway for an answer. I think he’s just been surprised by magic once too often in his life with my mom.

“Dinner is ready,” Mom said. Which was the bare truth. But not really what was going on. And she gets mad when I get creative with the facts—who does she think I learned it from?

“Why are we using paper plates?” Dad asked.

“I was practicing my homework,” I said. “But look what I learned today.” I raised the paper plates from the table with one hand and opened the cabinet and summoned four of Mom’s good plates to the table.

It took all my concentration, but it was worth it to see my brother’s look of awe.

“Wow. All they taught me to do today was how to do my multiplication tables in the air.”

“Multiply this, then,” I said as I sailed the paper plates toward his head.

“The food is getting cold,” Mom said as she stopped the plates an inch from my brother’s outstretched hands and sent them back into the cabinet. “And we want to do justice to your sister’s first meal.”

“You made this?” Dad looked at the food—which looked good, I can say with pride. He picked up one of the plates and looked around the kitchen, which was spotless. “You zapped this?”

“Yep.” I said it with a big grin on my face. Dad would go out of his way to be nice if he thought we were proud of something—even the most bizarre pencil holder made of dried macaroni and pencil erasers.

As he started to carve the roast gingerly, revealing the perfectly pink center, I said, “I think I’ll get an A on my homework tomorrow. Don’t you?”

His voice quavered a little as he said, “Of course you will, honey.”

It made the roast beef taste even better to see how he sampled everything carefully, as if he was afraid that, no matter how it looked, it would taste like dog doodle. Revenge could be sweet, I found, as I crunched a potato in my mouth. Serves him right for letting my mother drag us here in the first place.

I had a feeling that it was going to be a pleasure to work
hard on my homework in the future. And just maybe the better I got at magic, the better the chance that my dad would end this futile experiment to civilize the Dorklock. Which may have been why I announced, “In fact, I’d like to ask a new friend to come over and help with my homework.”

“A friend? Already? I knew you could do it, honey,” Dad said with a big smile. “What’s her name?”

“It’s a him, actually.” I’d known it would be problematic to bring Samuel home to meet the ’rents. Mom would treat him like she did all my friends: as a possible interrogation target to find out more about me. No way would she approve of me using him for his brains and then moving up in kewl status without him. Mom just didn’t get these things, no matter how often I explained them to her. And no wonder: It had been centuries since she was in school.

But, Dad, just like I knew he would, freaked, thinking I had a boyfriend at last. “A boy? Great! What’s his name?”

Sure, Dad, that doesn’t sound like false enthusiasm. “Samuel. He’s really good at magic and he’s going to help me rev up the studies.”

I don’t think either of them believed that Samuel was strictly a study buddy. I don’t know why. They should know by now that I’m like my dad in one very important way: I’m a type A on overdrive. And if I couldn’t find a way out of remedial classes, I was not going to be happy.

Samuel was my shortcut to regular magic classes. So no matter how freaked my dad was, that boy was going to come to the house as often as he could and teach me all the things I should have learned growing up but didn’t because my mom wanted to pretend she was mortal and my dad couldn’t handle magic.

There are ways around my dad, and there are ways to make my dad as stubborn as the mule Grandmama once turned him into. Pouting worked only when I was very little and cute. I was going to have to try logic.

I waited until dinner was cleared away and dessert had sweetened everyone’s mood. Then, I went for the earnest, hardworking approach. “What do I have to do to prove that I’m ready for a car? I get good grades.” At least, I did when I didn’t have magic on the curriculum, but I wasn’t going to go there. “I never break curfew or go over my anytime minutes. I haven’t even sent Dorklock—”

“Don’t call him that.”

Oops. I smiled at my brother, who scowled back at me. “I’m sorry, Tobias, I shouldn’t call you that now that you’re in the gifted-and-talented program.” I forgot that my nickname for my brother made Dad mad on two levels—the one where he remembered his children were witches, and the one where family unity and harmony had a glitch. Try again. “What else can I do?”

“Well …”

I could see his mind turning over all the things he might require of me, and I started to envision all the chores he could give me. Raking, mowing, snow shoveling—yuck. And I’d have to do it all the human way. Because I should value the fruits of my labors. Or something.

“Let me think about it.”

That would be dangerous. But I didn’t see any other option. “Dad—”

“Monday. I’ll tell you on Monday.”

It was all I was going to get. “Thanks, Dad.” He liked that.

“And no nagging. One mention of this before Monday—”

“I know. Results in a cold war.”

“And no car.” Sometimes he feels the need to let me know just how little he thinks I pay attention. Now I just had to keep Grandmama away from him until Monday. If I could convince her not to turn him into anything, I knew I could get him to say yes to the car.

MADDIE: New look?

ME: Salem subtle

MADDIE: Aha! U found a hottie

ME: No Just my locker

MADDIE: LOL! Miss ya

ME: U 2 Tryouts soon Send luck

MADDIE: No luck Come home

ME: I wish

I wasn’t sure Maddie had approved my new, more Agatha-appropriate look. And, really, even if she had, I wouldn’t know if the subtle combination of earth and water tones, with just a hint of cherry red in belt and shoes, would
signal that I belonged somewhere at Agatha’s. But at least she’d noticed my attempt to dress to build rep. The only way to find out, however, was to try it out at school.

Apparently, after the first day of school, we just pop right into the hallway with our lockers (which might explain my mis-pop on the first day, I guess). Despite the disorientation of one minute being in my kitchen and the next in a bustling hallway filled with the sound of slamming lockers, it almost seemed like home. Almost.