The Scapegracers

by Hannah Abigail Clarke

  “You kidding? I fucking love history. When I go to university next year, I’m taking Classics as a double major with prelaw. Veni, vidi, vici, bitch.” She yanked a piece of yarn out of my sweater and twisted it around her finger, cringed when it stained her finger Sharpie black. “The teacher just isn’t on my level, that’s all.”

  Huh. Wouldn’t have guessed. We neared my class, and she unhooked herself from me and blew me a kiss. I dodged my feelings by flipping her off, and we nodded at each other before we split. I pushed my way through the door.

  The bell rang before I was in my seat.

  “Late,” said the teacher.

  “Bite me. I’m here, aren’t I?” I took a seat toward the back of class and pulled my homework out, smoothed it flat, smiled as if to say Screw you, sir.

  The teacher blinked. He coughed once and stared at his computer screen. “Roll call.”

  I felt my mind leave my body as he went down the list.

  “Eloise Pike?”

  I rubbed my temples. “It’s Sideways.”

  “Sideways isn’t a name,” he said. His brow winkled up like a shar-pei’s.

  Alexis, sitting beside me, piped up. “Literally everyone calls her Sideways. Everyone. Her name is Sideways.”

  “Why would you go by Sideways?” He grimaced, looking between Alexis and I like we were twin bugs.

  “It’s because I’m not straight.” I shot gun hands at him.

  He blanched and returned to roll call.

  Alexis held out her fist for me to bump. I obliged.

  Holy shit. Is this what being recognized as a human being by your peers is like? This was not bad at all.

  Directly behind me, I felt the jab of a pencil eraser. It butted against my spine insistently, tap-tap-tap, like a stupid rubber woodpecker. I chanced a glance over my shoulder, and there was Mickey-Dick, teal green undercut and all. His eyes looked sleep chapped behind his glasses. Crusty.

  I mouthed, What gives?

  He leaned forward far enough that his nose was stuck in the curls above my ear. Hot breath, dank with last night’s weed and something sweet. “Saw you with Daisy Brink this morning.”

  “Yeah? What of it?”

  His voice dropped a few steps, ground out between his molars. “She’s a total bitch, Sideways. Since when do you hang out with breeders, anyway? She’s bad news, she and her friends. You’re so much cooler than them. What the fuck are you doing?”

  The spit in my mouth tasted mildewed all of a sudden. I scraped at my tongue with my teeth. “You know that’s sexist bullshit, right, man?”

  “Don’t be like that.” Mickey-Dick shifted around, arranged his elbows on the desk, propping himself on the nearest edge so that his whole torso stretched over his notebook and homework and secret little gaming console. “She’s straight, Sideways. I’m looking out for you.”

  “I can’t recall asking you to look out for me, funnily enough. Fuck off for a while, yeah?”

  The teacher clasped his hands together, and I used it as an excuse not to look at Mickey-Dick, or Alexis (who was definitely watching), or at anything at all. I glared into the middle distance and felt a wobble of nebulous doubt cloud my gut. “Everyone hand your homework to the front. Today, we’re learning about the quadratic equation. I’ve prepared a PowerPoint. Take notes, please.”

  FIFTEEN

  REMEMBER THAT EDUCATION IS GOOD FOR YOU

  By fifth period, I was officially numb to any attempts to teach me. This was mostly because fifth period was English, which I usually enjoyed, but we were spending the period reading Frankenstein. I’ve read Frankenstein—Julian loves him some Shelley—so the reading period was essentially Study Hall 2.0. Before this weekend, I would’ve spent class passing notes back and forth with Mickey-Dick, but I was still pissed at him. And besides, more pressing matters demanded my attention.

  I hauled out volume two of the VMM and thunked it on my desk. It was a conspicuous book, but now that my village witch status had ascended into canon law, being flashy sort of worked. I relished the stares and delved in.

  It was more straightforward than volume one. The chapters were mostly chronological, and while the ink flowed in and out of focus, the pages stayed the same no matter how many times I opened it. This book was blissfully honest. For each basic enchantment, there were four or five different sigils or runes, each describing different ways the enchantment is commonly performed. Some of the methods were opposites of each other, and there weren’t connective threads to link them together. The only concrete advice offered at the bottom of each page was that combining favored elements and adding a few personal touches was the best way to ensure results. In other words, if I directly used a sigil from the book, I’d damn well better make up my own incantation, or it’d be as good as wet matches.

  I found the levitation page again.

  Yates was right. Flight magic really would be a good party trick. Making sure it was safe was one thing, but it looked doable. Floating people a few feet above the ground should be manageable, particularly if they held still. The real difficulty was apparently in actual flight. According to the book, flying like a bird over town would take considerable power and incantation levels beyond what the book could provide. But lifting a small group of people should be possible if everyone participated in the incantation, and one person stayed on the ground to manage the ordeal.

  I shoved back thoughts about how this might be the last fucking spell book I ever got, about how the other volumes in the collection were completely uninterested in me, about how I wasn’t half as special as I thought I was. I couldn’t afford to think about that.

  This party was going to be wicked.

  I pulled out a piece of scrap paper and jotted down a few shapes that spoke to me. One sigil was made of interlocking crescent moons, joined with arrows and quills, and it was supremely cool. I copied it as best I could and closed my book, slipped it back into my bag.

  The bell rang and everyone stood up. I folded the paper and stashed it in my bra, rising with the rest of the class. We jumbled out through the door in a mob.

  The cafeteria was packed to bursting. The lunch line snaked halfway down the hall and then wound back around, and word was that the kitchen had already run out of all the food that wasn’t gluey pizza. Bless Julian, for real. He was petrified of the whole rat/roaches situation we were in, so he made it a point of packing me a lunch every day. I didn’t know exactly what he’d packed today, but it was undoubtedly better than gluey pizza.

  Spotting the girls in the mass of people was trickier than I thought it would be. The room was sweltering, garbled with distorted conversation and the clatter of trays, and picking faces out of the sea wasn’t something I was used to. I mean, there were days when I ate in the library so I wouldn’t have to find people to sit with.

  The first thing I spotted was Yates’ cat-shaped backpack. It was holographic and covered with little floral stickers. I couldn’t think of many people besides Yates who would be able to make it look cool. I weaved between tables and sat beside her.

  Daisy and Jing were playing “Miss Susie Had a Steamboat.” Their hands flew so fast I could barely track them, and Yates chanted the song as she filmed them playing. Some of the lyrics were different than I remembered them. “Flies are in the meadow. Bees are in the park. Miss Susie and your boyfriend are fucking in the d-a-r-k, dark dark dark dark.” Yates paused the filming and clicked her tongue. “Twenty-four seconds. Again.”

  “Fuck,” Jing hissed. She slapped the table with her hand. “Daisy, you’re too slow.”

  “Am not,” she said. She tugged on one of her ringlets. “I’m perfect. You’re slow.”

  “Faster than I could go.” I pulled out my thermos and opened it. Bless Julian’s soul. It was mac and cheese. I stabbed a forkful and stuffed it in my mouth. My eyes rolled up in my head.

  “That smells orgasmic,” said Jing. She peered over the table at my lunch, reached her own fork toward my thermos.

 
; I batted at her hand. “Get away, vulture.” I crinkled my nose and ate another bite, feeling smug.

  Jing had packed her lunch as well. It was, as far as I could tell, scrambled eggs with chucks of tomato mixed in. She saw me looking and shrugged. “It’s better warm,” she said.

  “So. The next party.” I pulled the paper out of my bra and thrust it toward Jing. “I have a hell of an idea.”

  She picked up the page and scanned it, lifted a quizzical brow.

  “Turns out that it’s not all that hard to make three people levitate. Not a lot, but a few feet off the floor. I mean, we’d all have to chant, and it’ll take a while to draw the sigil, but if the next party is somewhere where we could draw on the floor ahead of time, then it wouldn’t be too much work, and I think we could float you three for a minute or two. It’d be sick.”

  Jing cocked her head to the side. “If we pull it off, it’d be amazing. It’ll look good on camera, too. More convincing for people who weren’t there.” She eyed the page, lined the sigil with her thumb. “You’ve got my vote. Ladies?”

  “Hell yes,” said Daisy.

  “Um,” said Yates.

  “Um? Why um? You were game last night.” Jing leaned across the table and poked Yates’ arm. “If you’ve got doubts, speak ’em.”

  “Um, I don’t want to float away like a balloon, that’s what,” she said with a frown. “Like, is there a foolproof way we could reverse it? I agree, it’d be really cool. And everyone would remember. And fame and glory, I get it. But I’m not sold until I know that we’re not floating to the moon.”

  “Floating to the moon sounds cool,” said Daisy.

  “The details are in the incantation. We can set it up so that you levitate a good four feet off the ground, stay there for a second, then drift back down.” I scrunched my brows together, took another bite. “It’s pretty safe, all things considered. I don’t know what Daisy did. Like, there wasn’t a sigil, and if she cast an incantation, she doesn’t remember it now. Right, Daisy?”

  “Right,” she agreed.

  “So that means the circumstances were different. Daisy hit a weird spike of magic. I guess it’s like what happened at the last party. I don’t know how that happened. But we should have more control over this.” I finished up my food and took a swig of water. I was only half lying. I mean, technically, I was right. The spell should work. But then again, it was magic, and magic didn’t always abide by rules.

  “So. Yates. Verdict time.” Daisy clucked her tongue.

  Yates shrugged, waved her hand. “I guess.”

  “Badass.” Daisy rubbed her hands maniacally. “This is gonna be killer.”

  “Sideways.” Jing folded the paper diagonally and tucked it into her pocket. “Real talk. Have you texted Madeline yet?”

  “Ah.” I sucked in my cheeks. “Haven’t thought about it.”

  “Jesus. Hand me your phone.” She tapped the table expectantly.

  “. . . Why?”

  “Because you light up like the Fourth of July when you talk to her, and I want you to get laid on my behalf, idiot. Why else? Pass the phone. Or, you know, do it yourself. But do it. For me.” Jing pursed her lips, looked pleased.

  “Seconded,” said Yates. She gave one of my curls a tug. “You’d be so cute together! It’ll be adorable.”

  “You have to.” Daisy made a face like a Cheshire Cat. “Like, right now.”

  I grinned despite myself. “I don’t know how to do the flirting thing. Like. Do I just say hi? Is that what I do? Come on. You guys are probably experts at this.”

  “We are.” Daisy flipped her hair. “‘Hi’ works. Do you use emojis? If you do, use emojis. If you don’t, it’ll be awkward if you try.”

  Emojis were strictly reserved for texting Boris, and even then, it was usually just a series of different cat emojis to communicate when I was hungry, or whatever. I shook my head and pulled out my phone, laid it on the table before me. My palms clammed up. My throat turned to leather. Yates danced her fingertips over my shoulder blade while I typed.

  Hey it’s Sideways

  “Put a heart after Sideways! That’d be cute. And it doesn’t feel desperate, either. It could totally be an innocent heart. I put hearts in my texts all the time. It makes people imagine you smiling when they read it.”

  “Hearts are totally not my style.” I eyed her, made a face.

  “Put, like, a purple one or a blue one there. Or a black one! Like. Alternative kindness. That’s your style, isn’t it?” Yates pressed her cheek to my upper arm and gazed down at my screen. “Just remember to put it in the same text as the message. Putting it afterward is weird.”

  “I didn’t know there were so many rules to this.” I hit send and set my phone facedown on my thigh. “I mean, she might not even text back. It might wind up being nothing. That’s how hitting on girls usually goes. Besides, I’m not totally sure if she was flirting with me or just trying to be cute. I don’t know. Hard to tell sometimes. Some girls, like Yates over here”—I paused to jerk my chin at her and smirk—“like to send little hearts with simple messages. It’s like: are you gay or friendly?”

  “She could be gay and friendly,” Yates protested, and I snorted.

  My screen lit up against my thigh.

  Sneaking texts in class. Naughty. Santa’s gonna bring you coal.

  I rested my face in my fists and marveled down at the screen. My heart wailed against my ribs like a canary in a too-small cage. It sang and suffered and lost air. I was dizzy, pleasantly dizzy. I cracked a smile.

  Coal is a non-renewable resource. Thanks Santa. Bring me lots. I’ll sell it and make bank. Fuck the planet, I guess

  The response was nearly instantaneous.

  Are you free on Thursday night?

  “Yes, you are. You are so free on Thursday. If you have Thursday plans, I veto them.” Yates clapped her hands together and bounced in her seat. “That was adorable! I mean. You two are weirdos. But still, really cute.”

  “Christ, already? How’d that happen?” Jing stretched her neck for a better view of the screen, but Yates shooed her away with a waved of her hand.

  “Madeline is happy and gay, that’s how. They’re going out on Thursday after school,” Yates said in a diplomatic tone, which she bolstered by sitting up straighter and batting her lashes. “It’s going to be grand.”

  I’m free Thursday, yeah. Wanna grab coffee?

  Daisy ran her thumb over her choker’s velvet edges. She watched me incredulously, a little toothy smirk on her mouth, and she leaned across the table toward me like she had a big secret to tell. “Invite her to the party. She was into you at the last one. Ask her to join in. You and Jing and Yatesy, you three can practice the levitation spell under the bleachers while I’m at cheer. Practice until it’s seamless. Then offer to have her help again, like she did at the last party. We dangle her in midair for a few minutes and lay her back down. Come on. If that’s not a way to nail someone’s heart to the wall, I’ll be damned.”

  Jing considered, then nodded. “Agreed, but do it tomorrow. We can finalize plans for the party by then. If you ask her in person, then you can tell her all the juicy details. Scratch that. Just say it’ll be better than last time.”

  “I feel like a Halloween party would be a good place for you to start something. It’s kind of your season, Sideways.” Yates clasped her hands together. “Are we doing costumes? Is it time?”

  “If we do, we need to be cohesive, or it’ll be stupid.” Jing paused for a moment, glared at her nails. Her head jerked up. She snapped her gaze at Daisy, and then both of them turned to look at us. Matching murder smiles. Jing waggled her eyebrows. “I know what we’re doing.”

  “Care to share this information?” I coughed once, scratched at the nape of my neck.

  “We’re gonna be girls from the sisterhood. Remember Ghastly? We’re gonna be Ghastly girls. Boy-killing, school-conquering Ghastly girls.” Daisy nodded exuberantly. She rubbed her palms together like she was t
rying to start a fire. “It’ll be stellar. All the costumes will match, but we can pick different colors so we don’t look like clones. Everyone’s seen that movie, or at least a poster or two. They’ll get it. It’ll be perfect.”

  “Okay,” I said. I closed my eyes for a moment and conjured an image from the movie: a circle of pastel dementors ringed around a zip-tied jock, reading aloud their grievances, brandishing pink knives. So, like, die. I clicked my tongue. “Here’s the thing, though. How the fuck are we going to find Ghastly girl costumes? I don’t think any of the costume shops will carry them, because the movie’s so new. They might be online, but there’s no way we could get them shipped here by Friday.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that.” Daisy gathered up her hair and started braiding it, smirking all the while. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you’ve never seen my clothes anywhere before? Or why Jing and Yates and I always have cohesive looks? Or, God, why my family’s so fucking rich? The Brink side of the family is made up of bankers; my aunt Chelsea on the Stringer side is a big deal in the fashion industry. She’s had stuff in Vogue. You can find knockoffs in mall chains and everything. Best of all, she’s drying up again in a rehab center just outside of town and bored out of her mind, and she fucking loves making me stuff. For real. If I give her our measurements and a few screenshots of the movie, she can make us something fucking amazing. She’s grateful for anything to do that isn’t talking about her feelings to other bottle hiders.” She finished her braid with a band around her wrist and tossed it behind her. “So, yeah. Totally doable. It’s gonna be sick.”

  “Hard to argue with that,” I said. Anticipation made me jittery. My face felt stupid and loopy, twisted up like this. “Can mine be red?”

  “They were pastel in the movie,” Yates said, but Jing cut her off with a wave of her hand.

  “We should try to get close to our specter colors.” Jing stabbed a chunk of tomato and popped it between her teeth. “No one will get it, but that doesn’t matter. Feels like a good idea. We’ll just wash out those colors. Sideways, you can wear, like a bruisy pale red. I’ll wear lavender, Yates will wear baby blue, and Daisy will wear silver. Who knows? Maybe it’ll amp up the spell work. Make us feel witchier. Set the mood.”