by K. L. Denman
“I’ll hold the door,” Stella says. “You, uh, better check the mirror.”
I’m afraid to look. I have to look. And when I do...“OH MY GOD!”
It’s unbelievable. It’s grotesque. They’re grotesque. Blossoming on my forehead are not one but three enormous zits. I grab hold of a sink to keep myself from collapsing. I’ve never seen anything like it. I swear the zits are growing before my eyes. “This...I...you...”
The ability to form words leaves me. Until now, I was one of the chosen few who never got zits. Never. My skin has remained smooth and pure as a baby’s. It’s as gorgeous as my hair.
“I told you, Lizzie,” Stella whispers. “The Law of Three. Remember?”
Into the fog of my mind comes a memory. Something about magick coming back threefold. I’d completely forgotten that. “It’s a law?”
Stella nods. “Big time.”
I feel myself blinking but not to stop tears. It’s more like I’m in shock. Yes, I’m in shock, like someone who’s just been in a car accident. I can’t think, I can only blink. And then a thought does come. It’s this. RUN! I look around. Way up high on the cement wall is a tiny window.
“Quick,” I say, “come and stand by this wall.”
“Why?” Stella asks.
“So I can get on your shoulders and reach the window.”
“I don’t think so.” Stella shakes her head. “These windows don’t open.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I’ve tried them.”
She tried them? Just how weird is this kid? There’s no time to worry about that now. Instead I ask, “Couldn’t you just, you know, make a spell to open it?”
“No.” Stella laughs. Actually laughs. “I don’t have that kind of power. My gift is more about finding the talent in others. Like you. Only I didn’t expect quite this much from you.” She laughs again.
I put my hands on my hips. “This is not funny. You got me into this mess. Now how am I going to get out?”
“I got you into this?” she asks.
“Yes! You taught me that stupid spell, didn’t you?”
She shrugs. “True. But I also told you magick isn’t a game, and I warned you about how it comes back threefold.”
She’s right. She did tell me that. But that’s beside the point. I still need to escape—unseen. “You wouldn’t by any chance have a spell to make me invisible, would you?”
“Sorry. Can’t do that either. But I can do something.” She takes the hideous green granny hat off her head and sticks it on mine. “There. Look at that. If you pull it low over your forehead, no one will see the zits. Poof! They’re invisible.”
I stare at her. She has seriously bad hat hair. It’s flat on top and then all those frizzy curls form a right angle at her ears and totally go their own way. I might feel sorry for her if I didn’t have bigger problems.
Slowly, I turn and look into the mirror. And it’s really, really weird because the hat actually looks sort of okay. Maybe even better than okay. It might even look good. “Wow,” I murmur, “this is my kind of magick.”
“Isn’t it great?” Stella smiles. “It’s my baba’s. She loaned it to me.”
Her baba’s? As in the old-school witch? I’m not going there. I can’t. I just nod and say, “I guess it’s better than nothing.”
I look at her and am shocked again by her hair. “Do you have a hairbrush?”
She digs in her backpack and comes up with a ratty old red brush. She holds it out toward me and says, “Here you go.”
“Um. Thanks. But I was just noticing you have, like, total hat hair.”
“Really?” Stella glances in the mirror, then starts yanking the brush through her hair. The flattened area revives and blends with the mass. “Thanks for telling me, Lizzie. I never would have noticed.”
The bell sounds and we both startle. I look in the mirror to double-check that the zits are covered. They are. I can still feel them, but so long as they’re hidden, it’s okay. I tilt my head and ask, “This hat doesn’t make me look gangsta, does it?”
“Oh no,” Stella says. “My baba would never go for that. She’s really cute.”
Some people have no idea. Note to self: Do not trust Stella’s opinions on cuteness. “Okay, I guess we’re good to go. I’ll go first.”
“What do you mean?” Stella asks.
I take hold of the door handle, “Uh, we can’t be seen leaving together, can we?”
Stella gets a funny look, but that’s just her, the way she is, right?
chapter seven
Science class is not as horrible as I thought it would be. I think it’s mainly because Mandy is jealous of my hat. “That hat is so dope, Lizzie. Where did you get it?”
I shrug. “Oh, I can’t remember. Must have been somewhere in the mall.”
Mr. Sparks asks if I have something for him. For one horrible second, I think he wants the hat. And then I remember the apology letter. I take it out of my purse and hand it to him with a smile.
He says, “Hmph. Fine. You can report for detention today in room 101.”
“Um,” I say, “how long do I have to do this? Until the end of the week, right?” It’s Thursday and I’m really hoping he’ll mess up on the details.
He shakes his head. “Lizzie, I hope some day you’ll decide to put that brain of yours to better use. Your final day of detention will be next Wednesday.” And he walks away.
“Jeez,” says Mandy, “that was sort of rude.”
“For sure,” I say. But it occurs to me that the best way to keep not looking at Kyle is to pretend I’m doing the lab work. “So, uh, what are we supposed to be doing here?” I ask.
“I wonder about that all the time,” Mandy says. “I mean, are we supposed to follow our own path or just let fate decide what happens?”
Omigod. She is so stunned. I look over at the next table to see what the science geeks are doing. I catch them looking at me and whispering. I give them the stare down, and they quickly turn away. Do they actually think I was trying to cheat yesterday? Is that why they would dare to stare at me, Lizzie Lane? And then, very clearly, I hear one of them say, “It is Stella’s.”
Oh, wow. The geeks must recognize the hat. I take a deep breath. Okay, it doesn’t matter. Their opinion doesn’t count, does it? I mean, they might know Stella and her hat, but who are they going to tell? No one that matters.
The zits start itching, and I can’t do a thing about it. I’m going to go crazy. “Quick,” I say to Mandy, “get out your textbook.”
“For real?” she asks.
“Yes. We must be past the mucus by now so it’ll be fine. We can do it.”
Mandy hauls her textbook out of her backpack and starts flipping through the pages. I look at the blackboard, and there are actual instructions for doing a lab with a simple saltwater solution. I can handle that. So we do the experiment. It doesn’t turn out right, but the class is over way faster than normal.
Room 101 is like a dungeon. It’s a stinky little room behind the gym. I swear the heat vents must blow air directly from the boys’ locker room. The teacher supervising is this withered old dude with a permanent mean mug. I think he’s been in the dungeon forever, and the fumes have poisoned him. He asks for my name, then points to a sign that says SILENCE!
Then he points to a chair. I sit in the chair and look around. I don’t know any of the kids in there. I go back up to the teacher and ask, “How long is detention, anyway? Fifteen minutes?”
He smiles at me. It’s really awful because his teeth are yellow and his lips go super thin and I can see his gums. “One hour.”
I feel like I’ve been shot. There’s pain in my gut and my knees practically buckle. An entire hour in here? I’ll die. I go back to the table and put my head on my arms. How did this happen to me?
Rachel. She did this. One giant zit is nowhere near enough to get back at her. I need something bigger, something huge and life changing. As in, she gets kidnappe
d and dropped in the jungle. In a pool of crocodiles. Naked. No, wait. She wakes up to find herself standing naked in front of a school assembly. All one thousand students are there and they have rotten tomatoes to throw...
A sound from the door disturbs my lovely train of thought, and I look up. There’s Stella! I’m actually happy to see her. I wave my fingers and she gives me a tiny smile. She finishes checking in with Mr. Mean and then she sits down beside me.
“Why are you here?” I whisper.
Mean is on us in a flash. “Silence! If I hear one more sound, your detention will be extended by thirty minutes.”
He is an evil, evil man.
Stella slides me a note. It says: I came to see you.
I look at her, and she seems serious. Who would go into the dungeon to visit a prisoner? I write back: Why?
She shrugs, then writes: I need to get the hat back.
My look gives her an answer, and she hastily writes: Not right now. After.
Whew.
Then she writes: I can teach you some magick while we’re here.
OK.
She nods and writes: You have to be careful what you wish for.
I write: Duh.
Stella grins and jots: Like attracts like.
What’s that supposed to mean? I write.
She scribbles: It means that what you put out there is what will come back to you.
The zits on my forehead throb, and I sigh. So this is useless for getting back at Rachel. Let’s just forget it.
She shakes her head. There is a way. But first, let’s try something else. She puts her hand into her pocket, pulls out a small stone and gives it to me. It’s golden orange, almost clear, with swirls of darker color inside.
Stella writes: This is amber. It’ll help get rid of your zits.
I raise my brows. For real?
She nods, then starts digging in her purse. This time she pulls out a bandage and writes: Use this to stick the amber on your forehead.
I stare at her.
She nods vigorously.
When I don’t make a move to take the bandage, she writes: No one will notice. The hat will hide it. You just have to believe and it will work.
Right. I just have to believe. Do I believe? Not. But then, what about the zits? They sure seem like solid proof. I eye the bandage. Maybe if I stick the amber to the bandage I can tilt the hat back just long enough to slap the amber on in one fast move? I cast a nervous glance around the room. No one is watching us. Most of them look like they’re asleep. One guy even has his mouth hanging open and a tiny trail of drool is leaking out the side. And I’m worried about sticking a rock on my forehead in front of these people?
Wait a minute. Sticking a rock on my forehead is definitely weirder than drooling. I am so torn about what to do. There are no simple solutions.
Stella reaches into her backpack and pulls out a large textbook. She stands it up on the table in front of me and voila! I have cover.
I take a deep breath. I can do this. I tear open the bandage wrapper. I place the amber on the bandage. I crouch low behind the book. I place my left hand on the brim of the hat and hold the amber bandage unit in my right. One, two, three...
I push on the hat with my left, and it snags on a zit. This glitch throws me off and my right hand wobbles. The amber goes flying. As I try to grab it, the hat bumps the book and knocks it over. I look up and there, just walking through the door, is Kyle. Our eyes meet. His widen in shock.
It’s more than shock. It’s horror. He gasps. Stella gasps. Mr. Mean rotates his head toward me and he gasps. Gasping sounds come from every corner of the room. Maybe even retching sounds.
“Oh my,” says Mr. Mean. “You, ah, may be excused. Perhaps your friend there will take you to the nurse. Hurry, now.”
What’s happened? Have the zits grown to such humungous size that I now look like a monster? I yank the hat down low, grab my purse and flee. I can hear Stella running behind me. There’s no mistaking the sound of those shoes, but I don’t look back.
chapter eight
By the time I’m almost home, I know what I have to do. It’s crystal clear. I have to leave the country. When I show Mom my face, I’m sure she’ll agree. I feel a sob gathering in my throat as I wonder if she’ll come with me. But what if I scare her too?
This whole time, Stella has been following me. I’m pretending she doesn’t exist, but she’s not getting it. She keeps saying stuff like, “It’s not that bad. I found the amber. We can heal it. Please listen to me, Lizzie.”
At last, with one foot on my front lawn, I turn to her and say, “I never want to see you again. Got that?”
She nods and says, “I understand. But I do feel somewhat responsible for all this. I want to make it right. If we ask, I’m sure my baba will cure your zits. I’m only trying to help.”
“Your kind of help I can do without.”
“But what are you going to do?” she asks. “Those zits...you could have them for weeks.”
She’s right. I could leave the country, but the zits would go with me. I should get her baba to fix them and then leave the country. I glare at Stella. “Are you sure your baba can fix this?”
She bites her lip. “I’m almost sure. If she takes a look, she can tell you. She should be home right now.”
I take a deep breath. What have I got to lose? I shrug and say, “Fine. I’ll give you one last chance. Let’s go.”
Stella’s house looks like every other house on the street from the outside. It’s pretty average on the inside too, until we hit the kitchen. Walking in there is like stumbling upon a vegetable war. Not only is the floor lettuce green, the walls are radish red and the cupboards are carrot orange. Plus, there are actual plants everywhere. Bundles of plant matter hang from ceiling. Bowls overflow. Garlands of garlic are draped over the windows. And then I see her—Baba. Standing at the stove is a tiny old woman wearing a polka-dot apron, a flowered dress and an enormous hat. A bunch of plants are sticking out of the hat. It’s like she’s camouflaged in there.
“Ah, Stella!” she says. “You’ve brought a friend. How nice!”
“Hi, Baba,” Stella says. “This is Lizzie. From next door.” She tosses a quick look in my direction and adds, “The one I told you about, remember?”
The baba’s eyes narrow. She lifts a long bony finger and points it at me. “This is her?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Yes. Ha ha. It’s me.”
“And you’re wearing my hat,” the baba says. “Why?”
“Oh! Ha-ha. Just because.” I have to get out of here.
I start backing up, and a totally creepy voice says, “I see through your clothes.”
I open my mouth to shriek, but something more like a squawk comes out. And the voice squawks back.
“Oh, honestly, Angela,” the baba says, “how many times have I told you not to say that to guests?”
Stella reaches up into a tall plant and when she pulls back, a glossy green parrot is perched on her arm. “This is Angela,” she says. “Say hello, Angela.”
The parrot remains silent.
Stella rolls her eyes. “She’s just being difficult.”
“True,” says the baba. “But I have a feeling there’s more difficulty here than her.” She eyes me and asks, “The hat? Are you hiding something?”
She’s sharp, I’ll give her that. I look at Stella and she nods. I remove the hat.
The baba slaps a hand to her breast and whispers, “Holy Mother Earth! What have you done, child?”
In a small voice, Stella says, “It’s my fault. I told her how to cast a spell. But I didn’t explain the laws properly. Can you fix it?”
The baba clucks her tongue and says something like, “Ay yi yi!” She steps closer to me, squints at my forehead and closes her eyes. “This,” she says, “is very bad. I haven’t seen pox like these for many years.”
“Pox?” I ask. The very word sounds scary. “What are pox?”
“No, Baba,” Ste
lla says. “They’re just zits. Pimples. Blemishes.”
The baba narrows her gaze. “You are certain?”
“I, um, gave one zit to another girl,” I say. “I didn’t ask for her to get pox.”
“I see.” The baba purses her lips, studies me again, then says, “Sit. There.” She points to a chair beside a small round table. I sit.
She starts mumbling in some strange language, and I think, Okay, good, she’s casting the reverse spell. But then she grabs a towel from a drawer, dips it into a pot on the stove, wrings it out and hands it to me. “Put this on your forehead,” she says.
“That’s it?” I ask. “I put this on and it’s all better?”
She laughs. “Don’t be silly. That’s just some Epsom salts and calendula oil. I was going to soak my feet, but you go ahead. It’ll help draw the pus.”
I almost gag. “Pus?”
“You haven’t seen these zits recently?” she asks.
“Not for a few hours.”
The baba does the clucking thing again. “Perhaps it’s better that you don’t look. Put on the towel.”
I put on the towel. It stings at first, but the baba says, “Hold it there!” I hold it. After a moment, it actually feels soothing.
“Now,” says the baba, “what spell did you use?”
I tell her and she looks impressed. “It’s possible my Stella was right about you. She told me yesterday that she felt something in your aura and I agree. You must have some natural ability to get those results from a simple spell. And on your first try.”
“Uh. Thanks,” I say.
She sniffs. “Not that it’s any help to me. Sometimes the simplest spells are the hardest to reverse.” She stands still for a moment, plainly thinking.
I doubt this is a good sign. I mean if she has to think about it, does she really know what she’s doing?
“Yes,” she says, “I know what we’ll do.” She looks at me and smiles. I get this eerie feeling that she heard my thoughts. Of course, that’s not possible.
“Stella, I would like you to assist. Let’s gather together. Quickly now.” The baba claps her hands and Stella leaps into action. She places two more chairs at the table, then lights the fat candle that sits in the center. They both take a seat and join hands.
