The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball

by Risa Green

  Mr. Wallace furrows his brow. “Erin, I didn’t ask you to stay so that I could lay more consequences on you.”

  “You didn’t?”

  The faint hint of a smile crosses his face. “No. I asked you to stay because I read your essay last night. For the Italy trip.”

  I don’t understand. He must know that I don’t qualify with a B minus on my presentation. So why would he read my essay if I’m not even eligible to go on the trip?

  “But why?” I ask.

  “Well, I was impressed with what you did for Jesse. If you remember, one of the things we’re looking for is character. And what you did yesterday really proved to me what a strong character you have. So I was curious to see what you wrote.” He sighs. “I have to tell you, I was skeptical about this idea. I told the principal not to get his hopes up. I told him that it would probably be just a bunch of kids who only want to go because they think it will beef up their college applications. But it seems I underestimated you. Your reason for wanting to go is exactly what we were hoping for.”

  “But I got a B minus,” I hear myself remind him. “My grade in the class will never be an A minus now. I’m disqualified.”

  He nods. “I know. And the B minus stands.”

  My heart sinks. For a minute there, I thought he was going to reinstate my original grade.

  “So that’s it? You just wanted to tell me how great my essay was, and how sorry you are that I’m going to miss out on the trip?”

  “No,” he says. “I wanted to tell you how great your essay was, and I wanted to offer you some extra credit work that could bring your GPA back up to an A minus.”

  I stare at him for a moment, speechless.

  “Do you have anything to say?” he asks.

  “Really? Really? Oh my God. Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  He laughs and hands me a thick folder. “Don’t get too excited. You haven’t seen the work yet.”

  “I don’t care. Whatever it is, I will do it. I will write essays in Italian—I mean, first I’d have to learn Italian, and then I would write the essays, but whatever. I just want to go on this trip.” I pause for second. “But what’s the work?”

  “I’d like you to write a ten-page paper discussing the role of superstition and magic in artwork from the Renaissance period.”

  I stare at him, waiting for him to tell me that this is a joke, that Samantha and Lindsay put him up to this. But he just strokes his goatee, and I realize that it’s not a joke at all. He’s dead serious.

  A smile spreads across my face.

  “I can do that,” I tell him confidently.

  “That’s good, because you have to turn it in before we make our announcement on Monday.”

  ***

  When I get outside in the hallway, Jesse is waiting for me. I jump up and down.

  “What? What is it? What happened?”

  I tell him the news and he gives me a huge hug, lifting me off the ground and spinning me around in a circle.

  “We’re going to Italy!” I squeal. “And I’m still going to have the highest GPA in tenth grade!”

  Jesse laughs, but then suddenly his face turns serious.

  “What?” I ask him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, you’re going to Italy. But how do we know that they’re going to pick me too?”

  I think about this for a second, and then I shrug.

  “We don’t, really.” I tell him. “But I just have a feeling, the same way that you had a feeling not to get on that boat with your mom and your brother.”

  Jesse gives my hand a little squeeze. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “So do I.”

  Epilogue

  Lindsay and Samantha and I sit in a circle on the floor of my bedroom. In the middle is the Pink Crystal Ball, along with the rules, a black felt-tip pen, and the scroll with the list of names on it. I unroll the scroll, pushing it flat against the floor and holding it down with the side of my knee. At the bottom is my aunt’s name—Kate Hoffman, carefully written in her neatest handwriting—but this time, no lump forms in my throat when I look at it.

  I pick up the pen and sign my name directly underneath hers, then roll the scroll back up and place it back in the middle of the circle. I look at Lindsay.

  “Are you sure about this?” I ask her.

  She nods solemnly. “Yes. I’m sure. Samantha needs this more than I do. I mean, you heard her, her parents hate each other. She needs to do something.” Lindsay’s mouth breaks into a grin as she rolls her eyes. “Besides, my father’s girlfriend can wait. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.”

  “Thanks, Linds,” Samantha says. “I’m always amazed by how nice and unselfish you are. Although, now that I’ve seen your dark side in action, I have to say, I kind of like it.”

  “Okay,” I say, anxious to move things along. “Can we do this please?”

  But Lindsay holds up her hand insistently. “No,” she says. “There’s something we need to do first.”

  Samantha and I glance at each other.

  “What do we need to do?” Samantha asks.

  But instead of answering, Lindsay closes her eyes. She takes hold of my right hand and Samantha’s left hand, and with her eyes still shut, she motions with her chin for Samantha and me to close the circle. Samantha and I roll our eyes at each other and begrudgingly take hold of each others’ hands.

  I start to tell Lindsay that she’s being kind of dramatic, but she shushes me loudly before I can get the words out, and then she begins to talk in a low, serious voice.

  “Today, we three are bound forever by a mystical force. And in recognition of the gift we have been granted, we swear that we will use the magic ball for good and not for evil. We swear that we will follow the rules of the ball as they have been written. And we swear that we will never, ever speak of it to anyone outside of this room.” She pauses dramatically then says my name in such a loud, bold voice that it startles me.

  “Erin Channing. Do you swear?”

  I feel like I should say I do, but that seems wedding-ish and inappropriate. As I’m considering an alternative answer, Lindsay opens her eyes to see what’s taking me so long.

  “Swear!” she whispers at me, forcefully enough to be kind of scary.

  “I swear,” I say quickly, and Lindsay closes her eyes again.

  “Samantha Burnham. Do you swear?”

  “I swear,” Samantha repeats solemnly.

  “And I, Lindsay Altman, also swear to uphold these promises.” She pauses again, letting her words hang in the air for a moment before continuing with her—I don’t even know what to call it—her spell? Her ritual? Her weirdness.

  “Today, we three are sisters in magic.” Her voice is slowly getting louder, and as she speaks, she raises her arms up, bringing my arm and Samantha’s arm with hers into the air as her words come to a crescendo. “Today, we three shall forever be known as…the Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball.”

  I drop my hand.

  “Seriously?” I ask. “The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball? Don’t you think that’s a little, like, seventh grade?”

  Lindsay looks offended and opens her mouth to protest, but Samantha beats her to it.

  “I love it,” Samantha says. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a secret society. It’s like the Masons. Or like Skull and Bones at Yale.” She gives me a you-are-such-a-loser look. “And it’s not seventh grade,” she snips. “It’s cool.”

  “Okay, fine,” I say. “The arbiter of cool has spoken. We’re the Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball. Now can we please just get on with this?”

  Lindsay smiles, and I can tell that she’s satisfied to have Samantha on her side for once. “Yes,” she says. “Let’s begin.”

>   “Finally,” I say, fully aware of my stubborn need to always have the last word.

  I pick up the ball, holding it gently between my hands. Then I close my eyes and give it a shake. I have no idea if I’m doing this right, but I thought about it for a long time, and I couldn’t come up with any other way to do it. I inhale, then slowly let out my breath.

  “I choose…Samantha Burnham.” I open my eyes and place the ball into Samantha’s outstretched hands. She pulls it toward herself greedily, and already I can see the wheels turning in her head.

  “Why,” she asks, noticing my look of concern, “are you looking at me like you’re my mother?”

  “Because I know you, and I don’t like what you’re thinking. We just swore that we’re going to use the ball for good and not for evil and that we’re going to follow the rules, and here you are, ten seconds later, with that mischievous look on your face.”

  She waves her hand at me like I’m being ridiculous. “I am perfectly aware of the rules. I get it. Nothing past twenty-four hours, don’t ask questions for other people, blah, blah, blah. Now stop worrying so much. It’s going to be fine.”

  “So have you thought about what you’re going to ask it?” Lindsay wants to know.

  “Well, I can tell you that I’m not going to ask it for good grades and G-rated kisses, that’s for sure.” She looks down at the ball and shakes her finger at it. “You, Mr. Ball, are about to see some real action.”

  Oh no, I think to myself. I’ve created a monster.

  “What does that mean, real action?” I ask, nervously. “We agreed that you get to be next so that you can fix the situation with your parents. And I don’t see how that involves real action.”

  “Oh my God. You look like you’re about to start convulsing. Will you please relax? Did you learn nothing from your experience with this ball? You need to lighten up.” She overenunciates the words lighten up and says them extra slowly, like she’s talking to someone who doesn’t speak English. She looks at Lindsay. “And to answer your question, yes. I have my first question all prepared.” She gives us a Miss America smile, then holds the ball out in front of her and closes her eyes. She sits in that pose for what feels like ten minutes.

  “All right,” I say impatiently. “I can’t take it anymore. Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay, okay. Hold your horses. My God, have you never heard of the dramatic pause?” I roll my eyes while Lindsay giggles, and finally, she gives the ball a shake.

  “Tell me, Pink Crystal Ball,” she says, in a hushed, theatrical voice. “Will I, Samantha Burnham, be discovered by a Hollywood director who will cast me in a major production?”

  I groan. “What does that have to do with your parents?”

  “Um, excuse me, but what did kissing Jesse Cooper have to do with you becoming less boring? And please, do not interrupt the ball while it is performing its magic.”

  We all move in close to look at the ball, and the pink liquid seems to melt away as the acrylic die floats up to the surface.

  Samantha lets out a squeal as the answer appears, a slow smile spreading across her face.

  It is your destiny…

  Acknowledgments

  People often imagine the work of writing to be a solo affair: an author sitting for hours in a room, alone, with nothing but a computer and the sound of birds chirping outside the window. In my case, if you substitute the birds for really loud kids, a barking dog, and a phone that rings all day long, I suppose you’d be right. But while writing may be a lonely pursuit, creating a book is not, and there are many people I need to thank for helping to turn my writing into a book.

  Thank you to Barbara Zitwer, my agent of many years, for encouraging me to give the Young Adult genre a try. You were right! Thank you to Dan Ehrenhaft, my gifted editor, for your ability to see what was missing, for the gentleness of your criticisms, and for your patience and understanding during a tough year. Thank you to Todd Stocke, Kristin Zelazko, and Kelly Barrales-Saylor at Sourcebooks for jumping in at the eleventh hour and providing me with all of the support I needed, and to the publisher, Dominique Raccah, for being so incredibly flexible and supportive. Thank you to Rusty Weiss for your counsel, your wise advice, and your ability to make your emails sound both friendly and hostile at the same time. Thank you to Amy Keroes, my friend, de facto public relations consultant, and editor at mommytracked.com, for reading multiple drafts and for sending me your thoughts in real time. Thank you to all of my friends for being so helpful and supportive in trying to spread the word about this book— the mom network is unbelievable! And of course, thank you to my wonderful family. Thank you to my husband, Michael, for listening to me ramble as I try to work out ideas in my head, for being my biggest critic (in a good way), and for not taking it personally when I yell at you for criticizing. I love you to death. Thank you to my daughter, Harper; you have been my muse since before you were even born. I would never have had the idea for this book if you and I had not been lying on your bed together, playing with a “magic” ball. And thank you to my son, Davis, for understanding when mommy has to work, and for being so proud that I’m a book writer.

  About the Author

  Risa Green writes a weekly column for www.mommytracked.com, and her prior adult novel, Notes from the Underbelly, was made into a television series. She is originally from the Philadelphia area and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their two children, and their dog.