Spell Check

by Julie Wright

  A few moments later I was up and sitting in the window seat of my room staring out at the darkened world. Every part of me was actively awake. It crossed my mind to check YouTube to see if my moment of shame had been uploaded to the world yet, but some things were better not known. I’d find out during first period tomorrow anyway.

  I sat there for a long time watching the moon float across the nighttime sky. Other things happened during the moon’s trek over Salem. A bat catching mosquitoes swept in and out of the light at the corner lamppost, though with things getting as cold as they had in the last week, I couldn’t imagine the bat was having much luck. A stray dog wandered into our yard and sniffed around Mom’s lilac bushes before deciding to mark them as his own. Trees shuddered leaves off their limbs. And finally, the headlights from a car passing by flickered tree shadows over my side lawn. What dummy was out driving around at this time of night when he could be sleeping? For a moment, I thought the headlights cast the shadow of a woman wearing a dress standing by the trees, but it disappeared as abruptly as it appeared. It had to have been a trick of the light. I looked at the clock. One forty-nine a.m.

  What dummy was up at this time of night contemplating other dummies?

  I grunted and made my way back to my bed. Maybe sleep would come if I forced myself to relax again.

  I stared as the numbers of my clock ticked their way towards two a.m. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry as each number rolled slowly into the next—1:57 . . . 1:58 . . . 1:59 . . .

  I awoke to my alarm screaming at me to get up. I was so tired that my eyes hurt. “Morning already?” I glared at the clock, wondering if the time was wrong. Where had the night gone? I just got to sleep. But the sun had chased the moon from the sky and was now pinking up the clouds outside my window. That confirmed what the blare of my clock had already told me.

  It really was morning. Whether I liked it or not.

  I stepped on the troll Grandma Peterson had given me and let out a yelp. In irritation—and to keep myself from saying words that would get me grounded—I kicked the troll under the bed.

  I didn’t like that it was morning already. Not one little bit.

  Chapter Four

  Note to self:

  Be careful what you wish for.

  I slid into my seat for first period and rested my head on my arms, exhausted and determined not to meet the sinister looks of Lisa or her horrible friends. My head ached violently, every movement on my part sending a sharp jab behind my eyes—likely from lack of sleep. Mr. Ware rapped his yardstick on his desk to get the class’s attention. The noise forced me to look up. Why was that man insisting on making noise today when my head felt like it had been used as a basketball?

  He did it all for show. The man had never actually hit a student with the stick, though he banged it around on desks in the science lab all the time. Regardless, most students didn’t like him all that much. The cra-ack of his stick over the desks startled pretty much everyone, no matter that he did it all the time, no matter if you saw him lift the stick high into the air and were expecting the noise as it fell onto its target.

  Mr. Ware also had a habit of sanding down the callouses on his toes during class time. This was another reason people didn’t like him so much. I liked him. I felt fairly certain I was alone in that opinion.

  “Miss Snoddy?” He waved the yardstick in the air like a wand toward the back where Lisa sat.

  “Yes?” Her voice sounded sullen and peevish.

  “Remove your hat. You know the rules.” He moved to turn to the chalkboard, but stopped and waited. “Well, Miss Snoddy.”

  It took the first three weeks of school for me not to want to giggle every time he referred to her as Miss Snoddy.

  “I can’t,” Lisa said after a long pause.

  I finally mustered the nerve to turn around and look behind me. Lisa’s hair had all been stuffed up into her fedora hat. It was a good look on her. But everything was a good look on Lisa.

  Mr. Ware raised a white eyebrow. “Are you directly disobeying me, Miss Snoddy?”

  She had her fingers folded tightly into her palms so that her gloved hands were two tiny fists on the top of her desk. She stared down at those fists and didn’t answer. Gloves and a hat? Not her typical style.

  I stared at her while she stared at her hands. What in the world could be going on with her that she would dare argue with the man who carried a yardstick and had been known to flip desks over in front of students who weren’t paying attention? I sketched a glance to where her clingers sat and found that their desks were empty. Lisa sat entirely alone in her back corner of the world. A queen without her subjects. I returned my full astonishment back to Lisa.

  “Lisa?” Mr. Ware seldom used our first names. He must have sensed something really was wrong with her.

  His use of her first name caught her attention and dragged her focus forward. Her gaze fell on me briefly and slipped past me without a scowl. Something was desperately wrong if she didn’t have the time to sneer at me, especially after my humiliation the night before.

  “I can’t take my hat off.” She looked like she might cry.

  The whole class held their collective breath waiting to see what outburst would come from a direct refusal of compliance to Mr. Ware.

  He swung the yardstick. We all cringed and awaited the noise of it slamming the wall or a desk. But no such sound followed the whistle of air as the yardstick whipped to point toward the door.

  “Then you’ll need to leave class. I can’t have you here breaking rules. Go to the principal’s office.” His voice sounded baffled—baffled like I felt—baffled that Lisa dared to disobey him, that she flat out refused a direct order.

  She collected her books and hugged them to her, tucking her gloved hands under her pits. So weird that she would rather get kicked out of class and look stupid in front of everyone rather than just take her hat off.

  Mr. Ware called the class to order with a thwack of the yardstick on the board.

  The bell rang, but Mr. Ware didn’t release us to the halls for another full minute. He didn’t hold us after class very often, but he likely still felt unsettled from Lisa’s bizarre actions. He used the excuse that he had to finish giving us the chapter questions so we’d know what to study. “Fine, you can go,” he said with a twitch of his thin lips and a wave of his yardstick to usher us out of the classroom.

  I moaned, knowing I’d be late to second hour. There was no way I had enough time to go to my locker, switch out books, and get to class before the bell rang, not when every step I took felt like a dagger to my skull. So I didn’t even try. I walked carefully to my locker, weaving in and out of students with slow, considered steps.

  My heart wasn’t in school at all. I’d anticipated the mockery of the Snoddy clingers, the triumph of Lisa as she replayed my moment of humiliation for everyone on her phone. I’d built up the expectation of having to fight for my dignity, and now . . . nothing. No one mentioned my disgrace. The clingers were nowhere to be found, and Lisa had all but fled the science room. It was all sort of anti-climactic.

  I stopped into the restroom before continuing to class. Just as I’d locked the stall, the restroom door swung open and banged against the wall.

  “I can’t get a hair appointment until tomorrow after school.” Lisa’s voice echoed against the tiled walls. It sounded thick with tears.

  With my heart and head pounding equally, I peered through the crack between the stall door and the wall. She flung her hat on the counter and glared at her image in the mirror.

  I covered my mouth to stop the gasp and suddenly wished I’d been sitting so I could lift my feet up off the floor in an attempt to hide my presence better.

  Lisa’s hair sprang out from her head like slimy, molded strands of green yarn. Her hair didn’t even look real, but rather like some freakish wig.

  She lifted her hand to touch it, but hesitated, letting her hand hover just above the glistening strands. “I don’t know,”
she said into the phone. “And my nails . . .” She pulled off a glove and looked down at her hand. “I think I have a disease.” Her fingernails matched the slimy, rotted green look of her hair.

  She paused for several moments before wailing out, “Oh right, because my mom was so supportive this morning! She thinks I did this to myself with dyes and nail polish for the Halloween party, and that now I’m whining because it wouldn’t come out in the shower this morning. Seriously! She doesn’t even believe me—as if a Puritan needs green hair! I don’t know what to do.”

  She slumped against the counter and started crying in earnest. I blinked, unable to believe it. Lisa Snoddy had feelings enough to cry? Who would have guessed?

  The need for me to be in the bathroom in the first place was starting to take over, but there was no way to actually use the bathroom now. If she had any idea she wasn’t alone, my life would be over. For a brief moment, I considered popping out of the stall and taking a picture of her with my cell phone. Of course . . . my cell phone didn’t work. But even if it did, shame filled me completely for even considering the idea. She might stick humiliating things of other people on the Internet, but I would never sink to that level.

  At least I hoped I wouldn’t. I remembered my words while hanging in that tree. I’d specifically thought about her hair and nails when I’d wished the world saw how ugly she was inside. She looked exactly as I had imagined her. There was this harrowing feeling that somehow this was my fault. That’s impossible! It couldn’t be my fault! I chanted this in my mind several times while trying to stamp down the panic that I might get caught spying on Lisa and worse, I might wet my pants while getting caught spying on Lisa.

  “How is it possible you all got sick today of all days? Every one of you? I need you here! I don’t care how stuffed your nose is, you need to get here and help me!” Hiccups and sobs cluttered Lisa’s words.

  Sick?

  The clingers were all sick?

  It is my fault! My stomach dropped. The Snoddy clingers were all sick? Lisa’s hair and nails were green. All my fault!

  But how? That wasn’t even possible. Obviously this was just a bizarre coincidence. Of course, my mom, who owned a new age/witch shop in the middle of Salem, didn’t believe in coincidence. She believed in karma—cruel, unrelenting karma.

  “No. Just forget it.” Lisa hiccupped again, letting out a long shuddering sigh immediately after. “I’m cutting class the rest of the day. I’m going to hide out somewhere until I can figure out what to do.” She jabbed her finger into her phone to end the call and stuffed it into her back pocket before cramming her moldy green hair into her hat and leaving the bathroom.

  I took that opportunity to actually utilize the stall I occupied.

  Detached and ridiculous thoughts filled me while I washed my hands. “I turned her hair and nails into mold. I made all her friends sick. I did this.” My image in the mirror looked skeptically back at me; my hair seemed paler today—almost white. Maybe I was sick too?

  “You didn’t do this,” I said back to my image, pointing at the mirror. “Quit having delusions of grandeur. There is no way you had anything to do with Lisa and her friends.” I gave a short nod to my image, straightened my shirt, and left the bathroom feeling a little better.

  Kristin found me at lunch time. “Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?” I adjusted my tray—loaded down with a roll, chef salad, and a cardboard box of milk—to the side so Kristin didn’t knock into it as she pressed in to whisper in my ear.

  “Almost the entire cheerleading squad is sick. Seriously sick. The school’s worried about a small epidemic and asked the rest of the squad to come in for medical testing to make sure we aren’t carriers of a flu virus or whatever. Kinda freaky huh?”

  I tried to keep the look of guilt off my face. “Yeah. Freaky. So it’s just a flu?”

  She shrugged and put her tray down next to mine at the table she’d chosen. “I guess. I’m just glad I don’t have it. I only hope they don’t quarantine me if I’m a carrier. Miss Stine said they might make us stay home so we don’t infect the rest of the students. That would be really bad.”

  My heart jumped into my throat. It isn’t my fault. It isn’t my fault. It isn’t my fault. It wasn’t. Was it? “But it’s just a flu virus, right? It’s nothing life-threatening, is it?” Please let it be non-life-threatening. Please let Kristin not be a carrier. How would I ever live with myself if Kristin got kicked off the team? How would I ever live with myself if people died? Don’t be stupid. This is not your fault.

  “I hope it’s not life threatening. How horrible would that be?” She bit into her salad.

  “Yeah horrible.” I pushed my tray farther in front of me and made a face. “I don’t feel like eating much anymore.”

  Kristin looked genuinely worried. “You’re not sick too, are you? You were with them last night.”

  I shook my head. “The flu takes several days to reveal itself. Whatever they got couldn’t have been from last night.” Please say they didn’t get it last night. “I’m just not hungry.”

  Guilt always made me not hungry.

  Kristin sighed. At first I thought it was because she was worried over the flu and cheerleaders, but when I followed her gaze past my shoulder to the person sitting behind me, I knew that sigh was meant for him and him only. Nathan Ricks.

  Kristin would have given her left arm, maybe her right arm too, for a date with Nathan. I didn’t get the attraction. Sure Nathan was nice and cute and on the basketball team—if you liked that sort of thing—which Kristin apparently did. But he wasn’t my type. He was so quiet and bookish.

  Kristin turned back to me looking mournful. “He was at the party last night. Amber said he asked where I was.”

  I sighed too. Her not being at the party with her Prince Charming was all my fault—just like everything else. If I hadn’t been hanging in a tree shouting curses at people, Kristin would have been able to meet up with Nathan instead of having to babysit me. The fact that he even went to the party was a huge breakthrough, and I’d ruined it for her. Not that I regretted my time spent with Jake.

  It was weird to feel guilt and heart-thumping love for your crush at the same time. Hannah, Jessica, and Tish joined us for lunch, and a whole new round of “Did you hear about the cheerleaders?” started. They always took it for granted that Kristin was one of us and not one of the cheerleaders. She had started out as one of us, and would always remain that way. I sludged through the rest of lunch, squirming and mentally batting away my personal guilt, while Kristin bemoaned her many worries of Nathan and the cheer team to the rest of our friends.

  The remainder of my classes weren’t any better than lunch. Each minute of the rest of the school day dragged into the next. Thirty-two minutes left. Why couldn’t it only be one minute left? Thirty-two minutes sounded unendurable.

  I doodled on my notebook and willed the bell to clamor and release me from the prison of my English desk. A kid behind me whispered to another that he wished it was time to go home. “I wish it was too,” I muttered.

  I jumped when the bell shrilled through the school. Everyone else looked surprised as well, but started gathering their stuff to leave.

  “Calm down,” Mrs. Schroeder said. She had short, spiky black hair and wore miniskirts. Whereas Mr. Ware was generally not liked, Mrs. Schroeder was absolutely worshipped. Cool, progressive teachers were hard to come by. “It’s not time to go yet. The bells must be broken.” She pointed to the clock. But as she turned away, the clock snapped her attention back to it. Then she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and frowned. “Oh. I guess it is time to go. I thought we had more time than that. Okay, everybody, make sure to finish this chapter. I expect you to know it by tomorrow.”

  I sat straight up in my desk as though someone had turned me into a broomstick. I changed the time? No. No way! I did not just change the time. Delusional! Insane! No way! I didn’t have super powers!

  There was nothing spe
cial or amazing about me. My parents were divorced. I had a little brother who irritated me. The only things that I was even remotely good at were playing the piano, beating my dad at chess, and helping customers find the right herbs in my mom’s shop.

  I drew a sharp breath.

  I was good with herbs? And I worked in my mom’s witch-themed store. What kind of mom owned a store filled with cauldrons, crystals, and potions?

  The kind needing a cover story!

  I jumped out of my seat, threw my papers into my book bag, and pushed aside half the remaining student body to get to the door. I had to get home!

  Chapter Five

  Note to self:

  Calling Mom a witch is a bad idea.

  The buses weren’t there to pick us up and take us home. I didn’t wait around to find out what the heck had happened. In spite of my pounding headache, I ran almost the whole way to the store, pushing through the glass door with the insignia of a maiden’s shadow holding the crescent moon in her hand. The many bells hanging at the top of the door jingled. I wound my way through the incense, oils, and prisms to the counter where my mom was helping a large man wearing all black. He had astrology charts in his arms.

  Mom didn’t look my direction. “You’re here early.”

  I ignored her. “Mom, something’s wrong with me.”

  Mom flipped her dark hair over her shoulder to view me from the corner of her eye while she continued working. “I’m with someone, Ally.”

  “This is an emergency.”

  She grunted, took the astrology charts from the man’s arms, and placed them in a bag. “Do you have a fever?”

  I frowned, thinking of all those girls who were now sick at home. “No.”