Under a Spell

by Amanda Ashby

  “Don’t you dare!” Sophie yelped out loud before she could stop herself. However, despite the strange look her mom was giving her, Sophie knew it would get only stranger if Malik picked up the address book, since to her mom and Meg it would look like it was disappearing into thin air. Sophie lunged for the book and just beat Malik to it. At the same time Mr. Jaws leaped into action and came sliding across the hardwood floor and hissed at them both.

  “Don’t dare what? Are you okay?” her mom asked in alarm. Sophie hugged the book close to her chest and tried to ignore Mr. Jaws, who was now attacking her leg like she was some kind of deranged monster.

  “Um, yes. I’m fine,” Sophie said as she looked at the address book in her hands and tried to shake the cat off her leg. “I just meant…er, don’t you dare think that you need to call up a sitter, because I would love to babysit Meg. Yup, count me in.”

  “Well, if you’re going to babysit me, then you have to play three games of shark and watch two documentaries,” Meg immediately dictated. “And I’m not going anywhere near the basement.”

  “Fine. Three games of shark and two documentaries.” Sophie gritted her teeth and shot Malik an annoyed glare. He was so going to get it later. Thankfully, her mom didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she smiled.

  “Oh, then that’s settled. And good luck with the cheerleading. I’ll look forward to hearing how it goes.”

  “Sure, yeah.” Sophie nodded, but as soon as they were out of hearing, she turned to Malik and folded her arms. “What was that all about?”

  “That was me trying to be helpful,” Malik explained. “Since clearly your mom shouldn’t have anything to do with a man who keeps sahir-tainted bottles in his basement. I mean, it’s just common sense.”

  “Yes, well, thanks to you, I now have to spend the afternoon babysitting Meg instead of practicing my magic for the Djinn Council. Oh, and FYI, wherever Meg is, Mr. Jaws and his ‘I hate you’ hiss aren’t far behind, which will make it even more painful. So what do you have to say to that, Mr. Helpful?”

  “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have tried to pick up the address book,” Malik conceded, before shooting her a confident smile. “But I hardly think you can say I’m not helpful. I’m the most helpful djinn guide in the world.”

  “Really? Because maybe you need a new definition of helpful.”

  “You know words can hurt,” Malik reminded her with a pout. “When have I ever been anything less than helpful?”

  “Well, let’s see. You made Kara paint you orange, you stole Jell-O, and then you disappeared and went to see a musical when you were supposed to be helping me practice my transcendental conjuring. And that was just yesterday. As for the day before, if I recall, you made a huge mess in the dining room and stole my mom’s pottery glaze. And then day before that—”

  “Fine,” Malik admitted. “I concede that sometimes I can slip up.”

  “Sometimes?” Sophie raised her eyebrows at him. “The thing is, Malik, I just wish that you would—”

  “Whoa.” Malik held his hand up in horror. “Hey! Careful how you bandy that word about. I’ve spent far too long being bound to evil sahirs. I don’t want to be stuck taking commands from you just because you accidently said the W word.”

  “What?” Sophie looked at him blankly for a moment before widening her eyes. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t actually mean I was going to say it. It was just a figure of speech. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, well, it’s one figure of speech that you need to get rid of pretty darn quickly,” Malik assured her. “Because rule number one of being a djinn is never to WISH that anything happens to your djinn guide. You should probably write that down.”

  Sophie flushed. “I promise it won’t happen again,” she assured him, because while Malik definitely drove her crazy most of the time, she would never want to be responsible for binding him. Especially since he’d just recently escaped from being bound to a bottle for over two hundred years.

  “Okay, I believe you.” Malik sniffed. “And I suppose you do have a point. I’m the one who got you into this whole djinn business, and it’s my responsibility to help you. So I promise that from now on you’ll get nothing but help from me. Help, help, help. Starting with a phone call to my buddy on the council.”

  “You haven’t done that yet?” Sophie yelped.

  “Er, um, of course I have,” Malik said, not quite returning her gaze. “But, you know, it wouldn’t hurt for me to call him again. Oh, look, here are Kara and Harvey, which I’m telling you because I like to help.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Harvey demanded. “And why is he pretending to pat my hair?”

  “I’m not patting it, I’m smoothing it down,” Malik corrected, even though as a ghost he couldn’t actually touch Harvey’s hair. “Because that’s what helpful djinns do.”

  “It’s a very long story,” Sophie said as they made their way toward the bus stop and she tried to figure out if a helpful Malik was any better than an annoying one.

  8

  ONCE THEY REACHED SCHOOL, THEY ALL WENT their separate ways: Kara and Malik hurried off to a meeting with the stagehands, while Harvey was caught up in an argument with Greg Coombs on whether The Shining was the scariest movie ever made. Sophie watched them go and then busied herself with her locker combination while really hoping that she would see Jonathan.

  She had just finished shoving all of her books into her locker when she caught sight of him. For a moment he looked at her in surprise before jogging over. She paused and wished that her hair was fabulous (because there was positive thinking and there was flat hair, and she knew what side she liked to be on). A second later she felt it happen, and she gave her new, perkier hair a quick pat.

  “Hey.” Jonathan shot her a cautious look. “So I wasn’t sure if you were still talking to me.”

  “W-what do you mean?” Sophie looked at him in alarm as she went through a mental list of all the possible things that Malik might’ve done between her IM conversation with Jonathan last night until now. It was a long list.

  “Last night after I got off the computer with you, I totally busted Melissa talking to one of her stupid friends about how she’d read you the riot act because you were crushing on Ben. Is it true?”

  Okay, she hadn’t seen that one coming.

  “What? No, of course it’s not true,” Sophie yelped. “Well, I mean, yes, it’s true that Melissa yelled at me, but the stuff about me liking Ben? So far from the truth that it’s not even funny.” Then she paused and nervously peered up at him. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. You’re far too normal to like Ben,” Jonathan instantly assured her before looking relieved. “I just feel bad that my stupid sister did that to you. She’s so dramatic. I swear this is what comes from my parents letting her watch so much MTV. So are we cool?”

  “Of course.” She nodded her head the way Harvey had taught her to do when she wanted to positively reinforce something. “Don’t even worry about it.”

  “Phew,” Jonathan said, looking completely adorable. “And seriously, just try to ignore Melissa. She’ll find someone else to torture soon enough. So I was thinking that since the big game is on Thursday, you might want to meet up for lunch today.”

  “Actually,” Sophie winced, “I’m kind of busy today. I’m going to try out for the open spot in the cheerleading squad.”

  “Are you serious?” Now Jonathan’s eyes were so wide that Sophie thought they might pop out of his head, like in one of the horror movies that Harvey loved. Then he let out a long groan. “Please tell me that this doesn’t have anything to do with my sister.”

  “Of course not,” Sophie assured him before realizing he didn’t look remotely convinced. “Okay, yes, it does. But I just figured that if I could find a way to be friends with her, it might make things a bit easier between us. Plus, as a positive person, I feel it’s my duty to try to fix the situation. Hence the cheerleading.”

  Jonathan paused for
a moment before shaking his head. “I really don’t think that’s such a good idea. You’re better off just steering clear of her.”

  “It’s too late now. I’ve already put my name down for the tryouts. I really think it will work,” Sophie insisted.

  Jonathan still didn’t look convinced, but he merely shrugged.

  “Okay, it’s your call,” he said in a low voice as his gorgeous eyes stared directly at her. Sophie felt her stomach flip in excitement. A girl could definitely get used to this. And she didn’t even have to use any magic!

  “Right, that’s it for today.” Sophie’s history teacher clapped her hands and reminded everyone that now that they’d finished with World War I, it was time to start discussing some of the causes of World War II. Harvey made a groaning noise as he got to his feet, but Sophie hardly noticed since she was still grinning after her conversation with Jonathan. Had she mentioned how intense his gaze was?

  “How can there be so many wars?” Harvey demanded. “Anyway, I hope one of you guys was taking notes because I was too busy losing the will to live.”

  “Sorry.” Kara, who had been looking distracted all morning, shook her head, but before Sophie could say anything else, their history teacher walked over.

  “Sophie, may I have a word with you before you go?”

  “Oh, sure.” Sophie nodded to her friends that she would catch up with them, and she made her way to the front of the classroom with Malik floating above her head and giving her what she could only assume was meant to be a helpful smile. She ignored him as she turned to her teacher. “Is something wrong?”

  “Actually, it’s about your assignment. I must say I was a little surprised when I started to read it. I know you’ve had a few problems with some of your teachers since you started here, but I’ve been nothing but impressed with your contribution to my class.”

  “Thank you,” Sophie said as she wondered if this was some kind of sign that everything was going to be okay.

  “Until now,” her teacher added as she held up the assignment and shot Sophie a confused look. “Moroccan almonds were the cause of World War I? Is this some kind of joke?”

  “W-what?” Sophie’s jaw dropped in surprise before she realized that Malik was grinning at her. She instantly felt her Jonathan-induced good mood dissolve.

  “See, I told you I could be helpful. And you don’t even need to say thank you, because I did it out of the goodness of my heart,” he explained before bowing with a flourish and disappearing from the room. Sophie made a mental note to kill him. And not in a nice way either.

  “So?” her teacher said, oblivious to what Malik had been saying (or doing). “Do you have some kind of explanation?”

  Of course she did. Unfortunately, she didn’t think that her teacher would appreciate what it was, so she let out a reluctant sigh. “I-I did an extra assignment as a joke. I guess I picked up the wrong one off my desk.”

  Her teacher raised an eyebrow. “That’s how you spend your spare time? Making up crazy alternative-history assignments?”

  “Yup.” Sophie forced herself to agree. “I’m wacky like that. Anyway, I’m sorry I handed in the wrong one.”

  “So are you saying that you have the correct assignment for me?”

  “I certainly do.” Sophie let out a sigh of relief before realizing that she couldn’t very well conjure it up in front of the teacher. “But, er, it’s at home. I can bring it in first thing tomorrow.”

  “I’m taking a group of seventh graders to the museum tomorrow, so I won’t be here, but I will expect it on my desk first thing on Friday morning. And I don’t want anything like this to happen again. Are we clear?”

  “Absolutely. It will be on your desk on Friday morning,” Sophie solemnly promised. The minute her teacher nodded her head to the door, Sophie gratefully darted out to where Kara and Harvey were waiting for her.

  “Please tell me that I didn’t just hear Moroccan almonds,” Kara yelped.

  “I’m afraid so. Apparently, Malik thought he was being helpful.”

  “I was being helpful,” Malik corrected as his Zac head appeared from the wall and then the rest of his body followed him. “And if you would like me to talk to this teacher of yours about what really happened back then, I would be happy to do so. Even if she is a spitter.”

  “Absolutely not.” Sophie shook her head in alarm. “No talking to anyone, especially not my teachers. And no more changing my schoolwork. You have no idea how annoyed she was. I had to tell her it was a joke.”

  “I hardly think that World War I was a laughing matter,” Malik said in a pious voice. “Now the cold war, on the other hand, actually did start out as a joke. You see, what happened was—”

  “Malik.” Sophie shook her head. “Seriously, no more alternative-history lessons. You’re not helping. I don’t understand how you even saw my assignment.”

  “Oh, it was on your desk this morning, and I realized how many mistakes you had in it. So I thought I would give you a helping hand—though I see now that I was mistaken,” he quickly added as he caught the pained expression on Sophie’s face. “Anyway, it’s over now, and as long as you conjure up a new one by Friday there’s no harm done.”

  “I guess,” Sophie was forced to concede.

  “And,” Malik added with a dramatic flourish of his hands, “I also spoke to my friend at the Djinn Council, so hopefully you should get a new appointment delivered to you very soon.”

  “Really?” Sophie was instantly distracted, and she gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you. I really appreciate it. Anyway, I suppose we’d better get to the tryouts now.”

  “Actually,” Kara mumbled in a small voice, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground, “please don’t hate me, but at the meeting this morning I found out The Wizard of Oz auditions have been changed to today. I mean, I don’t have to go, but I did say I would. And the thing is that—”

  “I knew there was something weird going on with you!” Harvey announced. “You’ve been fiddling with your pencil all morning. I should’ve guessed it was something like this.”

  “Kara, why didn’t you say something earlier?” Sophie immediately felt guilty that she’d been so caught up in her own Jonathan-Tait-stared-at-me happiness that she hadn’t even noticed her friend had been worried about something.

  “Because I didn’t want to stress you,” Kara said. “Besides, it’s no big deal.”

  “Of course it’s a big deal. You’ve been working on Colin the winged monkey statue nonstop. It’s only right you should be at the auditions,” Sophie quickly assured her. Unfortunately, Malik didn’t seem to be taking the news quite so well.

  “What?” he yelped, his Zac-like face drained of color. “They can’t do that. The pamphlet clearly says that the auditions are tomorrow. I mean, what’s the point of putting down a time if they’re going to change it? This is very unprofessional.”

  “I know,” Kara said. “But there was some kind of double booking going on, and they had to make the switch. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, I should think so. I mean, this is a disaster. How can I go to The Wizard of Oz auditions and the cheerleading tryouts at the same time? I feel so torn.”

  “I wasn’t actually apologizing to you,” Kara said in surprise. “I was apologizing to Sophie.”

  “Why? Sophie isn’t the one who wants to do two things at once,” Malik snapped as he began to fan himself. “Do you think this is how Zac felt when they tried to make him choose between basketball and the musical?”

  “Well, let’s see. Zac was playing a character in a movie, and you’re a djinn ghost who can’t actually try out for either thing, so, yes, it’s exactly the same,” Harvey said in a dry voice.

  “Do you think this is funny?” Malik demanded as he shot him a withering glare. “I mean, I really wanted to see The Wizard of Oz auditions. I’ve been listening to some of them practice, and it’s like all the losers from American Idol rolled into one. Oh, this is a total disaster. What am I going
to do?”

  “You’re going to the cheerleading tryouts with Sophie,” Kara informed him in a firm voice. “I mean, you’re her djinn guide, and she’s about to do some seriously hard conjuring.”

  “Yes,” Harvey added. “It would be the helpful thing to do.”

  Malik let out a long heartfelt sigh as his shoulders drooped. “I suppose you’re right. And perhaps Zac Efron will be there? I mean, the basketball players seemed tight with the cheerleaders.”

  “I’m pretty sure that he won’t be,” Sophie assured him before studying Malik’s face for a moment. “And perhaps it would be best if you did go to The Wizard of Oz auditions.”

  “Really?” Malik immediately perked up.

  Harvey turned to Sophie and frowned. “And are you really sure about this?”

  “Yes,” Sophie assured him, secretly relieved that the troublesome djinn would be occupied for an hour. “Besides, I nailed it when I was rehearsing my transcendental conjuring in the basement, and Malik wasn’t there then. I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Malik applauded her. “Just don’t forget to hold your stomach in and stay focused. Oh, and remember what I said about clicking your fingers. It will definitely give it a bit of pizzazz,” he said, before clicking his own fingers and disappearing from sight. Kara gave Sophie a tight hug and wished her luck before she headed toward the auditorium.

  Once they were gone, it didn’t take long for Sophie to change into her PE gear, and before she knew it, she and Harvey were racing toward the gymnasium. Okay, so she was racing and Harvey was halfheartedly tagging along. When they reached the gymnasium door, she turned to him and gave him a grateful smile.

  “Thanks for coming with me. I know you think that I’m crazy, but I really don’t think the Universe would’ve given me this idea if I wasn’t meant to do it. Plus, according to Malik, the Djinn Council members are totally scary, so I figure facing down Melissa Tait will be good practice.”

  “It’s okay, Soph.” Harvey squeezed her hand. “I get why you want to patch this mess up, and since I once tried writing a poem to my mom and pretended it was from my dad, it would be wrong of me to call any of your ideas crazy.”