Stirring Up Trouble

by Juli Alexander

  The other possible reason for delay would be if someone were really nervous about it. I definitely was really nervous.

  Lovely. All I’d discovered was that the punishment might be delayed. Or it might not.

  Beating my head against my laptop probably wouldn’t solve anything, but it sure made me feel better.

  “What’d you find out?” Mom asked, gliding into my room with the scent of freshly applied perfume.

  “Nothing good,” I said, recounting my findings.

  “Well,” Mom said thoughtfully. “You can stay home if you want, but if I were you, I’d rather get it over with. If something happens, I can come sign you out.”

  A quick glance at the screen told me it was already seven. “Can I think about it?”

  “Thirty minutes,” Mom said. “Then, I have to get going.”

  There is no better place to be miserable than in bed, snuggled into the soft covers. I decided to do my thinking there.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t relax and enjoy the warmth of my bed. The covers couldn’t protect me from the images in my mind. Images of me with six-inch fangs or a second head.

  “Crap,” I yelled, tossing the blankets aside.

  Mom peeked in the doorway. “Decide you’d rather know?”

  “Yes,” I said, getting out of bed and stomping across the floor like a petulant child. “I’d rather get it over with.”

  In the bathroom, I sprayed some detangler on the rat’s nest that was my hair and yanked a brush through it. It took two hundred fifty nine strokes. Skipping the conditioner was not such a good idea.

  My cell rang while I was washing my face. No one had called me this early since Anya’d gotten mad at me. I ran for the phone.

  I leapt over the cat in the hall before skidding around the corner in my sock feet. When I hit the rug near my bed, I jumped it in a well-practiced maneuver and grabbed at the cell phone on my nightstand.

  It was already on the fourth ring, so I didn’t have time to look at the number before I flipped open the phone and uttered a breathless, “Hello.”

  “Zoe?” A voice that most definitely was not Anya’s asked. A decidedly male voice. “It’s Jake.”

  “Oh, hi.” I struggled to breathe normally.

  He sounded wide awake. “I hope it’s not too early to call.”

  “Oh, no.” Enough with the oh’s, Zoe. I collapsed into my desk chair.

  “I just wanted to let you know that Indy’s doing great.” The pure happiness in his voice was contagious.

  My lips curved into a grin. “Good, Jake. I know you were worried.”

  “Yeah, I was.” He paused. “Thanks, Zoe. For coming down there. It was really nice of you.”

  “I’m glad I could help.” Duh. “Well, not help, but um, be there.”

  “Mom said we’ll put in a fence next week. She’s bribed someone to move us to the front of the list. That way he won’t be able to chew through the rope again.”

  “That’s great. I didn’t think you tied him up much anyway.” I stood up to pace, too restless to sit.

  “We usually don’t, but Mom had some workmen coming yesterday.”

  There was silence for a moment. “So, I’ll see you at school?” I asked.

  “No. Mom and I are going to pick up Indy and spend the day with him. They want us to keep a close eye on him. You know, just in case. But they say he’ll be fine.”

  I’m supposed to be glad the dog’s okay, so why am I disappointed that he won’t be at school. “Oh, that’s good.”

  “We’re still on for the dance tomorrow, right?”

  “Yeah.” If only I knew it would really happen. “Right.”

  “Good.” He said over the sound of his mother calling him in the background. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  “Okay. Good luck with Indy.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Picturing Jake and Indy together made me smile. Remembering Jake’s kisses made me blush. After a few precious moments on the phone with Jake, the rest of my day was bound to go downhill.

  I was in the car with Mom on my way to school when Dad text messaged me and said he’d pick me up after school. He hadn’t done that in a while, so that was good. Of course, a part of me hoped we were going to see Jake. And another part of me would resent Dad spending my time with Sheree. Life really was getting complicated.

  Homeroom was dull without Jake. We had a sub in English so that class was a total waste. The heart attack moment of the day came as I was going into the chemistry lab. Susie Maxwell stopped me. “Zoe, wait.”

  When I stopped, she came closer and whispered. “You’ve got a tail.”

  Of course, I freaked, twisting and turning and trying to see my tail. I should have known it would be something like this. I just hoped it wasn’t a pig’s tail.

  I ran back to the bathroom I’d just left while Susie yelled, “It’s not that big a deal, Zoe. Get a grip.”

  I felt the toilet paper just as I cleared the door. It came off in my hands. And I realized that my potion had nothing to do with this. I had walked out of the bathroom with toilet paper hanging from my jeans.

  Now, a normal person would probably be embarrassed to have caught TP in their panties and walked out in front of people. But, I’m so not normal. Toilet paper was a hundred times better than a zebra tail, or a tiger tail, or any animal’s tail for that matter. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Chapter Twelve

  “How’d your day go?” Dad asked as I climbed into his car.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank goodness.”

  “Your mother said you were worried. I’m glad nothing happened.” He pulled away from the curb and waited patiently while someone tried to back out in their giant SUV. “New driver, I guess.” He looked at me. “You’ll be driving soon, won’t you? I guess I should start teaching you.”

  My fifteenth birthday had come at the very end of summer. I hadn’t had any time to think about it. “We have almost a year before I can get my license. It won’t take me that long to learn.”

  “Sheree’s been giving Jake some lessons. I’m sure she could offer some advice.”

  Here we go again with Sheree. “Advice for you or for me?”

  He smiled. “For me of course. You’ll be fine.”

  I hoped so. I was nervous about driving. Clumsiness and driving didn’t seem to go together. Although my dad seemed to manage all right.

  “So what are your plans for the night?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll sit around and wait until something happens.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “No,” I agreed, thinking of the long night ahead.

  “I could help you with your toad slime experiments,” he said.

  “That would be great, but I don’t have everything I need. I want to try some fresh fish with the skin still on.”

  Dad smiled, his eyes crinkling under his glasses. “See the cooler on the backseat.”

  I looked back at the small blue cooler. “Yeah?”

  “I got three different cuts of fish.”

  “Really? With the skin still on?”

  “Yep.” He sounded pleased with himself.

  “Thanks Dad. I probably need it room temperature though. What’s with the cooler? Keeping them cold?”

  “No. I just put it in there so I wouldn’t have to smell it.”

  That’s right. The smell of fish makes Dad sick. “You don’t have to help me, Dad. I don’t want you to be miserable.”

  “I won’t be if I’m helping you. It’s okay, Zoe. I want to spend some time with you.”

  Even without Sheree? “I could use the help. I wanted to find this substitute before school started back. That puts me almost three months behind schedule.”

  “Okay, then,” Dad said. “With two great scientific minds on the case, how can we lose?”

  Dad and I were a well-oiled machine setting up for the experiment. He’d helped m
e so many times in the past. I had three wrought iron cauldrons heating on the gas stove in no time. Dr. Finnegan’s latest essay on potion theory proposed that a witch should limit herself to three pots in order to avoid diluting the magic. I couldn’t risk missing the signs of progress in my search for the substitution. I needed my magic at full power.

  Dad set up a recording station on the kitchen island where he could document our results without being right on top of the fishy smell.

  Two hours later, Dad and I were still working. Mom called and said she was going out to dinner with a friend. I strongly suspected the friend was a man. Otherwise she would have told me a name. It might even be Dave. But whatever. If Dad could date, so could she. I’d just have to learn to deal with it, but later. For now, I’d just ignore it.

  We’d tried virtually every combination of our fish ingredients. I was getting frustrated, but Dad wasn’t discouraged. He scanned the spreadsheet he’d made.

  “We should try heating them before we combine them,” he said. “Isn’t that what you do to make the margarine work?”

  “Yeah.” I tapped on my chin with my oven-mitt covered hand. “I just don’t feel like it’s exactly right.” The image of the deviled ham flashed through my head. “Let’s add deviled ham.”

  Dad shrugged. “Sounds good to me.” He started scribbling on the spreadsheet. “What should we try first?”

  “How about the canned tuna and fresh trout?” I reached for a teaspoon of the trout we’d run through the blender and then a spoon of the store-brand canned tuna. Not the white albacore. The cheap kind that probably had bits of all kinds of other things in it too. I opened the can of deviled ham. Then, I lined our biggest cast iron pot with fresh aluminum foil and added the ingredients. Once I was satisfied that they’d combined, I reached for the unicorn horns. Unicorn horn powder and toad slime produced a blue steam when they mixed.

  “Cross your fingers,” I said to Dad. I was running out of unicorn powder.

  “Gotcha.”

  After dropping a pinch of the powder into the mixture, I held my breath.

  C’mon.

  I glanced at my dad who seemed as into this as I was. Three. Two. One.

  Blue steam.

  “It worked,” I screamed, jumping up and down.

  Dad gave me a big hug. “Congratulations, scientist.”

  “I can’t believe it.” I hadn’t been this elated since, well, Jake’s kisses. Now, I could help Anya’s grandmother without feeding her toad slime.

  “I knew you could do it.” Dad grinned as I jumped around some more.

  “I did it! I did it!”

  “Uh, Zoe,” Dad said.

  “I did it!”

  “Zoe. The uh experiment.” He motioned to the stove. The cloud of blue steam was spreading outwards and could take over the kitchen any moment. I could almost feel my hair frizzing.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said and ran over to add salt to neutralize it. The steam cleared.

  I couldn’t seem to help jumping. Jump. Jump. Jump. “Dad, do you realize what this means? How many potions have toad slime?”

  Dad smiled at me. “I think you’ve mentioned it once or twice.”

  “Hundreds. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands.” I pulled the foil off the pot and dumped it in the stinky trash. The cats were going to love this when we took it out back. With a smooth motion, I pulled some more foil and lined the pot. “One more test before we get too carried away.”

  I mixed the dried tulip petals with the toad slime substitute. Then, I added a raw egg and some soil. I gave Dad a hopeful glance as I walked over and poured the mixture into the dead-looking tulip on the windowsill. Seconds later, stalks sprouted with bright yellow blooms. The plant looked like it was fresh from the florist.

  “I don’t believe it,” Dad said. “You could make a fortune selling flowers out of season.”

  “I have bigger plans, Dad.”

  “Right. Wow,” he walked over and touched a petal. “Beautiful.”

  I grabbed a different can brand of deviled ham and tried again. It worked.

  I tried another.

  “The deviled ham seems to work in three different brands,” I said. “Let’s try the tuna.”

  I opened a can of tuna from a different store and mixed the ingredients. Nothing.

  I tried another. Nothing.

  Starting to freak out, I opened another can of the same brand we used the first time. Success.

  “The tuna matters. The deviled ham doesn’t,” Dad said. “Let’s assume the trout doesn’t either, but it won’t hurt to buy some tomorrow from different vendors.”

  “I can’t believe it really works. I have to call Mom.” I ran for the phone.

  “You really are going to do it. Aren’t you, Zoe?” Dad’s tone suddenly turned serious.

  “What?” I asked as I picked up the phone from the counter.

  “Save lives. Become a brilliant chemist. Make a difference.”

  I gave him my best “well, duh” look. “I’ve been telling you that for years.”

  “I’m so proud of you.” His eyes gleamed with pride and I thought for a second he might tear up.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Now, you are planning to keep researching this substitute and carefully document any differences from potions with the original ingredient,” he said returning to scientist mode. He went back to the spreadsheet on the island and made notations.

  “Yes, Dad. I’m on top of it.”

  “I’ll buy up all the tuna available in this same packaging.” He stood, walked over to the tuna can, and wrapped it in foil. “I’ll send this off to be analyzed so we’ll know the amounts of the tuna parts versus other fish and the percentage of various tuna elements.”

  I knew recreating the experiment was not a sure thing, but I had faith in myself, and in my dad.

  Turning my attention to the phone, I dialed Mom’s cell.

  She answered immediately. “Zoe? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Mom. Relax.” I could barely contain my excitement.

  “Sorry,” she said over the chatter and clinking of the restaurant. “I worry when you and your father get together to,” she lowered her voice, “uh, cook.”

  “Mom!”

  “Well, you did blow up the kitchen that time.”

  “When I was nine. And we were using a chemistry set, not, um, other stuff.” Did she have to bring that up every time?

  “I still smell the melted laminate countertops when I take a deep breath.”

  She was so lying. We’d totally remodeled since then. “Mom. Listen. I did it. I found the substitute.” And I found myself jumping up and down again.

  “For toad slime?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh, um,” I heard her mutter to someone, “new band. She’s got tickets.” Then to me, she said, “That’s so great. I’m so proud of you! It’s not easy to get those tickets. We’ll celebrate when I get home.”

  I giggled. Mom was a horrible liar. I guess that’s why I’m so bad at it. “Whoever you’re having dinner with is going to think you’re psycho.”

  Mom groaned. “He already does.”

  Ah-hah. “So it is a he!”

  “Crap.”

  Then, I realized Dad could hear me. I looked over to see he’d put his hands in his pockets and was shuffling around.

  I could tell Mom was smiling as she said, “I’ll see you soon, Zoe.”

  “Okay, Mom. Bye.” I disconnected.

  “Listen, Zoe,” Dad said.

  It almost sounded like he wanted to talk about something serious, but that couldn’t be it, because he never talked about feelings and stuff.

  “It sounds like your mother is ready to start dating.”

  “Um.” What was I supposed to say to that?

  Dad started looking at his shoes and jingling the change in his pocket. Surely he wasn’t going to keep going down this road.

  “Zoe, I know we. Well, I. Mostly me, I guess. I’ve made it ha
rd on you and it’s hard enough being a teenager.”

  True.

  “Zoe. You are very important to me. I don’t want you to feel like you come second to anyone.”

  I had no idea what to say. Dad and I had fun together. At least we used to. But this heartfelt thing was completely out of character for him. All I could do was gape like a fish.

  “Are you dying?” I asked.

  His eyes widened in surprise. “No.”

  Thank goodness. “Are you marrying Sheree?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not yet anyway. I just felt like we hadn’t had any time together lately. I know you’re having to deal with your feelings about me leaving your Mom…”

  I really wasn’t ready for this conversation. I just wanted it to end.

  What was I supposed to say? Oh, no, Dad. I’m fine with it. It’s great you left Mom and started dating. And I couldn’t say what I really felt either. That he’d betrayed us and I was mad at him. That he should behave like a grown up.

  “Anyway. I want to make sure you know I’m here for you. When, or if, you need me.”

  “Okay,” I said over the lump in my throat, because despite the anger, I was touched that he was trying.

  “Good,” he said, his shoulders relaxing a little. The jingling sound stopped. “Should we go out to dinner to celebrate?”

  I didn’t need a mirror to know what I looked like. I’d been standing over a bubbling cauldron. And honestly, I didn’t feel like going anywhere. I wanted to celebrate with Mom.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Milo. I wished there were more than three people in the world I could share this with, but I couldn’t tell anyone else. We’d tell the Alchemist’s Council later. After more research. That would be awesome. No one my age had ever done anything like this.

  But first, Mom and I would have to talk it out. She didn’t want me getting too much attention. The Order might try to interfere with my education. Mom wanted me mainstreamed. And so did I. She was afraid I’d lock myself in a lab and not come out until graduation. And she was probably right.

  “Not with the fuzzy head, Dad. But how about we make some fajitas and eat here?”