Suddenly Mr. Feldstein came into the room, looking as if he’d been rushing. But even more oddly, he was dressed in a suit and tie.
“Sorry,” he said, “emergency faculty meeting. We’re all right now.” He blinked and looked around the room. “I haven’t...” he began, and then sat at his desk. That too was strange. Usually he ran around the room showing off his costume of the day.
“I have been informed that some of our classes have perhaps been too exciting,” he said.
Too exciting? Olivia could see from the looks people were giving each other that she wasn’t the only one to think Mr. Feldstein’s classes were entertaining, but hardly too exciting. Didn’t the faculty ever go to movies?
“Perhaps we forget in our zeal for teaching that there are some students whose sensitivity is too... too sensitive,” Mr. F. said.
Huh?
“One of your classmates, Madison Lispenard, has been hospitalized for nervous exhaustion,” he said. “And her father has suggested that she may have been traumatized because... classes at the Knickerbocker stimulated her imagination too intensely.”
Muffin leaned over toward Olivia and said in a stage whisper: “She thought the witches were after her.”
Mr. Feldstein clearly heard Muffin, because he flinched, but he let it go. “So for a while,” he said, “we’ll concentrate on simply reading what the authors of our textbook have to say.”
Everybody groaned. The social studies text, they all knew, had been written by experts in the art of writing nothing that was in the least bit exciting or interesting.
They took turns reading it aloud for the rest of the period.
Between social studies and math classes, the students exchanged what little information they knew. According to Muffin, Madison had started accusing some of the household staff of being witches. “Well, most of them were from the Caribbean,” Muffin said, “so the Lispenards might just have humored Madison by hiring new ones. But then Madison decided that an old lady who lived in their building was a witch too and attacked her in the elevator.” According to Muffin, the old lady was pretty rich herself (she lived in Madison’s building, after all), and she called the police—plus her lawyer. “The police arrived, and Madison decided they were... well, you get the idea. So Madison’s parents finally had to agree to send her to this fancy clinic for a while.”
“Is it Harminger’s?” one of the other girls asked about the clinic. “My older brother had to go there for his little alcohol problem and I went to visit once. Some of the guys in there were majorly hot.”
“I didn’t get the name,” Muffin said. “But Rockland Park is supposed to be the best right now for disturbed adolescents.”
“Maybe they’ll send her out of state,” another girl suggested. “Where would you go in California, Olivia?” she asked, without a trace of sarcasm.
So everybody knows, Olivia thought. She mumbled something about having been in too many clinics to remember their names, and rushed down the hall trying to catch up to Dulcimer. Behind her, she could hear Muffin telling the others, “Olivia just loves to put people on. You have to know her as well as I do to know when she’s kidding.”
Olivia caught Dulcimer just as she was entering Mr. Haber’s classroom. “You told them,” Olivia said. “You told everybody, and I asked you not to.”
“I had to,” Dulcimer protested. She headed for the back of the room. “They were starting to believe Madison and... it was my fault that Madison thought you were a witch in the first place.”
Olivia followed her and the two of them sat in the very last row.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I wanted to be Madison’s friend. I’m sorry,” Dulcimer added when she saw Olivia’s look of disgust. “I don’t know why. But when that thing happened with her face, I remembered what you’d said in the pizza parlor about what you’d done to make Alex like you. I told her you knew how to cast a spell on someone and then... she decided you were a witch. The play pushed her over the edge.”
“The play?” Olivia asked.
“You know, The Crucible in Ms. Noyes’s class. Did you read it?”
“Just the first act.”
“You ought to read it all,” said Dulcimer.
“That doesn’t matter,” Olivia said coldly. “I don’t think the play has any lines in it about who my parents are.”
Dulcimer shrugged. “I was able to spot you from People magazine. Sooner or later somebody else would have seen you on the Internet or something. It’s part of who you are. Deal with it.”
Instead of answering, Olivia got up and looked around for another seat. Half a dozen girls, including Muffin and Jessica, gestured for her to sit by them, but she marched past and sat by Alex.
Good old, faithful old, Alex.
Who’s faithful only because I cast a spell on him.
After they went to Ms. Noyes’s classroom, they got another surprise. Ms. Noyes wasn’t there anymore. A thin young man wearing a green suede jacket and jeans welcomed them one by one as they came in the door. When everyone was present he said, “I want to introduce myself. I’m Jack Zachary, and I’ll be your language arts teacher for the rest of the semester. If I’m really lucky maybe for the rest of the year, and I know we’re going to have fun here.”
Olivia raised her hand. “What happened to Ms. Noyes?”
“Well,” Mr. Zachary said, “unhappily it was decided that she and the Knickerbocker had to part ways.”
“Was she fired?”
“I really don’t know,” Mr. Zachary said. He kept hopping around with jerky movements, irritating Olivia. “And I think we ought to put the past behind us, really,” he went on. “The past is where we’ve been and the future is where we’re going. There’s something we can do right now to make sure the future is a better place.” He looked around, bright-eyed, as if he had a big secret to tell.
Nobody was interested enough to ask what it was, but he told them anyway. “As you know, one of your friends, Madison Lispenard, has gone for counseling and some needed rest. The assignment for today is for everybody in the class to write her a note telling her just how much you love her and hope she feels better soon.”
Olivia felt as if she were going to have a nosebleed. She looked at Alex and stuck her finger in her mouth, making gagging sounds.
Mr. Zachary pretended not to notice. He was passing out cream-colored cards with tiny flowers printed on them. Thanks to Tilda, Olivia was able to identify the flowers as forget-me-nots.
“Now don’t worry at all about spelling or punctuation or capitalization or any of those silly things that keep us from expressing ourselves,” said Mr. Zachary as he flitted around the room. “You won’t ever have to worry about those in my class. Just put down what your true feelings are.”
Olivia looked at the blank card on her desk. Her true feelings probably would cause it to burst into flames. Finally she took out her pen and drew a smiley face on the card. She signed it, “Olivia.” Madison would probably get the point.
The others were still busy writing or thinking, and Mr. Zachary was in the back ooing and ahhing over someone’s note. When Olivia put her pen back in her purse, she saw the envelope that she had found in her locker. The one that had her name written on it.
She recognized the handwriting now. She had seen it often on the board in this room. It was Ms. Noyes’s writing.
Checking to make sure no one was watching, Olivia opened the envelope and unfolded the note inside:
Dear Olivia,
You’ll soon find out that I won’t be teaching here any longer. I’m sorry, not because I lost my job, but because I thought the students here needed what I could teach them. But I’ll be sorry most of all not to teach you and watch you grow in mind and spirit. You were my favorite student, and I know you sometimes felt isolated from the class. If that happens again sometime, just think of Ms. Noyes and say along with me,
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody,
too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know
The “somebodies” may have banished me from the school, but I hope never from your memories. May you find success and happiness in whatever you do.
My very best wishes,
Wendy Noyes
Olivia started to cry—as much from anger as from sadness. Her tears felt hot against her cheeks. Mr. Zachary, with wonderful timing, picked just that moment to stop at her desk. Of course, he misunderstood the reason why she was crying. He patted Olivia’s arm and said, “Don’t worry. I know that with all of us pulling for her, Madison is bound to get well.”
She looked up and saw him dissolving through her tears. She wanted to say something that would crush him, destroy him, make him feel as bad as she did. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t force any words from her mouth.
Instead, she realized what she had to do now.
As soon as class was over, she grabbed Alex’s arm. “Get the book and the Decodesphere,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the janitor’s room.”
“But you don’t have to curse Madison now,” he said. “She’s in a sylum.”
“I’m casting a spell anyway,” Olivia replied. “On the school.”
Chapter Sixteen
OLIVIA TOOK A PIECE of chalk and drew a circle on the floor around the table in Kurt’s room. The spell that she had read yesterday emphasized that it must be conducted in a circle. It also required a pentagram on the table, which she drew, and finally the two black candles had to be lit. Everything was ready.
“Turn off the light, Alex,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he asked nervously. Alex had shown signs of refusing to obey her, Olivia noticed. The janitor had wanted more money this time to let them use his room and Alex had been reluctant to pay. Perhaps she’d need to cast a stronger spell on him when this one was finished.
“Turn off the light and sit down,” she told him firmly. He did as he was ordered. She could see his face on the other side of the two flickering candles. He looked worried. She couldn’t imagine why.
The spell she had found in the book yesterday was titled, “Incantation for Calling Malefic Demons to Infest a Place.” That sounded pretty much like what she wanted, and, fortunately, all she needed in the way of materials was brimstone and a few pinches of dust from the place you wanted to infest. Kurt, fortunately, had barrels of the stuff.
She placed the Decodesphere over the page, and said “Reddo.” The words beneath it turned into English. Kind of old-fashioned English. Probably the way John Dee himself spoke it. Olivia took a pinch of dust, combined it with the brimstone, and sprinkled it over the pentagram, chanting:
“Seven of them, I see
Seven of them follow mee
From the numberless stars of heaven
Come ye demons I count seven.”
She sprinkled some more dust and brimstone. She heard a rustling sound above her. Alex jumped a little and looked up at the ceiling, but of course it was too dark to see what was up there. The smell had appeared again too. Was it this bad the other time? Olivia wondered. She continued the spell:
“Come, come, ye seven trolls
Through the doors and through the holes
Make this place fitten only for beasts
Until all within it are deceased.”
Only one more part to go. The smell was really awful. Olivia was afraid to breathe. She could also hear sounds like wind blowing—almost howling, it was so loud. But it couldn’t really have been wind, because the candles kept burning without a flicker. Alex leaned forward and started to say something, but Olivia sent him backward with a violent wave of her hand. His face receded into the darkness. Olivia sprinkled the final pinch of dust over the pentagram. Yellow smoke rose into the air. The instructions for the last part of the incantation told her to sing it, so she did, nearly choking on the smoke:
“Come play, come play
Both night and day
The seven are free
By my decree.”
The candle flames suddenly turned blue. Bright blue. Olivia stared at them. That didn’t happen the other time, she thought.
Then they went out.
Olivia sat in the darkness, waiting. Suddenly she heard a laugh, like the kind Tim Glidewell made when he told one of his dirty jokes.
A nasty laugh.
And it wasn’t Alex.
Olivia felt a chill. “Alex?” she called. “Turn on the lights.”
More laughter, coming from several people now.
Or maybe... not people.
“Alex!” she cried, hearing the fear in her own voice. “Turn on the lights! Right now!”
She heard grunting sounds in the pitch-black room, like creatures straining against something. And then there was a tremendous crash. The door to the janitor’s room burst outward, flying into the hall, and Olivia could see what looked like whirling clouds of red and black smoke rush through the doorway.
Hysterical laughter came from the clouds, like the sounds of something insane suddenly released from captivity, but they were moving down the hall, away from Olivia. She stood up, wondering where Alex was. It occurred to her that Kurt was going to be ticked off about his door. Alex had better have more money ready.
Then she heard a mewing sound and looked at the floor. The light from the hallway showed her a cat that was tied to the leg of a chair with some kind of green gummy string. As she stooped down, she saw that the creature’s eyes weren’t shaped the way cat’s eyes usually are.
They were Alex’s eyes.
They pleaded with her as he meowed furiously. She understood and tried to undo the gummy string. But it stuck to her fingers and she couldn’t untie it or break it with her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I need something to cut it, I think.” Alex’s Swiss army knife, she thought. But after looking around for a while with no luck, she figured it must have disappeared when Alex... She shook her head. Changing Alex into a cat hadn’t been part of her plan.
Then, from the hallway, she heard barking. A lot of barking. She looked out to see a pack of dogs run by. Little dogs: Yorkies, Pomeranians, King Charles spaniels... What were they doing in the school?
One of the dogs, a shih-tzu with a cute face, seemed to notice her and stopped. It came over and hung its head, sniffing her feet. She bent down to pet it and the dog raised its head and licked her hand. Olivia stared in surprise as she saw its eyes. They looked like the eyes of somebody else she knew. “Muffin?” she said.
Before Olivia could react, there was a growl farther down the hallway. The little shih-tzu jumped away and fled, whining with fear. Olivia saw a mean-looking Doberman go after it.
She went back to the tied-up cat in the janitor’s room and knelt next to it. “Alex,” she said, “I’ve got to go find somebody who knows more than I do.” The cat meowed loudly. He wanted to go with her. “I can’t take you,” she said. “But you’ll be safe. I’ll close the...” Um, let’s try Plan B, she thought as she contemplated the splintered door. Finally, she moved two of Kurt’s trash barrels into the doorway as she left, hoping they would keep the dogs out if they came back.
By now, she could hear all sorts of sounds: animal cries, bird calls, even what sounded like crickets and other insects. It sounded like a zoo. A flock of brightly colored parrots flew past her, and then the whole corridor floor suddenly filled up with gerbils and hamsters coming from the elementary school section. They tickled her ankles as they rushed past her.
There were bigger animals, too. The first one she saw was a deer, poking its head shyly out of Mr. Haber’s math classroom. When she approached it, it shied away from her, darting back inside.
She heard cawing sounds coming from the music room, and curiosity made her open the door. A large black bird—a crow? A raven?—soared around the room, cawing loudly. It sounds angry, Olivia thought. When the bird saw her, it dived in her direction, claws outstretched and
aiming for her eyes. Olivia slammed the door quickly and heard the caws of frustration on the other side.
Behind her came more of the horrible laughing that she’d first heard in the janitor’s room. She turned around to see the black and red wisps of smoke rushing toward her. She raised her arms to defend herself, but the smoke swirled around her, so that the evil laughter came at her from all sides.
“Get away!” she screamed, waving her arms. Am I going to be turned into some animal too? The smoke concentrated itself into a slender column, like an arrow, and stabbed at her body again and again. But when nothing happened, the laughter turned angry. Sensing its frustration, Olivia cried again, “Get away from me!” and all at once the smoke headed off in another direction.
Olivia looked down at herself, afraid of what she might see. But nothing had changed. Only... she felt something hot between her breasts. She reached down her shirt and pulled up the sachet that Eva had given her as protection against demons. It was almost too hot to touch.
A dog barked and Olivia looked up to see a poodle trotting toward her. It was brown, an odd color for poodles, she thought. It was coming pretty fast, almost like the crow had, and she looked around for something she could use to ward it off. “Back!” she called, holding the sachet out to defend herself.
But that had no effect. The dog jumped at the last second and put its forepaws on her shoulders, the way poodles sometimes do. The dog was heavy enough to pin her backward against the wall.
Face to face, she looked into its eyes. And saw Paul’s eyes. He barked a couple of more times. Definitely angry barks.
“Yes, I know!” she said. “I screwed up, all right? What am I supposed to do about it?”
The poodle just stared back. Then he jumped down, freeing her. He started down the hall, turned to look at her, trotted back, and started down the hall again.
Be Careful What You Witch For Page 19
