A Dash of Trouble

by Anna Meriano

  Brent poked his head out the window and waved a cheese-and-pico-covered arm.

  “Oh, great. That’s just great, Leo,” Caroline whispered angrily. “He’s not in love with the sixth grade anymore, he’s just five inches tall.”

  “I know! I’m sorry.”

  “This whole thing is a disaster. I can’t believe I let you talk me into it.” Caroline’s anger seeped through the phone.

  “We did it together.”

  “But now it’s all horrible,” she yelled. “You didn’t say this would happen. I just . . . I can’t believe you did this.”

  She hung up the phone. The sound of the dial tone rang in Leo’s ears; tears pricked her eyes. She had definitely lost her best friend now.

  She took three deep breaths. She was on her own.

  “Was that my mom? Can I talk to her?” Brent called from the dollhouse.

  “It wasn’t . . . Why would I be calling your mom?” Leo couldn’t keep the frustration out of her voice, so her words came out in a snap.

  The phone rang again. She answered on the first ring so her sisters wouldn’t pick up.

  “Leo?” Caroline’s voice sounded like a mouse’s.

  “Caroline, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too. I just—”

  “I know.”

  Caroline sighed. “Leo, how are we going to . . . ?”

  “You’re talking to Caroline?” Brent called out.

  “Yes, hush!”

  “We might have to tell your mom,” Caroline said.

  “How is Caroline going to help with any of this?” Brent yelled.

  Leo clamped her hand over her free ear and sighed in frustration. “Caroline, I’ll call you back. And no, I’m not talking to my mom, or anybody’s mom. I’m going to figure this out.”

  “But . . . but if you don’t think of anything . . .” Caroline gave a shaky sigh.

  “I’ll call you back.” She hung up before Caroline could say anything else and hid the phone under her pillow. Caroline didn’t understand anything if she thought Leo could simply go to Mamá and ask for help unshrinking a boy. Leo couldn’t imagine the disappointed look Mamá would unleash, or the ear-blistering lecture. No way would Mamá let her work in the bakery. She might even—Leo gulped—refuse to teach Leo any magic until she was thirty. Or fifty! Or never. Leo would be the only girl in the family to be unmagical and uninitiated and alone.

  No, Leo couldn’t let Mamá find out. She would have to find a counterspell herself. Were there even counterspells? Reverse spells? They didn’t find one for the love-bite spell. And it would take Leo forever to translate her way through the spell book.

  “Hey.” Brent peeked out of the dollhouse, chewing on a piece of quesadilla that looked as big as a whole pizza in his hands. “You’re going to call my mom soon, aren’t you?”

  “Why do you keep asking that?” Leo groaned. She pulled the recipe book out of her backpack and dropped it onto the desk in front of the dollhouse, flipping it open randomly to a recipe for cookies that would either cause or get rid of warts. It wasn’t very helpful, but at least glancing through the pages made Leo feel like she was trying to fix the problem.

  “Well, someone needs to call her,” Brent said. “She’s going to be so worried. She probably already is—”

  Leo slammed the book shut so hard it made the dollhouse shake. Brent grabbed the side of the wall to keep from falling. Leo immediately felt even worse than before.

  “I’m sorry.” She put her hand on the house to settle it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I don’t know how to fix it, and I can’t tell anyone, and I can’t call your mom.”

  “How would you feel if it were your mom?”

  Leo would feel terrible. Leo did feel terrible. She remembered Mrs. Bayman’s crying and Mr. Campbell’s grim face. If Leo knew that Mamá and Daddy were suffering that much, she would do anything to call them.

  “Okay, but you can’t tell her anything, please. Not yet. I’m going to fix everything.” She took the phone from under her pillow and picked up Brent, placing him on her knee. “What’s the number?”

  “Dial star sixty-seven first,” Brent said, “so she can’t see the caller ID.”

  Leo dialed, and Brent climbed onto the phone and peered down into the mouthpiece as it rang.

  “Hello? Hello?” a frantic Mrs. Bayman shouted.

  “Mom?” Brent shouted back.

  “Baby, is that you? I can’t hear you. Where are you? I’m going to come get you right now.”

  “Mom, I can’t talk right now. I’m fine, though,” he said.

  “Where are you?” Her voice grew louder. “I can barely hear you. Where have you been all day?”

  “I can’t tell you what’s going on or where I am. It’s . . . a secret. But don’t worry, seriously, I’m fine. I’ll see you soon.”

  Mrs. Bayman burst into tears. Her sobs echoed in Leo’s room.

  “Hang up,” Brent whispered. But Leo was frozen. So Brent climbed up the phone and leaned against the red button.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll fix this.”

  He looked up at her. “Can you?”

  Leo looked at the recipe book she could barely read and thought about all the ways her magic had already messed up. She didn’t know all the rules of being a witch, but the rules of being a good person meant she had to do whatever she could to fix her mistakes. Even if it meant getting into trouble. She couldn’t keep hurting Brent and Caroline because she was afraid.

  “I can’t fix it,” she admitted. “Not on my own. Wait here a minute. I’ll be back.”

  The door to Marisol and Isabel’s room was wide open, which was only the case when the two girls argued. Leo wished she had picked a day when Isabel was in a better mood to ask for help, but Mrs. Bayman’s tears compelled her to step into the doorway and cough.

  “Leo?” Isabel turned around. “What’s up?”

  Leo walked inside without saying anything. The left side of the room—Marisol’s half—was in its usual state of chaos, with black tank tops and neon leggings strewn across the floor, books and papers with colorful doodles falling off the desk. Marisol sprawled on her unmade bed with her back to the door, and Leo could hear the music blasting out of her headphones from where she stood.

  Isabel’s side of the room was tidy and pastel, with a large color-coded whiteboard calendar hanging over the bed. Isabel sat at her desk with a book open in front of her, but an indent in her normally crisp bed and the haphazard placement of her stuffed duck, Patty, meant that she had been moping recently. Leo climbed onto the bed and pulled Patty into her lap, hoping that the duck would give her courage. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Isabel sighed before answering. “Just getting some homework done. Because I’m the responsible one. Which apparently counts for nothing around here.”

  Leo nodded, rubbing the worn-down bumps of Patty’s yellow fur. Marisol still hadn’t turned around, and Leo was pretty sure her moody sister couldn’t hear anything through her music, but she still hesitated. She couldn’t just blurt out that she had a boy living in her dollhouse. She had to start at the beginning. But where was the beginning of this mess?

  “And you would think,” Isabel continued before Leo could collect her thoughts, “that if Mamá noticed—especially on the very same day that Marisol stole my clothes out of my closet—that if Mamá noticed things missing from the bakery, she might try interrogating the family juvenile delinquent.” Isabel glared across the room at Marisol’s unresponsive back. “But no. It must be me who stole the things, because I spend so much time at the bakery and I’m so interested in learning—” Isabel stopped, glanced at the door, and added more quietly, “Learning magic. In other words, because I’m responsible.” Isabel huffed one last time and then smiled a little sheepishly. “Sorry, Leo. I’m not mad at you.”

  Now Leo really didn’t know what to say. Heart pounding, stomach twisting, she swallowed a few times. “What happened? What’s missing from the b
akery?”

  “Some special ingredients. Crow feathers and spiderwebs and a few other things. Marisol says it wasn’t her, but I don’t really see Alma and Belén getting up to that sort of thing—they have enough trouble learning to control their ghosts. But then where . . . ?”

  Leo stared straight at her lap. Isabel leaned forward, trying to meet her eyes, which Leo promptly shut.

  “Leo . . . ?”

  Leo couldn’t answer, not with Marisol sitting so near. It was one thing to come to Isabel for help—at least Isabel liked magic. Marisol had threatened to tell Mamá if she caught Leo again.

  “Leo, you didn’t . . .”

  Leo didn’t know what to say. She set Patty gently on the bed and grabbed Isabel’s hand, towing her out the door, up the hallway, and straight to Leo’s bedroom.

  “I need help,” Leo whispered as Isabel stepped into Leo’s room.

  “Leo. What did you do?”

  “I have a problem, a magic problem, and I need help. It’s a magic emergency.” She followed Isabel inside.

  “Okay,” Isabel said. “At least we know what happened at the bakery. But I don’t see any emergencies.”

  “Brent? Can you, um, come out?” It was nice of him to hide, she thought. He didn’t know who was coming in, and he could have tried to get the attention of Mamá or anyone who might call his mother. But he had hidden to keep Leo out of trouble. That was nice. Leo didn’t deserve that niceness. “My sister is here to help.”

  Isabel whipped her head around the room, checking the closet, the space under the bed, even craning her neck to see behind the bedside table. All the places a normal sixth-grade boy might be able to hide. She didn’t seem to notice the rustling coming from the dollhouse until Brent’s tiny head appeared in the window and his tiny arm waved to attract her eye.

  “Hi,” he said. “I sure hope you’re better at this magic stuff than Leo is. Also, are there any more quesadillas?”

  Leo couldn’t really blame Isabel for screaming.

  CHAPTER 24

  DUEL

  Isabel recovered quickly, stamping her foot and yelling out, “Daddy, will you buy bug spray next time you go out? Leo had a roach in her room and it scared me to death!”

  “Thanks a lot,” Brent said, but Isabel didn’t answer, just stared at him and then at Leo and then at the door. Thinking of getting Mamá? Leo hoped not.

  Finally Isabel brought both hands up to her face. Leo cringed in case her sister screamed again, or cried.

  “Isabel?”

  “Sorry.” Isabel’s voice rang out high and muffled through her hands. “Sorry, I . . . Sorry.” She bent forward, and Leo realized that her sister was laughing.

  “Isabel! It’s not funny.”

  “I know, I know. It’s not—” Isabel tried to catch her breath but had to cover her mouth again when a giggle escaped. “It’s not funny. I’m so sorry, Leo. And . . . is it Brent?”

  “Brent Bayman. Nice to meet you.” Brent stuck his tiny hand out the window for a shake. Isabel only laughed harder.

  A scratching noise on the closed door made Leo turn around, and a second later Marisol pushed the door open, Señor Gato dashing past her into the room. Isabel, who still tried to cover her laughter, did nothing at all to block Marisol’s view of the tiny person still hanging out of the dollhouse window.

  “I knew it.” Marisol’s headphones hung around her neck, and she scowled through smudged eyeliner. She pointed her finger not at Leo, who expected it, but at Isabel. “I knew this would happen if you kept encouraging her.” Marisol shut the door behind her and stomped over to the dollhouse, scooping Brent up carefully in her cupped hands and examining him. Brent tried to protest, but one icy glare from Marisol silenced him.

  Isabel had stopped laughing. “I had nothing to do with this,” she snapped. “But I’m going to fix it. You can help, unless you want to hide from the big, scary magic.”

  Leo had no interest in her sisters’ bickering. “You’re going to fix it? How?”

  Isabel and Marisol were too busy glaring to answer. Her oldest sister stood there until Marisol crossed the room and let Brent step onto her hand. Both girls climbed onto Leo’s bed and sat cross-legged, facing each other. Isabel gently tipped Brent onto the bed between them.

  Señor Gato leaped onto the bed, eyeing the tiny Brent and crouching into pounce position. Isabel and Marisol were still busy with their staring contest, so Leo pushed him off and shooed him out of her room.

  “What are you doing?” Brent turned nervously to face Isabel, then Marisol. “Have your methods been tested and peer reviewed? I don’t want to end up a failed experiment!”

  “Hush, pipsqueak. You’re fine.” Marisol rolled her eyes.

  “Come here, Leo.” Isabel made room for Leo on the bed. Crawling up to form a triangle with Marisol and Isabel made Leo feel young, like she and her sisters could have been playing dolls or having a tea party.

  “One of the reasons you shouldn’t do magic before your lessons start”—Isabel raised her eyebrows in a look designed to make Leo feel guilty—“is because you won’t know how to fix your mistakes.”

  “I looked for undo spells, but there weren’t any in the recipe book. I wasn’t trying to shrink him,” Leo explained.

  “What were you trying to do, then?” Isabel asked, but to Leo’s relief, Marisol interrupted.

  “I don’t care what she was doing. Leo, we can fix this, but only if you promise—no more magic experiments.”

  “I . . .” Leo looked to Isabel, but her sister nodded. Even after all the mix-ups, Leo wasn’t ready to give up and forget all about her magic for three whole years. She wanted to learn how her spells had gone wrong, and she wanted to study how to make them go right next time. She wanted there to be a next time, and soon.

  But Leo had dragged Brent into this mess, and she had to get him out of it. And to do that, she needed her sisters’ help. She sighed. “I promise.”

  “Yeah, I don’t buy it. You already promised me you were going to stay out of trouble, and look how well that turned out.” Marisol shrugged, ruining Leo’s moment of self-sacrifice.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” Brent stared up at Isabel, his hand raised like he was in school. “It’s . . . it’s not really magic, is it? I mean . . . magic doesn’t exist . . .”

  Isabel and Marisol looked at Brent, looked at Leo, looked at each other.

  “Anyway,” Marisol said to Isabel, “if we really want to put a stop to it, we’re going to have to tell Mamá.”

  “Marisol! You can’t!” Leo grabbed Isabel’s arm. “I promise, Isabel, I won’t mess with magic anymore. Don’t tell Mamá!”

  “Cucaracha, you lost your right to make cute puppy-dog eyes when you shrank your friend.”

  “Leo, stop pulling at me. Marisol, stop torturing her.”

  “I want her to be safe,” Marisol said. “You’re the one who’s been filling her head with magic she’s not ready for. You’re the one who started all of this. I’m just trying to end it.”

  Isabel took a deep breath, closed her eyes. “Just hold on a minute,” she said in a soft voice. Leo found herself nodding along, her panic fading as the muscles in her shoulders relaxed. She barely noticed the buzzing in her head or the way the room tilted. “Nobody wants Leo in danger— Ow!”

  Isabel clapped a hand to her cheek and ducked to avoid the second toothpick Marisol flicked toward her. Leo shook her head, clearing away the dizziness and the magical calm that Isabel had created. Another toothpick appeared in Marisol’s open palm and flew straight into Isabel’s ponytail.

  “Marisol!” Isabel snapped. “Cut that out.”

  “What? It’s fine for you to use your magic on me, but I can’t fight back?”

  “I didn’t attack you. I was just trying to— Ow! You’re being so immature. You don’t take any of the magic seriously, anyway, so why pretend like you care now?”

  Brent turned from one sister to the other like he was watching a game of Ping-Pong. Le
o tried to shrink into her bed.

  “So what? I should always be experimenting and working and not having any friends? Having magic isn’t about hiding from real life.”

  “Having magic isn’t about forging hall passes and getting free makeup and avoiding responsibilities.” Isabel closed her eyes, and Leo yelped as a wave of anxiety hit her, the accompanying dizziness almost knocking her off the bed.

  “Turn it off,” Marisol whispered through clenched teeth, “or I swear I will start throwing spiders. Now, Isabel.”

  The two girls stared at each other. Marisol held her hand palm out, like a weapon.

  “S-stop,” Leo said. Her sisters turned to look at her. “Stop, please, both of you. You’re not—you’re making everything worse.” She threw her hands over her face, expecting spiders to fly at her any second.

  “Sorry, Leo. I’m sorry. You’re right,” Isabel said with a sigh. “Neither of us just set a very good example of what being a bruja is about.”

  “You started it,” Marisol muttered, but she held up her hands in defeat when Isabel clucked her tongue.

  “Having magical abilities . . . it doesn’t mean holding power over people. It’s supposed to be a way to express your love. A way to take care of each other.”

  “But taking care doesn’t always mean covering for,” Marisol said with a scowl. “Not if the person you love is playing with fire.” She made a fist and opened her hand to reveal a purple lighter just like the one she had used for Alma and Belén’s magic ceremony, which she flicked on and off. “It’s not like I want to get you in trouble, cucaracha, even if you do deserve it.” She turned to Isabel, “So, last chance. If you’re sure you can fix this without Mamá’s help . . . then I won’t say anything.”

  Isabel nodded. She offered Marisol a small smile. Marisol shrugged, but she didn’t roll her eyes or scowl.

  Isabel clapped her hands once. “Right. Now we need to get this boy normal sized and back home.”

  “Please,” Brent added.

  “Leo,” Isabel said, “the reason you couldn’t find an undo spell is because there isn’t just one spell that will undo any other spell. All spells have to be unraveled individually, usually by creating some kind of opposite of the original spell. So if your shrinking spell used fire, you might use ice for an unshrinking spell. Maybe.”