The Popularity Spell

by Toni Gallagher

  “I’m sorry, Dad.” It sounds like Madison’s been crying. I hate hearing that kind of sound in anyone’s voice, even hers.

  “You should be!” a lady says. That must be her mother.

  They sound close, and I don’t want to be seen. I back up slowly, one step at a time, until I’m smashed between two overgrown rosebushes. Even through my T-shirt and jeans, the prickers of the roses poke at me like pointy little voodoo pins.

  They’re walking quickly as they pass me, Mr. and Mrs. Paddington in front with Madison trailing behind them. They don’t notice me at all. But I can see them perfectly and hear everything they’re saying. Madison’s mom is wearing a white sweater and short skirt like she should be playing tennis. Her legs are dark orange and don’t quite match her face. And her blond hair looks like a marshmallow Peep at Easter—yellow and poofy and perfect, but not in a normal human way like Madison’s. She must go to the hairdresser every day.

  They get to their big, clean, fancy car, which is parked close by. Too close. I squeeze back even farther into the roses. It hurts, but I turn to my side so there’s less of me to see.

  “Everything you’ve wanted, we’ve provided!” Madison’s dad is saying, but it’s more like yelling. “What was it first, Heather? Acting lessons?”

  “Acting lessons, then ballet, then tap.”

  “You wanted me to do ballet,” Madison says.

  “Well, what’s the point of being in the business if you can’t dance and act? And you need to sing! She said she was too busy reading! Reading those big giant books she likes. Henry, she wouldn’t even try singing lessons.”

  “I didn’t want to sing; I wanted to cheerlead!”

  “And look how that turned out,” her father says.

  “I had to leave the nail salon to come here!” her mom adds.

  “You go there all the time!” says Madison, almost shouting. I doubt shouting is a wise choice, but that’s easy for me to say because I’m hiding in the rosebushes, not getting yelled at in the school parking lot.

  “Don’t talk back to your mother!” Her dad slams his hand on the top of the car. It makes a loud noise, and in that one tiny second my stomach goes from feeling tight and nervous to like I’m going to throw up.

  “Henry!” her mom yells. It’s quiet for a second; then she says, a little more softly, “We should go.”

  As her dad opens the car door, Madison stands there. I can’t see her face, but I can tell by her shaking shoulders that she’s crying. “Come on, Madison, let’s go. Don’t keep your father waiting.” Madison’s mom steers her into the backseat and closes the door without even looking to make sure she’s all the way in. My dad always looks, even now that I’m not a little kid anymore. “Fingers and toes, fingers and toes,” he always says, making sure I’m safe before he closes the door.

  Then the fancy car backs up fast and screeches loudly as it zooms forward out of the parking lot.

  I stay standing in the rosebushes for a minute. My stomach still feels sick, and if it could feel sad, confused, and scared, it would be that too. I’m almost about to cry when I hear Dad’s voice shout out in a jokey way, “Cleo, what in the world are you doing in the bushes?”

  “Are you okay?” another voice asks. It’s Terri. She’s in the front seat next to Dad. I would have rather seen Toby there, but anyone looks better than Henry and Heather Paddington.

  I put the terrarium on the ground, run to Dad’s open window, and throw myself in to give him a hug. He looks kind of shocked, but he laughs and says, “Good to see you too, Cleo!”

  “I love you, Dad!” I say.

  “I love you too, kiddo,” he says back. “Listen, Terri left work early so we can have an afternoon at the beach. So grab your millipede and let’s get going!”

  Even with Terri involved, that sounds almost as good as “I love you.”

  Growing up, I could never picture an afternoon when I’d leave school and wind up on the sand looking at the crashing waves of a never-ending ocean. I used to think that everyone in California lived next to the beach, but we’re actually a half hour away—even longer when there’s traffic. But we’re still a lot closer than I was in Ohio!

  It’s chillier here than it was at school, but so what? It’s the beach! Dad and Terri are sitting on a blanket, bundled up in sweatshirts and jackets, talking and taking pictures with their phones. They look cozy, and I think about forcing myself in between them to be rude and annoying, but then I’d just be sitting and staring at the ocean, and that seems boring. So I take off my sneakers and socks and run into the water. It’s freezing, but I don’t care. I roll up my jeans and walk in a little farther, but when a wave hits me from behind and my butt gets wet, Dad says it’s time to get out. As the sun starts going down and the sky gets all cool and pink, I use a stick to draw in the sand. It’s too hard to draw one of my animated characters, so I go for something simpler: smiley faces.

  Terri looks over. “They don’t look very happy,” she says.

  I look down at the sand and she’s right. The smiles are more like straight lines. I guess they’re feeling the same way I do about what happened to Madison and what I saw with her parents. But I don’t want to talk to Terri about that. Instead I just drag my stick in the sand. “They’re not having a very good day,” I say.

  “Is something wrong?” Dad asks. “Everything okay at school?”

  That is a question way too complicated to answer, so I just say, “Yeah.”

  “Hey, wasn’t your science presentation today?” Terri asks. “How’d it go?”

  Ugh, these are way too many questions for a nice afternoon at the beach. “I’m doing it tomorrow,” I tell them. “But everybody saw Millie today, so I’ll leave him home.”

  “So everything’s all right?” Dad asks again.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Except that my butt is wet.”

  “Ah, there are worse things in life,” Terri says.

  Dad nods. “That’s for sure. I, for one, would say it’s pretty wonderful out here.” Terri leans her head on his shoulder and he pulls her closer to him. They look happy, but after everything that’s happened today, I know I’d be happier if I were here with a friend like Sam. With Sam, I wouldn’t have to say things are fine. Sam knows me better than that.

  —

  Back at school, we find out Madison got suspended for at least a week. I feel a little guilty that she’s not there, but at least I’m not all tight inside anymore. I don’t go to school worried about what she might do or say. I guess this is the feeling that’s called relief. That makes me feel even guiltier, though—that I can be so free while Madison is probably trapped at home with her parents. How did things turn out this way?

  This voodoo thing is complicated. More complicated than I ever imagined.

  My science presentation goes okay without Millie—maybe even a little better since I had an extra night to practice it—but it’s nowhere near as interesting without having him to show. I remember to tell everyone about the 6,500 types of millipedes there are in the world, and I like the reaction I get when I describe the bad-smelling “repugnatorial” fluid they can “emit.” Some people smile, and I see Scabby Larry say, “Cool!” Kylie Mae and Lisa Lee make faces and maybe cough a few times, but they don’t do anything worse.

  Sam’s presentation is great. She hasn’t solved the problem of Earth getting hotter, but she explains it really well. It’s sad when she shows photos of adorable polar bears who are losing their homes because glaciers are melting, but I bet that with a little more time, probably by college, Samantha will be able to solve Earth’s problem. And I can tell we’re going to get As because Kevin says “Excellent job” to both of us.

  Later in the week, Samantha’s mom calls and I hear her on speakerphone with Dad. She says it’s supposed to be “unseasonably hot” this weekend, so I should come over and go swimming in their condo’s pool, which is heated all year long. After our cold afternoon at the beach, a warm pool sounds awesome!

&nbs
p; On Sunday Dad rings Sam’s doorbell, and Paige answers. She has on a really short dress, and I can see through it to a bikini underneath. She’s wearing an awful lot of makeup to be going to the pool, but she looks super pretty as usual. Maybe when Sam and I are sisters, Paige will teach us how to be pretty too.

  “You look rather nice to be going swimming,” Dad says. Sam’s mom bats her eyelashes and invites Dad to stay. He says he wishes he could, but he doesn’t have a bathing suit with him. “Well, you’re wearing shorts. You could get some sun and dunk your toes in,” she says.

  “Yeah, Dad, stay!” I want to point out that Paige is in a bikini while his girlfriend wore a sweatshirt to the beach—understandable because it was cold, but still!

  “That sounds great, Paige, but I’ve got a whole list of things to do while the girls are with you.” He’s probably doing stuff with Terri, but he doesn’t tell Paige that.

  Samantha marches into the living room in a bathing suit, slathered in white sunscreen that’s barely rubbed in, carrying two big foam noodles to float on and a bag full of towels and pool toys. “Let’s go,” she says in a tone that’s kind of serious for a fun pool day. “We’ve got lots to do.”

  Sam’s mom walks us down the stairs to the patio area that all the condos share. The blue of the pool is so sparkly and clean; I would like to live in it, except then I guess I’d have to be wet all the time. I jump right in and make a mighty splash. “Come in!” I shout to Sam; then I dive underwater.

  When I come up, Sam is standing at the edge of the pool with her hands on her hips. I can’t see her mouth because it’s in a tight line across her face. “We have things to talk about!” she says. I sigh, loud enough for her to understand that I’d rather be swimming, and get out of the pool. Well, almost. I climb up the ladder halfway and then fall backward into the water with another big splash. I hear Samantha groan and I figure she’s going back to her chair under an umbrella.

  It’s warm enough that I don’t bother drying off. “Okay, what?” I ask, changing my attitude. I flash a smile, hoping it’s the one that makes me look friendly instead of weird.

  “I want to talk about our next hex,” she says, raising her eyebrows. She’s got a whole new plan, and it must be pretty juicy because she looks around first to see if anyone’s listening. No one is. Her mom is the only other person here, and she’s on the other side of the pool reading a magazine under a gigantic hat.

  “I have a big idea, and it could change the world and even the universe as we know it!” Sam whispers. “But I don’t know if I can talk about it here.”

  When Samantha talks like this, all focused and determined, it’s hard not to let it rub off on you. I know I’ve been feeling bad about what happened with our last hex, but we don’t honestly know for sure that we caused Madison’s cursing fit. I should at least listen to what Sam has to say.

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “Talk about it right now, right here, or you’re getting thrown in the pool!”

  “Okay. If you insist,” Samantha says with a laugh. “For our next hex, I think we should get your dad and my mom together. We need to give them a push. A big one. They’re moving pretty slowly on their own.”

  “Well, that’s because Dad likes Terri.” Whether I like it or not, it’s true.

  “Maybe she’s the one we could hex then!”

  Hmmm. I never thought of anything like that before. If we could get Dad and Paige together with a hex, Dad would have a glamorous girlfriend instead of an ordinary one. A girlfriend who looks nice and classy all the time, who could teach me how to put on makeup and talk to boys someday when I care about that stuff. And then, when they got married, Sam and I would be sisters like we’ve wanted! Everything would be exactly like it should be. There’s no doubt about it—we have to do this hex! But how? “So what would we do? To Terri, I mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam says. “But she’s taking up a lot of your dad’s time. Time he could be spending with my mom.”

  “That’s true,” I say. “So should we hex her to stay away from my dad?”

  “Why not?” Sam asks. “And we could make it really good for her. She could get a job that pays a lot more money….”

  “Or find a rich boyfriend with a big clean house, and no kid and no millipede!” I offer.

  “Or she could move farther away—someplace awesome, like across town at the beach. Anything that would let your dad and my mom be together more.”

  “I say…” I stop for a dramatic pause. “We do it!”

  “And the sooner we do it, the sooner we’ll be sisters!” Sam says.

  “Then let’s do it soon!”

  “Love it, love it, love it!” we both start shouting until Sam’s mom looks over and tells us to quiet down. So we jump in the pool and do the rest of our shouting underwater.

  —

  There’s only one thing standing between me and Sam and our awesome plan to become sisters. It’s long and red and on top of Terri’s head.

  I know I’m the one who’s going to have to get a piece of her hair. I just don’t know where or when or how.

  But I have my opportunity that very night, when Terri comes over for Chinese food. She and Dad barely have a chance to talk because there’s a lot I want to know. In between forkfuls of beef with broccoli, I ask Terri everything about her life that crosses my mind—all the things that could help while Sam and I concentrate on our hex.

  “Terri, what do you do for a job?”

  “Oh, I design graphics,” she tells me. “Sort of like what your dad does for websites, but I do it for TV. You’re artistic. It’s something you might like doing someday….”

  “Do you make a lot of money? It doesn’t look like you have a very big house.”

  “Cleo!” Dad says. “That’s not polite.”

  “It’s okay.” Terri laughs. “I like my house, since it’s only me and my cat. And I like living so close to you two.”

  “Dad doesn’t have a lot of money, though,” I tell her. “He has to pay for my school and we have to fix my teeth soon, and who knows what else?”

  “Cleo!” Dad scolds again. “Have some more fried rice and leave Terri alone for a while.”

  I don’t want to have to change my attitude, so I eat more Chinese food. But the whole time I’m looking and staring and gazing at Terri’s long red hair and wondering how I could possibly get my hands on it. I can’t get in a fight with her like I did with Madison; that would never work.

  Then it hits me! I feel like I’ve been quiet for long enough, so I say it.

  “Terri, how do you get your hair to be so straight and long with no tangles?” I ask. She and Dad look at me strangely because that had nothing to do with whatever they were talking about.

  “Well, Cleo, it’s called a brush,” she says in a jokey voice. Which of course I knew, even though I don’t like using one very often.

  “But do you have a special kind of brush?” I ask, feeling like a brilliant detective on a TV show.

  “When did you get so interested in hair care?” Dad asks.

  “I guess since we’ve been spending so much time with Sam’s mom.”

  “Oh, really?” Terri sounds surprised and looks at Dad.

  “Yeah, her hair is so shiny and pretty and mine is always messy and knotty.”

  “Well,” Terri says with a sigh, “how about we watch a movie after dinner and we’ll attempt to brush your hair together?”

  Ugh. I didn’t want this task to end up causing me pain, but I guess when it comes to voodoo, you gotta do what you gotta do.

  After dinner I follow Terri to our bathroom. I watch as Terri picks up my brush and walks out, her long red hair swinging, like it’s in slow motion. I don’t follow yet; I’m just looking down at the floor, taking a breath, wondering if this is going to work.

  And that’s when a brilliant idea hits me—blam!—like that gigantic ball in crab soccer. The easiest answer is right in front of me on the bathroom floor. There’s a little bit of
dirt, some open magazines Dad reads when he’s on the toilet, and…a few pieces of Terri’s red hair! Making sure I hear Terri’s footsteps far away down the hall, I bend down to the floor and carefully pick them up like I’m Albert Einstein studying matter.

  I take two pieces of hair, tiptoe to my bedroom, and find my science notebook. Opening the plastic folder seems like the loudest noise in the world because I’m so afraid Dad or Terri will walk in and ask me what the bleep I’m doing.

  Luckily Dad yells from the living room, so I know he’s not nearby. “Cleo! What are you doing? Terri’s here with a hairbrush waiting for you!”

  “I’m checking on Millie. I’m coming!” I place the hairs in the plastic folder with Madison’s leftover blond one, then slam my notebook closed and run to the living room. Dad has turned on a movie I know he and Terri will enjoy but that will make me want to sleep. There’s no reason for Terri to brush my hair now, but I don’t know how to get out of it.

  So I sit on the floor in front of her while we watch TV, and I let her go crazy on my messy head. It always hurts when I try to brush my hair myself because I let the tangles and knots get out of control. But with Terri, it’s not so bad. She holds my hair in a ponytail as she brushes the ends, so it doesn’t hurt so much. Then on top she takes it slow and tries to be gentle. I say “ow” a couple of times—I can’t help it—but in the end it feels kind of nice, especially when it’s all done and she brushes it from top to bottom. Then she hands me the brush and I do it myself too. My hair has never felt so luxurious. I wonder if it’s glowing like Madison’s does.

  “Well, that looks really nice,” Dad says. “You should thank Terri for doing that.”

  “Thanks, Terri,” I say, feeling guilty because I know what it was all for. I decide to go to bed and let them watch their movie together, because once Sam and I do the hex, there won’t be nights like this anymore.