by Holly Bourne
“Get back, get back!” Miss Matthews yelled. She ran over with her arms out, shooing me and Aidan away while I withered and died with humiliation. “Has it got on your skin, Sophia?” Miss Matthews asked me. “Or your clothes? It might have burned a hole in your uniform.”
I backed away and checked myself. “I … I … I don’t think so.”
“How about you, Aidan?” our teacher asked.
I shot an embarrassed glance at him. He was trying to stop himself laughing, biting on his sexy fist. I couldn’t believe I said he was cute too. What was wrong with me? It just kind of fell out. Oh God, I wanted to die. I wanted to die so badly that I would’ve drunk the hydrogen peroxide if it wasn’t all over the floor.
“We need to get a lab technician here to clean this up properly.” Miss Matthews pointed at us. “You two, move your chairs away and wait.” She then turned and clapped to get our class into order. “And the rest of you can get on with your experiments … in SILENCE please.”
I dragged my stool away meekly, my nostrils burning, Aidan following. Miss Matthews used the class phone to summon someone. I couldn’t talk. I could hardly breathe. I sat down and put my head in my hands, swearing silently to myself.
But Aidan seemed utterly unbothered by the whole palaver. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying it. He leaned back, stretched out his legs and surveyed the room, which bustled with everyone getting back to work.
“So you think I’m cute then?” Aidan asked, a smirk on his perfect face.
There wasn’t much of me left to still turn red, but I managed it.
“Sorry I messed up the experiment,” I said, dodging his question.
“The way I see it,” Aidan continued, “is there’s a very simple outcome from this kind of mutual attraction. If two people think the other one is cute, they normally … you know …” He shrugged. “Go out on a date or something.”
WHAT WAS HAPPENING?
Aidan Chambers was suggesting we go on a date. AIDAN ACTUAL CHAMBERS. This couldn’t be real! Was this really my spell with the page from my Chemistry book?! Aidan didn’t even know me! We’d only spoken twice in Chemistry since he joined my set, as I’d been too nervous to function – once that first day when he’d introduced himself and then when he’d asked to borrow my pencil sharpener. But somehow this had cast some kind of magic on him. He now knew that I a) existed, and b) was the sort of person who owned a pencil sharpener. And he liked that I existed and I had a pencil sharpener and he was ASKING ME ON A DATE? Hang on, wasn’t he seeing Bella Morris? I thought they were back together again? I’d seen them kissing by the school gates. But surely not. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Had Aidan noticed me all those times in the corridor before? Had he been too shy up until now? Had all my French plaits and attractive walking paid off? Or, oh my God, was it my love spell coming true? Was I really a witch after all? Holy cowbags, that was a lot of responsibility to suddenly be thinking about. I needed to make sure I used my powers for good …
“Umm …” Aidan Chambers said, interrupting my internal freak‑out. “Normally people reply to those kinds of questions. You know, out loud?”
“Oh.” I hadn’t said a word. I was just sort of shaking and breathing very heavily.
The door swung open and a lab technician arrived, adorned in a white coat, gloves and goggles.
“Where’s the spillage?” the technician asked.
Miss Matthews pointed over to us as I raised my hand sheepishly.
“Over here,” I said. “It was me. Sorry, I’m so sorry.”
The technician shrugged and snapped her gloves on. “Hey, it happens. But stay over there.”
She bent down and got to work on mopping up my huge accident. The air smelled of bleach, and chemicals itched my nostrils. I scratched my nose and wondered if I was just hallucinating from the fumes.
“You’ve still not said anything,” Aidan Chambers told me. “I’m starting to feel a bit embarrassed now.”
I looked over at his perfect face and his perfect hand buried into his perfect head of hair. This was too insane. I didn’t think my heart would beat regularly ever again, but I was loving it.
“I guess we could go do something,” I said at last, wondering how on earth I was going to break this news to Mia and Alexis in a way that meant they would actually believe me. (“I can’t believe all your stalking paid off,” Mia told me later. “That shouldn’t be rewarded.”)
“Great.” Aidan grinned, all casual. “How about after school? We could go get a milkshake?”
“Today?”
That soon? THAT SOON? But I didn’t have a change of clothes. But I needed to mentally prepare. But life wasn’t ever this dramatic. Well, at least not normally. It must be the spell, it must, it must.
“Yes, today,” Aidan replied. “Why not today? You’re not busy, are you?”
“No,” I said. I mean, even if I’d had an appointment to meet God and he’d promised to answer all of life’s most pressing questions, I still would have cancelled it to go get a milkshake with Aidan Chambers. “Not busy. A milkshake sounds great.”
We put our numbers into each other’s phones while Miss Matthews wasn’t looking, like that was normal. And when I ran out afterwards for an emergency crisis meeting with the girls in the English‑block toilets, he messaged.
Aidan Actual Chambers messaged me:
Meet you at gates after school? X
We all squealed like pigs at a squealing convention. Then Mia and Alexis helped me with my hair and make‑up, and we rehearsed how to suck a milkshake sexily, and how to make conversation without me revealing that I already knew everything about him.
“You cannot reveal the extent of your obsession,” Mia said. “It will terrify him.”
“But Aidan said the only thing that scares him is fear itself,” I said. “Remember? It was in that interview he did for the school newspaper two years ago.”
“You see,” Alexis said. “No one else but you remembers that. You are terrifying.”
But there was no need to rehearse any conversation. The moment I met Aidan Chambers at the school gates, he pulled me into him and kissed me. With tongue. My first kiss. Right there. No build‑up, no eye contact, no romantic talk about how beautiful the stars were, which was fair enough as it was only three‑fifty, so the stars weren’t out.
I wasn’t quite sure how to kiss back. Aidan’s tongue seemed very large and plungy, and he tasted a bit too strongly of spearmint gum. Plus I was certain the whole school was watching. But who else can say their first ever kiss was with the most popular, good‑looking boy in school? Not many, that’s who. So I enjoyed it. I felt fireworks and butterflies and the heavens opening – all that stuff you are supposed to feel.
I must have done an OK job on the kissing front because Aidan continued to put his tongue in my mouth for the rest of the afternoon, where it soon tasted of strawberry milkshake. We didn’t really talk much. We didn’t really do anything other than kiss. But that was enough.
For me, at least.
It clearly wasn’t enough for him. I wasn’t enough for him.
Well, not until I cast another spell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You can open your eyes now,” Mia says.
I blink away my happy memories of Aidan and my dark bedroom comes into focus. Mia looks scary with all her crazy make‑up on and I almost jump. We grin at one another nervously – we’re not in the mood to play up any more. I still have goosebumps from forming the circle, with every inch of my skin prickling, like I can feel the spirits close.
“Who wants to cast the first spell?” Mia asks.
Alexis puts her hand up. “I’ll go,” she says. “I’ve brought my offering and everything.”
“Offering?” I ask.
We agreed that we wouldn’t share our spells until tonight, not that mine isn’t easy to guess. But I’ve been so wrapped up in researching love spells that I haven’t given much thought to what my friends might cast.
/> I hear the shrill squeak of a bone toy and I wonder how I didn’t guess Alexis’s.
“Jeez, that thing is loud,” Mia complains as Alexis places an old, chewed, stinky dog toy into the magic circle.
“It was his favourite,” Alexis says, her voice catching. “I used to get so annoyed with Casper chewing on it and now … now … now I’ll never hear it again.” She looks up to the ceiling and blinks to stop fresh tears falling. “Can we … can we help him to cross over? Just in case he hasn’t reached doggy heaven?”
Mia reaches out and squeezes Alexis’s hand in a rare show of sympathy. “Of course we can,” Mia says. “Do you have the spell?”
Alexis nods. “I just need to say a blessing and offer up a sacrifice. I’m using his bone toy for that.”
“Let’s do it then,” I say.
Alexis lets out a big sigh, then picks up a matchbook and strikes a match. She uses it to light a big white candle in the middle of the other candles. Then we join hands again, just because it feels like the right thing to do.
“Umm, hi, Mother Nature and the spirits and stuff,” Alexis says in a much less authoritative voice than Mia’s. “So … well … I was just hoping you’d, like, bless my dog, Casper, and make sure he gets into Heaven – or whatever you have as Heaven in Wiccan land.”
Alexis sniffs. “Please bless Casper, the greatest dog ever. I may not have appreciated him at the time …” She hiccups and I squeeze her hand tighter. “I could have been a better owner, but he really was a cool dog and I didn’t know what I had until he was gone.” Alexis starts weeping and drops our hands to reach out and start squeaking the bone toy.
I think Mia senses the drop in concentration, as she calls, “Spirits, help Casper pass over,” in her wise, commanding voice, and I copy her.
“Spirits, help Casper cross over.”
And, through her tears, Alexis says it too. “Spirits, help Casper pass over.”
We sit, waiting, for what I’m not sure. Until Alexis jumps and yells, “Oh my God, the curtain just moved!”
We all twist our heads in the direction of my window and every part of me is tingling. I feel a breeze, but the curtain is still.
“Really?” I ask.
“Yeah, it just fluttered.”
“But the windows are closed,” I point out, feeling even more zingy. “Maybe it’s Casper saying hi?”
“Or goodbye?” Mia suggests, which is a mistake, because that sets Alexis off again.
“Don’t,” Alexis sobs. “Oh, I miss him SO much. Do you think the spell worked?”
“Of course it worked,” I say.
Alexis wipes under her eyes. “I wasn’t sure about tonight. I never believed we made it snow and I thought it would just be a laugh to cheer you up, Sophia. But, like, I really felt something as I was talking about Casper. All the hairs on my skin stood up on end.”
My body chills, because that’s exactly what I felt too. Maybe it was magic? Or maybe I just need to turn the thermostat up? How are you supposed to tell the difference?
“I just hope it’s real,” Alexis says, and looks at the window. “I hate to think of poor Casper being stuck in doggy limbo.”
She leans over and blows out the big white candle, then looks up, her eyes drying. “Right, who’s next?” Alexis asks.
Mia and I look at each other. I’m not ready to go just yet. I’m worried it won’t work and I’m worried that will hurt too much. Everything has hurt just that bit too much since Aidan broke it off.
Mia must sense my reluctance, as she nods and says, “I’ll go next. But I’m a tiny bit scared.” She puts her head down and her black hair flops over her face.
“Hey, it’s us,” I say. “There’s no need to be scared.” I lean over all the candles in the middle, almost setting myself on fire, and squeeze Mia’s knee. “What spell do you want to cast?”
She stays hiding behind her hair for a moment or two more, before she makes herself look up at us. “A binding spell,” Mia says. “It’s a spell you do to stop someone doing harm … and I want to cast it on myself.” She lifts her chin firmly. “I need to bind myself.”
CHAPTER NINE
Mia has had darkness inside her as long as I’ve known her, since we were only four. I remember being in nursery and Mia arrived, all shy and hiding behind her mum. She sulked in a corner with her teddy bear, clutching the cuddly toy like it was a life raft.
I was very intrigued by this new person, who was so silent compared to the racket of everyone else in nursery. So I picked up another teddy, toddled over and held it out to her.
“Do you want this teddy too?” I asked.
Mia looked up from behind her toy’s fur, examining my offering. Her small hand darted out and took the bear from me, then she hid behind both of them.
I wandered off, feeling proud of myself that she’d accepted my gift.
The next day, Mia got my attention again. She was alone in the sandpit, not using the diggers or the buckets or any of the other cool stuff. Mia was simply sat with her hands stuck in the sand, totally still. I approached her with a spare spade – my second offering.
“Hello,” I said, holding out my present. “Do you want to dig with me?” But Mia didn’t take it.
Instead, she looked up and said, “Do you think the sand is sad when nobody is playing with it?”
I remember my brain hurting because it had never had a thought like that. Suddenly, I felt so sad for the sand, being left in a box all by itself.
This is the sort of impact Mia has on you. But I liked it. I liked it so much that I put my spade down, sat next to her and dug my own hands into the sand.
That sums up my friendship with Mia. She has always opened my eyes to things I would have ignored otherwise. “When you play with a certain toy, do you feel sorry for the other toys in case they might feel left out?” she’d ask. “Do you think the moon is jealous of the sun because everyone’s asleep when the moon is out?” I’d go around to her chaotic home, with her older brothers and sisters running around everywhere, and she’d take me to her tiny bedroom. There she’d make me write letters to the Queen, asking her to please help save the tigers.
Always earnest, always a bit blue, but always real and always interesting. That’s Mia. Together, the two of us became quieter and shyer. We sat reading in corners at primary school, not attracting any attention. I think both of us were glad when Alexis bombarded herself into our friendship group in Year Seven.
“Oh my God,” were the first words Alexis said. It was our first day of secondary school and Mia and I were coping with this by sitting in a corner outside, reading. “A spider just fell into my hair,” Alexis went on. “MY HAIR! What the hell kind of a school is this? Is it out?”
She shoved her long hair into our startled faces.
“Well, is it?” Alexis demanded. “IS IT?”
We located the spider, which was hard, as Alexis kept screaming and running around and flapping her hands. Then we all lay back laughing and out of breath, and it was as if Alexis had been with us the whole time.
“I’m Alexis,” she told us. “How do you two know each other? You act like sisters or something.”
“Hi, I’m Sophia. This is Mia. We went to the same primary school.”
“Wow, and you actually want to continue hanging out with each other?” Alexis said. “You two must be nice. I’ve spent all day hiding from everyone I know from primary school.”
That’s how it came to be. The three of us. One sad, one dramatic, one neutral.
That’s me – boring and neutral. Too boring to hold the heart of someone as interesting as Aidan Chambers. Or even the heart of someone who’s supposed to love me without question, like Dad. As we’ve continued at school, I guess our labels have got stronger. Alexis is increasingly dramatic. She’s always getting detention for talking too much, and she’s always in battles with someone from the other friendship groups she hangs out with.
Alexis sometimes tries to start dramas with us, b
ut I keep the peace. I have got more boring, I guess. Since Dad left, I’ve worried so much it was my fault that I’ve got quieter in case I push people away.
And Mia’s sadness went from quirky sad to totally sad. Then, last year, she came in wearing a long‑sleeved shirt, even though it was a boiling May day. I teased her about it and she clammed up and told me to shut up. A few months ago, I felt total horror when she pulled her sleeves up in Art without thinking and revealed a criss‑cross of bloody scratches across the top of her arms. It was like someone had played multiple games of noughts and crosses on her skin with a compass. It made my stomach fall out and throat close in, as I realised she must have done it to herself.
“What do we do?” Alexis said to me that day when I whispered what I’d seen in the toilets in the English block. “She’s so sad. We’ve got to help her!”
“She’s always been sad,” I replied.
“Yeah, but never hurting‑herself sad.”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Maybe it’s a one‑off. I don’t know why she’s doing it. All I know is that I know Mia, and if we try to get her to talk about it, she will shut us out.”
She would. She’d push us away and lie or deflect, and I thought it was better to keep Mia close, ready for when she did decide to open up to us.
So it’s been a few months now and we’ve all just sort of pretended it wasn’t happening. Mia has just worn long sleeves – that was a given. But now, in this magic circle, Mia is finally talking about it.
CHAPTER TEN
“I’ve been trying to stop,” Mia tells us as the candlelight in the magic circle hits her wet eyes. “I went on this charity website and they gave me all these tips, like holding ice‑cubes and snapping an elastic band against my wrist. But it doesn’t ever help. I keep doing it … I know you know I keep doing it.”
Alexis and I are frozen. We don’t want to stop her now that she’s finally talking. I feel like my bedroom is suddenly covered in landmines. If I move, or even speak, I’m going to accidentally set one off and ruin everything.
