Perfect Revenge (6 page)

“I'm fine,” she gasps. “Omigod, Lizzie. You are unbelievable.” And she goes into this spasm of laughter. It's like she's totally lost it. When she can talk again, she says, “I can't wait to tell Baba you said that. She's going to love it.”

In my coldest voice, I ask, “What did I say?”

“Being light,” she snorts, “means that I'm skinny.”

“You
are
,” I tell her.

“Yeah,” she says, “I know. Only the light I'm focusing on is spiritual, not physical.”

“Well fine,” I sputter. “But maybe it's like you said, all life is in tune. And your body's been listening in. What about that?”

Stella's jaw drops. “Whoa! I never thought of that.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Maybe you should.”

“I think you're right,” she says. “And I really do think you have a natural talent for magick. I don't know what you've been doing with it before now.”

“I have a talent for picking hot trends,” I tell her.

She nods. “That makes sense. The universe can have a quirky sense of humor, and you do relate to things in a totally quirky way.”

“Are you saying
I'm
quirky?” I ask.

She grins. “Maybe.”

Wow. She has so much to learn.

“All right,” Stella says, “let's get on with the Rachel revenge. What have you got?”

I don't have anything, but I'm not about to admit it. My brain scrambles through the possibilities. I'm sure there aren't any good things I could give her that I don't already have, so I'm not worried about the law of three. So what then? I could give her honesty, but it's too late for that. I could give her generosity so
she'd
give stuff to others, but her friends wouldn't hate that. And then I've got it!

“What's that called, when you feel sorry for other people?” I ask.

“Sympathy?”

I shake my head. “No, that other word. It's like when you don't just feel sorry for them, you feel how bad they feel yourself.”

“Ah!” Stella smiles. “Empathy.”

“That's it! She needs to feel for others. Then she'd know what it's like when she's a snob and ignores people. Or when she trashes others to get her way. She'd even feel bad about what she did to me. Maybe even bad enough to confess.”

“You never know,” Stella says.

I go on. “Did I tell you how she's always
making fun of other people's clothes and hair and stuff? I've heard her. And all her stupid little so-called friends just love it. They laugh at everything she says. If she couldn't do that anymore, they'd think she was just a huge bore. For sure, they'd ditch her. She is going to be so screwed.”

Stella nods. “You know, I think you've got it. It's perfect.”

“It
is
perfect, isn't it?” I say. “So how do we do it?”

“I can't help you with the actual spell casting. But I'll write down the words, and then you do it almost the same way you did the first one. Light a candle and sit before it. Focus on Rachel and her higher self. Then speak the spell and visualize her in the light of the candle flame for a short time. After you've done that, you blow out the candle, and it's done.”

I find a pen and a sheet of paper and hand them to Stella. She writes down some words while I try to decide if Rachel has a higher self. I guess the fact that she's alive must mean something.

Stella finishes writing and says, “Try to memorize the words before you cast the spell.” Then she fishes around in her pocket, pulls out another rock and gives it to me.

I'm a little wary of rocks, considering what happened with the amber, but I take it. It's smooth and whitish grey with a pearly sheen. “What is it?”

“It's a moonstone. For luck and for connecting with your intuition.”

“Thanks,” I say. Considering how good I am at intuition already, I doubt I need a rock for that. But luck, that I could use.

After she leaves, I memorize the spell and then set the stage. I put on the purple hat. I light the candle and place the moonstone beside it on the table. I sit on the floor and stare into the flame. Finally, in that sing-song voice Stella's baba used, I intone:

Upon the planes in which I live
,

The gift of empathy I now give,

To Rachel with all my heart and soul,

To change her and to make her whole.

By all on high and Law of Three,

This is my will, so shall
it be.

I focus on the light of the candle and see Rachel there. I really see her. And then I blow out the candle and that's that. Done.

I check the mirror, and the zits are still there. I'm not surprised. This means I need two plans for tomorrow. Plan A is when I wake up in the morning, zit free, and am able to go to school. Plan B means the zits live on and there's no chance I will go anywhere. I'll have to pretend I'm sick, but I can do that.

Back to Plan A. The largest question is, do I wear the purple hat to school or not? If I go hatless and show everyone (Kyle) that my forehead is clear, they'll wonder what they saw in room 101. I could say the zits were fake, makeup artistry to get out of detention. That's quite good.

But if I wear the hat again, people will probably point and whisper stuff like, “Do you know why she's wearing that? It's cuz
she's hiding a cluster of volcanic zits.” And at that point, it would be fun to whip off the hat and be all cool. The rumor spreaders would look like idiots, wouldn't they? It would serve them right. Yes, I'll definitely wear the hat.

All at once, I'm super tired. Small wonder, considering the day I've had. I'm so tired, I can't even bring myself to log in to Facebook. It's all I can do to brush my teeth before I crash into bed.

It's like magick! No, it's not
like
magick, it
is
magick. I am zit free! No matter which way I tilt my head, I can't see anything marring my perfect forehead.

I get dressed as fast as I can. I can't wait to get to school. Because if I'm zitless, then that must mean the revenge spell worked. And I get to watch Rachel's world fall apart. Yes!

No.

Huh?

I try that thought again. I get to watch Rachel suffer the way she made me suffer. Eeeuw. What the heck? I should be happy about getting what I want, shouldn't I? That's how it's supposed to work. I wonder if the zits have reversed and poisoned my brain? And then I get another thought, a brand new one. And it's one I should have had a lot sooner.

I'm going to feel the pain of others.

Omigod. What have I done? This is so
not
good. I grab my purse, slap the purple hat on my head and bolt out the front door. I go next door, stand on the lawn and yell, “Stellaaaaa! I need to talk to you!”

And Stella comes out of her house. She's wearing neon pink pants with a lemon yellow top and bright red shoes. To top it off, she's wearing the hat her baba wore yesterday, the one with bunches of plants sticking out everywhere. I'm so stunned that I forget what I was going to say.

“Hi, Lizzie,” Stella says. “What's wrong?”

“Um,” I say. What if I tell her that she's totally destroyed my life and I hate her? I can't do it. Her feelings would be hurt. So I say, “My zits are gone.”

She grins. “Good for you, Lizzie. You did it!”

We start walking toward the school, and I wonder what people will think seeing us together, but I can't tell Stella to pretend she doesn't know me, can I?

So I try to tell her my problem. “Stella, there's a glitch in the revenge spell. It's like this. I don't want to see Rachel get hurt. I mean I do, that was the whole point, but now I feel sorry for her.”

Stella gives me a sideways look. “Uh-oh. We, uh, didn't think about that, did we?”

“I know
I
didn't!” I say. “I was sure I couldn't give her something good that I didn't already have. I mean, I think I've always cared about other people. I'm sure I did. But this isn't like that. And it's really scary because I got a triple whammy, right? Now I can't even
think
about other people getting hurt. It makes my stomach feel icky.”

“Really?” Stella asks.

“Really. So we're going to have to get your baba to fix this too, okay?”

Stella frowns. “I don't know if she'll fix this one.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because...”

Before Stella can finish what she was saying, a kid on a bike zooms past and grabs her hat.

Stella yells, “Hey!” But the kid just laughs. And then he throws her hat onto the street. A car drives right over it.

Stella's face crumples. “That was Baba's favorite hat!”

Tears well up in my eyes, and I put my arm around her. “You poor dear.”

I can't believe I said that, but I did. And then I say, “Here. You take the purple one.” So much for doing my hat trick later. Doesn't matter. For some reason, it's lost its appeal. Stella says, “Thanks, Lizzie. But you keep it. It looks really cute on you.”

I can't tell her that's not comforting. I mean, considering she said her baba was
cute and her taste in clothes...Oh, so what if she wears goofy clothes? Doesn't hurt anybody, does it?

I feel like I've entered an alternate universe. My mind is warped. I don't understand half the things I'm thinking. Okay, I do understand them, but they're not me.

It gets worse.

We arrive at school, and out of habit I go by way of the covered area. All my friends are there again. They take one look at me and Stella and crack up. They don't even have the decency to hide their laughter. Poor things. They're only doing it because it makes them feel superior. I know.

I stop and say, “Hi. How's it going?”

Their laughter cuts out and they start looking at each other. They're searching for clues on how to react. I wasn't supposed to stop. I was supposed to ignore them and pretend I wasn't hurt by their laughter. Key word,
pretend
. Talk about stupid games.

Finally, Haley says, “Some hat, Lizzie. Any special reason you're wearing it?”

I glance at Stella and grin. “Stella says it looks cute on me.” All right! I can still have fun!

“That's not what I heard,” Haley says. She smirks at the other girls and they smirk back.

“Really? Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn't believe everything we hear.” I take off the hat and say, “Then again, sometimes people are telling the truth. And even their friends don't believe them.”

Their seeking eyes don't bother me. I know they're trying to work it out, the rumored zits and the lack of evidence. Nothing is adding up for them.

“Lizzie,” one of the girls says, “do you happen to know where I can get something for my, um, skin?” Poor thing. She's prone to breaking out.

“Actually,” I say, “I don't. But I'll check on that for you.”

She smiles. “Really? You'd do that for me, after...?” She stops.

“No problem,” I say. “Catch you later. Come on, Stella. We don't want to be late. It upsets the teachers.”

Stella and I meet up again at lunchtime and she says, “It's kind of strange. I've noticed about five other girls are wearing hats today.”

I grin at her. “That's because they saw me wearing a hat yesterday. Lizzie Lane is a trendsetter—the one to watch.”

It's a relief to know that some things haven't changed. We decide to go searching for Rachel. We find her in the same washroom Stella saw her in yesterday. She's gathered with her little group, and they're all looking bored.

At least, they look bored until Stella and I walk in. Then their eyes gleam and they turn eagerly to Rachel.

Rachel says, “Oh. Hi, Lizzie. And whoever you are.”

“This is Stella,” I say.

“Hi, Stella,” Rachel says. “Nice to meet you.”

The other girls' heads swivel back and forth. They're waiting for Rachel to skewer me or go after Stella's clothes. There's an easy mark. But Rachel disappoints them.
In fact, she can barely look at me. The silence in the room is thick.

I can't stand it. I decide to help her out. “So, Rachel. No hard feelings, eh?”

Her eyes widen and she slaps a hand over her mouth.

“No, seriously. I mean it.” And I do mean it, so I add, “Don't worry about it, okay? We're even. I'm fine.”

She bursts into tears and throws her arms around me. “I'm so sorry, Lizzie! I can't imagine how horrible it must have been for you. So humiliating! And now, room 101? Waahhh.”

I feel awful, but I manage to pat her back. “It's okay. Although room 101 really is horrible. It's like death in there.”

Rachel emits another sob, and I cringe. Jeez, what's up with that? I can't even rub it in about how much I'm suffering? Sick. I sigh and say, “But I only have to go there four more times.”

“Still,” Rachel sniffles, “I had to go there once. And the teacher in charge is such a turd...” She flinches. “I mean, the
poor old guy. I guess he's been stuck down there forever.”

I get a little teary-eyed myself over Mr. Mean.
Ouch
! Okay, so it's really Mr. Snead. I knew that. “For sure, it must be awful for him being there every day. The smell down there is so disgusting.”

“Maybe,” Rachel says, “we should get him a fan.”

“Yeah! Or some flowers or incense or something.” I look at Stella. “You know where to get incense, right?”

Stella grins. “For sure. I might even have some in my backpack.” She starts digging around and comes up with a little cone-shaped lump.

“Um,” one of the watchers says, “I think we're gonna go now.”

“Yeah,” says another. “This is, like, really weird.”

Rachel looks like I feel. Stricken. Together we say, “Sorry!”