Spell Check (16 page)

I might as well forget about signing up for sophomore classes next year. My fate is pretty much sealed.

Mom drove the carpool today. She didn’t mention Dad’s cap, though I know she noticed my bare head. Before we left, I kept waiting for a call from Mrs. Hyde-Smith saying she’d be driving Parvani today. Then I remembered Parvani’s parents were in the wine country. No way would the housekeeper risk trouble by letting Parvani stay home. We’d be stuck with each other.

Just in case Parvani had done the right thing and decided not to perform the spell, I sat in the back seat of the Volvo, ready to be friends again. When we reached the Tudor mansion, Parvani strode toward the car without making eye contact, pulled open the front, passenger side door and sat in the front seat.

My jaw dropped.

“Good morning.” Mom sounded a little surprised.

“Good morning,” Parvani replied. No glance over her shoulder or, “Hey, Evie,” or “Welcome back, Evie.” No, “Sorry I was such a jerk on Saturday.” Nada.

A yellow maple leaf larger than my hand flew onto the windshield and stuck. The silence grew so oppressive, Mom switched on the radio as soon as we rolled through the ornate wrought iron gate. When we reached school, Parvani lobbed a, “Thanks, Mrs. O’Reilly,” over her shoulder, then struck out across the field alone.

Mom glanced over her shoulder. “Have a good one, sweetie.”

“Yeah, right.” I got out and scanned the field. No sign of Tommy. No sign of Jordan or Zhù, either. Feeling vulnerable without Dad’s cap, I took a deep breath. I was going in.

I made it across the field and within sight of English before I spied Tommy. As he scanned the hall, his brown ADD eyes lit up like forbidden Fourth of July fireworks. Two freshmen scurried out of his way, leaving just Tommy and me. With nowhere to hide and my heart thudding like a Whack-A-Mole game, I reached for the topaz in my front jeans pocket.

Tommy got within five feet of me and showed no sign of seeing me or slowing down. I couldn’t tell if he was playing a pedestrian version of chicken, or if, by magic, he didn’t know I was there. He plowed closer and I could smell the cola and chocolate cereal on his breath.

Bam! One second Tommy towered before me, and the next second he flew sideways. “Watch where you’re going, jerk.”

“Wow. Sorry, man.” Zhù readjusted his backpack and tossed me a look. I slid over next to him, putting more distance between Tommy and me.

Tommy rubbed his arm. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He glared at Zhù then stalked off, never once glancing my way.

“Wow, Evie. He acted like he didn’t even see you.”

“I know.” The spell worked! My eyes felt as round as my troll doll’s. “Zhù, did you crash him on purpose?”

“Of course not.” He pushed his rimless glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Jefferson High School does not condone violence. Too bad for Tommy I’m such a klutz.”

“Yeah, right.” We fell into step together. “I’m not looking forward to Evan’s return.”

Zhù shrugged. “He’ll be on crutches. We’ll hear him coming.”

I had to smile. No wonder Parvani liked Zhù so much. “Well, you’re my hero.” I leaned close and whispered, “I went through the pictures on the flash drive you gave me. Some of them weren’t from school.”

Confusion leapt like a grand jeté across Zhù’s face. He halted as realization and panic dawned in his eyes. “Evie…”

“Don’t worry. I copied the yearbook pictures onto this.” I pulled out a pink flash drive from the outer pocket of my backpack. “Yours is at my house where no one will see it. You can pick it up whenever you want.”

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

“Of course not. My mother was sitting next to me, but she won’t tell anyone.”

We walked past a bulletin board where covered in bright orange posters for the Halloween dance competed with green, “Go Wildcats!” placards. I gritted my teeth. Just what I needed—reminders of a dance Jordan would probably attend with Parvani.

“The whole ballet thing started as a fluke,” Zhù explained. “My mother would pick Ming and me up from school, then I’d have to hang out until Ming finished her ballet lesson. I got bored, so one day I tried out.”

“Then you’re not gay? I mean, I never thought you were. I thought you had a crush on Parvani. Personally, I don’t care if you’re gay…”

“Evie.” Zhù clasped my shoulders. “I’m not gay.”

I tried to mask my relief. Operation Get-Zhù-To-Sweep-Parvani-Off-Her-Feet was back on. “Did you audition for the Nutcracker?”

He beamed. “Two parts. Drosselmeyer’s nephew and…”

The bell blared. “We’re going to be tardy.” I pocketed the flash drive, said a quick, “Bye,” and sprinted for English.

“Be careful in gym,” Zhù called out.

“Don’t worry,” I said in my best I’ve-got-it-covered voice. But I didn’t have it covered. Fear gnawed my guts. If it didn’t let up soon, I’d be spending gym in the girl’s bathroom.

At least there I’d be safe from Tommy.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Deitch, red team.” Coach Willis jerked his thumb in my general direction.

My scarlet armband constricted like a tourniquet. I searched again for Jordan, my shoulders hunched against the wind. It was bad enough he had gone AWOL on me yesterday, but today? With Parvani on the yellow team, I had no friends, just hostiles, on both sides of the orange cones.
Great. Just great.

Tommy strode into red territory, slamming shoulders with any kid who didn’t step aside quickly enough. I pulled the topaz from my pocket and clutched it.

Tommy didn’t seem to notice me. I figured he wasn’t smart enough for subterfuge, but just in case, I positioned myself as far from him as possible. Staying within Coach Willis’s eyesight, I hugged the sideline, halfway between the front line attackers and Tommy.

Across the divide, Parvani did a nervous side-to-side ballet leap. Was it my imagination, or did she appear guilty and full of regret? She flicked her fingers, releasing tension. Was she planning a suicide run? Had she gone insane?

Had she performed the love spell?

A row of birch and liquid amber trees shielded the football field from the road. An erratic wind pushed through them, knocking foliage from the branches. Leaves swooped between players, grazing heads and landing on shoulders. Without Dad’s cap, the wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my eyes and cheeks.

I glanced back at Tommy. His elbows were bent, his hands fisted. His gaze appeared fixed on the opposite team’s front line.

Relief rushed my veins. I leaned over, my hands propped against my thighs. Head up, I steeled myself for the whistle blast. When it pierced my eardrums, I didn’t scream or jump. Instead, I squinted into the wind and trained my gaze on Tommy.

Tommy surged forward. Wearing a down vest like a flak jacket, he seemed impervious to the cold and sluicing wind. He kept thrusting out his arms, using his meaty hands to shove teammates out of the way.

“Go straight. Don’t veer,” I murmured like Subliminal Woman. “You don’t see me.”

Someone yelled, “O’Reilly, watch out!”

Two boys from the yellow team raced toward me, arms outstretched, ready to tag. I had nowhere to go but toward Tommy. Instinct took over, and before the warning voice inside my head could scream, “Let them tag you!” my legs started pumping.

A flash of long black hair appeared in my peripheral vision. Parvani. The rest of the yellow team’s front line had abandoned her. The rising gale whipped her hair into Medusa-like dreadlocks. She must have moved wrong or been tagged hard. Something had happened, maybe to her old ballet injury, because she suddenly dropped and clutched her calf.

Adrenalin pounded my ears. I dodged a blonde wearing a yellow armband. The front line loomed ahead. I glanced back to get a fix on Tommy. He loved nothing better than easy prey, and there was Parvani, locked in his sights.

I sprinted through the melee, zigzagging like a Cal quarterback dodging the Stanford defense. The icy menace of Tommy’s stare sliced through me and wrapped around Parvani.

O
h no. The Don’t-See-Me spell.

Tommy charged like a crazed bull. The wet grass between us disappeared as he barreled closer and closer. Time shuddered to a stop. I tried to turn away but couldn’t move. Shouts filled my ears. I couldn’t understand them. My gaze had locked on the whites of Tommy’s eyes.

I raised my arms to ward off the blow. The topaz flew from my hand. Whatever hope I’d had freefell. Two feet away. The stench of Tommy’s sweat assaulted my nose. One foot.

Spell be done! I screamed inside my head.

A zing sliced the air.

Six inches.

Tommy’s eyes widened.

The spell broke too late for him to stop.

Blackness. I had a vague sense of blindly flying backward. Then came the second impact, as unyielding as the first. The back of my head hit something hard. My forehead throbbed, as if my brain had slammed into it. White bursts punctuated the darkness.

I entered a cold, silent void. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, a cosmic-sized monitor lit. It was like looking through a thick glass window where white, tormented forms sailed past in an endless loop. I
so
did not want to join them.

A tunnel of light appeared. Movies and television don’t do it justice. It radiated pure love and light. More than anything I wanted to walk into it and bathe in its golden glory. I sensed Dad’s presence within the tunnel, but he didn’t beckon to me. Crushed, I felt alone and abandoned. Again.

New images appeared before me—Jordan skateboarded past, all ease and grace, but a tear slid down his cheek and his nose was red. Parvani’s eyes were filled with remorse. Mascara coursed down Salem’s pale cheeks. The Zhù-man appeared lost, as if he were wearing pants without pockets and didn’t know where to put his hands.

Sad-eyed Baby. Mom, her face grief-stricken.

Reluctantly, I slipped away from Dad and the beautiful golden light.

****

Someone shook me. I wanted to tell them to stop. My head hurt. My brain couldn’t quite sequence the words in the right order.

“Evie. Can you hear me?” Coach Willis sounded far away, yet his breath warmed my face. It was hard to think with all the noise after the silence of the void.

More shaking.

I tried to open my eyes. They rolled beneath my closed lids, side to side, like I was speed-reading. A cool breeze slid over me, clearing some of the fuzz from my brain.

“Evie?” Parvani sounded worried, as if we were still friends.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t see her.”

Tommy.

“Yeah, because she was only right in front of you.” I’d never noticed before how much more British Parvani sounded when she was mad.

I willed my eyes to open. Blurry faces swam before me, whirling my stomach. Coach. Parvani. Beyond them, a Tilt-O’-Whirl sea of anxious eyes and windswept hair. It would have made a cool photo if I could have gotten the shutter speed right.

I rolled over and threw up on Tommy’s shoes. Several kids cried, “Ew!” and dodged out of the way. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, then flopped onto my back.

Coach asked, “How many fingers do you see?”

The vertigo made it difficult to tell. “Three? Four? No, two. Definitely two.”

Coach and Parvani wore identical worried expressions.

“Don’t make me count,” I said. “I suck at math.”

Parvani blinked behind her designer frames—her expression barely relaxed. Coach put a warm hand on my shoulder.

“Lie still.” Coach pointed to one of the girls in the crowd and told her to run to the office and get the school nurse.

“Deitch, wipe off your shoes, then hightail it to the principal’s office.”

“But I tell you, I didn’t see…!”

“Now, Deitch.”

My eyes fluttered closed.

“Stay with us Evie. Open your eyes.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I awoke to the disgusting taste of barf coating my mouth, the painful glare of fluorescent lights, and a monster headache.

Mom squeezed my hand. “How you feeling, sweetie?”

“I’m freezing. Where am I?”

“The emergency room.” Mom took off her coat and draped it over the thin sheet covering me. She wore an olive turtleneck and jeans underneath. “You hit your head on a sprinkler. Luckily, it was a flat, plastic one. Took five stitches, though. You have a mild concussion.”

I pulled her black wool coat up under my chin. The collar smelled of moisturizer and shampoo. “Anything to get out of taking a math quiz.”

Mom snorted. “Tommy Deitch better get suspended.”

“Mom…”

She got up and took a tissue from a dispenser on the counter. “I warned the school I’d sue them if they didn’t protect you, and look where you ended up.”

“Mom, don’t sue!”

“If your dad were here…” She dabbed the tears streaming down her cheeks. The overhead fluorescents painted her in a harsh light, and I noticed the dark circles under her eyes.

“Mom. It’s okay.” I caught the hem of her top and pulled her closer. “I’m fine, except for the ringing in my ears and the pain in my head. Can we turn down the lights?”

“I’ll check.” She found a couple of switches near the striped privacy curtain and flicked off the light over the bed.

I tried to sit, which was a mondo mistake. Add dizziness and nausea to my list. “Can we leave?” I whined.

Someone whisked the plastic curtain aside with a ring of metal hooks sliding along the aluminum rail. A woman in aqua scrubs entered, holding a clipboard. “Anxious to go home, are you?”

I wondered if my brain was still misfiring, or if she actually sounded like Yoda. I shrugged, which sent pain darting up my sore shoulders.

“I’m Dr. Cameron. You must be Evie. My, we’ve had a run of students this week.” Dr. Cameron flicked a pen light in my eyes, checked my blood pressure, and asked me all sorts of questions to determine if I had brain damage. Apparently I didn’t, though I doubted the whole sprinkler scare would improve my math scores.

About three hours later, Dr. Cameron handed me a note excusing me from Gym for a week, and released me. “Keep a close eye on her for the next twenty-four hours,” she warned Mom.