The Runaway Spell

By Lexi Connor

To Joseph

“Let me get this straight, B,” George said, bouncing his soccer ball on his forehead. “All you have to do is spell a word, just some old random word, and you can make
anything
happen?”

Beatrix, “B” to her friends, flopped into the beanbag chair on her best friend’s basement rec room floor. “It’s not that simple, George,” she said. “Watch out! You nearly hit the lamp.”

George caught the ball. His thick, curly blond hair dangled over the rim of his glasses, but B could see the curiosity sparkling in his eyes. “W-I-N-D,” she spelled, and a little breeze swept through the room, riffling her friend’s hair.

George touched his forehead in amazement. “You really did that, didn’t you? I still can’t believe it.” He began pacing back and forth. “So,” he said, waving his hands wildly, “
so
, you could just spell ‘win’ and
bam,
our team could win the championship soccer game on Thursday? Just like that?” He wiggled his fingers.

B laughed. “No, I couldn’t. And I wouldn’t do a thing like that, even if I could.”

Clearly, George didn’t understand magic yet. And why should he? It was all so new to him. She hadn’t meant to tell him she was a witch — he had discovered her secret by accident. All the same, it was a relief not to have to hide it from him anymore, and to have someone to talk to about her magic. She tried to explain herself better.

“Just because it’s magic, George, doesn’t mean it’s like the movies. Real magic takes training and lots of practice. There are rules! Even still, things have a way of going wrong.” She held up her hands, and George tossed her the ball. “Believe me, I know.”

She tried bouncing the ball on her forehead, but
it got away from her and rolled across the broad room. George’s huge yellow dog, Butterbrains, bounded after it.

“Show me another trick,” George begged. “C’mon. One teensy little trick.”

“They’re not
tricks,”
B said indignantly. “I’m not some circus performer. This is real.”

“I know. Just one little … demonstration?”

“Allllll
right,” she said. “What do you want to see?”

George pointed at a lava lamp. “Make it, I dunno, float in the air or something.” He fidgeted with excitement.

B focused on the lamp. “F-L-O-A-T,” she said.

The lamp rose in the air and swung in a wide circle, as far as the power cord would let it travel. Butterbrains backed into a corner, his head cocked to one side. Now and then he gave a curious whimper, his tail thumping.

George crawled over to Butterbrains and tussled with him. “It’s okay, boy! It’s only B, the magic witch.” He giggled. “This is just so stinking cool! I can’t believe it. I can’t
believe
it!”

B smiled. When George was excited about something, he had a one-track mind.
How long,
B wondered,
will it take him to get used to my magic?
She’d had a lifetime, growing up with parents and an older sister who were witches. True, their spells, like most other witches’, were conjured by imaginative rhyming couplets, and not by spelling. Even so, minor magic such as floating objects had been commonplace in B’s home for as long as she could remember.

Why not give him a little crash course?

“F-L-O-A-T,” she whispered, concentrating on a plastic tote full of Wiffle balls and squooshy footballs. They slipped into the air silently and orbited over George’s head.

“Whoa!” George paused his game with Butterbrains. “Lookit that!”

Butterbrains barked and jumped in the air, his body twisting as he tried in vain to snag the flying balls.

“D-A-N-C-E,” B told a tub full of old, forgotten action figures George had long since outgrown.
Soon military figures were waltzing with monsters, and Greek heroes were tangoing with robots.

If George hung his mouth open any wider, he’d start drooling.

This was too much fun.

“B-U-I-L-D,” she told a huge crate of interlocking blocks, and, clickety-clack, they flew out by the dozens to form themselves into a rainbow-colored replica of George’s house, right down to the shrubs.

And still the lava lamp swung its wide arc, illuminating the bizarre party like a strobe light, while Butterbrains barked like a maniac.

“Oh, man,” George said. “Think what you could do with this — the stuff you could pull off at school!” He doubled over laughing. “Just imagine, a school assembly, and you make the vice principal’s toupee float all over the auditorium.
Attack of the bad hair monster!”

B giggled. “No way! That’s so mean. Besides, my magic is an absolute secret, remember?
No one
can find out about it.”

“I know, I know,” George said, still laughing. “You’ve gotta admit, though, that would be an assembly to remember.” He pantomimed clutching at his head, as if his own hair had just flown away.

“Yeah, but you make me nervous, the way you keep bringing up ideas like that,” B said, watching as the clackety building blocks turned George’s house into a castle. “I would get in such huge trouble if the M.R.S. found out that you know about this.”

“The what?” George asked.

“The Magical Rhyming Society.”

George sat up, blinking at B. “There’s a Magical Rhyming
Society?
You mean, there are lots of witches, all organized and stuff?”

“Yup. Lots of them.” B aimed a G-L-O-W spell at a pair of glow-in-the-dark plastic swords. “What, did you think I’m the only one?”

Butterbrains ran in frenetic circles, barking at the bobbling balls, dancing figures, clashing swords, and building blocks, each in turn.

George shrugged. “How would I know? You’re the only witch I’ve ever —”

KNOCK.

They stared at each other, terrified.

KNOCK.

They stared at the whirlwind of toys. George’s dad’s voice came through the thin door. “What are you two doing to that dog?”

“D-R-O-P!” B whispered.

All the floating toys clattered to the floor. Just in time, George dived to catch the lava lamp before it smashed to bits.

George’s dad poked his head through the door. “What on earth is going on in here?” He blinked at the sight of the toys all over the floor, then rolled his eyes. “Do I dare ask?”

B, her heart still pounding in her chest, let slip a nervous giggle. “We were just, you know, playing, Mr. F,” she said.

Mr. Fitzsimmons rolled his eyes. “That’s what toys are for, I guess. Clean this up, okay? And quit
tormenting poor Butterbrains.” He turned to go, then paused. “Oh, by the way. I came down here to tell you we just ordered some Chinese food. Should be here in a few minutes. Stick around for some Crab Rangoon, B?”

“Yum! You bet,” B said. “Thanks for the invite.”

George’s dad nodded and pulled the door shut behind him as he went back upstairs.

“C’mon, George,” B said, scooping up a handful of blocks. “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

“Can’t you just think up a spell to do the cleaning?” George said.

B chucked a green brick at him. “Get cleaning, lazy. Spells are harder than you think. And they don’t solve all your problems.”

George dumped the action figures back in the tub. “Well, anyway, you were just about to tell me who the other witches are in our school.”

B dropped an armload of balls into their tote. “I was not!”

“Oh, come on. Just whisper it to me. I won’t tell,” George teased.

B folded her arms across her chest. “No. Way. I’ve told you too much as it is. You might slip up and blab.”

“Who, me?” He flung the plastic swords back into the toy box. “My lips are sealed.”

“Good. Keep ’em that way. It would be a total disaster if any other nonwitches found out about me — or if any witches found out that I told you.”

“I promise, B,” George said seriously. “I won’t let it slip.”

B knew she could trust her best friend, but she was going to have to be really careful from now on. No more magic accidents!

“Um, B?” George said when they had almost finished cleaning up. “I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

B sat back down in the beanbag chair and scratched Butterbrains’s ribs with her toes. “What’s up?”

George sat on the couch opposite her. He gestured to his shirt, on which a silk-screened soccer player with a streak of white hair was racing toward an invisible goal. “I’ve told you about Sergio Vavoso, right?”

“The, uh, Italian zebra?” B asked.

George beamed. “That’s right.
La Zebra Italiana,
because of the stripe in his hair. The best soccer player ever in the whole world.”

Of course B knew about the soccer player. George had been wearing his La Zebra sweatshirt every day since the weather had gotten cooler.

“What about him?”

“I know you can’t do everything with magic.” George bounced on the couch cushion. “But could you … could you … turn me into him?”

B slipped off the vinyl beanbag and landed on the floor. “Turn you into an international soccer star?”

George bit his lip. “Yeah. Then I’d be the most unstoppable soccer player in the whole league. The championship game would be no sweat!”

“You don’t want me to try that,” B said, picking herself up and sitting back on the beanbag. “It’s, like, the magical equivalent of, I dunno, surgery. And I have trouble with the simplest spells.”

George had started bouncing his soccer ball on his forehead. “Come on, B,” he pleaded. “You don’t
have to
literally
turn me
into
him … just make me a little more like him. You know?”

She shook her head firmly. “I’m not ready for that kind of magic.”

George gazed at B. His sad-eyed look could be more pathetic than Butterbrains’s. “You can do it, B! You’re amazing. Look at all you can do!” He gestured to the toys.

B waved away the compliments, but her friend persisted.

“This Thursday is the championship match. We can’t lose! And I’ve been off my game lately, even Coach is saying so. I’ve got to turn it around or he may bench me. How would it look for the team captain to be sitting on the bench?”

B drummed her fingertips on her knees, thinking hard. Poor George! Was there some way she could help him? Oh, but it was risky. Did she dare try?

“I just need a little taste of what it’s like to be him. Then I’ll be ready for Spirit Week and be able to get psyched for the championship game.”

B knew she could do some temporary spells, like a bag-cauldron spell. She’d never done one on her own before, but maybe she could try it?

She got up and began foraging around the basement, looking for things.

“Whatcha doing?” George asked, following her.

“Thinking.” She found an empty shopping bag and set it on the floor. By the door to the garage, she found George’s cap that had the Italian soccer team’s crest embroidered on it.
That’ll be perfect for my spell,
she thought. She scratched her head, then marched into Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s basement laundry room, rummaged through a basket of dirty clothes, and pulled out one of George’s long, orange, smelly soccer socks.

“Pee-yew!”

“Come on,” George said. “Tell me what you’re doing!”

B put her hands on her hips. “Be patient! I’m figuring out my spell.”

“Wahoo!” George said, doing a happy dance.

“I’m going to try a bag-cauldron concoction. Have you got a picture of this Zebra guy of yours?”

George pulled a pack of sports trading cards out of his back pocket. “A bag
what?”

“A bag-cauldron concoction is a little bit like a potion — it’s a spell you make by mixing things. You make potions in a real cauldron, then you drink the brew, but bag-cauldron concoctions just produce the magic. There’s nothing to drink. And you can assemble them in almost any container. A bag, a purse. I’m using this shopping bag. Make sense?”

George polished his glasses on his sweatshirt. “I guess so.” He handed B a trading card. “Here it is. Limited edition Sergio Vavoso, extremely rare,” he said. “Will I get it back?”

“I’m not sure. And I don’t think the results will last long. Still want to do this?”

George hesitated, then nodded.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Have a seat.”

“Hey, I was going to wear that hat to school tomorrow for Crazy Hat Day,” George protested. “I need as much spirit from Spirit Week as I can get!”

“Well, you’ll need to find a crazier one,” B said. “I need this one for the spell.”

B tried not to let it show that she’d never done a bag-cauldron concoction before. Potions, yes, but this was different. Then again, what harm could it do to try? When her sister Dawn’s friends had done bag-cauldron makeovers, the effects had only lasted a few seconds.

She placed the soccer and Zebra objects one by one into the shopping bag. She looked at George, waiting expectantly on the couch, then at the player on his shirt. She closed her eyes and tried to think about them both. A stray thought tickled her mind —
what if the Zebra turned into George, instead of the other way around?

Focus, B.

George. La Zebra. George. La Zebra.

B took a deep breath.

“T-R-A-N-S-F-O-R-M.”

She cracked open an eyelid.

“Ohhhh … I can feel something happening!” George cried, patting his forehead. “It tingles! It …
huh?”

He patted his scalp, just like when he was imitating the vice principal. Except, unlike the vice principal, George now had a tall, pointy, pink-lined set of ears on top of his head.

Covered with zebra stripes.