Twist My Charm (15 page)

DING DONG!

Someone's here for the Siren Call.

I
quickly put the top back on the potion as I hear Dad greeting Madison. By the time I toss the bottle into my backpack, followed by my offerings, Madison's standing at my bedroom door.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Ready!” I smile, but inside I'm a little less than ready. I was just about to use Uncle Arnie's love potion—without the official instructions. Is that really the right thing to do, with only his postcard from Alamogordo and my own silly dream as direction? One minute ago I was ready to tip the bottle's contents all over Larry's monkey, Dad's glasses, and the
Healthyland
page, but now I'm not sure. What should I do?

The doorbell rings again, so I can't answer that question yet.

“Cleo! Are we expecting someone else?” From down the hall, Dad sounds confused.

Oops. I forgot to tell him about Samantha coming over, but I also forgot something else—that it meant he'd be seeing Paige (ugh!). I run out of my bedroom to meet them at the door. I don't want anything happening between Dad and Paige that I'm not there to see.

“Well, this is a nice surprise,” Dad says, too happily. “Cleo didn't tell me you two were coming over.”

“Some things never change,” Paige replies, and they both chuckle. It's a chuckle I don't like. I don't want them chuckling. Why couldn't Paige leave Samantha at the curb and let her come to the door by herself? We're not children anymore!

Sam knows the way to my room, so she walks past the adults with a quick “Bye, Mom” and zips down the hall. I don't leave the doorway. I need to keep watching.

“Do you want to come in for a few minutes? Have some tea or coffee?” Dad asks.

Paige has got to say no to this dumb invitation! She's all dressed up in a tight skirt and blouse; she must have things to do. Plus, who says yes to tea or coffee when it's eighty degrees outside? I turn and start off toward my room, but I stop when I hear what Paige says next.

“That'd be nice, Bradley. Do you have any caffeine-free tea?”

No, no, no, no, no,
I think.
We only have tea that will keep you up all night. We have extra-amped-up caffeinated tea; it will make you bounce off the walls and the ceiling!

“Sure, come on in,” Dad says, and Paige strolls toward our kitchen, her high heels click-click-clicking on our hardwood floors.

Ugh. There's nothing I can do about it…until we get to the lake and do the
LLAMADA DE LA SIRENA.
This means I have to leave them alone, whether I like it or not.

I run to my room, where Madison is sitting on my bed, petting Toby. Toby likes her so much that he didn't even run and bark when Samantha and her mom rang our doorbell. He's going to miss Madison when she goes away after the Bling Bling Summer Fling. Three months is a long time. And to a dog, it'll feel like twenty-one months! Or it could be forever, if Madison chooses Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae over me.

Samantha's on the other side of the room, letting Millie the millipede crawl on her hand. I have the feeling she and Madison are both nervous; that's why they're playing with my animals instead of talking to each other.

“Sam, are you going to wish for your mom and my dad to be together?” I ask loudly, without even saying hi.

Sam jumps a little. “I'm not allowed to tell!” she says, but her face looks truly confused, like she hadn't even considered the idea. Then she adds, “I thought he liked Terri.”

“He did. I mean, he does. He still does,” I say. “Okay. Just wanted to make sure. So, your charm is going to be for yourself?”

Madison looks at me like I should know better. “We're not supposed to tell, Cleo. It says so in the book.”

“Sorry,” I say to both of them, though I'm sick of testing my patience and would really, really like to know what both of them are wishing for! “I'm nervous, I guess.”

“We all are,” Madison says, mature person that she is. “So, are we going to sit around here or are we going to do it?”

Of course. It's time to do the Siren Call.

We sling our backpacks over our shoulders and make our way toward the front door. Dad and Paige are at the kitchen table with mugs in front of them. They're not sitting too close together, thank goodness, and it doesn't look like we've interrupted anything romantic. It barely looks like they were talking.

They just don't look right together. They never did. They don't look like Terri and Dad used to. After we do the
LLAMADA DE LA SIRENA,
Terri will be the one drinking decaffeinated tea here with Dad, like it should be.

“Have fun, girls,” Paige says. We all nod without much of a response.

“Call and check in if you're gone longer than an hour,” Dad says. I shout for Toby, but Dad says we don't need to take him, since he wants to jog around the lake later anyway.

“Oh, you jog?” asks Paige. Maybe I'm imagining it, but she sounds like she's impressed, like the next thing she's going to do is squeeze his biceps and tell him what nice muscles he has. She'd better not! He has no muscles at all!

I take Madison and Sam across the street. We walk on the dirt path until we reach the meadow that leads all the way to the bank of the lake. It's warm out and the sun is shining, so people are all over the place. A large group of ladies is taking a yoga class, while families and friends are having picnics. Even the people who are by themselves, reading books or snoozing, look like they're having a good time. All of them are too busy to care about three girls by the edge of the lake.

We sit on the ground and open our backpacks. Madison pulls out a ziplock bag filled with shells she took from the vase in her house's entryway. I start looking through them right away. I don't know if it's true, but I like to think that shells are like snowflakes and fingerprints, with no two being alike. How could they be? The water and sand and air affect each one a little bit differently, so some look chipped and some look perfect—just like people. “Why'd you bring so many?” I ask.

“Well, if we need to make holes in them to put them on the string, I figured some of them might break.”

“Good thinking,” Sam says. “Let me get my things….” Her voice trails off as she digs in her backpack. Then she pops up holding two items for making holes in shells—a small pair of sharp scissors and something that looks like a teeny, tiny screwdriver.

My only item to bring was the string. That was easy because my dad has junk drawers filled with old computer cords, rolls of tape, random stamps, and other things he'll never miss. I throw the wad of string on the grass between us. Madison and Sam look at me like I just barfed up a big hair ball.

“What?” I ask.

“I thought—” Madison starts.

“I expected a
ball
of string,” Sam says over her. “Not a tangled-up mess.”

“You expect my house to have a nice, neat ball of string?”

Madison and Sam laugh; they've both been there enough to understand. But now that we've contributed our items, it's time to get started. One by one, we each manage to pull out strings long enough to make necklaces; then we pick shells and poke holes in them. Madison was right; a few of them crack and break. I'm making three necklaces, so I have to slow down and be more careful. Eventually I get the hang of it. Then I remember that I want the necklaces to fall off soon, so I take Sam's scissors and scrape the sharp blade against the edges of my strings to fray them a little.

“Ooh, good idea!” Sam says. It feels nice, getting a compliment from her after all this time. “Let me have the scissors when you're done.”

Once she and Madison have thinned out their necklace strings too, we walk to the edge of the water to dip our shells in. That part is easy, except for the tips of my sneakers getting wet. It's the part that comes next—deciding what to sing—that isn't easy at all. Of course it'll be a Ryder Landry love song, but which one? Sam suggests “Love Monsoon” (
“Love is a monsoon, a typhoon, it takes you over and spins you around!”
), but Madison doesn't think we should sing that next to a body of water, and I have to agree. Madison votes for “You and Me on a Boat in the Sea,” another water-themed love song. I love that one too, but when I make my suggestion, Madison and Sam both realize there is no other choice.

“Only One.”

What else could it be?

We sing it happily to the world. We're Landers and we want everyone to know.
“You don't want just anyone, you only want your only one…”

Sam raises her arms into the air and sings louder, so we do it too.
“The one who always stuns, the one who never runs, the one who's there for fun…”

We might not have the best pitch, but we're making it up with power. It's a beautiful day, the LA air is semi-fresh, and for this little moment, life is almost as awesome as a Ryder Landry love song. We finish loud and proud:
“The one who will be by your side forever, the one who will turn on you never, never ever, she's your Onnnnnly Onnnnnne!”

When we turn away from the lake, the ladies from the yoga class are staring at us. “Namaste!” Sam shouts to them. We learned that word in Janet the Recreational Wellness teacher's Spiritual Growth class, where we do things like yoga and drumming and meditation—the stuff my dad calls “New Age mumbo jumbo.” Madison and I put our hands in a prayer position in front of our hearts and shout “Namaste” too. The ladies should know this word, but they just look at us strangely, then go back to their downward facing dog yoga pose.

Madison, Sam, and I take turns helping each other put on our necklaces. Samantha ties mine too tight at first, but she loosens it when I let out a little “ow.” We all agree that the string is slightly scratchy, but as necklaces, they actually look pretty good. I'm sure Ryder would like them too; according to
Zip! Pow!
magazine, he likes a girl who “revels in her uniqueness.”

With our song sung and our necklaces on, it's time for our offerings. We settle back down on the ground and go through our backpacks. One by one, I pull out my items: Dad's glasses, the page from
Healthyland,
and Larry's monkey.

But there's one more thing in my backpack the other girls don't know about. The love potion.

My hand wraps around the edges of the glass bottle, edges that are sharp and smooth at the same time.

Should I use it?

And if I don't use it now, when will I?

Trying not to be too obvious, I turn my back, just a little, from Madison and Samantha. With my hand still in my backpack, I pull the top off the bottle. There's a small POP, but to me it sounds like an explosion. I glance behind me, but they haven't heard the noise.

I take a peek at what Sam has brought out, hoping it might help me figure out her wish. But her offering must be microscopic, because it's wrapped in what looks like one square of toilet paper. Unless the one square of toilet paper
is
her offering. Ewww, if Larry used that to wipe his butt, that would be the grossest thing ever!

I sneak a glance at Madison's offering too. It's something I've seen in her room every time I've been there, hanging off the edge of the bulletin board above her desk. It's a laminated photo hanging on a long string—the VIP badge from the Ryder concert she went to with Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae! Of all the things Madison owns—and she owns a
lot
of things—that is one of her favorite, most treasured possessions.

Madison has never talked about liking any boy other than Ryder Landry. Could she be using the Siren Call to bring Ryder Landry to her? It seems far-fetched, considering he's a big star traveling the world, but I've seen plenty of strange and magical things happen since I've moved to California, and I
have
to think anything is possible. Otherwise I wouldn't be here right now, about to call the universe for three different wishes.