Rhymes with Witches

“What’d you do, Piss Girl?” Stuart Hill taunted. “Leave some chicken guts in there?”

“Shut up,” Alicia said. “I didn’t leave anything, you asshole.”

“Not even your books?” Stuart said. He guffawed as if he were actually being fu

The janitor shooed them away. He doused Alicia’s locker with Odor-Out, aiming his spray nozzle at the slats and seams as well as the smooth gray exterior.

“Wait!” Alicia cried, but the janitor took no notice. When she opened her locker, a sodden spiral slipped to the floor along with her cheerleading Pep Manual. The stench of cat pee wafted into the air.

I strode toward the other end of the hall. I hoped Alicia hadn’t seen me, but two yards from the stairwell, I heard her call, “Jane, where are you going? Jane!”

My heart felt sick. I let the flow of students carry me forward.

During Algebra I thought of one of my Ramona books, of a scene in which Ramona was doing a kindergarten worksheet. Only instead of “circle cat, cross out bird,” Ramona substituted the name of a despised fellow kindergartner, Susan of the boing-y curls. As in, “circle Ramona, cross out Susan.”

It wasn’t that I despised Alicia—god, no. It wasn’t even on purpose, despite the guilt that was making me feel swampy and wrong.

Still, there it was, crazy or not: circle Jane, cross out Alicia.

Six, sin, and sorcery,” intoned Lurl the Pearl. “All three words come from the same root, which, once celebrated, has now become vilified.”

I copied the words into my notebook and tried to convince myself that it was purely academic, her use of the word “sorcery.” That she was just going off on her favorite tangent about how female folk healers, drawing on the life force of the goddess, were later denounced as witches. Blah, blah, blah. She’d shown the film The Burning Times twice already. She’d quizzed us on the real meaning of the word “wicca,” and she’d told us that many women today have formed their own worship circles as a way to create a sacred space. More interesting than Ms. Bainbright’s English class, but hardly the stuff of midnight terrors. At least, as long as I didn’t co

Still, when I’d first taken my seat—after dislodging a gray cat with a torn ear—I could have sworn Lurl looked at me fu

What had she done with Alicia’s lip balm?

A flutter kicked up in my stomach. Don’t, I told myself. What’s done is done.

“Yes, Miss Goodwin?” Lurl the Pearl asked, interrupting her explanation of “six” as the number of the creatrix.

I jumped. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You have a concern?”

The rest of the class turned to stare. Friendly stares, Hi, do you like me? stares, but stares all the same.

“Um, I don’t.” I tried to smile. “Doing fine, thanks.”

Lurl smiled back. It was a loose, smeary smile that made her face look as if it were coming unhinged. “Then let’s pay attention, shall we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Hey,” Bob Foskin whispered. He’d gotten up from his seat at the front of the room and was now crouching by my desk. “Hey.”

“What?” I said. “I’ve got to pay attention.”

He leaned closer. “Want me to knock her around for you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Wait for her after school. Give her a scare.”

My eyes flew to Lurl, then back to Bob. “You’re not serious.”

“As a heart attack,” he said, crossing himself. “Ganging up on you for no reason. No respect, that’s what.”

“Oh god,” I muttered. Lurl the Pearl was now roaming the room, and I did not want her coming over here. I straightened my posture and scribbled the number 666, along with Lurl’s labored analysis that just as six stood for the creatrix, 666 stood for the holy trinity of maid, matron, and crone. That it was only as people grew threatened by female power that the number took on more sinister meanings.

“No thanks,” I told Bob. “You better get back to your seat.”

“You sure?”

Lurl was two aisles away. One. She paused at my aisle, and my body went stiff. Bob stood up, but he didn’t return to his desk. Lurl didn’t even look at him.

“Very nice,” she said to me in her gravelly voice. “Very nice. But we can never ease up, can we? Not when the stakes are so high.”

My scalp prickled. A force radiated from her, something I couldn’t describe, and I got the unca

“So we’ll have your assignment by the end of the week?” she asked.

My assignment. As in another stolen item—was that what she was talking about? But I was in a classroom with twenty-three other students. She couldn’t be.

“What assignment?” Bob butted in. “We ain’t got no assignment.”

Lurl came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. I wanted to jump out of my skin.

“Miss Goodwin is a good little pet,” she purred. “Miss Goodwin is earning extra credit.”

“Aw, man,” Bob complained. “Why don’t I know about no extra credit?”

Lurl bent over so that her lips were at my ear. She smelled like tuna. “By the end of the week for best results.”

She tightened her hold on my shoulders, then let go.

During LIFE, my entire class surprised me by singing “Happy Birthday” at the begi

“Wow,” I said. “I mean, wow.”

Fifteen faces beamed. Tina nudged Ha

“Only, it’s not my birthday,” I said.

Tina waved her hand. “That’s okay. We figured, you know, what were the odds?”

“We just wanted to celebrate anyway,” Ha

“Happy birthday!” cried Arnie Aughenbach.

“Happy birthday!” echoed fourteen others. Hands patted my back and ruffled my hair.

I gri

“Heck, it’s better than following the lesson plan any day,” said Mrs. Parmigian. She waddled across the room to give me a hug. “In LIFE, there’s always cause for celebration.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So … do I get presents?”

“Presents!” Tina exclaimed. “Of course!” She ran to her backpack and pulled out a brightly wrapped box. Other kids dug into their packs and reached under their desks.

“Mine first,” Arnie said, plunking down a lumpy package tied with yarn.

“I don’t think so,” Tina said. She bumped him out of the way. “Jane asked me, remember?”

“Wait,” I protested. “I was kidding. I was completely kidding!”

The stack of presents grew on my desk. I tried pushing them back into their owners’ hands, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

“Open them,” Tina insisted.

So I did. I got the new Spayed CD, a pocketknife engraved with my name, a framed picture of Arnie. Four pairs of earrings. From Tina, a sky blue container of stress therapy bath beads (“Not that you need them. What do you have to be stressed about? But they’re so cool, because the water gets all fizzy when you put them in!”). A leather bookmark, a mauve feather boa. A tiny tub of lip balm.