Life's A Witch

Chapter Twenty-Two

Plus there's just no excuse for a bad outfit. If I was going out, I was doing it in style.

"That is the coolest spell ever!" Sascha exclaimed when she finally managed to replicate the dress that Taylor Swift had worn to her last awards show.

"Not bad, Had. I just figured you stole all your clothes," Jasmine said. She may have been playing it cool, but I'd already seen her switch from one black getup to another, trying hard not to smile the whole time.

"Okay, who's next? I know you've all got something up your sleeves that you didn't show us last night, so step up and share it," I said. "Even if you think it's insignificant or that we can't possibly use it against the Parrishables, we want to hear it. Because the truth is, you never know what will come in handy, and the more prepared we are the better."

A few seconds passed before anyone said anything. Finally, Jasmine rolled her eyes and joined me at the front of the room.

"Fine. I guess there's one spell I can teach you all. It's not a big deal or anything, just something I've done on occasion. You know, when I'm hanging out by myself and I'm bored," Jasmine said. She walked over to the couch and picked up a cushion. Then she threw it straight at Peter. He caught it just before it hit him in the face. "Do me a favor, kid, and hold the pillow."

"Why, what are you going to—"

He hadn't even finished his sentence before Jasmine yelled, "Exbiliby totalitum!" and pointed in Peter's direction. There was a loud pop and then it was as if it were snowing indoors. I reached out my hand to try and catch some of the white stuff. It was soft and cushy. Then I noticed the gaping hole that was now in the pillow Peter was holding in his trembling hands.

"Seriously?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh. Sorry about your pillow," she answered nonchalantly as a big puff of stuffing landed on her shoulder.

"Forget the pillow—how could you think that wasn't a big deal?"

She made a face. "I don't know. I did it a few times as a kid and then my parents forbid me to do it anymore. So after that I could only do it when I was sure they wouldn't find out about it. Besides, when is blowing stuff up ever considered a good thing? I mean, that's why kids go to juvie."

Jasmine showed us how to do her spell and we spent an hour or so practicing it. Not on any more of my mom's pillows, mind you. I felt it was important to have some fun with our training this time, so we took a stash of balloons that I found in an old dresser drawer of mine and filled them up with water. Placing them on various spots around the property, we made a game out of watching them explode into showers of glistening droplets. A few of us got so good at it that we even took turns holding the targets in the air and being soaked while standing beneath them. It was like our own version of a dunking booth.

After that we made it a point to turn every lesson into a game of some sort. And as the days went on, the others became more vocal about the spells they'd discovered on their own. It had been naive of me to think I was the only one who'd expanded upon our mandatory lessons with Jackson.

And the creativity in our group! June showed us how she'd discovered the right words to extend her time in the air when she jumped; it wasn't quite flying, but she did defy gravity a bit. A guy named Brick, one of Fallon's buddies, taught us how to conjure up a hologram. Of course, he'd only ever used it to scare his younger female neighbors growing up, but I could see how this particular spell could come in handy. We learned how to write words in the sky (Peter), how to make it snow in small amounts—think personal snowstorms—(Josephine), make a person literally tongue-tied (Emory), and give someone a nosebleed that wouldn't stop (Fallon).