Mr. Bermuda’s first period social studies class left the auditeria with looking confused, bruised and a little shell shocked. I walk out looking equally lost but am honestly just not trying to demolish the building. That stupid, careless, heartless warlock! Didn’t he realize that an outburst like that could have gotten somebody killed? I know how he felt, I felt it the first day he came here and I realized he was a warlock but it’s not like I flipped out! On the outside anyway.
On top of that he made me use magic! The only magic I ever use is telepathy with my textbooks on occasion and I don’t actually count that as magic which is why I previously claimed to have never ever have used magic at school before. I know that these kids and Mr. Bermuda just think that the skit went badly and the curtains crashed on everyone but it’s still way too risky.
So far today I’ve both embarrassed and hacked off a warlock who is, truthfully, much more powerful than I originally thought and broke up a fist fight with a curtain rod. On top of that I now have a scheduled fight after school with the same warlock as mentioned previous. Blake Kindley came up to me after class with an emotionless look on his face and told me to meet him at 6 in the middle of downtown Rockyglenn, in front of the restaurant Annie’s. It was obvious that Blake was being mind-possessed by that stupid warlock so I nodded and told him to hurry to his next class. Blake seemed to snap out of it a couple seconds after walking away and just shook his head in confusion.
I catch sight of Dominico only once before lunch. I’m walking down the hallway to fourth with Jaz when I see his jet black hair and clothes and those glowing silver eyes. He sees me too and sends me a look that could kill. I just ignore him. I could glare at him until my eyes froze like that and that wouldn’t even make Dominico flinch so this is my other option. Mission Ignore and Destroy. OK, so maybe ‘destroy’ is a little extreme but at approximately 6 o’clock this evening Dominico Redwind is going to be taught a lesson that he won’t forget. Ever. Jaz looks between us, sensing our hatred.
“Hey, what’s up with you and Dominico?” she asks, gently elbowing my arm. Jaz has on her I’m-your-best-friend-you-can-tell-anything-to face. I shake my head,
“You know how I thought Vance Fredrick was the biggest jerk in the school?” I ask. Jaz nods. “He just got bumped down to second place.” I say. I make sure to say it loud enough so that when we pass by Dominico, I know he hears it. I steal a single quick, eye-darting glance at him and see him struggling to hold his glare. He’s a shade paler than usual and he looks almost…ashamed.
Serves him right. Stupid warlock. Emphasis on Stupid please. I don’t even care that he’s a warlock at this point. Izabella is a warlock and she’s kind. Of course Dominico had told her all about me being a witch which is why I flinched when I found a note from her stuffed in my locker. A smile crept onto my face as I read,
Hey Faye! Dominico told me that you’re a witch. Just sayin’, AWESOME TO HAVE ANOTHER W-MEMBER AROUND!!!I so didn’t see that coming!!! Clever with the broken washer cover!;) Can you talk to my locker by the way? I’m convinced it hates me. Well, see you at lunch!
Magically yours!
Izabella
p.s. The walls are also mean. They’re always running into me! Put in a word on my behalf please?
p.p.s. Ignore Dominico. He’s stupider than a stack of bricks.
Izabella is an awesome friend. Even I was more skeptical than that about warlocks. Not that anyone has to know that I went off like fireworks on the fourth of July when Dominico stepped into Social Studies that first day. Pfft. I don’t know what you’re talking about…
Fourth and fifth period are monotonous and long and I’m so relieved when the lunch bell rings that I momentarily forget all about Dominico. That is until Jaz takes on a strange look,
“Hey, you OK?” Ryan asks as the three of us walk down to the cafeteria. Jaz nods,
“Yeah, let’s go sit by Dominico over there,” she says. I cast a look of disgust in the direction Jaz points to the preppy brainless cheerleaders and the equally brainless and dramatic football players. Right in their midst of popularity stands Dominico. Ryan catches my about-to-vomit look,
“Uh, it looks like he’s a bit preoccupied. Come on, Jaz. He’ll come over if he wants to talk to us,” Ryan says, steering us towards are normal table. Immediately ten random kids get up and sit down in our spots. I don’t know about anyone else’s schools but here people never change their seats from the first day to the last. This is weird. I take one look at Dominico’s eyes and know that the amount of weirdness has doubled but there is no longer a lack of explanation. Jaz starts to pull us both unwillingly back over to Dominico. Why is she so set on sitting over there? Then I notice how…blank her expression is. Uh, no he didn’t! He did not just possess my best friend!
I force myself to relax. Ooh he’s going to pay for this later. No witch in the history of ever has been a damsel in distress. I’m no exception. I can and will kick this guy’s butt around the block and back again if that’s what it takes to straighten him out. He messed with the wrong girl.
Just as Jaz is about to drag us into calling distance of the popular table (or as I call it the zombie safety zone) Izabella swoops in.
“Hey guys! Want to eat outside? It’s beautiful out today!” Oh my gosh thank you, you amazing person!
“That’s a great idea! Come on Jaz!” Ryan says as he grabs her arm and pulls her out of the cafeteria. I could kiss both of them right now. I have the best friends in the whole wide world. Period. I love them all.
We walk across the athletic fields to sit under a silver maple tree that is starting to lose its amber leaves. I don’t eat much during the whole lunch period nor talk. I’m plotting how to really get at Dominico tonight. There are so many different ways…I could make the strings in his clothes tighten so he can barely breath…I could light him on fire…Ooh! What if I beat him senseless with that long hair of his? I hope he realizes that he has no chance against me. What is he going to do? Persuade me to insanity? Witches rule, warlocks drool. With my silent and Jaz’s…current state it is up to Ryan and Izabella to make conversation. And may I say that they do an excellent job at it!
“Come on, Superman is not the greatest superhero. He has all the powers in the world yet he faints at a rock and actually fails at saving the world from a normal guy! Remember? He has to go back in time because he messed up so bad. Black Widow all the way!” Izabella argues with Ryan.
“Yeah and how much do you know about Black Widow? She’s Russian and was a bad guy before Hawkeye convinced her to work with SHEILD. Big whoop,” Ryan defends.
“Uh, you obviously missed Ironman 2. She was awesome! You can not go ragging on Black Widow until you can take down fifteen guys in less than a minute. And she’s not allergic to a rock.” Ryan stuck his tongue out at that last comment and Izabella did the same. I let myself smile a little. They look so childish, sticking their tongues out arguing over the best superhero. I wholeheartedly agree with Izabella though. Superman stinks. Come on? Alien with the power of just about everything can’t beat a guy with a book? Nerd-power and all but no.
My mind drifts from Superman and Lex Luther to my next two periods. I share both of them with Dominico. Heck! I share a computer with him in seventh period! Maybe I should go to the nurse. Anything to get out of class with that small minded idiot. I was pretty mad at him in first period. Scratch that. I was furious. Now I’m even more furious. If he thinks he can start possessing everyone just because he figures out that I’m a witch, he is sadly mistaken. Ryan and Jaz get up to go put up their trays and Izabella leans over.
“Thinking about ways to beat up my brother?” she asks. I smile,
“You wouldn’t happen to have any expertise and/or advice in this area by any chance, would you?” I ask. She smiles wickedly.
“Maybe…maybe not…” she says, moving her eyebrows deviously. I lean my head back and groan,
“Fine! I’ll charm your locker so you just have to touch the lock to open it! Happy?” Her face lights up.
“Happier than an elf on Christmas!” she exclaims and I laugh.
“Now about that idiot brother of yours…” I prompt.
“OK you cannot ever, ever, tell anyone I told you this but…” she looks around as if checking for spies, “he’s scared of the dark.”
“No way.”
“Terrified! He sleeps with a nightlight I swear!” Izabella exclaims. I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. I even get cramps and have to bend over, clutching my stomach to stop myself from exploding with laughter. The dark? Big tough Dominico Redwind was scared of the dark? I’m finally able to breathe again when Izabella adds,
“It’s an Ironman one too,” and I burst out laughing again, almost to the point of tears. I see Dominico walk by with his circle of the Zombie Safety Zone and he casts me a confused look. Me and Izabella exchange a look before we both burst out laughing again. Afraid of the dark? Tonight Dominico is done for! Come on! I thought I was dealing with a powerful warlock not a cowardly five-year-old! We both compose ourselves by the time Ryan and Jaz return and Ryan starts up on the awesomeness of Superman again.
“Hey Ryan,” I say, “do you know where Superman got his costume from?” Ryan looks at me skeptically and shakes his head. “He had a bet with Chuck Norris and whoever lost had to wear their underwear on the outside of their clothes.” Izabella and even Jaz laughs and Ryan makes a face at me.
Lunch ends and Ryan and I walk down to math (after I quickly charm Izabella’s locker into opening for her whenever she touches the lock). Ryan claims to have tried to do his math homework but had been sucked into an alternate universe where aliens were trying to destroy Earth.
“So I was a little busy, alright? You should thank me! If I had been selfish enough to do my homework instead of take over their ship Earth wouldn’t be here right now!” How does he come up with this stuff?
“Fine. Ryan, as savior of our galaxy, I will allow you to cheat off my paper as reward for your gallant acts of heroism,” I declare and he smiles and gives me a hug.
“Have I told you that you’re my best friend?” He looks around and then stage whispers to me, “Don’t tell Jaz though. She gets jealous!” I laugh. Ryan’s gaze darts away and back to me quickly.
“What’s up with Redwind? He looks kind of sick,” Ryan says. I turn to where he glanced and saw Dominico staring at Ryan and me with a freakishly pale complexion and eyes the size of baseballs.
“Who knows what’s wrong with him?” I say and Ryan shrugs and we both quicken our pace in silent agreement to get to math class. Ryan copies my homework and hands it back to me. A couple of seconds later the bell rings. Dominico hasn’t gotten here yet. Is he tardy or is he at the nurse like I had been planning to do? Ms. Kinder comes in and greets us in her sweet grandmotherly way before starting the lesson. I pay close attention, not because the lesson is neither interesting nor difficult but because I need to take my mind off of Dominico. It’s not healthy for me to worry about that stupid kid so much. The class ends and Ryan heads off to band I head for computer science. When I get there I almost believe that Dominico isn’t going to be there. That is, until I get to class and see him sitting at our computer, already logged on and working. I leave my stuff on a desk in the middle of the room and pull up a chair with today’s English reading assignment. We’re reading Animal Farm.
“Decide to ditch?” I ask without looking up at him.
“None of your business, witch,” he growls.
“Fine, as long as you aren’t out possessing and enslaving a group of ignorant students, I couldn’t care less,” I respond. He turns to me and I see the anger in his eyes at my comment.
“I don’t enslave people,” he says.
“How about possess? Poor Blake had to go home sick in second period because you don’t know how to write a note. Jaz also isn’t looking all too good and I don’t even know what you were trying to do with her! You can bad mouth witches all you want but at very least I don’t go around tormenting people all day!”
“Yeah well at least I don’t lie to my friends,” he says.
“I can’t tell Jaz and Ryan without breaking the law!” I exclaim. He shakes his head,
“Not them. You didn’t tell me! It is NOT against the law if I’m a warlock!”
“Oh so your my friend now? I thought that when someone almost attacks you on a stage and drives an entire class to beat each other up just because you’re mad at them means you’re not quite ‘friends’ at that current moment.” I say.
“Well you let me think that you were my friend before that! Why didn’t you say something since I know that you hated me the whole time!”
“You don’t know anything, idiot,” I hiss. He looks confused for a second and opens his mouth to say something else but Mr. Asus enters the classroom as the bell rings and proclaims no talking. I shoot one last glare at Dominico before turning to my book and not stealing another glance at him the rest of the period. The final bell rings and I jump out of my seat, grab my stuff and race for the door. Dominico had tried to grab my arm at the end of the period to keep my attention but by the time he would have reached me I was gone.
I power walk through the hallways, more than ready to beat up Dominico when I hear a hatefully familiar voice.
“Oops. Are you going to pick that up, weirdo?” Vance Fredrick’s voice sneers. I look down the hallway to the source of the voice. Vance and his gang are standing in a semi-circle, forcing a scared looking Izabella against the wall. Her books were knocked out of her hands and are scattered around the floor. She bends down to pick them up and the guys laugh at her and kick them further away. I hate Vance Fredrick and now he’s picking on one of my new best friends. I’m not going to let this fly.
“Hey moron! Do you really have such low self-esteem that you have to pick on a freshman girl who is outnumbered six to one to feel good about yourself? Talk about pathetic,” I call to him. Vance’s face fills with rage and his gang members look shocked. Is Vance Fredrick getting served by a nerd?
“You think you can do something about it, you freak?” Vance challenges. I smile wickedly at him and I see a couple of his guys back away a couple steps, already freaked out.
“I know I can, bird-brain. You’re probably too scared of me to actually do anything though,” I say with a challenging hint to my voice. Vance takes a long step closer to me. I use my anger at both him and Dominico to fuel my actions. Teachers are still in their classrooms so no one is going to catch me doing anything like…
I ram my shoulder into his stomach at just the right angle to send the wind rushing from his lungs. He grunts as he stumbles backwards but I rush forward, pull both the strings of his hoodie to block his face and shove him into a locker. He bangs against it and falls to the ground. Half his gang rushes to help him up while the others head for the hills. Izabella’s mouth has dropped open and she’s staring at me with an awed expression. I help her pick up her books and quickly stand up.
“Uhh…we should get out of here now,” I tell her and she nods. We turn down the hallway and come face to face with a stunned looking Dominico Redwind. Did he see that whole thing?
“Hi,” Izabella and I say at the exact same time in the exact same winded and nervous tone.
“Uhh…hi,” he says. There’s a second of awkward silence before I quickly say,
“Bye!” and dart away, leaving Izabella safely with her big brother who I’m really looking forward to beating up later. I grab my backpack from my locker, hop on the bus, and quickly slide into my seat. Ryan drops down next to me a couple minutes later.
“Hey did you hear someone beat up Vance Fredrick?” he asks. Wow, news travels fast in this school. I just smile at him,
“You’re welcome.” Ryan looks completely shocked for a second before he just laughs.
“Of course you did it! I guess it was only a matter of time,” Ryan says and gives me a high five for a job well done.
“Let me tell you, it felt good,” I say. He shakes his head,
“So you beat up Vance Fredrick but you don’t record it? Come on! At least let me watch next time!” He sounds so hopeful when he says ‘next time’. I shake my head saying that there won’t be a next time and Ryan looks heartbroken and puts on a pathetic puppy dog face that makes him look more like a deranged snail than anything else. I laugh and the bus starts moving.
I get home with Rowan waiting for me at the bus stop as usual and tell him everything that happened at school today. I need to tell someone and this one I am not telling to my parents.
I get home and start to think about tonight. What should I wear to go beat up someone? I’m definitely not wearing this same eye-sore shade of green again. Finally I pull on a tight-fitting black long sleeved shirt with a looser purple short sleeved one over it. I stick to a comfy pair of denim jeans with mismatched socks and my favorite grey with neon laces converse. I decide to wear my hair down because it’s being nice and cooperating today so I just put two small braids in the front and leave the rest down straight in the back. I grab a roll of metallic silver duct tape, some tomatoes and Oreos and a piece of lined paper that I scribble a note on and put it all in a small black bag that I throw over my shoulder. I look in the mirror and my eyes are a bright purple color. I look like a witch. I smile a little to myself.
I call to my mom that I’m going downtown and she tells me to have fun. Oh, I plan to. I grab my skateboard from the garage and start off. Downtown is only five miles away and I have a full hour to get there. I plan to only use about thirty five minutes of it. I speed along the sidewalk with a grace that I don’t quite possess when I’m walking. I get to Annie’s with plenty of time to spare to I order a grilled cheese and lemonade and sit down at one of the outside tables to wait. I’m not big on hamburgers or cheeseburgers or that stuff so I always get grilled cheese from Annie’s which is sort of like a family run version of Steak-n-Shake. The lemonade is because I have a possibly unhealthy obsession with it. I always get lemonade at restaurants and I even have some for lunch every day. Lemonade is amazing. My favorite is the fresh squeezed, slightly sour kind. That is truly heavenly.
At about five ‘til six I see an all-too familiar face with his silver eyes scanning the light traffic of people on the street. I catch his eyes and he starts to walk over to me. I throw away my trash without looking back at him and start to head down the street with a fast enough pace to make good time but slow enough to ensure that he can keep up. I look back often enough to catch when he starts walking faster and then do the same thing myself so that we stay the same distance apart the whole time.
We finally reach the place I had been heading, Rodger’s Book Stop. As much as I love to go to Rodger’s, today I’m not going inside. Rodger’s is a two-story brick building with two display windows and glass door in the front with green and red awnings over the windows and a little wooden sign up with its name hanging from the front. Beside Rodger’s was an abandon warehouse that was nearly impossible to get into. I have gotten in there before but I’m not planning on going in there today either.
This needs to be a school course. Fighting Warlocks for Dummies. Step one: Don’t get in trouble. Lead them to a place out of civilian sight so you can’t get caught. I walk between the two buildings. There are old fliers on the ground and one empty dumpster off to the side. The side of Rodger’s has an old iron latter that leads to the roof. I look behind me and see Dominico only a couple yards away. I turn and start climbing the latter and soon after, I hear him follow.
Step two: Give them a couple bruises right off the bat. Warlocks have very fragile egos so shaking their confidence is a good way to start out. As soon as Dominico reaches the top of the latter I ask the air to lift him up a couple of feet before slamming him into the ground. After that I have his shoe laces knot themselves together so that when he gets up he falls down again painfully. I send a kick at his ribs that sends him sprawling across the roof and he gasps for air and in agony.
Step three: Smack talk. You must humiliate them so they try some useless retaliation. It makes things more interesting. I grab the neckline of Dominico’s shirt and pull him to a standing position.
“How dumb do you have to be to challenge a witch to a fight? It’s almost too easy for me!” Dominico casts me an almost scared look. I push him away. “Come on, tough guy! Let’s see what you can do!” Dominico stumbles to his feet. I hold my arms out in the ‘Come at me, bro,’ way. Dominico glares at me and races forward, aiming for my knees.
Step four: Strategy. This is the most effective and hard to accomplish part of the fight. It requires ahead of time planning and a good degree of acting. I grunt as I fall against the hard cement of the roof as Dominico tackles me down to the ground. I roll backwards to kick at him with my feet positioned on his chest. He staggers back a couple inches, just enough for me to crawl away. Dominico comes after me again and I back up so that I’m standing on the very edge of the roof with a two-story drop behind me. Dominico grabs onto my shoulders so that I know that the slightest move from him could send me plummeting.
“What’s your plan now, witch?” Dominico sneers. I cast a frightened look at the drop behind me. Then I turn back to him and compose my features to a glare,
“What’s yours? Are we going to just hang around like this all day?” I silently ready the tomatoes and note with my mind to come out of the bag. I flash a smile at Dominico, “Like this position, Redwind?” Dominico looks taken back by my accusation.
“What? No!” He says, his cheeks filling with color. He releases his grip and I let out a squeak of terror as I fall backwards. I see Dominico’s eyes go wide when he realizes what he has done. “FAYE!” He screams and tries to catch my hand but misses by mere inches. I fall until there is only inches between me and the ground. Some ignorant pedestrians scream when they see me fall and point. In the last possible second I pull away with an air current although with so many people gathered around it would have been impossible to see me from the roof. The current swoops me over to the alley, faster than any normal human could see. I glance around the corner and see red stains on the side walk. People keep gathering around and pointing and someone holds up their phone to call the authorities. I hide behind the dumpster and hear the creak of the old iron latter and Dominico hurries down it.
“She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead,” I hear Dominico murmuring to himself as he passes by. I jump out from behind the dumpster and push him into the wall.
“YOU WISH!” I exclaim. His eyes bug out at the sight of me.
“Faye! You’re…How? Then what is…?” he looks over to the spot of the fall. The crowd has begun to part and now it is clear that the red stains are my squashed tomatoes (Ketchup anyone?) and the note was passed around from the pedestrians and shoppers reads in my curly scrawl,
Hello,
Sorry for the scare. I’m trying to teach a lesson to this jerk so if you could huddle around these squashed tomatoes and act all worried for two minutes you will have my full gratitude. Thanks so much!
Sometimes you’ve just got to ask.
Step five: Finish ‘er up! Dominico looks back to me with wide eyes. I smile evilly at him. I take a step back and he lunges forward quickly. I step out of the way and he runs smack into the dumpster to which I grab his legs and throw him in. He lets out a surprised yelp as he falls into the large, stinking container. I ask the wind to slam the lid shut and it does. I quickly hop on top of it and pull out my duct tape. Before Dominico can recover himself I quadruple layer on the duct tape to the opening and sit criss-cross-applesause on top. There are two things I know now. One, Dominico can’t get out. Two, it’s very dark in there.
“FAYE! LET ME OUT!” Dominico demands.
“You through me off a roof! No!” I counter. I hear Dominico pull his phone out of his pocket (How did it not break when I was beating him up?).
“Izabella?” I hear him ask. I hear a laughing through the phone and Izabella’s voice saying.
“I’ll be there in a minute.” Like she promises, Izabella arrives a minute later. She sees me and I wave. She laughs again. She pulls out her phone.
“Smile!” she says.
“Cheese!” I reply loudly. We both laugh.
“IZABELLA! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Dominico yells. Izabella sighs and comes over.
“WAIT!” I say and pull the Oreos out of my bag. “Come to the dark side,” I urge her. “We have cookies!”
“NO!” Dominico yells.
“Should I be a good person and help my brother or be selfish and eat cookies?” Izabella asks herself.
“You’d be a good person without cookies,” I remind her. She comes over and sits down next to me on the dumpster and holds out her hand. “We’ve been expecting you,” I tell her. I hear Dominico groan.
*********************************************************
And that's how to fight warlocks for Dummies! Sorry for the wait! School started so my updating will probably slow down a bit : (. But not too long! I'll try to be a good writer and update often! OK then I hope you enjoyed. BTW if you did enjoy PLEASE VOTE so that I know you enjoyed it or leave a comment.
Magically yours,
Rosewood7