Majix: Notes from a Serious Teen Witch

by Douglas Rees

  “That’s Blake,” I say.

  And then Blake comes though the door with his trophy in his hand and walks past us grinning like a rat with an extra piece of cheese and sticks his head in Garbage’s office.

  “Just wanted to say thanks again for letting me off detention, sir,” he says loud enough to make sure we hear.

  “You’re welcome, Blake. Just let this be the start of a new era for you,” Garbage’s voice says.

  Blake skips out past us and high-fives the air.

  “You know any more Spanish words like pinche?” I ask José.

  He doesn’t answer.

  After a minute, I ask, “Why did you want to know if I’m a witch?”

  He shrugs. “In Spanish there’s two words. Bruja, that’s a bad witch. And there’s curandera. That’s a good witch.”

  “That’s neat,” I say.

  “My grandmother, she’s a curandera,” José says. “So’s my aunt. So that’s why I asked. I wondered what kind you were.”

  I think it over.

  “I’m both,” I say.

  “O ra le,” José says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “Check it out.” He shrugs again. “I couldn’t think of nothing else to say.”

  He takes out his notebook and starts to draw. I look over at what he’s doing. It’s this pyramid, only the stones look like they’re moving, they’re so alive on that paper. There’s jungle in the background and a bird flying past, and that bird is just one line on the page, but it’s all there, the wings, the body, and mainly the flying.

  I watch while he builds that pyramid one line at a time, making the shadows on the steps, the little temple at the top, and huge, heavy clouds behind it all. I feel like I’m nearly there.

  “You are truly cool with a pencil, José,” I say.

  He stops. “Wanna see some more?”

  “Yeah!”

  So he hands me his notebook. It’s got homework in it. Stuff he started and didn’t get finished. Words scrawled in broken sentences that wander off the lines. Diagrams all wrong. But all around them and over them are his pictures, and they are all so real and so right that they seem too big for the paper they’re on. There’s pictures of Aztec warriors, and one of the car I see him drive off in every day, and pictures of the guys in it, and it’s like they can see me. And there’s a couple of pages of a woman’s face different ways, smiling, serious, holding a big spoon and tasting. One with her eyes closed, praying.

  “Your mom?” I ask.

  José nods.

  “She’s great,” I say.

  “I know,” he says.

  I hand his notebook back to him. “These are the best I ever saw,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “It’s okay,” he says.

  After a while, Garbage comes out. “You two may go,” he says. He hands me an envelope. Sealed.

  “Bring that back signed Monday or face the consequences.”

  José and I get up together without looking at him. He slouches out and I follow, trying to copy the way he walks, which I have realized is a very cool way.

  13

  SOME FLOW

  THE SUN IS FARTHER DOWN than I thought it would be. I suddenly remember Laura. She is nowhere around, of course. I do not have her cell phone number or anything. She will probably think I ditched her. Damn. A Witch Never Lies, and now it looks like I did. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. I can’t even look her up in the phone book because I don’t know her last name.

  “We sat there a long time, man,” I say to José.

  José shrugs.

  I see his ride waiting for him in a pool of tree shade. I think about how long those guys must have been waiting there. Whoever drives that car must love him a lot. It kind of makes me miss The Rentz for some reason. But I push that away. I have to.

  “See you,” I say.

  José starts toward the car. I start for the street that runs in front of the school.

  In front of the school, right along the street, there’s this line of trees. Blake is standing under the one on the corner. He’s got like three or four guys with him. There’s also this pile of gravel where they’re putting it down under the juniper bushes for landscaping. Blake and the other pigs are throwing pieces of it at something up in the tree.

  I hear a yowl. A long up-and-down kitten voice that says, “For Goddess’ sake, somebody help me before they kill me!”

  I hear the pigs laugh.

  Whatever cool I had left, I lose. My backpack hits the concrete by the flagpole. I start running.

  “Blake, you pinche! You bunch of pinches!” I reach the gravel and start throwing it at them. These are big pieces, maybe two inches across.

  Blake turns around and hits me with one of his. It thunks off my forehead.

  “Open fire on Blondjoke,” he hollers to the others.

  Then Jose’s voice says, “Don’t call her Blondjoke.”

  SAY WHAT? I dreamed this, I think. I remember it. But what happens now?

  Blake’s ready with another piece of gravel, but he doesn’t throw it.

  “Hey, Blondjoke’s got a boyfriend,” he says.

  José takes off his jacket like he’s being cool, but he’s mad. He’s getting ready to fight Blake. Or all four of them.

  “Get out of here,” he tells them.

  The cat yowls again. It’s so high up in the tree I can’t even see it.

  “Go on, move it,” José tells them, real quiet. He moves closer to Blake. So do I.

  Blake laughs. Then he stops.

  “Uh-oh,” says one of the other little pigs.

  “Uh-oh,” says the second little pig.

  I turn around. Coming toward us are José’s guys, all three of them. They look like a wall, walking slowly together, side by side, all with their shades and mustaches like sword blades.

  “Let’s go,” says the third little pig, and they turn and start running.

  Blake gets about one step. Then I snake my leg out and trip him. I throw myself down on his back, making sure to land on my knees. I have great knees. Sharp as talons.

  Then I let him up because José’s guys are there.

  For the first time, I see how different they are from each other. The tallest one has this great nose like a hawk. His sleeves are short and he’s got a tattoo that says U.S. NAVY SEAL around an anchor and a lightning bolt. The second guy is a little shorter and has this great posture. He moves like a cat. A puma cat. Also, his torso is huge. He has scars on his arms where tattoos have been taken off. He’s scary. The third guy is younger and thinner-looking, but not really thin. His muscles are just long and ropy. And they are all standing around Blake and me.

  “Hey, man,” says the tallest one. “What are you doing to that cat?”

  Blake is getting up, looking around him. He is not happy.

  “Don’t touch me,” he says. “Help, police!” He really does say it. Like some geeky lady in an old movie.

  “Be cool, man,” the tall one says.

  “Police, police!” Blake hollers.

  “He wants the police,” the scary guy shrugs.

  The tall guy reaches into his hip pocket. Blake gasps and cringes. I’ll bet he thinks the guy has a knife.

  What he’s got is a badge.

  “Sergeant Leon Iturrigaray, Jurupa PD,” he says. “Now, let’s talk.”

  Blake shuts up.

  “José, introduce me,” says Sergeant Leon Iturrigaray.

  “This is Kestrel Murphy,” José says. “And this pi—this is Blake Cump.”

  Leon waits. After a minute, José says, “And this is my brother Leon, and this is my cousin Victor—” the second guy, the fierce one with the posture “—and this is my other brother, Chris.”

  “Nice to meet you,” says Chris.

  “So you’re Blake Cump,” says Leon.

  Victor doesn’t say anything. He just looks at Blake and crosses his arms.

  “Want to tell me why you
did what you did to that cat?” Leon asks.

  “It’s not fair,” Blake says. “I wasn’t the only one doing it. I always get blamed.”

  The cat, which has never stopped yowling, climbs higher up the tree—I can hear it moving in the branches—and lets out an even bigger one.

  “You know,” says Leon, “I could start writing a bunch of tickets. Loitering. Cruelty to animals. Maybe even assault and battery—on both of you. But what good would it do?”

  He puts a hand on Blake’s shoulder. Blake’s shoulder disappears under it. “Now, if I didn’t know so much about you, if I hadn’t heard so much about you and Miss Kestrel here from my brother, I might not feel the way I do about this. I might think that what I saw here today was all there is to know about you. Just a bunch of stupid kids. But every day when we pick him up, José tells us what happened in school that day. So I know there’s more than that going on. So let’s settle all this before it goes any further. Turn things in a new direction.”

  The water is deciding which way to flow. It flashes through my mind.

  “So I want everybody to apologize and shake hands,” Leon goes on. “José, you first.”

  José puts out his hand to me. I take it and say, “I’m sorry, José.”

  His head does this little jerk. “For what?’

  “For thinking you were being a mean, creepy jerk when you were only asking me a question. You’re really cool, man.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” he says. He’s blushing again, but not as bad as before.

  “You didn’t do anything,” I say. “It was an accident.”

  José turns to Blake and holds out his hand. He doesn’t say anything.

  Blake turns to me and sticks his hand out.

  “José’s over there,” I tell him.

  “Oh, sorry. Didn’t see you,” he smirks, grabbing José’s hand and pumping it up and down. “Awfully sorry, old man, for whatever I did. Pip-pip. Cheerio.” He’s using the fake English accent for some reason.

  José doesn’t say anything.

  Blake takes my hand and says in his real voice, “And I’m really, really sorry I complained when you stole my wallet.”

  I keep my cool, which is just what he doesn’t want.

  “He’s lying,” José says. “She didn’t take it. He had one of his friends put it in her backpack so she’d get detention, too.”

  “Whoa,” says Leon. “Did you see this, José?”

  “No, but I know. She sits right in front of Jason Horspool. He’s like that with Blake.” He holds up two fingers.

  Leon rubs his mustache. He puts an arm around Blake. He says, “You know, Blake, you kind of remind me of me at your age. And that’s why I’m not going to follow up on what my brother just told me about you. We’re going to let it go. Because we’re starting over, you and José and Kestrel and me. To go a different way. Because I think you really want to be a good person. Because almost everybody does, deep down. It’s funny, but that’s the way it is. So before you go, I’m going to tell you something somebody told me about how to be good. It was when I was in the Navy. My chief petty officer said to me, ‘Iturrigaray, never write a check with your mouth that you can’t cover with your ass.’ It doesn’t cover every moral choice you have to make. But it works for most of them. Remember those words, Blake.”

  I’m standing there tingling because those are the other words I dreamed.

  Leon takes his arm off Blake. “I hope the next time we meet will be under more pleasant circumstances,” he says.

  Victor picks up Blake’s trophy and turns it upside down. Ten pounds of pebbles fall out of it.

  Blake takes it and goes.

  “See you around,” Leon calls after him.

  14

  SCRATCHES

  “MAY WE TAKE YOU HOME?” Leon asks me.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  We start to walk away. The cat hollers again.

  “Wait,” I say. “I can’t leave him.”

  “He’s pretty far up that tree,” Chris says. “I don’t think we can get him down.”

  “Give me a boost,” I say.

  José makes a stirrup with his hands and I’m up into the branches. When I stand up, the kitten is about four feet out of my reach. I ease myself up a little. The tree sways. Below me, the Iturrigarays spread out to break my fall in case I do. I go up another branch. The tree sways worse. The kitten looks down at me with huge, scared eyes. He hisses.

  “Blesséd be,” I whisper.

  The kitten tries to back away. Then he realizes that he doesn’t like going backwards uphill and turns around. I reach up for another branch, which shakes the one he’s on just a little. He loses his grip and falls onto my face.

  “RRROWWWOWWW,” he says, and scratches me good. But my free hand grabs him and pulls him off.

  “EEEYYYOWWWWWWWWOW,” the kitten comments.

  Now how am I going to get down? Especially with him scratching and twisting and trying to bite?

  “Drop him,” José calls up.

  But I don’t want to do that. Cats can get hurt that way. Everybody thinks they can’t but they can.

  “AAAAAOOOOOOWWWOWWW.”

  “You better be grateful,” I tell the kitten, and stuff him down my shirt. Then I get down as fast as I can, with the kitten trying to get out through the neck, the sleeve, through the waist, scratching me everywhere there is to scratch.

  “Agh!” I holler, as he hooks onto my bra with his hind feet and pokes his head out beside mine. I stuff him back down, sit on the lowest branch of the tree, and jump. Then, on the ground, I reach up under my shirt and haul him out.

  The cat is so little I could almost cover him with my hands. He’s all gray except for a few white hairs on his neck. A really great gray, like a foggy night. But he’s matted and kind of dirty. And he’s totally skinny. He clamps himself onto my hand and starts biting like he’s trying to kill it, which it feels like he probably will.

  “What are you going to do with him?” José asks me.

  “Maybe somebody around here owns him,” Leon says. “But he looks pretty young to be given away. I think he’s a dumper.”

  “I’m taking him home,” I say. “Aunt Ariel will know what to do.”

  So we get in their car. The closer we get, the more beautiful I see it is. Besides the blue and chrome there are these delicate little black tracings all over it, like calligraphy. Some of it is calligraphy. On the fender it says Elena in long flowing swoops.

  Chris gets in on the far side in the back. Leon and Victor get in front. José holds the door open for me and I get in the middle in the backseat. And the seats are blue velvet, and the upholstery overhead is blue leather, and even the dome light has a blue bulb in it.

  “This has got to be the greatest car anybody ever made,” I say.

  “Been in our family since 1960,” Leon says. “Victor was born in it, on the way to the hospital.”

  “Who made it like this?” I ask.

  “My father cherried it out the first time,” Leon says. “After he died, it got pretty ratty. Chris fixed it up the second time.”

  He turns the key and the engine roars and we pull away from the curb. I feel like I’m riding home on a float, or maybe a carriage. I’m all scratched up, and the kitten hates that we’re moving, but I just hold on to it, while my carriage takes me down the street.

  When we get to Aunt Ariel’s place, she’s standing on the lawn.

  José lets me out and stands there slouching again.

  “When you didn’t come home, I called the school,” she says. “They said you’d been released from detention and they didn’t know where you were.”

  I give her the note.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Not as sorry as they’re going to be,” she says, stuffing the letter into her dress without reading it.

  I think she means the Iturrigarays. “No, Aunt Ariel,” I say. “These guys are cool. They saved me. José and his brothers and cousin all sa
ved me and this cat from Blake Cump.”

  Ariel looks blank for a second. Then she gets it. “Oh, I see what you mean. No, dear, I meant the school, not these gentlemen.”

  “I’m Sergeant Leon Iturrigaray, Jurupa Police,” Leon says. “I did a little intervention with the Cump boy and my kid brother this afternoon. Your niece, too. I hope everything’s going to be a little calmer now.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, sergeant. I’m Ariel Murphy, Kestrel’s aunt,” Ariel says, shaking his hand. “And I hope you’re right.”

  “This is José,” I say, dragging him forward. “He does neat pictures. He’s in my English class.”

  “How do you do, José?” Ariel says, offering her hand.

  José takes it, gives it a little squeeze, ducks his head, and says, “’Lo.”

  “Listen, I gotta put this cat in the house before I bleed to death,” I say. I run to the door, open it, and throw the cat inside. Then I run back.

  “Would you like to come in, gentlemen?” Ariel asks.

  “My cousin has to get to his dojo, and I have some errands to run before I go to work,” Leon says. “Maybe we could take a rain check.”

  “I hope it rains soon,” I say like a geek.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Ariel says out of the side of her mouth.

  “Let my aunt see your car, okay?” I say. “José’s brother did it.”

  José looks to Leon. Leon nods.

  “Sure,” says José.

  So Aunt Ariel walks all around the car like she’s studying it. I follow her. I notice that on the driver’s side the beautiful lettering says Armando. She walks all around it and ends up in front of the grille.

  “What’s under the hood?” she asks.

  “Basic Chevy juiced up to around three hundred hp,” Leon says.

  “May I see?” Ariel asks.

  So Leon pops the hood and shows us this engine that could move a starship. Parts of it gleam silver and parts are painted red, and it’s all clean. It’s the cleanest engine I’ve ever seen. You could cook on this engine.

  “Que magnífico!” Aunt Ariel breathes.

  For the first time, Victor says something.