Twist My Charm

by Toni Gallagher

  “Um…yeah.” At least I’m being honest there. I did pet Toby several times while I was typing up the potion.

  “It’s not skunk,” Dad says, sniffing. “It’s more like…stew.”

  I’ve got to wrap this up—and fast. “Oh well, I’ll make sure I shower before school. Good night, Dad. I’ll put the dishes away in the morning.” I kiss him on the cheek and zoom down the hallway, shouting, “Good to see you, Terri!” as I go.

  “Wait!” Dad shouts. “Come here!”

  I stop. I turn around slowly and go back. But I stand as far away as possible, on the other side of the doorway.

  “I wanted to tell you: I looked up your uncle’s quote,” Dad says. “It’s from Lao-tzu.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s not a place; it’s a person. A Chinese philosopher.”

  That is pretty interesting, but as much as I’d like to spend time talking about Chinese philosophy and helping Dad and Terri get closer, right now I need to stay far away from their questioning noses. They haven’t even started to talk about how red I am. That’s bound to be next.

  “That’s cool, Dad. Thanks. See you in the morning. See you later, Terri!”

  I wave. Terri waves back. And as I walk away, I hear her say, “That brother of yours is quite a character, isn’t he?”

  If only Terri knew!

  I get to my room and jump into my bed. I want to fall right to sleep, but my mind is racing. Not only do I need to dream about Larry not liking me, I need to dream about Dad not liking Paige too. Kill two birds with one bay leaf bath, and everything will be solved!

  All I have to do is fall asleep. It’s what the potion says to do. But I still can’t. My nose is filled with the smell of bay leaves. An hour or so ago, I didn’t know what they were; now I’ll never forget them.

  My clock keeps tick-tick-ticking. This is getting serious now. I’ve got to fall asleep and I’ve got to dream…about the last people I want floating through my mind: Paige and Larry.

  —

  Eventually I fall asleep, and I dream for sure. There’s a boy, but I don’t think he’s Larry because he has blond hair. Maybe it’s Ryder Landry! I don’t quite see his face, but he’s wearing a knit beanie, so there’s a good chance it’s him. “Cleo, you’re the girl for me,” he says, taking my hand in his. I should be excited, but even in a dream I’m embarrassed. Then he lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it…or is he licking it? That’s weird. And gross. Why is Ryder Landry licking my hand?

  I open my eyes and look down my arm.

  Ryder Landry isn’t licking my hand.

  Toby is!

  I pull my hand away and give it a sniff. Yep, I still smell like bay leaves.

  “Cleo, we’re late!” Dad shouts from the front of the house.

  Oh no! I jumped into bed so fast last night I forgot to set the alarm. And Dad probably started reading again after Terri left and he fell asleep too!

  As fast as I can, I hop from under my covers and hit the floor. “I have to take a shower!”

  “No time!” Dad yells. I look at my clock and growl. He’s right. It’s way too late. “Throw on some clothes and let’s go. I’ll give you money for lunch!”

  I pull on the first clothes I see and run to meet Dad at the car, hoping that lunch isn’t stew today. I’ve had enough of that.

  —

  On our drive to school, we spot Red Shorts on a neighborhood street, reading his newspaper and walking quickly, as usual. Dad rolls down his window and says, “Beautiful day, huh?” Red Shorts nods, smiles without showing his teeth, and keeps walking.

  “Does he ever stop?” I ask as Dad rolls up the window.

  “I’ve never seen him stop,” Dad says. “It’s kind of a sad story, actually. At least from what I’ve heard. Who knows whether it’s true or not.”

  “What?” I lean in. This could be interesting.

  “Well, people say he and his wife used to walk together every once in a while. When she passed away, he couldn’t stand being in his house alone, so he started to walk more and more, and now that’s all he does.”

  I’m amazed. “He doesn’t eat or sleep or go to the bathroom?”

  Dad laughs. “He must do all that, but I don’t know. All I know is that every time I see him, he’s walking.”

  “Yeah, me too.” It’s hard to believe it’s possible to love someone so much that it makes you walk and walk and walk. I don’t like walking that much, so I’m fine if I never fall in love like that.

  —

  When Dad and I arrive at the parking lot at school, he surprises me by pulling into a space instead of stopping by the curb. Even worse, he takes off his seat belt!

  “What are you doing?” I ask. It’s bad enough to have your dad drop you off at school and for people to see if his hair is messy or he’s wearing goofy glasses or he says something dumb like “Catch ya on the flip side,” whatever that means. I don’t want him hanging out here!

  “I’m meeting a friend,” he says—and then I see her. Paige! She’s sitting on a bench by the entrance to the school, wearing her tight-fitting, expensive yoga pants and matching jacket. Lifting a large paper cup, most likely coffee, to her lips and taking a sip. Leaving a red lipstick stain, I’m sure, on its plastic lid. Dad can’t possibly intend to stay and sit with her right in front of the school—can he? When Terri was just at our house last night?

  I try to walk ahead, but Dad keeps the exact same pace so we’re walking together. Not cool. Then I see it—on the bench on the other side of Paige. Another cup of coffee!

  A coffee date at your child’s school? This is the worst parenting ever.

  Terri would never do something so ridiculous. She knows better. She shows up for appropriate school events like plays and art shows—not dates.

  “Have a good day,” Dad says to me as he takes a seat with Paige.

  “Nice to see you, Cleo,” Paige says, her white teeth perfect, especially against that red lipstick, which is not smudged at all.

  “Yeah, you too. Bye,” I mumble, then zoom into the courtyard, hoping that no one has seen this offensive display. I stand outside our classroom door, scanning the room for Madison before I go in.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder. “What is going on in front of the school?” I’m startled at first, but it’s exactly who I was hoping to see.

  “Oh my gosh, Madison, thank goodness. We have got to talk—”

  She interrupts. “What is that smell?”

  So it didn’t fade at all on the way to school. Great.

  “It’s a potion I made last night, trying to reverse everything.”

  Madison’s eyes get big and bright. “Did you use your love potion? Finally?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I tell her, “but I really, really wanted to.” She laughs when I tell her about calling Uncle Arnie and the wacky lady at his house, and about my hot and stinky bay leaf bath. “I guess it was kind of funny,” I admit, “but it didn’t work. Dad still likes Samantha’s mom. At least enough to have a coffee date. Yuck.”

  Madison looks thoughtful. “Well…is that really so bad?” she asks.

  Why would she say such a thing? She knows the plan! Dad and Terri.

  Madison leans in. “Does it really matter who your dad falls in love with, as long as he’s in love and not so sad anymore?”

  I can understand why she thinks that. But I know how it’s wrong, and I know exactly how to explain it to her. “It’s like that Ryder Landry song,” I say. “You don’t want just anyone. You only want your only one. The one who always stuns, the one who never runs, the one who’s there for fun. The one who will be by your side forever…”

  Madison joins in. “The one who will turn on you never, never ever…” She waves her hand in front of me. “Stop. I’m going to cry.” It’s true; her eyes are a little bit watery. “Are you sure Terri is your dad’s Only One?”

  “For sure!” I say. “How could I go on with my life, all normal, when I know that he’s suppose
d to be with her but ended up with Sam’s mom because of me? I mean, I tried to make that happen once and I’m sorry I did. He didn’t like Paige then and he can’t like her now. They don’t look right together. They don’t sound right together. They don’t have fun conversations and jokes. She’s just…there.”

  “Well then, we’ve got to get him together with Terri,” says Madison.

  I agree. That’s where he belongs.

  She’s definitely his Only One.

  Before we can discuss it further, the bell rings. School’s always getting in the way of more important things. I rush to my seat, and though I don’t mean to, I glance toward Larry.

  He’s looking straight at me, raising his eyebrows in a long-distance hello. If eyebrows could talk, they’d be saying, “I love you.”

  This isn’t good.

  I turn away as quickly as possible, as Kevin tells us to get out our math workbooks. I pull my pencil case out of my desk and open it.

  POP! KA-BLOW! An explosion of colorful confetti flies into the air, into my hair, onto my clothes, and then onto the floor. Lisa Lee screams like she’s heard a gunshot, and Kylie Mae puts her hand over her heart. They’re both being a little dramatic. I mean, this was surprising, but it was hardly heart-attack surprising!

  Picking the confetti out of my hair, I see that it’s shaped like stars, hearts, and smiley faces. It’s got to be Larry. He’s definitely the kind of boy who could rig a mini explosion inside a pencil case; plus his lovey-eyebrow face has turned into a goofy, grinning one. The little monkey on his desk looks like he’s smiling too, though I know in reality he always has the same expression.

  I glance at Samantha, praying she doesn’t have any idea where this romantic gesture came from. She has no expression at all—but I hope her expressionless expression isn’t anger. I know what she does when she’s angry: she chases you through graveyards and throws boots and pepperoni at you!

  Kevin, however, is not expressionless. “Cleo, what’s this all about? What is this mess?”

  “It wasn’t me!” I sputter. But here I am, covered in the stuff. There’s no denying I’m involved somehow.

  “Well, clean it up when we have our next break. Let’s turn to page one-eighty-two and get started….”

  I look over at Madison. She understands what’s going on and feels my pain. Larry’s half nodding, like he wants my approval. He’s not going to get it.

  Well, if I had any question about the bay leaf potion before, I don’t now. It hasn’t worked.

  —

  The day gets worse from there.

  At lunchtime, Madison says she’s hungrier than usual, but I’m guessing that’s because I smell like stew. We stand in the lunch line together. Normally I wouldn’t buy lunch on the day they serve almond-encrusted organic chicken breast and steamed garlic spinach, but today I have no choice, since Dad didn’t make me a lunch.

  As a cafeteria worker puts a rice cake on my tray (we get those instead of rolls, which might actually be tasty), I hear a voice behind me. “What’s that smell?”

  It’s Lisa Lee, looking like someone’s holding a week-old bologna sandwich under her nose. “Are you wearing your lunch?”

  “She smells like my mom’s spice rack,” Kylie Mae whispers, loud enough for me to hear, of course.

  “Maybe it’s the latest perfume,” Madison tells them.

  I like that idea! I add, “Yeah, it’s so new, you don’t even know about it.” Los Angeles is odd enough that this could maybe be true. Dad told me he heard about a restaurant where people eat dinner in a pitch-black room, and they can’t see their food or their forks or even their hands in front of their faces. In LA, any weird thing can be popular.

  Lisa Lee and Kylie Mae look at each other. For a moment—one tiny, hopeful moment—it looks like they could possibly, just possibly, believe me. Then they both shake their heads. “Nah,” they agree.

  Oh well. We tried.

  I step away from them to pay the cashier. I know I have my wallet in my backpack, but I’m not sure which pocket it’s in, so I have to unzip them all. The cashier sighs as I hear the conversation behind me.

  “I really hope you’ll come to the Bling Bling with us,” says Lisa Lee.

  Kylie Mae adds her usual, “Yeah.”

  Then I hear Madison’s voice. “I’m not sure. We’ll see.”

  We’ll see? I try to concentrate on finding my wallet, but it’s kind of hard when I’m hearing this.

  “Come on, Maddy, we’ve been doing it all our lives, and we always have the best time; you know it’s true.” I wonder if Madison hears the same whiny voice I do when I listen to Lisa Lee.

  “Yeah,” Kylie Mae says again.

  Madison says she doesn’t know. “I’ll think about it. I’ll be seeing you this summer anyway.”

  “That’s why we need to kick it off at the Bling Bling, duh!” says Lisa Lee.

  “Yeah,” Kylie Mae says. “Duh.”

  The more I listen, the more disturbed I get. Then, finally, I pull out my wallet, trying to feel triumphant instead of bummed. I give the cashier a weak smile, but she’s not impressed by the magnificent feat of finding my money.

  “Um, you dropped something,” says Lisa Lee. I can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s not talking to Madison anymore.

  When I turn, Kylie Mae is bending down and picking up a piece of paper from the floor. I have no idea what it is, but I’m sure I don’t want Kylie Mae’s mitts on it! She hands it to Lisa Lee, who unfolds it.

  “Hey, that’s Cleo’s!” says Madison. But it’s too late.

  Lisa Lee reads it out loud. “You, you, you plus me, me, me. Put them together and it’s fun at the Bling Bling Summer Fling.” She looks up from the paper. “Someone’s a Ryder Landry fan, I see.”

  Of course I know who it’s from, and he’s the opposite of a Ryder Landry fan. He’s just making a chemistry joke.

  “Who’s it from?” Kylie Mae asks.

  “Doesn’t say,” says Lisa Lee. Thank goodness! If he had written Love, Larry (or something crazier, like Lovingly yours or Your one true love), I would never hear the end of it. Lisa Lee folds the note back up and hands it to me. “But it looks like you have a date to the Bling Bling. So you won’t mind if Madison comes with us.”

  The cashier clears her throat. She’s been waiting a long time for her money.

  “That’s, um, up to Madison,” I say.

  “She does smell funny,” I hear Kylie Mae say as I pay the cashier and flee into the lunchroom. I scan the room from side to side and don’t see Larry. I’m glad. If he got close enough to get a whiff of me, he’d probably say I smell as nice as a powdery baby or an ice cream parlor serving waffle cones.

  I gobble up my food, barely even talking to Madison. I don’t want to discuss her plans for the Bling Bling Summer Fling, and I don’t want to run into Larry. I just want to force down my organic chicken breast and steamed spinach and get back to class.

  When Larry walks into the lunchroom with his tray, I’m done. “I’m gonna go,” I tell Madison, standing up and heading toward the door.

  I’ve only been under the jungle gym for a minute when Madison runs out to join me. “You can’t live like this the rest of your life!” she says, a little out of breath.

  “I know,” I agree. “We have to do something. Something that will work.”

  Madison looks sympathetic. “Okay, then, let’s do another potion. As soon as possible.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Because the other ones have worked out so great?” I know I should try to be positive, but I can’t help it. We were only trying to do something good, and now it’s a big mess—with me in the middle. Smelling like stew.

  “What other choice do we have?” asks Madison. “Look, we don’t know exactly what’s going on with your dad and Sam’s mom, but this one with you and Larry—we’ve got to fix that!”

  Of course Madison is right. A love potion caused it; a love potion is going to have to make it right.

&
nbsp; —

  When Kevin tells us it’s time for the Focus! kids to head to Focus!, my heart feels paralyzed. I don’t want to walk across the schoolyard with Larry, so I leap from my chair and run for the door. I pull it open so fast, it almost hits me in the face. I cross the lawn, hearing Larry call out, “Hey, wait up!” but I pretend like I’m too far away to hear and zoom into the Focus! room, pushing other kids out of the way to keep my distance.

  Roberta has moved all the desks and chairs to the edges of the room, and I’m hoping this means we’ll play improvisational games, like when we tried out for Healthyland. Working on the play, it was acceptable to be weird. When you’re an actor, it might even be acceptable to smell like bay leaves. I bet Johnny Depp smells like bay leaves all the time.

  When all the other kids have streamed into the room—and I spot Larry and Samantha on the opposite side—Roberta announces what we’ll be doing today. Unfortunately, it’s not improv games. It’s something scary.

  Not scary like bungee jumping from a high tower or eating rat intestines or anything, but pretty darn scary for a random day at Friendship Community School.

  Square dancing. Ugh!

  I saw square dancing once at a county fair. A bunch of old couples, probably married a million years, were wearing what looked like Wild West costumes and walking around in circles to corny music. Square dancing is all about twirling and bowing and skipping around. This isn’t education; this is torture!

  “Square dancing is a great way to practice listening, following instructions, and working together,” Roberta tells everyone. She walks around the room and pulls people into position on the empty floor. “Plus, it’s fun,” she adds, though if the county fair was any example, I doubt it!

  Roberta puts Larry in the middle of the room and goes to get him a partner. I hunch my shoulders and hold my head down.

  “Roberta, I know who my partner should be,” Larry says in a big, grand manner. It scares me.

  It should.

  “Come on, Cleo. We’re partners in chemistry. Let’s be partners in square dancing too!”