The Babysitters Coven

by Kate M. Williams

  “Janis…,” I started, something inside me deflating. “You’re a really good babysitter. Kids love you.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to be the one left holding the blankie when someone gets hurt.”

  “What are you going to do instead?”

  She shrugged, her gold hoop earrings shimmering with the movement. “I’ll go back to making smoothies or something. It wasn’t that bad. I just have to keep my opinions to myself.”

  “But…” I had a million protests inside me. We’d had the babysitting club for so long that I couldn’t imagine not having it. “It won’t always be this way,” I said. “We’re going to figure out who was trying to kidnap the kids, and everything will go back to normal.”

  “Esme, you can move things with your mind and you’re talking about hunting down a kidnapper,” she said. “Nothing is ever going back to normal.”

  Ugh. I wanted to protest more, but deep down, I knew she was right.

  * * *

  —

  I was used to Cassandra appearing at school whenever she felt like it and not according to the school’s schedule, but today I saw her between every period. She was usually waiting for me at my locker, for no apparent reason, snapping her gum and looking up and down the hallway like she was on a stakeout. She never had a backpack, and didn’t carry textbooks, paper, or even a pen.

  “What class do you have now?” I asked, envious of her light workload as I walked to my next class, laden down with books and my heavy laptop.

  “Chemistry.”

  “You have chem?” I balked. “Where’s all your stuff?” That class was notorious for tons of homework and painful, hunchback-inducing textbooks.

  Cassandra smiled, and something twinkled in her eye. “I’m trying out gnosi.” She said that like I was supposed to know what it meant.

  “Gnosikinesis. Knowledge manipulation,” she said at my blank stare. “It makes it so I know something front to back after seeing or hearing it once. It works. I already got a hundred on the last pop quiz.”

  We had turned to take a shortcut behind the annexes, and before I could pepper Cassandra with more questions, we saw them and I lost my train of thought.

  Five of them. All with their arms folded across their chests, and just standing there like they were waiting for someone. Standing there like they were waiting for…us.

  The word “cheerleader” conjured up a certain image. High ponytails. Shiny nails. Cheeriness.

  Not here, though. Our cheerleaders were straight-up thugs.

  They’d taken the mantra “cheerleading is a sport” to the extreme, and had biceps to rival the baseball team. They’d been state champions three years in a row, and had the bro-bravado to match. They cut class, were rude to teachers, and were rumored to have slashed the tires of a rival squad’s bus. But true to our school’s whack priorities, all of that was forgiven every time they were clapping their hands and doing backflips on ESPN 24 or whatever channel it was that aired that kind of stuff.

  So when I saw Stephani Riggs, a junior who seriously spelled her name with no e, leaning against a wall, smacking her lip gloss and looking Cassandra up and down, it made me stop in my tracks. Cassandra either didn’t notice or was new enough to still be naive about the squad’s reputation, because she kept walking.

  “Hey, new girl,” Stephani called, pushing herself off the wall, with Shannon Clinton, her bulldog second-in-command, right behind her. Stephani’s ponytail looked like it had been dipped into a deep fryer, and Shannon’s eyebrows looked drawn on with Sharpie.

  “Cass,” I said quietly, trying to get her attention, but I failed.

  “New girl! She’s talking to you,” Shannon growled, which finally made Cassandra stop.

  “Wait, you’re talking to me?” Cassandra said, seeming genuinely confused.

  “Of course I’m talking to you,” Stephani snapped. “How many other new girls are there?”

  “I have no idea,” Cassandra said. “See, since I’m new, I wouldn’t know if someone else was also new. Right?”

  It was a very practical point, and one that was completely lost on Stephani, Shannon, and their three minions, Sheryl, Shauna, and Tonya, the lone T in the squad’s top squad.

  “I hear you were chatting up my man last weekend,” Stephani said. She started to walk toward us, and the other four followed her like they were a five-headed, athleisure-clad Hydra. I tried to appear calm as I glanced around us, looking for other students—or, better, a teacher or faculty member—who might prevent this from turning into the confrontation I was 99 percent sure it was about to turn into. I also frantically sent Cassandra mental messages not to say anything that would make SSSST any more pissed off than they already were.

  She didn’t get them.

  “Your man?” Cassandra said, doing the unthinkable and actually taking a step toward Stephani. “I don’t even know who your ‘man’ is.”

  Oh God, did she really just make air quotes at the cheerleaders?

  “You know who he is,” Stephani hissed.

  “No, I don’t,” Cassandra said, smiling like she knew a secret. “I’m new here, remember? I’ve seen a bunch of little boys sniffing around campus, but men? I don’t think so.”

  I did not like where this was heading. I did not like it at all.

  “Craig Lugweather!” Stephani practically yelled, at which point Cassandra did the worst thing she could possibly do and burst out laughing. Now I was panicking. Cassandra was either completely oblivious or knew and did not care at all that she was about to get jumped. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t about to run off and leave my friend when it was five-on-one, but realistically, what was I going to do if it was five-on-two? I was a hider, not a fighter.

  “Your ‘man’ is Craig Lugweather?” Oh God, not the air quotes again. “The one with the bacne and the premature beer gut?”

  To Stephani these weren’t insults. Just more proof that Cassandra’s eyes, and maybe even her hands, had been roaming where they shouldn’t have been.

  “You little slut!” she squealed. “How do you know he has bacne?” Shannon put an arm out in attempt to hold Stephani back that was totally just for show.

  “Because it creeps out of his shirt, up his neck, and down his arms,” Cassandra said. “He sits in front of me in English and scratches his pustules until they bleed. Your ‘man’ is disgusting.” She smiled again. “Which is why I did not give him my number when he asked for it last weekend.”

  At that, Shannon’s arm went up, releasing Stephani to fly at Cassandra in a rage. It happened so fast that I was frozen in place. With two hands, Stephani shoved Cassandra in the chest and sent her flying backward. Cassandra stumbled but didn’t fall, and went straight back at Stephani. Cassandra grabbed Stephani’s hair with one hand, held her head down, and started hitting with the other—slaps and punches connecting with Stephani’s face, neck, and shoulders.

  Stephani had a hold of Cassandra’s sweatshirt and was swinging at her face. I winced when her closed fist hit Cassandra in the chin and they both fell to the ground, where they rolled on top of each other.

  “Stop it!” I screamed, running to them. I grabbed Stephani’s shoulders to try to break them up. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Shannon run in too, and I had a momentary rush of solidarity with her, as there was no way I was going to be able to break this up myself.

  Then she kicked Cassandra in the chest.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed at her. Then the next thing I knew, Shauna was in my face, and I felt like I was being scalped as her ham-hands grabbed at my hair.

  Oh, hell no. I managed to get a palm up and pointed in her direction, and with a blast, I lifted her whole body three feet off the ground. She let go of my hair, and I threw her into the side of the annex.

  Holy moly. I guess this is that �
�power of adrenaline” people are always talking about. Sheryl and Tonya started screaming like banshees, and I turned to see that Shannon’s pants were on fire, flames licking up past her knees. She didn’t know whether to keep trying to kick Cassandra in the face or stop, drop, and roll.

  So much for passive resistance. Cassandra and I had escalated this from routine fight to full-on catastrophe in about thirty seconds.

  Stephani was now on top of Cassandra, one knee digging into Cassandra’s arm and pinning it to the ground. There was no going back now, so I pointed my palm at Stephani and gave her split ends a good hard pull. She squealed, not knowing why her head was suddenly being yanked back, but she pushed forward with her attack. I did the only thing I could think to do.

  When we’d gotten a pit bull, Dad had read up on how to break up a dogfight, just in case Pig had turned out to be anything other than the bucket of soft-serve that she was. Kicking and hitting a fighting dog will just make it angry and it will bite down harder. What you have to do is disorient it, and the quickest way to do this is by grabbing its back legs and lifting it into the air so that it’s suddenly dangling upside down.

  Stephani wasn’t a dog, but she sure as hell was a bitch, so I raised both hands in her direction, then used my powers to grab her ankles right above her Nikes and hoist her up until she was dangling like she was doing a handstand. She was the heaviest thing I’d ever lifted, and keeping her dangling in the air felt like doing crunches with my brain. Cassandra made a tiny flame appear in her hand and then smashed it onto Stephani’s forearm. Banshee screams echoed off the school walls.

  Then someone yelled “What in the world are you doing?” from behind me. Startled, I dropped Stephani Riggs into a crumpled heap on the ground.

  I knew that voice well. Too well.

  I spun around to see Brian storming toward us. I had never seen anyone in a tracksuit look so angry. In fact, he seemed so pissed that I wondered what he’d seen—the fire, or Stephani hanging upside down like she’d been strung up on an invisible clothesline?

  If he’d noticed anything unusual, surely he’d have been less mad and more confused. Or scared, even.

  Sheryl ran up to him with tears streaming down her face. “Coach Davis, did you see that? They’re evil! One of them made Shauna fly, and the other tried to set Shannon on fire!”

  “Shut up,” Brian said, and sidestepped her like she was nothing more than a yapping Yorkie. Sheryl’s mouth hung open in disbelief, as she was clearly not used to being told to shut up, especially not by a teacher.

  He stalked over to me, grabbed my arm in a grip that was tighter than necessary, and dragged me along until we were both standing over Cassandra. Stephani was still on the ground too, looking dazed, but Cassandra’s eyes were clear and fiery.

  “Get up,” he snarled at them, and they both hastily struggled to their feet. He whipped me around so that I was standing next to Cassandra, our shoulders practically touching. Then he turned to the cheerleaders.

  “The five of you are coming with me, now,” he said. Then he turned back to us. “And you two are staying right here until I come back. Do not move.” Behind him, Stephani smirked, sure that there was no way the head of the athletic department would get her into trouble. Fighting earned a suspension. A suspension earned an absence from the cheerleading squad, and no faculty member would risk that, since everyone knew that no one could double-backflip like Stephani Riggs.

  Brian was starting to usher the girls away, when he suddenly turned around and walked back to Cassandra and me. “Do not try to get out of this by running off,” he said, his voice low enough that the cheerleaders couldn’t hear it. “Remember, Esme, I know where you live. And, Cassandra, I can find you too.”

  I nodded and tried to swallow, but my mouth was so dry that my tongue just stuck to the roof of my mouth. My body was still shaking as my breath slowed, and I turned to look at Cassandra. For someone who had just gotten jumped by five girls in Lululemon, Cassandra seemed pretty unfazed. She was still breathing hard as she ran her fingers through her hair and adjusted her clothes. Aside from a small rip in her jeans, she didn’t look any worse for the wear.

  I, on the other hand, was shaking, reeling from what had just happened. When Cassandra started to walk away, I grabbed her and dug my nails into her arm.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I don’t know. Home? I’m certainly not just going to sit here and wait for that guy to come back and punish us. That was really creepy, what he just said.”

  I tightened my grip on her arm. “That guy is my dad’s best friend. I’m not going anywhere, and since this is all your fault, you’re not either.”

  She pried my fingers off one by one. “It’s not my fault. It’s that girl’s fault. I don’t even know who she is, and she started this whole thing.”

  “Stephani’s an idiot. She can’t even spell her own name. You could have walked away, but you played right into her.” I had a vision of the consequences that were going to be waiting for me, especially since I already seemed to be on treacherous ground with Dad after driver’s ed. “I’m going to be grounded for a month, or worse.”

  Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Where I’m from, walking away isn’t really an option,” she said. “Neither is running away, because that just leads to a lifetime of being picked on in gym class.”

  Anger flared in my chest, and my cheeks burned. “Excuse me?” I almost spit. “Run away? I saved your butt back there, and the only way you can think to thank me is to call me a coward?”

  “I didn’t call you a coward.” She exhaled a stream of air and the hair around her face fluttered. “I’m just saying that you still think of yourself as someone who needs to run from other people, when other people should be running from us.” She leaned in closer to me so that her face was only a few inches from mine. “We’re the scary ones. Did you hear that girl screaming? She’s terrified of us. Because we’re powerful, and we’re still discovering everything that we can do. We could rule this school if we wanted to. We could rule this town. But I’m thinking bigger than that, even if you aren’t.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped. “You think this is some sort of magical pyramid scheme you can use to get the best seats at Outback Steakhouse? I don’t think—” I stopped midsentence when Brian reappeared, looking no less angry than he had moments before. I was waiting for him to lead us straight to the principal’s office, or at least his own office, which was hidden away off the gym at the back of the guys’ locker room. Instead he motioned for us to follow him and walked away from the building, into the teachers’ parking lot, and finally to his car. Brian’s car was a black, two-door Ford Explorer. I’d ridden in it, years before, but I was very familiar with it because of his frequent visits with my dad. He opened the passenger door, popped the seat forward, and motioned for Cassandra to get into the back seat.

  “No way,” she said. “I’m not leaving campus with a male teacher when I don’t even know where we’re going.” I knew Brian, and I trusted him as much as I trusted any adult, but I also had to admit that this was a little unusual.

  To my surprise, though, he didn’t offer any explanation. He just stood there and crossed his arms. “Get into the back seat,” he said, his voice low and threatening, “or I will make you.” For a second, Cassandra seemed unsure of what to do, and I thought she might actually turn and run. She shifted back and forth on her feet; finally, with a sigh that made it clear she was just humoring him, she climbed in. Then he shoved the passenger seat back into place, and when I got in, he slammed the door with equal force.

  “Someone woke up with their Under Armour in a bunch,” Cassandra mumbled as he walked around the car to the driver’s side, but I didn’t respond. I just stared straight ahead. I was growing more scared by the second, and not just of a grounding from Dad. Brian hadn’t asked if I was okay.
So far, he hadn’t asked us anything. He just seemed mad. Beyond mad. Furious.

  Brian drove in silence, and as he made turn after turn, I realized we were going to his house, and at this thought, I started inching my hand toward the door handle. If he slowed down at an intersection, I could always jump out. Sure, I’d be leaving Cassandra, but she’d be okay. Right?

  “Don’t even think about it, Esme,” Brian said, as if he were reading my mind, and I moved my hand back to my lap. I knew where Brian lived because I’d gone with Dad before to drop something off or pick something up, whatever it was that adults did on Saturday mornings. But I’d never been inside. Brian always met us on the porch. My mind started to spiral. What if he was a serial killer, and the whole inside of the house was lined with plastic? It was still the middle of the school day. Had he even told anyone he was leaving and taking two students with him? Maybe someone had seen us and the police were already on the way?

  I felt my stomach rising into my throat, and then Cassandra’s words came back to me. Why was I scared? I could yank the wheel right now and send this car straight into a tree. Brian should have been scared of me. From the back seat, I could hear Cassandra going to town on her gum. It was oddly comforting. Whatever Brian had in store for us, we could handle it.

  Brian still didn’t say anything as he parked in his driveway, got out, and walked to the front door. He unlocked it and stood there, which I guess was our cue to get out and follow him.

  “Is he going to murder us in there?” Cassandra asked. “Or worse?”

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered back. “That tracksuit is definitely flammable.”

  As soon as we stepped through the front door, Brian shut and locked it behind us, and my jaw dropped in shock. From what I knew about Brian—football coach, never married, middle-aged man—I would have expected his house to be mostly television sets and microwaves.