Spells & Sleeping Bags

by Sarah Mlynowski

  There is no way I'm budging from this spot. “All right, but I'm right back here if you need me. My little sister,” I explain to my new friends. New best friends? Soon-to-be best friends?

  “So,” I begin, “is this your first—”

  I'm interrupted by the blue-lipped Janice, who has motioned to the bus driver to close the door and is now looking nervously around the bus. “You're all here, right?” Janice then points at each of us while silently counting. “All right, you all seem to be here. Everyone ready?”

  “We're ready,” announces Trishelle.

  Janice's blue lips stretch into a half smile. “Ready to start the summer?”

  The girls around me all holler and applaud.

  “Then let's get this bus rolling!”

  As the driver pulls onto the street, the girls cheer. I feel like cheering a bit too, but I don't want to look weird. Ah, what the heck. “Yay!” I pipe in.

  I lift my knees into the fetal position and place the soles of my pink sneakers against the back of the seat in front of me. “Is this your first year too?” I ask my new BFF.

  “No way,” Alison says. “My ninth.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. I started going when I was seven. My older brother had been going to Wood Lake for years, and I begged my parents to let me come as soon as I was old enough.”

  “Were you in the starter program? My stepsister is doing it next month.”

  “Nah, that's new.” She gives me a big smile. “So how did you hear about Wood Lake?”

  When I was dating Will Kosravi (don't blame me for going out with the older brother of the love of my life; blame a love spell gone wrong à la Miri), he happened to mention that he was going to Wood Lake for the summer, and I happened to mention it to my stepmom, who was trying to get some alone time with my dad and decided it would be ideal for Miri, Prissy (my stepsister), and me to go off to camp. “Through someone at school,” I answer, not quite ready to spill my heart. She might be my new BFF, but I've known her for only ten minutes. “Is your brother still at camp?”

  She shakes her head. “Not anymore. He's twenty-three and in med school.”

  “That's a big age difference.”

  “Half brother,” she explains. “His dad got remarried to my mom.”

  A divorce in the family! We have something in common besides being in the same bunk!

  “It sucks that he's not here, actually. He was head staff. Hey, your sister is motioning to you,” Alison tells me.

  I look up, and indeed, Miri is frantically waving. “What's wrong?” I call to her.

  Come here, she mouths.

  Five minutes, I mouth, holding up five fingers, then turn back to Alison. “Sorry.”

  “Well, it was great when he was here. Our bunk never got in trouble for anything. Last year we were raiding the kitchen, and Abby, the head of Koalas, caught us, but my brother begged her not to rat us out.”

  “Lucky. What was your brother head of?”

  “Waterfront. Swimming and boating.”

  Although I'm intrigued by the idea of boating, I'm not really looking forward to the swimming part of the summer. I mean, I know how to swim, sort of, if you count cooling off in my dad's pool after suntanning. And I can hold my head underwater for at least six seconds. That has to count for something, right? At least I have two cool new bathing suits, a funky black and white one-piece and a sexy orange bikini. I also brought an old stretchy one-piece that belonged to my mom, which I am only planning on wearing when I have no other options, because that's like sharing a used tissue.

  Anyway.

  “Your sister is trying to get your attention again,” Alison says. “Is she okay?”

  She's certainly giving me a cramp. A cramp in my style. “I'll be right back,” I tell Alison, then carefully maneuver my way down the center of the bus and into the seat next to Miri.

  She is an alarming shade of green. “I don't feel well. I think I might—”

  And that's when she throws up all over herself, the seat, and me.

  Suddenly, the entire bus is silent. And then choruses of “Gross!” and “Nasty!” echo through the vehicle, turning my sister tomato red.

  “You okay?” I ask, mortified for the two of us.

  Her lips are trembling like she's about to cry. “Would it be too obvious if I disappeared?” she whispers.

  “Yes,” I whisper back.

  “Oh, no.” Janice has jumped up to inspect the atrocity. “We have a puker. Stop the bus!” she orders the driver. The driver turns off the highway and pulls into a gas station. My cheeks are burning up, but it's not because of the heat. This is excruciatingly embarrassing. I can't believe Miri did that.

  We mope our way into the gas station's scummy, egg-scented bathroom. Once we lock the door, Miri takes off her shirt and carries it over to the sink.

  “Is it coming out?” I ask, stripping off my own shirt and wiping it under the faucet. Meanwhile, I study my reflection in the mirror. “Do you think my boobs are growing?”

  She looks up from her rinsing. “Your left boob looks bigger.”

  “Bigger than what?”

  She peers closely. “Than your right one.”

  I adjust my shoulders and then take another look. Omigod, she's right. My boobs are finally growing! Yay! The left boob is definitely bigger than it was the last time I measured. (Not that I measure often. Only every day or two.) I've been wishing for bigger boobs for forever. I mean, is it fair that I'm an A-cup and my little sister is a B? I think not. Wahoo! But how did I not notice this when I was in the shower? Wait a sec. “Why isn't the right one growing too?”

  Miri shrugs. “That's what I was wondering.”

  Oh God. Oh, no. Panic washes over me like acid rain. Not that I know exactly what acid rain is, but I know it's bad. “How can one boob grow faster than the other? They're supposed to grow at the same rate! One arm doesn't grow longer than the other! One leg doesn't grow longer than the other! One foot doesn't—”

  “Actually, lots of people have different-sized feet.” Miri wiggles her own sneaker-clad foot as if to prove her point.

  “No, no, no. Isn't there a spell we can use to even them out?”

  “You know what Mom said about using boob spells before you've finished puberty. You could really mess up your body. Your hormones are already whacked out enough. I'm sure the other one will grow eventually.”

  “But what if it doesn't?”

  “Then you'll have two different-sized boobs.”

  I think I might cry. “It's not fair!”

  “It's not that much bigger than the other one.”

  “Yes, it is.” My life is officially over. I mean, come on! Camp is all about bathing suits. People are going to see my deformity.

  “Yeah, it's huge. So big it's practically another person. Let's call her Melinda.”

  How can she joke during a crisis like this? Hmm. “Why Melinda?”

  “I don't know. It rhymes with Glinda?”

  “Too confusing, I'll get them mixed up. Let's call her Bobby.”

  “Bobby is a boy's name.”

  “Get with it, Mir. Boys' names are very trendy for girls these days.”

  “Great. I'll change my name to Murray.” She continues scraping at her shirt and then sighs. “It's not coming out. I should try a clean spell from A2.”

  Miri is referring to The Authorized and Absolute Reference Handbook to Astonishing Spells, Astounding Potions, and History of Witchcraft Since the Beginning of Time, which we renamed Authorized and Absolute (hence the A2). I do not yet possess my own copy.

  “Really? Let me try it.” Now's my chance to practice a real spell, a published spell, and not some limerick I made up on the spur of the moment.

  “Now? People are waiting for us, and your magic hasn't been that dependable. . . .”

  What is she talking about? “My magic is just fine, thank you very much.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “So you were purposely levitating yo
ur knapsack out there?”

  “Oh, shut up. Come on, just tell me the spell.”

  “You're so difficult,” she grumbles. “Just touch the stain with a drop of soap. Then pour some salt into your left hand. Turn the hot water on with your other hand and let it wash over the salt while you repeat three times ‘Mark upon these robes be gone.’ ”

  “Miri, I don't have any salt on me.”

  She reaches into her knapsack and pulls out one of those skinny-minny restaurant salt packets. “A witch always carries around salt. It's, like, the miracle ingredient.”

  Yay! Problem solved. Almost. I can't believe it; I'm about to do my first real spell! Of course, I've been using my raw will all over the place, but since my mother hasn't given me my much-deserved copy of A2, I haven't yet tested an existing spell. She wouldn't let me begin my training earlier because she wanted me to focus on studying for my finals, and since I can't train from camp, she insists I wait until fall, when she will zap me up my very own copy of the book. So you can understand how excited I am about performing this spell. It's my very special rite of passage. Kind of like a bat mitzvah. A bat mitzvah in a gas station bathroom.

  Hands trembling, I dab the soap on our shirts and then on the shorts we're still wearing. Then, after I rip open the packet and dump the salt in my left hand, I turn the water back on and say:

  “Mark upon these robes be gone,

  Mark upon these robes be gone,

  Mark upon these robes be gone!”

  The power boils from somewhere deep inside me, through my arms and into my fingertips. The room gets really cold. And then, suddenly . . . our clothes are spotless! Yes! Yes, yes, yes! They're clean and they're . . . tie-dyed? Huh? The three colors in our outfits have somehow merged and turned into swirls on our clothes. Oh, man, is my magic cool!

  “Oh, no,” Miri whines. “I knew I should have done it myself.”

  “Give me a break, we're going to look awesome.” The uniforms are far less boring now. People will think that we just happened to have extra camp outfits in our knapsacks and that we're über-creative.

  “We are not. We'll look like we're wearing psychedelic pajamas. Yikes! Look what your butt says!”

  “What?” I turn around and try to stare at my behind in the mirror. Instead of saying Camp Wood Lake, my shorts now say Oodle Wamp Ack. As does my shirt. As does Miri's. Oops. “Can you fix it?”

  We hear a honk.

  “There's no time,” she says anxiously. “I don't know how, and A2 is in my duffel bag. At least people will be so busy trying to read your T-shirt, they won't notice your misshapen breasts.”

  Gee, thanks.

  When we return to the bus, Janice has already wiped up the mess and now looks more nervous than ever. She's also chewing a brand-new black pen. If this one explodes, she's going to look like a bruise.

  Head down, Miri squirms into her new seat in the second row. “Please stay up front with me?”

  Aw. First it was panic, then it was hot water and salt. Now guilt washes over me. How can I abandon my sister on her first day of camp? Though in all fairness to myself, camp hasn't officially started, since we're not there yet. Nevertheless, I take the seat next to her. And then I look back—forlornly—at my new friends in the middle.

  And we're off again. Off to a not-so-magical start.

  2

  BAD TIGGER

  Miri stares longingly out the window. “I wish I could poof myself off the bus.”

  Unfortunately for her, she can't. The one and only spell Mom has cast in the past month is a location charm that keeps Miri and me shackled to camp. It's essentially an invisible anklet made of distilled vinegar and cactus essence that works like a high-powered magnet. All we know is that we can't take it off without Mom's permission. Mom wants to keep us from zapping ourselves to Africa (Miri) or the Caribbean (me) when she's not around to monitor our comings and goings.

  “No broom flying or transporting for you,” I say.

  Miri looks back at all the girls and her shoulders tense. “I should have refused when Dad said he was sending us to camp.”

  “Too late now,” I say.

  “It's so unfair that Prissy gets to come for only two weeks, and we have to stay all summer. Why can't they have a starter session for older kids too?”

  My poor, socially inept sister. “Unlike Prissy, you're not six. Anyway, Mom is going to be in Thailand with Lex for most of August and it's not like she'd let us stay home alone.” It's weird that my mom is suddenly so serious about Lex. I'm happy for her, of course. But what if I need to get in touch with her while she's away? Shouldn't she be at my beck and call 24/7?

  She'd better bring me back some exotic clothes, or some hair chopsticks or something.

  Miri kicks the railing. “It's like I'm in prison.” Her eyes start to tear up. She has pretty much the same eyes as mine, big and brown, but her eyeballs are really white and sometimes they glow in the dark. Not in a creepy way. More like the moon.

  I tickle my sister's arm. “You're going to love camp. I promise.”

  Eventually, Miri curls into a ball and falls asleep with her head on my knee. Through the window I watch the passing of mountains and lush green trees, counting the seconds until we get to camp. I can't believe I'm going to be away from home for seven weeks and one day.

  Fifty days without chores! Fifty days without having to watch my mom make out with Lex! Fifty days without my stepmother calling me every five seconds to discuss her plans to get pregnant! Fifty days without having to bounce back and forth between my mom and my dad!

  Fifty days with Raf. Single, unattached Raf.

  “Did you hear?” my best friend, Tammy Wise, asked me ten days ago when we sat down at two empty desks for our math exam.

  “About what?”

  “About Raf and Melissa.”

  My heart leaped straight out of my chest, hit the ceiling, then bounced back in. Okay, not really, but it felt like it. Melissa Davis, my redheaded nemesis, had started dating Raf after Raf and I broke up back in April. Not that we'd really been going out, more like quasi going out. You know, him looking at me that way, me looking at him that way—there was a whole lot of looking going on. And one almost kiss (code for closed lips with no tongue action). “No, what?”

  “They broke up!”

  Yes! Yes! Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss! “When?”

  “Saturday night!”

  “What happened?”

  “He broke up with her, and she's none too pleased.”

  My heart was hammering; my fingers were dancing; my legs were spasming. It was like I was on an upside-down roller coaster, only I wasn't moving. “I need details, Tammy. Details!”

  “Apparently he told her that it's because he likes someone else.” Her eyebrows went into overdrive.

  The moderator flicked the lights off and on. “Please turn over your test booklets.” And that was when I felt the tingling. The raw will. The rush of cold. More specifically, the back window flew wide open.

  “What the . . . ,” said the moderator as he rushed to the back of the room. “Who did that?”

  I did. Did I?

  The lights started flickering; the teacher's desk flipped smack over; the window slammed shut. It was as if a poltergeist had taken over the classroom. And I had the twitchy yet sure feeling that I was responsible, or more precisely, my fantabulous powers were.

  I did some yoga-like breathing exercises to calm myself and tried to focus on the formulas in front of me. Thank goodness this was math, a subject I knew like the back of my hand.

  Unfortunately, from that moment on, I noticed that whenever I got overstimulated, my magic tended to get a bit . . . unruly.

  For example, while chomping Mom's cheese-and-tofu ravioli, I began picturing moonlit walks with Raf, canoeing with Raf, kissing Raf . . . and my heart started beating faster, and suddenly a ravioli square went soaring off my plate, bounced off the ceiling, and landed in my mother's carrot juice.

&nb
sp; My mom dropped her fork in midchew. “What was that?”

  If my mom knew I'd done that, I'd be eating tofu ravioli for the entire summer. Quick! I needed an excuse. A scapegoat. “Bad Tigger! Bad, bad Tigger.”

  Our cat, who was curled up in his favorite corner nook of the kitchen, licking his paws, narrowed his little yellow eyes as if to say Are you kidding me?

  My mom jumped up to clean the mess. “Bad Tigger,” she said, and I exhaled in relief.

  I'm sad to admit that during the past week, I've started blaming Tigger for pretty much everything. Chair knocked over? Tigger. Lights flickering? Tigger. Toilet paper roll unraveled all over the apartment? Tigger.

  Okay, that last one was him, but it was because he was so pissed off at me.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I hear is Janice's nervous voice.

  “We're here, girls. Everyone ready?”

  My eyes shoot open. Our bus has pulled onto the side of a dirt road, behind a row of already-parked buses. A few feet away is a wooden bridge crossing a murky pond. Beyond the bridge is a winding road that leads into thick trees.

  We're really here. Watch out, world! Miri, my socially inept sister, and I, a newly minted witch, both of us in swirly tie-dyed Oodle Wamp Ack psychedelic pajamas, have arrived!

  And let's not forget Glinda and Bobby.

  Kids are already streaming out of the buses, and I peer ahead, looking for Raf. Still no sign of him. I take a few slow breaths to calm myself. After all, I wouldn't want the buses to rise into the sky and fly off to another planet, E.T.-style.

  That's something I couldn't possibly blame on Tigger.

  “All right, girls,” Janice says. “Since you all sent your duffel bags earlier in the week, they've already been brought to your cabins.” A Camp Wood Lake van picked up the bags at our apartment, which was a lot easier than carrying them ourselves. There must be a lot of campers from Manhattan. But I only care about one.

  “In bunk two,” Janice continues, “we have Jenny Boland, Heather Jacobs, Jessica Curnyn—”