Paige studies the three dresses. “You can’t tell from a picture, anyway. You have to try things on. Everyone knows that.”
I didn’t.
Sunny holds the phone in front of her and does a fake model walk. “Does this help you decide?”
Not really, but I get an idea. “Let’s see…What rhymes with dress?”
The girls look at me, confused, as I chant, “Let’s model each dress so we’ll have success!” and toss the spell at the three of us.
Poof! There are three flashes of light, and then we’re each wearing the wedding dress we like best. Paige’s dress even came complete with the Greek column from the picture. I’m that good.
“Oooh!” Sunny says as she twirls in the hoop skirt. She puts on a fake Southern accent and drawls, “Ah declare, ah am the most beautiful bride of all!”
Paige lets the white silk of her gown slide between her fingers. “This is gorgeous!”
And I look behind me and see a long white satin train that stretches halfway down the path. As I walk, the train gets caught in a bush. Maybe a fifteen-foot train was not the best choice.
Paige takes a step toward me to help with my train and then says, “Uh-oh.”
“What is it?”
“The column is part of the ensemble.” (And it’s just like Paige to know a word like ensemble.)
“Please tell me you’re kidding.”
But sure enough, the tall Greek column is glued to the back of Paige’s white silk dress. Paige takes another step and the column comes with her. “It’s not heavy—it’s like the Styrofoam we use in art class. Help me get it off.”
Sunny reaches for the column, but her hoop skirt is wider than her arms can stretch. So I grab the column and try to pull it off. It doesn’t budge—not one bit.
Sunny, positive as usual, says, “Except for the column, Paige’s dress is prettiest! My mom would look beautiful in that one.”
Okay, decision made. The day of the wedding I’ll make the Greek goddess dress for Gina, minus the column.
And then I think of something: godmother spells last till midnight.
I used a spell to make these dresses.
Oops.
Paige, Sunny and I walk up the steps of the school in our white wedding gowns. We’re trying not to draw attention to ourselves, but it’s impossible. After all, I’m dragging a fifteen-foot train, Sunny’s bumping into kids with her hoop skirt, and Paige has a six-foot-high Styrofoam column stuck to her back.
“You really need to think before you do these spells!” Paige says, as cranky as Katarina.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
Sunny tugs at her skirt. “How did people ever wear these things? You couldn’t even ride a bike!” Wham! She bumps into Marcie Dunphy, the smallest girl in our class, and knocks her down. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
Marcie stares at us for a second, then picks herself up and scurries away.
When I feel a yank on my train, I’m sure it’s one of the boys giving me a hard time. “STOP THAT!” I turn around and see it’s not one of the boys; it’s Principal Nazarino.
She looks at the three of us, baffled. “What are you girls doing! Go home and change, now!”
That’s just what we can’t do. So I say, “All my other clothes were dirty, so my mom made me wear this.”
Principal Nazarino scowls at me. “And what about Sunny and Paige? Were all their clothes dirty, too? And is that a column?”
I’ve made a lot of excuses in my life, but “My clothes were dirty” has got to be the lamest one. (Even worse than the time I tried to get out of gym by saying my arm was broken and I was wearing a special invisible cast.) Principal Nazarino’s going to give us all detention, for sure.
Sunny elbows me. “Just tell her the truth, Lacey!”
“What?” I whisper to Sunny, “Are you crazy? I can’t tell her I’m a fairy godmo—”
Very loudly, Sunny says, “No, the truth! About how we’re entering the mascot competition today.”
Principal Nazarino, Paige, and I stare at Sunny like she’s crazy. But Sunny just punches the air with her fist and shouts, “GO, BRIDES!”
Wow, Sunny thinks fast. But that’s the stupidest idea for a mascot I’ve ever heard.
“This is a joke, right?” Principal Nazarino says.
Sunny shakes her head. The only thing I can do is play along. I punch the air, too, and shout, “LINCOLN BRIDES RULE!”
And Paige uses every bit of her cheerleader skills and shouts, “Give me a B!”
Sunny and I shout, “B!”
“Give me an R!”
“R!”
“Give me an I!”
“I!”
Principal Nazarino waves her hands. “Stop! I get it! But the mascot competition isn’t till this afternoon, so take those costumes off.”
Without batting an eyelash, Paige says, “These dresses are custom made, and we had to be sewn into them this morning. Look, I even glued the column on. It took hours.”
I love my godmother posse! My girls are the best! But is Nazarino buying it?
The principal walks around us, studying the gowns. To my relief, she smiles. “These dresses are really beautiful—I’ve seen ones just like them online.”
That makes sense, since that’s where I copied them from. I wonder what Principal Nazarino’s doing looking at wedding gowns? That seems way too girlie-girl for her.
Principal Nazarino says, “All right, I’ll let you keep them on. But if the dresses disrupt your classes, I’m sending you home until this afternoon. Good luck with the competition.”
Principal Nazarino walks away, and Sunny does a little tap dance. At least I think that’s what she’s doing—I can’t really tell, because I can’t see her feet under all that dress. She says, “Am I a genius or what?”
I say, “You’re a genius.”
Paige frowns, thinking of something. “A genius who just entered us in a mascot competition in front of the whole school. The kids are going to laugh at us.”
Sunny stops tap-dancing and frowns, too. She asks me, “Can you do a spell to make Principal Nazarino forget that we’re supposed to be in the show?”
“I could try…but I’d be messing with her brain. What if I exploded it or something?”
Paige asks, “How hard could a memory spell be?”
“You’re the one with a column stuck to your back. You tell me!”
“You’d totally explode her brain.”
I nod. “It’s not that big a problem. We’ll just hide in the janitor’s bathroom.”
Suddenly, there’s a surprised voice behind us. “Sunny? Girls?”
We all turn and see Gina, who holds an armload of art supplies.
“Mom! What are you doing here?” Sunny says.
“I’m volunteering for the art class. I’ve missed a lot lately, and I want to get back in the swing of things.” She stares in disbelief at our wedding dresses. “What the heck are you girls wearing?”
I say, “Uh…we’re going to be in the competition to choose the new school mascot this afternoon.”
I’m worried that the wedding dresses are going to make Gina sad, but she looks them over and laughs. “What a funny idea. If I’ve learned anything from Bridemonsters, it’s that there’s nothing more vicious than a bride. What time is the competition?”
“Two o’clock,” Sunny says.
“I’ll be back this afternoon with my camera! I can’t wait!” Gina disappears into the art class.
Sunny, Paige and I stare at each other. “I guess we’re going to be Bridemonsters,” I say.
Sunny and Paige nod.
Mr. Griffith, the music teacher, is in charge of today’s competition, so we go to the music room to sign up.
Mr. Griffith loves our wedding dresses. “These costumes are Tony-worthy.” He taps on Paige’s column. “Like Brecht with Dada-esque undertones.” (That’s the way Mr. Griffith talks. You’re lucky if you understand one in three things he says.) Then he
frowns. “You girls were supposed to sign up by last Friday.”
That’s good! Maybe we can still get out of doing this. I say, “We missed the signup day? Too bad! Darn it so much. But rules are rules.” And then I put on a fake sad expression.
“Wait! I’m not a dictator, and rules are meant to be broken.” (Since when? Mr. Griffith kicks people out of his class for having mismatched socks!) He looks at our dresses again and chuckles. “The Lincoln Bridemonsters. How clever! Show up at two and give the school your best!”
The fake sad expression was probably a mistake.
Mr. Griffith may love our dresses, but no one else in school does. The teachers all yell at Sunny because her hoop skirt blocks the aisles, and Paige can’t even sit down—all she can do is lean against her column.
And imagine walking around in a wedding dress with a fifteen-foot train! All morning, people are either tripping on it or trying to ride it.
I do remember to use the wand as a love locator a couple of times. I aim it at the assistant principal and ask, “Shall this man be Gina’s true love?” The wand makes an annoying little raspberry sound. The question sounds fancy, but the answer is rude.
Then I aim the wand at the janitor, at the nerdy guy who fixes the school computers, and at the man who refills the vending machines. The wand raspberrys all of them, and the sound gets a little ruder each time. I finally put the wand back in my pocket. What good is a love locator if the answer is always no?
Between second and third period, Scott comes up to me in the hallway and says, “Congratulations, Lacey!” But he doesn’t look happy.
He doesn’t think I’m actually getting married, does he? That’s not even legal.
“You are better than me,” Scott says.
I’m confused. Maybe the dress is cutting off the flow of blood to my brain. “Better? At what?”
“Basketball. The coach just told me: you made the A-team. You’re starting in Friday’s game.”
“You are, too, right?”
“No. I got cut. But I’m going to come watch you win.”
He got cut from the team? That’s so wrong—Scott deserves to play in the game. I’m only good because I’m cheating with magic.
Scott pats my back. “Way to go.” And he doesn’t mean it sarcastically, he really means it—he’s happy for me even if he’s sad for himself. He’s so nice, and I’m so awful.
What if I told Scott the truth? What if I told him I’m a fairy godmother? Would that make him feel better about being cut from the team…
…because I cheated?
No, it wouldn’t. This is really messed up.
At the end of Mr. Carver’s science class, it’s my turn to feed the mice. So instead of leaving for lunch, I stay behind and get out the Mouse Chow.
I have trouble getting the container open, because my fingernails are so chewed up from my worrying about Scott—not to mention Gina. How am I ever going to find her a husband by Friday?
The window near me is open, and the frogs in the woods next to the school are croaking like crazy, the way they always do.
I stare out the window, thinking. In the fairy tale, there’s a frog that turns into a prince when a girl kisses him. I know this is probably just a story—but I never believed in fairy godmothers before, either. If the story were true, I’d have a prince for Gina with one kiss. A prince who won’t change back at midnight, because he’s really human underneath.
It’s a crazy idea, but it’s the only one I have.
I pull out my wand and point it toward the woods. “Gina needs a princely frog. If you’re there, get off your log.”
A moment after I toss the spell, WHOOSH! Something zooms through the window, right at my head. I duck. Is it a frog prince?
No, it’s Katarina. She plops down on a desk, breathing hard.
I ask, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you home babysitting the pinch gnats?”
“Because they’re gone!”
“What?”
“I opened the closet door this morning, and they swarmed out and knocked me down. Lacey, you were right. There are more of them! They’ve been laying eggs!”
“In my closet? Yuck!”
“I wish they were still in your closet, because they all flew out the window. I assumed they were on their way to find you. They’re not here?”
“No.”
Katarina frowns. “Odd. They should be swarming all over you by now.”
“Maybe they found a hummingbird feeder.”
“Are there a lot of those?” Katarina asks.
“Everyone in town has one.”
“Well, that will probably keep them occupied for a while, but they could show up anytime.”
“Should we try to find them?”
“Don’t worry. When the last drop of hummingbird food is gone, they’ll find you.” Katarina’s been so distracted that she only just now notices my dress. She says, “What in the name of glitter are you wearing?”
“I was testing wedding dresses.”
“And you forgot about the midnight rule.”
Now might be a good time to change the subject. “Katarina? Are there really frog princes?”
“Of course not. That was just the frogs trying to impress people. Why?”
I’m not going to tell her I was stupid enough to believe in enchanted frogs. “Just wondering.”
Between the wedding dresses, the mascot competition, and the missing pinch gnats, this is turning out to be a very strange day.
As kids and teachers take their seats in the bleachers for the mascot competition, Sunny, Paige, and I wait in chairs on the gym floor along with the other candidates. Katarina hides behind the gardenias in my hair.
There’s over a dozen of us, including a Spartan with painted-on abs, a Viking with horns and a shield, and a scary-looking grizzly bear. The grizzly-bear costume is the most professional. The father of the kid who’s wearing it owns a car lot that has “Bear-y Good Deals,” and people get their picture taken with the bear when they buy a car.
I hear a weird clanking sound—maybe somebody’s competing as a knight or a robot. But it’s Gina, with three cameras around her neck. She rushes up and starts taking pictures, blinding us with camera flashes. “Girls, let’s see those dresses!”
Suddenly remembering why we were looking at dresses in the first place, I ask her, “Which dress do you like best?”
Gina looks at the three of us. “I could never decide! You all look lovely!”
Drat. She doesn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings by choosing one dress over the others, but I need her to decide. “If you had to wear one, which one would you choose? We have a bet about it.”
Gina looks at the dresses again and finally points at Paige’s. “That one, I think. Only, without the column.”
Yay! The day of the wedding, I know which gown to magic up for her. As Katarina always says, the dress is crucial.
Mr. Griffith walks up to a microphone and taps it. “Quiet, everybody, Quiet!”
Gina hugs all three of us and takes a seat in the bleachers next to Principal Nazarino and Coach Overdale.
I can’t believe I’m going to be a Bridemonster in front of the whole school. This is like a bad dream.
Mr. Griffith continues, “Today we’re here to choose a new mascot for Lincoln Middle School. It is a decision that will reverberate down through generations of students! So, do not take this lightly. After the presentations, there will be a secret ballot. May the best mascot win!”
Because Paige, Sunny, and I signed up last, we get to sit and watch the other kids go up to the microphone to give their version of a mascot cheer. All we’re going to do is Paige’s “Give me a B!” cheer. But still, this is scary.
The Spartan kid steps up to the microphone and raises a cardboard sword: “We’re the Lincoln Spartans! We cut off heads! We hack off arms! Blood will spatter at every game! We rip out their insides, and then we—”
Mr. Griffith grabs the microphone. “Thank y
ou. That was very vivid. Next!”
The audience really seems to like the Viking, even though his long blond beard falls off when he gives his cheer. And when the grizzly stands up and roars, everyone roars right back. I’m relieved to see that the audience isn’t too picky; everybody’s happy to be out of class.
The next-to-last kid is a skinny sixth-grader named Martin Shembly, who wears a blue polyester uniform and carries a violin. Martin goes to the microphone and says, “I think we should be the Lincoln Trekkers. The Star Trek theme is very inspiring. Let me play it for you now.”
It’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen, and that includes Dad’s monthly chess-club meetings at the Hungry Moose.
Sunny leans over to me and whispers, “He’s really good!” But she’s the only one who thinks so. Star Trek plus violin is too much for the crowd: they start booing. Principal Nazarino stands up and glares, and everybody shuts up. But the mood of the crowd has definitely turned ugly.
And Sunny, Paige, and I are up next. Gulp.
As we walk up to the microphone in our wedding dresses, there are giggles from the crowd. I’m so sorry that I’ve gotten Paige and Sunny into this (not to mention myself).
But Paige is both a popular girl and a cheerleader, and she takes over. She grabs the microphone and says, “Any school can have a boring mascot. We want to do something different! Something that will get us noticed! We’re the Bridemonsters—and Bridemonsters never, ever stop till they get what they want! And we want to WIN! Do you hear me? We want to win!”
The kids look at her, not sure what they think about this. Then Scott stands up and starts to applaud. A moment later, Dylan Hernandez and the rest of the basketball team stand up. And two moments later, the whole crowd is cheering for the Bridemonsters.
This is kind of awesome.
Paige motions for quiet, and because she’s Paige, she gets it. (Talk about a good friend to have!) She looks at me and Sunny and shouts, “Give me a B!”
Sunny and I shout back, “B!”
“Give me an R!”
Just as Sunny and I are about to shout back, there’s a loud RIBBET in the gym—
The Magic Mistake Page 6