The Popularity Spell

by Toni Gallagher

  “That’s got to be five minutes!” Samantha says suddenly, and I decide to believe her. I know I should have concentrated harder, but I’m sure it won’t matter anyway. It’s never going to happen.

  But I still have the tiniest hope that maybe it could.

  Samantha could probably spend the rest of the day focused on my voodoo doll, but I change the subject by turning on my computer and showing her a millipede website. She isn’t as impressed with them as I am. She thinks they’re slimy-looking, but I convince her it’ll be a great science project. She hasn’t decided what hers is going to be, and when I suggest skunks, she groans and says, “Ugh, no! I’m already an expert in those from writing my book. I’m thinking maybe the environment. You know how everybody says Earth is getting hotter and hotter? I could solve that. Or I could build a jet pack so we could fly around the buildings at school instead of walking across the courtyard.”

  If anyone could do it, Sam could.

  Unfortunately her mom comes to pick her up before dinnertime. She’s probably been shopping somewhere fashionable like Beverly Hills, a place Dad and I never go because it’s too rich and fancy. She flashes her sparkly white teeth when she says goodbye to Dad and tells him not to work too hard.

  “See ya Monday,” I say to Sam, and I know she can hear the extra dash of anticipation in my voice because she gives me a wink back.

  Dad cooks hot dogs and Tater Tots for dinner, and while we’re eating he makes a great announcement. He found out that Pets! Pets! Pets! is open until nine p.m., so we can go there tonight!

  “When?” I ask, shoving Tater Tots in my mouth one after the other. “When, when, when? Are we going right now? I don’t have to eat my hot dog; I’m not so hungry anymore. Or I can eat it when I get home. We don’t want the store to close.”

  “Calm down, Cleo,” Dad says, slowly dipping a Tot in the puddle of ketchup on his plate. “It’s not even seven o’clock yet. We’re going to finish our dinner, then I’m going to wash the dishes and you’re going to dry them and put them away, and then we’re going to pick up my special friend and go to the store.”

  Ugh. Dad definitely knows how to kill a moment. “Special friend” is the last thing I want to hear. Because Dad’s been dating someone.

  Dad has a girlfriend.

  And I guess that’s allowed, because my mom died a long, long time ago when I was so little I never really knew her at all. It’s been just the two of us ever since, doing things our own way and having our own kind of fun, and we’ve never needed some lady in our lives.

  Back in Ohio, Dad sometimes had “girls who were friends.” Mostly they were fine, and we might go to the zoo together or to a street fair, but he would always say they were “only friends” and “she isn’t going to be your mom.” And he was being honest, because none of them became a real girlfriend who was around for a long time.

  But things seem different here.

  Since we moved to California, Dad has been spending a lot of time with Terri—that’s the name of this one—and I’ve never met her. I hear him talk to her on the phone a lot, and sometimes he gets me a babysitter so he can go on dates with her. I’m not a baby so I don’t want a babysitter anymore. Plus, I don’t like that Dad’s off having fun without me—eating at restaurants and seeing movies and who knows what other awesome things?

  We finish dinner. He washes the dishes and I start putting them away. “Why am I ready to meet your special friend now?” I make my voice sarcastic when I say “special friend,” but he doesn’t seem to notice it.

  “Well, we’ve lived here a good amount of time now. You’re settled in. You’re comfortable. You know the neighborhood. You’ve got Samantha. It feels like the right time for you to make another friend.”

  “She’s supposed to be my friend?” I ask. “How old is she?”

  Dad laughs. “She’s not a kid! She’s around my age.”

  “So I’m supposed to be friends with a grown-up?” The only grown-ups I’ve ever known are parents, teachers, and people who work at stores and stuff. I wouldn’t call any of them friends.

  “Yes,” Dad says. “You’re going to have to give it a try.”

  “But why?” I’m probably whining but I don’t care. “She’s just a girl-who’s-a-friend, right?”

  That’s when he says the thing I don’t want to hear.

  “She may be more than that, Cleo.”

  “What?” I shout.

  “Quiet down,” Dad says. “Listen. I like Terri a lot and I think you will too. I want to spend more time with her and that means she’s going to spend time with us. So change your attitude, put your shoes on, and get ready to go.”

  When Dad tells me to change my attitude, I know I shouldn’t argue anymore, so I head to my room but stomp a little harder than usual as I go. Dad doesn’t need a girlfriend.

  I don’t like this—at all.

  I know I need to put on my sneakers, but I really feel like wearing my blue floppy hat to Pets! Pets! Pets! It’s got flowers embroidered on it and it’s one of my favorites because there’s a picture on my bulletin board of my mom wearing it. But the hat’s too tight on my big melon head, so I pull it off and grab one that looks like the head of a sock monkey. It covers my whole face. I look in the mirror through the eyeholes and see myself smile through the mouth hole. The smile looks exactly like my mom’s, except in her pictures she didn’t have a gap between her teeth.

  “Cleo!” Dad yells from down the hall. “It’s time to go!”

  I still have to put on my sneakers. I find one on my desk but I’m not sure where the other one is. Dad yells again. “Cleo! Come right now or we’re not going to the pet store at all!” Luckily I find my other sneaker under my bed. I don’t know if I put it there or the voodoo doll did, but I throw it on and run down the hall with my laces untied. Dad frowns as soon as he sees me. “Cleo, you are not wearing a ski mask when you meet Terri.”

  “But I like it!” I say. “What’s the matter? Doesn’t she like monkeys?”

  “It has nothing to do with monkeys.”

  “You shouldn’t date her if she hates monkeys.” I’m making a cute face underneath my mask, but Dad can’t tell because he can only see my eyes and mouth, not the whole package.

  “Cleo.” Dad sounds upset now. “Take it off or no millipede.”

  I lift off the mask. It makes my hair fly in every direction, but I don’t care. I don’t care what I look like when I meet Terri, and I don’t talk at all on the ride over. When we get there, Dad walks up to the front door of a small house, rings the doorbell, and there she is.

  She’s got long red hair like Toby—but she’s nowhere near as cute as he is. Terri is a grown-up like Dad, but she’s wearing jeans and sneakers like a kid would, and she’s also wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon monkey on it! She might have liked my monkey hat, but now we’ll never know.

  Dad walks up to my side of the car and opens the door. “Cleo, this is Terri.”

  “Hi,” she says with a little wave. I mutter “hi” back but Dad says, “How about you say, ‘Nice to meet you’?” This is pretty silly because Terri can hear that Dad told me to say it, and obviously I don’t think it’s nice to meet her at all. But I say it anyway because I want a millipede. She says it’s nice to meet me too, but I don’t believe her.

  “Cleo, why don’t you get in the backseat now?” Dad says.

  “Why?” I ask. “I got in the front seat when we got in the car and you didn’t tell me to get in the back.” I know it’d be easier to do what he says, but this is my seat!

  “Yes, but Terri’s here now. She gets to sit in the front because she’s an adult.”

  That’s true, but I have a better argument. “Right. But I’m your daughter.”

  “Cleo, this is not up for discussion. The grown-ups sit in front. Now move to the back or no millipede.”

  Ugh. I can’t wait to get this millipede so Dad can stop using it to make me do things I don’t want to do. Then he says, “I’m sorry we
wasted your time, Terri. We’re not going to Pets! Pets! Pets! tonight. I’ll call you later.”

  “Okay!” I don’t want to, but I give in, unbuckling the seat belt. I climb out the open door and squish my long legs into the seat behind Dad’s.

  On the way to Pets! Pets! Pets!, Terri and Dad talk about boring adult things like work and schedules and ways to drive to places. I stare at the back of Terri’s head like I’m the voodoo doll with his button eyes, trying to make her nervous. One time she catches me. She turns around and smiles but I only frown back.

  I feel a little better when we pull into the parking lot of Pets! Pets! Pets! with its big glowing sign of a cartoon dog and cat. As soon as the car is parked, I jump out and run to the door. Dad shouts, “Be careful!” from way behind me, but I don’t need to be careful because I’m already there.

  Pets! Pets! Pets! has the best smells in the world, like wood chips for guinea pig cages and barrels of doggie treats and big bags of cat litter. It must be the expensive kind of litter, though, because there’s a box of it in the cat cage and there’s hardly any smell of cat poop or pee.

  “Hi! Welcome to Pets! Pets! Pets!” says a worker in a green apron with a spotty teenage face. “My name is Lyle. What can I help you with this evening?”

  “We’re looking for a millipede,” Dad says. Terri is standing next to him. It’s dumb that she needs to be so close. If I were a ring-tailed lemur, I’d rub a millipede on me to keep her at a distance.

  “Oh, we’ve got millipedes!” says Lyle. “They’re in the back corner; I’ll take you there.”

  I’m ready to go but Terri taps Dad’s arm. “You know, millipedes aren’t really my thing. I’m more into soft and cuddly than creepy and crawly. Why don’t you guys go with Lyle and I’ll check out the cats or something?”

  “Sounds good!” I say and follow Lyle happily without looking back.

  The millipedes are in the corner of the store with the other animals Terri would call creepy and crawly but that I think are totally cool—the reptiles and insects and arachnids. Lyle shows me and Dad a glass case like a fish tank but with dirt and sticks and some pieces of vegetables inside. At first I don’t even notice anything crawling around. But then a pudgy head pokes out from some grass, with two little antennae bobbing around on top of the eyeballs. It’s so cute! I can already envision a millipede as one of the new characters in my animation universe. I know once Samantha sees one in person, she’s going to change her mind about them. But girls like Madison and her friends would whine and squeal and act like babies if I held a millipede in front of them.

  “I love them! I want them all!” I look at Dad with the kind of face that sometimes gets him to buy things for me. It’s an incredibly adorable face. But he just says to Lyle, “Do I need to buy a whole aquarium for one millipede?”

  “Can I pick one up?” I ask Lyle before he can answer Dad’s question. Lyle says I can, so while they talk, I put my hand into the case and hold it there, waiting for a millipede to crawl to me. One does, and I can feel every one of its thirty-six to four hundred legs tickling me as it climbs up my thumb and across my hand.

  I look up to tell Dad how cool this is, then notice Terri a few rows away. She’s holding a multicolored patchwork cat and petting it as she talks to a girl employee.

  Millie the millipede (I’ve already named her) feels as good as the cat does, I bet. Terri may say she doesn’t like creepy-crawly things, but she probably hasn’t seen one like this close up.

  I think she should.

  Dad’s too far away to ask, but I doubt he and Lyle would mind if I took Millie on a short walk.

  As I get closer to Terri, I can hear her telling the Pets! Pets! Pets! girl that she’s a cat person but her “boyfriend” has a dog. Hearing her use that word makes me want to barf a little.

  I walk closer, gently closing my hand around Millie so she won’t fall out. “Hi, Terri,” I say.

  “Oh, hi, Cleo,” she says, like she didn’t expect to see me. “Your dad told me you like cats. Isn’t this one sweet?”

  “I guess,” I say. “But not as sweet as my millipede!” I open up my hand to show her. She sees it on my palm and screams like she’s in a horror movie! At the same time, she tosses the cat into the air and it yowls and screeches. I rush to put my hand over Millie so she doesn’t get hit by the falling cat. Terri and the girl put their hands out and the cat lands back in Terri’s arms. Terri hugs it to her chest, whispering, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I don’t know if she’s talking to the cat, the girl, or my millipede.

  “She would’ve landed on her feet anyway,” the girl says. “This one’s got good reflexes.” She takes the cat from Terri and walks away, probably to where there’s less excitement. Terri and I don’t say or do anything. We just stand there looking at each other. I can see she’s breathing heavily.

  Suddenly Dad is standing with us. “What happened?” he asks.

  “I showed Terri my millipede.”

  “Nothing happened,” Terri tells Dad. “I was just surprised. I didn’t mean to make a scene.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Dad says, glancing at me. He gives Terri a squeeze on the shoulder. “Let me take care of the millipede business and we’ll go home.”

  “She’s not coming to our house, is she?” I ask.

  Dad frowns at me. “No, not tonight. But change that attitude, Cleo.”

  Ugh. Two “change that attitude”s in one day. Now I’m going to have to be good for the rest of the night. Dad starts walking away, saying, “Come on,” so I follow him back to the corner of the store.

  Luckily he still buys me a millipede. Actually two! I’m thinking it’s so Millie can have a friend, but Dad tells Lyle it’s “for backup.” I’m sitting behind Dad again as we drive back, but I don’t care because I’m holding my millipedes in their new home—a small plastic terrarium with special soil and pieces of bark for them to hide under. Dad says he’s sorry to Terri a few times, but I don’t know why. Terri’s the one who screamed and threw a cat in the air. And she said she loved cats. I wonder if we can believe anything she says.

  We drive to Terri’s house. She turns around to me before she leaves. “Have fun with your millipedes, Cleo,” she says.

  “They’re not for fun,” I tell her. “They’re for research.”

  She laughs and gets out of the car. Dad walks up to her front door with her as I get out to sit in front. Before I get back in the car, I see them hugging. Yucch. And after they stop hugging, they kiss. Not a big, long, sloppy gross one, but definitely more than a good-night kiss. Why would any father find it appropriate for his eleven-year-old to see this?

  Dad waits for her to walk inside, then comes back to the car and sees me frowning. “Cleo, I’m sorry…,” he says.

  Yes! An apology!

  “I’m sorry I brought Terri along like that tonight without preparing you. But she’s going to be around a lot, and I’m going to make sure I have time for each of you. Individually and together. Okay?”

  I nod, but I don’t like the sound of this. Terri is not one of us, and I just don’t think she’d add that much to our lives. Why can’t Dad see that?

  “So next time we see her, I expect you to be a lot nicer, kiddo.”

  “Okay,” I say, but in my mind I’m not promising anything.

  I wake up on Monday morning feeling different. At the beginning of every week since I started at Friendship Community School, there’s always been an icky feeling in my belly. It knows something is going to go badly—that I’m going to do something dumb, or someone like Madison is going to make fun of me.

  But today my stomach feels okay, all because of the hex Samantha and I did. I’m not truly expecting anything to happen, but it’s still new and exciting and something to look forward to. Before I leave for school, I pat the voodoo doll on his head and straighten his tutu. And when I’m in the car—in the front where I belong—I can’t help bouncing around in a way that I never would if someone like Madison was w
atching.

  “You’re in a strangely good mood,” Dad says. “Why’s that?”

  I can’t tell him the truth: Well, Samantha and I decided to use the voodoo doll Uncle Arnie sent me—the voodoo doll you told me not to play with—to put a positive voodoo charm on her, and I can’t wait to see if it works. So I quickly come up with something that’s true but not quite as truthful: “I’m glad I got two millipedes. And I had fun with Samantha when she came over.”

  I look at Dad to see if that story is good enough…and I can tell it is by the reaction on his face. “Her mom called afterward and said Sam had a great time too. She invited you to her house this coming weekend.”

  “Woo-hoo!” I shout, bouncing, until Dad tells me to calm down. When he drops me off and I run into the courtyard at school, I’m thinking this is going to be a pretty good day.

  And it’s okay, I guess—but nothing special happens to Samantha in our first class, history. I’m hoping something might go down at morning break, but it’s nobody’s birthday, so we don’t get any sort of treat there. Instead we just sit at our desks like usual, eating our nutritious snacks and enriching our lives in our own personal way.

  I’m quietly munching my pita chips when I hear a whisper from Madison. “Mmmm, yum yum yum,” she says, making fake chewing sounds. “Cleo, don’t you want any carrots?”

  Sure enough, when I look over at Scabby Larry, he’s chowing on his favorite little vegetable. Can’t he eat anything else?

  All animated villains have evil henchmen, and Madison has her henchwomen, who join in the “fun.” Lisa Lee makes chewing noises, throwing in a few “Ohio piggy” comments and snorts. Her face is tight and pointy, probably because her skin is being pulled back by the brown braid she always has at the back of her head. If I made her into a cartoon character, she’d be a rat. She always does the same things Madison does, a second later. Kylie Mae doesn’t do anything specific. She doesn’t ever really do anything, but she always has a sour frown on her face and these super-light blue eyes that make it look like she’s thinking about absolutely nothing. I can’t even imagine an animated animal for her. She’d be…a balloon.