You Are SO Cursed!
Naomi Nash

CHAPTER ONE

I hate the cafeteria. Add together the geeks with food in their braces, the Hair Club girls and their diets, the food throwers, the practical jokers, and the hairnets on the workers, and you’ve got a Supreme Court argument for abolishing high school as a cruel and unusual punishment. My usual table was the worst in the room. It lurked in the very back corner, under the dripping window where no one wants to sit. Something about it seemed a bit off, though. One hundred noisy tables full of kids yelling, and then one tiny table with two friends of mine who looked like they were about to take their SATs hung upside down over a pit of hungry alligators. It was like one of those ‘which of these things is not like the other?’ puzzles.

"You guys look freaked," I told them. "Where’s Addy? Where’s Ray?"

Neither wanted to tell me. "Des? Is something wrong?" Desiree had a habit of gnawing on her lips and fingers when she was miserable, which was most of the time. She avoided my question by looking down at the table. The skin around her mouth was already so red and scabbed; I was happy to see Dorie nudge her to stop. "Hello? Like, this year, guys?"

Avoidance was contagious, apparently. Dorie hid her face behind a copy of Dreemboyz magazine. Apparently she had decided any further questions should be directed to the smiling boy band S.W.A.K.

"Lost sight of Addy. It’s like she vanished out there." Ray, another member of our little loser’s club, walked up with crossed arms. Usually it’s hard to tell when Ray’s agitated, but he so rarely spoke two sentences in a row that I clued in immediately. "Uh-oh," he said, noticing me for the first time.

"Out where?" I growled. Protecting these kids was my daily job, and evasion wasn’t helping me get the job done.

Dorie lifted her face from the green glop in her bowl. "Pop Alley."

"Is she in trouble?"

Des looked at Dorie. Dorie looked at Ray. Ray looked at the ceiling. "I don’t know if I’d call it trouble, exactly."

I said a swear word. Actually, it was the same swear word that had landed me in Principal MacAlister’s office, which is the same swear word that even my grandmother in Cleveland says when she loses at bingo, but for some reason it’s supposed to have eluded my vocabulary. "I keep telling you guys never to go out to Pop Alley alone!"

It was no use crabbing at them, though. They’re scared of everyone, like I used to be. Addy was like that, too. In fact, I was surprised she’d ventured off on her own. Now I had to find her before trouble beat me to it.

I’d already pulled one of my arms into my sweatshirt when I turned and slammed into someone. It wasn’t deliberate, that time. In my old marshmallow days I would have cowered and apologized at the mistake. Not now, though. "Real graceful, roadkill!" I snarled.

Roadkill turned around. I’d seen him once or twice, but didn’t know him. I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to the guys of my school. He was kind of blond, kind of brown-eyed, kind of a square jaw, more than kind of attractive. The enemy, in other words. I cocked my head, not planning to waste a lot of time on the confrontation.

When guys at school grin at me, it’s usually a prelude to some sad attempt to mock me out. "Sorry," he said.

"Whatever." I brushed by with my hand held up in warning. I didn’t need his kind making fun of me. I had Addy to find.

Pop Alley is a sidewalk running from the cafeteria exit to the teachers’ parking lot. A huge corrugated metal roof slants over a bunch of vending machines lined up against the building. The reek of old tobacco hit me like a baseball bat. I reeled back, knowing I’d have to dump my clothes in the wash the second I got home. Well, the sweatshirt was coming off anyway. "Addy?" I called out.

"Vick?" My head snapped in the direction of the last of the soda machines. Pinned to its far side was Addy, my best friend. I saw her lunchbox first, followed by her frizzy red hair. Addy was probably the only high school student in the entire world who brought sandwiches in a Hello Kitty lunchbox. Not because Hello Kitty was trendy, but because she thought Hello Kitty was cute.

Addy’s face was flushed when she craned to see me. "Oh jeez, it’s Marotti," said the guy hovering over her. He pushed himself upright, but kept Addy pinned between his arms. Then he said the very same swear word I’d used seconds before, the one that none of us are supposed to know.

"Nelson." I used his same snide tone, angry but trying to sound cool. I’d already pulled my other arm into my sweatshirt when I stepped outdoors; I drew it over my head and tossed it on the ground and then tugged down my tank top. Addy’s flush deepened. To her I probably looked like Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels to the rescue, all rolled up in one. "New toy, Nelson? What’s the matter, get bored with your Easy Bake Oven?"

He gave me a steely look. Smoke poured out between his lips as he stubbed out his cigarette on top of the stone ashcan. Addy sidled past him and ran behind me once he moved. "I’m all right," she told me. "Really!"

"Yeah, it’s cool. We were just talking."

"Oh really?" I cracked my fingers. Like I said, it’s not that hard to look tough. Bart Nelson seemed to have it down pat, but I was the expert. You pretend the world’s yours. Ignoring other people’s personal space helps, too. I drew myself up as tall as possible and squared off against him. "Talking about what? The fine arts? The cinema? What Beetle Bailey said to Sarge this morning?"

I’d seen that stupid grin spreading across his lips before. Bart wore it in class when he thought he was getting away with murder. I hated that grin. While I mentally plotted out my approach, a crowd gathered around us, some of them spilling out from the cafeteria. Fine with me. I liked an audience for my performances. "Wouldn’t you like to know?" He looked me up and down, practically licking his chops like Wile E. Coyote served a Roadrunner TV dinner. "You know, Marotti, you’d be pretty hot yourself, if you weren’t such a–"

My philosophy? When they’ve got a one-track mind, boys deserve what’s coming to them. With all my strength I swung both my hands up toward his face as if I intended to catch him in a double punch. He snapped back as I crossed them at the wrists in the space between our faces. "Such a what?" I asked him, real sweetly. "If I weren’t such a witch?"

The dozen kids behind me got real quiet, all of a sudden. I heard Addy plead, "Vick, don’t do this!"

"You want me to curse you?" I asked Bart, loving the fear in his eyes. "Is that why you’re provoking me?" His cockiness was disappearing fast, now. "I keep telling you guys over and over, when you mess with me and mine, it’s gonna start raining curses."

"Whatever," he said, trying to look bored, but backing off. It always kills me how the tough ones are the fastest to crumble. Bart was no exception. "Listen, we were just–"

He flinched when I moved toward him, already muttering my spell. When I reached the ash can, I leaned down and grabbed two handfuls of ashes and butts–and there was plenty to grab. I stuck out my left arm and rubbed one handful of grimy mess over the inside. Then I repeated the gesture with the right. I let the powder fall to the ground and thrust out my arms so everyone could see.

YOU’RE DEAD MEAT, said my right arm in the magical letters that the ashes had left behind. The other arm had the same creepy letters spelling out his name: BART NELSON! The black soot against my skin made the curse seem doubly toxic.

Again, I had that moment of doubt. Would Bart see through me? I watched his lips move as he read the message. "That’s freakin’ impossible," he stuttered.

"Is it?" I challenged him. "Huh. Survey says . . . you’re toast!"

He said that swear word again, my grandmother’s favorite, and added to it a whole bunch more that should’ve landed him in MacAlister’s office for life. I sprang in his direction, like I was going to attack him. His reflexes made him turn and run like the chicken he was.

"Anyone else want some? Anybody" I asked the crowd. All the gawkers pretended they weren’t looking. In fact, they all acted as if they suddenly had to be somewhere else. "Freak," I heard one of them say to another.

Well yeah. I might be a freak. What’s important to me, though, is that people think Vick Marotti is the kind of freak you don’t mess with.

Within thirty seconds, only two people were left under the shelter of Pop Alley. Addy I’d expected to stay. The one I didn’t figure on was Roadkill, the guy I’d bumped into earlier. Tall, blond, and pretty boy. He studied me like I was some kind of problem he’d been assigned to puzzle out. I was all ready to slice and dice him when all of a sudden he started laughing. Laughing! At me! He grinned and clapped like I was the featured performer of Voodoo on Ice!, gave me the thumbs up, and sauntered off back to the cafeteria. Talk about freaks!

"Who is he?" I asked Addy.

"I was getting a soda pop," she protested, still flustered. "I wish you wouldn’t always come running after me."

"You know better than to come out here by yourself during lunch, with all the losers that hang here," I scolded. "Man, some days I really have to work my ass off to protect you guys from yourselves!"

She tucked some of her frizzies behind her ears. "You’re always telling us we need to stand up for ourselves. You complain about having to shelter us, then you complain when we take a risk. You can’t have it both ways!"

"I’ve saved you from being pushed around more times than I can count!"

She softened at the reminder. "I know. I know. It’s just . . . usually I’m really glad my best friend is a witch." She put her arms around my neck to give me a quick hug. "But not today."

Addy was the first person at Fillmore to show me any kindness when I transferred schools last year. Not a single day passed that I didn’t think I was the worst friend possible for her. She had no idea that the one thing I most wanted to tell her was the one thing I never, ever could.

You see, I wasn’t a witch at all.