Tuesday, Listen went to Donna Turnbull’s place for a strategy meeting.
“I, M, H, O,” said Gabrielle, “we don’t need a strategy meeting. We just turn up at the school tomorrow and it happens. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, do you want me to keep going?” She was counting the freckles on Joanne’s back.
“Keep going,” Joanne commanded. “I need to know the truth.”
“There’s a lot,” Caro said. “Do you need more truth than that?”
“You think you can go to Clareville Academy and just live?” Donna was withering. “Power up your brain cells, I don’t think so. Listen, would you stop dancing for one second in your life?”
Listen and Sia were sharing Sia’s iPod, and they were both dancing. They stopped and looked at Donna. Listen hitched up her jeans. The jeans were too long and the right cuff had slipped into her sneaker and was caught under her foot.
“There’s going to be a fundamental shift in the universe when we get to Clareville,” Donna explained. “That’s why we need to have a strategy.”
“Hey, Listen,” said Gabrielle, bored with counting freckles. “Give me your jeans and I’ll get my mum to take them up for you.”
“Yeah, you don’t fold them like that?” Sia explained. She glanced at Gabrielle. “We should have taken them up for her before we gave them to her for her birthday?”
“Shut up about Listen’s stupid jeans,” pleaded Donna. “My cousin was, like, in meltdown the whole first year she was at Clareville. Why? Because of the shock of the things that transpired. We cannot let that happen to us. Okay? We cannot.”
The others stopped talking to each other and turned to Donna.
“What transpired?” Joanne said. “For your cousin?”
“Well, for a start,” said Donna. But she couldn’t really remember. Only, for instance, her cousin had said that you didn’t play games at lunchtime anymore like you did at elementary school. You sat in a circle and you talked.
“Oh my God,” said Gabrielle. “We’d better practice that. Does anybody know what a circle is?”
“What is this other word you use?” Joanne sat up looking mystical. “This word. How do you say it? ‘Talk.’ What can it mean?”
They all laughed until they saw that Donna was crying.
So they took turns comforting her, apologized for disrespect, and agreed to an eternal pact. They would stay friends forever, no matter what transpired.
Wednesday was a strange, shiny, sharp-edged first day of school.
When she got home, Listen opened the fridge door, but all she could see was the gap between the teeth of the Clareville Academy principal, a loose red thread in the seam of Sia’s shoe, and the jar of pickled snakes in Science Lab B11.
These images loomed up at her from a ketchup bottle in the refrigerator door, each one swimming straight toward her nose and bouncing back.
It was strangely exhausting. She sat down at the table to rest.
At Assembly that morning, the principal had welcomed them to Clareville by explaining that they would not see their next birthdays if they ever knocked on the upper staffroom door between 1:00 and 1:35.
At lunchtime, Gabrielle said she was going to sit the principal down and talk her through the concept of “welcome.” Joanne laughed about how strict the teachers were acting to make a first impression (it was so transparent). Caro could not believe they sold pecan pies in the tuckshop. Sia worried there was something wrong with the seams of her new school shoes. And Donna went through everybody’s timetables to figure out which classes they had together, then lectured them all on the importance of eternal pacts.
In Science that afternoon, the teacher breathed loudly through his nose and said, “Let me give you the key to survival at Clareville. It’s not in the mysteries of Science Lab B11, much as the beakers and Bunsen burners might intrigue you! No. It’s doing two hours of homework every single day.”
“What’s say there’s a day when we get no homework?” Caro asked shrewdly.
“Wonderful point!” said the teacher. “If there’s ever such a day, give me a call, and I’ll let you take your pick of pickled snakes.”
Caro missed the point and said she didn’t want a pickled snake.
Now, Listen looked at her backpack and thought about doing some homework. Instead, she watched TV until her dad phoned from the Banana Bar to ask about her day. She watched TV again until Marbie phoned from the insurance company where she worked, also to ask about her day.
“Hey,” Listen said, after they had philosophized about fundamental shifts in the universe for a while, “what time is it, Marbie?”
“It’s five! It’s the end of the day!”
“Gotta go,” said Listen, “Gotta go do something.” And she hung up the phone.
Hooray for you! You waited until 5 P.M. on Wednesday! You can clearly follow rules, and that’s just what you need to be able to do, because otherwise this Spell Book won’t work!
1. You have to do every single Spell in the book, one at a time. You can’t skip ahead!
2. Usually, you won’t even know if a Spell has worked or not! But never mind! Trust us! It has.
You can turn the page now.
Okay!
Now put the Spell Book back underneath your pillow, and DON’T GET IT OUT AGAIN until 4 P.M. this FRIDAY.
YOU WILL THEN BE ABLE TO DO THE FIRST SPELL!!!
(Note: Take great care not to say the word walnut from now until then.)
Thursday, Listen searched through her drawers until she found the postcard her mother had sent her from Istanbul. She sat on her bedroom floor, curling the postcard in her fist.
She was thinking about her English teacher at Clareville. At first, Listen had liked him because he wore a Mayor McCheese T-shirt and faded jeans, but then the teacher had said, “Look, girls, now that you’re in junior high, you’re not big fish in a little pond anymore, are you? No! You’re small fish in a big pond!”
Immediately, Listen stopped liking him.
For a start, two other teachers had already said the same thing. An English teacher should be more original.
For another thing, the image made Listen think that last year she and her friends had been bumping around in shallow water, eating all the fish food, blocking out the sunlight, crowding out the pond, and accidentally knocking little fish in all directions with their enormous, clumsy tails.
Hey there, kid, her mother’s postcard said. Aren’t you starting junior high this year?!!! Watch out for all the big fish!!!!!! The postcard had arrived two years before. Her mother had always been vague about things like Listen’s age.
Listen flicked the postcard with her thumbnail a few times, then dropped it back into the drawer.
HELLO AGAIN! YOU DID IT! IT’S 4 P.M. ON FRIDAY!
You can go ahead and do the First Spell now. The First Spell is simple. You probably already know this one, but you still have to do it, I’m afraid. You know what I’m talking about?
A Spell to Make Someone Decide to Take a Taxi.
Of course! That old favorite. You know the drill. Take two lemons and cut them in half, take five bananas and peel them. Fill up the bathtub with lukewarm water, toss in your lemons and banana peels. WAIT UNTIL 5 O’CLOCK AND THEN say the magic words—“Bob’s your uncle”—and Bob’s your uncle! The Spell is done.
Now put the Spell Book back under your pillow. Don’t turn the page until the Thursday after next!