Page 32 of Spelling Disaster

Gus squeaks, jostled awake when he drops from mychest to my lap.What happened?Are you okay?

No, not okay.Something is wrong. My chest tightens and it’s a struggle to grab him and gently, slowly, place him aside before I head toward the mirror on top of Blaire’s dresser.

The gasp turns into a groan at my reflection and the partially cut hair.

“Oh my god.” It looks like someone took gardening shears and lopped off everything on the right half of my head. I stare at myself with my eyes wide and my face blanches. “What happened?” Tears prick the back of my eyes.

Blaire’s shower caddy is gone. A quick glance at the clock shows she’s right on schedule, the schedule that she hates.

Gus hops up on to the dresser with a squeak.It’s a hex. A magical hex.Someone must have cast a spell on you at some point yesterday.

I gawk at him. “Are you kidding?”

This sort of thing happens when someone in your immediate vicinity works one to place on you.In one of your classes, maybe?

“Gus, what can I do?” Tears leak out and burn paths down my cheeks. “There’s no way I can go to class like this. How are we going to fix this mess?” I run my fingers through the strands hoping to be able to gather it into a ponytail, but the mess at the back of my head still looks bad.

Don’t freak out, Gus tries to say.

Are you kidding me right now?I answer back.It’s impossible to keep my control. Not like I’m so attached to my hair I’m going to melt down, but someone hexed me. Which means someone hates me enough to do something horrible rather than talk to me.

You don’t have to go to class with your hair cut off. Or hexed in any way. We just need a protection spell.Something that will counteract the hex and keep you protected the next time someone tries to sling magic your way.

A protection spell.

It’s a struggle to get my breathing under control again, to order my thoughts enough to consider the next step in front of me. Too easy to lose myself to the thought that one of my peers dislikes me enough to hex me.

What if the hex hadn’t stopped at my hair? What if it had taken something else from me, or done any real damage?

“I’ve read about those kinds of spells,” I comment out loud to Gus. “Only in books, though. I’ve never tried to do it on my own before.”

It’s not hard. Gus’s whiskers flick.I can walk you through it. Except you’re going to have to find other ways to keep the bullies at bay. The protection spell won’t last for long.It’s all on you to try and—

If you tell me I need to be nice and make friends then I really will freak out,I warn him.

I wasn’t going to tell you to make friends. I was going to tell you to watch your back. You’ve got to find a way to deal with these people.

“Will the spell get rid of the hex? Fix my hair?” I ask.

It should, yes.

I draw a breath into my aching chest and wait for the sense of relief to come. I have a plan and a course of action except, for some reason, the relief never comes.

“Okay.” I prepare for the worst and face Gus, force a smile. “Show me what I need to do.”

He’s right; once we get started, it’s not hard to complete the sequence of events. I remember bits and pieces of things I’ve read about protection spells in the past and put them all together like following a recipe.

Gus knows the correct words to root the spell; all we need to do is gather the ingredients. Most of them are readily available on the school grounds or in the apothecary kits every student is required to have.

Luckily for me, I’ve got what we need right here on my desk.

Keep the bullies at bay, though…I have no idea how long the protection spell is going to last or what it’s going to work against. Hexes, sure, but what else? What other things are the bullies planning for me?

Gus and I make it through the protection spell, and I don’t feel any different afterward.

“Why isn’t my hair growing back?” I ask.

The hex is no longer viable, but the damage is already done, it seems. I’m sorry.

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