I don’t want to lose, I thought. I don’t want to lose….
My legs charged into an even faster sprint, finally passing him. My chest felt like it was cracking open, it was that overstuffed with bright, sparkling elation.
Victory!
Was this what winning felt like all the time—like you were flying?
Parker tucked his head down and charged forward, his shoes squeaking with the force of his movement. He was so focused on picking up speed he didn’t notice that Norton was directly in his path.
“Watch out!” Nell called.
Norton looked back just in time to see Parker collide into him at top speed, slamming them both down to the ground. The soles of my shoes squealed as I dragged them to a slow stop a short distance away.
“Oh Lord,” the coach said. He threw his clipboard into the air and ran over, blowing frantically into his whistle. Like that was going to do anything at that point. “Emergency! Emergency! Someone call nine-one-one!”
“Maybe we should start with the nurse?” Nell suggested, helping a dazed Norton sit up. Aside from some red blotches on his knees and palms from where he hit the ground, Norton was okay. Parker was another story.
“Owwww—my ankle!” he said, rolling onto his back, clutching at it with his hands. The whole PE class gasped and gagged when he lifted his hands and revealed the unnatural angle his ankle was bent at. Parker’s face screwed up, his mouth twisting in pain.
My heart was still thundering in my chest, so loud I could barely hear the voices around me.
I didn’t do that. I didn’t trip him, or force him to run faster to try to keep up with me.
No, you did not, Maggot. The blame rests heavy upon his shoulders. You were merely proving yourself.
“He came out of nowhere,” Norton was saying as he stood on shaky feet. “I would have moved out of the way.”
“I know you would have,” Nell said, giving me a narrow, suspicious look. “It was pretty strange, wasn’t it?”
Within minutes, a young woman—the nurse—arrived to assess the situation. Parker covered his bright red face with his hands.
“Good God, son,” Coach said, pounding my shoulder. “Tell me you’ll try out for track and field! You’re a natural—a godsend—!”
You are very welcome, Al gloated.
But I wasn’t about to thank him. It doesn’t count.
Of course it does, Maggot. You won. You were the best—we were the best.
But it wasn’t a race. And even if it had been, I wasn’t a track star—an eight-hundred-year-old fiend was. Still, I couldn’t forget how easily my legs had eaten up the ground, how the cool air had felt against the sweat on my face. Passing people, instead of being passed, had felt as natural and necessary as breathing.
But I felt that small pride start to deflate as I watched the nurse comfort Parker. The other kids watched in both horror and horrible amusement as the scene played out in front of them. Something heavy sat in the pit of my stomach, and I didn’t think it was the pumpkin I’d eaten.
“Thanks, I wish I could,” I told the coach, watching as the nurse pulled out her cell phone and finally did call for an ambulance. “But I won’t be here for long.”
The first slap on my back scared the living daylights out of me. Then Peter Fairfield held up a hand as he walked by, and it took me a full minute to realize he wanted a high five. I was ready for the next one, lifting my arm, but at the last second Brian Farrell turned away. He waved a hand in front of his face and stepped wide around me. He looked grossed out.
Not this again, I thought, feeling miserable. For the first half of the year, the kids at the Academy had pretended I had some kind of disease that they could catch if I stood too close to them. There was a whole set of rules and everything. The only loser of the game was me.
I turned back to the bulletin board on the wall. Most of the papers stapled up there were sign-up sheets for clubs and sports. Some were just laminated copies of the school rules. But there was a big school calendar for October, with the thirty-first, a Monday, marked with a pumpkin sticker.
Halloween on a Monday? This really was the worst year.
I leaned in. There was a star on the Friday before Halloween—the twenty-eighth. The Thirteenth Annual Production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
I skimmed the board again until my eyes landed on the bright orange sheet labeled CRUCIBLE AUDITIONS.
Oh, I thought. Huh.
Hmm. That, from Alastor. This would be frivolous human entertainment, I presume?
The Crucible was an old-ish play about this guy, John Proctor, set during the Salem Witchcraft Trials. One of the girls—one of the evil ones who start accusing people they don’t like of being besties with the Devil—falls in love with him, and when he shoots her down, she accuses him and his wife of being witches.
I’d never made it through the play without falling asleep. It’s basically a lot of people running around screaming, “I saw Goody So-and-So with the Devil!” which gets real old real fast.
But apparently not to Nell. Her name was right at the top of the auditions list—barely visible under where someone had marked it out with a pen.
Ooohhhhhh. My brain was rapid-firing now. That weird speech she had been reciting when I first met her. Because it is my name! That had been from the play, I was sure of it. She had been practicing even though her name was crossed out.
When Nell finally decided to show up, I pointed out the sign-up sheet. She didn’t say a word, only lifted a small spray bottle out of her bag and aimed it right at my face.
“Did you make a contract with him?” she hissed, still spraying. “Is that how you ran so fast?”
“Ack! Ack!” I sputtered. It tasted so bad, so gross, I tried wiping my tongue off against my shirt. Ugh. “What are you doing?”
“Answer my question!”
What foul treachery is this? Alastor wailed. By the realms, you smell of roses and spring. Find mud, Maggot, and quickly rid yourself of this rotten stench!
Nell moved the bottle down and sprayed the rest of me, not stopping until my shirt was so wet it clung to me.
“Stop, stop,” I begged, trying to twist away from the torture. “Of course I didn’t make a contract. He just—he just gave me a little boost! That’s it. I would never make a contract. Ever!”
“Fine,” she said, returning her weapon to her bag. “From now on you have to shower after PE, okay?”
“What the crap, Nell?” The smell of flowers was already giving me a headache.
“You—” The witch lowered her voice, pulling me away from the girls’ locker-room door as more of the girls spilled out. “You mean you can’t smell yourself?”
“I can now!”
“All right, come on, I need to show you where the library is and I’ll explain on the way.” She raised the spray bottle again and gave it a little shake.
Do not let her douse us with such a vile concoction again! Alastor said, and I felt my speed pick up to dart away from her.