The mother glares at Vicky, then tugs her child away.
Vicky shivers, as if casting off a bad dream. “The dance is in less than a week. If I don’t get results by the homecoming game, I’m posting Kali’s journal online.” She sweeps away in a billow of fake Gucci, Poison Apple perfume, and burning rubber.
Four more days until the game, which kicks off a week of festivities leading up to the homecoming dance. I hurry to my locker. Vicky wasn’t bluffing, I smelled vengeful sword fern on her breath, a plant that chokes out others through its sneaky underground tubers. Kali doesn’t want me to fix Vicky with Drew Reaver, but my thought pot is empty of ideas.
Near the lockers, members of the student council hawk candy grams at a table.
“Mimosa, right?” Lauren Foster, student council president, points a neon-pink highlighter, which matches her fingernails, as well as the rubber bands in her braces.
“Yes,” I say, hearing the surprise in my own voice. Lauren has a peaceful wild-olive-and-lemon scent that reminds me of sipping fruit-sweetened limoncello with Mother on a terrace on the Mediterranean—one of the rare times I’d ever seen her relaxing. I warm to Lauren instantly.
Pascha Hassan, her best friend, staples candy bars onto pieces of paper and stuffs them into a plastic pumpkin. Her delicate brown hands look like they should be modeling rings. She smells more floral than Lauren, with traces of superabsorbent polymers, the secret sauce in disposable diapers, which might mean she cares for a younger sibling.
“You want to buy a candy gram?” she asks.
“No, thanks. I don’t eat candy.”
Lauren and Pascha exchange a smile that I can’t read.
“Well, it’s not for you. You buy it for someone else. You write your message on this”—Lauren holds up an orange paper—“and we attach a candy to it and deliver it to your special someone. A buck each.”
“Oh. No, thanks.” A million times no, thanks. I begin to leave, but then I notice Pascha elbowing Lauren.
I split my gaze between them, not sure what I’m waiting for. Lauren hair sprayed glitter into her wavy blond hair and the sparkle makes me blink. She looks around, then leans closer to me and whispers, “Do you use potions for yourself?”
“Of course not.” Is that what people think? “I’m not even allowed to date. Plus, that would be unethical.”
Pascha stops stuffing. The folds of the scarf covering her head ripple in the breeze. “Then how do you do it?”
“Do what?”
The girls look at each other again.
“How do you get all those boys to like you?” Lauren asks.
I snort. Try living in a garden bursting with aphrodisiacs all your life. My particular brand of boy problems must be more obvious than I thought. I try to disinfect my followers as soon as I detect a problem, but I’ll need to be more vigilant. Wouldn’t want a jealous mob of teenage girls after me, like the ones who threw six-fingered Hyacinth into the sea. It hits me that maybe Larkspur’s concerns weren’t so far-fetched.
“I drywall better than I give love advice,” I say. “Sorry.”
Lauren deflates a little, and her sigh smells of diet soda and stomach acid. She could use more leafy greens. “I just want to know how I get a certain boy to ask me to the homecoming dance.” She dabs her eyes with a tissue.
“Why don’t you just ask him?”
“I couldn’t do that!” she gasps. More dabbing.
“Why?”
“What if he said no? I’d need a sign that he’d say yes first. What are the signs that a guy likes you?” She clasps her hands together and implores me with her hazel eyes.
I tug at my sleeve. “When a person has a crush, their top notes become buttery and their middle notes brighten by a factor of sixteen. Plus, they smell like heartsease, which is a kind of wildflower.”
A hundred yards out, the soccer team in their blue-and-white uniforms returns from their morning practice, slapping hands with members of the track team jogging past them. Number ten, Court, walks with his customary slouch. His shirt hugs his lean body like a wetsuit. Number nine, Whit Wu, runs to catch up with him.
Lauren’s lips separate. “Um, what?”
Pascha’s kohl-rimmed eyes narrow as she appraises me. Without lifting her gaze from me, she hands Lauren another tissue. “Listen to the witch. She knows what she’s talking about.”
I cough, putting into doubt that perception. My eyes drift toward the field again. Court looks up and our eyes connect. My heart does a backflip, and a dozen different scents burst from me, the sugar maple of happiness, the chicory of regret, and more rambling sunflower, a plant notable for its tendency to change directions several times during the day. I rarely smell like rambling sunflower. I usually have the Rulebook to circumscribe my path, and if not the rules, then Mother.
Court waves, then trots toward the locker rooms.
“But how am I supposed to know what, er, what she just said?” says Lauren to Pascha.