Page 51 of School Spirits
Shaking my head, I rattled my own handouts. “Okay, so me and Dex take the cave; Romy and Anderson, you’re on grave duty. We’ll be looking for anything that suggests a ritual has taken place. Candles, burn marks, funky smells…”
“Salt all over the grass,” Dex said under his breath, but neither Romy nor Anderson paid him any attention.
“So…witches,” Romy said, frowning at the paper.
“Yes. Well, witch, singular at least.”
She looked up at me, squinting behind her glasses. “Pointy-hat-wearing, broomstick-riding witches.”
“They don’t actually do any of that stuff. At least most of them don’t. Some of them like to be retro every once and a while.”
Anderson lifted an eyebrow. “And you know this because?”
I glanced over at Dex. “I read a lot. On the Internet. And also I went to this fancy all-girls’ school, and we had a whole class on…witches.”
When the three of them just continued to stare at me, I added, “It was a really progressive school. Anyway, tonight, PMS patrol, cool?”
“I don’t have anything better to do tonight,” Anderson said, draping his arm around the back of Romy’s chair.
Her dimples deepened as she tried to hide a smile. “Me neither,” she said.
“You know I’m always up for weirdness my Nana won’t approve of,” Dex said, clapping his hands together. “Speaking of, since you’ll have to ride with me tonight, Izzy, why don’t we get off the bus together this afternoon? You can meet my Nana.”
“Right,” I said. I’d been meaning to do that, and while I wish I’d found time to see if any of those magazines had articles like, “Meeting His Nana: What Does It Mean?” there was no time like the present. “That…yeah, sure, that’ll be fine.”
Dex leaned forward, his blue eyes bright. “So let’s do this. PMS’s first witch hunt!”
The bell rang, and the four of us hurried to gather up our stuff and get back into the main building. The boys loped off ahead while Romy and I hung back a little.
“Anderson was in that picture,” she said, worrying her thumbnail between her teeth. “If I’m right, and Mary’s after the descendants of certain people—”
“There were lots of people in that picture, Romy,” I said, looping my arm through hers. I still hadn’t found the appropriate time to do a hip bump, but arm-looping felt right. “And Anderson is going to be fine because we’re going to find out what’s causing the haunting and put a stop to it. Besides, Mary’s nice enough to leave us little warnings when she picks a victim. If anything freaky happens to Anderson, he’ll tell us, and we’ll know.”
That didn’t seem to make Romy feel better, so I tightened my arm in hers. “Or hey! Maybe she’s done with the whole revenge thing. Maybe it was just Snyder’s and Beth’s relatives she was pissed at.”
That theory lasted until second period. Just after P.E., Romy and I were standing by her locker when there was suddenly an explosivebangfrom farther down the hallway.
“The hell?” I heard someone squawk as a cloud of gray smoke began pouring out of a locker.
“Anderson?” Romy cried, but it wasn’t Anderson standing in front of the Exploding Locker. It was Adam, his face a mask of fear and annoyance.
Rushing down the hall, I grabbed his arm. “Are you okay?”
Irritated, he threw off my hand. “Yeah, fine. Just some jackass put a firecracker or something in my locker.” Waving the smoke away, he peered inside, and I leaned over his shoulder to do the same. All that was left of Adam’s textbooks was a smoldering pile of ash.
“All right, people, make a hole,” Mrs. Steele said, pushing students out of her way. Grimacing, she took in the mess. “First someone’s car malfunctions, now lockers are exploding? What has gottenintothis place?”
Behind her back, my eyes met Romy’s. Apparently, Mary was far from done.
CHAPTER 24
“Okay, please do not be alarmed by our yard situation,” Dex said as I followed him up the driveway. “Nana is a fearsome cook but a truly dreadful gardener. It is known.”
Dex exaggerated about a lot of things, but the state of his yard was not one of them. Even though it was late February and nothing was exactly blooming, every bush and blade of grass in Dex’s front yard was brown and crispy-looking. Even the pear tree looked in danger of keeling over.
But the house itself was pretty. Nicer than ours and a little bigger, there were cheerful yellow curtains in the windows, and when Dex opened the front door, I froze and took a deep breath.
I don’t know what heaven smells like, but if it doesn’t smell like freshly baked cookies, I will be really disappointed.
