Page 9 of Witch You Would
I gave her my best himbo grin. “That’s what I read on the internet, anyway.”
Her eye roll said she bought it.
“My friend’s a spell tech,” Orange Polo explained. “She helps people with magic stuff. You know, proofs their recipes, tellsthem if their ingredients will interact. Keeps them from making mistakes.”
That explained the urge to correct me.
“If you ever need help with one of your spells, you should email her. Or call her.”
Was she trying to wingman? Grandpa Fred’s rule number five: hands off the fans. That rule was especially sacred since theStalker Incident.
“It’s okay,” Frogtail said. “You don’t need some rando telling you what to do.” After a breath, she added, “You really should be more careful with your magic, though. What if those tentacles had gottenwrapped around your neck and choked you? Or the jellyfish suffocated you like a plastic bag?”
Neither of those things was physically possible with this spell, but she couldn’t know that. What would Leandro say? “Theydidn’t, so it’s all good.”
“It’s not all good—you got lucky. One day someone’s gonna get hurt.”
“I always tell people not to try the spells at home.”
Frogtail frowned. “That won’t stop them. You need to be responsible with the content you put out there.”
That’s why I explained everything so carefully. In the videos no one watched, that Sam and Ed wanted to get rid of. “Don’tworry. If anyone gets hurt, it’ll be me, and that video will go super viral.”
“Is getting likes seriously all you care about?”
“Nooo.” I paused for effect. “Likesandsubscribes.”
Everyone laughed, and I hoped that would be the end of it. Instead, it got worse as other people started dunking on her.
“Can you make a spell to give yourself a sense of humor?”
“Or maybe one to take the stick out of your ass.”
“Hey, whoa,” I said. “Be nice.”
Even if they heard me, they kept going, and Frogtail stood there and took it with this flat look on her face, like she’d heardworse. I had to stop it, but I couldn’t figure out how Leandro would do it.
Suddenly I was a kid again, before the divorce, listening to my parents fight, past the point where I could defuse it witha joke. The shouting, the name-calling, the cold sarcasm... I wanted to hide in my room until it was over. My mouth refusedto work, like all my words got stuck in my throat and wouldn’t come out.
Finally someone asked, “Why do you hate fun?” and I could almost see the top of her head blow up like in a cartoon.
“I don’t hate fun!” Frogtail clenched her hands into fists. “I just don’t make an ass of myself on Jinxd. Some of us don’t need to be told how cool we are all the time. Some of us fix spell problems instead of causing them. Some of us care more about helping people than being famous.”
She didn’t really know me, only Leandro Presto, but still. Every word hit like a punch.
“Hey,” Sam said. “Cool your tits.”
This was my fault. I should have known my fans—which Frogtail clearly wasn’t—would want to defend me, and I shouldn’t havelet them take it so far. Why did I always lose the power of speech when stuff like this happened?
I mean, I knew why, but you would think all the therapy would help me deal better.
“S-sorry,” Frogtail stuttered, her face red. “That was super shitty of me. Sorry. I’m so sorry.” She practically ran away,toward the parking lot.
I started to follow her. I didn’t know how, but I wanted to fix this. A car beeped, and Frogtail slid into the front passengerseat and slouched too low for me to see her.
I stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. Epic fail.
Orange Polo joined me, looking worried. “She isn’t usually like this.”
