Parties & Potions Read online

  For Wendy Loggia, the editor with the magic touch

  Thanks to the power of a gazillion to:

  Laura Dail, my superstar agent, and Tamar Rydzinski, the queen of foreign rights.

  All the hardworking Random House Children’s Books people: Wendy Loggia, Beverly Horowitz, Elizabeth Mackey, Chip Gibson, Joan DeMayo, Rachel Feld, Kenny Holcomb, Wendy Louie, Tamar Schwartz, Tim Terhune, Krista Vitola, Adrienne Waintraub, Isabel Warren-Lynch, and Jennifer Black.

  Robin Zingone, who makes Rachel look adorable every time.

  Aviva Mlynowski, my Miri—love you, Squirt!

  To my four reader goddesses, I would be lost without you. Seriously. Lost and unemployed. Thank you thank you thank you thank you to:

  Lauren Myracle, the goddess of motivation (she gave up her weekend to help me!),

  E. Lockhart, the goddess of language (and telling me when I can do better),

  Jess Braun, the goddess of honest reactions (yup, she made me take out a line by telling me it made her puke),

  And my mom, Elissa Ambrose, the goddess of always-knowing-what-I-meant-to-say (and reading every book chapter by chapter!).

  Also love and thanks to my family and friends: Larry Mlynowski, Louisa Weiss, John and Vickie Swidler, Robert Ambrose, Jen Dalven, Gary Swidler, Darren Swidler, Shari Endleman, Heather Endleman, Lori Finkelstein, Gary Mitchell, Leslie Margolis, Ally Carter, Bennett Madison, Alison Pace, Lynda Curnyn, Farrin Jacobs, Kristin Harmel, David Levithan, Bonnie Altro, Robin Glube, Jess David-man, Avery Carmichael, and Renee and Jeremy Cammie (who should have been listed last time!), and BOB. And Todd Swidler, my amazing husband! I love you!

  So Many Outfits …

  Only One First Day

  Do I like red?

  I pirouette before the mirror. Yes, the red shirt could work. Red makes my hair look super-glossy and glamorous and goes great with my favorite jeans.

  If I do say so myself.

  The shirt has a scooped neckline and adorable bubble sleeves. It’s my back-to-school top for the big, BIG day tomorrow—the very first day of sophomore year! My BFF, Tammy, and I went shopping last week for the occasion. I know I could have just zapped something up, but the first rule of witchcraft is that everything comes from something. I didn’t want to accidentally shoplift a new shirt from Bloomingdale’s.

  I like the red. It works with my complexion. But I don’t know if it truly shows off my fabulous tan. Hmm. I touch the material grazing my collarbone and chant:

  “Like new becomes old,

  Like day becomes night,

  Pretty back-to-school top,

  Please become white!”

  I’ve found that adding “please” to my spells really helps. The Powers That Be seem to appreciate it when I’m polite.

  A chill spreads through the room, sending goose bumps down my back, and then—zap!—the spell takes effect. The red of my top quickly drains from the material, which turns fuchsia, dark pink, pale pink, and finally as white as Liquid Paper.

  Now we’re talking! Yes. It should be white. White shows off my awesome summer tan.

  My awesome fake summer tan. Obviously. It’s not like I have a pool in downtown Manhattan to lounge by, and any-way it’s been way too muggy and humid in this city to stay outside for more than twenty seconds, so how could I get naturally sun-kissed? Unfortunately, my camp tan is long gone. But is my fake tan a spray-on? Nope. Is it from one of those tanning booths that could pass for a medieval torture chamber? Again, nope.

  How did I get it, then? Why, I call it the Perfect Golden Tan That Makes Me Look Like I Live in California spell. (Patent pending.)

  I made it up last week and it worked immediately. True, at first I looked like I had a rash, or perhaps a severe case of the measles, but by the following afternoon, the color had settled into a golden glow. A golden glow that makes me look like a native San Franciscan. Or is it Francistite? Francissian?

  Anyway, I am very in control of my powers these days. Ever since Miri taught me megel exercises (you control the flow of your raw will by lifting and lowering inanimate objects such as books and pillows. Not glasses. Don’t try glasses. Trust me on this), my magic muscles have gotten much stronger.

  I finally got my very own copy of A2 (otherwise known as The Authorized and Absolute Reference Handbook to Astonishing Spells, Astounding Potions, and History of Witchcraft Since the Beginning of Time), but since I’m so good at making up my own spells, it’s not like I need it. If you know how to cook, do you need a recipe? I think not.

  Yes, my top has to be white. Everyone knows white is the best color to wear when tanned. Tomorrow, when I glide into JFK High School, they will say, “Who is that perfectly bronzed girl? Could that be Rachel Weinstein?” And “Did you hear? She’s going out with the wonderful and gorgeous A lister Raf Kosravi! Isn’t she amazing?”

  Yes, it’s going to be a great year. The best year ever. I’m calling it The Sophomore Spectacular! My very own Broadway show. And tomorrow is opening day.

  Nothing can go wrong, because:

  I am healthily tan, I have a boyfriend, and I have a groovalicious new haircut with lots of fabo layers. And I am a witch.

  Yup, I’m a witch. Obviously. How else would I be able to change the color of my shirt over and over again? My mom and sister are witches too. We’re chanting, broom-riding, love-spell-casting magic machines. Well, Miri and I are magic machines. Mom is a mostly nonpracticing witch.

  Luckily, I did not need a love spell to make Raf fall in love with me. Nope, he loves me all on his own. Not that he’s said those three magic words. But he will eventually. Am I not lovable? I think I’m pretty lovable. He’s definitely lovable.

  He’s my honey-bunny

  Okay, I haven’t actually called him that to his face. But I am auditioning potential terms of endearment in my head. Other options are sweet pea and shmoopie.

  Shmoopster?

  Just shmoo?

  Even without the names, we make everyone sick. Not throwing-up sick, but yay-for-them sick. I think. Since we became a couple at camp, we’ve spent practically every day together. We hung in the park. We watched TV. We shopped. (He bought this awesome-looking brown waffle shirt that brings out his brown eyes, olive skin, and broad shoulders, and every time he wears it, I tell him how hot he is.) We kissed. (There was a lot of kissing. A ginormous amount of kissing. So much kissing I had to buy an extra-strength Chap Stick. But it tasted like wax paper, so I switched to extra-shiny cherry lip gloss. Yum. The problem is I love it so much I keep licking it off. Which just increases the chappedness of my lips. It’s a vicious cycle.)

  As I was saying, I don’t need to use spells around Raf. Okay, you got me; that’s a bit of a lie. Last week I poofed up fresh breath after gorging on too many pieces of garlic bread. I didn’t want him to have to hold his nose while playing tongue gymnastics. But that’s it. I would never cast a love spell on him. Okay, that’s another lie. When Miri first got her powers, we zapped him with one. (Miri, my two-years-younger sister, discovered she was a witch before I found out that I was. How unfair is that?) But we accidentally cast the spell on Raf’s older brother, Will, instead, so no harm done. Well, not too much. Will and I dated but broke up at the prom when I realized he was really truly in love with my friend Kat. Now, what was I doing? Oh, right. White! I pretend that my room is a catwalk and sashay away from the mirror and then back toward it. Here’s the prob: wearing white might be mega-obvious, since everyone knows that you wear white when you’re trying to show off a tan. Also, for some reason, white is making my head look big. Do I have a big head? Is having a big head bad? Or does it mean I’m smarter?

  Perhaps I should try blue. Blue looks good on me. It brings out my brown eyes. Yes! I must bring out my e
yes! I clear my throat and say:

  “Like night becomes day,

  Like calm seas become wavy,

  Pretty back-to-school top,

  Please become navy!”

  Cold! Zap! Poof!

  Interesting. I twist for a side view. Not bad. But is it bet-ter than red? I mean, I could always wear blue eye shadow. Maybe my shirt should be red. Or white. Or maybe some-thing shimmery? Gold?

  “Like night becomes day,

  Like new becomes old,

  Pretty back-to-school top,

  Please become gold!”

  The top starts pulsating with color. It’s yellow! It’s red! It’s blue! It’s a rainbow of cloth!

  “Rachel!” Miri bellows, throwing my door open and wagging her finger at me in the mirror. “Enough! You’ve been at it for forty-five minutes! Just choose a stupid color, and get ready for tonight!”

  Ah. The one annoying part of the day. My thirteen-year-old sister is insisting that instead of going out with sweet shmoopie tonight, I accompany her to some weirdo Full Moon dinner. “I’m almost ready,” I say. “But I want to lay out the perfect outfit for tomorrow. It’s so hard! Do you think I have a big head?”

  She laughs. “You? Full of yourself? Never!”

  I cluck my tongue. “I mean, does my head look physically big?”

  She plops down cross-legged on my pink carpet. It used to be orange, but when Tigger, our cat, had fleas, the exterminator’s chemicals somehow turned it pink. Oh well. At least I like pink.

  Maybe I should make my shirt pink?

  “Your head is bigger than mine,” she says. “But only slightly.”

  “Huh.” My big head is my second major physical imperfection. The first is my uneven boobs. The left one is larger than the right. It’s not ideal. “Do you think there’s a color I could wear that would make my head look smaller?” I would use a body-morphing spell, but my mom claims they can do serious damage. Like accidentally shrink my brain or give me a mustache.

  Miri sighs. “Do you know that every time you choose a new shade, my bedspread changes color?”

  “Really? Cool!” Like I said, in magic, everything comes from something. If I zap myself new sandals, the shoes have to come from somewhere. If I zap myself up twenty bucks, someone’s wallet just found itself twenty short. If my top turns navy, some piece of fabric just had its blue pigments zapped right out of it.

  “Not cool!” she wails. “My bedspread is currently a hideous shade of pale puke.”

  I straighten the shirt and square my shoulders. “Miri, take one for the team.”

  “I’m always taking one for the team. Team Rachel. You better turn your shirt back to its original shade before bed-time.”

  Original shade? Like I can remember. “Or what?”

  “Or …” She eyes my purse, focuses on it, and makes it slowly rise off its spot on my desk. “Or I’ll spill your stuff all over the floor.”

  “Oooh, now I’m scared. Anyway, whose house are we going to for dinner tonight? Huh, huh?” She can’t argue with me, because I am ridiculously in the right. “Wendaline is your fake friend, is she not? I would much rather be going out with my friends, thank you very much.” Unfortunately, I agreed to this dinner before Raf invited me to a pre-back-to-school bash at Mick Lloyd’s. I claimed I had a family function I couldn’t get out of. Which is kind of true. I just didn’t give the witchy specifics.

  “She is. You’re right.” Miri met Wendaline on Mywitch book.com. It’s a social network, kind of like Facebook or Myspace, but just for witches. It’s enchanted so that no one else can access it. Liana, our cousin, my mom’s sister’s daughter, sent us both friend requests. I declined. Ever since she tried to steal my body at camp, I’m wary of all things Liana-related. Anyway, it’s not like I have the time to friend surf. I’m way too busy with shmoo pea. And Tammy. And my other good friend, Alison, who does not go to my school but does go to my camp. I am way too busy for witch friends. Especially ones you meet over the Internet. Everyone knows that a cyber friend counts as only a fourth of a real friend.

  Miri, on the other hand, loves online friendship. She made three friends on her first day and is desperate to make more. Last week, on her thirteenth birthday, they all sent her e-brooms. Ha-ha. In real life she got a cell. We’ve been bugging Mom for practically the last decade to get us phones, so I’m ecstatic she finally caved. I’m not complaining about the fact that Miri got one and I didn’t—yet— because my birthday is on Thursday (four days away! Wahoo! I’m having a little get-together to celebrate. Yay!), and I’m assuming I’ll be receiving mine then. Although it’s kind of annoying that my little sister, who is still in middle school, got a cell, like magical powers and boobs, before I did. (And unlike mine, her boobs are a matching set.)

  Anyway, one of Miri’s e-broom-sending Mywitchbook.com friends—Wendaline—lives right here in Manhattan and goes to JFK with me. Wendaline’s the one who invited us to the Full Moon dinner at her house tonight. Whatever that is.

  Miri is psyched.

  I’m concerned Wendaline might be a psycho.

  “What are you gonna wear?” Miri asks me now.

  “Black pants and a T-shirt. And ruby slippers in case I have to urgently tap my heels to go home.”

  “Rachel, she is not a psycho! She’s a witch!”

  “Exactly. What if she’s a bad witch? Like the one in Hansel and Gretel who lures unsuspecting children with promises of food and then eats them?”

  “She’s not a cannibal. She’s super-nice.”

  “Sure she is.” When Miri woke me earlier this week with the groundbreaking news that there was another witch at JFK, I feared the worst.

  “Tell me who it is,” I demanded, imagining the most evil person in my class. “Is it Melissa?” Melissa is my archenemy and Raf’s ex-girlfriend, who constantly tries to steal him away. Obviously she wasn’t a witch last year, because then I would so be a frog by now. At the very least, she would have turned the whole school—no, the whole world—no, the whole universe—against me.

  “My life is over!” I wailed, pulling the covers over my head.

  “Why are you such a nut?” Miri asked. “It’s not Melissa.”

  “Oh. Good.” I removed the covers.

  “She’s a freshman. Her name is Wendaline.”

  “Seriously?”

  Miri’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Why not?”

  “Wendy the Witch? Does that not sound familiar? From Casper the Friendly Ghost?”

  “It’s Wendaline. Not Wendy.”

  “She still sounds like a made-up character. Like Hannah Montana. Or Nate the Great. It’s too much rhyming.”

  “ ‘Wendaline the Witch’ doesn’t rhyme. It has alliteration.”

  “It still sounds made-up.”

  “I’ll make sure to tell her that.”

  Anyway, I’m meeting Wendaline tonight, at her Full Moon dinner. I still have no idea what “Full Moon” means. I am hoping it does not involve any kind of nudity. Mom seemed to think it was kind of like the Jewish Shabbat, or Friday-night dinner, but for witches. And monthly instead of weekly, ’cause of the full moon part.

  “What’s her last name?” Mom asked.

  “Peaner.”

  “Hmm,” Mom said, deep in thought. “Okay. You can go if you want to. It might be healthy for you to meet some nice”—read: non-body-snatching—“witches.”

  Yeah, I can’t believe she’s letting us go either. I mean, Inter net witches? How much sketchier can you get?

  “Are you ready?” Miri asks me impatiently, my purse still hovering above her head. “I don’t want to be late. And your bag is getting heavy. Why do you have to carry so much stuff around with you?”

  “I just do,” I say, opening my closet. “I’ll be two secs. I need to change.”

  “Why can’t you just wear what you have on?”

  “It’s my back-to-school top! It needs to be fresh.”

  “Just zap it fresh tomorrow.”

&n
bsp; “Just hold your horses.” I slip it over my head, hang it up, and put on a V-neck purple shirt. Then I change out of my jeans and into black pants. More appropriate for a family dinner, no? I check myself out in the mirror. Not bad. Good enough to meet She Whose Name Sounds Like a TV Character and her family.

  Imagine if I were a TV character! My life is pretty fascinating. It would make a killer TV show. A comedy about two sister witches in NYC? Who wouldn’t watch? That’s good television. The premise could also work well for a reality show.

  Omigod! I’d be famous! I’d get to go on all the talk shows! People would stop me in the street and ask to take my picture, and I would smile modestly and murmur, “Any-thing for my fans.”

  Except then everyone would know I was a witch. Awkward.

  Maybe I can still do it. In disguise. I’ll wear a blond wig. Although then I’d be covering up my awesome new layers that make me look like I have real cheekbones. Not that I don’t have cheekbones. Obviously I do. But I never noticed them before Este the hairstylist got her expert hands on me. Alison recommended her after I showed up at her apartment with a bald spot. I had attempted to zap my own hair.

  I’m trying to convince Miri to pay Este a visit. She could use some cheekbones.

  What was I thinking about? Right. Wigs. I’d have to wear one if I were on a reality show. Although technically, viewers would probably be able to figure out my identity from my Greenwich Village apartment, my high school, and my friends.

  My friends, who would wonder why I was always being trailed by a TV camera. I’d have to tell them the truth. About the show … about my double life.

  Imagine. If everyone knew.

  In a way it would be a relief. I wouldn’t have to keep my big secret squished down inside me like dirty clothes in the laundry hamper.

  Looking in the mirror, I watch as my still-airborne purse quivers and then lands with a thud on Miri’s face. “Ouch,” she whines.