Bewitching by Alex Flinn

the chance.
    “This bird is the only one that can fly backwards.”
    “Hummingbird!” Lisette screamed before I could. I resisted the urge to complain that she hadn’t phrased it as a question.
    Lisette also knew the name for a group of ravens (a murder) and which bird turned its head upside down to eat (the flamingo). I was abnormally stupid about the other categories too. When they broke for commercials, I sat there, not having opened my mouth once. Daddy said, “You sure know a lot about birds.”
    Lisette tilted her head to one side. “Oh, well, Mom was really into ornithology.”
    “That’s right,” Daddy said, like he’d just remembered. “We used to go bird-watching when you were a baby.”
    Lisette nodded. “I know. Mom used to take me to this place where they’d dress you up as a scarecrow, and the birds would land right on you.”
    “You remember that?” Daddy said. In the background, there was this stupid car insurance commercial with an animated pig. Lisette stared at Daddy.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Did you go there?”
    “I was the one who took you there first. You were so little. It was right before…” He stopped. “Those were good times.”
    “Oh my God.” Lisette shook her head like she was trying to conjure up the memory. “I can’t believe you were there. I really remember you now. I can see you. You had on a blue polo, and it had a bird on it too. Right? Did you have a shirt like that?”
    I knew he did. It was his college shirt. I wondered if he’d been wearing it in one of the photos with his face cut out. The TV had switched to a commercial about a bear using toilet paper.
    “The University of Kansas jayhawk,” Dad said. “How’d you remember that?”
    “I didn’t know I did. I thought I’d forgotten everything.”
    “Oh, look,” I said. “It’s starting again.”
    Mercifully, they stopped talking about their wonderful past together. On TV, Alex asked the next question, the thousand-dollar question in the bird category.
    “This bird destroys eggs in other nests and replaces them with her own.”
    “What is the cuckoo?” Lisette and Daddy both said at the same moment.
    “You know, I have a lot of homework,” I said, and excused myself. Neither of them protested, even though I always watched Jeopardy with Daddy, no matter what. I didn’t like it. But I didn’t like what I was feeling either. I knew I shouldn’t feel competitive with Lisette. It sounded petty, like something Mother would do, and Lisette had been so nice. Yet, I kept thinking that Mother was right. Lisette was my father’s real daughter, and I wasn’t. What if he loved her better, and I lost the one person who’d liked me just as I was?

7

    All that week, I walked to school with Lisette, ate lunch with Lisette, walked home with Lisette. Being Lisette’s sister was like being in a spotlight, the center of attention. That was something I’d never wanted, but now that I was there, I found out something about spotlights. They’re really warm. For the last two years, I’d been telling myself I was a loner, happy to hang out at the library with the March girls or Harry and Hermione as friends. I’d lied to myself. With Lisette, I was suddenly part of the real world. Like, one day at lunch, the school turned on the Electric Slide over the P.A. system, and everyone got up and danced around. Normally, I’d have buried my nose in the latest dystopian novel and reflected upon the evil of all human beings, everywhere. But that day, I’d forgotten to bring a book to school at all (First. Time. Ever.).
    When everyone started dancing, Lisette tugged on my arm. “Come on!”
    I tried to wave her off. “I can’t dance.”
    “It’s the Electric Slide. Little kids do it. It’s so lame it’s cool.”
    “Really, I can’t. Little kids ridicule me when I dance.”
    Courtney and Midori were tugging Lisette’s arms, and I figured she’d go then. Instead, she said, “You know, Emma, sometimes you need