The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball by Risa Green Page A

we’re not blind.” Samantha smirks at my sweater.
    â€œOh my God!” Lindsay shrieks. “Look at them! They’re huge! I mean, okay, they’re not huge. They’re still probably an A cup, but they’re huge for you . Oh my God! I knew it! I knew that crystal ball was really magic!”
    â€œShhhh!” I hiss. “It was an allergic reaction. To the dim sum,” I add, glaring at Samantha. “And anyway, I am not talking about my boobs.”
    Samantha cocks an eyebrow. “Really? Because everybody else is. Lizzie McNeal and Cole Miller are practically foaming at the mouth.” She turns to Lindsay. “I wonder what Jesse Cooper thinks of them. It seems that he and Erin had a little tête-à-tête in the hallway this morning.”
    I have to laugh. “How do you even know about that? It just happened, like, half an hour ago.”
    Samantha smiles. “I’m an information ninja, people. You’d be shocked at the things I know.”
    â€œOkay, well, I bet you don’t know about this .” I reach into my backpack and pull out my English paper. I turn it to the last page and hold it out for them to see.
    Excellent work , it says, in Mr. Lower’s red scrawl. Well researched and insightful .
    Samantha shrugs. “I’d rather talk about your boobs.”
    â€œCome on, you guys, don’t you remember?” I ask them. “Those are the exact words that I used with the ball last night.”
    Lindsay squeezes my swollen arm. Her eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. “You’re starting to believe it, aren’t you?”
    I look down at the floor. I spent all of English class struggling with that very question (that is, when I wasn’t replaying my run-in with Jesse). I mean, I am not the kind of person who believes in things like this. I’m just not. It’s how I define myself. The logical one. The rational one. The one who believes in math and physics, not magic and psychics. But at the same time, I can’t explain it. Really, how many coincidences can there be? So, do I? Do I believe that this ball is really magic? And more importantly, if I do, then does that mean that I have to change my whole definition of myself?
    I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe.”
    Lindsay smiles and puts her arm around my shoulders. “Welcome,” she says. “I knew you’d come around one day.”
    I shake her arm off of me. “Okay, just so you know, I draw the line at the ball. I still do not believe in your voodoo doll, or your crystals, or any—”
    â€œWhatever,” Samantha interrupts. “Can we focus on what is important here? I mean, do you guys understand the power that we have with this thing? Do you realize what you can do with a magic Pink Crystal Ball? You could ask it to make every guy in school only want to date the three of us. You can ask it for straight As. You can ask it for a new car—”
    â€œYou can ask it to make me popular,” Lindsay interrupts, in a voice so quiet we can barely hear it—and quickly follows up with a “Kidding.”
    â€œWait, you guys,” I say. “I don’t know about all that. It doesn’t always work when I ask it things, remember? We have to figure out how to use it.” I pause. “You know, I was thinking about it in English class before…and I think that the list my aunt left me is really a set of instructions. Or clues, maybe. I don’t know. But you’re right, Lindsay. It has to mean something. Why else would she have written it? Until we figure out what it all means, though, I don’t think we should ask the ball anything serious.”
    â€œShe’s right,” Lindsay agrees. “Remember in Back to the Future , when Michael J. Fox started changing his parents’ story, and then his brother and sister disappeared from the picture he had in his