Under a Spell by Amanda Ashby Page B

toward the exit as Harvey came racing over.
    â€œAre you okay? What happened?”
    â€œI’ve got no idea.” Sophie shook her head as she awkwardly got to her feet. “I mean, one minute everything was perfect, and then suddenly it wasn’t. I guess I haven’t quite mastered the transcendental conjuring stuff after all.”
    â€œI knew this was a bad idea,” he reminded her before letting out a sigh. “But don’t beat yourself up about it. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
    â€œWorse than humiliating myself in front of the entire school?” Sophie raised an eyebrow.
    â€œWell, first of all, it wasn’t the entire school, it wasabout twenty people; and second, it could’ve happened in front of the Djinn Council,” he pointed out.
    â€œYou’re right. I can’t believe I lost my focus like that.” Sophie flushed as she realized she had been so concerned about Jonathan and trying to make Melissa like her that she had forgotten about fine-tuning her skills. “I wonder if we have time to go see Malik before next period? Maybe he can tell me why my routine didn’t work.”
    â€œIf it involves leaving the gym, then I’m all for it,” Harvey said as they headed for the exit. Sophie glanced at her watch, only to realize it wasn’t there. She let out a groan.
    â€œOh, man, I forgot to get my stuff from Melissa. I had to take all my jewelry off and give it to her just before I did my routine. I’ll be only a second,” Sophie said as she hurried back to the table where the cheerleaders had been sitting.
    Sophie waited until Melissa closed the folder she had been writing in, and when she looked up, Sophie gave her a little wave. However, instead of returning it, Melissa stared right through her before standing up and heading for the exit.
    â€œHey, wait up,” Sophie puffed as she hurried to catch up with Melissa and her long legs.
    â€œI beg your pardon?” Melissa suddenly stopped and turned around, her brown eyes narrowed and menacing and her tone dripping with icicles. “Are you speaking to me?”
    â€œEr.” Sophie paused and blinked for a moment as sherealized that she had been a bit premature to think that Melissa had started to like her. Was this because she had screwed up the tryouts? Then she remembered that she had more important things to worry about. Like learning to nail her magic so she could impress the Djinn Council. “Um, yeah, I wanted to get my jewelry back from you. I gave you two rings, a bracelet, my watch, and, of course, the necklace with my Neanderthal Joe guitar pick on it.”
    â€œSorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Melissa shrugged before she folded her arms tightly in front of her chest.
    For a moment Sophie just stared at the other girl as she tried to figure out what was going on.
And what had Harvey told her about arm folding being a declaration of war?
A prickle of alarm went racing through her.
    â€œB-but you do. I gave them to you. Right before I did my routine,” Sophie reminded her as she thought how much she loved her guitar pick. Granted, she didn’t think it was a good-luck charm like Ben Griggs did, but it still symbolized when she and Jonathan had first had their moment.
    â€œI don’t think so.” Melissa shot her a blank look as she flicked her perfect blonde hair over one shoulder and started to inspect her fingernails. “Oh, but come to think of it, now that you don’t have that stupid guitar pick, you’ll no longer have an excuse to hang all over my boyfriend.
Gee, that’s too bad
.”
    â€œIs that what this is about?” Sophie widened her eyesas she started to understand what was going on. “The guitar pick? Because I thought I explained that it wasn’t my fault that Ben keeps wanting to touch it. I even tried to talk him out of it before because I didn’t want to make you