Free Mirrored by Alex Flinn

looked away on my own terms.
    Maybe that’s what I needed, to be on my own terms. Probably Greg would eventually get tired of Jennifer on his own without any help from me. She was really stupid. It was silly of me to want to hurt her. After all, if Greg didn’t like me for me, what good was he? Maybe I should—
    “Hey, watch it, ugly!” Someone slammed into me.
    “Sorry.”
    “Your face is sorry.” It was Jennifer, Jennifer with brand-new highlighting and a face full of makeup. “You just exist to get in my way, don’t you?” She shoved past me toward Greg, who’d stopped to wait for her.
    Okay. Game on.
    In class, we were reading Animal Farm aloud, painful because Mr. Cameron had students take turns reading and, apparently, somestill couldn’t. I read ahead, pages ahead, but then he’d stop to discuss it, and I wouldn’t remember where we were. So, instead, I just zoned out as Colby Buckner read, “Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is ab . . . ol . . . ished forever.” I thought about pigs. The pigs in the story were supposed to be like the people in power. People were like pigs. If only the people who were like pigs could look like pigs.
    I contemplated Jennifer, who sat two rows to the side of me. She wasn’t even pretending to read. Her eyes fluttered closed, then open. Her forehead drooped forward. Her nose was adorable, slim, and turned up. What if it turned up a little bit more . . . ?
    She saw me looking at her and mouthed, Pig .
    I thought of everything Jennifer had ever done to me, the insults, taking Greg, the snickering, taking Greg. Then I thought of everything anyone had ever done to me. All my life, I’d been an outcast, a pariah, and why? Because I wasn’t pretty enough? Because I was too smart to matter but not smart enough to play stupid? I closed my eyes, but I could see Jennifer’s face, Jennifer’s perfect, blue-eyed, laughing face, her enviable nose. Then, in my mind, it morphed into a pig nose. She squealed in horror, just like a pig, and held her lively, nail-polished fingers up to hide it. She squealed again, then started to cry. I smirked in satisfaction.
    In the room, Colby was still reading. I put my head down, looking at Jennifer so she couldn’t see me.
    She was still whispering to Gennifer. Her nose was still perfect.
    Why hadn’t it worked? Guess I hadn’t done it right. Maybe it was harder to work magic on others. But hadn’t Kendra cured her brother the first time out? Hadn’t I gotten the birds to fight off Nick and Nathan? I leaned my hand on my face and looked up.
    Huh. My face felt different. My nose felt . . . piggy.
    What? How could that be? I’d seen it so clearly in my mind,Jennifer’s face changing, not mine. Not mine!
    Even as I held my hand up, I felt my nose hardening, my nostrils spreading even more. MY head was heavy, and I remembered reading that a pig’s snout weighed about a pound. I cradled my head in my hands like I had a headache, leaning to cover myself with my hair.
    “Violet, will you read next?” Mr. Cameron asked.
    I began to cough, still holding my hands over my face. I managed to gasp out, “Bathroom!” Around me, everyone was laughing. Without waiting for Mr. Cameron’s response, I bolted to the girls’ room, still coughing. I looked in the mirror and saw . . . my snout.
    It was pinkish-white with black spots and stood at least three inches from my face!
    What . . . the . . . ?
    I ducked into a stall, shaking, and tried to bring up the magic. My thoughts were racing. How would I get out of here? What would Mr. Cameron say? Could I put my face back? I realized that, while anger had been an awesome motivator, fear was a terrible one.
    Breathe. Breathe. Stop thinking about how you can’t leave the building like this. Forget how you left your backpack in Cameron’s class. Breathe.
    Breathe!
    I remembered the spider. How I’d changed its