Free The Popularity Spell by Toni Gallagher Page A

to people, and I achieve it every day!” I laugh so loud I can’t help snorting. Everyone looks at me, including Madison.
    Roberta makes a squinty-eyed face at me as she says to everyone, “Please, let’s give our fellow student all our attention.”
    Though none of us want to, we all quiet down. Madison doesn’t look nervous at all to speak in front of the class. “When Roberta was looking for a student to talk to the Focus! class, of course everybody thought of me. I have been an achiever from a very young age. One of my goals is to be the captain of the high school cheerleading squad, so in second grade, I started cheering for the local peewee football team. Unfortunately I fell from the top of a human pyramid. I told the coach that the girls on the bottom row were too small to hold the rest of us, but the coach didn’t listen to me so I didn’t go back the following year. I still plan to try out for high school cheerleading, though!”
    That’s not such an inspirational story.
    “My mother wants me to be famous one day,” Madison continues, “so my parents put me in acting classes on the weekends. I’ve had small roles in community theater shows. It means I hang out with adults a lot of the time and don’t get to spend much time with my friends, but I guess I don’t mind because I’m learning the craft of acting and it will look good on my résumé if my dad ever lets me audition for commercials, which he won’t yet!”
    Hmmm. That story doesn’t sound any better.
    Madison keeps going. “As many of you know, I have won the Friendship Community School penmanship competition almost every year since we learned how to write.”
    Okay, well, I guess that’s pretty cool, if anybody wrote things down on paper anymore. If I didn’t hate—I mean,
strongly dislike
—Madison so much, I might be happy for her and all her accomplishments. But I’m not.
    “If you want to accomplish your goals, you have to be organized,” Madison is saying. Then, out of nowhere, there’s a sound—like my stomach gurgling when I’m really hungry, or a stretching cat with laryngitis meowing long and loud.
    Everyone kind of looks at each other, like
What was that?
But no one says anything. Madison continues, saying, “I have goals for each day, each week, even each hour.” Then we hear it.
    FARRRRR­RRRRR­T!
    Sam glances at me. I feel like everything around us has stopped, including Earth turning on its axis.
    I look at Madison carefully. She has a really uncomfortable look on her face. Her eyes are big and she moves just a little bit, like her butt is clenching in her tight jeans.
    This has got to be it! Sam and I look at each other in shock and unbelievable happiness. At least part of our hex is working! Uncle Arnie is right. My dad is wrong. Voodoo is totally real and my life is better already because I’m feeling so happy!
    Madison forces a sick-looking smile and keeps going. “I have a bulletin board at home with cards of things I want to get done. I also put up pictures of things I like and places I want to go someday, which help inspire me….”
    FARRRRR­RRRRR­RT!
This one is longer and louder, and it’s even more obvious where it came from. Samantha and I are too shocked to laugh, though everyone else is starting to.
    “Kids, calm down. Let Madison finish her presentation,” Roberta says, but she can’t help herself from making a face because now she’s
smelling
something really bad like the rest of us are. It’s a cross between a dead skunk on the side of the road and a bologna sandwich that’s been left out on the counter until it’s green around the edges.
    “Roberta, could I…come back another day? I don’t…feel well,” Madison says, as we all hear the next
FARRRRR­RRRRR­RRRRT!
Now bursts of laughter start popping like firecrackers out of people’s mouths, even if they’re trying to hold it in.
    Madison doesn’t run out the door—she’s too cool for that—but her feet move very quickly