Free Year of the Witch by Charla Layne Page A

family.

Chapter Two
                With my sixteenth birthday quickly coming to pass, my grandmother had insisted that I attend all of the study sessions the council offered.  While I had enjoyed Spells 101, I certainly was not looking forward to having to juggle my time between my driver’s education classes, my social life, and these study sessions.  My social life—there was a laugh.  If I ever said those words out loud and in my sister’s presence, she might actually hurt herself getting a good laugh out of that one.  See, where my sister had ignored her gift and opted instead to fill her life with shopping, girlfriends, parties and dating, I typically could be found locked in my room with my nose in a book. 
                 It’s not that I wasn’t interested in dating.  It’s just that I was only kind of interested in dating someone that hardly knew I existed.  I have had exactly two conversations with Jake McAlister in my whole life.  Once was over the phone six weeks ago when I called to borrow a spell book from Rachel.  The only other time was two weeks ago when we were all crammed in the back of Mrs. McAlister’s van when she’d graciously given me a ride home from school.  She’d refused to let me walk home in the rain and had insisted that I climb in the back with Jake and Rachel.  I had been only slightly mortified, knowing that my hair was unflatteringly plastered down to my head and my drenched clothes only emphasized the point that I was far too skinny and had no curves whatsoever that an ordinary almost sixteen year old girl should.  I’d slid in to the back seat by Jake, mumbling something that might have resembled a “hey” to both him and Rachel.  And that constituted the entire second conversation I had ever had with Jake.
                I was really going to have to get a move on things if I wanted Jake to realize I was alive and even more so if I expected him to become so enthralled with me that he would invite me to the spring dance.  I’d have to consult my handbook from Spells 101 to see if there was something that could help me along with that.  I remember my grandmother saying I needed to be careful with any spells I conjured up at this early point in my gift.  She’d reminded me that there were a multitude of things that could wrong.  Things that could go wrong and not have a way to get undone, according to her.  She swears up and down that Mr. Ulmyer from down the street still holds the same crush on her since she spelled him in the sixth grade.  And she’s convinced that his undying feelings for her lead to the jealousy that drove her second husband Walt away.  Either way, I had to find some way to get Jake to look at me like Mr. Ulmyer did at Grams.
                In an effort to reach this goal, I’d reluctantly signed up for the spring dance committee—mainly because Rachel had asked me to.  I thought I could just casually suggest that the next committee meeting be held at her house, where the likelihood of a glance at Jake would be far more possible.  I was trying to figure how to slide this suggestion into conversation as I headed down the dark hallway to the school cafeteria where the meeting was to be held.  I had never given much thought to how creepy the dark hallway actually was until I heard a scratching sound followed by what I can only describe as a sort of heavy panting sound.  It was similar to what my basset hound, Rex, sounds like after chasing squirrels around our yard.  I stopped and listened hard into the darkness, trying to figure out which direction the sound was coming from.  Then something or someone—I’m not sure exactly what or who, bounded around the corner of the lockers, ran smack into me knocking me down, and took off out the side door I’d just come in through.  I sat on the tile floor, stunned and staring at the tufts of what appeared to be light brown fur on the floor all around