Hollywood hills.” She faltered under Jazz’s withering stare. “She
gave me a spell she got there. She said it would make the guys act like pigs. We thought it would be funny if they ran around
thinking they were pigs, when they actually are, so to speak,” her words drifted off.
For a minute Jazz thought the top of her head would explode. She took a few deep breaths. “And you called me because?”
“Something went wrong with the spell,” the brunette explained. “They were only supposed to act like pigs. You know, run around
on all fours and squeal. They weren’t supposed to,” she cringed as a pig nudged her bare leg, “like, turn into pigs!” Jazz
held out her hand and snapped her fingers. “Give me the spell.”
The girl with the pink-striped hair dug into her shorts pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She gingerly stepped
forward and handed it to her.
Jazz unfolded the paper and scanned the words. She mentally vowed to find the idiot who gave the girls this spell and give
her a taste of her own medicine.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” one of the girls wailed, kicking out at a pig who was trying to climb up her leg.
Jazz looked down at a once lovely rug that even a major shampoo job wouldn’t rescue and furniture that had been shredded by
tiny hooves. Nearby, one pig was happily munching on a bouquet of silk flowers that lay scattered on the floor.
“Eight hundred dollars. Cash only.” The look of horror on their faces told her they didn’t have that amount between them.
No surprise there.
“We pooled our money together, but we only have four-hundred and eighty dollars.” The brunette walked over to a table and
opened a small drawer, pulling out the bills. “Unless you take Visa or MasterCard.” Her smile grew faint at the expression
on Jazz’s face. “I guess not.”
“Good guess.” Jazz hesitated just long enough to make them worry. “All right, but …,” she tucked the bills into her jacket
pocket and then she paused as their smiles quickly dimmed as she finished her sentence, “you have to do something for me.”
“You can really turn them back?”
“What? You want references now?”
“No, no!” One other girl punched the disbeliever. “What do we have to do?”
“First you better make sure to clean this house from top to bottom yourselves. No finding a way to bring in a cleaning service
to handle a mess that all of you are at fault for. If you want my spell to work, you have to clean this place yourselves.”
A bunch of noses wrinkled with disgust. “Clean it? With what?”
“It’s easy. Try buckets of hot soapy water, scrub brushes, and mops,” she said firmly. “And last, you allowme to put a binding
spell on all of you to prevent this ever happening again.” She made eye contact with each girl tomake sure they understood
her conditions. If she knew her manner and stance mirrored Eurydice, Headmistress of the Witches Academy, she probably would
have screamed in horror.
“How long will this binding spell last?” one girl asked.
“Forever.”
A horrified silence followed her words.
“But midterms are coming up,” one girl whispered.
Jazz’s eyes sliced through her. “Be original. Study.” Her anger at the girls was as palpable as the barnyard aroma in the
room. “What you girls did was dangerous. Magick is not something you play with like a board game. You have no idea what you
could have wrought last night with this badly written spell.” She stalked past them, unconsciously echoing the headmistress’s
lofty arrogance. “If I told you what could have happened, you would suffer from nightmares for the rest of your thoughtless
lives.”
“We didn’t know.” The brunette’s lower lip trembled as a tear trickled down her cheek.
“And now you do.” She crumpled up the paper and with a flick of her fingers, let it burst into a bright orange flame. The
girls gasped and stepped back.