Free Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 02 Competition's A Witch by Kelly McClymer Page B

prepared, so even though Denise’s lie surprised me, I noticed right away that the bracelet made myarm tingle and the cool stone got very warm, very fast.
    “Neat.” I smiled at Samuel, wishing for a minute that I did think of him as more than a friend. It would make life a whole lot easier. Not that Tara and the rest of the cheer-leaders would accept a geek in their midst. But maybe I could have cleaned him up a little. He was really cute when he took his glasses off, and a kewlicious-style makeover would go a long way with him.
    “Like it?” He smiled at me, a smile that was so genuine and geekily innocent that I knew there was no way I’d ever clean him up just to feed him to a bunch of cheerleaders.
    “Love it. Thank you.” Maybe he and Maria would make a cute couple if I could get them to notice each other that way? I’d have to think about it.
    “No problem.” As I turned away to head toward the cheerleaders’ table, he added, “If you’re going to be kewl, you need something to help you watch your back.”
    Fringie friends. They should come with an operating manual.
    Not that kewl friends were much better. I knew I should have stuck with my drive-by-hi plan. Then Samuel could have given me the bracelet at our tutoring session with no one to notice but my family. Instead, as soon as I sat down at the cheerleaders’ lunch table, Tara said, “Why were you talking to
them
?” She looked at the bracelet, but didn’t say anything.
    I shrugged. If she wasn’t going to ask about the bracelet,I wasn’t going to explain. “I always talk to people I like.” I said it very casually, though. I didn’t want to get into a challenge-fest about people I chose to talk to, but I didn’t want to get cold-shouldered by the team because I wasn’t playing by the kewl kid rules either. I would have liked witch high school better if it didn’t have exactly the same social rules as mortal high school. There are so many “us versus them” groups to sort out, it gives a new girl a migraine.
    Tara didn’t look happy. I think she was trying to figure out a way to ask about the bracelet without looking like she was asking, but one of the other cheerleaders saved her from having to finesse the info out of me.
    “What did he give you?” Yvette was across the table from me, but she reached over and touched the bracelet in curiosity when I blocked her attempt to summon it from my wrist. I would have spent a second congratulating myself on a successful blocking spell, but I was too distracted wondering how to explain the bracelet. The truth was not an option, of course.
    “It’s just a bracelet.” A bracelet that stung me for telling that lie. Ouch.
    “He likes you? Yuck.” Thanks to Samuel’s skill at bending school rules, Tara had gone for a ride in my car during school hours, but she hadn’t softened her attitude toward my friendship with him. She wanted me to act like he didn’t exist.
    “Geeks can be useful. Remember?” I tried to remind her how Samuel could be useful without revealing any specifics in front of the rest of the squad.
    “I suppose.” She dropped the subject of Samuel and bent over to examine the bracelet. “That is really hideous. I can’t believe you agreed to wear it. Do you
like him
like him?”
    “No, I don’t
like him
like him.” I said it quickly and I meant it, but it didn’t escape my notice that the bracelet tingled at Tara’s lie about finding it hideous. “But I do like the bracelet he made for me.”
    I shouldn’t have rubbed in the fact that Tara liked it too. But her superior attitude about Samuel really irritated me.
    “Really?” I could see the smackdown coming. From the way the other girls at the table held their breath, I’m sure they did too. “I think it’s hideous. You couldn’t
make
me wear it. Sometimes I wonder if you really belong on the team, Pru. First you give us those four stupid rules. And now you’re actually going to wear
that
.”
    The burn was