Free The Runaway Spell by Lexi Connor Page A

lessons. No more magic, period.
    It was the price she had to pay.
    The whistle blew, and the game began. The home team Tigers, in their orange jerseys, played the neighboring Falcons, in blue. It wasn’t hard to spot George in the crowd — his height made him different enough, not to mention the stripes all over his body.
    But what was he doing out there? A teammate sent him a perfect pass, with an open shot at thegoal, and instead of seizing the opportunity, George ignored the pass and ran in crazy circles around the defensive players from the other team. They punted the ball thirty yards back down the field, and the home team fans groaned.
    “C’mon, George,” B said under her breath. “You wanted zebra abilities for this game. You have to use them!”
    Coach Lyons rose from the bench and hollered, “Quit clowning around, George!” While the rest of the Tiger team had retreated back to play defense, George had gone down on all fours, sniffing a tuft of grass and taking a bite out of it.
    “What’s George
doing?”
some kids near B were saying. “Isn’t he the captain?”
    Just then the whistle blew. While B was watching George, the Falcons had scored a goal!
    It was painful to watch. George couldn’t seem to pay attention to soccer when there was grass underfoot. Coach Lyons gave him one more chance, but the Falcons scored a second goal, and the Tigers coach benched his captain. A couple of kids booed.
    B sat with her chin in her hands. The secondtwenty minutes began, and the Tigers did their best without George. This was what he’d had been afraid of — getting benched. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to care. He was crawling under the bench, nosing the grass.
    George, you’re making me crazy!
    Then she blinked.
    Making me crazy. Troubling me.
    The hair of the beast that’s troubling you!
    What if the animal transformation reversal spell wasn’t talking about a hair from the
type
of animal, but hair from the actual animal whose transformation had gone wrong?
    In other words, a hair from George?

Chapter 17
    B rose in the stands and hurried down the steps. She still had the stinky sock and zebra hair stuffed into the bottom of her backpack, so she could do the spell again.
    With George sitting right there on the bench, it shouldn’t be hard to snag a hair. But before B could reach him, Coach Lyons signaled the ref for a substitution. The other center forward had slipped and twisted his ankle.
    “No more shenanigans, George,” B heard the coach tell her friend. “You’ve got to turn this game around. Play like you’ve been playing in practice all week!”
    And he was gone. B slumped down into a seat on the front row, thinking hard. How could she reach George? She didn’t dare attempt a summoning spell for a piece of George’s hair, from so far away across the field. Someone might see the magic or she could summon the wrong thing entirely.
    Finally, the whistle blew for halftime. The players, flushed in the face, were trotting back to the bench. The score was still at 2–0.
    B slipped into the row right behind where the team would sit, hoping that George would sit down and she’d be able to snag a hair. But they didn’t sit. Coach Lyons kept them in a huddle for a long time. When it finally broke up, everyone went for water. George guzzled about a quart of it.
    B waved to him, called to him, tried to catch his eye, but her best friend never seemed to notice. It seemed that all he could think of was grazing….
    Grazing!
    B ran around behind the bleachers and slipped through the metal slats until she was underneath. Here, where the grass grew thick and unmowed, Bfound a huge juicy patch of dandelion greens that she scooped up. Then she ran back out to where George stood with his teammates, and called to him.
    This time, he turned.
    She waved the fistful of greens like she was beckoning to a horse. And George trotted over just as a horse would have.
    “Awesome!” he cried, reaching for the greens.