Free Bras & Broomsticks by Sarah Mlynowski

hanger over our television, we could get thirty-two channels and not have to pay for cable. I’m sure she can figure out a teeny-tiny anti-love spell.
    Miri shakes her head. “I don’t want to start with a five-broomer. When we tried snowboarding in Vermont, we started on the bunny hill, not the advanced. What if it doesn’t work?”
    “Then you’ll turn Dad into a rabbit?”
    Miri doesn’t laugh. “Not funny. Really, it’s too advanced. And I don’t even know what Achillea millefolium is or where to get it. Is it a food? A spice? A lizard? And anyway, the anti-love spell is temporary. It only lasts a few weeks. Most of the spells that have to do with people’s emotions are temporary. So eventually he’d snap out of it and reschedule the wedding.”
    “You don’t know that. Maybe by the time the spell wears off it’ll be too late,” I wishful think out loud. “He’ll have figured out that he doesn’t love her after all. Infatuation isn’t love. So, for a while you’ll remove the blinders, and once he sees the truth, he’ll never go back.” I sigh. I can tell that Miri isn’t buying my reasoning. “So what are you saying? Don’t tell me the plan is off.” No, no, no!
    “I’m trying to find an alternative.”
    Phewf. “You’re so good. And smart. I bet you could do anything you set your mind to.” Here it comes. The moment of reckoning. The witching hour. I give her my big-eyed-little-girl innocent look. “I bet you could even find me a tiny little popularity spell while you’re searching.”
    She snort-laughs. “Nice try.”
    “Oh, come on! Please, please find a popularity spell for me? Please? Please, please, please?”
    She shakes her head. “There is no make-me-popular-in-high-school spell.”
    “Why not?” I flip onto my back, leaning my feet against the apple-patterned wallpaper to get comfy. I probably should have taken off my shoes. Oops. Do black smudges come off?
    “Because the book was transcribed in 1304,” Miri says, leafing though the pages. “High school didn’t exist.”
    “It doesn’t have to be high school popularity, precisely,” I say reasonably. “Is there a spell for winning popularity among the peasants? Can’t you whip up something that would make the knights and vicars think I’m cool?” I hop off the table in search of a cleansing solution. “I thought the book was modernized!” The footprints on the wall would lead one to believe that I can walk sideways. Hey, how awesome would that be?
    “It’s the language, not the content, that’s modernized,” Miri says. “Do you even know what a vicar is?”
    “You’re the one doing the research.” Must I do everything? I begin to swipe at the telltale smudges.
    “Fine, I’ll keep an eye out, but I make no promises.”
    Yes! “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I give her a big wet kiss on the cheek and then continue cleaning.
    You’d think she could offer to zap the stain. Which leads me to a pertinent question. Why do witches have broomsticks? Can’t they just raw-will the dirt away?

    Two hours later Miri opens my door. “I got it.”
    “Don’t you knock?”
    “Don’t you want me to get rid of you-know-who?”
    I’m stretched across my pink carpet, doing my math homework. The carpet used to be orange before Tigger managed to bring fleas back from wherever he runs to when we hold the door open too long. At first, we didn’t even know we had fleas. All we wondered was why we had small red bites around our ankles. The whole experience was pretty vile. Anyway, the exterminator left my blinds open by mistake and the sun bleached my carpet. Now my room fully clashes. I have a sherbet orange dresser, comforter, and desk, and a cotton-candy carpet. The various pairs of jeans and sweaters that hang over every available item of furniture don’t help the décor.
    Miri shuts the door behind her. She presses her finger against her lips as a warning to be quiet, as Mom is in the kitchen cooking