Cara Shultz - Spellcaster

“Brendan stands up to get his bag, and Casey tells him to leave it. Brendan says, ‘All my stuff is in there.’ And she sends a cop in to take his bag and they escort him out.”

I gasped, almost choking on my own breath.

“A cop? What the… Why would they even… I don’t even…” I stammered, not sure what to say.

Jenn popped her head up, checking out the students who were sitting around us. I didn’t have to look to know they were all probably gawking at us as if we were giant talking chickens. I was suddenly glad for the loud engine, even if it did reek of diesel fuel. “They would only have cops there if they thought Brendan did something illegal.” She paused. “Did he?”

“Like what?” I asked. Apart from some minor trespassing and graffiti offenses, and a few fistfights, Brendan wasn’t really bad. Okay, maybe he is a little bad.

“Let me finish,” Cisco continued, running his hands through his dark brown hair. “Brendan just looks at me and shrugs in this, ‘Well, this should be interesting’ kind of way. I mean, he didn’t look nervous or worried or anything, Emma. He didn’t do anything, that I’m sure of,” he added reassuringly.

“I know he didn’t,” I said loyally. However, you didn’t do anything to protect him. You should have told him…should have said something…’cause he’s so clearly being set up by someone.

“Anyway, I go to my next class, and it’s Latin, which I have with Frank, who had a free period that morning.” Cisco stopped, his head snapping up as Dr. McNelly came around to take attendance.

“Everyone’s accounted for,” she announced. Everyone except Brendan. And it’s your fault.

The bus kicked into gear as McNelly began her lecture on what we were going to see at the museum.

“So anyway,” Cisco continued, “Frank says—”

“Everyone needs to listen,” Dr. McNelly announced loudly, steadying herself by holding on to the backs of the red pleather seats as she walked closer to the rear. “And that includes the back of the bus.”

I fidgeted as we sat there with our mouths shut, my stomach twisting and turning like double Dutch jump rope as she droned on and on about the key pieces we would see, including the famed Unicorn Tapestries. Originally I had been excited to see them: maybe it was because a unicorn had been the centerpiece of the silver medallion I used to wear. Or maybe it was because, hey, I’m a girl. I’m genetically hardwired to like unicorns and kittens and hearts and all that crap. But right now, all I could think about was that Brendan was in trouble and getting farther and farther away from me with each spin of the bus’s wheels.

Finally, after what seemed like a millennium, McNelly’s lecture ended, and Cisco jumped right back into the story.

“So Frank had a free first period, and he asks me what happened in chem that morning. I tell him, and he tells me he got to school late, and when he went to his locker, there were two cops standing with Brendan by his locker, going through it with rubber gloves and everything.”

“What the hell did they think he had in there, some kind of super-flu?” I asked, and then it dawned on me. They thought he had drugs in his locker. And the school had a zero-tolerance policy.

“Emma, does he…?” Jenn asked, trailing off.

“Hell, no!” I practically cried, and a few people turned their heads. I didn’t care if they heard me.

“Brendan’s not like that,” I stated emphatically. A few of the other students at Vince A, well that was another story. Some of my classmates had blown through more powder than the Olympic skiing team, but Brendan was clean.

“Sorry,” Jenn said guiltily. “I mean, he’s a DJ, he hangs in clubs…how would I know?”

“Anyway,” Cisco interrupted, getting back to the story, “Frank couldn’t see what was going on, just that when they were leaving, Casey was hauling Brendan out of the hallway by the back of his collar and down the stairs. I guess to Casey’s office.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“Then Frank had to go to class,” Cisco said. “I just don’t get it—why they would think Brendan, of all people, was on drugs? I mean, the guy looks as healthy as they come.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Jenn murmured, more to herself than me. Incredulous, I elbowed her, and Jenn blushed. “Yeah, sorry. I mean, he doesn’t look cracked out or anything.”

“That’s because he’s not,” I insisted. I pulled my phone out of my backpack to text Brendan. If he even has his phone with him. I didn’t know what else to do. I felt powerless.

“This really sucks,” I moaned, dropping against the uncomfortable, upright back of the seat. I kept the phone in my hand, ready to open it as soon as it vibrated.

“I’m sure it’s fine, and it’s just Casey taking full advantage of the whole zero-tolerance policy. Besides, I bet she’d love for you or Brendan to look a little at fault after the whole Anthony thing gave the school’s image such a black eye,” Cisco mused, and Jenn nodded in agreement.

“Look, there’s nothing you can do now,” Cisco advised me. “Just put it out of your mind until you talk to him, and maybe you guys can laugh about this later when you’re at his house, counting his mother’s diamonds or, I don’t know, planning a trip to Bulgaria or whatever it is that you do when you’re at his megapalace downtown,” he teased.

“I don’t think they do much talking,” Jenn said, combing her fingers through her hair as her eyes drifted off to the ceiling of the bus. “I wouldn’t.”

I smiled—even in light of Jenn’s blatant fantasies about my boyfriend—and threw my arms around both of them.

“Thanks, guys,” I whispered. They continued to reassure me that this was just a prank—or revenge. Jenn even theorized that it was an attempt from a rival school to take the star basketball player out of commission, but my thoughts kept going back to the spell with Angelique.

It’s got more hate than you two have love.

This seemed pretty hateful to me.

We arrived at the Cloisters, and I kept surreptitiously checking my phone, waiting for Brendan to text me…once they gave him back his bag and cell phone, that is. If they gave it back to him. All I could think about was that he was going to get kicked out…suspended…arrested. The words kept ringing in my ears, louder than anything McNelly said: It’s got more hate than you two have love.

And that hate was directed at Brendan, not me.

As we walked through the halls, I ran my fingers along the stone architecture, a brief thought flitting through my mind that I might have walked through these very halls in a past life. The Cloisters were the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval branch, with parts of the structure actually dating as far back as the twelfth century. I scribbled meticulous notes, trying to keep track of what she was saying to share with Brendan later, for the inevitable test that he might fail since he missed the trip. That is, if he’s still a student at Vince A.

I was surprised that my number-one nemesis at school, Kristin Thorn, and her little horde of hangers-on stayed as far away from me as possible—I had imagined myself being tripped down one of the several uneven, stone staircases in the Cloisters. Then I noticed that Kristin had her phone’s browser open to the Cloisters webpage, and periodically brought up points as if they were her own. No wonder she’s avoiding you—she doesn’t want you to witness her shameless kiss-assery.

I should have known she wouldn’t keep her distance for long—Brendan’s little scandal provided her with the fodder she needed to jab at me. Just as we were breaking for lunch, I fell behind Cisco and Jenn, kneeling down to fix the twisted strap on my Mary Janes when Kristin sidled up to me. She stomped her red-soled Christian Louboutin heel an inch from my right pinky.