Jeff Strand - A Bad Day for Voodoo

Do you understand how hard I studied for this test?

I took the test that Friday and nailed it. We walked out of class, and everybody was complaining about how hard it was, especially Adam, but I knew every answer. One hundred percent, baby! Okay, maybe not 100 percent, but at least a 95. I had an awesome weekend.

Monday afternoon, on a cool February morning in Florida, I got my test back. F.

You’re probably thinking, “You sure must be dumb to study so hard for a test and still get the answers wrong! Hard to believe you wrote a whole book!”

Nope. He hadn’t even marked any of the questions. Just “0/100” and the F at the top.

Kelley turned around in her desk, which was right in front of mine. “What’d you get?”

I folded the test in half. “Ninety-two.”

I spent the whole class feeling more than a little sick to my stomach. Our next classes were in the same direction, so normally, Kelley, Adam, and I would walk together, but when the bell rang, I told them to go on ahead. I went up to Mr. Click’s desk. “Why’d I get an F?”

He squinted at me. “Cheating.”

“Cheating?” What was he talking about? Except for the occasional game of Monopoly, I’d never cheated in my life!

“Your answers were exactly the same as Donnie’s, word for word. Do you have another explanation?”

“Yeah, he copied off me!”

“It takes two to cheat. He also received a zero.”

“But I didn’t let him cheat! It’s not my fault if he copied my answers! I can’t help that!”

“Hmmm.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“Let it be a lesson in personal responsibility.”

He really said that. I know, I know, you’re outraged on my behalf, right? I bet you’re thinking, “You should’ve punched that guy in the face!” You can’t really punch teachers, though. I mean, you can, I suppose, but you really shouldn’t. I sure wouldn’t.

“I’ll retake the test,” I said, even though I knew that at least 70 percent of what I’d studied had leaked out of my brain over the weekend. “That’ll prove it.”

Mr. Click shook his head. “Life and my classroom share a common trait: no second chances.”

I stormed out of the room, furious enough to strangle a cute small animal, though the feeling would pass long before I encountered a cute small animal. This was beyond unfair. This was go-to-the-principal unfair. This was “call the local TV station (on a slow news day)” unfair!

I spent all of eighth period economics fuming. And believe me, I can fume.

When school let out, I headed straight to Donnie’s locker. Now, I’m not a big guy. I look a bit taller than I really am because of my awesome posture, but my growth spurt was not yet all I hoped it would be, and most other sophomores had a couple of inches on me. Still, I wasn’t some scrawny little weakling—I ran track and did well on the swim team—and I did not live in fear of getting beat up or shoved into lockers.

Donnie, on the other hand, was a big guy.

He was not the biggest guy in school. That was a senior named Hank whose flattop haircut emphasized the fact that his head really was kind of flat. But Donnie made the top five, easy, and though I knew we weren’t living in a cartoon universe, I did sort of think that he could punch me so hard that my nose would fly off and stick to the wall.

Still, as you’ll recall, I’d passed up the chance to make out with my girlfriend to study for this thing.

“Hey,” I said, walking up to Donnie’s locker.

“Hey,” he said.

“I got a zero on that test.”

He nodded. “Me too.”

“It’s because you copied off me.”

“I didn’t copy off you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You wrote down all the same answers.”

“That’s weird.”

“So you copied.”

“Nope.”

“You need to tell Mr. Click.”

“Maybe you copied off me.”

“I sit in front of you!”

“That’s weird.”

Then he gave me a look, one that said You go bye-bye now or Donnie hurt you.

I left.

I guess I should’ve been way angrier with Donnie, but Mr. Click had been unpleasant and evil all year, whereas Donnie was like a big, dumb puppy that pees on your video games but doesn’t really mean any harm.

Adam and I walked home while I ranted against my unfair treatment, which is when he said that stuff about squishing Mr. Click’s arms with his car. “You definitely need to get revenge,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll talk to Principal Zelig. There’s no way he’ll let him get away with this.”

“Nah, get revenge first. Egg his windows. TP his house. Leave a dead skunk in his desk drawer. Spread superglue on his chair. Spit in his coffee. Photoshop a picture and post it online. Have twenty or thirty pizzas delivered to his house. Get some laxatives and—” “Where would I get a dead skunk?”

“I don’t know. There’s got to be one lying around somewhere.” “I’m just going to talk to Zelig.”

“That’s weak.”

“Sorry.”

“Okay, do me a favor. Don’t talk to anybody until tomorrow morning. I think I’ve got an idea. If you’re not cool with it, fine, you can tattle to the principal, but I think you’ll like it.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll find out.. .tomorrow.”

“It’s not ready yet,” Adam told me as we walked to school the next morning. “But Wednesday for sure.”

“Can I borrow eighty bucks?” Adam asked on Wednesday morning.

“In what universe do I have an extra eighty bucks?”

“Do you have anything you could sell? A watch or something?” “Not if you don’t tell me what you need it for.”

Adam considered that, for a long moment. “Never mind. Friday for sure.”

On Friday morning, Adam handed me a wooden box about the size of the Spider-Man lunch box I used to have when I was a little kid. There were weird, curvy symbols on the lid.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Open it.”

I opened the lid. Inside was a small doll.

“What’s this?” I asked again.

Adam grinned. “It’s your very own Mr. Click voodoo doll.”

CHAPTER 2

When your best friend gives you a voodoo doll of your history teacher, certain questions come to mind:

1. Are you kidding me?

2. A voodoo doll?

3. Seriously?!?

4. Where did you get it?

5. (Two part question) Did you really pay eighty dollars for it, and if so, are you expecting me to pay you back?

6. You don’t really believe that voodoo dolls work, do you?

7. How do you use it?

8. How come, even though we’ve been best friends since the fifth grade, you’ve never expressed any previous interest in dabbling in this sort of thing, not that I’ve ever asked if you were into voodoo or anything like that, but still, doesn’t it seem like a topic that would have come up sooner?

9. Does anybody else know about this?

10. Are you insane?

I started with number 10.

“No,” said Adam. “When you think about this, it really makes a lot of sense.”

“Wrong. Voodoo is something that seems like a good idea at the time .”

“Trust me. This is gonna be awesome.”

I picked the doll up out of the box. It was tan-colored and had the texture of a burlap sack. It was mostly featureless—a couple of black dots for eyes and a line across the mouth, but it looked more like a gingerbread man than a representation of Mr. Click. “It doesn’t look anything like him,” I said.