Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) Read Free

knew I had just given him exactly what he wanted when a sick, triumphant smile spread across his whole fat face. 
    Ten minutes later, I had not only a speeding ticket—that still stated I had been doing eighty and not sixty—but also one for not signaling properly when I pulled over to the side of the road, one for public nuisance because I was playing my music too loud, one for littering because an empty water bottle had fallen out of my car when I got out and I hadn’t picked it up, and one for verbal assault of a police officer because his daughter was a bitch and I’d told him so.
    “You have a good day now, Ember,” he said, laughing as he walked back to his car. 
    “Yeah, because it’s been a great one so far,” I muttered under my breath as I got in the car and put my seatbelt back on. 
    If only I had known just how bad my day was really going to get…
     

 
     

    Every Girl Needs a Stalker
     
     
    Just to be annoying, Deputy Donut decided he would escort me to school.  I had never been as careful while I driving as I was for the five minutes he followed me.  I turned off the stereo, kept my hands at ten and two and the speedometer set exactly on forty-four.  By the time I pulled into Oakhurst Academy’s student lot, I was so tense I felt like my tendons were humming.
    I immediately reached over to grab my backpack and stopped breathing altogether when all my hand found was empty air.  I closed my eyes and prayed to whatever power might be listening that I hadn’t been stupid enough to leave my backpack next to my chair at home.  But when I opened my eyes, my backpack was still missing, and I was still screwed.
    Almost at the end of my rope—and ready to hang myself with it—I was forced to accept the truth.  All the homework I had slaved over the night before was MIA and my English Lit essay was due to be handed in to Ms. Cantrell, the Dragon Lady of Oakhurst Academy, in less than an hour.
    No essay = Saturday detention. 
    Saturday detention = a week with no car keys.
    A week with no car keys = no shopping trip with my best friend, Kim.
    Standing Kim up = her finding some way to execute me.  Probably via text message.  Kim’s creative like that.
    Then again, when my parents saw my latest batch of tickets and the way my insurance premium had just soared to the next galaxy, I would be totally dead, anyway.  So, really, what did it matter?
    If I was hoping things would get better, I was setting myself up for disappointment.  First, Dragon Lady Cantrell seemed to take particular delight in giving me my Saturday detention slip for not handing in my essay, stating that getting pulled over for speeding was no excuse not to have completed the assignment.  I set my notebook on fire in Chemistry, losing a month’s worth of study notes in the process.  I failed the quiz I’d studied half the night for in Trig.  Then, because I’d seriously pissed off the Cosmic forces somehow, I got stuck with none other than Stacy Martin, the Queen Bitch of Oakhurst Academy, as my tennis partner in gym. 
    I finally reached that noose at the end of my metaphorical rope, though, when I stumbled to my locker after the last bell rang to signal the end of my wonderful day, completely wrung out, to find the boyfriend I didn’t have—or want, for that matter—waiting to ambush me.  Just the sight of Jack O’Connell standing there was enough to set my teeth on edge and send my temper into orbit.  
    I had known it wasn’t going to work after our first date.  Dinner had been a disaster.  Every time I’d made the mistake of making eye contact, I had felt like I was suffocating, like my lungs were filling with smoke or something.  I could even smell smoke.  He had taken me to the only nice restaurant in town, but the food tasted like ashes.  My throat felt dry and scratchy and I kept chugging down water like there wouldn’t be any more tomorrow.  When I started coughingup little black specks that looked