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  “I don’t think so, MFT. Do you, Joline?” Anna snickered and arched her eyebrow at her witchy partner.

  Maeve began to walk away. Katani always said if you were going to defend yourself, do it quickly and move away before Anna and Joline worked up a head of steam. But then Maeve heard Joline’s reply.

  “Yeah, MFT! You know, Maeve—Mud Face Taylor. It kind of suits you,” Joline spat out. And then they both cackled, their laughter filling the hallway.

  Maeve gasped and spun around, her face burning with humiliation. It was all she could do to keep from screaming, “I’ll get you, my pretties,” in her best imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West. She had been practicing that line on her little brother Sam for years, and he always ran away whenever she whispered it behind him. She had to whisper it because her mother threatened her with a week’s worth of grounding for scaring Sam. But this was different—Anna and Joline deserved a good scare.

  “No, a name like that doesn’t suit Maeve at all,” a stern Mrs. Fields reprimanded. All three girls spun around to face the principal of AAJH.

  “And if I hear it from anyone ever again, I’ll know just whom to call to my office. AAJH does not allow name calling…ever.”

  Maeve looked up at Mrs. Fields, her face flushed with gratitude.

  Mrs. Fields seems to have this knack for ferreting out hall trouble before anything bad really happens, Maeve thought admiringly. And the principal was smart enough not to give special attention to the student who was being picked on. It was like she knew that any sympathy from her would cause problems for the victim later on.

  “Now, get moving, girls. You will be late for class. And this ends right here and now. Am I understood?” She looked sternly at all of them. Maeve nodded, and so did Anna and Joline. Of course they pouted too, Maeve noted smugly. But she was relieved. Nobody messed with Mrs. Fields—the Queens of Mean included.

  Maeve paused while the QOM flew off down the hall on their brooms. She gave a quick smile to Mrs. Fields, who simply said, “Nice goal.”

  As she headed toward class, Maeve hoped that Anna and Joline hadn’t spread their little joke at her expense. All of sudden she had a horrible thought. What if Dillon and Avery are calling me MFT too?

  Maeve paused at the door to first-period science class and took a deep breath, suddenly afraid that when she walked into the classroom, everyone would laugh at her.

  “Maeve, I heard…” Isabel said, but before she could finish, Avery jogged up, followed by Charlotte and Katani.

  “What were you doing with Anna and Joline and Mrs. Fields in the hallway? Yurt said Mrs. Fields looked really mad.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Maeve grumbled.

  “Were the QOM on the attack?” Avery asked, concern in her voice.

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Maeve answered sharply. She’d had enough for one day.

  “Let’s just go in and sit down?” Charlotte, sensitive to her friend’s discomfort, suggested when the bell rang. The rest of the class had already filed past, into the room. Maeve thought everyone would be looking at her, but no one was. Maybe Mrs. Fields really had saved the day.

  Mixing up Some Love Potion

  “You’re in luck, people,” Mr. Moore said. “I’m going to be Mr. Nice Guy and let you choose your own lab partners today.” Oh, lovely, Maeve thought. Who will want to work with Mud Face Taylor! Suddenly her mother’s words popped in her head and she decided to just try to pay attention to the science teacher. She was MKT. She was!

  Mr. Moore picked up a huge stuffed cow from his desk and gave it a squeeze. It let out a long, loud “Mooooooooo.” His bright orange tie, decorated with purple cows, looked to Maeve like a traffic cone with an awful disease. Mr. Moore was kind of obsessed with goofy-looking cow paraphernalia, but he was a good teacher.

  Riley walked up to her desk so quietly, Maeve jumped when he spoke. “Want to be partners?” Maeve scanned the room for Dillon. He was talking to Henry Yurt. What was he saying? Her stomach began to churn. Her hopes for a date with Dillon were fading fast.

  “I guess.” Maeve sounded so unfriendly, Riley hesitated for a moment. But when she scooched her stool over, Riley put down his backpack and stared at his shoes. “Um, I heard about your goal—”

  “What?” Maeve snapped. “Wait, never mind. Don’t tell me.”

  “No, I mean, your goal rocked!” Riley grimaced when he saw Maeve’s horrified expression. “I didn’t know you could play soccer.”

  “I can’t.” Maeve stared hard at Riley’s face. Was he actually trying to make her feel better? Weird. They were kind of friends, but they usually just chatted about music. “I stink at soccer,” she said.

  “Maeve, you rock at everything you do.” He grinned, and Maeve felt some of her frustration washing away. She pulled out her lab notebook and started reading the directions for Love Potion #9 out loud to Riley.

  A Confident Girl

  Katani strolled over to Reggie’s desk. “Want to work together?”

  He nodded. “Sure thing.”

  Chelsea watched Katani, wondering how that girl managed to be so calm and confident. Her ease with Reggie gave Chelsea an idea. This was a perfect opportunity to work with someone different. Someone like Trevor. He sat on the other side of the classroom, stuffing some papers in his notebook with a look of concentration that set Chelsea’s heart pounding in her ribcage. I’ll ask if he wants to work together, and maybe we’ll get talking about photography again! Maybe I should tell him about the action shots I got of him playing soccer?

  Chelsea opened her mouth to call out Trevor’s name. But she never got the chance.

  “Hey, T-Dawg,” Avery said, bouncing over to him with a grin. “Wanna work with me?”

  Trevor caught Chelsea looking at him from across the room and gave her a nod. But he turned right back to Avery. “Sure.” He scooted his stool over so that Avery could slip onto the one beside him.

  Chelsea’s hope faded like a flower drooping and turning brown. Did Avery have to be buddies with every guy in the school? Chelsea turned to ask Charlotte to be her partner, but Char was talking to Isabel. Then she noticed Nick sitting alone. Maybe he’d be her partner.

  Worse than a Klutz Attack

  “Char, do you think Maeve is okay?” Isabel asked.

  “Yeah, I think so….” Charlotte’s gaze drifted to a certain dark-haired boy. “Izzy, do you mind if I ask Nick to be my lab partner?”

  Isabel looked over at Nick and Chelsea. “Better go quick!” she replied.

  Charlotte made her way across the room, stopping to ask Avery a quick question about her dog depression research first. She didn’t want to look too obvious…but she was ready to take Sophie’s advice. Of course Nick still liked her. He and Chels were just friends, and she was friends with both of them.

  “Hey, Nick.” Charlotte smiled. “Want to be my partner?”

  Nick’s eyes opened wide for a second and he played with his pen, flipping it over and over in his fingers. “Ummm…sorry, Char. I’d love to, but Chelsea and I are kind of working together already, but…”

  Charlotte stumbled away before she heard the rest of Nick’s sentence. Charlotte wanted to go to the nurse’s office and lie down. It was so obvious, and there was absolutely no denying it now: Nick definitely liked Chelsea. Charlotte glanced around the room, sweat breaking out on her palms. Whom could she work with? Isabel gave her an apologetic smile. I thought you were working with Nick! she mouthed from her stool next to Kevin.

  Mortified, Charlotte realized not having anyone to work with was definitely worse than a klutz attack! It was a ticket to loserville!

  “My, my!” Mr. Moore walked over to Charlotte. “It seems we have an odd number today. Would you like to be my lab assistant?” It was now official: Charlotte Ramsey was a loser!

  Mr. Moore didn’t wait for a yes or no. He handed Charlotte the stuffed cow and perched on the edge of his desk. “In honor of the holiday this weekend—I thin
k you all know the one I mean—today we are going to perform an experiment, making a mixture I like to call “Love Potion Number Nine.”

  The class erupted into laughter. Charlotte smiled weakly.

  The Yurtmeister waved his hand in the air. “Hey! What happened to the other eight?”

  Everyone giggled.

  Mr. Moore rolled his eyes. “Very clever, Mr. Yurt. It comes from an old song—‘Love Potion Number 9.’ Ask your grandparents.”

  Mr. Moore took out a jar of pickled red cabbage, opened it with a flourish, poured a little bit into a beaker, and handed the jar to Charlotte. She wrinkled up her nose at the strong smell.

  “Do you know what this substance is?” Mr. Moore asked.

  “Smells like dirty gym socks!” the always wisecracking Dillon shouted. Henry Yurt gave him a high five.

  “Oh, it’s even better than that! This cabbage juice is an acid-base indicator. Would you like to hand me the baking soda and vinegar, Charlotte?”

  Trevor lifted a hand in the air. “We made volcanoes out of baking soda and vinegar at my old school.”

  Mr. Moore nodded. “I bet you’ll like this experiment better. Prepare to be amazed! Charlotte, pour in a pinch of that baking soda.”

  Charlotte gritted her teeth with concentration. This was the perfect opportunity for disaster, but her hands held steady, and to her surprise, just the tiniest sprinkling of baking soda caused an explosion of blue-green foam!

  “Cool!” several voices called out from around the room.

  Mr. Moore whisked the beaker over to the sink by his desk before any foam got on the floor. “Now the vinegar!” His tie was stuck sideways in one of his buttonholes, but he didn’t seem to notice. Charlotte walked over to the sink and tipped the bottle of vinegar over the green foam.

  Pink froth bubbled up, completely covering the green!

  Cheers and whistles erupted from around the classroom. Mr. Moore took a bow, put the beaker down and, recognizing Charlotte’s discomfort, led her over to Maeve and Riley.

  “You’ll be a group of three. Now everyone get to work! Your job is to explain why Love Potion Number Nine changes color. If you get up to page three before the end of the period, I have some other household items you can drop in your beakers for extra credit. Tums, ammonia, lemon juice…have a blast, and, may the force be with you!”

  Mr. Moore was both a cow lover and a card-carrying member of the official Star Wars Fan Club. He never let a class period go by without trying to include some dialogue from the movies. That was just part of his weirdness, and most of the students loved it.

  Usually Mr. Moore’s quotes made Maeve laugh. Not today. She studied the handout, her brow wrinkled in concentration. Math and science always made her brain fog. Why did there have to be so many numbers and symbols? What if Riley thought she was stupid? At least Charlotte was in the group to save her from complete embarrassment.

  “Maeve, the experiment’s easy,” Charlotte promised. Despite her own misery, Charlotte knew that numbers always put Maeve into a panic, and she couldn’t stand seeing one of her best friends get upset.

  “Yeah, but look at these questions!” Maeve bit her lip. “What the heck is this word? Looks like Nacho-Three.”

  “There’s a chart on page one,” Riley flipped back. “NaHCO3 is baking soda, I guess. Why don’t they just say that?”

  “That’s what I was just thinking!” Maeve grinned, but her smile faded when she heard Dillon laugh. He was goofing around with Avery. They kept flicking green foam across the table—until Mr. Moore came along and told them to cut it out or they’d have extra homework that night.

  “Uh…Maeve?” Riley said, putting the beaker down on the lab table. It quietly clinked. He followed her eyes and saw what had drawn her attention. Charlotte watched Riley stare at his hands under the table. She felt bad, but how could she explain to him that this was just how Maeve was? She’d be over Dillon eventually, and then some other boy would get her attention. Maybe it would even be Riley. You never knew with Maeve.

  Charlotte added a spoonful of vinegar and watched pink froth bubble over the side of the beaker. Excellent, she thought. Maybe my love potion will work on Nick. Then he’ll ask me, not Chelsea, to the dance, and everything will be perfect.

  If only love potions really existed, she thought wistfully as she marked notes on her lab sheet.

  A loud laugh broke her concentration. She whipped her head around to see Chelsea fidgeting on her stool beside Nick. Charlotte wished she had earplugs.

  Green Foam and Romance

  On the other side of the room, Reggie and Katani worked with their heads close together. They had finished the main experiment, and had the extra-credit ingredients arranged in a neat line. The Tums didn’t cause nearly as much green foam as the baking soda.

  “Our stomachs are acidic,” Reggie explained. “Baking soda changes the chemistry completely to a base, which isn’t good. That’s why we take Tums, ’cause they only cut back on the worst acid.”

  Katani shook her head. “Reggie, you’re the super kind of nerd! I think you’ll be famous one day…like Bill Gates, even.”

  Reggie shook his head, but Katani could tell he was pleased by the comment. “Nah. I just like to learn about how the world works…that’s all.” He picked up one of the soft pink tablets and stared at it intently. “You’re pretty intelligent yourself.”

  Katani looked up from her calculator, completely missing his awkward blush. “Well, my grandma is the principal. She’d be so disappointed in me if she saw I wasn’t trying my best. Anyway, if you want to be successful in life, you’ve got to study hard. I mean, Reggie, how else am I going to start my own business if I don’t learn everything I can while I’m in school? And I have to start my own business,” she said, an urgent tone in her voice. “I just have to.”

  “You will. You’ve got it all going for you, Katani. You’re organized, smart, pretty…” Reggie looked down at the Tums again.

  Katani leaned over the beaker and whispered, “That’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Reggie squirmed under her gaze and accidentally dropped the Tums into the beaker.

  Green froth splashed out, spattering on Katani’s perfect notes and speckling her smile with flakes of foam.

  “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry! I’ll get you a paper towel.” Reggie, his face red, jumped up, but Katani touched his shoulder and took a yellow handkerchief out of her school bag.

  “Reggie DeWitt, do you want to go to the Valentine’s Day Dance with me?”

  “Sure!” He shrugged, trying to be a little cool. Katani smiled, and caught Charlotte’s gaze. Katani just asked a boy to the dance! Just like that! And it didn’t even matter that she had green foam on her nose!

  CHAPTER 8

  Secret Notebooks and Girl Talk

  When the bell rang, Charlotte tripped over Riley’s backpack in her hurry to talk to Katani. One well-worn notebook dropped out and spun across the floor. Charlotte bent to pick it up, then looked around for Riley. He was ducking out the door, his open backpack slung over one shoulder. Maybe he hadn’t noticed? She opened the cover and saw the handwritten lyrics of a new song, underneath a doodle of the logo of his band, Mustard Monkey.

  Furniture Boy

  by Riley Lee

  The girl I love thinks I’m a piece of furniture.

  She can’t see me even though I look at her.

  Help me, help me, find a way to win her heart.

  Keep her close and never ever ever part.

  My life’s crazy ’cause she’ll never ever see.

  Furniture boy—that’s me.

  The Furniture Boy—that’s me….

  Charlotte quickly closed the cover. This was private. She shouldn’t be reading it at all!

  Katani walked over, her bag slung casually over one shoulder.

  “What was that look for, girl? And what’s that you’re holding?” Katani made a face at the scuffed, stained, and torn state of Riley’s notebook.


  “Oh, nothing,” Charlotte held the notebook behind her back. “Did you really ask Reggie to the dance?”

  “Of course! Girl power. We need to take control.” Katani frowned at Charlotte’s expression. “When are you asking Nick?”

  Charlotte shrugged and looked at the floor.

  “We need to have a talk.” Katani put an arm around Charlotte and led her out of the room. “Just you and me. After school in the Tower?”

  Charlotte nodded okay and looked around for Riley. “See you in math class?” She forced a smile, and Katani reluctantly let her go.

  Riley was kneeling next to his locker, frantically searching through piles of notebooks and papers. Charlotte held out his collection of lyrics. “Umm, is this yours?”

  Riley snatched the notebook. He said nothing, but first his ears and then his cheeks flushed red.

  “I didn’t read it,” Charlotte whispered. As she walked away, she wondered if a boy would ever write song lyrics about her.

  After about a million years, the last bell of the day rang and Charlotte joined the crowd of students flooding into the hallways. When she reached her locker, she rummaged inside it, looking for her social studies book. She checked her hair in the mirror, her spirits sinking. Maybe it was time for a makeover. She’d been wearing her hair the same way forever. Katani could give her some tips this afternoon—for something more glamorous and grownup. Avery’s mom had once told her she should try a curler, at least for the ends.

  Avery’s mom! Charlotte leaned her head against the locker. I still have to break the news about my dad’s date to Avery!

  “What’s up, Charlotte?” a familiar voice called behind her. A voice that for some reason made her insides turn into lime Jell-O.

  Her heart jumped as she turned around to look at Nick. He stood there with a nervous smile on his face.

  “Yes?” she asked, and chewed her bottom lip.

  “You wanna meet tomorrow morning at Montoya’s before school?” He smiled and waited, his backpack slug over one shoulder.