Some Kind of Magic

“I don’t think I have ever been so furious with you!” my mother exclaimed, shoving the front door of our house opened, stomping inside and kicking off her shoes. She had been ranting about her anger since she was called at work to pick me up from school. Of course, this was after her very long conversation with Principal Sinclair. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would be telling his sons about it at the dinner table tonight. I really should have thought my actions through before I put them forth; I didn’t need that kind of thing in the record book, and that probably wasn’t the first impression Mr. Sinclair was looking for from his sons’ new friend either.

As I calmly placed my bag down beside the door and slipped my feet out of my shoes, I spotted Chris’ brother and my own sitting at the kitchen table, watching us. My mother followed me to them, still shrieking about how disappointed she was in me but I was barely listening. I just placed myself down in the chair between Blade and Aiden and let my mom enjoy the sound of her own voice.

“What’s going on?” Blade asked, finally cutting my mother off. I could actually feel my sense of hearing return to normal when those thirty minutes of her shrill and painful yelling came to an end.

“I got a call in the middle of a meeting from the principal of your sister’s school. She’s been suspended for a week.”

“What?!”

“What did you do?” Aiden asked, turning his chair to me and putting his arm up on the surface of the table.

“I talked back to a teacher,” I answered.

“How?”

“She told him,” my mother cut in when she saw me open my mouth to tell my side of the story, “to forcefully lodge her assignment up his anus!” Aiden slapped a hand over his mouth to hold in his laugh, but it still managed to slip through. Blade was the opposite though; he wasn’t even trying to keep quiet.

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not exactly what happened,” I objected. That was another thing about my mother that annoyed me; she loved to twist a story to make it seem like she was the one suffering, like this one. She was the victim because she was interrupted from an important work meeting to pick me up, even though I had told her specifically that I could just take the bus home but she insisted on driving me. Really, if she was trying to look like the one to feel sorry for, she wasn’t doing too well at it by willing to make things easier for me. But she also liked to stretch the tale and make it out to be a bigger deal than it was. She thought she understood it all, but with all of her pointless yapping, she never even gave me the chance to explain

She had no idea what had happened in the last week, and there was a lot she needed to understand.



About a week later on the Wednesday after band practice, Emma and I left together and headed out to the bus terminal. We had planned on going to visit Karlee and Aiden because Karlee was home from University for the week due to some sort of school prank that caused all of the Math course students to miss their classes, and Aiden had just come back from his two week work trip to New Jersey. Plus, I hadn’t seen either of them for a really long time and neither had Emma, so we missed them. This was just a good time to catch up.

“Crap!” Emma exclaimed, putting her hands on her head. “I forgot my study book in my locker! Do you want to wait here or come with me? I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said and held the door for her. She raced up the stairwell and I followed her, but I wasn’t nearly as fast as she was. Not only was she trying to be as quick as possible but she had experience running in a skirt since she had gone here for several years and apparently had many mishaps like this. I, on the other hand, was just concentrating on keeping my skirt down so I walked at a steady pace. I met her at my locker but she had beaten me there so she was just closing it again when I reached her.

“All right, I’m ready,” she said stuffing it in her bag and then putting that over her shoulders.

“You’re not forgetting anything else, are you?” I teased and when she glared at me and pushed me to the side, I laughed. I heard two voices speaking quietly to each other as we passed through the English hall. I poked my head around the corner and glanced into the classroom that I thought they were coming from and saw Mackenzie facing Mr. Bishop’s desk, marking down some things while he wrote out his first period notes for tomorrow’s lesson. Emma scoffed.

“Ew,” she muttered and I smiled. “Hey, your brother’s an English teacher, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s a phys. Ed teacher actually,” I replied. “Although I think he volunteers to do substitute teaching in English, or maybe it’s science.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t really pay attention when he talks about work. I get enough of school when I’m in my own.”

She laughed. “You have another older brother, don’t you?”

I sighed. “Yes, and no,” I said. “I don’t consider someone I haven’t talked to for nearly two years a brother. I don’t even know what the hell is going on with him. He’s completely alienated himself from our family and none of us know why. He’ll call but he’ll only talk to my mom. It’s like he hates us.”

“I doubt that’s it,” she said. “You’re his family. He loves you.”

“You would think,” I mumbled. “But oh well. I don’t think about him anymore. He’s got his own life and if he wants us in it, he’ll let us know.”

“I guess. We should get going now. We’re going to miss our—” Emma’s voice faded out suddenly when she looked back into the classroom. Mr. Bishop walked around his desk and put his hand on Mackenzie’s back—or rather, slid it around her. And if I thought that was bad, I wasn’t thinking big enough because she turned to him, he lowered his face to hers, and the two of them locked themselves in the most intense game of tonsil hockey I had ever seen. Emma and I both gasped loudly and she grabbed my hand, pulling me back around the corner in case they saw us.

I covered my mouth with my hands. “Oh my God,” I breathed but it came out muffled. “This is unbelievable.”

“Did you see them? He might as well have just eaten her face,” she said and I gagged.
“I don’t want to think about it.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked, tugging on the sleeve of my jacket. I looked at her, startled.

“What makes you think I know? I’m not the problem solver of the group,” I whispered.

“Okay, okay.” She ran her hands down her face and let out a deep breath. “Well we can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Obviously.” I paused and looked at her. “Wait, why not?”

“Because! Who’s going to trust two teenage girls over a teacher and the daughter of two ex-professors?” she pointed out. “That conversation would be over so fast they’d be questioning whether or not it even happened. Plus, Mackenzie would make our lives a living hell; not that she doesn’t already do that.”

“I guess.” My eyes widened. “Do you think Mackenzie’s responsible for Elsie’s missing assignments?”

“Well, it would make sense.” She glanced back into the room quickly and shook her head. “I just can’t believe this. I mean, she could get suspended if she trashed Elsie’s work. But she would definitely get expelled if anyone else found out about that,” she said and nodded her head backwards but ended hitting it off the brick wall. Her hand shot up to clutch at the back of her thumping head. “Ow! Son of a bitch!” she hissed.

I sighed. "Well, we all know that Elsie and Mackenzie hate each other. If Bishop's letting her mark his class assignments and essays, obviously he won't be paying attention to her. She could have just tossed them to get back at Elsie. And that sounds exactly like something she would do."

Emma grinded her teeth together. “It would make me so angry if this was all true, and if it was actually just to get some guy’s attention. I mean, is she the dumbest person alive? All it does is get a teacher attracted to you. Like hell Robbie’s going to get jealous of Mr. Bishop.”

“I wish we had proof that she’s at fault for Elsie’s bad mark,” I mumbled. “It makes so much sense if she is. Anyone else and it’ll just leave me stumped.”

“But we have proof of them,” Emma said.

“We have to keep quiet though. There’s no way anyone would believe us.”

“Should we tell Elsie?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’d kick Mackenzie’s ass; not only for the assignment thing but for being so stupid as to hook up with a teacher as some sort of enticement to hook Robbie in and to gain access to all of Mr. Bishop’s class assignments. I mean think about it; she has the advantage of making him attracted to her so she can trash Elsie’s work just for some dim-witted revenge. We’ve got enough drama as it is, we don’t need any more,” I explained.

Emma nodded. “Okay, we’ll keep quiet, but only if this thing gets sorted out by itself. If Elsie’s projects are still missing by the time December comes, I’m saying something. We can’t hold it in forever.”

I sighed. “I know.”



Emma and I managed to keep our mouths shut all weekend, but on Monday, another problem arose. After school, Robbie was waiting for me outside of the bathroom because we had both been obsessing over seeing a movie that was had just come out today so we were going to race over to the theatre to see it. The others weren’t that interested so they decided not to come. Robbie’s hand hit the bathroom door while I was fixing my hair and I jumped.

“Do you take long enough or what?” he called to me. I smiled and ignored him. I was about to grab my bag off of the floor until the floor was pushed opened and in walked Mackenzie, which caused me to freeze where I was. I could see her through the mirror but refused to look at her in case my eyes gave me away. She still freaked me out if I was left alone with her, even if I did have something over her head. She was glaring rather harshly at me as she passed, and then she came up to my side but only to fix her makeup and push up her breasts. I rolled my eyes.

“Is it you that Robbie’s waiting for out there?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said simply, and moved to the sink to wash my hands.

“So what, are you two a couple now or something?” she asked me. “I see you with him all of the time.”

I glanced at her over my shoulder. “No, we’re not a couple. And are you sure you’re not mistaking him for Dylan? I hardly ever hang out with Robbie, aside from school.”

She paused, then said “whatever”, and went digging into her makeup bag. I was drying my hands with a paper towel as she applied a layer of bright red gloss across her lips. I bent down to get my bag from my side but before I had a chance, she curled her long, thin, French-tipped fingers around my wrist and gave a tug so I was standing up straight again. “I know you know about Mr. Bishop and me,” she seethed. “You better keep your mouth shut.”
I frowned. “What happens if I don’t?”

She breathed out of her nose, unusually calm. “Well, word on the street is that you’ve got a little crush on someone; a certain magician.”

My eyes went wide. “How do you know about that?”

“I know everything. If you don’t watch where you step, he’s going to fall right out of your hands and into mine.”

I gritted my teeth. “Don’t even go near him, Mackenzie.”

She leaned closer, her face hovering directly in front of mine and by now, I was backed up right against the wall so that I couldn’t even try to avoid her. If she hadn’t moved so fast and grabbed my other arm, I would have grabbed those ugly hair extensions of hers and pulled them right out of her head.

“If you stay silent, we won’t have any problem.” Then she let go of me and walked out of the bathroom. I looked down at my arms and saw the white lines where her fingers had been. I rubbed at the wrist which had taken the most abuse and pulled my bag over one shoulder, leaving the bathroom but she was still there, except now she was talking to Robbie. He looked very bored and when I stepped out, his eyes turned desperate. She kissed him on the cheek, out of nowhere, and walked away.

He looked down at the floor and gagged. “I think it just fell off,” he whispered and shuffled off, swaying back and forth with discomfort while I followed closely behind him.

Now I knew why everyone called her a little hellion.



“I still can’t believe she would drop so low and fool around with a teacher,” Emma said to me while we walked down the staircase to the cafeteria on Tuesday afternoon. We had to make sure we spoke quietly about it so no one would hear us. “I mean, I know that some people just full-on fall in love with their teachers and everything but still, it’s not right, you know? No doubt she’s getting extra credit for his class.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I muttered.

“Everyone knows Mackenzie could get any guy she wanted. Why the hell wouldn’t she just go for someone her own age, someone who’s a student instead of a guy that’s teaching her about Shakespeare and poetry and Edgar Allen Poe?” she went on. When she pushed open the doors to the cafeteria and heavy conversations between students rang through our ears, I automatically looked at Robbie. He sat laughing with Dylan and Elsie, while Broderick walked over to them and split half of the face-sized cookie he bought in the cafeteria with Elsie. She smiled at him and said “thank you”, then started talking to Robbie about something. Mackenzie walked by, staring at him the entire time until she got to us and her eyes narrowed into slits.

I put my hand on Emma’s arm and leaned in close. “Because the one guy she wants the most, she can’t have,” I whispered to her. Mackenzie’s head whipped around when she heard me and I quickened my pace to the table. I made sure to sit down next to Dylan just in case Mackenzie decided to come over and harass us. At least with one of the twins, I didn’t feel like I was going to get my face pounded in for what happened to her yesterday. Robbie looked at me and then his eyes shifted to where Mackenzie was across the cafeteria, and make some sort of choked, gurgling noise. Dylan looked at the two of us like we were insane but didn’t ask any questions.

“So check this out,” Elsie said, slamming an envelope down on the table in front of me. The seal was broken and a letter was sticking out of it.

“What is it?” I asked her, and took out the piece of paper.

“It’s a letter Mr. Bishop wants me to give my parents.” She scoffed in fury. “I hate him, Iz. He’s ruining my entire year for me, and then claiming that it’s my fault!” I read over the letter quickly and summed up; it stated that Elsie was slacking off in class and completing no work since her last meeting with him, and that he was requesting another interview with her parents. He also wanted them to reply so they could arrange a date to get together and discuss it. Was he actually so thick-headed that he didn’t see something was going on? Anyone that would show up to class every day and argue about missing assignments so often was obviously not at fault, and he needed to reevaluate who he chose to help him mark things, but of course he wouldn’t do that; he was dating his helper.

I looked at Emma for some sort of what to say, but she quickly cast her guilty eyes down to her food. Broderick caught it immediately and opened his mouth to say something but I kicked him in the shin and he yelped.

“Ow! What the—” he asked and I widened my eyes at him, shook my head. He got the message fairly quickly and cleared his throat. “Sorry, Isabelle. I didn’t mean to kick you.”

“That’s quite all right,” I said, handing the letter back to Elsie. “You should really talk to your parents, Elsie. Warn them. If you haven’t gotten anywhere with your complaints yet, then they need to try something. They must know that you’ve spent nights upon nights doing these projects for him. Why else would you lock yourself in your room without dinner?”

“Your teacher’s a dick,” Robbie said, putting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. We all turned to him. “And not just because of your missing work.”

“No one really likes him,” Dylan shrugged. “Can you imagine if he was actually in charge of this school? It would go to the dogs.” Robbie nodded his agreement.

I looked at him, confused. “Why do you say that?”

“Everyone knows he wants to. He’s been putting out his name for the position of principal for years now,” Dylan explained.

Emma and I looked at each other. “Mr. Bishop’s after your dad’s job?” I asked.

“Yeah, but he’s the only one that actually thinks he’s qualified,” Robbie snorted. “He thinks very highly of himself.”

“Apparently,” Elsie mumbled.

“Well . . .” Dylan sat back and crossed his arms. “We all know he’d do anything he could to get that position but if he actually did, imagine how downhill everything would go. He’s like . . . Satan’s minion.”

What an interesting week this was turning out to be.



By Friday, I had gotten two zero’s on small projects that I had handed in, and that was proof enough for me that Mackenzie was behind it all. I just didn’t know how to tell Elsie, so during class that afternoon I whispered to her that the possibility was higher with Mackenzie than anyone else in the class. Not even Mr. Bishop was likely to lose so many projects. Elsie promised she would look into it more, but I didn’t think that was good enough anymore. She was trying to be careful so she wouldn’t get in trouble, but in my opinion, telling the truth about this was worth the fight.

Now that I knew Mackenzie and Mr. Bishop were together, I picked up all of those secretive little hints like subtle glances and private smiles, flirting in a non-gross way—although since they were a couple, it really was gross. And they both disgusted me.

Mr. Bishop walked around the classroom, handing back our essays about the comparison between past and modern gothic literature but when he reached Elsie and I, he gave her hers back, but looked confused while he flipped through the pile he was holding.

“Ms. Donahue,” he said, looking at me expectantly. He didn’t have it, clearly, but I had put it right in his hand on Wednesday. Why didn’t this surprise me? “What happened to your essay? You were my star pupil until this little slip-up.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” I muttered under my breath, thinking of Mackenzie.

“Can you tell me where you think it is?” he asked.

I looked at Elsie, who was just as baffled as Mr. Bishop was, if not more. I bit into my bottom lip so hard I nearly punctured the skin. This was the last straw. He may have been able to get away with losing Elsie’s projects and not questioning Mackenzie about it before, but I couldn’t just sit around and let the same thing happen to me.

I pressed my hands onto the desk, pushed my chair back and stood up. Then I said, loud and clear for the entire class to hear, “shoved up your ass?”

Everyone gasped. Elsie sat gaping up at me while a look of horror crossed the face of everyone else in the class, except for Mr. Bishop. He was raging mad.

“Isabelle,” he spoke slowly, seeming to be holding himself back from yelling at me. He wasn’t doing a very good job of it. “You may have been permitted to talk to your teachers that way at your old school, but this is not RCI, and I will not tolerate that kind of language in my classroom.”

I shrugged. “It’s not my fault you don’t have a responsible helper,” I said, nodding to Mackenzie. My classmates looked at her, wanting some sort of explanation, but she pulled off a look as if she didn’t know what I was talking about, and I wanted to march right over to her and slap it right off her face.

“Office,” Mr. Bishop said simply. “Now.”



“See, it didn’t go down exactly how mom said,” I explained to Blade and Aiden after my long story. They had become so intrigued that they were both leaning forward, their eyes wide with anticipation and they didn’t realize it until I had finished. They sat back and looked at each other.

“Damn,” Blade breathed. “That’s even worse than the drama I went through at my school, and there was a lot. I thought private schools were supposed to be more reformed and socially acceptable than the conventional high schools.”

I shrugged. “You would think, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess your friends’ father is going to have a pretty interesting idea of you in his head from now on, huh?”

I scratched the back of my head. “Yeah, it probably wasn’t the best way to introduce myself to him.”

“So when do you go back?” Aiden asked.

“Next Monday. You can only imagine how much work I’m going to get sent to me on the weekend,” I sighed, putting my chin in my hand. “But it’s not my fault. I just didn’t want to get treated the way Elsie was. I know she doesn’t want to stand up for herself in fears of getting the type of punishment I did but I’m not going to just sit around and let Mackenzie walk all over me.”

“That’s my little sister,” Blade said, hitting me in the arm proudly. “Mom, you shouldn’t be mad at her. She did the right thing.”

“Are you kidding? Do you know how inconvenient this is for all of us?” she exclaimed and I rolled my eyes.

“Mom, look, I’m sorry that they had to call you at work but that is the least of my worries right now,” I said.

“I’m not talking about that. How do you think Harvard is going to react when they see a week’s suspension on your record? Or Julliard! There’s no way they’ll accept you now!” She began pacing around the kitchen while her hands gripped furiously at her hair.

“I already told you; I’m not going to Harvard. I don’t even know what I want to do when I get older but you’re just going to have to learn to accept that, all right? I’m not following yours or dad’s footsteps so just give it a break already. I don’t even care about this suspension being on my record. If any colleges are concerned about it and ask me, then yes, I’ll tell them but right now, I really couldn’t give a smaller shit,” I said. Blade stifled a laugh when my mother’s head whipped around and her flaming eyes connected with mine.

“What did you just say?”

“I said I couldn’t give a smaller sh—”

“No, I heard you,” she growled.

“Then why did you ask me?” I said in a mocking tone.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. There is no way you’re going to an institute as junky and inadequate as a local college. If the rest of your family can attend University, you sure can and you’re better than some stupid college!”

“Are you hearing yourself? Your anger at me being suspended suddenly has the world to do with where I’m going to go after I graduate? I’m not even thinking about it! And I know you want me to go to University but it doesn’t make a difference to me. I actually prefer college, because it’s a better process and I don’t have to worry about as much stress piling on,” I argued.

“I don’t care; I will not have a daughter that just settles for the communal pool of bottom-feeders!”

I scoffed and stood up, shaking my head at her. “I can’t talk to you,” I said and walked up to my room.

She really was a narcissist.