Much Ado About Magic Read online

  I danced around a bit, but I could tell that Pedro wasn’t happy. “What?” I asked.

  “Keep going,” he said.

  “What about Claudio?” I asked.

  “I’ll get to him. But first things first.” He made it sound like I was on Dancing With the Stars or something. I threw in some John Travolta moves just to annoy him.

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.

  I stopped before the next song. “What?”

  Pedro did an imitation of my dancing. His arms flailed around and his feet were so clumsy he stepped on himself several times.

  “More like this,” said Claudio, and he added in some thumping on the chest and hip thrusts, before he fell over.

  “So Pedro should go to the dance with you, Claudio,” I said. “And I’ll stay home and work on my moves. Alone.” I did not want to go to this dance. More and more, it seemed like a bad idea. I knew that Beatrice was likely to be there, and if there was any reason to mock me, Beatrice would find it.

  Not that I was afraid of her.

  “You have a boyish charm I lack,” said Pedro. “I think it will appeal to Sarah, at least at first.”

  He was going to make me dance with her first? “Why don’t you just let me dance the way I want to dance?”

  Pedro shook his head. “Anyone who cared about you would stop you from dancing like that, Benedick. It’s no wonder that you refused to go dancing with us when we were in Europe.”

  “My moves are too cool for Europe,” I said. “But I’m sure I could get any girl I wanted with them.” I did a slide and ended up almost preventing all future children. I got up sloppily.

  “Any girl? How about Beatrice?” asked Pedro.

  “I’m not sure you can count Beatrice as a girl,” I said, tongue in cheek. “I think she’s more like a lioness. Or a hawk.” I made claws out of my hands and put on a fierce grimace.

  “Dangerous, you mean?”

  I nodded firmly and smoothed out the creases in my shirt. “Definitely.”

  “She’s pretty, though, don’t you think?”

  “If you can look at her before she pokes your eyes out,” I said, gesturing to Pedro’s face.

  He put his hands up. “She isn’t one to be easily wooed,” he said.

  “Easily wooed? I pity the guy who falls for her. She couldn’t be won with any kind of effort. I think she was born into the world to torment every male here. She points to our flaws and then smiles at us to tease us into thinking that we could ever be good enough for her.”

  There was a long silence. Pedro and Claudio stared at me.

  “Now, wait a minute,” I said. “Don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “So, if I told you I’d changed my mind and decided that I liked Beatrice, after all, you wouldn’t mind?” asked Pedro.

  I gaped at him. “When did you decide this?” I asked. It was just surprise, nothing else.

  “Well, I liked the way she stood up to you at the assembly. And I’ve seen her around school. She is really different from the other high school girls. I like that about her.”

  “You think you—after I—after she—you have any chance with her?” I got out at last.

  “I could apologize,” said Pedro.

  I coughed a little. “You could cut off both legs and let her watch you bleed,” I said. “Good luck with that. She might hand you a bandaid. Or she might not.”

  “People get over being angry eventually,” said Pedro.

  “Other people,” I said. “Not Beatrice.”

  “But if she did forgive me, you wouldn’t have any objection to us dating?” said Pedro, glancing at Claudio.

  There was some secret between the two of them and that bothered me. “Uh, besides the fact that I would worry she would kill you in your sleep?” I said.

  “Sleep, eh?” said Pedro and he and Claudio made a few rude gestures and started to laugh.

  I didn’t laugh. “Look, I’m not objecting to you dating Beatrice after all this,” I said. “You pick your poison, that’s fine with me.”

  “You wouldn’t mind going on dates with us? Or letting her hang out when you were around?” said Pedro.

  “So long as she watches her tongue,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t put it quite that way. “I mean, so long as she watches what she says, I’m fine.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t be rude to you. She only does that to guys she likes,” said Pedro.

  “Right. That’s why she was always so rude to you before,” I said.

  Pedro smirked at that. “She wasn’t, was she?” he said. “I wonder why.”

  “Because my truth spell turned her into a harpy,” I said. “Utterly unpredictable and twice as unpleasant. You don’t really want to date her, do you?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” said Pedro. He would not say another word on the subject of Beatrice. “For tonight, we want to focus on Claudio and Sarah,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said. “That’s just fine with me.” The last thing I wanted to do was talk—or think—about Beatrice Hero ever again.

  Chapter 7: Bee

  I called Sarah to ask her when she was planning to show up at the dance. She told me and I decided to make sure that I was there before her. I didn’t say anything about Benedick Padua or rumors. If she hadn’t heard them, I wasn’t going to pass them along.

  I got to the dance a few minutes after it was supposed to start. No one was there except for the student body committee in charge of dance decorations, who was the token clanless person on the committee, and the person they always asked to do the scut work. There was aslo the DJ they’d hired, and a handful of clanless people who’d come early because they didn’t seem to understand the rules about being fashionably late. Or maybe, I thought, they actually enjoyed the dance a lot more before all the heavy hitters from the clans showed up.

  I waved to people and smiled, putting on my nice face. Yes, I have one. I can be nice, even to guys. So long as I know they’re not trying to pick me up.

  The music was lame, as usual. Whiny songs about promises and broken hearts. If someone breaks your heart, I figure the best way to react is to break their heart right back. Or their fingers. Or legs. Or noses, whichever was closest to hand. But there aren’t so many songs about revenge and love as there should be.

  The decorations were on the theme of “Dreams Come True.” I tried not to look at them, so I wouldn’t gag. Clouds and stars and balloons in pastel colors. If I were in charge, it would be “Nightmares Come True” and we’d have Frankenstein and blood and zombies. It’s almost Halloween, and that’s the best Holiday of the year. Not because of the candy. Because it’s a chance for people to show who they really are.

  About ten minutes later, a few clubs showed up to sell refreshments, also mostly clanless people. They all had their own last names, though. I thought about that as I watched them, a little envious. Yes, there were disadvantages to not being part of a clan, but they also seemed freer than I was. They didn’t get the lockers where the clans had lockers, but maybe that was a good thing. There were fewer clanless people to date, and there weren’t any beautiful faces or jocks to be had. But they also knew that when they got good grades, they deserved them. And when someone went out with them, it wasn’t because of the clans.

  At twenty minutes after, I finaly saw Sarah walk through the door. She was the first Hero clan member I’d seen so far. I waved to her, but tried to act casual.

  “It all looks so beautiful, don’t you think?” said Sarah, her eyes shining as she looked up at all the decorations.

  “Beautiful,” I echoed. That’s just what it was. Beautiful, with no edges, no hard truths. Well, she’d learn. She was young yet. I remembered when I was a sophomore.

  “Is there someone special you’re waiting for?” asked Sarah.

  “No. No one special for me. What about you?”

  “Well,” she said, and turned her head to the side, blushing. Her face went bright red, and she had the c
oloring to make it stand out. She wouldn’t even need Ben to use his truth spell on her. He could see the truth written all over her face.

  That was probably why he liked her. And it was why I had to protect her from him, and maybe even from herself.

  “You don’t have to tell me his name if you don’t feel comfortable,” I said. “Maybe just give me some hints.”

  “Well, he’s a senior,” said Sarah.

  I worked hard not to groan.

  “And he’s smart and handsome.”

  Benedick Padua? They say love made people blind. Maybe blind and stupid.

  “And so kind,” Sarah breathed. Yeah, breathed. Like in one of those romance novels. She had her hand to her heart, too.

  I was thinking about telling her a little story about a girl who fell in love with a man who had a deep, dark secret. And when she found it out, she realized she was in love with a serial killer. But it was too late, because she was already in the attic. He slammed the door and locked her inside and no one ever found out what happened to her.

  “You are such a romantic,” I said.

  “I can’t help it,” said Sarah.

  She could help it. She just needed a little experience. Maybe I should let Ben toy with her and break her heart. It might be good for her in the end. Give her a reason to develop a thick hide.

  Except that he would congratulate himself too much on the result. Just another notch to his belt.

  “Is he a demi-head of his clan?” I asked.

  Sarah nodded.

  “I think I know who you mean,” I said.

  “I heard he was coming to the dance tonight. One of his friends told one of my friend’s friend.”

  Hoo-boy. Was that how it was going? The telephone game. “And did your friend’s friend tell you that he liked you?”

  “No, not that. I’m sure he doesn’t. He probably doesn’t even know my name.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he’s a senior and I’m a sophomore. The last time we met was last year and so much has happened to him since then. He was nice to me, but I was a nobody. That he would act like that to someone so unimportant, that says something about him, don’t you think?” asked Sarah.

  It said something all right. Like he wanted to use a gullible person who looked up to him.

  “I don’t expect anything from him. Not really. Maybe one dance with him would be nice.”

  One dance was definitely going to happen. She needed to see Benedick as he really was. A dance and a conversation. I had to arrange things so it turned out as badly for him as possible.

  I chatted with her for a while. More clans arrived at the dance.

  Margaret and Ursula showed up soon after Leanata. They came over and made a fuss over Sarah, how cute she looked, how her skirt made her legs look so long, how she could pull off pastel pink with her coloring, how her eyes were so bright and blue they were jealous. The kind of Hero chat that I was tired of before it even started. But I hung around anyway. If they wanted to look like her, they could probably change the beauty spell to have whatever features they wanted. But it was an innocent look that few people could pull off without the right personality, which Sarah did have.

  “Has Bee told you anything about Benedick Padua?” Margaret asked Sarah.

  “What?” I said. Were they going to spill everything?

  “We think she has a thing for him,” said Ursula.

  This again? “I do have a thing for him. A knife, which I will put inside his heart and twist slowly for the next year.”

  “Into his heart, eh? Maybe, maybe not,” said Margaret, grinning at Ursula.

  “Maybe it will hit a little lower,” said Ursula.

  Sarah didn’t get it for a long moment, and then she did. “Lower. Oh, lower?” She giggled.

  “Seriously, I hate him,” I said.

  “You hate him because he makes you hurt so bad for him,” said Margaret.

  “She hates him because he is the one man she can’t ignore,” said Ursula.

  “I hate him because he is exactly like every other man I’ve ever met, only more so,” I said.

  “Hot?” said Sarah, joining the game now.

  “More arrogant, more stupid, more hot-headed, more blind, and more insane,” I said.

  “Speak of the devil,” said Margaret.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “No,” said Margaret, and she pointed.

  Right then, Benedick, Claudio and Pedro had arrived. It was like a scene in a movie. The whole dance stopped and people moved aside so that they could step into the center of the dance floor, unimpeded. It made me sick.

  “Don’t you think he is perfect?” whispered Sarah in my ear.

  “No, I don’t,” I said. And then I looked back at Sarah and realized that she wasn’t looking at Benedick at all. She was looking at Claudio, and the way she looked at him was like he was the sun and the moon and all the stars wrapped up in one big marshmallow, caramel and hot fudge sundae.

  Claudio? Oh, Claudio. Well, that was different. Claudio wasn’t as bad as the other two. He had bad taste in friends, but that could be said of lots of people. I felt a huge relief.

  There was a brief conversation between the three guys. Probably something about football or cheese balls. Or possibly a fart joke. If they had decided to elevate their sense of humor this year, that is.

  Then Benedick started walking toward us. He was staring right at me and for a long moment, I was worried that he was going to ask me to dance. I had no idea what I would say to that.

  But his gaze changed to Sarah and then I figured that he was just the kind of guy who couldn’t keep his focus on any one girl for even the length of time that it took to walk toward her. Which means, pretty much, that he was the same as any other guy, only he didn’t bother hiding it. He probably congratulated himself on that, since it was more “truthful.”

  “Sarah, right?” he said to her.

  She nodded, and her dimples came out when she smiled that widely. She glanced over at Claudio, behind Benedick.

  Was she going to try to make Claudio jealous?

  “It’s nice to meet you. You look great tonight, by the way,” he said. He sounded slightly bored when he spoke, and I wondered how many times he’d used that line before. His gaze drifted toward me again, and I thought what a jerk he was being.

  “You have any favorite classes?” asked Benedick. He rubbed his hands on his pants and I was surprised to see that he was nervous. Or maybe he just wanted Sarah to notice his nicely shaped jeans, which were not his usual baggy thing. He looked like he had actually taken care to dress a little differently. Was he going to try to make Sarah think that he’d done it just for her? Even if he had, what did that mean? If a guy puts on a clean shirt for you, are you supposed to throw a party over that?

  “I like English,” said Sarah.

  “English, ah. You must like books. Reading them, I mean.”

  Did he think she might have liked eating books? Or using them as blocks to build things out of? This was very odd behavior for Benedick. He was usually so smooth. Was there some kind of a weird bet going on here? I looked over at Claudio and Pedro again, but I couldn’t tell anything. They were both intent on the conversation, but it was so confusing.

  “Which books?” asked Benedick.

  “Romeo and Juliet,” said Sarah.

  Groan. Could she possibly be more obvious here?

  “A plague on both your houses, eh?” said Benedick. He put a hand to his neck, as if to tug a tie a little looser. Only he wasn’t wearing a tie. I wondered when he had ever worn a tie. To church or something?

  “Poetry, romance,” said Sarah. “What girl doesn’t like that?”

  Hello, me? But neither of them seemed to notice that I was standing right next to them anymore.

  “Would you like to dance?” said Benedick, holding out his hand to Sarah.

  “That would be nice,” said Sarah.

  I couldn’t stop her,
short of jumping up and tackling her. And even if I was strong enough to do that, it didn’t seem the right move here. Instead I watched as she headed to the dance floor with Benedick, the wrong guy. The most wrong guy in the world. What would Claudio think of her now? This was a disaster. But Claudio just stood in the background and watched it happen. I couldn’t think too highly of him, either. If he liked Sarah, wouldn’t he have done something? Wouldn’t he have warned Benedick to keep away from her instead of saying nothing and practically encouraging this?

  Or maybe he was completely oblivious to her feelings for him. Just like Pedro had been about me.

  This was not going to end well, I thought.

  Pedro came over and stood by me. “Dance?” he asked.

  I just stared at him, refusing to answer or even look at him. What did he think he was doing?

  “Is there any way I can apologize enough?” he asked.

  I couldn’t really think of any way, short of maybe seeing him on a barbecue spit for several millenia.

  “You know, if you dance with me, it will really annoy Benedick,” said Pedro, and he nodded toward the dance floor.

  I noticed Ben looking at us. “Is this a bet or something?” I asked.

  “No, just something that he won’t like. So, who do you hate more—me or him?”

  Well, Pedro hadn’t done anything wrong. I couldn’t fault him for not loving me back. “You didn’t ask Ben to put that spell on me, did you?” I asked.

  “I did not,” said Pedro.

  And I believed him. So I let him take my hand and dance with me.

  It wasn’t as bad as I would have thought, over the summer. Nor was it as good as I had imagined, before that. It was just a dance. He was just a guy, like any other. He was handsome and everyone watched us. I didn’t care.

  When the song was over, he walked back with me to where we had started and said thank you.

  “What about Benedick?” I asked.

  “Oh, I think you’ll see something happen there very soon,” he said with a glint in his eye.

  I had no idea what that meant, and I decided that I did not want to ask. Some childish guy thing. At least I’d had my dance with him, even if it wasn’t as wonderful as I’d hoped it would be. I was over all that stuff now. No guy can really be as good as you imagine.