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I bit my lip and looked around the room. Megan and I were seated at the very back table and everyone was facing front—even Nancy and her crew, since class was about to start. No one was looking our way.
Maybe I could be a little bit brave.
Taking a deep breath, I unbuttoned the cuffs at the wrist of my long-sleeved uniform shirt and rolled my sleeves up to my elbows. The scars on my left arm were worse than the right, though the backs of both hands were equally bad, due to me trying to shield my face from the flames in The Fire. I’d had to wear compression sleeves and gloves for a long time during my recovery but by now I was about as healed as I was ever going to be.
“There, see?” Megan smiled at me encouragingly. “That’s not so bad—is it?”
I had to admit it wasn’t. The Home Ec classroom was warm, due to the Florida heat outside and the fact that the long line of ovens on one side of the room were all preheating at the same time. The cool air circulating around my bare forearms felt good.
“It’s okay,” I said, nodding. “When do we start?”
“Not until Mrs. Hornsby gets here. She gets really angry if we start without her,” she murmured.
Just at that moment the classroom door opened again and a plump woman in her forties with black hair scraped back into a ponytail came in. This must be Mrs. Hornsby, I thought. Megan had told us how she’d made a big deal when Megan was late on her first day of class, but apparently she thought nothing of sweeping in five or ten minutes past the bell herself.
“Good afternoon, class,” she said self-importantly as she came to stand at the front of the classroom. “Today we will be finishing our baking unit which means you’re going to be making your very best dessert today for your final exam. Now let me warn you,” she went on, raising a finger and arching one black eyebrow as she glared around the classroom. “This dessert will count for fifty percent of your grade. So it had better be good. Give your very best effort!”
“Yes, Mrs. Hornsby,” chorused the class.
“Very good.” She nodded briskly. “Now, I see we have a new student in our class today,” she added, staring right at me. Which meant, of course, that the rest of the class stared too.
I swallowed hard and had to fight the urge to hide my arms behind my back. Beside me, Megan pressed close, putting her shoulder to mine and letting me know she was there.
Comforted by her presence, I lifted my chin and did my best to look the new teacher in the eye.
“I transferred from Classics of the Occult,” I said, trying to make myself loud enough to be understood. “I hope that’s all right.”
Mrs. Hornsby shrugged her plump shoulders.
“I don’t mind but of course that means the project you do today will be one hundred percent of your grade—not just fifty.”
I swallowed hard. One hundred percent? Had I screwed myself by transferring in here? Back in Ms. Sojourn’s class, I’d had a solid A. Now I was risking my grade—as well as my GPA—on a roll of the baking dice.
“Kaitlyn is going to be baking with me, Mrs. Hornsby,” Megan said, speaking for me when I couldn’t quite get any words out.
“Very well.” Mrs. Hornsby frowned skeptically. “In the past, I would not have recommended that anyone put their grade in your hands, Miss Latimer. But in the past few months, you have shown marked improvement. If your friend wishes to throw her lot in with yours, academically speaking, I will allow it.”
“Thank you. I do,” I managed to get out.
“Very well.” Mrs. Hornsby nodded decisively. “Then let’s get cooking!”
“Whew,” Megan whispered, miming wiping sweat off her forehead as the class started to murmur and clatter as they got their baking implements together. “That was close! For a minute there, I thought she was going to tell me I’m a total idiot in the kitchen and you’d better bake your own cake.”
“You’re not an idiot—you were being sabotaged before,” I protested, frowning.
Indeed, before Megan had come into her power and worked a spell which kept Nancy and the rest of the Weird Sisters from using their own magical abilities for anything but good, Nancy had screwed her over several times in this very class. She had made Megan burn her cookies, made sure that half her cake burned while the other half didn’t bake at all, made her use salt instead of sugar in a blueberry pie, and other awful tricks which had nearly caused Megan to fail and had turned Mrs. Hornsby against her completely.
Luckily, Nancy and the Weird Sisters were now unable to do anything but nice spells, which would make someone else feel good or bring them blessings. So their magic was useless when it came to doing bad deeds.
