Chapter 6: Game night

Madison had a twin brother, fraternal of course. They looked nothing alike. While she had black hair and blue eyes, he had sandy blond hair and freckles. He also had a much lower moral code than Chelsea. He could be bought; I was sure of it.

I watched Bert for the next couple days, sitting just within earshot at the lunch table. At that point, my friends had all abandoned me anyway, so I sat by myself. It was safer for everyone that way. I couldn’t really blame them. I now spent most of my time walking slowly while avoiding things and watching Madison like a hawk, trying to figure out how to make her uncurse me.

I listened closely from a table away in the cafeteria. What interested Madison’s brother Bert were video games and nachos. He was mildly annoyed that no one wanted to play the latest combat game with him.

I approached him carefully. “Hey, I heard you like Super Bash Wars. Do you want to play sometime?”

“Okay,” he said, surprised, “I’ll give you my username so you can find me online.”

“Actually, I was just going to come over,” I said, thinking about my steamed console.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t have the game,” I lied, “I can bring an extra controller.”

“Deal,” he said, “Today after school.”

“Right after detention,” I said.

“What’d you get detention for?” he asked, “You’ve never gotten in trouble before.”

“Ask your sister,” I said.

***

When I got to the house, Bert was digging around in the dirt. I wondered what he was doing until he pulled up a shiny gold key and used it to unlock the front door. When he was done, he buried it again.

Bert didn’t even start with hello when he saw me. “You sprayed ketchup on the principal?” he asked, a little in awe.

“Yeah, not exactly my most well-thought out move.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get expelled.”

“Yeah, lucky,” I said, ignoring the thought that I might never have any luck ever again.

Madison walked into the living room. She stopped dead when she saw me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. She was too stunned to be mad.

“I came to bring you a game controller as a gift,” I said sarcastically, holding the controller out to her, “Flowers are so overrated.” She looked confused, so I clarified, “I’m here to play video games with Bert.”

“You two aren’t even friends!” she said.

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to keep friends when you keep embarrassing yourself as much as I do,” I said.

An expression that looked almost like regret shown on her face for a split second. I pushed past her and walked into a wall. Then I dusted myself off and walked through the door this time.

I didn’t waste time. I was here for one reason, and I was probably going to mess it up soon, so I had to act fast.

“Do you know why she hates me so much?” I asked Bert.

“Who, Madison?” Bert said, “She doesn’t hate you.” He held out his hand for the controller and I handed it to him.

“I’m pretty sure she does.” He started to plug the controller in.

“I’ve been in her room, snooping for candy. Trust me, she doesn’t.”

“What does that mean?” I paused for a second, “Hey, do you smell smoke?” The controller Bert had plugged in was starting to smoke. I tried to unplug it but missed and yanked out a handful of wires.

“What are you trying to do, fry my console?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to,” I said.

“Get out,” he said. I had gone in fully expecting to get kicked out, but not quite this fast.

After leaving, I turned to look at the house once more. Madison was watching me through the window. She wasn’t laughing at me this time. She looked… thoughtful.

Chapter 7: So close

So obviously, my next step was to break into Madison’s bedroom. Me, who couldn’t go two steps without either falling down or setting something on fire. But I needed to know what Bert had been talking about. What was in her room? I pushed the thought aside so I could just focus on surviving my normal routine.

As I started out the schoolday, it felt a little less unlucky than the other days had been. I had almost forgotten about the curse when Madison grabbed my arm. “Hey,” she said, “I feel kind of bad. Maybe I overdid it.”

“So are you going to undo it?” I asked, getting my hopes way up, “What changed your mind?”

“Well, I don’t think you’ve noticed yet, but you have a huge tear in the back of your pants. Also, I think you sat in some water, so now they’re kind of see-through.”

“What?” I thought for sure she was lying. “Prove it.”

“You’re wearing lime green underwear,” she said. I was. For some reason, now that I was unlucky, my socks and underwear always seemed to vanish, so that’s all I had left.

“So you feel bad for me now?” I asked, too hopeful to even be embarrassed that half the school had seen my underwear. And then, in a turn of luck that was bad even for me, something fell out of my pocket. A folded piece of paper that was somehow completely dry even though my pants were covered in water.

She got to it before I did.

“This is… a crudely drawn map of my house,” she said.

“It could be anyone’s house, really,” I said.

“No,” she said, “Bert’s room and my room are both labeled. There’s an arrow pointing to my room! You were scoping out my house! That’s why you went to play video games with Bert. I knew you two weren’t actually friends.”

“I just wanted some information,” I said.

“Why didn’t you just ask?” she said.

“Let’s just say Chelsea wasn’t very forthcoming with answers,” I replied.

“I meant, why didn’t you talk to me?” she said.

“Never occurred to me,” I responded honestly. If Chelsea hadn’t wanted to talk to me, why would Madison?

“You know what? You deserve this curse. I’m not changing a thing,” she said, and turned around and left.

Breaking into her house was going to be a lot harder now.