Chapter 12: Persistence

I didn’t like being cursed, but I was starting to get used to it. There were certain rules I could follow to have a halfway decent day. Set three alarms. Have a backup plan for everything. Avoid liquids, sharp objects, and anything flammable. Wear layers. Carry a spare. It kind of worked.

I scanned the school perimeter for danger before entering the courtyard. No puddles, no holes, no Chelsea. I was good. I walked slowly to the door and made sure no one was walking out before I walked in. I’d made that mistake about 100 times.

In first hour, the teacher called on me to answer a question about electron orbitals. It was a hard question, and I think he called on me because I looked like I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t. I was thinking about how I was going to match up Terrell and Madison.

I answered without thinking.

“Very good,” Mr. Tudor said. He didn’t know that I had done my homework three times because I kept losing it.

Madison was watching me carefully. Before the curse, I hadn’t noticed that she was in almost all of my classes. But now that she was my only hope of ever having any luck ever again, I looked at her constantly, trying to figure out what she was thinking.

I got to second hour. The teacher had somehow locked all of us out of the classroom, including herself. It was probably my fault. It seemed like a curse thing rather than something that would normally happen to a teacher.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” I said. I pulled out my lockpicking set and got to work, getting the door open in a few minutes. It would have been even quicker if I weren’t cursed. A few kids even started clapping.

“How did you do that?” Madison asked. She looked like she was trying to hide the fact that she was impressed.

I shrugged. “I get locked out a lot.”

In third hour, a girl had a sign on her back that said “Loser” on it. Two guys were filming it. Normally, I wouldn’t have gotten involved, but now that I had such bad luck, I had a lot of empathy for anyone having a bad time. I tried to take it off of her, but somehow my hand got caught in the tape and she thought I was putting the sign on her. Of course, that was comedy gold for the guys filming. They’d probably get a million views or something.

“No,” I said, trying to explain to the girl as I struggled with the tape, “I’ve learned my lesson about things like that!” She turned around and kicked me in the shin and I doubled over. Madison was looking at me. I expected her to laugh, but she looked deep in thought.

That evening, I had an idea. I couldn’t force Terrell to date Madison, but I could do the next best thing. Madison was about to get a secret admirer.

I thought about what Madison might like. Carnations, probably. I bought two bouquets of them because I knew that with my luck, only a few flowers would survive the trip to school. Then I broke into her locker (another useful skill I had learned from my own locker getting jammed so many times) and shoved the flowers inside. I carefully included a note that read: “From your secret admirer.”

I watched from the corner as Madison opened her locker. I saw her surprise as she inspected the flowers, looking at the note. She looked around and I ducked behind a group of 12th graders. I couldn’t let her know it was me.

In first hour, Madison was staring at me. Did she know? I had to make her think they were from Terrell.

“Hey,” I said, “I saw Terrell by your locker this morning. It looked like he was putting something in there.”

“Why were you watching my locker?” she asked. Great. Now I sounded like a stalker.

“I wasn’t. I said, “It’s just that your locker is next to…” I didn’t even have to finish my sentence because someone bumped into me, and I took that opportunity to run away.

I was going to have to up my, or Terrell’s, game. I thought about what Madison might like. She had a lot of arts and crafts in her room, mostly used to torture me, but still. Maybe she’d like more. I walked to the dollar store and picked up some glitter and stuff, avoiding feathers. I put them in her locker, no note this time.

That week, I started looking for more things to put in Madison’s locker. I noticed she was always eating fruit. Maybe she’d like more? I took an orange and banana from my kitchen and shoved them into Madison’s locker.

Madison liked sunsets, so maybe I’d just go ahead and paint her one? I quickly realized that I couldn’t paint, especially with the curse, and opted for cutting one out of my mom’s old magazine. Into Madison’s locker it went.

Didn’t Madison like stuff that smelled good? I think she did. Especially cinnamon. She always smelled like cinnamon. Maybe I’d just sprinkle a little in her locker…

“What are you doing in my locker?” she asked. It was actually a miracle she hadn’t caught me before this.

My hand was still pouring cinnamon into her locker. The whole bottle was empty now. What had started out as a well-meaning gesture had ended up as vandalism.

I would have to think fast. “It’s a threat,” I said, “If you don’t remove the curse, I’m going to keep doing more stuff like this, so you might as well just break it now.”

“Wait, were you the one who put the other stuff in there too?” she asked.

I played dumb, “What other stuff? That was probably Terrell. I think he likes you.”

I couldn’t tell if she was buying it.

I felt cornered. I walked out the door and kept walking onto a street that never had any traffic. It was normally so empty and I was so distracted that I didn’t even look where I was going. But with my luck, today there was a car zipping by just as I stepped into the road. The car didn’t hit me; I walked right into it as it sped by.

Everything went black.