Reptilian Reputation

I don't know what that fly thought was so interesting. I'd showered with my peach blossom body scrub and slathered on all-day deodorant just six hours before, so there wasn't anything to smell. Or taste. Or whatever it was flies did with their feet.

Study hour droned as lazily as the fly did. I glanced across the room to where Shara, my once-best-friend, nestled heads with Bert, boy-of-my-dreams, chatting like they'd realized eternity. They evidently didn't notice the fly.

Or me.

Or the curse.

The fly landed on my head and I shook it off. I sliced it with a glare the way my sister withered pests-of-the-younger-sibling variety, to no avail. I lay my head on the desk and pulled my hair over my face instead, closing my eyes to make the time go faster.

To make the curse happen faster.

Which is why I felt betrayed a moment later when my tongue, without me even seeing the darn thing, snaked between my lips and whipped around the fly.

Three feet away. I know because that's how far my tongue stretches, ever since Shara cursed it using my hex-book.

And brought the fly swiftly, neatly back to my mouth.

Coming from a hex-book, the frog-tongue thing wasn’t a real curse. The real curse, obviously, had backfired. It took less than a second. Not long enough for anyone to have noticed a thing, but that's the way curses work, my grandma says. They take all the negative might-bes in any certain moment and pull them together into one gigantic whammy of a punch.

That’s all I wanted for Shara. For Bert to see how little she was.

But that’s the other thing about curses. They come back to bite you. I was just too mad to listen to my grandma on that one.

Not only did a (delicious) buzzing morsel tickle my teeth, the entire classroom and my teacher chose that nano-second to glance my way. Including Bert.

You could hear the fly in my mouth, the after-shock was so thick.

It was so not fair.

Shara started laughing, and I took the curse into my own hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said to my once-best-friend, and I meant it. Abruptly, the fly tasted disgusting. I spit it into my palm and smashed it onto her desk.

Her tongue shot out and snatched up the fly, guts and all. Her eyes bulged, and she half gulped, half croaked.

That’s the thing about hexes. They don’t stick to the innocent. I’d been too proud to apologize.

I didn’t look at Bert. His relationships were his business to decide. Instead, I walked over to my teacher. “Do you mind if I get a drink of water?” I asked.

“Of course, Lisa,” he smiled. “Or can I call you Lizard?”

I stuck my—short—tongue out at him, and walked out of the room.