Enchantment by Charlotte Abel Read Free Book Online Page B

girls’ bathroom. She fled into one of the stalls when she heard someone come in. They were talking about her. She flinched when the door swung open and hit the wall with a bang.  
    “She has the most hickified, red-necked, southern accent I’ve ever heard.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really. Now stop interrupting.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Her name …” Channie squeezed her eyes shut. “…is Chastity!”
    “No way!”
    “Yes, way. But you are not going to believe this … Her last name is Belks!”  
    Channie waited for the girl to burst into laughter, but there was only silence.
    “I don’t get it.”
    “Ug! You are so dense. Chastity Belks … ?” More silence. “Come on! You have to know what a chastity belt is!”
    “Sorry, Kassie, I never heard of it.”
    “You are so naive! A chastity belt is an old-fashioned device men used to put on their wives to be sure they didn’t cheat on them when they went off to war.”
    “Well, why didn’t the women just take them off after the men left?”
    “Because they couldn’t . The belts were made out of iron and had locks on them.”
    “That’s horrible!”
    “Ya think?”
    “And this new girl? You’re not just making this up? Her name, really-truly, is Chastity Belks?”
    “Yeah, but she goes by Channie. She even asked Old Lady Windsor to call her that. I wish you could have heard her. She sounded like Oliver Twist, only instead of ‘Please sir, may I have some more?’ She said, ‘Please ma’am, just call me Channie.’ And instead of a cute English accent, she sounded like an inbred hillbilly.”
    Chastity’s magic clawed at Channie’s stomach, desperately wanting to curse both girls. She wanted to crawl out a window and run all the way home to Arkansas, or at least to her new house by the park, but there were no windows and the girls weren’t done talking about her.
    “So, did Old Lady Windsor agree to use her nick-name?”  
    “Ha! You know better than that. I thought Chastity was going to break down and cry when she refused.”
    “I would have!”
    Kassie said, “Of course you would have. You’re such a baby. But Chastity seems pretty tough. She’s probably used to people making fun of her by now.”
    “Who in their right mind would name their own kid something like that?”  
    “Inbred hillbillies.”  
    The girls left, but Channie could still hear their laughter echoing through the halls, even after the door swung shut behind them.
    She spent all of second period locked inside the tiny stall; crying silently and wishing with all her heart she was back home with her friends and family where everybody talked the same way she did and nobody made fun of her or talked about her behind her back.  
    The only half-way nice thing Kassie had said about Channie was a lie. She wasn’t tough, not at all, but if she wanted to get through the rest of the day, much less the rest of the year — she’d better change. Enchantment wasn’t tough, but Chastity sure as hell would be.
    She blotted her tears with toilet paper then splashed cold water on her face until all traces of her emotional breakdown were gone. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, dropped the pretentious speech patterns drilled into her at Wisdom Academy and said, “Screw ‘em. They ain’t nothing but ignorant Empties anyways,” then stomped out of the bathroom with her spine straight, shoulders back and her head held high.  
    Her newfound confidence lasted all of five seconds in the crowded hall. Whispered comments and low murmuring voices followed her everywhere.  
    “Hey. There’s that new girl, Chastity Belt.”
    “Is that her real name?”
    “It sounds like a name for a porn star, huh?”
    “I wonder if she puts out?”
    “With a name like that? She has to.”
    Power buzzed and crackled under Channie’s skin. It was the same sensation she’d felt last night right before the curse struck Joshua — minus the pleasure of kissing. She hadn’t consciously called