Kelly McClymer-Salem Witch 02 Competition's A Witch by Kelly McClymer Read Free Book Online

didn’t like not having suggestions for how I could turn failure into success faster than he could whip out an ad to make old people vitamins sound sexy.
    “I had fun at lunch.” Which was code for “Can we drop this?”
    Dad, ignoring the code, stayed in interrogation mode. “Have you brought your math grade up?”
    Good. He was focusing on mortal classes. “No worries, I’m back on track there.” Perfectly true, if “back on track” equals “going to pass the quarter.”
    “And”—he could barely bring himself to say it—“the other stuff?”
    “Mr. Phogg says I’m making real progress.” Again, true. If you didn’t count that he said it right after I materialized a rabbit out of a hat that immediately burst into flame. I got the kudos because I materialized a bucket of water and dumped it on the burning hat on my own initiative.
    So, okay, I didn’t tell my dad the worst stuff. And I padded the good stuff the way women had to pad their brasbefore breast implants. But, really, how many ways are there to say “horrible” without sounding like you’re waving the little white flag of surrender? Especially when I could tell Dad secretly wanted me to whip out the flag so life could get back to normal?
    Before Dad could think of another question I didn’t want to answer, Mom changed the subject. “Angelo is a nice boy.”
    “Angelo?” Dad looked at me with the “What don’t I know?” look he’d been using a lot since we moved to Salem.
    I shrugged in nonchalant combo with my best imitation Botox innocence.
    Fortunately, my dad was not subtle. His next question was a megawatt spotlight to his biggest worry. “So Samuel’s out of the picture for you, after all that tutoring?”
    Whew. Of all the questions he could’ve asked, that one was easy. “Dad! Relax. I don’t have a boyfriend. Samuel is just a friend, and Angelo is mortal.”
    Mom raised an eyebrow at me for snarking at the table. “Angelo is the neighbor boy. I told you about him and his mother, Myrna Kenton.”
    Dad nodded. “Oh. Our Salem version of Adalee Darbley. But Pru, do you think you should be involved with this boy now, when you have to study magic so much?” Dad winced when he said the “m” word, but just a little.
    “I’m not
involved
with him, Dad. I just met him.” I so didn’t want to have this conversation. It was never fun to have the “Do you like him like that?” talk with your parents, no matter how much fun it was with your friends.
    Apparently Mom had noticed that I had crushed on Angelo like a Mack truck landing on a rice cake. “More than nice. That young man is a true charmer.” Her frown lines got a little deeper as she looked at me, as if my response mattered a lot to her.
    “So? He’s a mortal? He’s off-limits.” I probably should have stopped there, but I added, “If I ever want to get out of remedial classes, I need to smack every last bit of mortal out of me, right?”
    Mom nodded, but her frown lines got even deeper. “Right.”
    Dad, oblivious to how upset Mom was about something as trivial as the fact that Angelo was the hottest thing since the sun had formed in our solar system, focused like a laser on that bit of 4-1-1. It was breaking news for him, and he wasn’t too happy about that. “You have to smack out every last bit of
mortal
? What does that mean?”
    Crappiola. If I was good at witchcraft, I’d cast a thirty-second rewind spell and we’d be good to go. But I wasn’t. And Mom thought it was disloyal to cast a spell on Dad.
    “Just that Pru really needs to concentrate on using her magic. You know, dear,” Mom said as she popped anotherof his favorite rolls on his plate, “like when you had that marketing conference in France and we spoke French for six weeks, just so you could become fluent?”
    “Oh. Of course. I see.” Dad nodded and dropped the subject. There was still a puzzled crease in his forehead, but we were no longer headed into forbidden territory.
    Dad