Alex leaned her body against her locker as Nelly Furtado's Say It Right blasted from her ear buds. She held her new black 5th generation iPod classic in her hand as she strolled through her playlist. She was glad that her parents had bought her a new iPod for Christmas since the screen on her old 2nd generation iPod Nano was too small. Alex sighed as she tried to find a better song to listen to. She hated that there wasn't any good music coming out this month. The only upcoming albums for January was Madonna's The Confession Tour and American Idol's Runner- Up Katherine McPhee's self-titled debut album. She heard that Fall Out Boy might release a new single soon but that wasn't good enough for her. She needed something now. Alex originally settled for Justin Timberlake's Sexyback but decided to listen to Panic! at the Disco's I Write Sins Not Tragedies instead.
As Alex listened to the chorus, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Alex turned around, half- expecting to see her favorite zany brunette standing behind her. She was greeted by a pearly white smile, a grin so bright that it made the girl's strawberry blond hair look dark. Alex's favorite blond was wearing a sheer white moto jacket with a beige undershirt and a black high-waisted skirt. The blond's hair was curled perfectly around her face.
"What do you want Gertrude?" Alex asked.
Alex didn't have time to deal with the two - faced lying bitch. She was trying to figure out how she would break into Kari's locker. It wasn't like Kari's locker was on Alex's side of the school. Tribeca Prep was a K-12 charter school that had different buildings across the campus for each of the grades. Alex would have to sneak into Tribeca Prep's high school building to find Kari's locker. The confrontation would Gigi wasn't going to help Alex accomplish anything.
"Puh-lease Alex," Gigi began. "Do us a favor and stop listening to your disgusting emo bands. I could hear practically hear Brendon Urie yelling from down the hall."
"You seriously came all the way over here just to insult my taste in music?" Alex questioned.
Gigi couldn't be serious. Ever since Gigi was suspended for spreading a rumor that Alex was bulimic, Gigi's bully tactics had regressed. The blond would do things like knocking Alex's lunch tray over and trying to trip Alex while the brunette was walking down the stairs. Alex would have brushed those attacks off if Gigi wasn't such a mastermind at coming against Alex. The wizard wasn't sure what the blond was plotting next.
"Aww," Gigi responded as her Wannabees ran towards her. "Were you expecting something grander? Did you want me to tell you how awfully immature your bright yellow long- sleeved graphic tee with a cartoon of a skeleton is? Or how sad it is that you're wearing black uggs with black leopard printed leggings. Face it, Russo. It's like your wearing a red target for Joan Rivers."
Alex rolled her eyes at the pettiness of Gigi's comment. Alex couldn't believe that someone this stupid was wasting her time. Alex needed to spend her time trying to find the dirt on Kari that would convince Justin to leave the slut burger alone.
"Someone needs to call the fashion police," said the taller Wannabee.
"Good one," the other Wannabe said. The two Wannabees exchanged a high-five as the bell rang.
"Let's go, girls," Gigi said as she flipped her hair.
When the three blonds left Alex alone, the brunette closed her locker and headed towards the building's entrance. She knew that her parents would be upset when they found out that their daughter was missing her first class of the winter semester. This was the best time to go through Kari's locker since everyone was in class. No one would notice that Alex was using magic to break into the locker. In fact, Alex had a plan to make sure that there wouldn't be any witnesses when she broke into Landsdorf's locker.
She walked behind the building, pulled her wand from her boot. She chanted, "I don't want to be caught by my principal, so turn me completely invisible."
She placed her wand back inside her ugg boot and tugged the wand underneath the bottom of her legging.
Alex felt an electric wave run up her leg, tickle her stomach, and start fizzing against her arms. She watched as the tan skin on her hands turned pale. The skin became translucent and she could see her pale white bones through the skin of her hand. Suddenly, she couldn't see her hands anymore. Her wrist disappeared, then her arms appeared to vanish into thin air. Once the rest of her body became invisible, she walked towards the high school's building on campus.
There was an odd sensation running through her body like a current. She felt numb and she could feel the gushes of winter air penetrate her body. She didn't feel the snow underneath her boots when she trekked across the yard. Her movement felt slow as if she was a drunk staggering through the snow-covered pavement. She felt as if she was hovering above the ground. Her body felt weightless when the wind pushed her forward. It felt like there were heavy ropes hanging from her head and dangling in her face. She could barely hear the beating of her heart.
When she reached Tribeca High's entrance, she was surprised that her body didn't phase through the metal door. She walked into the school and was greeted by the warm air. Her body began to defrost as she walked past several rows of blue lockers. She knew that Kari's locker was near the biology lab since Justin mentioned that he saw Kari at her locker before he went to biology. She knew where Justin's class was located since she had written Justin's biology classroom number on her hand earlier that day. She had raided his backpack during breakfast and found a list of his classes' room numbers in his planner.
What a dork, Alex thought as the image of Justin's planner popped into her head. It seemed silly to her that Justin would write down his upcoming affairs in a book labeled "planner." He should have labeled his book something else in order to maintain more discretion. Otherwise, he was just begging Alex to use his planner to stalk him.
I'm already his crazy, over attached girlfriend, she thought as she passed a locker that was decorated with stickers of various cats breeds and a sticker of a glittery backward "K." Alex would bet all the money from Justin's wallet that the locker belonged to Kari Landsdorf. What other high school student would decorate their locker like a preschooler?
Maybe Justin would have a sticker of Captain Jim Sher - whatever the hell the cartoon name is - on his locker, Alex thought.
She chuckled to herself as she walked up kitty themed locker. She grabbed the combination lock and gave it a hard tug. She had assumed that Kari would be too stupid to lock her locker. Maybe Kari had a brain in that ditzy blond hair of hers.
Alex pulled her wand back out and said," The prophecy of the cuckoo clock, told me I need to pick the lock, so unlatch the thick metal block."
The lock snapped open and Alex opened up the locker. On the inside of the locker's door, there was a mirror with a purple frame and a picture of Kari hugging a gray kitten. Alex was confident that this was the slut burger's locker. Alex placed her wand back inside her boot.
The wizard was glad that she was currently invisible. The amount of damage she was about to do would result in her immediate explosion. No one was going to blame anything on Alex. Her alibi was that she had gone off someone after her confrontation with Gigi left her emotionally unstable. After all, everyone knew that Gigi had created and spread the bulimia rumors about Alex last fall. No one would question Alex's alibi since Gigi's and Alex rivalry was practically as famous as Paris Hilton. Regardless of the alibi, Alex could claim that she was still on her side of the school. She didn't have a legitimate reason to wander the halls of the Tribeca High. Alex was confident that this was her greatest heist.
Alex started piling through the stack of textbooks that sat neatly on the locker's top shelf. She opened each of the books, holding them upside down and shaking them. Alex was an expert on hiding stuff inside of books. She would even hollow them out and place large objects inside of them. She needed to make sure that Kari didn't do the same thing.
Once she was finished looking through the books, she turned her attention to Kari's glittery pink notebooks. Alex knew that was going to be a tedious task but she was doing this for Justin. Her brother needed to know that Alex was right about the slut burger. Honestly, it was more than that. She needed Justin to trust her and stop masking his feelings for her with anger. Justin kept refusing to accept his desire for her and Alex desperately needed him to admit that he wanted to love her more than a sister. His morals were the only thing stopping the two from being together.
Alex sighed as she flipped through the notebooks, glancing at the bottom of the back of the page. She hated having to go the extra mile to make a point. If only there was a spell that could reveal to Alex everything she needed to know. There was the truth spell but Alex didn't want to risk what happened with Gigi. When she used the truth spell to get Gigi to admit that she started the nonvom rumor, Gigi immediately realized that Alex had used the spell on her. This led to the discovery that Gigi was a wizard and that Gigi was getting back at Alex for something awful Jerry did. Gigi's confession made Alex's suspicious of Kari since the two blonds were cousins.
Alex wasn't sure if she could deal with another huge revelation. Once Alex knew that Kari was using Justin for some evil revenge scheme, Alex warned Justin about the slut burger. The warning angered Justin and he started avoiding Alex. Anytime the two interacted together, Justin always seemed angry. Alex's usual snarky response added fuel to Justin's rage and seemed the put more division between the two. Alex knew that if she could prove that Kari was using Justin, then everything would be fine.
As Alex flipped through a three subject spiral notebook, she found a "planner" in the second subject area of the notebook. Alex used the word "planner" loosely because of the discretion that Kari used to hide it. The planner was buried deep inside the notebook with several blank pages in front of it and behind it. The planner was in the form of a list, written extremely small with such a bright pink ink that it made Alex's eyes water. The list was upside down on the backside of the sheet. The dates were spelled out and the times were written in roman numerals. Alex hated how impressed she was with Kari's planner. The blond was smarter than Alex gave her credit for.
Alex skimmed through the list until she spotted the letter "J" written several times for different days. She glanced at the description next to the "J" and knew that Kari was referring to Justin. Some of the days were marked as "J study," which Alex assumed was shorthand for Kari's study sessions with Justin. On some of the days, there was something else written next to it. There was a series of letters and number combinations that Alex didn't understand.
What the hell does CapJS1991 mean? Alex thought. Wait a minute. 1991 is the year that Justin was born in. And CapJS sounds a lot like the dumb comic book character that Justin loves. Why would the slut burger write this? Unless it's a code word for something. Of course, it is Alex! What would it be a codeword for? Maybe it's a password? But why would Kari have a - wait a minute - it's Justin's password. It's probably Justin's password to his computer or Hotmail account or Myspace page. Knowing Justin, he probably used the same password for all three.
Alex chuckled to herself for a brief second and then continued to look at the list. There was a doodle at the bottom of one of the pages. Alex didn't think it was important to look at but she stared at the drawing for other reasons. As an artist herself, Alex was admiring the alteration of thin and bold lines. Kari had a steady hand and it looked as if every stroke she made was intentional. The drawing started to look familiar to Alex. It was a picture of a room adorned with gargoyles and other antique objects that looked a little like magical artifacts and symbols. Alex realized that those items were hanging on the wall near an old wooden bookshelf stuffed with heavy looking books. Next to the bookshelf was a desk that had three chairs behind it. Farther away was two couches and a circular coffee table. The coffee table sat on top of a rug that had the image of a sun on it.
Alex started looking back at the list but her attention turned right back to the drawing. Why would Kari draw something in her planner? The girl put so much effort to keep her daily events a secret yet she wasted a large amount of the page to draw on. That didn't make sense. Alex looked at the description near the drawing and noticed that it said "J study." Why would she draw a picture underneath a study session? Alex looked at the picture again and gasped. She felt like slapping herself for no realizing what the drawing was. It was a picture of the Russo family's lair. Kari was using her study session with Justin to snoop through the Russo's house.
Wait a second, Alex thought as she started looking for the day of Kari's last study session with Justin. It was the study session that Justin had fallen asleep next to Kari in his bed.
Once Alex found the day, she noticed that underneath the "J study" shorthand title was a description that read "Charm T" and "Test A." The half latina had no idea what it meant but it seemed sinister. If "J study" stood for "Justin's study session," then what did the other shorthand words mean. Alex hated that this required so much thinking to solve. She wanted to quit and walk away. She would have if she didn't want to have to wait another month to start her relationship with Justin. She groaned as she forced herself to think.
If only there was a spell that gave me the answers I needed, Alex thought as another idea came into her head. What would Justin do? Probably storm off like a little bitch. Ha ha ... Be serious, Alex. Why is it so easy for Justin to be smart? I hate to say this but I need his help. I shouldn't be doing all the work in this relationship. He better get a card from the cuckoo clock telling him to help me. If Justin was here, he'll probably rip out a thea - theasau - a dictionary with the list of synon - those books with a list of the meanings of the same word. I can hear him now saying, 'Alex, everyone knows that charm is a synon' - syni - is a oh forget. Justin's insulting me inside my own head! Ha Justin! I know charm means the same as enchant or spell. That's sounds 'bout right. Wait a second. If Kari used charm to mean cast a spell, then who did she cast a spell on. The only person who name begins with a "T" is my mom but why would Kari ... don't be a Max. It's obvious that the slut burger cast a spell on my mom. But why?
Alex remembered how weird it was that Theresa allowed Justin take a girl to his room. Alex couldn't believe that the slut burger used magic to literally get in bed with Justin. If Kari charmed Theresa, maybe she used magic to make Justin fall asleep. Why would Kari smile at Alex when she found the two together?
Test A, Alex thought as she realized that she was the "A" that Kari was referring to. Kari set the whole incident up so Alex could find her brother cuddling with the slut. Why would Kari think that Alex would be shocked or upset if her brother was with a girl? She couldn't have known that Alex had a crush on her brother. Why would -
"Ahhhh!" a familiar scream interrupted Alex from her thoughts."Ghost!"
Alex mentally slapped herself when she realized that the girl was Kari. Alex slowly put Kari's notebook back as Kari screamed loudly. Alex ran through the hall without caring if her footsteps made any noise. She wanted to leave the school immediately. As she pushed open the entrance,students and teachers ran into the hall. Alex could still hear Kari screamed hysterically as she ran until the freezing cold air. She stopped walking when she realized her boots were going to make footprints in the snow. She couldn't stand in the snow for the rest of the day. Her feet felt numb as the snow started to soak through her ugg boots. She walked back into Tribeca Junior High and went straight into the nearest bathroom. She went into an empty stall, pulled her wand out and made herself visible again.