Twist My Charm: The Popularity Spell - Hardcover

Gallagher, Toni

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553511157 ISBN 13: 9780553511154

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2015

Synopsis

Magic and a little twist of mayhem will charm fans of Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Wendy Mass in this fresh, contemporary debut!
 
When a package arrives in the mail for Cleo Nelson, she can’t wait to open it. The birthday present is seven months late, but it’s from Uncle Arnie and that can only mean one thing: magic! Inside is a voodoo doll complete with instructions for making happy, wonderful things happen to Cleo and her friends—err, friend. Just one, really. But maybe the doll can change that. . . .
            Cleo can’t wait to try out the magic with her friend, Samantha. They start small by wishing for treats (surprise pizza!), but then their spells start to grow. And when they wish for popularity, they accidentally get the popular girl in school in major trouble with the principal. Can happy spells be twisted into bad magic?

About this title

About the Author

No stranger to storytelling, Toni Gallagher earned a journalism degree from Northwestern University and has had a successful career in reality TV. She began as a story editor on the early seasons of MTV’s The Real World and was a producer on the beloved and respected Disney Channel show Bug Juice, about real kids at summer camp. Currently she serves as executive producer of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo. Toni lives in Los Angeles and loves finding the magic in it.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A masterpiece! That’s what this drawing is going to be. It’s an intergalactic panda shooting rainbows out of his butt, and one day people will look at it in an art gallery and talk in whispers about how the artist, Cleo Margaret Nelson, was only eleven years old at the time, but had the talent of somebody really rich and famous.

All the picture needs is a little more yellow to fill in the stars and maybe some blue for Pandaroo’s eyes, and then my masterpiece will be complete. Pandaroo is just one of the characters I’ve created as an aspiring animator, and one day I want them all to be in cartoons on TV and big-time movies, not just on pieces of paper.

I search in my desk and find some colored pencils poking out between the homework papers, candy wrappers, and other junk. That’s when I hear someone say my name from the front of the classroom.

It’s Kevin, my teacher. “Cleo, didn’t you bring a snack for break?”

This is bad for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I have a teacher named Kevin. That’s just weird. Back in Ohio, teachers were named Mr. Nagurny or Mrs. Stem, like normal adults with last names, not Kevin or Janet or Roberta, like they’re your friends. But I’ve lived in Los Angeles for three months now, and like they say here, whatever!

Second of all, this school’s snack break is only fifteen minutes long and you’re supposed to bring something “delicious and nutritious” to eat while you sit at your desk doing tasks that are “enriching to your life and spirit,” whatever that means.

On top of all that, no, I do not have a snack for snack break. But I don’t want Kevin bringing attention to it in front of everybody. Especially Madison Paddington.

Madison Paddington--Maddy Paddy to her friends--is eleven like me, but she’s a Los Angeles eleven, which is more like fourteen anywhere else in the world. Her hair is like golden sunlight on a wheat field in a painting you’d see in a museum. Her jeans probably cost three hundred dollars. And her teeth are totally straight and shiny; she’ll never need braces.

Then there’s me. I’ve got a gap between my front teeth, and Dad says I’m going to need dental work “out the wazoo.”

“It’s okay,” I say to Kevin. “My dad forgot to pack my snack.” And I forgot to check, but I don’t tell him that.

“Her dad packs her lunch?” Madison whispers to her friends Kylie Mae and Lisa Lee. “What a baby.”

Kevin doesn’t hear her, though, because he’s busy asking loudly, “Kids, does anyone have a snack they can share with Cleo?” His question makes everyone look at me, which is the last thing I want--ever!

“I’m not hungry,” I say quietly, but it’s too late. Someone’s hand has shot up in the air.

It’s Scabby Larry, the kid nobody likes. He’s so excited, it’s like someone asked him if he wanted peanut M&M’s and a free unicorn ride, not to share his snack. “I’ve got carrot sticks! Come on over,” he says, holding up his plastic baggie and smiling way too big.

“I’m really not hungry.” I look at Kevin and hope he’ll just let me sit at my desk and enrich my life and spirit without a delicious, nutritious snack.

“Part of the experience here at Friendship Community School, Cleo, is about sharing and companionship. Enjoy some of Larry’s carrots.” So I have no choice.

The room is completely quiet as I stand up from my desk. My chair screeches against the ground, sounding like an injured coyote. It feels like it takes forever to walk across the room. No matter how many steps I take, Scabby Larry’s desk looks farther and farther away. Why did he have to be the one who raised his hand?

I bet everybody is staring at my non-name-brand sneakers and my pants that are too high above my ankles now that I’ve had a growth spurt. I thought my clothes were fine before we moved to LA, but now I think about what’s wrong with them all the time.

Then I make the world’s biggest mistake.

I take the whole bag from Scabby Larry’s hand.

“Oh, I meant take some,” he says, pulling back the baggie and handing me a few carrots.

The laughs in the room are like Fourth of July fireworks--one or two quiet ones at first, followed by a big explosion. Madison giggles and says, “They must eat like piggies in Ohio.” Then her friends make some piglike grunts. But they’re quiet enough that Kevin doesn’t hear them.

I go back to my desk and sit. I can tell everyone is watching me eat this handful of carrot sticks that rightfully belongs inside Scabby Larry’s stomach. And even though I know I shouldn’t, I look over at Madison. She pretends like she’s eating carrots in a big exaggerated way, licking her perfectly puffy lips with their glittery pink gloss. Then she puts her pinkie out, all dainty and casual, and pushes her nose up like a pig’s.

I hate her.

Okay, Dad doesn’t like it when I use the word hate, so I’m supposed to say I really don’t like Madison. Neither does Samantha, who is looking at me with a sad frowny face.

Samantha is one of my friends at my new school. To be honest, she’s my only friend, but I hate--I mean, don’t like--saying it that way because it makes me sound seriously lame. Samantha has known Madison and the others all her life, but she’s nothing like them. The funny thing is, she’s nothing like me either. I’m too tall and too skinny and my hair is a muddy yellow tangled mess. Sam is shorter and built like a pug (a cute one) with a mop of frizzy black hair. If we got into a fight, I bet she could steamroll me with her puggy body and I’d only have a pair of bony elbows to defend myself with.

Luckily we don’t fight, though, because we’re best friends.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0553511157
• ISBN 13: 9780553511154
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272