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she was some kind of crazy psycho?
    “Look,” I said. “About tonight. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you were really going to show up. I knew you didn’t really like me, so I didn’t think you’d get your feelings hurt.” I needed to be nice. She was obviously crazy. What if she had a gun under those big clothes?
    “I didn’t.”
    “Didn’t what?”
    “Like you. Or get my feelings hurt.”
    “Oh.” I gave her the look I usually used on teachers, the “I’m a good kid” look. When I did, I noticed something weird. Her nose, which I’d thought was long and witchlike before, wasn’t. Must have been the shadows. “Good. So we’re all squared?”
    “I didn’t get my feelings hurt because I knew you’d blow me off, Kyle, knew you were cruel and ruthless and that, given the opportunity, you would hurt someone… just to show you could.” I met her eyes. Her eyelashes looked different. Longer. I shook my head. “That’s not why.”
    “Then why?” Her lips were blood-red.
    “What’s going on here?”
    “I told you. Comeuppance. You will know what it is like not to be beautiful, to be as ugly on the outside as on the inside. If you learn your lesson well, you may be able to undo my spell. If not, you will live with your punishment forever.”
    As she spoke, her cheeks reddened. She shed her cloak to reveal that she was a hot – though green-haired – babe. But something was weird – how could she transform like that? I was getting freaked out.
    But I couldn’t back off. I couldn’t be afraid of her. So I tried again. Where charm didn’t work, bringing my dad in usually did.
    I said, “You know my dad’s got a lot of money – connections too.”
    “Everyone wants something, Kyle. So?”
    “So I know it must be hard being a scholarship student at a school like Tuttle, but my dad can sort of grease the wheels, get you what you want. Money. College recs, even a shot on the evening news if I asked him. What, did you have on a disguise before? You’re actually pretty hot, you know. You’d be good on TV.”
    “Do you really think so?”
    “Sure… I…” I stopped. She was laughing.
    “I don’t go to Tuttle,” she said. “I don’t go to school at all or live here or anywhere. I am old as the ages and young as the dawn. Otherworldly beings cannot be bribed.” Oh. “So you’re saying you’re a… a… witch.”
    Her hair flowing around her face seemed now green, now purple, now black, like a strobe light. I realized I was holding my breath, waiting for her answer.
    “Yes.”
    “Right.” I said, understanding. She was truly crazy.
    “Kyle Kingsbury, what you did was ugly. And it wasn’t the first time. All your life you’ve gotten special treatment because of your beauty, and all your life you’ve used that beauty to be cruel to those less fortunate.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Second grade, you told Terry Fisher that the reason her head was lopsided was because her mother had slammed it in the car door. She cried for an hour.”
    “That was kid stuff.”
    “Maybe. But in sixth grade you had a party at Gameworks and invited the whole class – except two kids, Lara Ritter and David Sweeney. You told them they were too ugly to be allowed in.” She looked at me. “Do you think that’s funny?”
    Yeah. Kind of. But I said, “That’s still a long time ago. I had problems then. That was the year my mom left.” Kendra seemed inches taller now.
    “Last year, Wimberly Sawyer had a crush on you. You asked for her number, then had all your friends torment her with obscene phone calls until her parents got the number changed. Do you know how embarrassing that was for her? Think about it.”
    For one second I imagined it, what it would be like being Wimberly, telling my dad that everyone at school hated me. And for one second I couldn’t bear to think of it. Wimberly hadn’t just changed her number. At the end of the year, she’d left Tuttle too.
    “You’re right,” I said.