Jaclyn Hyde Read online

  Jaclyn thought for a moment. “Why don’t you just pull it up at the roots?”

  “Hmm. That’s not a bad idea.”

  As Jaclyn left, the woman noticed her basket, which was filled to the brim with soft, putrid apples. She shook her head. “That girl must really hate her teachers.”

  Jaclyn raced back home. She gave her parents the milk and then went up to her room with her chemistry set and the bushel of bad apples. She closed and locked her door, and then put on her safety goggles, her lab apron, and her yellow rubber gloves. Then she got to work, following the formula exactly, taking great care to measure every ingredient accurately. She squeezed the juice from the apples, then strained out the mush. She picked out the seeds and plucked the stems, then ground them down with a mortar and pestle. She combined everything in her biggest beaker—the formula had produced much more than she expected. Then she heated it to exactly one hundred and sixty-eight degrees, the final step of the instructions. The pale-yellow mixture began to bubble. Then it changed color to a deep bluish black, like a liquid bruise. She poured a few drops into a test tube. She held the tube up to her nose. It smelled like a dumpster on a hot summer day.

  “What am I doing?” she said to herself.

  She had spent hours searching for rotten apples and concocting a potion that she’d found in the lab of a dead mad scientist! And now she was about to drink it? There was a sharp knock on the door. Startled, Jaclyn dropped the test tube. It shattered on her desk. The liquid bubbled on the wooden surface, then exploded in a cloud of dark-blue gas right into Jaclyn’s face. The awful smell coated her nose. She could taste the bitterness on the back of her tongue. She gagged.

  There was another knock on the door.

  “Jaclyn?” her mother called.

  Jaclyn coughed. “One second!” She wiped her face with her apron, then looked around for some way to hide the mixture. She grabbed an empty plastic water bottle from the trash can, poured the rest of the Perfection Potion inside, and stuck it in her desk drawer. She ran and opened the door. “Hi, Mom.”

  Her mom peered into the room. “Still working on your science project? Be careful. It won’t be easy to clean lava out of the carpet.”

  “I will.”

  Jaclyn’s mom scrunched up her nose. “It smells terrible in here. Are you sure you cleaned out Charles’s cage?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Mom’s face softened. “Get some rest. I know today was hard. After a good night’s sleep, I’m sure you’ll feel like a brand-new person.”

  Chapter Six

  A Brand-New Person

  When Jaclyn woke up the next day, the first thing she saw was Charles’s cage. She looked at the balled-up socks inside and her stomach twisted with guilt. After school, she would look for him. She just hoped that he was okay.

  She got out of bed and rubbed her eyes. It had been a fitful night of sleep with a lot of weird dreams about eating expired food. The odor of rotten apples still lingered in her nose and the acrid taste clung to her throat—even after she’d brushed her teeth twice. She felt foolish for making the Perfection Potion, and vowed not to mention it to Paige and Fatima. It was just too ridiculous. But way in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder—what if it worked?

  She biked to school and arrived at 7:55 a.m., as she did every day. Just early enough to be punctual, but not so early that she was wasting time waiting for the doors to open. As she walked inside, she saw two sixth graders seated at a folding table topped with freshly baked brownies.

  “Hey, Jaclyn!” said Todd Feldhusen in a nasally voice. Todd lived down the street from Jaclyn. He would often knock on her door, selling candy bars or wrapping paper, trying to raise money for one crazy project or another.

  “Hi, Todd,” said Jaclyn. She turned to Todd’s friend. “And you’re Davis, right?” She prided herself on knowing the name of every kid in school.

  “That’s right. You want to buy something from our bake sale?” asked Davis, polishing his glasses on his T-shirt.

  “Why are you having a bake sale?” said Jaclyn.

  “We’re raising money to start a bird-watching club!” said Davis, proudly showing her a giant book of exotic birds.

  “Yeah! Bird Buddies!” said Todd.

  They high-fived each other, then did a little dance, flapping their arms like wings. It was the most excited anybody had ever been about bird watching.

  “What do you need the money for? Binoculars?” asked Jaclyn.

  Todd arched his eyebrow. “To buy a bird. Obviously.”

  “Bird watching is much easier when it’s your own bird,” added Davis.

  “Okay . . . well, good luck.”

  She gave Todd and Davis a dollar, took one of the brownies, and headed toward her homeroom. That’s when she spotted Darcy Lithgow at the water fountain. There was a bright pink pin on her jacket that said Happy Birthday to Me!

  Jaclyn froze. The cookies. She had been so busy making that stupid Perfection Potion that she had totally forgotten to make a new batch of Grandma Hyde’s Chocolate Delights for Darcy’s birthday! This was a full-blown emergency! What would Darcy think? What would her classmates say? What would her homeroom teacher do? They would all be so disappointed! The thought of it gave her butterflies in her stomach—big angry butterflies. She had to find a way to fix this mess!

  She looked back at Todd and Davis. They were flipping through the book of exotic birds.

  “What if we bought a gold-spotted pheasant?” Todd said excitedly. “Or a horned owl?”

  “I’m just going to throw a crazy idea out there,” said Davis. “Have we considered a chicken?”

  All of a sudden, Jaclyn was overwhelmed by an extraordinarily strange feeling. Her bones ached. Her joints cracked. She glanced down at her hands and was horrified to see that they didn’t look like her hands at all. They were smaller. Bonier. With jagged, yellow fingernails. Slowly, she took a step toward Todd and Davis. And then another. But she didn’t know why. She wasn’t in control of her own body. It was like she was a marionette at the mercy of an invisible puppeteer.

  As if in a trance, she quietly approached the folding table. While the two sixth graders eyed the bird book, she reached out and snatched their entire tray of brownies.

  What am I doing? she thought. But she was unable to stop herself.

  Before Todd or Davis noticed she was there, Jaclyn spun around and sprinted down the hall. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She’d never done anything like this. She knew she should put the brownies back—she wanted to put the brownies back. But a mysterious force pushed her forward, all the way to homeroom.

  The next thing Jaclyn knew, she was standing at the front of her homeroom class.

  “Brownies?” Mr. Hanh’s voice gave Jaclyn a jolt. She looked down at her hands. They were back to normal. It felt like the puppet strings had been cut and she was in control of herself again.

  Mr. Hanh continued, “I was expecting your world-famous Chocolate Delights.”

  Jaclyn blinked. “Uh . . . surprise!”

  Mr. Hanh grinned. “Jaclyn, we can always count on you!”

  Jaclyn sat down at her desk in between Paige and Fatima. The whole class sang “Happy Birthday” to Darcy while Mr. Hanh passed out the brownies.

  Paige turned to Jaclyn, amazed. “When did you even have time to make these?”

  Jaclyn was still having trouble finding her words. “I . . .”

  “We know,” said Fatima, smacking her on the back. “You can do anything. You’re Jaclyn Hyde.”

  Mr. Hanh passed out brownies to the back row, including Shane Zeigler. Mr. Hanh had barely turned his back when Shane pounded his fist on his desk, crushing the brownie. “Mr. Hahn, somebody crushed my brownie. Can I have another one?”

  Mr. Hahn let out a deep sigh. “Shane, you crushed your brownie. So no, you can’t have another one.”

  “Whatever.” He shrugged. “I don’t want any of Jaclyn’s brownies anyway. They look
like clumps of dirt.”

  “Well, they taste delicious,” said Mr. Hanh, helping himself to seconds. “If only everyone could be like Jaclyn Hyde. Although that wouldn’t be good for my waistline,” he chuckled. He turned to Jaclyn. “You really are a perfect student.”

  Jaclyn smiled weakly, but her mind was racing. Had the Perfection Potion somehow made her steal the brownies?

  Jaclyn felt a ball of paper hit the back of her head. She picked it up from the floor and smoothed it out on her desk. Beneath smudges of chocolate there were three words: “You’re. Not. Perfect.”

  She turned around. Shane sneered at her and waved with his chocolate-stained hand.

  Chapter Seven

  Carved Up

  After homeroom, Jaclyn wandered the halls, racked with confusion. She couldn’t piece together what had happened. It was like trying to make sense out of a dream. She felt terrible about taking the brownies. She figured she would have to hold her own bake sale to pay Todd and Davis back, or else just buy them a bird. But she had no idea where to get a gold-spotted pheasant, or even a live chicken.

  As she reached the locker hallway, Paige tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “Yeah,” said Fatima. “You look like Paige did the day she ate two ham sandwiches before the cross-country meet.”

  Paige grimaced. “I was really hungry. . . . It was a terrible mistake.”

  Jaclyn started to unlock her locker. “I think I made a terrible mistake—”

  Just then, they heard Miss Carver’s voice at the other end of the hall. “WHAT IS THIS MESS?!”

  Miss Carver was standing at Zeke Trimble’s locker. Zeke was the smallest eighth grader in the school, and the baggy turtleneck he wore made him look even smaller. He cowered in front of Miss Carver.

  “School rules state that all lockers must be clean and tidy! This is neither clean nor tidy!” Miss Carver shouted, her face the color of an undercooked steak.

  Zeke’s locker was bursting with crinkled papers, piles of textbooks with dog-eared pages, half-sharpened pencils, and capless markers.

  “W-w-well,” he stuttered. “I tried my best to keep it clean, Miss Carver!”

  “Tried?! More like FAILED! Don’t ever try anything again because clearly it’s a waste of your time and mine! You want to keep this locker clean? Here.” She reached into the locker and swept everything out. All of Zeke’s belongings landed on the ground with a loud clatter. A warped gray eraser bounced across the tiled floor. “Now it’s clean.”

  The rest of the students stood frozen, their eyes glued to Zeke.

  Miss Carver whipped around. Her long gray braid hit Zeke in the face. “Everyone open your lockers this instant!”

  All the kids within earshot ran to their lockers.

  Miss Carver approached Tara Satriale, who was fumbling with the lock like a nervous bank robber trying to open a safe.

  “It’s a locker combination, not rocket science!” Miss Carver shouted.

  “Yes, Miss Carver!” Tara squeaked. The lock finally sprang open.

  Miss Carver staggered backward, holding her nose. “Good Lord! Did something die in there?!” She swept all the books out onto the floor next to Zeke’s. Then she fumbled around in the back corner and pulled out a brown banana peel.

  She bent down so she was eye to eye with Tara. “What is this?” She sneered, angry flecks of spit flying from her mouth and landing on Tara’s glasses.

  “Um . . . it’s a banana peel?” Tara said meekly.

  “Were you saving it for later?!” Miss Carver shrieked, and dropped the banana peel onto Tara’s head.

  Miss Carver made her way down the hall, dumping out the contents of every locker. “Pencil shavings!? Old socks!?” She pulled a notebook out of Hunter Seagram’s locker. “What is this?”

  “Poetry,” said Hunter.

  Miss Carver flipped through the pages. “You call this poetry?! IT DOESN’T EVEN RHYME!” She ripped out the pages and tossed them in the air like confetti.

  She looked inside Fatima’s locker. “I’ve never seen so many pens in my life!”

  “I’m a journalist. I always need something to write with,” Fatima explained.

  “Oh really?! How’s this for breaking news?” Miss Carver grabbed a fistful of Fatima’s pens and snapped them in half, spraying ink everywhere.

  Miss Carver stomped down the hall, emptying locker after locker. She reached Paige, whose locker was stuffed with gym clothes. Miss Carver pulled out a pair of cleats. “What are these? Shoes?!”

  “They’re for soccer practice—”

  “This is a locker, not a walk-in closet! You want to bring extra shoes to school? Wear them on your hands!” She stuffed the shoes onto Paige’s hands, and then continued down the hall in a rage. “I didn’t know I was running a school full of pigs! Does my name tag say barnyard principal?!”

  “You’re not wearing a name tag,” said Darcy.

  Miss Carver pounded her fist against the wall. “That was a rhetorical question! Every single one of these lockers is disorganized, disgusting, and a disgrace.” She pointed at the students. “Just like every single one of you.”

  Then she reached Jaclyn’s locker. When she swung it open, she was faced with the tidiest locker in the history of middle school. Somehow Jaclyn had managed to both color coordinate and alphabetize her textbooks. The pencils, each sharpened to the exact same length, were laid neatly inside a pencil box. Her notebooks were stacked according to her class schedule. There was even a pine tree–shaped air freshener hanging on the inside of the door.

  Jaclyn smiled sweetly at Miss Carver, hoping she would be pleased that at least one student had followed the rules. Instead, it seemed to make her even angrier.

  “What are you trying to do?” she yelled, a vein bulging above her eye. “Make a fool of me?!” She dumped everything out of Jaclyn’s locker. She ripped the air freshener off the door, threw it on the floor, and jumped on it. “Stop acting like you’re better than the rest of them. You’re not.” She turned to face the students. “Congratulations. You’ve all lost your locker privileges for the rest of the year.”

  She pointed all the way to the end of the hall where Zeke was trying to disappear into his oversized turtleneck. “And you can all thank that little pip-squeak—Zeke Trimble!” She turned and stomped away into her office.

  Jaclyn was so busy gathering the contents of her locker and trying to arrange them neatly in her backpack that she didn’t get a chance to tell Paige and Fatima about what had happened that morning. They rushed off to Spanish class, while Jaclyn headed to art.

  She sat down at her station in front of the painting she had been working on all week. The assignment was to paint a picture of a vase full of sunflowers. There was a real vase full of sunflowers on a stool in the middle of the room for the students to use as a model. Jaclyn mixed her paints together, trying to make the most realistic yellow for the petals as the rest of the class filed in, their backpacks much heavier than before.

  Jaclyn was finding it hard to concentrate. She kept thinking about the brownies, and how strange her hands had looked when she’d taken them. And then there was Miss Carver. Every time she had one of these outbursts, Jaclyn always got lumped in with everyone else. It was like all her hard work didn’t matter at all.

  At least she wasn’t the one who’d set her off. Poor Zeke was going to have a hard time getting over this one. This wasn’t the first time Miss Carver had punished everybody because of one person’s mistake. In fact, it had happened to most kids in the school at one time or another. They even had a name for it: “Getting carved up.” Paige had fallen victim to Miss Carver’s wrath in seventh grade. During swim practice, she had accidentally splashed Miss Carver as she walked by. In retaliation, Miss Carver chained the doors to the pool shut. Since then, the pool had sat unused, collecting algae.

  Everyone always said getting carved up was unavoidable, but Jaclyn still believed th
at she could win her over. Upon reflection, she thought, maybe her pencils could have been sharper. Or maybe they were too sharp. She would have to investigate later.

  For now, she had to focus on painting these sunflowers. At the completion of each project, the art teacher, Ms. Bicks, chose one student’s work to hang up on the wall in a special frame that said Star Artist of the Week. Ryan Knowles, a quiet boy with sandy hair and serious brown eyes, had won so many times that the running joke was that Ms. Bicks might as well rename it “the ‘Ryan Knowles Painting of the Week’ Frame.”

  As the yellow started to come together on Jaclyn’s palette, she thought that maybe—just maybe—she had a chance to win this week.

  But then she heard Marina squeal from across the room. “Ryan, that’s amazing!”

  Jaclyn saw Marina leaning on the table next to Ryan’s painting. The sunflowers looked more like sunflowers than the actual sunflowers. They were practically blooming off the canvas! Jaclyn sighed. There was no way she could ever make a painting that good.

  She walked to the back of the art room to refill her water cup. She poured out the murky liquid, and as she watched it swirl down the drain, she thought about how much she’d love to be star artist just once. After the week she’d had, it would mean a lot. She was about to turn on the tap when—it happened again. The aching bones. The cracking joints. She felt herself losing control. The invisible puppet strings were back. But this time, the puppeteer was even stronger. Without knowing why, she walked over to the wall of art supplies. She reached out and grabbed a jar of paint thinner. Her hands were even more grotesque now than they had been when she’d taken the brownies. Wiry hair sprang from knotted knuckles. Her nails were yellower and sharper than before. She poured the paint thinner into her water cup and made her way over to Ryan’s station. She felt like she was trying to steer a plane that was heading for the side of a mountain, but it was on autopilot. While Ryan was talking to Marina, Jaclyn switched out his water cup for the cup full of paint thinner.