Things Are Gonna Get Ugly by Hillary Homzie

peasant blouse with a black smocklike apron decorated with pink rosebuds. She looks like a Russian nesting doll.
    â€œI understand everything. About the CYT file,” I state, pulling my hood farther around my face.
    â€œCYT?” asks Dribble. “Is that like the CIA?”
    The class laughs. Not that I blame them.
    â€œYou told me the day before. It means cover your—”
    Olivia jumps out her seat and clamps her long, pale fingers over my mouth. “Too much cold medication,” she says, apologetically. Did I hear thehint of a Russian accent? “Ernestine’s not herself,” she says.
    That’s true. Olivia’s hand feels cool and smells like lanolin. I try to push it away but she’s stuck to me like an octopus.
    Mr. Dribble hobbles back to the board, holding his precious dry eraser. He’s actually whistling “Yesterday,” an old Beatles tune, as he erases an old homework assignment in one wide, sweeping flourish. How can he be so happy? I’m completely altered, Mr. Dribble! What about you? You appear to be the same strange teacher as always, in what you call “your Donny Osmond purple socks.” Why are you playing dumb???
    Finally, I pull Olivia’s hand off my mouth, and before she sits down, I hear her mutter, “Nyet.”
    â€œI’m not going to just take this,” I say, still standing up. Then it hits me. Olivia’s incantations in gym, and now muttering things in phony Russian. Her obvious hatred of me. I wheel around and glare at her babushka-covered head. “Was it you ? You! Those magic spells. I know it was!”
    Everyone in the class goes silent. I can hear the crackle of the loud speaker. Sneed nudges Winslow, who’s reading whatever is inside his notebook, while Caylin and Petra roll their eyes.
    Olivia steps backward, her eyes narrow. “Me? What are you talking about? Me what?”
    I leap forward, my arm swinging near her face. “You’re the one! Change me back! NOW! You used your magic on me! Help me! Please! You’ve got to use your woo-woo powers!!”
    â€œWoo-woo?” asks Olivia, looking around the room as if woo-woo might be a new classmate.
    The class is rolling in the aisles. Everyone is just completely cracking up. Even Winslow pops his head out from his notebook and gazes at me like I’ve got antennae sticking out of my head.
    Mr. Dribble bounds toward me, his face stop-sign red, his bushy mustache twitching like a squirrel’s tail. “Ernestine, we’re going to have a little talk. NOW. In the hallway.” As he ushers me down the aisle and out the door, in his hands, I see he has his pink-slip pad, the one he keeps on the right corner of his desk like he’s a doctor of detentions, and practically everyone goes, “Oooh,” at the same time. I can hear murmurs of “She’s going crazy” and “She’s going to get a detention.” And I can hear Caylin saying “Now, that was REAL random. What’s up with that?”
    â€œThis is not free time, folks,” says Mr. Dribble,through clenched teeth. “While I chat with Ms. Smith, you guys are going to be reading about Thomas Jefferson. Heard of him? The dude on the front of a nickel, third president, ringing a bell? Read pages 105 to 114. And answer the questions at the end of the chapter.”
    The class groans and I hear a few sarcastic, “Thanks, Ernestines.” Dribble shakes his head. “Remember, you kiddos live in high-tech heaven, you got nothing to complain about. When I was kid, the number-one spot the Soviets wanted to nuke was here, the Silicon Valley. Not Washington, D.C. or New York or even Mount Rushmore, the place with the four presidents’ heads. You kids now have it easy-peasy pie.”
    The man makes absolutely NO sense.
    As we walk into the hallway, Mr. Dribble clutches his pickle jar in one hand and his pink detention-slip pad in the other. I