Witch Girl

By Pharrel Katz

There’s a girl in my class. There’s a rumor that she’s a witch. I don’t know how the rumor started. I don’t care. I believe it. She is a witch. How do I know? Because of her witchy ways. That and her tall, black hat in the shape of a cone. And she carries a broom with her wherever she goes. She comes to class with the hat and the broom and is all dressed in black.

She also carries around a stuffed cat. Not a dead cat that was stuffed, but a toy cat. She says it’s her familiar. I once asked her if it needed to be a real, living cat to be a witch’s familiar, but she said it didn’t matter. Magic will create a witch’s familiar even from a stuffed toy, and it will come alive and work some evil. I don’t think familiars work good. Maybe they don’t work anything at all, maybe they’re just companions.

I imagine witches are lonely and it must be nice to have a familiar. I guess they are called familiars because they are familiar with what it means to be lonely. Cats are pretty solitary creatures, like witches. Maybe witches are lonely because they’re ugly. Not all witches are ugly. The witch girl in my class is actually kind of cute. I don’t know why she wants to be a witch. Is it even a choice? I mean, maybe it’s born in you, like being good at math or sports.

Other kids in our class laugh at her for dressing like a witch and carrying around that broom, but I kind of admire her bravery. One time, this kid in class spilled the pencil sharpener shavings on the floor and said in a mean voice, “Hey, why doesn’t the witch make her broom clean it up?” Everybody laughed, except me. I respect witches. Well, that kid got sick with leukemia and all his hair fell out. I’m sure it was magic retribution.

I followed the witch girl one day after school. She went to the woods. I spied on her from behind a couple of trees that were growing really close together. I’m sure she didn’t see me. Anyway, she built a little fire in the center of a stone ring and started chanting, “Satan, Satan, come be my husband.” It gave me the creeps.

Then, this older kid from the 7th grade showed up. He’s a real jerk and he bullies everybody in my class, but he’s never bullied me. I’m lucky, I guess. Anyway, the bully kid showed up and started to smoke a cigarette. He offered it to witch girl and she took a few drags, but started to cough really bad. Then he started to ride her broom around and grabbed her stuffed cat. She yelled, “Quit it!” and he said, “Make me.”

And then they started kissing. I wanted to run, but I was afraid they’d see me and the bully guy would beat me up, so I just kept watching. Well, they kissed and then she pushed him away and started laughing at him. He got really mad and yelled at her to shut up. Then he lit another cigarette. She was holding her broom and said to him, “You are Satan and you’re my husband.” He just looked at her and said, “You’re a fucking retard,” and he kicked the fire and left. Then she left. I waited a few minutes, then I went to look at the fire in the stone circle. She’d burned her toy cat in the fire. What did she do that for? Then I left.

I saw her the next day and she wasn’t dressed like a witch anymore; she was dressed like a regular kid in 6th grade. But don’t you believe her. How can you be a witch, a real witch, one day and then normal the next day? I don’t think so.

So I’m keeping an eye on her. Some days she dresses like a cheerleader and some days like a Girl Scout, but she’s not fooling me. You can never trust a witch. Some day she’ll go back to her witchy ways. When she does, I want to be there and say, “I told you so.”