“It looks more yellow then green.” Kyle said dubiously, poking all the while at my homework. “Does it taste any different?” He eyed what had once been a shiny red apple and was now a sickly looking yellowish green.

“Mom!” I singsong shouted from the kitchen table. “If Kyle keeps bugging me your going to have a daughter who completely fails magic’s class! Tell him to leave me alone.”

Mom’s tired and uncaring voice came in from the kitchen. “Kyle, let your sister finish her homework in peace.”

The eleven year olds humph and stomping exit from the premises did little to ease my frustration. Magic was by far my worst subject and this homework assignment only cemented that fact in my head. Changing the color of an apple to reflect my personality, hadn’t sounded so bad in class, but my third attempt was almost as far from the nice rich green I was try for as my first attempt.

The white apple polka doted with green poked accusingly out of the top of the trashcan next to me. At least the latest was a solid color and not smoking like my second attempt.

Maybe I could call it spring green. One good look over in it’s direction though told me that snot green came more to mind. Besides Heather Kline knew I wanted forest green. The goody two shoes, homecoming queen’s apple was probably already platinum like she had announced it would be. She had probably gotten it on the first try.

I dumped the snot green apple in the trash and pulled out my forth attempt, wishing just as hard as usual that two years of magic hell was not required to get into college. Multiculturalism my ass. Not everyone is cut out for the arcane arts you know!

I flipped through my textbook one last time and finally figured out where I had made my mistake. Of course the diagram had to face east instead of a standard north. Redrawing my entire diagram took forever, but I was going to show up Heather Kline if I had to stay up all night to do it.

Finally ready I began to chant the incantation, being mindful to keep the deep forest green of life and new possibilities forefront in my mind. I was concentrating so hard I didn’t even notice when Lin, our calico, jumped up on the table to see what I was up to. The first I noticed of her was the swish of her tail going through my diagram just as I finished up.

Her yowl and tear out of the room were kind of hard to miss too. Especially since they were so quickly followed by Dad’s bellow from the living room about how the damn cat was painting a green streak on his slacks and nice leather recliner.

I ended up grounded for a week. On the bright side though the emerald green apple Mom left on my backpack the next morning without a word, totally showed up Heather Kline’s grey one.