A Was {Not} A Teenage Witch
an excerpt

Okay, I’m done my beans, I’m leaving now. “You wanna go?” I ask Sid. He shrugs and doesn’t get up. Okay then. I don’t really want to go up to my room right now, it’s too small to really think straight. I’ll go sit among Aster’s asters. No, she doesn’t have any asters in here, just orchids. Is it weird that Aster is really into flowers? Is it too obvious, too convenient (like a Harry Potter novel (I love sticking it to that guy))? I suppose I could have it changed to something else. Contact the Writer, ask for a slight alteration. But Aster is her name, it has been for 42 years, no other name suits her. It’s like how Liv’s name is Liv and she will never be called anything else, Sid’s name is Sid, Vinnie’s name is Vinnie and I will always be called Izzie.

It’s funny how a name grows to fit its owner. The name Drew belongs to Drew and the name Eleanor always conjures images of my grandmother. The name Johnny always makes me think of Johnny Depp (Drew could look a little like Drew Barrymore, her face is the same shape and her skin is the same colour; Bas vaguely resembles Basil Fawlty but my Johnny has absolutely nothing in common with Johnny Depp).

I never thought the name Izzie suited me, really. I always thought of someone smaller and paler (I’m not what you would call swarthy, but I’m thinking, like, dead person pale) with dark, spiky hair and sunken eyes. A punk. Izzie. Izzie and Johnny. Johnny and Sid. Ha ha ha, I never thought of that before. We could start a punk band. Yeah, man, how cool would that be? Me and my boyfriend and my uncle. Woah. Watch out, we’re badass.

I can say that without a doubt I will never be badass. I could shave my head, get an upside down cross tattooed on my skull, pierce my nose and buy a leather jacket and I’d still have to be home by seven thirty. Look at Johnny. I mean, he has most of the badass prerequisites but he still isn’t very intimidating. He’s so timid and non threatening.

Some of his cousins could possibly be considered badass, and his brother is borderline, but not Johnny. He’s on my side, if it can be called a ‘side’ per se. Sure, why not. He’s on my side all right. He hasn’t crossed over to the ‘wrong side of the law’ or whatever. To my knowledge. I don’t know. Maybe he has. I don’t think he’d tell me. Maybe he would. God. Indecision. Confusion. What to do? Very little. Well. This room has a nice vibe, lots of plants in it. The plants are loved. Aster’s orchids. I don’t know a lot about orchids, I’m afraid. They’re supposed to be really hard to grow. Aster has a lot of them. And violets. Aster’s violets. A whole table of African Violets. I think she loves them more than she loves us (or resents them less). Who knows.

So the plants are giving off that vibe, now. ‘She loves us more, you know’ they tell me. Stupid orchids. Aster is a plant anyway. The man in the park was a plant. Ha. Man, my brain is having problems right now. I should just curl up and go to sleep. I might never wake up. Heh. I have a pimple on my lip. Fucking hell. Just Hell. Can fictional characters go to hell? What am I talking about? Of course they can. Hell is a fictional place. Fictional people go there.

Does that mean I’m going to go there? I am, after all, a witch (in name only). A servant of Satan. Ha. I was going to talk about how witches got magic (not from Satan, I’m afraid. I’ve never seen any proof of his existence. Other than, you know, Jack Nicholson). I don’t really have the energy to tell the whole story right now, so I’ll go for the short version (let’s remember that this is a legend and actually contradicts a lot of the stuff I said earlier).