Witch Twins Series

by Adele Griffin

  “Dolores, go back to the trailer with Dad,” Melody instructed. “My sister is always underfoot,” she explained to Fluffy. “I guess I could get my dad to take her back to the motel.”

  “Naw, honey, she can stay on set if she wants,” said Fluffy. “Maybe well do a different spin on the photo shoot. About two sets of twins and—”

  “No!” Melody’s own cheeks flushed. “Go on, Dolores.” Now Melody shoved Dolores semi-gently.

  “I didn’t want my picture taken, anyhow,” said Dolores calmly. “The Fijians believe that the photographic image robs your soul.” Turning to Luna, she explained, “See, I’m the academic twin and Melody is the artistic—”

  “Beat it!” Melody stamped her foot.

  Dolores sighed, turned, and stomped off.

  Poor Dolores! thought Claire as she watched her retreat to the trailer. Imagine how awful it would be to have beautiful and talented Melody Malady for a sister, when all you’ve got is scabby knees and a vest full of rocks.

  It was time for photos. First, Melody’s stylist, a guy named Jake, appeared. He combed and spritzed both twins’ hair, smoothing Luna’s more tightly into its headband. “That haircut’ll grow out in no time,” Claire heard him whisper to Luna.

  Next, Jake spent fifteen minutes taking care of Melody so that every eyelash was in place.

  Finally, Bernardo snapped some photographs of Melody with Claire and Luna. He asked them to pretend that they were meeting Melody all over again.

  Claire pumped Melody’s hand and gave her warmest-blooded smile.

  Luna’s smile was not quite as warm.

  Bernardo clicked and clicked and said, “Fantastic-o, perfect-o!” until he ran out of film.

  “Bernie, you’re great-o! We’ve got enough for a darlin’ magazine piece,” drawled Fluffy.

  “I’m hungry,” said Melody. “Is my lunch ready?”

  “Sorry, Mel,” said Bernardo. “Willa says we’re about to begin filming.”

  Melody looked sad. She turned to Claire. “Willa is the movie director, and her word is law. Hey, do you want to hang around and watch?” She looked over at Luna. “You, too, Uma.”

  “Luna,” corrected Luna.

  “Wow! I’d love to watch!” said Claire.

  “It’s too hot to be outside,” Luna protested.

  Melody pressed a finger to her chin. “You can stay in the trailer with Dolores if you want,” she suggested. “It has air-conditioning.”

  “Okay.” Luna said, and walked off.

  Claire was aghast. Was Luna crazy? How could she pass up an opportunity to watch a movie being filmed? Crumbs, it wasn’t that hot!

  Or maybe Claire could take the sun better? Like a salamander that breathed through its skin, maintaining a comfortable moisture level in spite of the heat. (The other night, Claire had done some research about salamanders. She found out they had some unusual habits, such as skin breathing.)

  “I don’t think it’s too hot, Melody,” she said.

  “Great!” Melody tugged Claire’s arm. “Let’s go find you a seat.”

  Melody might be a big Hollywood star, thought Claire, but she was also sooo down to earth. From Jake the stylist to Dina the gaffer to Jorge the key grip, Melody had a smile and kind word for everybody.

  That’s how I’d be, too, if I were a movie star, Claire decided.

  Melody found Claire a seat on one of the high-angle camera stools. Claire climbed up and watched as Willa ordered everyone to places and asked for quiet on the set. In the scene being filmed that day, all Melody had to do was walk across the street and bump into a man exiting a building.

  “Take one!” shouted Willa through her megaphone. Then, “Take two! Take three!”

  Melody was wearing winter clothes that must have made her very uncomfortable, but she never complained. She walked and bumped, walked and bumped. Chin in her hands, Claire watched and watched. She could not believe Luna was missing all this action.

  After nineteen takes, Willa called, “Okay, that’s a wrap. Be back here in two hours.”

  A few people clapped, relieved. Then Melody took Willa aside and spoke with her, pointing at Claire all the while. Finally, Willa looked over and nodded.

  Smiling, Melody ran to Claire.

  “Guess what? Willa said a small part could be written into the movie. A part just for you,” Melody told her. “Come back tomorrow, Claire, and you can be on the other side of the camera. With me.”

  “Wow, thanks, Melody!” Claire jumped off her seat and began to hop around from excitement.

  Melody Malady, television star, movie star, and now, Claire’s costar!

  This summer kept getting better and better!

  4

  Four Point Six Billion

  “I’M GOING TO VALLEY FORGE National Park tomorrow,” Luna announced that night at the dinner table. She’d had to wait until dessert to speak. Between Claire and Justin’s nonstop chatter to their mother—on and on about Melody Malady and her dumb movie—Luna had not been able to squeeze in a word. Claire and Justin put down their ice-cream spoons. All eyes turned to her.

  “Valley Forge Park? Blech!” said Claire.

  “Why?” asked Justin. “Who with?”

  “With whom?” asked their mother.

  “With Dolores Gologly. Because she invited me. Her dad, Mr. G, is taking us, if that’s okay with you, Mom? Mr. G is a geologist, and he’s going to teach me about rocks and stuff. He’s really nice. Mrs. G is a geologist, too. Right now, she’s in Santa Fe doing fieldwork. Dolores says—”

  “Wait a minute. Dolores Gologly?” exclaimed Claire. “As in, Dolores, Melody’s freaky sister? Yuck! Dolores is a nerd from Planet Absurd!”

  “Actually” Luna said, “she’s fascinating.”

  “You’re demented, Luna,” teased Justin. “Here I’ve got a paying job as a gofer for the Double Delight movie crew, and Claire’s got a part in the movie, and you wind up going to Valley Forge National Park. Jeez! We’ve all been to the park for school trips! That’s like coming back from a movie set with home work.” He and Claire smirked at each other.

  “Dolores is a member of the North American Geologists’ Organisation and the Young Naturalists’ Society,” explained Luna. “She has read the works of Thoreau, Emerson, and Burroughs. In other words, Dolores is four point six billion times more interesting than Melody, or anyone on her film crew.”

  This only made Claire and Justin laugh.

  “If her brain’s half as big as her ego, she’s a genius,” snorted Claire.

  Luna bit her lips and said nothing. Nobody could stop her from being excited about tomorrow.

  That night, when Claire and her witch-kitten, Hortense, were sleeping—Claire under the covers and Hortense on top of the covers, at Claire’s feet—Luna did something bold. She sneaked into her and Claire’s clothes closet and pulled out their Little Book of Shadows.

  Although Luna almost never cast spells without her grandmother or her twin, she considered this an emergency.

  With her own witch-kitten, Edith, purring at her side, Luna located and memorized the necessary spell on page 557.

  She and Edith had to wait until midnight, the witching hour, to cast it. Once her sister was safely snoozing, Luna again crawled out of bed, walked to her bureau, put a hand on each knob of the top drawer, and cast:

  “Calcite, fluorite, topaz, quartz!

  A modern witch is free of warts.

  Steel-tipped hammer, field pouch gear,

  My witch-wish is to bring them here!”

  From her bathrobe pocket, she pulled out a thin roll of bills and placed it in her sock drawer. It was tough to say good-bye to all that money. For the past five months, Luna had been saving to buy a Sno-Kewl ice shaver so that she could make her own grape or cherry Italian ices. Mmm—refreshing!

  “But now I have a better investment, right, Edith?” she whispered.

  Edith yawned pointedly. Witch-kittens have growing bones and need their sleep.

>   The next morning, Luna was up with the sun. Careful not to wake her snoring sister, she opened her dresser drawer. Yes, the money was gone. In its place were a small rock pick, plus a field pouch with a compass button and adjustable belt buckle.

  Luna smiled as she gathered up her new geologist’s tools. There were times when being a one-star witch was very convenient!

  At eight o’ clock, Mr. Gologly’s car pulled up to the Bundkins’ town house.

  “Glad you’re prompt, Luna! Now we have an early start on the day,” said Mr. G as Luna climbed into the backseat with Dolores.

  “A day away from our motel rooms and the dumb Double Delight set,” added Dolores.

  “Hey come on. Your sister is going to make a great movie, Dolores,” chided Mr. G. “We need to show family support.”

  Dolores breathed out hard through her nose in answer.

  Mr. G was nice, thought Luna. He was a regular dad, who, like Dolores, was on the brainy side. In fact, in looks and personality, Mr. G seemed to be lots more like Dolores than his famous daughter.

  “What I really dig about Valley Forge Park are its quartz grains,” proclaimed Mr. G as he drove into the visitor parking lot, which was already filling up with tour buses. “We’ll find some super samples along Mount Misery and Mount Joy. They’re the topographic highlights of the park. Heck, I haven’t seen those mountains since Mrs. G’s and my school days.”

  Luna patted her field pouch, which fit snugly around her waist. Soon it would be filled with rock samples. Yesterday, Dolores had informed her all about rocks.

  “A map of the earth’s past” Dolores had said. She went on to explain that some rocks had been created by ancient volcanoes, others by continent collisions and shifting icebergs. “But no rock is ever boring!” Dolores explained. Each one, she said, had its own ancient history.

  After Mr. G collected their day permits from the information booth, they sprang through the gates and into the park. Luna stretched her arms into the wide, open space. Beautiful!

  Last fall, her teacher, Mrs. Sanchez, had taken the entire fifth grade on a science field trip to this very park. All Luna could remember of that trip was that she had suffered a stomach cramp from eating her egg salad sandwich too fast, and that Claire accidentally had left on the bus the postcards they had bought at the Valley Forge Log Cabin gift shop.

  It had not been a good day.

  Today Luna saw the park in a new light. Bursting with rock treasures.

  “This park is gorgeous!” Dolores brandished her chisel. “Of course, Melody would hate it. She hates the Great Outdoors.”

  “Dolores, is it hard to have a famous sister?” Luna asked. “Do you ever get jealous?”

  “No,” Dolores answered quickly. “But. Sometimes it’s, um, inconvenient. Like we can’t even go to the mall or the movies, because everyone wants Melody’s autograph and stuff. That’s all going to change, though,” Dolores added, her chin jutting upward. “Not to brag, but because of my straight-As in science, my school has sponsored me as this year’s sixth-grade entry to the Bethesda State Fair. I’m going to make my mark on the world by collecting the widest variety of rock samples ever gathered on the northeastern North American coast.”

  “Crumbs! Then you’ll be famous, too!” exclaimed Luna.

  “Well, yes, but only in academic circles,” Dolores admitted.

  The morning passed quickly. Mr. G and Dolores showed Luna how to find rocks from the least-weathered outcroppings. As the girls measured and chipped, Mr. G told the history of Valley Forge. In geology terms, the park was 525 million years old. Amazing!

  Luna also enjoyed listening to Mr. G reel off the names of Valley Forge’s rocks.

  Dolomite, siltstone, limestone, sandstone, and shale.

  Sedimentary, igneous, and metamorþhic.

  Magma and lava.

  Poor Claire, thought Luna. Claire loved-loved-loved exotic words.

  Claire was missing everything!

  It was midway down the side of Mount Misery that Dolores made the discovery. Half hidden along the edge of Mount Misery’s basin and rising up steeply from a thin, shallow stream was the entrance to a cave.

  “Wow!’“ Luna peered inside. It was too dark to see much. “Do you think we can go in?”

  “There’s no sign saying we can’t,” Dolores observed.

  “What about your dad? He probably won’t let us.” Dolores and Luna both looked up to where Mr. G was standing at the top of the mountain. Out of earshot, he was examining some rust-stained sedimentary rock.

  “We’ll only be a minute. I bet some of the deposits in this cave are limestone,” said Dolores. “In limestone, you can find fossils of trilobites and brachiopods.”

  Fossils! That did it. “Let’s go!” said Luna

  The cave was icy and smelled like mold. After a few steps inside, Luna could not even see her feet. She shivered.

  From outside, Mr. G called both girls’ names.

  “Coming, coming.” Dolores clicked on and shined her pocket flashlight on the slimy, dripping walls. “Limestone, as I suspected.” She took out her chisel. She picked and chipped.

  Luna stood in place. “It’s too dark to find a fossil,” she said. Her voice bounced off the wall in worried echoes. “My field pouch is heavy enough.”

  “For fossils, we need to go deeper,” suggested Dolores. “This cave tunnels on for a while. I want to collect more samples for my science fair project.”

  Mr. G called the girls’ names again.

  “I think we’ve seen enough,” said Luna. “Let’s go, Dolores.”

  “If you go, then I have to go,” Dolores complained. “The rules of geology are stay with your buddy.”

  For the third time, Mr. G called them. His voice sounded far away, as if he were searching in the wrong direction.

  “That’s it! See-ya!” Luna ducked out of the cave. A minute later, Dolores appeared. Together, they bounded up the side of the mountain toward Mr. G.

  Relief filled his face when he saw them. “Cripes. Where were you girls?”

  “No place special,” Luna said. She and Dolores exchanged small smiles. The cave was a secret place.

  “Let’s go explore the southern side of the park,” said Mr. G “And then lunch!”

  “Okay!” the girls agreed.

  By the time they stopped at the Valley Forge Inn for a very late feast, Luna was exhausted. Rocks, mountains, streams, a secret cave—what a day!

  Sitting at one of the outdoor tables of the inn’s porch, watching the sun glaze the treetops with late afternoon light, Luna realized something.

  “I am going to become a geologist when I grow up,” she announced. “Or a detective. I love-love-love to uncover hidden layers.”

  “Well, heck, that’s wonderful, Luna,” said Mr. G. He raised his glass of lemonade. “Three cheers to you!”

  Then Luna and Dolores raised their glasses, too, and clinked them.

  “Not to brag,” said Dolores, “but I knew I would be a geologist when I was in second grade. Then again, I’m very advanced for my age.”

  5

  Claire La Dare

  THAT MORNING AFTER HER sister had left for Valley Forge Park, Claire cast a private spell of her own.

  It was not a major spell. It was actually a teensy “tidy-up” spell that Claire had memorized last year. She memorised it because she used it a lot.

  Here’s how it worked.

  After taking a shower, wrap your towel tight around you, tucking it in the front. Next, standing on the bath mat, close your eyes and squeeeeze the water from your hair, letting it drip, drip, drip until the bath mat is so squelchy that someone might yell at you about it.

  Then chant:

  Polish, press, button, comb, tie, clean, tidy ME!

  And, presto!

  If Claire ended up putting on her underwear inside out, or if she forgot to brush her hair in the back, or if her buttons were buttoned wrong or her zips half zipped, the tidy-up spell would au
tomatically fix all that, so she looked neat as a new shoe.

  Claire reserved the spell for special occasions. Like the first day of school. Or Thanksgiving. Or whenever she went to Freedom Skate.

  Or today. Today was a special occasion, definitely! Because today was when she, Claire Bundkin, might become a movie star.

  “A celebrity,” she said to Hortense. Claire loved-loved-loved that word. It reminded her of a long, cool piece of celery with a bright light shining on it.

  Hortense sighed and mewed sadly. She didn’t like the bath mat to be wet, because that was where she took her midmorning naps.

  Maybe I’ve always known I’d be a movie star, Claire mused as she and Justin hurried to Pine Street later that morning. Justin was wearing the new T-shirt the crew had given him yesterday in exchange for his leaf-painting work. On its front were printed the words DOUBLE DELIGHT. On the back was printed FILM CREW. From the way he was strutting, Claire had a feeling this was Justin’s new favorite shirt.

  “Hey, Claire, how did you get your sandals so clean?” Justin asked. “Yesterday I thought I saw you step in paint.”

  “These are Luna’s sandals,” Claire lied—because of course the tidy-up spell had insta-scraped the paint off Claire’s sandals.

  Melody was in her trailer. She wore the same heavy winter clothes as the day before.

  “Claire, guess what? The writers made you a part. You’re going to be a girl at the table next to mine in the outdoor café scene!” Melody squealed. I’m at one table drinking apple cider, and you’re at another table, and you look over at me and say, “Mom, I want some hot apple cider!”

  “Mom, I want some hot apple cider!” Claire jumped up and down.

  “We’re about the same size, so wardrobe said you should wear this. It’s from my closet.” Melody handed Claire a thick sweater and long pants and a parka. “Ugh! Now you’ll know how I feel. You can use my dressing room to change. It’s in the back.”

  “Okay!” Claire grinned. Melody’s own dressing room! Wow!

  The dressing room was the size of a post-card. Claire kept bumping her funny bone into the wall. When she came out, she felt scratchy and thick.