by P. J. Night
“What’s your dad do?”
Kayla looked down. “He’s dead.”
Matilda grunted. “You have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes, three brothers. All younger.”
Another grunt. “So why do you hang out with that clique of horrid rich girls?”
Kayla furrowed her brow. “Well, I, um . . .”
“Never mind, I can see you’re just trying to fit in, find your way in that huge middle school. Well, take my advice. Alice Grafton is mean and vain and superficial, and her life revolves around being idolized. She’s bad news. And so are her awful friends, Pria Patel and Jess Hunnicut. They follow her around like she’s the queen of Sheba.” Matilda sniffed. “Anyway, I suppose I should thank you for helping Jinx. He has a fracture, but the vet can fix it. He should be fine.”
“You’re welcome,” said Kayla.
“You seem decent enough. Not like the others.”
Kayla wasn’t sure what to say. Thank you? What? But she just nodded and put her hand back on the knob. “I have to go now,” she said to Matilda.
“Hey, why don’t you bring your friends by the shop sometime?” suggested Matilda.
Kayla blinked. “I thought you said they were awful.”
“I was just kidding. They’re great. Bring them by. We have all kinds of elixirs and potions they might be interested in.”
“Like what?” asked Kayla, very confused by Matilda’s sudden change in mood. Clearly this Matilda was a strange girl, and Kayla knew she had to hurry to catch up with her friends before they left for the mall. But her curiosity got the better of her.
“All kinds. Beauty potions, complexion creams, love potions, essential oils that improve your mental processing. You seem pretty smart, but some of your flibbertigibbet friends could use a little help in that department,” said Matilda.
“Um, sure, great, thanks,” said Kayla, wondering what a flibbertigibbet was. “I’ll tell them. I hope Jinx feels better soon.”
As she left, she caught a glimpse of Matilda and Jinx through the glass door, staring at her. The light glinted off Matilda’s huge glasses, so it was impossible to see her expression, and Jinx’s eyes seemed to glow green. As she wrestled to close the door against the gusting wind, Kayla thought she heard something. It sounded like laughter.
She walked as fast as she dared along the icy sidewalk, but the light was fading and the wind kept blowing her coat open, making it hard to see her feet. Left at the corner, two blocks down, and another right, and she found herself back on Alice’s block. It felt like it was a world away from the block she’d come from. The street was much wider, and houses on either side were set far back, with expansive lawns and large, overhanging trees. Alice’s house was the biggest one on the block, red brick and three stories tall. Kayla had been there many times—in fact, the girls were sleeping over at Alice’s tonight, and Kayla had left her overnight bag there when they went to walk Buttercup.
The lights were all on, but no one answered when she rang the bell. She rang again and waited. She heard Buttercup barking like crazy from inside, and listened for footsteps, but heard nothing. The front door was locked. She headed back down the front stoop and made her way around the side, to the kitchen door. When no one answered her knock, she tried the knob. It was unlocked. She stepped into the brightly lit kitchen. “Hello?” she called. “Anyone here?”
Except for Buttercup, who was now glaring at her from the doorway, growling from deep in his throat, the house was silent.
CHAPTER 4
Kayla looked around the huge kitchen. It was about three times the size of her mother’s kitchen, and except for the fancy six-burner stove, the appliances were nearly invisible to the eye—the refrigerator and dishwasher were covered with the same wood paneling as the kitchen cupboards. A marble island dominated the center of the large room, and on it sat three mugs and a plate with two cookies on it. The chairs were pushed back, as though the people sitting in them had suddenly dashed off somewhere in the middle of a snack. She stomped her boots on the mat and then walked over to the saucepan that sat on the stove. She touched the side of the pot. It was still warm, and about a third full of cocoa.
Kayla furrowed her brow. She guessed Alice wasn’t lying when she said her mother wouldn’t wait. Then she saw a piece of pink paper under the table. It must have blown to the floor when she’d opened the door. She stooped down to pick it up. It was a note to her, written in Alice’s lovely, girly handwriting. Kayla wished that her own handwriting was that pretty.
We waited for you, but my mom says we have to leave for the mall now. She has an exercise class to get to. Meet us there? The number for the taxi service is on the fridge. Text me when you get there.
A.
Kayla frowned. Why couldn’t they have just texted her? They could probably have picked her up on her way from the strange shop to Alice’s. Now she’d have to walk to the mall. There was no way she could afford to pay for a taxi service. She looked outside. It was dusk, a late February afternoon. It would probably be dark in about twenty more minutes. She could hear the pitter-patter of the blustering snow against the window.
“I’ll call Mom,” she said out loud. She pulled out her cell phone and hit the number to her mother’s office.
“Hi, honey,” her mother greeted her. But she pronounced the words “Hah, huney,” with her Texan drawl. Kayla was convinced that not only had her mother not tried to lose her Southern accent, she’d purposely made it sound more pronounced since they’d moved to Minnesota. It was almost as though she was proud of it.
“Hi, Mom. Any chance you can swing by Alice’s and give me a lift to the mall? They had to, um, leave without me.”
She prayed her mother wouldn’t make a big fuss about this. She knew her mother wasn’t quite sure about Alice.
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “All right. I was just about to leave the office anyway. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Kayla, welling up with gratitude that her mother hadn’t asked any questions. She had forgotten that her mother had gone into the office today—a Saturday. She probably was too distracted with all the work she was trying to get through to question why the others had left without her.
A short while later, Kayla was climbing into her mother’s battered old minivan. The front passenger door was stuck, so she had to enter through the sliding side door and then push her way into the front seat. “You’re great to do this,” she said, as her mother pulled out of the driveway. “I hope this didn’t make you leave work early.”
Her mom shook her head and laughed ruefully. “I have a stack of applications to get through, and I can’t get anything done at the office. Anyway, the babysitter wants to leave early tonight to go on a date with her new boyfriend, and Timothy has hockey practice at seven, so it’s just as well I left the office when I did.”
“Remember I told you about Alice’s Valentine’s Day party next Saturday?” Kayla said, as they pulled into the mall parking lot. “It’s okay if I go, right?”
“It’s coed, right?” asked her mother. “I need to call Alice’s mother and confirm that adults will be there. But assuming there are chaperones, of course you can go, honey.”
Kayla cringed inwardly. She felt ashamed to admit it to herself, but she dreaded the idea of her mother talking to Alice’s mom. That accent, ugh. Maybe her mother would get just a tiny bout of laryngitis and have to e-mail Mrs. Grafton instead.
“I am positive there will be grown-ups there,” said Kayla. “Maybe you can just e-mail her or something.”
Her mother stopped at the curb in front of the main entrance. “We’ll see, honey. Have fun with your friends. Don’t stay up all night tonight.”
Kayla opened the sliding door. She waved to her mom and hurried inside.
CHAPTER 5
“Kaylaaaa!” called Alice from across the food court. “Over here!”
Kayla spotted their table and hurried over, plopping herself weari
ly into a chair. Jess was sipping a frothy pink milkshake, and Alice and Pria had hot drinks piled with swirls of whipped cream.
“Sorry we had to leave without you,” said Alice, who didn’t sound very sorry at all. “My mom can be so annoying sometimes. She can’t miss one second of her exercise class.” She made a pouty face and blinked her long eyelashes at Kayla.
Kayla suspected this tactic of seeking forgiveness worked for Alice more often than not. The seventh-grade boys all seemed to be obsessed with her. It probably helped that she had beautiful, glossy hair with never a strand out of place, and her outfits always looked like they were designed by a professional stylist.
“It’s okay,” said Kayla. She glanced under the table at three large shopping bags. “What did you guys get?”
“There were so many cute things at Ozzie’s,” Pria gushed. “I bought three tops!”
Kayla smiled and nodded. She had never once set foot in Ozzie’s, which always had music blasting from the speakers and huge black-and-white posters in the windows, showing bored-looking, ultracool teens lounging around in hundred-dollar shirts and expensively distressed jeans.
“Don’t worry, though,” said Alice, jumping to her feet. “We’ll find something for you. We are so not done shopping, right?”
The other girls stood up and began collecting their cups and bags. Suddenly Alice sat back down.
“Don’t look! Don’t look!” she hissed, staring intently at the cup on the table in front of her.
Of course the girls looked.
“He’s walking straight toward us. He’s with Scott and Anthony. How do I look? I totally have hat hair. I know it.”
The other girls sat back down too. “Stop, Alice. You look amazing,” said Jess. “Nick Maroulis would be an idiot not to beg you to go out with him. That’s probably what he’s about to do right now.”
Alice finger-combed her hair and then shook it out, so that it tumbled fetchingly around her face. “They’re almost here. Don’t look. Don’t look. Just act normal. Oh, hey, guys!”
“Hey, what’s up?” said Nick.
He certainly is good-looking, Kayla thought, admiring the way his jacket emphasized his broad shoulders and narrow waist. He was already pretty tall, and he towered over most of the other seventh-grade boys. But Kayla didn’t really like him or trust him. Maybe it was the fact that he was always rude to their teachers in class, or that he cared more about his hair than being nice to his classmates.
“We’re just hanging out,” said Alice, sounding oh so casual.
“I got into way too much trouble at Ozzie’s,” Pria said to Scott Mallory with a giggle. “My dad is going to be mad when he gets the bill.”
Scott’s mouth turned up in a little smile, but Kayla could see that he was not a bit interested in stories about shopping.
“Yeah, so, we were thinking about going to a movie in a little while,” said Alice. “That new horror flick that got such good reviews? It’s playing right upstairs at the Cineplex.”
This was news to Kayla. She mentally tallied up how much money she had with her. Maybe if she didn’t get any popcorn or soda, she could swing a ticket.
Nick looked at Scott and Anthony, who both shrugged noncommittally. “Yeah, sorry, we’re supposed to go to the basketball game over at Fairbridge Academy,” said Nick. “My older brother’s playing against them, and it’s the semifinals.”
“No biggie,” said Alice, stretching back in her chair and extending her long, lovely legs out in front of her. “All the more popcorn for us!”
Jess and Pria giggled. Kayla remembered now. Pria liked Scott, and Jess liked Anthony Schmidt. No wonder they were giggling like silly hyenas.
“Hey, have you guys seen my cousin around?” asked Scott.
Kayla’s heart thumped inside her chest. Was he talking about Tom?
The girls shook their heads.
“He is such a dork sometimes,” said Scott, shaking his head. “He said he wanted to check out some book at the bookstore and, like, ditched us.”
Pria giggled like that was the funniest thing anyone had ever said.
Kayla was now sitting forward, perking up her ears. She had had a secret crush on Tom Butler for months now, but hadn’t dared mention it to her friends. For one thing, he was at least two inches shorter than she was, although his feet were gigantic. He cheerfully referred to himself as a human L. She liked his self-deprecating humor, his goofy sideways grin, and his spot-on impersonations of all the seventh-grade teachers and school administrators. But Alice had made several disparaging comments about him, and he was obviously not part of the cool crowd.
“Hey, do you think it was your cousin Tom who let those bugs go in Talbert’s classroom yesterday?” asked Anthony.
Scott shrugged. “I doubt it. He’s not really the practical joker kind of dude. I could see him taking one out and studying it under a microscope, but I don’t think he’d just have let them go.”
“Well, whoever did it should be arrested,” said Alice. “Those disgusting bugs. They could be anywhere now. One of them could crawl inside my locker or something!” She shuddered. “But I guess I should invite your cousin to my party, huh,” Alice said to Scott.
“That would be good,” said Scott. “Avoid a little awkwardness with my mom and aunt.”
“When is it again?” asked Nick.
Alice slumped, exasperation written across her face. “Hel-lo? Next Saturday? Which is, in case you forgot, Valentine’s Day?”
Nick grinned sheepishly. “Oh yeah.”
Anthony checked his phone. “That’s my dad,” he said. “We better roll if we want to make it for the tip-off.”
“I’ll tell Tom to meet us in front,” said Scott, pulling out his own phone.
“See you,” said Nick, loping away. The other boys followed.
As soon as they’d been swallowed up in the crowds of shoppers, Alice sighed deeply and slumped down in her chair. “He just doesn’t seem all that into me,” she said, looking puzzled. “I mean, okay, I guess I see why Scott and Anthony haven’t made up their minds about liking you two”—she waved a hand in the direction of Jess and Pria—“but why is it that all the guys in school worship me except the one guy I have a crush on?”
Kayla started to laugh, thinking Alice was joking, and then realized she wasn’t. How could Alice say such things to Pria and Jess without their getting mad at her? And how amazing it must be to have so much self-confidence.
“Are we really going to the movie?” asked Jess, pretending that Alice hadn’t just insulted her.
“No, I just floated that in case they said they’d come with us,” said Alice. She stood up. “Let’s go do some more shopping.”
Kayla followed the girls from store to store for the next two hours as they tried on outfit after outfit, accumulating mounds of shopping bags.
“Aren’t you going to try anything on?” asked Alice as she appeared outside the dressing room. She was trying on a close-fitting red dress with a fluttery hemline, and she looked amazing as she turned this way and that, gazing at her reflection in the three-way mirror.
“Nah, don’t think so,” said Kayla. “I think I already found just the right outfit for the party.” But this was a lie. She was thinking about asking her mother to take her to that discount clothing store, the one next to that odd mystical shop. Maybe I’ll find something to wear there, she thought doubtfully.
Back at Alice’s later that night, the girls finished watching a movie in Alice’s spacious bedroom. Then they arranged their sleeping bags in a circle, so they could have their heads together and be able to talk late into the night.
“I’m so bummed about Nick,” Alice said with a sigh.
“Yeah, me too,” said Pria. “I mean, I’m bummed too, but about Scott,” she added quickly. “He doesn’t seem all that into me, either.”
“Anthony barely even says hi to me in the halls,” said Jess. She sighed glumly and reached for a handful of chips.
�
��Do you like anyone?” Alice asked Kayla.
“Me? No. No one,” said Kayla quickly.
Alice’s eyes narrowed. “You so like someone,” she said. “Will you tell us if we guess? I bet I know. It’s Scott’s cousin Tom, isn’t it? Say it isn’t, Kay. He is such a nerd!”
Kayla blushed. “I so do not like Tom,” she said unconvincingly.
“You so do,” replied Alice. “We need to find someone better for you to like. I can’t have one of my friends liking a dork like Tom.”
“No, really, I—” Kayla needed to think of a way to change the subject, fast. “Hey, you guys remember that cat that almost got run over?”
“Oh yeah!” said Jess. “Was it dead? Did you find out who owned it?”
Kayla described the events of the afternoon, and how she’d discovered that Jinx belonged to the owner of the mystical shop. Then she told them about the strange girl, Matilda.
“I totally know that girl,” said Alice, scrambling to a sitting position. “She moved here a year before you did, Kay. We were in the same fifth grade together. She is super weird.”
“She’s emo,” added Jess.
Alice glared at her, displeased at being interrupted. Then she continued, “Back in fifth grade, she was huge, like, the enormous kid in the class. I don’t think she’s grown an inch since then, but you should have seen how much taller she was than everyone else in our grade! We used to call her all kinds of names. And those glasses? I mean, what is her mother thinking, letting her walk outside with those things?”
Kayla felt relieved that the conversation had shifted away from her and her possible crush on Tom. “Well, but here’s the funny thing,” she said. “Matilda works at that shop, and she said I should bring you guys in, and that she has all kinds of cool stuff there that you might want to check out.”
“As if,” sniffed Alice.
“Yeah, as if,” agreed Jess.
Kayla laughed. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d want to go. I did notice that they sell love potions there, though.”
Alice turned toward Kayla and regarded her thoughtfully. “Really,” she said. “Love potions, huh? As in, if we gave some to Nick and Scott and Anthony and Tom, they’d fall head over heels for us?”
