Read Online Just Add Magic by Cindy Callaghan - Free Book Online Page B

and the plastic bag until I found the one with the rue. The seeds were very tiny, perfectly round and black. “Check.”
    â€œGreat. The last thing is berries. It doesn’t say what kind.”
    I stuck my head into the fridge. I thought I saw blueberries in here yesterday,” I said. I kept searching. “Mom!” I yelled loud enough for her to hear me upstairs . . . or in Canada.
    â€œI’m right here.” She answered me from the other side of the kitchen where she was standing with the phone stuck in the crook of her neck. “And don’t yell.” I looked at Hannah with bulgy eyes and a tilted head. She got the hint because she tucked the recipe book under her butt. Mom looked at Darbie. “Darbie, your mom says you can stay, but she’s picking youup at six o’clock.”
    â€œMom, where are the blueberries?”
    â€œDad ate them,” she said, then continued talking to Darbie’s mom.
    â€œGreat. No berries,” I said.
    Mom interrupted, “And Darbie, your mom wants to know if you broke your record.”
    Darbie shook her head. “Nah, not even close. My legs are like Jell-O from soccer.”
    â€œMaybe we can substitute something else,” I said, thinking out loud. “Felice does that all the time.”
    â€œDarbie, your mom also mentioned I can call you ‘Roller Darbie,’” my mom said. “You know, like roller derby?” We didn’t laugh. “You girls have no sense of humor,” she said. She said good-bye to Darbie’s mom and looked at all the stuff on the table. Her eyes stopped on the small amber bottle of rue seed. “What’s that?”
    The antique bottle stuck out like Darbie at a science fair. “It’s a spice for this pie we’re going to make. I got it at La Cocina.”
    She nodded. “Why don’t you use blackberries?”
    I looked out the back window toward the Barneys’ backyard. “That would mean we’d have to go into her lair.”
    â€œDon’t be dramatic,” Mom said. “Besides, I saw her leave a few minutes ago. Her dad mentioned to me this morning that she was going to get new cleats.”
    â€œThen, blackberries it is,” I said. “You ready to pick?”
    Darbie said, “You two go. I’ll just sit here with frozen peas on my face and wait for you.”
    As expected, Mrs. Barney let us pick all the berries we wanted. We picked as fast as we could, hoping to return to the safety of my house before the devil girl got home.
    I was no fortune-teller, but I could have predicted what would happen next. Charlotte Barney came around the back of her house wearing brand-spanking-new cleats.
    Hands on her hips she said, “What are you doing in my backyard?”
    Just then my back door opened and Darbie appeared. “You guys almost done? My face is getting frostbite.”
    Charlotte gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Darbie’s lips were puffy, her eye was black and blue, and there was a scratch on her cheek. “What the heck ran over you?”
    I thought up a lie before Darbie could speak. “It was Mrs. Silvers. She put a spell on Darbie for Rollerblading past her house!” I inched closer to my back door, nudging Hannah with me. “That witch came outside and waved her arms all around. Bats came out of the trees, attacked Darbie, and left her like this.”
    Charlotte folded her arms across her chest and said, “Kelly Quinn, you are a big liar. You’re a bad soccer player, a terrible cook, and a horrible liar. Just so you know, I’m not going totalk to any of you at soccer tomorrow.”
    â€œNo problemo,”
Darbie said, and slammed the door once Hannah and I were safely inside with the berries.
    â€œI swear she knew exactly what time to come home. It’s like some kind of mean girl sixth sense,” I said.
    I put the berries into the sink and rinsed them. Then we mixed