Read Online Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery by Kate Collins - Free Book Online Page B

reaction.”
    Being a teen, Tara took enormous satisfaction in viewing any form of torture, especially when it involved me. She’s the only grandchild in our family, born when I was fourteen years old, which sometimes makes her feel like my kid sister more than my niece. She also looks a lot like me, with blunt-cut, shoulder-length red hair, short nose, freckles, and short stature. Today she had on a bold pink short-sleeved T-shirt over a plum cami, a stack of silver bangle bracelets on each wrist, skinny white ankle jeans, and silver flats.
    “Calm down, Tara,” Mom said. “Abigail, turn around and close your eyes.”
    “Wait, Grandma,” Tara said before she could open the box. “Let’s tell Aunt Abby what we named it and see if she can guess what it is.”
    “You tell her,” Mom said. “You’re the one who came up with the name.”
    “It’s
Night Shades on Elm Tree
.” Tara pressed her hands together, her eyes sparkling impishly. “Okay, now guess!”
    “I give up.”
    “Come on, Aunt Abby, you didn’t even try!” Tara whined.
    “Aunt Abby is kind of busy,” I said, giving my mom a pleading look.
    Mom responded by opening the box. “We don’t have time for games, Tara. Your aunt needs to get back to work so she can keep her business from going under.”
    She stuck her hands inside the box and lifted. Outcame a two-foot-tall elm tree made from brown and green clay. “
This
should help draw in the customers.”
    Okay. Nothing freakish about a tree sculpture, even one with the same name, coincidentally, as the street on which the Osbornes’ cottage was located. Nothing that would scare away customers either—or draw them in.
    Mom pulled out a handful of fabric and handed it to Tara. She reached in for another handful and the two set to work decorating the tree, their backs blocking my view.
    With a “Ta da,” they stepped back for me to see. What I saw were brightly colored, coaster-sized felt flowers strung on green cords, two blossoms per cord. Still nothing freakish about them, but what was their purpose?
    Drawing a blank, I said, “Colorful!”
    Tara giggled. “You don’t know what they’re for, and that’s because you haven’t thought about the name I gave them.”
    “Night shades on elm tree?” I plucked a green cord off the aforementioned tree. The cord was stretchy and had two daisies attached to it. “Is it a mask?”
    “What kind of mask?” Tara asked, bouncing up and down on her toes.
    “Put it on over your eyes,” Mom said.
    I did as requested. “Okay, not a mask because I can’t see anything. And the cord is really tight. Ouch. Oh, wait! Is it a sleep mask?”
    “Ding, ding, ding,” Tara cried.
    “Hold still,” Mom said. “I’ll take a photo with my phone.”
    “Lordy!” I heard Lottie cry. “What the hollyhocks is that?”
    I snapped off the mask and saw her staring at me in amazement.
    “They’re night shades,” Mom said. “Look at the cute picture I took of Abigail wearing them.”
    The two women stood side by side, gazing at the image on her phone. Lottie was trying hard not to laugh. Grace glided through the curtain and peered over Mom’s shoulder; then Lottie and Grace looked at each other. The expression on their faces said it all.
    “Come see, Abigail,” Mom said, while Tara stood off to one side pinching her lips shut.
    Heaving a resigned sigh, I took a peek. With my red hair sticking out at all angles where the cord pinched my scalp, and a big white daisy with a yellow center covering each eye socket area, including my eyebrows, I resembled a cartoon bug.
    “Look how cute you are,” Mom said.
    Cute? Only if I’d been cast in a movie entitled
Cowboys and Alien Flower Heads
. Luckily, she’d made only a dozen or so.
    Grace plucked another mask from a branch of the tree and held it up. “Are these petunias?”
    “Yes, and they come in pink or purple,” Mom said. “We also have oak-leaf masks for men and maple-leaf masks for our Canadian