Read Online Twist My Charm by Toni Gallagher - Free Book Online

my drink all over me, you ridiculous, lame-o dork-ball!
’  ”
    “I think that’s more than ten,” Madison says. “I don’t feel like counting.”
    I don’t either. It’s time to get to work.
    I glance around the gym like an undercover spy sharing information with an informant on a train. Madison grins, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She starts to dip some lemonade into a plastic cup, but I stop her. Sam will like a red-colored drink better.
    “Okay, cover me,” I instruct Madison as I carefully pull the bottle from my pocket and unscrew the top. Feeling like a nurse taking blood from a patient, I squeeze the dropper and see it fill with our thick, dark concoction. My hand is shaking a little as I lift the dropper over the plastic cup with the punch in it. I give Madison a nod, and she gives one back.
    Squeeeeeeze.
    PLOP!
    After two more squeezes I speedily put the top back on the potion, hiding it deep in my pocket. Then Madison and I both look down into the cup. Our love potion is not dissolving. It looks like three small brown jellybeans enjoying a swim.
    “Are there straws?” I ask. We both look around the table and quickly realize there aren’t. “Oh well, only one thing to do.” I sigh.
    I stick my finger in the punch and give it a gentle swirl. The blobs of love potion only break up a little, so I give it a less gentle swirl. When I’m finished, the red liquid has a brownish tint, but luckily it’s inside a blue cup and hopefully Samantha won’t look down at it before she drinks.
    I pick up the cup, and Madison and I turn around to find Samantha.
    “What did you just do?” A voice pierces through the electronica and the conversations.
    It’s Sam! And Larry isn’t anywhere nearby!
    I can’t think of anything to say. The first semi-intelligent sound I make is “Hmmm?”
    “What do you mean?” Madison says. Not brilliant either, but a little better than me.
    “I saw you put something in that drink.”
    “Oh, that!” says Madison.
    “That’s…” I stall for a moment. Then a moment longer. “That’s my dad’s medicine.”
    Sam looks at us, suspicious. “What does your dad need medicine for?” Ugh. She needs to know everything all the time.
    “His broken heart,” Madison says.
    “His heart condition,” I quickly add, since that sounds more realistic. “He doesn’t like the taste of his medicine, so he tells me to trick him.”
    Samantha doesn’t look like she’s buying it, but before she can say anything, I change the subject. “I haven’t seen your artwork yet, Sam. What did you do?”
    “Oh, I’m not a great artist like you,” she says, a little sarcastically. “I glued a bunch of junk and trash together and made a sculpture. Then I put plastic flowers on top and called it
Society.
Kevin said it was deep.”
    “Sounds cool,” I say, though what it really sounds like is weird.
    “It’s over by Madison’s big orange head,” Sam says. “Want to see it?”
    Madison and I look at each other and say, “Sure.” We tell Sam we’ll meet her there. After she walks away, I lean in toward Madison. “This is getting complicated.”
    She agrees.
    “How about I take this punch over to Sam?” I say. “I’ll tell her it’s a different one, not my dad’s. But I won’t give it to her until I see you nearby with Larry.”
    “Maybe we should make a drink for him too,” Madison suggests. “To be twice as sure.”
    That sounds good to me, so I hand her the dropper. “Guard it with your life.”
    As I hurry down one of the aisles of art, I can’t believe how close this is to working! Looking at Sam’s drink, I take big, fast steps—and that’s when I plow into something full force. I look up and see one single punch droplet sail through the atmosphere. If I were drawing a storyboard, I’d make the droplet into a character who changes shape while bound for an enemy target. I follow its path with my eyes until it lands one second later—on Lisa Lee.
    It