Sweet Tea and Sass Page 8

  "Nothing," I mumbled. "I'm almost an adult and I'm sick and tired of being treated like a little kid."

  "Well then," she said as she started to fade out, "maybe you should stop acting like one."

  For a long time after she was gone, her words echoed in my head.

  I glanced back down at the ice-skating couples and the happy little town that surrounded them. Families were building snowmen together and the warmth of the lights glowing from the windows of the Victorian buildings made me want to go inside. It seemed so welcoming, and they all looked so happy.

  Thoughts of Cody drifted through my mind. I wondered if he was mad at me too. I leaned my head against the windowsill and imagined it was the two of us ice skating on that pond. No curfews, no nagging, no Witch's Council, no punishment for stupid stuff. Just us and all the time in the world to explore that adorable, perfect little town.

  I felt the swirl of magic around me and started to panic. I hadn't called upon it. I put the globe down and tried to rein it in, to stop it, but I felt the pull of the vortex that accompanied a port and everything went dark, as it always did.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The first things I noticed when the fog began to clear were that I was teetering on what felt like two tight ropes, and everything was blindingly white. I flung my arms out to balance myself, but was too late; I landed on my backside with a solid thunk so hard my teeth rattled. The ground beneath me was hard and cold but I took a minute to look around before trying to stand. A familiar voice sounded behind me.

  "Shelby, what did you do? Where are we?" It was Cody, and like me, he was sitting on the ground. Unlike me, he looked pissed. The cold was seeping through my gloves and snow was gathering on my eyelashes. I realized we were sitting on ice. I held up my finger to silence him as I took a minute to examine our surroundings. Snow blanketed everything—the pine trees, the buildings, the pond we were sitting on.

  The pond.

  Aw crud. My shoulders sagged; we were in my snow globe.

  I turned to him and cringed when he glared at me. "I think maybe I ported us into my snow globe somehow." Scrunching my eyes shut, I waited for his reaction.

  "You what? It sounded like you said you ported us into your snow globe." He was looking around, clenching his jaw as he realized what he was seeing. I mean, he'd never paid much attention to mine in particular, but the structure of snow globes are pretty distinguishable. A whoosh of air passed me and the other couple—the couple that was supposed to be there—skated by, nearly taking off my fingers.

  I scowled and jerked my hand back. "Hey! Watch it!" I yelled, but they didn't so much as turn around.

  "We need to move," Cody said as he pushed to his feet. I tried to follow suit, but it felt like I had on lead shoes. I groaned when I saw why—I was wearing skates that were so white they matched the snow, with little red pompoms on the toes. In fact, we were both wearing the same red snowsuits as one of the two pairs of skaters had been, and there was only one other couple besides us on the ice.

  No way this was happening.

  "Do you know how to ice skate?" I asked.

  He was already standing, and reached down for me. "Yes. I do. Though I have to say I never thought I'd be using the skill to keep somebody from chopping my fingers off on a pond inside a snow globe."

  I took his hand and let him haul me up. I couldn't risk looking at his face to see if he was kidding because it was all I could do to stay upright. Plus, I couldn't take the disappointment that was probably written on his face.

  "C'mon, Shel," he said as I almost fell for the third time. "It's not much different than roller blading, and I know you can do that."

  Oh sure. It was just like that. Not. But I could hear a trace of irritation in his voice, so I tried a little harder.

  Using him as a brace, I managed to scramble to the side of the pond and up the bank to a cast-iron bench painted Christmas red. While I was catching my breath, I checked out our surroundings. It looked way different from this perspective.

  The couple skating on the pond never looked away from each other as they jumped and dipped. The families building snowmen together smiled and worked as a team and the townspeople decorating the giant tree in the town square hung each bulb and string of lights just so. Even the carolers were perfectly in tune.

  Everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. Except, something was missing. I looked around again, paying attention to each detail. It was the man—we were sitting on the bench the man usually sat on. The one with the little dog.

  I looked around. He was nowhere in sight, but everything else was exactly as it should be. Why would he be different?

  Then, before I could give it more thought, reality struck. We were in a snow globe; nothing was how it should to be. It was a model of a town, not a real town. Nobody should be moving. Christmas lights shouldn't be twinkling. Carolers shouldn't be singing. Skaters shouldn't be skating. Cody was staring around, but I couldn't tell if he was amazed or terrified. Or both.

  "Okay, now that we're not in danger of losing fingers to the dipping duo out there, would you please tell me what's going on?"

  I pushed down the panic and looked at my folded hands, then up into his eyes, begging for understanding. "I don't know. One minute I was sitting in my window thinking how perfect it looked in here, and how I wished it were me and you out there on the ice, and the next ... well, the next, here we were."

  He scrunched his eyebrows together in a gesture that I'd come to recognize as his thinking expression. "Gimme some context. Why did you wish that? Start with what happened after you ported with Em. All I know is Noelle came running outside mad as a wet hen, then when she saw the shirt, I thought she was gonna pass out."

  I took him through the whole story, starting with how Noelle had distracted me and I'd accidentally landed us in Camille's living room, right up until we landed on the ice.

  "It was an accident," I finished, and it sounded old and lame even to me.

  He searched my face for a few seconds then sighed. "Well, at least you can get us out of here, right?"

  I chewed my lip. I wasn't sure whether I could or not, but I didn’t want to tell him that. It wasn't like I'd just ported us from one place to another. I'd called him from a distance, shrunk us both, and animated the entire snow globe. I was proud of my progress, but I had no idea where to even start because I had no idea how I'd done it.

  "Right?" he prodded, his brows up.

  I pasted a cheery smile on my face, if for no other reason than to keep my fear at bay. "Of course I can. But since we're here anyway, let's chill out for a little bit," I said, hoping to buy myself some time. After all, it was my mess and I was perfectly capable of fixing it. I just needed some time to think about it first.

  He looked around, a worried frown creasing his brow. "I don't know. I think we should probably go home."

  My face dropped. "Come on. Can't we spend just a little bit of time in here before I have to go back and deal with Noelle and Camille? I'm probably not gonna see daylight for months by the time they're done with me. Will's out of town, so it's not like you'll be reported missing."

  I saw the moment he gave in and smiled.

  "You suck. You know that, right?" He smiled and shook his head. "Stuck in a snow globe. Definitely not an experience I would have considered a possibility six months ago."

  We'd met when I was magically skipping stones across Keyhole Lake and he busted me. That wasn't too long after he lost his parents, and he’d been there for the same reason I was—solitude and a place to think without people asking questions or expecting anything of him.

  "Yeah," I sighed and laid my head on his shoulder. "Me neither."

  I shrugged off the woe-is-me feelings as it finally sunk in that we could do whatever we wanted to do. In there, we were adults. I took his hand and headed to a corner of the pond where the sliding slashers didn't seem to go. "Now, teach me to ice skate!" After all, that's what I'd come there to do.

  CHA
PTER FIVE

  It didn't take me long to get the hang of it and soon we were skating around hand in hand, avoiding the other couple and having a blast. We'd been on the ice for probably a half-hour when I skidded to a stop after racing him across the ice. I almost face-planted into the bank, but he caught me.

  "I'm parched," I said, out of breath as I steadied myself. "Let's go find something to drink."

  "We will, but first I want to show you something." He took my hand and pulled me closer to the other couple but near the edge, where we wouldn't be in the way. We were standing beside a small pine tree that was decorated with red and silver ribbons. Little clusters of snow tipped the end of each branch. Just like everything else in here, it was picture-perfect. I said as much.

  He tilted his head and looked at me for a second, then pulled me in front of him and rested his chin on my shoulder. "Look at their path,” he said, motioning to the couple. “Look at their faces when they come past."

  They skated by and performed a complex jump and twirl, then skated to the other end and back around, then back and into the same routine. Their expressions never changed and they never averted their eyes from each other. They just skated and smiled at each other.

  I gasped when I realized what he was trying to show me. He gently let go of me, making sure I was stable first, then went to the tree and pushed it over.

  "Honey, there's no such thing as your concept of perfect. I know that’s why you pulled us in here, and you've mentioned it several times, but what you imagine just doesn't exist. No matter how great something looks on the surface, there's always something at least a little off. But perfection is in the eye of the beholder. I think you're perfect. Everything about you makes you the girl I love, warts and all."

  I wrinkled my nose. "Eww. I get the concept, but can we say freckles or something instead?"

  He laughed and kissed my nose. "I make a grand declaration and reveal one of the great truths of the universe, and you pick out the word wart. See, that's one of these wart—freckles I was talking about. The ability to completely pick out what you want to hear and nothing else. C'mon, Hagatha," he said, dodging me when I swatted at him. "Let's get you something to drink."

  We headed back toward the bench and collapsed onto it, and the missing man flitted through my mind again. Once we sat down though, the problem of how to un-work my spell to get us out of the globe popped back to the forefront of my mind. I bent over to unlace my skate, trying to recapture exactly what I'd been thinking and feeling when I felt the magic. Somehow, that was the key.

  Cody cleared his throat and looked at the socked foot I'd just pulled free of the skate. "Whatcha gonna put on once you take those off?"

  Ah crap on a cracker. He was right; I'd magicked us in here wearing skates. I was just glad that I'd thought of warm clothing, even if it was in the form of 70s-style jumpsuits.

  "Maybe one of the shops has shoes," I said.

  He leaned back on the bench and crossed his legs, his skate resting on his knee. He grinned and I wondered again how I'd gotten so lucky. "Oh yeah," he said. Did you happen to bring your Winter Wonderland Visa with you? Or should I just put it on my Magic Village Mastercard?"

  I slapped his skate but smiled back. "There's no need to be a snow-globe smarty-pants. I think I have an idea." I placed my hands over my skates, summoning the magic I'd need to turn them into regular shoes.

  He took my hand and touched my face. "Sweetie, I think it's time to go home."

  Dread clawed at me and I kept working and reworking the pieces of our predicament in my head. Not only was I unsure about how to get us out, I wasn't exactly thrilled about going back to face my fate, either. I'm sure they had a grand punishment cooked up for me. The happy feelings I'd had since we landed in the globe faded away into resentment. Still, it's not like I could hold us in there forever. Surely by now they'd had a chance to realize how badly they'd overreacted.

  I squeezed his hands and confessed my fears about the magic involved. "The spell has to be different, more complicated than just porting, and”—I looked down at our hands—“I don't know if I can get it right."

  "What do you mean it's different?"

  "I mean, somehow I did more than just port us in here. We're three inches tall, or I guess we are, I pulled you all the way from your house, and we literally took the place of the skating couple I'd wanted to trade places with, clothes and all, when the magic happened." I slapped my forehead. "Oh, man! I wonder what I did with them." My voice was rising in pitch and I was talking a mile a minute.

  "With who?" He asked.

  "The skaters!" Did I pull them out? Or did I just make them disappear? My mind rabbit-trailed, chasing all the possibilities.

  He snapped his fingers in front of my face to get my attention.

  "Rude!" I said.

  He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay, whatever. But you need to focus. What were you feeling when you worked the spell?"

  I thought about it. "I was mad because everybody thinks I'm a screw-up and because I'm tired of never getting any respect." I lowered my voice and he had to lean forward to hear me. "I was also worrying you'd finally reached the end of your rope with me. I wished that we were in here, with no outside pressure or hassle."

  He ran a hand over his hair. "I think we need to figure out another way. No offense, but I don't want to risk leaving behind any critical parts."

  I looked around at the fake town full of fake people. They didn’t look so perfect anymore. "I'm not seeing any other options. Besides, I got us in here, so I have no doubt I can get us out. Just give me a few minutes to think about how to organize the spell."

  He looked doubtful and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the ground shuddered and a cloud passed over us, taking it from full daylight to dusk inside our little bubble. I jumped to my feet and pulled fistfuls of defensive magic into my palms.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The cloud obscuring the light slowly came into focus, and suddenly I wished it hadn't. I took a couple of deep breaths like Camille had taught me and released the magic, then looked up into one of the four faces on the planet I did not want to see right then: Noelle's. And if the color of her face was anything to go by, she was about to give me both barrels. I groaned and closed my eyes, preparing myself mentally for the battle I knew was coming.

  "What in the name of all that's holy have you gone and done now?" She put her nose down so close to the globe that little twin plumes of fog covered a quarter of our sky.

  I tried to answer, but apparently the glass was one-way. Nice to see my lucky streak was still holding—I couldn't even defend myself. She stood back and two more faces took her place. Nice. Now we had three of the four. Camille glared down at me, but Addy put her hand on her arm, or tried to. Noelle stepped back into sight.

  "We all just need to calm down. I don't think this was anything she did on purpose," Addy said.

  Camille humphed. "That about sums up her life recently. A whole string of accidents. Look where the coddling got her." She flung her hand at us. "Locked in a snow globe, and she dragged Cody along with her. Now what are we supposed to do? You know she's not going to be able to clean this up on her own—I don't even know if Aurora will be able to do anything about it."

  That went through me like a hot knife through butter. I was sick of being talked down to. I may have made this mess, but I was going to clean it up, too. I grabbed Cody's hand and let my rage fuel my magic. They were going to see once and for all that I wasn't the child they all took me for. The Christmas lights inside the globe dimmed and the lamp in my room flickered.

  Noelle frowned and realized what was going on. She narrowed her eyes and pointed that stupid mom-finger at me. "Shelby Kay, don't you even think—"

  I tuned her out and pictured the two of us in my room, clothed, whole, and full-size, and felt the magic melding to my will. It felt right! The vortex built and I felt my reserves drain; I only had one shot at this and it was going to take everything
I had to get us both back, but I poured everything I had into it.

  Just as the magic pulled us through, something grabbed my ankle and my focus shifted. A brilliant white light flashed, and for just a split second, I felt a weird sense of comfort mixed with ... elation?

  The vacuum of space sucked us through, and we were on the other side, except something wasn't right. And not in a look we landed on a bed of hundred-dollar bills way.

  Surprise, surprise.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The fog cleared and Cody and I were back, full-sized, but still wearing the tacky red snowsuits. Two out of three. I'd take it. Addy, Noelle, Camille, and Rae were staring back and forth between Cody and a little brown dog with a big, heart-shaped patch of white hair over his left eye, eyes wide.

  I frowned. Where did the dog come from? Some scruffy old guy—like forty-five or something—whom I didn't recognize came up from behind me, scaring the bejezus out of me. He knelt and called to the mutt, who came running and tried to jump on him, but went right through him instead.

  "I'm so sorry," he said to me when the dog sat down and cocked his head at us. "I think I might have thrown a wrench in the works."

  My family moved in to hug Cody, but Addy was the first one to ask about me, probably because she couldn't actually hug him.

  "It's all well and good you're back but where in the Sam Hill is Shelby? And where did the mutt come from?" She looked at him suspiciously.

  "Oh dear sweet baby Jesus," Raeann, our cousin and Noelle’s best friend, gasped. "She done went and turned herself into a dog!"

  Noelle and Addy did a double take at the pup and Addy swooped in to get a closer look. To his credit, the little dog held his ground even though he could obviously see her.

  Aurora, a large woman who enjoyed wearing turtlenecks year-round—don't ask me why because they did nothing for her figure—pushed forward, nearly knocking Noe and Rae down. "Don't be ridiculous. Give me the beast."