A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic Read Free Page B

supposed to be all excited about, so she said, “Okay. Sounds great.” Leila hated to hurt people’s feelings.
    â€œOh, by the way,” Samir added as she started to turn away. “Rabeea was looking for you earlier. I think that she and my mom want to take you shopping. They said that you wanted some salwar kameez .”
    â€œYes!” Leila cried. “I love Pakistani clothes, but I never get a chance to wear them at home. Where’s Rabeea?”
    Samir directed her to the front sitting room, and she hurried away. Leila rounded the corner so quickly that she nearly ran into someone. “Oh, sorry!” Leila gasped.
    This was Chirragh Baba, the cook. He said something sharp in Punjabi. He had the sort of face you would draw with heavy lines—wrinkles ran from his large, long nose to his puckered mouth, as if he had done a lot of frowning in his life. (He had.) His hair was dark orange—henna dye over gray—and his black eyes seemed to lead down a deep, deep well. They were eyes to nowhere. Leila had met Chirragh the night before, and he had given Leila an unwelcoming welcome.
    â€œHow long is she staying?” Chirragh had demanded,scowling. He’d said it in Punjabi, of course, but seven-year-old Wali had helpfully translated for Leila.
    Now, Chirragh’s eyes glittered like something that just might bite you. It was his signature look. He reminded Leila of the evil butler in Dear Sisters Super Special #8: The Case of the Creepy Castle . That guy had been super-duper bad news.
    â€œUh, sorry,” Leila muttered again. She looked down at her shoes, avoiding that disturbing dark gaze.
    Chirragh didn’t speak another word, but continued limping down the stairs, supporting himself on his strong, right leg.
    Leila looked up and watched him go. I’d better keep an eye on him, she thought, half hoping that he would turn out to be a major villain—maybe stealing spoons or spreading false rumors. That would open up a lot of adventure possiblities!
    She stopped by her room and put the book at the edge of her bed. The Exquisite Corpse . Definitely a mystery, she decided. Leila knew that Elizabeth Dear wouldn’t be in it. Still, she was hopeful that it would be both utterly romantic and moderately gruesome.
    She couldn’t wait to read it.

CHAPTER THREE
Kai
    K AI SHOULD NOT HAVE gone to the Walgreens. Like I said, that was her second mistake. Oh, she still would have had an adventure—writing in the book guaranteed it. But it might have been a smaller adventure. Oh, well. She went, so it wasn’t.
    It was five long blocks to the Walgreens pharmacy. In the gutter, Kai saw a squashed frog that had dried to leather in the Texas heat. I like to call that road jerky. A thick breeze licked at her sweaty scalp. The lawns were patched with grass so dry and brown it looked like hay.
    Across the sidewalk, Kai’s flip-flops shlip-shlip-shliped after her. She was the only pedestrian in sight. Everyone else was locked up tight in their cars breathing nothing but air-conditioning, like people who were used to seriousheat and didn’t want to put up a pointless fight.
    She paused at the stoplight, and looked up the street, to where the black ribbon of asphalt bled against the wavy edge of the sky. It was so hot that the tar patching the cracks in the road had melted, and lay there soft as warm candle wax. When the white letters lit up, she scurried across the intersection, wisely wary. That tar would’ve grabbed her flip-flop and ripped it right off her foot. Then she’d have had to run out into traffic to try to get it back. Probably would’ve gotten run over by a Chevy Suburban, which would have made this into a very different kind of story. Much shorter.
    Kai scuttled across the parking lot and onto the wide sidewalk that bordered the strip mall. There it was: the Walgreens. The air-conditioned home of Dr Pepper and Cheetos. Heaven for the kind of