Cloudy with a Chance of Boys Read Free Page A

thought that was your favorite origami frog,” I said to break the spell. “The one you got to jump the best.”
    “Hey! You weren’t supposed to see,” said Joey.
    “It doesn’t matter. We all know anyway,” I said.
    “Nuh-uh,” said Joey. “Nobody knows what Alex threw in the fire.”
    “But we all know what she wished for,” I said.
    Alex’s head snapped around to glare at me. “What?”
    “To get the part of Juliet in the play. Duh. What else?”
    “Oh,” said Alex. “Yeah.” She laughed a nervous laugh, but something secret and shadowy passed over those Mona Lisa eyes of hers. “ Look like the innocent flower / But be the serpent under it, ” I thought as another line from Macbeth sprang to mind.
    I’d have to wait and see if something new and exciting happened to me. Time would tell. I guess the most I could hope for was that the spell didn’t turn my hair neon green and make it stand up as straight as a troll’s.
    One glass troll eye stared at me from the bottom of the fireplace. Part of me wanted to yell Wait! and take it back. But it was too late.
    A last line from Macbeth niggled the back of my brain.
    “What’s done is done.”

    FIRST KISS WISH
    Starring Alex
     
     
Sock Monkey:
So, you’re still talking to me, huh?
Me:
Why wouldn’t I be?
Sock Monkey:
It’s just . . . you hardly ever have time for me anymore.
Me:
You sound like my sisters. Of course I haven’t forgotten you. Who else am I going to tell my secrets to?
Not
the Snoopy Sisters, that’s for sure.
Sock Monkey:
The Snoopy Sisters. Good one.
Me:
So, do you want to know my secret or what?
Sock Monkey:
I’m all ears! Even though I don’t have ears. Why don’t you give me some ears?
Me:
You had ears once upon a time. But they got all loved off.
Sock Monkey:
Aw.
Me:
Okay, listen up. Remember a couple of nights ago, during the blackout, when I —
Sock Monkey:
Did a magic
love
spell? Yeah, I remember. You went to all that trouble, when you could just write down the person’s name and put it under your pillow. Or eat three petals of the black jade rose while thinking of the person’s name.
Me:
Can we focus here? Unless you don’t want to know my secret.
Sock Monkey:
Like I said, I’m all ears.
Me:
Okay. So. You know how I threw that note from when I was in
Beauty and the Beast
with Scott Howell in the fire that night?
Sock Monkey:
Yeah, that was really using your brain. Now you burned up his love note and you don’t have it anymore.
Me:
It wasn’t a love note anyway. I wish. It just said,
“See you at practice. S.”
No biggie.
Sock Monkey:
Uh-huh. So, why’d you save that play program forever?
Me:
I know Stevie and Joey think I wished that I’d get to play Juliet in the school play, but really I wished —
Sock Monkey:
For secret crush Scott Towel to like you?
Me:
A) His name is not Scott Towel! It’s Scott Howell. That’s just what my annoying sisters call him. And B) I wished for something better than that.
Way
better.
Sock Monkey:
What? That he’d call you up? Send you a
real
love note? Ask you out to a vampire movie?
Me:
Nope, nope, and nope.
Sock Monkey:
That he’d come over for dinner again, and this time not drop his fork in the fondue and have to kiss everybody at the table?
Me:
Wrong again.
Sock Monkey:
What? I give up. Tell me!
Me:
Okay, but you have to keep it a secret. Nobody but you in the whole entire world can know. Are you ready?
Sock Monkey:
Hurry up! Whisper it in my ear. I mean, where my ear would be if I had one.
Me:
I wished that I would get my first kiss, and it would be from
him.
Sock Monkey:
Who him?
Me:

Him,
him. Romeo.
Sock Monkey:
Huh?
Me:
Don’t you get it? I have it all planned. I get the part of Juliet in the play, and Scott is Romeo. And Romeo has to kiss Juliet, right? So, voila! I get my first kiss. What could be better than a sweet, romantic, Romeo-and-Juliet kind of first kiss?
Sock Monkey:
Brilliant!
Me:
I thought so. Now all I need is to really rock my audition, get the