Diary of Anna the Girl Witch 1: Foundling Witch Read Free

little girl. “Is that a rainbow?” I knew it was; Beatrice drew rainbows in all of her pictures.
    “Yes, it’s the rainbow I’m going to follow to find my new mama and papa!” Beatrice jumped up and hugged me. Her blond curls tickled my nose. “And when I find them, I’m going to make them adopt you too, Anna Sophia.”
    “Why, thank you, Beatrice. But I don’t need a new mama and papa. I’m thirteen now.”
    Two boys joined the group. The smaller one, Luca, was bouncing a soccer ball.
    “Jean-Sébastien says that thirteen is the age when a girl becomes a woman,” Luca said, grinning. Beside him, Jean-Sébastien blushed a bit before scowling.
    “Well, I don’t think Jean-Sébastien would know a real woman if she came and bit him on the nose,” I said. Then I turned my back on the boys and went to help set out the picnic lunch. No point in giving those two more attention than they deserved.
    “The hoodlums are here, I see,” Lauraleigh said. She passed me napkins and plates, and I set them on the picnic table.
    “Yes, I don’t know why Luca and Jean-Sébastien get invited to every birthday party. No one likes them, especially not me.”
    “I expect that Sister Daphne doesn’t want anyone to feel left out,” she said. “Wouldn’t you feel sad if you weren’t allowed to go to a birthday party when everyone else was going?”
    “Not if it was Jean-Sébastien’s party,” I grumbled, but I knew Lauraleigh was right. We orphans had grown up together. We were a family in a way. Excluding Luca and Jean-Sébastien from my party would be like excluding my brothers – my exasperating and annoying brothers.
    “I just hope he left the frogs at home today,” I said. “Do you remember what he did at Gaëlle’s party last year?”
    “Oh, yes.” Lauraleigh laughed. “No one is ever going to forget that one.”
    Poor Gaëlle. Jean-Sébastien had ruined her party with one of his stupid practical jokes. He’d helped Sister Daphne bring out the cake. We should have suspected something right then; Jean-Sébastien never offered to help with anything. When Gaëlle cut into her cake, a dozen frogs hopped out! What a mess. Gaëlle screamed and knocked over the table, trying to get away from the slimy critters. The cake went flying and landed on the head of another girl. The birthday party was ruined.
    That’s what Jean-Sébastien does. He ruins things.
    I was determined not to let him ruin my special day. I was going to keep my eye on him.
    Someone cried behind me, and I whirled around just in time to see Jean-Sébastien and Luca run through a sandcastle, kicking the fragile towers to dust. Beatrice wailed, but the boys – or hoodlums, as Lauraleigh liked to call them – were already off on some other mischief.
    “Don’t worry, Beatrice,” I said, wiping her eyes with a napkin. “I’ll help you build a new sandcastle after lunch. And one day, when we figure out what our superpowers are, we’ll make those boys regret every mean trick they ever played on us.”
    Beatrice grinned. “I want my superpower to be super-strength, so I can punch mean old Jean-Sébastien right in the nose!” She wrinkled her tiny button nose to show me.
    “I want my superpower to be flying,” I said. Wishing for superpowers was a game that Beatrice and I had played for years. “I want to fly like a bird and see all the people below as small as ants.”
    “I want my superpower to be super-eating!” she said. “I could eat the whole picnic, I’m so hungry.”
    I tickled her tummy. She squealed but didn’t try to get away.
    “Well, I have a special mission for a superhero like you. You’re on guard duty. Make sure those boys don’t sneak frogs into my cake.”
    Beatrice saluted me and ran off to guard the cake.
    After lunch, I realized there was something wonderful about being thirteen. I was old enough to get treated like an adult sometimes, but still young enough to play silly games with my friends.
    Sister Daphne