Ticket to Faerie Read Free Page A

It'll take me a while. You may as well come inside
and wait."
    Alyssa bent down to whisper in Max's ear. "Stupid dog, I'm
out an MP3 player 'cause a you." He ignored her and they followed
Giserella into the cottage. The top of the doorway grazed Alyssa's
hair and the ceiling inside wasn't much higher. When Giserella
pointed to a wooden rocking chair in front of the fireplace, Alyssa sat
in it.
    Giserella bustled about, throwing things into an iron pot
hanging from a metal hook that swung out from the fireplace.
    Alyssa couldn't identify everything that went into the pot,
but she saw a copper coin, several black feathers, a small block of
wood, a handful of pebbles, an apple core, a dead rat, and a live
snake. This is so stupid .
    Giserella left the cottage and came back with a bucket that
she emptied into the pot. She counted out seventeen drops from a
blue glass bottle in the shape of a unicorn; the liquid emerged from
its horn. She pushed the kettle over the fire.
    Alyssa gripped the arms of the chair so she wouldn't bolt out
the door, and stared at the pot. Finally, after what seemed like
forever, she saw the liquid inside bubbling. Giserella dragged a tall
stool over to the corner, climbed on it, and pulled a spiderweb from
the ceiling. Holding two of the corners, she kept it intact until she
draped it over the pot.
    Geez, how disgusting is that?
    Wiping her hands on her pinafore, Giserella sat in a smaller
version of the rocker that held Alyssa. "How long has your
grandmother had cancer?"
    "Not quite a year." Alyssa swallowed her anger about the
MP3 player and tried to be civil. "Mom says she might not make it 'til
Christmas."
    "Shoulda come sooner. She'll have to drink a lot. Make her
take a glassful while standing on one foot and holding her breath
every time she takes a piss 'til it's gone."
    Alyssa stared. "Don't think Grandma can stand, never mind
on one foot."
    "Someone can support her, that's okay. But she's gotta hold
her breath." Giserella rocked back and forth, kicking the floor with
her heels.
    Alyssa scrabbled about in her backpack until she found a
scrap of paper and the dragon pen. She repeated the instructions as
she wrote them down. "Glassful every time she pees while standing
on one foot and holding her breath." She looked up. "She supposed to
do all this while taking a leak?"
    "No, she can do it after."
    "Which foot?" Does any of this matter. No way is this stuff
going to work and Grandma shouldn't have to drink something so
nasty.
    "Don't matter."
    "How big a glass."
    "Any size, just make sure it's completely full and she drinks
it all."
    Alyssa looked up. "So a shot glass and a water glass work the
same?"
    Giserella nodded. "Shot glass'll just take her longer to finish
the jug, but if she's having trouble swallowing..."
    Alyssa rolled back her eyes, but wrote that down too.
Grandma was a stickler for precise instructions so she would bring
her precise instructions. She tucked the paper into her pocket and
returned the pen to her pack.
    The snake in the pot screamed.
    Giserella jumped up, pulled the snake out of the pot, and
swung the kettle from the fire. Using a wooden ladle, she transferred
the liquid in the pot to a purple clay jug bigger than Alyssa's
backpack. Then she blew through the hole three times, and stuck a
cork in it. "There ya go. Careful going back to the coach stop."
    "Thanks a lot." If the stuff in the jug didn't work, no way
would her dad buy her a new MP3 player. "I hope you like the music
I have on the MP3 player."
    "Music? No, I don't need any music, thanks."
    Alyssa put on her backpack and struggled to hoist the jug up
so she could carry it out of the cottage. "Stupid dog," she said as soon
as the door closed behind them. "She doesn't even know what to do
with my MP3 player."
    "You're the one who decided to use your ticket to get a cure
for your grandmother." Max trotted toward the path. "Not my fault
you brought stuff you couldn't live without." He turned and looked
over his