wicked witches 06.9 - you only witch once Read Free Page B

“Thank you.”
    Once she was gone, I turned to Marnie. “She’s going to drive me insane before this is all said and done.”
    “That’s what she’s trying to do,” Marnie said. “She’s good when she has a task she wants to fulfill.”
    “We need to find something to keep her busy over the next few days,” I said. “I don’t know what that is, but we need to put our heads together.”
    “Let’s get through lunch first,” Marnie suggested. “How many kids does Terry have at his camp this week?”
    “Um … twelve I think,” I said.
    “Oh, well, thirty girls and twelve boys,” Marnie mused, “that seems like a great way to foster female togetherness.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s those hormones Twila was talking about,” Marnie said. “All the girls here are of an age when they’re boy crazy. There won’t be enough boys to go around. How do you think that’s going to end?”
    That was a problem I hadn’t considered. “They’re not even going to be around the boys all that long,” I said. “It will be fine.”
    “Sure,” Marnie said, moving her face closer to mine.
    “What are you doing?” I asked, pulling my head away.
    “I’m looking to see whether you borrowed Twila’s rose-colored glasses.”
    I swear, sisters are both a blessing and a curse.
     
    “LUNCH looks wonderful, ladies,” Terry said, beaming at me as he doused his hot dog with ketchup.  “I can’t thank you enough for letting us eat with you.”
    “Oh, you don’t have to thank us,” Marnie said, slipping a spoonful of potato salad on his plate as she sidled closer. “We love taking care of you.”
    “We do,” Twila agreed, sliding a slice of pie onto his plate. “Feeding you is one of the great pleasures of our lives.”
    They make me want to puke sometimes. This isn’t one of those times. Now I only want to poke them in the eyes and make them cry. “Will you two stop throwing yourselves at Terry?” I asked pointedly.
    Twila had the grace to look abashed, but Marnie was beyond caring. She knew she was on my last nerve, but she didn’t care.
    “Where are your boys from, Terry?” I asked, trying to draw the conversation to a safer ground.
    “They’re from the Saginaw and Bay City area,” Terry said.
    “I take it they don’t get to spend a lot of time in the woods,” I said, as I scanned the boys. They all sat at their own picnic table, occasionally shooting mischievous looks in the girls’ direction. “They look a little citified.”
    “They are,” Terry said. “They’re all excited to go swimming and kayaking, though. They’re good kids. They just haven’t had a lot of time to spend in nature. This is their chance.”
    I shifted my gaze to the girls, studying the table configurations. To my chagrin, Lila and Rosemary paired off at the far end of one of the tables. They whispered and laughed to each other, and every time one of them chuckled they shot dark looks to the adjacent table. Unfortunately, that happened to be the table where Bay, Clove and Thistle sat.
    Terry followed my gaze with his steady eyes. “Why did you let Lila Stevens come? You could have banned her. You know that, right?”
    “I can’t ban a child simply because she doesn’t like my child,” I said. “That’s not fair.”
    “Who cares about fair? Lila goes out of her way to make Bay miserable,” Terry said. “The kid deserves a few days of peace.”
    “I think you’re saying that because you spoil her rotten,” I said, smiling. Terry doted on all three of the girls, but he shared a special bond with Bay.
    “I don’t spoil her,” Terry said. “She’s just a little angel.”
    “Well, my little angel acted like a dark devil when she found out we were running the camp this week,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “She’s embarrassed,” I said. “She doesn’t want her mother to be the one in charge.”
    “It’s her age,” Terry said, patting my shoulder. “No kid that age wants their mother around. This