B*WITCH by Paige McKenzie

Author:Paige McKenzie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2020-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

18

PUMPKIN SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE

Truth spells and potions are sometimes not as potent as speaking straight from the heart.

(FROM THE GOOD BOOK OF MAGIC AND MENTALISM BY CALLIXTA CROWE)

“Wow. This is amazing,” Ridley said, taking a sip of her pumpkin spice latte. “Why have I never had one of these?”

She and Penelope were sitting across from each other at a table on the Starbucks patio. Penelope had gone home first to get her dog, Socrates; now the big white poodle lay at her feet, sleeping and snoring quietly. The late afternoon sun barely broke through the clouds, and it was definitely sweater weather; in fact, they were the only customers hanging out outside. And Ridley had forgotten to wear a sweater (or jacket or hoodie) to school today.

Still, she was just happy being with Penelope.

“It’s how I kick off the season every year,” Penelope explained, taking a sip of her latte.

“You mean fall? That’s still a few weeks away.”

“I mean the season. The long celebration season. For me, it starts on the first day these are back on the menu, and goes through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. After that I take a little break, and then I have a whole bunch of other traditions for Valentine’s Day and the first day of spring and Easter.”

Ridley laughed. “I guess you’re really into holidays.”

“Oh yeah. Big-time. You should come to my house at Halloween. I spend, like, weeks turning our front yard into a psychedelic graveyard filled with ghosts and zombies.”

“Nice!”

Ridley took another sip of her drink and set it down slowly. What should she do now? After the big… whatever-that-was with the two covens and Iris and Penelope at lunch, Greta had pulled Ridley aside and given her explicit instructions: to accept Penelope’s offer to go out for coffee, find out if she was, in fact a witch, and—if so—invite her to join their coven. Greta was convinced that Div was trying to recruit Iris and Penelope to her coven, and she wanted to get there first. Ridley knew that Greta didn’t approve of Div’s form of magic, and that she wanted all witches to practice her way, which was 100 percent Callixta. Natural, creative, nurturing. Love and light.

But sometimes, Ridley wished they’d stop it with their rivalry. Honestly, couldn’t they just put their differences aside and help each other—support each other?

Ridley watched Penelope as she bent down and offered a piece of her blueberry scone to Socrates. So Penelope was a witch. Or she was probably a witch… the only “evidence” they had so far was Div’s apparent belief that she was one of them. But she could be. Was that why Ridley had been drawn to her yesterday in history? Had Ridley’s inner witchness sensed Penelope’s inner witchness? Was that even possible?

She and Binx and Greta had not found each other via witchness radar. Instead, one evening last September, Ridley had spotted a couple of bullies in the park, beating up on a smaller kid. The park

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