Spellbound Solstice by Alexandria Rogers

Author:Alexandria Rogers [ROGERS, ALEXANDRIA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2024-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

School smelled.

He probably should have had slightly more interesting observations, like… maybe cultural things? The fact that they talked about Napoléon less than Maman did?

But he couldn’t stop thinking about the smell.

Rotten banana peels and pizza slices and so many armpits. It was like spending all day in the smelly Parisian métro.

Very, very gross.

He wasn’t used to being around so many people all at once all the time. He had lived in tons of cities. Had been pressed in by bodies, slammed by a million sensations. Crowds had never bothered him before. But this was different.

Here, everyone… knew each other.

It was bizarre. It would be like wandering through the Louvre and suddenly, everyone just started talking to each other. Like some weird secret mob party. He had never seen anything like it.

The ghosts did not help. He tried to ignore them, but they were like cats, who knew when people didn’t like them. It just seemed to make the ghosts more interested.

“Do you like basketball?” A short ghost boy with curly hair and a dimpled smile trailed him like a lost puppy. “I really like basketball. You know it’s my favorite?”

“Cool.”

Someone in the cafeteria line glanced at him.

“What’s your favorite?”

He turned his head, trying to stay as discreet as possible. “Could we talk later?” he muttered.

“But you’re here now. No one ever talks to me.” The ghost pouted. “Even the other ghosts say I’m a loser.”

By fourth period, five ghosts trailed him everywhere he went, providing the most unhelpful commentary.

Is that really how they style hair these days?

Wow, you are bad at math.

You know, you look like you’d be better at gym than you are. Have you never learned any sports?

“I need to go to the bathroom—can you all back off?” he finally shouted.

A girl he recognized from his Spanish class, who’d been walking toward him, immediately stopped and turned in the opposite direction.

Ronan groaned and beat his head against a locker.

Maybe, in another world, he could have gotten used to it—all of it. Ronan was good with people; he could make friends if he tried. Maybe he’d even grow to like being known and seen every day. Maybe ghosts trailing him through class would become a funny quirk.

But he was in this world, and in this world, his mum was acting strangely and an evil ghost had followed them from France to Chanterbrooke, but apparently she mostly haunted Chanterbrooke and might have also cursed the family of a girl he might be starting to like, and with his ghost problem, school was much harder and weirder than he’d ever imagined.

Ronan squeezed his eyes shut. He had to get out of here. He’d watched enough movies to know that skipping school was a bad idea.

But he was raised on bad ideas.

He made a beeline for the exit before the bell rang and found himself wandering through the seaside park opposite the town square by two o’clock. He could go to Ensorcelled Cottage to try to learn more about the job

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.