The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Author:Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Chapter Ten

AMANDA HAD PICKED A TIME FOR THE INITIATION WHEN MOLLY WAS GOING to be away in the city all day. There was to be an opening at an art gallery where some of Molly’s paintings were being shown, and Molly had promised to be there to help out. That left the whole day free and private for the initiation. David stayed awake a while the night before, thinking about it.

He didn’t know exactly what he was expecting, but he felt strangely excited. He felt certain that something supernatural was about to happen. He went over in his mind all the things Amanda had told him about supernatural manifestations that had occurred while she and Leah were practicing magic—things like ghostly shapes appearing, mysterious voices being heard and people going into trances. David didn’t know if he really expected something like that, but it didn’t seem to matter. What did matter was his premonition that something fantastic was going to happen during the initiation.

Before Molly left that morning, she told everybody to be good and take care of things. She told Amanda to get the lunch and keep the house neat, and David to take care of the kids and keep them out of trouble.

“Why can’t I take care of the kids and David get the lunch?” Amanda said.

“Well, I don’t know,” Molly said. “It’s just that David has had a great deal of experience in taking care of them, but I suppose—”

“Never mind,” Amanda interrupted. “I don’t really want to take care of them. I just don’t see why we couldn’t arrange who does what ourselves without being told exactly what we have to do.”

For a minute it looked as if Molly might be going to yell, or something, and David surprised himself by kind of wishing she would. But instead she caught her breath and bit her lip and got into her car.

As soon as she drove away, Amanda said, “Okay, let’s get started. I hope you have your ceremonial robes all ready.”

“They’re ready,” David said. “But it’ll take us a while to get them on.”

“It’ll take me a while to get ready, too,” Amanda said. “We’ll meet in my room in about a half hour. Okay?” She turned to go upstairs, but then she stopped. “Hey,” she said. “I need a dead lizard. Do you still have your lizard from the ordeal, Tesser?”

“I have him,” Esther said, “but he’s not a dead one.” After the reptile ordeal everyone else had turned his reptile loose, but Esther had been keeping hers in a shoebox under her bed.

“You kill him and bring him along,” Amanda said to David.

Suddenly David got mad. He didn’t get mad very easily, and it always made it hard for him to talk. “Li—listen, Amanda,” he said. “I’m not going to kill Tesser’s lizard. Why don’t you kill your horny toad if you need a dead reptile?”

Amanda glared at David. “I told you about that horny toad,” she said. She turned to Esther. “Look, Tesser,”

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