Alyssa McCarthy's Magical Missions, Sunayna Prasad [e book reader pdf .txt] 📗

heard another swishing. Not again. She had enough with this anonymous sender. Nevertheless, she picked up the piece of paper and read it.

Dear Alyssa McCarthy,

We need to talk about the strange happenings you’ve encountered yesterday. I didn’t commit them, but I know who did. The name of the person is Beau Duchamp. I will tell you all about it in a few minutes. Meet me in your bathroom. The one you’re closest to.

Have a nice day,
Simon

P.S. If you’re wondering why Duchamp and I made these notes appear to you, it’s because that’s how we wizards communicate with people whose contact information we don’t know.

Thank goodness that Alyssa finally found out the name of the person who’d been committing those crazy pranks. But who was this “Simon” guy? How did he know her name? He sounded like a trustworthy person, but should she trust him? She’d learned about stranger safety when she was little, and never to trust strangers. But maybe she should give it a try to trust Simon. Whenever somebody sounded worried, Alyssa had always trusted him or her. But she’d known everybody who’d worried about her. That was different.
She walked into the bathroom to do her morning routine: wash her face, and brush her hair and teeth. After doing all three, though, she heard a voice with a British accent whisper, “Alyssa, don’t go.”
Alyssa turned around, letting out a shriek. A small marble statue with wings, short wavy hair, and a suit, stood by her and waved his hand.
“I know—I look strange,” said the statue.
“You’re… you’re—”
“Simon—the one who sent you the note about this meeting,” he said.
“You should’ve told me you’re a statue,” Alyssa said, kneeling down.
Simon bent his eyebrows.
“Who are calling a statue?” he asked. “Statues aren’t alive. Therefore, I’m not a statue.”
“Then what are you?” asked Alyssa.
“A marble figure,” Simon answered. “I’ve been alive for thirty years. In fact, I was born into a family of marble figures.”
“How did marble figures come to life?” Alyssa asked.
“Some wizard magically brought them to life two thousand years ago,” Simon said. “I don’t know how or when, but I don’t have time to tell you anyway. We need to discuss Duchamp and the storm tonight.”
“There’s a storm tonight?” asked Alyssa.
“Yes,” said Simon. “Hey, why don’t you lock the door? We can’t be seen.”
Alyssa did so. “So why didn’t anyone tell me about the storm?”
“Duchamp is forming it now,” said Simon.
“Was he the one who turned the rain black and—?”
“Yes,” said Simon. “He committed every magical incident from yesterday.”
“Including the marks on my babysitter?”
“Yep. He’s also responsible for making her fall asleep.”
“My uncle grounded my cousin and I for that, though,” said Alyssa.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Simon. “I’m assuming you also told him the truth, and he didn’t believe you.”
Alyssa nodded.
“Well, just like Duchamp wanted your babysitter gone, he wants to hurt your uncle now too.”
Alyssa gasped.
“That’s why he’s creating the storm,” said Simon. “It was the best thing he could think of. Right now he’s hiding and he doesn’t want to be seen by other people until you don’t have anyone to protect you.”
“Can’t the police find him?”
“Nope. He’s so powerful that he created charms on himself to make him invisible to the police, government, and FBI—from anywhere in the world.”
“Oh my God.”
“I know. Anyway, let’s talk about the storm. Tonight it’s supposed to sleet in the colors of electric green, bright purple, and lemon yellow.”
“Why those colors?”
“So no one assumes it’s just an ordinary storm. But it’s going to hurt your uncle in some way. I don’t know what, but you won’t be happy tomorrow morning.”
“Something’s going to happen to him overnight?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God,” moaned Alyssa. Despite how tough and unfair Uncle Bruce had been, deep down, Alyssa still loved him and would never want anything bad to happen to him.
“But most importantly, Alyssa, you need to know about what Duchamp wants with you,” said Simon.
“What?”
“He wants to kidnap you to the Fiji Islands and kill you,” said Simon.
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish. But he owns a dark magic center there and he wants to keep you there, because in the tropics, magical connections work better, and Master Beau can only achieve his goal if he kills you there with some type of magic.”
“Wait—there’s a connection between us?”
“Yes. He received it last fall at your parents’ graves, when he put a magic thermos near it, and sucked in copies of their DNA.”
“Why’d he go?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to find out. But once he opened the lid, the DNA evaporated, and traveled to you, since you’re the only one related to them that he could use.”
“I don’t remember experiencing anything like that.”
“It happened when you were sleeping. It doesn’t work when you’re awake. But ever since then, it grew and has reached its peak yesterday.”
“Oh no,” groaned Alyssa.
“Yes, it’s scary. But one of the good things about marble figures is that they can observe information from other people’s brains. So later today I’ll talk to you about why he wants you, exactly.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to go now,” said Simon. He pushed his body up into the air, held out his arms, and disappeared.
Alyssa left the bathroom and treaded downstairs for breakfast, where Uncle Bruce cooked spinach and egg white omelets and Hailey ate some sliced pears.
“What were you doing upstairs so long?” asked Hailey.
“Uh… hanging out,” Alyssa lied. “Did anyone hear about the storm tonight?”
“What storm?” asked Hailey.
“It’s supposed to sleet,” said Alyssa.
“They didn’t say anything about sleet on the radio,” said Uncle Bruce. “I don’t know where you heard that, but you need to let that go and eat your breakfast. We’ve got a lot of work to cover today.”
Alyssa sat down at the table and ate some pears. At some point the radio must announce the sleet storm. Uncle Bruce must also know that he would be harmed tonight. It would be better to know as soon as possible than at the last minute.

Imprint

Publication Date: 12-18-2012

All Rights Reserved