Tag: Mira Morganstein

Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 010

MMCoverMira swallowed the squeal that shot up from her chest and into her throat. She backed up as quickly as she could, earning a few more scrapes.

“Your fear tastes of cinnamon,” the owner of the eyes said with a voice that reminded her of a fuzzy blanket that had had most of its color washed out. It grinned at her as though it very much liked the taste of cinnamon.

Without a word, Mira grabbed the strap of her bag and scrambled to her feet. The creature was fast, so she would have to be faster.

Her heart setting the pace, Mira ran up the sidewalk to her front door. She’d fished her key out of her pocket as she ran, and jammed it into the lock the second she reached it. She wrenched the key out, and was inside, the door slammed and locked again before she’d taken another breath.

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 009

MMCoverA Scrap of Paper in an Abandoned Shoe

Dear Toadwart,

It is the unfortunate truth that I was the one who recommended you for this mission. This being the case, it is my duty to see that you are fit for the part.

You will, in the future, remember that we are here to act as guides, should the girl need us, to usher her into her position.

This being said, you will refrain from doing anything that would act to frighten her away. To this end, you will cease all talk of blood—no matter how relevant—and clean yourself up. You may be an imp, but you will be a well-groomed, soft-mannered imp who will in no way do anything, say anything, or portend anything that will jeopardize this mission.

Should you fail to meet your obligations—well, I could go into the details of the punishment awaiting you, but I will trust that you are sufficiently motivated on your own end.

I will be watching.

Bodkins

 

© 2014 by Danyelle Leafty. All rights reserved. Originally published in Curiosities of the Moon.

This is why minions are minions. They haven’t the head for eloquent threats, although they understand them perfectly well. 😈

Come back next Wednesday to see if something can be salvaged from all this Pink Lemonade mess. After all, a person only becomes eleventy once in their lifetime. Usually. 😉

If this is your first visit here, be sure to read the first installment of this episode. And be sure to come back tomorrow to learn a few more secrets about the UnderWhere.


Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 008

MMCoverMira blinked into a slow eternity as her brain tried to make sense of what she had just heard. “Were you speaking to me?” she asked, as politely as she could. She glanced around, making sure this wasn’t some boyish prank. But her street was strangely empty, save for herself and the talking hairless cat.

It made a sound of exasperated annoyance. “Do you see anyone else around?”

Mira shook her head, wondering for a moment if her brain was rattling about inside her skull. Was she dreaming? Hallucinating? Suffering from a concussion?

First the old lady, and now this thing, whatever it was.

The creature tugged on its ears that were round and decidedly not cat-shaped. “Great Barnaby’s toads!” If it weren’t clinging so tightly to the branch, it might have been dancing in place with impatience. “Don’t you know anything?”

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 007

MMCoverThe old woman had lied.

The fairy doll shed glitter from her glossy pink ringlets like she had a pernicious case of sparkling dandruff. The glue holding the curls to the wooden head was already starting to pull away, and now that Mira was examining it closely, the fairy’s tutu was starting to shred along the edges.

“Bring me good luck?” Mira frowned at the doll lying limp as the dead in her hand. “Not likely.”

But still, there was something about the fairy’s face—two black dots for the eyes and a tiny rosebud mouth—that wouldn’t let her throw it away. A touch of whimsy that made up for peeling glue and clouds of glitter.

Besides, it had only cost her a favor and a quarter.

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 004

Old Woman

MMCoverMira hugged her book of fairy tales to her chest, willing herself to fall between the pages into a land where fairies were real and goose girls could become princesses. Where fifth graders could be out doing heroic and magical things instead of being forced to endure fractions, decimals, and figuring out where Timbuktu lived on a map.

“Deep in the forest,” she whispered to herself, “lived two sisters. One as fair as the morning, the other dark as night. They lived with their mother in a forest glen, these two sisters: Rose Red and Snow White.”

Her backpack bumped comfortably against her as her stride and the story weaving itself through her mind and across her tongue all fell into rhythm. Her favorite time of the day, besides that silver hour when the world held its breath in between day and night, was the walk home from school.

It was then when she could be any princess she chose to, fall into any fairy tale she fancied, with no one to look over her shoulder or eye her disapprovingly from the front of the classroom. There were no chores for her to do—not yet—and her homework could wait.

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