Frogs & French Kisses Read online

  I feel warm breath on my face. I really hope that’s Miri. I open my eyes. A cow’s mouth is inches away.

  I shut my eyes again. “A cow is about to eat me. Mir? Seriously, are you in one piece?” The breathing stops, and I look up again to see the cow already bored and moving on. Ouch. My leg is burning. I sit up to find my left knee bleeding right through a rip in my jeans and tights. Ow, ow, ow. And my chin hurts too. I think I broke my face. It chlorine-in-my-eyes stings.

  “Yes,” she grumbles.

  At least fifty black-and-white speckled cows of all sizes are surrounding us. I roll to my feet gently, careful not to disturb the livestock. I’m pretty sure cows don’t eat humans, but I don’t want to provoke them. Are they attracted to blood? I eye my scraped knee nervously. I think that’s sharks. I hope.

  Once on my feet, I help Miri up. “Ouch,” she says. “You cut your chin. Does it hurt?”

  “Not too much. But I’m sure it’s gorgeous. My leg hurts more. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. But the broom has seen better days.” She points to what’s left of it. It’s cracked down the middle and now lies in shreds on the muddy (I hope it’s mud) ground.

  I hoist off my helmet and scratch my head like crazy. Ah. I point at one of the animals. “Any chance we can fly one of these things home?”

  Moooooooooooooooooooooo.

  I leap back. “Maybe not.”

  Miri sneaks toward the cow and gingerly pats him (her? I’m not checking) on a black patch on his/her side. “Come see,” she says. “He’s not scary up close. He’s kind of cute.” (She’s obviously decided on its gender.) She pats him, like he’s a dog.

  Moooooooooooooooooooooo.

  Only my sister would think a nine-hundred-pound cow is cute. “He’s useless unless he’s sprouting wings and taking us home,” I say. “We have to get out of here. Ideas?” Happily, I didn’t lose a shoe after all. But they’re definitely not looking their pinkest. I step up on tiptoe and scan the area for an exit. Ow, ow, ow. Knee hurts. About twenty feet away there’s a fence.

  Moooooooooooooooooooooo.

  “What do you think Moo means?” Miri wonders out loud.

  “No idea.” And at the moment I don’t really care. “Any clue how far we are from home?”

  “I bet it means he’s happy. Like when Tigger purrs.”

  “Miri! Focus! Home—how far are we?” Our cat hardly ever purrs. Not when I’m around, anyway. He prefers my mom and Miri. Must be the witch thing.

  She stops caressing the cow and glares at me. “We only flew for ten minutes, we can’t be too far away. Let’s go if you want. Good-bye, sweet cow! Moo!”

  We hurry toward the fence—Miri skips, I limp—and try to find a gate. Even with the night-vision visor, I’m having problems seeing.

  “And you’re sure you can’t cast a spell on the cow?” I ask. “So we can fly it home?”

  She shakes her head. “What if someone sees us?”

  “Come on, what’s the difference? Someone could have seen us on the broom.”

  “Maybe another witch. And then we could hang out,” my sister says, pining for a witch peer. Apparently I am not enough for her.

  “As if there’s another witch in upstate New York. Bet they all live somewhere cool like Transylvania, or Salem. Now come on, Miri. Make the cow fly!” My leg is really starting to burn.

  “I’m not making an animal fly. A broom is one thing, but I won’t treat a cow like an object!”

  “We’re not doing circus acts,” I say, exasperated. “We just want to ride him. People ride horses, don’t they?” I can see I’m not getting anywhere. “So how are we going to get home?”

  She points to my shoes. Now she’s talking! “Perfect,” I say. “I’ll click them together three times and we’ll be zapped back to the cottage?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Nooooo.”

  “Hot-air balloon?” I ask hopefully.

  “Your shoes are made for walking.”

  Groan. “Here’s the gate,” I say, spotting the hinge. “What do you think this place is, anyway?” Miri asks.

  An instant milk bar? “A dairy farm, dummy.”

  Once we’re back on the road, we notice a sign on the door. “It’s called Sammy’s,” I say, rubbing my still-burning knee.

  “Good-bye, cute cows!” Miri sings, waving.

  And then we walk all the way home, the broom sadly dragging behind us.

  Forty-five minutes later, we’re back at the cottage. My mom is sprawled on the mossy green couch in the living room, reading a romance novel. “Why didn’t you use the window?” she inquires. Her gaze falls on my ripped jeans. When Miri tells her about the broken broom, she has a full-blown panic attack. “That’s it,” she asserts as she examines my chin. “No more flying. And why, oh, why did I quit smoking?”

  The next day is full of disasters. First, I wake up to see that my small facial scrape has ballooned into a massive red blob on my chin. The second happens when we’re at the grocery store that afternoon, picking up dinner. My mom is considering brands of veggie burgers, Miri is squeezing tomatoes, and I’ve just thrown a box of matzo into the cart because I feel I should have some since it’s Passover this week—not that anyone would know that from all the bread we’ve been eating. My mom is so not religious. My dad isn’t religious either, but he usually keeps Passover, which means no pasta, no pizza, no bread of any kind in the house. And he always has a Seder on the first night. No Seder this year, though; he and my new stepmom are on their honeymoon in Hawaii. I kind of miss the Seder. Last year my stepsister, Prissy, asked the traditional four questions, we sang that song about the goat (“Then came a cat and ate the goat, that my father bought for two zuzim. One little goat, one little goat.” I have no idea what a zuzim is or why a cat is eating the poor goat, but we all sang along at the top of our lungs), and we hid the matzo. My dad eventually gave us twenty bucks each to give back the matzo, as is the custom. I wonder what I spent my money on? I could really use that twenty bucks now.

  Anyway, after taking the box of matzo, I look longingly at the beef filets, knowing that there’s a better chance of Mom getting us all makeovers than making us steaks. Zilch for both. And that’s when I see it. The sign over the luscious, juicy meat reads SAMMY’S GRADE-A BEEF.

  Sammy’s? Oh, no. Step away from the aisle. Step away from the aisle. Sammy’s is no dairy farm. It’s a slaughterhouse! I take a quick step back and almost trip over a spice rack. Then I step on a small sneaker. Miri. Maybe she didn’t see?

  She shakes out her foot. “Be careful, clumsy. What’s wrong with you?”

  “N-nothing,” I stutter. I oh-so-casually turn so that my back is to the meat section and stretch out my shoulders so that I’m blocking the sign.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, and tries to peer over my left shoulder. I lean farther to the left. She tries to look over my right. I shift. Left, right, left, right.

  I need a distraction. “Did you see the tomatoes? Yum.”

  “Are you hiding something?”

  “The inner workings of my soul?”

  She takes a bite of her thumbnail and the accompanying skin. “I know they sell meat here, Rachel. I’m not an idiot.”

  You’d think a vegetarian wouldn’t bite her own body parts, but no. I wrap my arm around her thin shoulder and usher her toward the cereal aisle. She wiggles out of my grasp and turns back toward the meat fridge, her eyes filled with disgust as she inspects the beef chunks. Maybe she won’t notice. Maybe someone will scream fire. Maybe—

  Her face pales. Her jaw drops. Her eyes tear. I think she noticed.

  “Oh, no,” she moans.

  “Miri, don’t get upset.”

  “But all those cute cows are going to die!” Her lip is quivering and her shoulders start shaking and she looks a bit like she’s trying to do a body wave. “They’re going to be someone’s dinner!”

  I nod. “Unfortunately not mine.”

  Which doesn’t help, because it causes M
iri to fully cry right in the middle of the grocery store.

  Where is our mother? I peer through the aisles and spot her tangled in those impossibly frustrating plastic vegetable bags. No need to bother her. I can handle this.

  I hate watching my sister cry. I know she’s being psycho-dramatic here, as well as taking this cow thing too personally, but only a soulless person can watch her sister be this upset and not feel pain. It’s like having a clump of hair ripped from my head. Or a lung from my chest. Or a kidney from my . . . Hmm, I don’t know where kidneys are. I should definitely pay more attention in bio. I got a B on my last assignment. But this month I’m going to focus and study and do my homework when it’s assigned, just like Miri, and maybe I’ll be able to save my final grade. . . .

  What I really need to save is my love life.

  What Miri really needs, I gather from her expression, is a tranquilizer. But back to saving . . . Eureka! “Miri,” I say, tapping my temple. “If it makes you so upset, why don’t you save them?”

  She stops crying, and I see, beyond her ridiculously long, glistening lashes, the hope in her eyes. “How?” she asks.

  Must I think of everything? “Use your powers, silly. You can’t save all the cows in the world, but you can probably come up with a plan to save the ones at Sammy’s.”

  She fingers a package of beef and then wipes her hand on her jeans. “You think I can?”

  “Of course. We’ll look through A2.” Otherwise known as The Authorized and Absolute Reference Handbook to AstonishingSpells, Astounding Potions, and History of Witchcraft Since the Beginning of Time. My sister prefers using spells to cast her magic, rather than just zapping something with her raw will, since mixing the ingredients and chanting gives the witch more control. After last night’s impromptu car-starter spell and subsequent nosedive into the cow field, I wholeheartedly agree with the strategy. “And we’ll need to buy a new broom,” I add.

  “You think Mom will let us fly again?” she asks dubiously.

  “Of course. When I fell off my bike, didn’t she insist I get right back on?”

  “I guess.” Miri doesn’t look convinced.

  “Leave the permission stuff to me. You focus on finding the right spell.” Maybe we can make the cows indestructible. Maybe Miri can put a spell like that on us, too.

  “I flipped past a safety spell a while back,” Miri says. “That might work.”

  “Or you can find an immortality spell.” Nothing could hurt us! We’d look a little worse for wear when our hair started to fall out in a few centuries but we’d be as indestructible as vampires, without having to drink blood, but getting to wear the sexy red leather outfits and high-heeled shoes.

  The safety spell wins. It seems Miri believes she has more of a say in this magic stuff than I do. I can’t imagine why. On the plus side, I manage to convince Mom that Miri will be scarred for life if she doesn’t get back on the broom immediately. So Mom takes her on a test run around the neighborhood before letting us go out alone again. We opt not to tell her about the Protect the Cows plan. She’s in bed, reading, and there doesn’t seem to be a point in worrying her over nothing. After all, she said Miri was allowed to use magic, right? And saving cows shows a social conscience (for the cows), so that makes it definitely responsible.

  “Can you stop bumping into me?” Miri whines as my knees once again (unintentionally) smack the backs of her calves.

  Okay fine, that last one was intentional. “If you stop zigzagging, I’ll stop bumping into you,” I say, negotiating.

  She jerks the front of the broom up and I slide backward, nearly falling off the back end. Excellent. Maybe being in a body cast will help my social status. Not. My redesigned chin sure won’t do me any favors.

  My stomach is somersaulting and I don’t think it’s because we’re suspended twenty feet in the air. Although I’m sure that’s not helping. Now that school is less than forty-eight hours away, I can no longer be in denial about the trauma I’ll be forced to endure.

  See, a few months ago I convinced Miri to cast a dancing spell on me so I could be in the JFK High fashion show and finally be on the A-list. But when my mom freaked out and reversed the spell, my dancing ability sank to zero and I made a complete fool of myself. And I don’t mean that in the annoying I-look-so-fat-says-the-ninety-pound-model sort of way. I knocked over castmates like they were bowling pins. I smashed up the sets. And then I (sob) stood up Raf, because I thought he’d never want to be seen with me. I’m officially socially ruined.

  Maybe Miri will sprinkle some of the safety spell on me. I need to be protected from London Zeal, the senior who headed the show, whose leg I broke when I accidentally knocked her off the stage.

  Although I might need the spell more to protect myself from Melissa Davis, I realize as we pass over Sammy’s fence. I know it’s wrong to hate, but she’s evil. She’s a mini London Zeal, a fellow freshman who tortures anyone not A-list, flirts with my quasi-used-to-be-almost-boyfriend, Raf, and stole my ex–best friend, Jewel. Although Jewel might be slightly evil these days too, since the fashion show corrupted her. Like it did me, temporarily. But at least I’m reformed. I realize that there are more important aspects to life than the A-list. I’m practically a do-gooder. I’m saving cows!

  “Ready?” I ask as Miri steadies the new broom. I tried to convince her to buy the one with the hot pink bristles, but she thought we should get traditional straw to blend in. And so potential witnesses don’t think they’re seeing a fuchsia comet.

  “Yup.”

  We spent the day finding a spell, finding the ingredients, and mixing, and now all we have to do is sprinkle the concoction over the cows. I keep one arm around Miri and use the other to open the fanny pack around my waist and pull out the Ziploc bag. The pack is my mom’s, obviously. I would never own anything this obscenely orange and tacky. Or anything referred to by the word fanny. In the bag is a potpourri of garlic, mint, salt, and rice. It looks more like laundry detergent than magic ingredients if you ask me, but what do I know?

  Miri takes a deep breath and recites:

  “From a danger direct,

  I vow this day forward,

  To cherish and protect.”

  Who writes this stuff? I cringe at the bad poem. The spell sucks up the energy and warmth around us, causing the air to become instantly freezing. All right, I admit I can’t really tell the difference between the magic and the cool April wind.

  Meanwhile, Miri sprinkles the substance onto the livestock, reminding me of throwing rice at a wedding. Congratulations! Mazel tov! The concoction lands on the cows, sticking to them like snowflakes on a playground, or dandruff on a black sweater. It’s all very scenic.

  And then the cows disappear. Yes, vanish. Evaporate. Like a stain being washed out of a shirt. Or like Raf’s feelings for me.

  I can feel the (super-small, practically nonexistent) hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention. “Um, Miri?”

  “They must be moving somewhere safe,” she says, speculating as she continues sprinkling.

  Eventually, all that’s left is an empty field. The spots where the animals were grazing are bare. The night is suddenly quiet. Not a moo anywhere. Kind of creepy. “They’re not . . . dead, are they?”

  “No way. That would kind of defeat the purpose of a safety spell,” she says, handing back the Ziploc. “We saved the cows.”

  “At least they’ve escaped their cheeseburger destiny, right?” I say, trying not to slip off the broom as I zip up the fanny pack. Why would my mom even own something so ugly? She’s a witch! She could zap up the hippest purse in the world! Louis Vuittons on Monday mornings; Izzy Simpson bags for the afternoon. She doesn’t even have to carry a purse at all. She could just zap up money, credit cards, keys, lipstick (not that she wears lipstick) whenever she needed them. She doesn’t even need credit cards. She could zap up whatever she needed into the living room, direct from the Home Shopping Network or the Internet.

  “Let’s get out
of here before the butcher spots us,” Miri says. “I was thinking we’d fly back to the drive-in and see if anything good is playing. We deserve to reward ourselves. We’ll tell Mom we had a really long practice session.”

  “You’re the best, Miri.” I’d give her a hug, but I don’t want to mess up our balance. My sister snaps her sneakers together, and we jet off toward the drive-in. As we approach, I see the latest Spider-Man movie blasting on the screen. Fun! Some entertainment, finally.

  Miri hovers over a tree.

  “Why don’t we get off and sit on the branches?” I suggest. “That way we’ll have a good view.”

  I gingerly climb down first and find a makeshift ledge in a fat V-branch. Miri parks the broom and then squeezes in beside me. I’m watching a drive-in movie! There are no branches directly above me, and I can see straight up to the twinkling stars. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

  Fine, if I were the luckiest girl in the world, I’d be here with Raf in a Mercedes and not with my little sister up in a tree, but whatever. And the branch is hurting my bum. I try to make myself comfy as Spider-Man swings from telephone line to building. “You know,” I whisper over a budding leaf, “in a way, you’re kind of like Spider-Man.”

  Miri turns to face me and her eyes glow in the moonlight. “How so?”

  “You have powers, and you can use them to help the world. Like you did tonight by saving the cows.”

  She bites her pinky nail and asks, “But what else can I do?”

  “You can do anything you want,” I answer, suddenly excited by the idea of being a superhero’s mentor. “Stop wars, find homes for orphans—”

  “Save the whales!” she squeals.

  “Exactly. And you could wear a silver cape, a pink leotard, and some kind of sexy eye mask. With sparkles! Of course, I’d wear something similar as your sidekick.” We’re like Batman and Robin!

  She reaches for the thin branches above her and pulls herself up. “Let’s go home and make a list,” she says excitedly.