Girl's Guide to Witchcraft by Mindy Klasky Page A

undivided attention again, I shrugged. “Montrose left. I locked the door after him and went back to sleep.”
    “I don’t believe that you’re being so blasé about all this! I would have totally freaked! I mean, you worked a spell from an ancient magic book!”
    “What am I supposed to do? Run out into the street screaming, ‘I’m a witch! I’m a witch!’ It’s not like I can call the cops and report myself. They’d lock me up for observation. I’d wonder if I hadn’t imagined everything, if not for Neko.”
    “He’s still there, then?”
    “Asleep on the couch. At least he was this morning—curled up in a sunbeam. He barely stirred when I left for work.”
    “I can’t believe you just left him there!”
    “What else was I going to do? Sit and stare at him all day? I needed to get to work. The last thing I’d need now is to be fired. I’d lose my paycheck and my house.”
    “But Montrose said that with the full moon—”
    “I know!” I’d been worried about my familiar’s dire potential all day. Melissa looked startled by my sharp tone, and I forced myself to repeat a bit less forcefully, “I know. But I couldn’t figure out anything else to do with him. And, I have to say, he just doesn’t seem dangerous.”
    Melissa snorted. “And what about Stupid Fish?”
    “What else could I do? I hauled the aquarium into my room. It’s sitting on the floor.”
    “Poor thing!”
    “He’s a fish,” I said dryly. “I’ll get some sort of table for him tonight. I guess I should consider myself lucky that the bedroom door locks. Otherwise, there’s no telling what Neko might do for a snack.”
    “Why didn’t you just whip up another spell? Conjure up a table to put the aquarium on.”
    “It’s not like I’m a sudden expert on this stuff! And I’m not getting anywhere near that book again.” I remembered that strange flash of darkness, the sudden power that had risen from nowhere. “I mean, I have no idea how I did what I did, but I’m not going to play around with it. Even if I hadn’t promised Montrose—”
    My words were interrupted by a pair of women who walked through the door. “What’s left?” one of them asked, already reaching into her purse.
    “One Lemon Grenade.” Melissa pointed toward the pastry, sitting lonely beneath a glass dome. “Two Ginger-Butterscotch Dreams.” The giant cookies leaned against each other on a hand-thrown pottery plate. “One Fusion Swirl.” Raspberry jam glistened in a Caramel Blondie. “And half a dozen Bunny Bites.”
    The miniature carrot cakes were my favorite. They were a lot of work, especially when Melissa took the time to pipe miniature orange carrots on top of the cream cheese frosting. I had the women pegged as Dream girls, though, and I wasn’t disappointed. They paid up, promised to be back the next day and headed out the door.
    Melissa passed me one of the Bites. The frosting melted over my tongue, and I closed my eyes in near ecstasy.
    So what if I was a witch? So what if I had managed to work a spell? So what if the books in my basement might contain secrets to the entire universe, if I only took the time to investigate them, to explore them and put them in order?
    I chewed and swallowed, reminding myself that I didn’t need to do anything with the witchcraft collection. I wasn’t going to let it interfere with my life ever again. It was a onetime mistake, like the Brazilian wax that Scott had coaxed me into trying, or having my eyebrows threaded. I wasn’t going to go there. Not ever again. Anything else would be just too strange. And there was no time like the present to get life back to normal (whatever that meant, with a familiar napping on my couch).
    I took a deep breath and forced a bright smile as I very purposefully changed the topic of conversation. “So?” I said. “Enough about the Wicked Ways of Witchcraft. Tell me about your date!”
    Melissa was determined to find the Man by the time she turned thirty.