Bras & Broomsticks Read Online Free PDF

normally passed from mother to daughter, has skipped me. As with breasts, nature has decided I don’t qualify.

    By four thirty I still can’t sleep, so I decide that my mother shouldn’t either.
    Her ghastly early-morning breath wafts over me as I poke her in the shoulder. Unfortunately, that’s a trait I did inherit. I’m sure my future husband will appreciate it.
    “What’s wrong?” she asks, sitting up. She’s still in her ratty concert tee. You’d think a witch could spruce herself up a bit. Give herself a free makeover or fake nails. Get her roots done. She has a blond ring orbiting her brown roots, as if she’s Saturn.
    I crawl into bed beside her. “You owe me an explanation. Why can’t I resuscitate lobsters? Do any witches get magic later in life?”
    She switches on her bedside lamp. “Normally magical powers appear during puberty, but some witches come into them when they have their first child.” She narrows her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.”
    “Mom!”
    “Just saying. Anyway, one woman I knew traumatized herself and her husband when she levitated their baby right out of the crib.”
    A balloon of hope fills me. “So it can still happen?”
    She nods. “It can.”
    Fantastic!
    And then she adds, “But it might not. Some daughters never become witches.”
    My balloon pops and sags lifelessly to the ground. “That’s so unfair. Why does Miri get powers and not me? She didn’t even finish the first Harry Potter and that was the shortest one. I read them all!”
    “Honey, I know you think witchcraft is all fun and games, but it comes with serious responsibilities. Maybe when you’re more mature and responsible—”
    “What do I have to do?” I whine. “Keep my room clean and make hundreds of useless lists like Miri?”
    “It’s not about specific actions. It’s more of a mental state.”
    “Oh,” I say, not sure whether I want to pout or cry at the unfairness of it all.
    “Miri looks up to you, and I expect you to help her deal with the changes in her life and to guide her to do the right thing.”
    Help Miri, guide Miri, blah, blah, blah. Miri gets everything.
    I rest my cheek against the pillow and look at my mom. “Remember in fourth grade when all the girls in my class were invited to Krissy Backer’s sleepover and I wasn’t?” I ask, feeling sad at the years-old memory. Then indignation fills me. Looking like a dork with those braces? Totally unnecessary. That haircut that had total strangers gasping with pity? Completely avoidable. I blink back tears.
    My mom studies me. “I know what you’re thinking, honey.”
    “Well, why didn’t you?” I blurt out. “You could have made my life a zillion times better if you had only used a smidgen of magic!”
    My mom smoothes back my hair. “I understand how it could seem that way to you. But trust me, magic isn’t all that it appears to be. I wanted you and Miri to experience life—with all its joys and its sorrows—not some artificial world that I created to make you happy.” She kisses my forehead. “I love you, Rachel. More than you’ll ever know.”
    “I love you too, Mom,” I say, sniffling. After a few minutes of witch-daughter bonding, I sit up. “Did Miri use magic to give herself boobs?”
    She smiles and shakes her head. “I developed early too. You take after your father. He didn’t have his growth spurt until he was seventeen.”
    Life is so unfair. “So I guess you can’t put a spell on me to become a witch.”
    “Afraid not,” my mom tells me. “If you’re meant to be one, you will be.”
    I get up and walk to the door with a sigh. “Well . . . can I at least keep the shoes?”
    My mom hesitates, then smiles. “I’ll make an exception just this once.”
    With that victory in hand, I drag my bare feet back into my bed. But instead of sleeping, I spend the next two hours trying to levitate my duvet.
    Unsuccessfully.

4
     
    FLY, MIRI, FLY!
     

    It’s only quarter of nine on Friday morning