Chasing the White Witch Read Online Free PDF Page A

me with a sort of bleak resignation pooling in her eyes.
    â€œYup.”
    â€œAnd there’s nothing I can say to talk you out of it?”
    â€œNope.”
    Paula-Jean huffed loudly. She stood up and pulled her jeans and a sweatshirt on over her pyjamas. “Okay, then. Let’s do it.”
    You couldn’t have pried the smile off my face with a crowbar as I grabbed my clothes and yanked them over my pajamas. I fished through my nightstand, located a flashlight, and with Paula-Jean close behind me, I crept to the door. The hallway was pitch-black. I pulled Paula-Jean out of my room and together we tiptoed down the stairs, slipped into our shoes, and stepped out the front door before Cyrus’s little legs could catch up with us.
    The autumn air was damp and cold. White smoke snaked from my nostrils, floated in the air for a moment, and then was snatched off by a bitter wind. Impatient winter seemed to be giving lazy fall a good hard shove and I suddenly found myself wishing I’d worn my jacket. I hugged my arms to my chest as I contemplated the best place to find a year-old tree.
    â€œWhat are we waiting for? I’m freezing!” said Paula-Jean. “Just grab a branch already and let’s go back inside.”
    I searched up the street and back down looking for my victim. It was dark out — darker than usual. Even with the streetlamps lit on one side, without the silver glow of the moon, the night sky seemed murky and somehow ominous. I clicked on the flashlight and a white beam sliced through the shadows. I would have been slightly nervous were it not for Paula-Jean hugging my right side.
    â€œCome on, Claire,” she huffed. “This isn’t rocket science — just snap off a branch and let’s go!”
    â€œI can’t just grab any old branch, Peej,” I said, shining the light in her face. “The book said it had to be a yearling. You’ve got to follow the instructions perfectly, you know.”
    â€œOh. ’Scuse me,” she mumbled, slapping the flashlight away. “I forgot you were some kind of creepy magic expert.”
    I ignored her last comment and started walking toward the sidewalk. She ran to catch up and glued herself to me. Paula-Jean’s thick mop of dark curls blew every which way as we headed down the street. She started to whine again, but I shot her a look that said, I know what I’m doing , to spare myself from any further arguments. I was on a mission — a deliciously daring and diabolical mission and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying every minute of it.
    â€œHere we are,” I said, standing in front of Mrs. Walker’s house. I pressed the flashlight into Paula-Jean’s hands and fixed the shaft of light on a particular plant with narrow scarlet leaves and magnificent late-harvest pink-and-orange fruit dangling from its limbs.
    â€œOld Lady Walker? Have you completely lost it?” Paula-Jean stepped backward until she was almost standing in the middle of the road. She shone the flashlight on me like a spotlight. “She’ll skin you alive with her trowel if you touched even a blade of her prefect grass!”
    Paula-Jean was right. My courage sprung a leak. I felt it draining from me like water from a sieve. But I wasn’t about to let her know I was getting nervous. I forced steadiness into my voice.
    â€œFirst off, I’m not after Mrs. Walker’s grass, am I? Second, how do you think she’s going to find out? Do you think she has security cameras guarding the place?” I rolled my eyes for dramatic effect, but secretly I was scanning the house’s dark brick exterior, looking for anything remotely resembling a lens.
    Mrs. Walker lived and breathed for her meticulously manicured lawn and garden. You’d see her out in all kinds of weather trimming and pruning and planting and mulching. She’d shriek like a banshee at anyone who happened to wander off