Chasing the White Witch Read Online Free PDF

the sidewalk and take a single step on her perfectly edged lawn. If she caught me ripping a branch off her shrub — her brand-new shrub, no less — there was no telling what she’d do to me.
    Trouble was, I didn’t see any way around it. I knew Mrs. Walker had planted a dwarf winterberry euonymus a few months ago. The only reason I knew what a dwarf winterberry euonymus was is because Mrs. Walker insisted on telling me and my mother every painfully boring detail about the darn thing when we ran into her in the grocery store last week. I didn’t know much of anything about shrubs — let alone dwarf winterberry euonymuses — but I guessed that since the bush was recently planted it couldn’t be more than a year old.
    â€œYou stay here, Peej,” I said, swallowing a baseball-sized lump that had formed at the back of my throat. “I’m going in.”
    Paula-Jean gave me a mock salute and wished me luck. I turned and slunk up the driveway, eyeing the unsuspecting shrub nestled snugly against the side of the porch. I was going to be quick — greased lightning — I told myself, as I crept toward the cluster of reddish-brown leaves. I grabbed hold of a nice thin little branch and was about to snap it off, when suddenly the front door flew open.
    â€œWho’s out there?” screeched Mrs. Walker. “Show yourself, you coward!”
    No way was I leaving without my prize. Adrenaline surged through my veins as I yanked wildly at the branch. Pink fruit and scarlet leaves flew every which way and when the branch finally snapped, I fell backward into the junipers. The spiky foliage poked through my clothes and stabbed my skin.
    â€œStop! Tree vandal! I’ll have your head!” Mrs. Walker screamed. Luckily she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She couldn’t see a thing without them.
    I scrambled to my feet, and, holding the branch like the Olympic torch, I flew across the lawn toward Paula-Jean, who was already tearing up the pavement making a beeline for my house. I could hear Mrs. Walker hollering behind me, but from her mad ravings I could tell she hadn’t recognized me. As I ran, the leaves and fruit of the dwarf winterberry euonymus blew off the branch one by one, scattering evidence of my tree massacre to the wind.
    I caught up with Paula-Jean. We ran neck and neck until we reached my house and then slipped back inside the front door. I stood in the safety of my dark hallway panting and puffing, holding my branch like I’d captured an enemy flag.
    Paula-Jean growled something unrecognizable and began slapping my shoulders. Her hand froze mid-air when the old clock in the living room chimed midnight.

7
    T he candle flickered, casting demon shadows on my bedroom wall. Paula-Jean sat silent and still — a little off to my left side, like she was worried the spell might go haywire and ricochet off the walls and onto her by accident. Cyrus was lying in his usual spot at my bedside. He raised his little eyebrows and then buried his snout deeper between his front paws as though he was avoiding certain disaster. The air was thick with anticipation, while the faint aroma of dwarf winterberry euonymus whispered into my nostrils.
    I gripped the branch tightly in my right hand and then closed my eyes. I did my best to picture Jordan’s goofy grin. I thought of all the millions of mean and nasty comments he’d made over the years. I thought about the time when I was seven and he got gum stuck in my hair. My parents had to practically shave me bald to get it all out. And the time he knocked me into a sea of mud — on photo day. I was a mess and although they let me do a retake for my personal portrait, there was nothing I could do about the class picture. And then there was the time he told Mom and Dad that I broke the chandelier when he was the one who dared me to throw a perfect spiral with his foam football. I had to pay for the chandelier with a