Strength Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I’ve got ice cream in my hair,” she said peevishly. “What do you think?” She began rinsing off.
    Aerigo rose from the couch and a door opened down the hall.
    “Who put me at the kitchen table?”
    “You don’t remember? You put yourself there.”
    Roxie looked up, her hair dripping into the sink. Why the heck would I do that? A large empty bowl sat on the table, with flecks of red clinging to its sides, then became aware of the scent of Italian dressing. A half-empty bottle of the stuff stood next to the bowl. There also was an empty loaf pan with streaks of ketchup and meat loaf crumbs in it, and a Heinz bottle nearby. A gallon of apple cider with maybe an inch of it left was on the table as well, however she didn’t see a cup anywhere. Finally, the red half-gallon of cookie dough ice cream lay on its side, the opening facing her and copious amounts of ice cream spilling edge of the table like a wimpy Niagara Falls. There’s no way I ate all that. Roxie wrung out her hair, then grabbed the carton and plopped it in the garbage under the sink, dripping ice cream all over the floor in the process. She unrolled an arm’s length of paper towels and began mopping up the sticky mess.
    Aerigo grabbed some paper towels and helped wipe up the floor.
    “I remember falling asleep on the couch, and that’s about it.”
    “What was that loud bang?” Grandma asked. She stood on the other side of the counter with her hands folded over her chest, clinging to her bathrobe to her as if she were cold.
    Roxie looked at the upturned chair and wished she could explain how it’d sailed across the kitchen. Grandma followed her gaze and furrowed her brows. Roxie made one last pass with her wad of paper towels and deposited them in the garbage, then made a fist, bumped off the faucet, then turned for the chair.
    She flinched and stopped when she heard something light and metallic bounce around in the sink. It was the faucet handle.
    “Crap!” Roxie fumbled for a way to put the hand back on.
    “Be gentle!” Aerigo said.
    “I was!” Roxie said, exasperated. She’d shut off the faucet with her fist a zillion times before.
    “Gentler.”
    “I was ,” she said. What? Does he want me to pretend the sink is made of glass? Rox held in the frustrated sigh that wanted out.
    “Let’s just finish cleaning up and I’ll explain what happened to you.”
    Aerigo and Roxie cleaned up the table and floor, and returned the possessed chair to its place as Grandma headed to the basement to turn off the water so she could fix the faucet. Within two minutes the kitchen was clean and fixed, the faucet handle needing no more than to be snapped back on. All three took a seat at the table.
    Aerigo said, “Rox, you don’t remember leaving your room last night?”
    She thought a moment, trying to be honest with herself. “I don’t even remember going into my room. How did I end up in this chair?” She tapped the tabletop with a finger. “To my knowledge I don’t sleepwalk.”
    “No, you never did that growing up,” Grandma said.
    “You came up the basement stairs and seated yourself after gathering all that food,” Aerigo said. “From what I could tell you’ve gone under some major physical changes and you unconsciously took in the energy you needed to complete the transformation.”
    “I look different?”
    “Not really,” Grandma said.
    Roxie rushed to the hall bathroom and examined her face, which looked the same as yesterday, though her expression more scrutinizing. She shut off the bathroom light and returned to the table. “I don’t look any different.”
    “That’s not the changes I meant,” Aerigo said. “You now have all your natural abilities and have the capacity to use magic.”
    “Really? What can I do?” The water rose flashed through her mind. Hopefully she had the capacity for more than just neat tricks.
    “Quite a bit. I’ll be teaching you as fast as you can learn it.”
    “Like what? Are my eyes