The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell Read Online Free PDF Page B

be in that classroom,” Mrs. Bailey said with a guilt-inducing “mom look.” “All the kids at the hospital would like nothing more than to trade places with you and go to school every day.”
    “They’d change their minds if they met Mrs. Peters,” Conner said under his breath.
    The phone rang just as Mrs. Bailey was about to continue scolding her son.
    “Hello?” Mrs. Bailey said, answering the phone. The worry lines on her forehead became very prominent. “Tomorrow? No, there must be a mistake. I told them I couldn’t work at all tomorrow; it’s the twins’ twelfth birthday and I was planning on spending the evening with them.”
    Alex and Conner looked at each other with the same surprised expression. They had almost forgotten they were turning twelve the next day. Almost…
    “Are you positive there’s no one else who can cover it?” Mrs. Bailey asked, her voice more desperate than she wanted it to sound. “No, I understand…. Yes, of course… I’m aware of the staff cuts…. See you tomorrow.”
    Mrs. Bailey hung up the phone, closed her eyes, and let out a deep, disappointed sigh.
    “I’ve got some bad news, guys,” she told them. “It looks like I have to work tomorrow night, so I won’t be here for your birthday. But I’ll make it up to you! We’ll celebrate when I get home from work the next night, all right?”
    “That’s fine, Mom,” Alex said cheerfully, trying to make her feel better. “We understand.”
    “It’s okay,” Conner added. “We weren’t really expecting anything special anyway.”
    The situation made Mrs. Bailey feel like the worst mother in the world, and their understanding made her feel even worse. She would have much rather watched them throw a fit or get angry or show any emotion appropriate for their age. They were too young to be
used
to disappointment.
    “Oh…” Mrs. Bailey said, fighting back the sadness inside her. “Great. Then we’ll have dinner… and get a cake… and have a nice night…. Now, I’m just going to go upstairs for a minute before I head back to work.”
    She left the kitchen and hurried up the stairs and into her bedroom.
    The twins waited a beat before climbing up the stairs to check on her.
    They peered into their mother’s bedroom. She was sitting on her bed crying, with rolled-up balls of tissue in both her hands, talking to a framed photo of her late husband.
    “Oh, John,” Mrs. Bailey said. “I try to stay strong and keep our family going, but it’s really hard to do without you. They’re such good kids. They don’t deserve this.”
    She quickly dried her tears once she felt the twins watching her. Alex and Conner slowly walked into her room and sat on either side of her.
    “I’m so sorry, for everything,” Mrs. Bailey said to them. “It just isn’t fair that you’ve had to go through all of this at such a young age.”
    “It’s going to be okay, Mom,” Alex said. “We don’t need anything special for our birthday.”
    “Birthdays are overrated anyway,” Conner added. “We know things are tight right now.”
    Mrs. Bailey put her arms around them. “When did you two become so grown-up?” she asked them with watery eyes. “I am the luckiest mom in the world!”
    All their eyes fell on the photo of Mr. Bailey.
    “You know what your dad would say if he were here?” Mrs. Bailey asked the twins. “He’d say, ‘Right now, we’re living in an ugly chapter of our lives, but books always get better!’ ”
    The twins smiled at her, hoping this was true.



A BIRTHDAY SURPRISE
    P encils down,” Mrs. Peters ordered from the front of the classroom. Her students were taking a math test, and she had been watching them like a prison guard the entire time. “Pass your tests to the front.”
    Conner looked down at the test as if it were written in ancient hieroglyphics. Most of his answers were blank, and he had just scribbled around the others to make it look like he had tried. He said a little prayer to