The Popularity Spell Read Online Free PDF

don’t you guys go with Lyle and I’ll check out the cats or something?”
    “Sounds good!” I say and follow Lyle happily without looking back.
    The millipedes are in the corner of the store with the other animals Terri would call creepy and crawly but that I think are totally cool—the reptiles and insects and arachnids. Lyle shows me and Dad a glass case like a fish tank but with dirt and sticks and some pieces of vegetables inside. At first I don’t even notice anything crawling around. But then a pudgy head pokes out from some grass, with two little antennae bobbing around on top of the eyeballs. It’s so cute! I can already envision a millipede as one of the new characters in my animation universe. I know once Samantha sees one in person, she’s going to change her mind about them. But girls like Madison and her friends would whine and squeal and act like babies if I held a millipede in front of them.
    “I love them! I want them all!” I look at Dad with the kind of face that sometimes gets him to buy things for me. It’s an incredibly adorable face. But he just says to Lyle, “Do I need to buy a whole aquarium for one millipede?”
    “Can I pick one up?” I ask Lyle before he can answer Dad’s question. Lyle says I can, so while they talk, I put my hand into the case and hold it there, waiting for a millipede to crawl to me. One does, and I can feel every one of its thirty-six to four hundred legs tickling me as it climbs up my thumb and across my hand.
    I look up to tell Dad how cool this is, then notice Terri a few rows away. She’s holding a multicolored patchwork cat and petting it as she talks to a girl employee.
    Millie the millipede (I’ve already named her) feels as good as the cat does, I bet. Terri may say she doesn’t like creepy-crawly things, but she probably hasn’t seen one like this close up.
    I think she should.
    Dad’s too far away to ask, but I doubt he and Lyle would mind if I took Millie on a short walk.
    As I get closer to Terri, I can hear her telling the Pets! Pets! Pets! girl that she’s a cat person but her “boyfriend” has a dog. Hearing her use that word makes me want to barf a little.
    I walk closer, gently closing my hand around Millie so she won’t fall out. “Hi, Terri,” I say.
    “Oh, hi, Cleo,” she says, like she didn’t expect to see me. “Your dad told me you like cats. Isn’t this one sweet?”
    “I guess,” I say. “But not as sweet as my millipede!” I open up my hand to show her. She sees it on my palm and screams like she’s in a horror movie! At the same time, she tosses the cat into the air and it yowls and screeches. I rush to put my hand over Millie so she doesn’t get hit by the falling cat. Terri and the girl put their hands out and the cat lands back in Terri’s arms. Terri hugs it to her chest, whispering, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I don’t know if she’s talking to the cat, the girl, or my millipede.
    “She would’ve landed on her feet anyway,” the girl says. “This one’s got good reflexes.” She takes the cat from Terri and walks away, probably to where there’s less excitement. Terri and I don’t say or do anything. We just stand there looking at each other. I can see she’s breathing heavily.
    Suddenly Dad is standing with us. “What happened?” he asks.
    “I showed Terri my millipede.”
    “Nothing happened,” Terri tells Dad. “I was just surprised. I didn’t mean to make a scene.”
    “I know
you
didn’t,” Dad says, glancing at me. He gives Terri a squeeze on the shoulder. “Let me take care of the millipede business and we’ll go home.”
    “She’s not coming to our house, is she?” I ask.
    Dad frowns at me. “No, not tonight. But change that attitude, Cleo.”
    Ugh. Two
“change that attitude”
s in one day. Now I’m going to have to be good for the rest of the night. Dad starts walking away, saying, “Come on,” so I follow him back to the corner of the store.
    Luckily he still