T*Witches 3: Seeing Is Deceiving Read Online Free PDF Page B

phone before
I
do a little magic trick — promise, it’ll be a sizzler!” She eyeballed the pink receiver threateningly.
    “Don’t bother. Here.” Alex returned the phone to Cam. “You’ve been warned.”
    Nothing Alex said could have prepared Cam for Beth’s reaction.
    To Cam’s urgent “Listen, I’ve gotta tell you something important,” Beth quickly responded, “Cami? I’m really glad you called. I’ve got something … Did you read the note I passed you?”
    “Note? What note?” Cam blurted. Then she remembered. Beth passed her a note in social studies, asking her to read it later. She’d forgotten all about it.
    Beth let out a long sigh. “Okay, you didn’t. But I’ve got to talk to you —”
    Cam cut in. “Wait, this is totally urgent.”
    Beth pressed on, “No, you wait. So is this. Cam … are you alone? I mean, is Alex in the room? Can she hear us?”
    “Yeah, but it’s cool. Als knows why I’m calling.”
    Beth lowered her voice. “Listen, Cami. Could you call me back on the cell phone? When you’re alone? There’s something I…”
    Exasperated, Cam blurted, “You can’t do that volunteer thing with Webb.”
    Beth was taken aback. “What? What are you talking about? Why not?”
    “You just have to believe me. Tell Webb you’ve changed your mind.”
    “Is this one of your mojo things?” Beth asked suspiciously.
    “Yes. I mean, no. It’s … it’s just… you have to …” Cam stammered.
    “You know what, Cam? Put the mojo on slow-mo for a moment and give me a reason. A real reason that makes sense to someone who isn’t a twin and doesn’t have hunches. A normal reason for a normal person. Like me.”
    Alex, who’d heard everything, snickered.
What are you going tell her? Or did you just think she’d do what you asked, no reason required?”
    Cam glared her at twin. Into the phone she said the first thing that popped into her head. “It’s gonna take up too much time. You’ll miss too many soccer practices.”
    “That’s what you think is so important? I might miss soccer?”
    “You could be booted off the team,” Cam insisted stubbornly.
    “Okay — now you listen,” Beth said. “A) No I won’t. And B) So what? What if I decide something else is more important than soccer?”
    “I need you there.” Cam knew she was being mulish. And pathetic.
    Beth actually snickered. “Oh! So this is about you? Take a memo, Camryn. Everything isn’t about you. Not always.”
    Cam stared at the phone, which had gone dead.
    Confused and hurt, she sniped at Alex. “If I even hear the
first
words of you thinking ‘I told you so,’ you are toast. Burnt!”
    Alex left the room.
    Still clutching the phone, Cam sat on the bed, trying to think. She closed her eyes. A picture formed: a wise and weathered old man with nappy white hair and a sad smile. “I’ll be here when you need me,” he’d told her.
    And then another, a striking blond woman with metallic-gray eyes, identical to hers and Alex’s, snapping, “Call me Goddess.”
    Karsh and Ileana. The tracker and the vain butvaliant witch sworn to guide and protect the twins. To be there in times of danger.
    Neither twin had seen or heard from their protectors in several weeks. What did that mean? They only came when Thantos was nearby — not when danger took the form of a spidery shoplifter? Or maybe there was no real danger.
    If that were true, why did every bone in her body tell her otherwise?

CHAPTER SIX
    FITTING IN
    Dinner had become this big-deal thing. Check that, Alex thought. Emily’s big-deal thing.
    “Dinnertime is family time,” Cam and Dylan’s petite — and to Alex, unnaturally chirpy — mom insisted. Everyone had to eat together, at the same time every night. No TV allowed, no reading at the table, and totally no answering the phone. Regimented much?
    Worse, this was all new. Things had been more casual before Alex arrived, just the foursome doing the chat ’n’ chew thing around the kitchen table.