Jennifer Murdley's Toad (Magic Shop Books) (11 page)

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Applegate's desk, she accepted the thick manila folder the old woman held out to her, then said, "I hope you don't mind, but I have a new question for you."

"That's what I'm here for. What do you want to know?"

"Do you have any folklore about toads?"

"Toads?" asked Miss Applegate. She sounded puzzled, almost as though she had never heard the word before.

"You know," said Sharra. "Warty little animals that croak."

Miss Applegate widened her eyes. "I
know
what toads are," she said sharply. "If you'll be patient, I'll see what I can find."

"Boy, what pushed her buttons?" whispered Sharra as Miss Applegate walked away.

"She's probably not used to people being so rude," replied Jennifer.

Sharra looked surprised. "Do you think I'm rude?"

Jennifer felt as surprised as Sharra looked. "Do you think you're not? I thought you did it on purpose."

Sharra's eyes flashed, but before she could say anything, Brandon shouted, "I want to get out now!"

Jennifer lifted the lid of the shoe box. "You'll have to wait a few minutes, Bran," she whispered. "And try to be quiet. We want to keep you a secret. Okay?"

"I don't wanna be a secret. I wanna get out and play!"

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"Why don't I take him outside and let him play on the grass while you do your work," said Sharra.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. He's a cute kid. He's even a cute toad. I don't mind keeping an eye on him for a bit."

Jennifer hesitated. "Well, okay. But be careful of him."

"Look, I'm not a total jerk, Murdley."

"I wanna go outside!" yelled Brandon.

"Okay, okay," said Jennifer. "I'll see you in a few minutes."

Taking the shoe box with Brandon in it, Sharra headed for the door. Moments later Miss Apple-gate returned, carrying a stack of books and clippings about toads. Jennifer began to read them eagerly. But her enthusiasm soon began to waver.

"There's not much about magic in here," she said sadly, as she sifted through paragraph after paragraph about how toads could be used to predict rain or cure horses.

"What exactly were you looking for?" asked Miss Applegate.

Jennifer hesitated. "I'm not sure. Something a little more---I don't know--a little more
interesting."

Miss Applegate smiled sadly. "Still looking for a magical answer?"

"What do you mean?"

"For being beautiful. I've seen you stare at the pictures in books, dear. And I've seen the way you avoid the mirror in the hallway. I think I know how you feel. It would be nice to be pretty like Sharra. But it's not the only thing in life."

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Jennifer stared at the old woman. The ugly old woman. She knew what she was saying. They were alike: a pair of uglies.

The thought of being put in the same category as Miss Applegate--"Poor Miss Applegate," as her mother often called her--was more than she could bear. "Don't talk like that!" she said. To her horror, she felt tears streaming down her face. Grabbing the folder, she ran from the museum.

Things were no better outside. As she stumbled down the steps, not certain where she was intending to go, Sharra started after her.

"Jennifer!" she cried, "Jennifer! I'm sorry!"

Jennifer stopped when she realized that Sharra was crying, too. "What's wrong with
you?"
she asked, wiping her sleeve across her eyes.

"I don't know how it happened," babbled Sharra. "I kept my eye on him all the time he was out of the box. Honest!"

"What are you saying?" cried Jennifer in horror.

"It's Brandon," whispered Sharra. "He's gone."

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ELEVEN

Desperately Seeking Brandon

Jennifer felt a fear unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Her stomach seemed to have plunged to a place she didn't know it could reach. She could scarcely take the next breath.

Forcing herself to remain calm she asked, "What do you mean--gone?"

"I don't know how it happened," repeated Sharra. "I kept an eye on him all the time he was out of the box, I swear I did. So it's not like someone stepped on him--"

"Don't say that!" snapped Jennifer, who had already had several terrible thoughts about what might have happened to the tiny toad she had made of her baby brother.

Sharra gulped and wiped at her eyes. "He got tired, and I put him back in the box. And I put the lid on.
I
know I did.
Then I sat on the steps for a while. A woman came by and talked to me for a minute. After she was gone, I sat here for a few more minutes. Then I got bored, so I decided to

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talk to Brandon. But when I opened the box, he was gone."

Panic held Jennifer in a grip so real it was as if someone had grabbed her heart with a hand of ice.

"He's hiding," she said, pushing away the fear. "That's got to be it. He loves to hide from me."

"Do you really think so?" sniffled Sharra.

"It has to be," said Jennifer fiercely. "Brandon!" she cried. "Brandon, where are you?"

No answer.

Flinging herself over the side of the steps, she began to crawl along the edge of the building.

"Brandon, this isn't funny," she said, pushing aside stones and moving clumps of grass. "Come on, Bran. Stop hiding. We have to go home now, sweetie. Come on out."

To Jennifer's astonishment, Sharra joined her. "Come on, Brandon," she called. "Tell us where you are. What does he like?" she said, turning to Jennifer.

"Sugar-Boogers! Tell him we'll give him Sugar-Boogers."

"What?"

"It's what we call his favorite cereal."

Sharra looked at her. "You sure have a weird family, Murdley."

"We can discuss my family later. Right now, we have to find Brandon."

Sharra nodded. "Sugar-Boogers," she started to croon. "Come on, Brandon. Tell us where you are and we'll give you some Sugar-Boogers."

Still no answer.

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Jennifer's fear, which had briefly ebbed with the thought that Brandon was merely playing a game, began to return stronger than ever.
Had something eaten him?

"Brandon!"
she screamed.
"Where are you?"

"Jennifer, what's the matter?"

It was Miss Applegate. She was standing at the door of the museum, her homely face twisted with concern.

"It's my little brother," said Jennifer. "He was out here with Sharra. She was supposed to be watching him, and now he's gone!"

"Oh, my," said Miss Applegate. "Are you sure he didn't decide to wander on home? Children do that sometimes, you know."

He's not a kid, he's a toad!
Jennifer wanted to say. But she knew if she said that, Miss Applegate would think she was playing some kind of stupid game. And maybe the old woman was right. It was possible Brandon had gotten bored and decided to head for home. If so, they had to find him fast, before he was discovered by a predator, or caught by some kid, or run over, or--or--the possibilities were endless, and awful.

"I'm sure no one took him," continued Miss Applegate. "Smokey Hollow just isn't that kind of town."

At those words Jennifer's heart sank. No one
took
him? How about the woman Sharra had been talking to? Could she have taken Brandon?

But why?

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Unless--unless she was the woman they had met at the beauty parlor yesterday.

"Sharra!" she said. "That woman you were talking to. What did she look like?"

"Oh, she was pretty," said Sharra. "Really beautiful, actually. She had wonderful long black hair and--"

"That's it!" cried Jennifer. "Don't you remember her from yesterday?"

"What do you mean?"

"The woman in the beauty parlor!"

"I never saw her," said Sharra slowly. "I was in your ..." She glanced at Miss Applegate. "I didn't have a chance to see her. Remember?"

Jennifer groaned. Of course--Sharra had been tucked in the pouch of her sweatshirt all during that conversation.

"Jennifer?" said Miss Applegate uncertainly.

"It's all right," said Jennifer, trying to sound reassuring. "I think I know what happened to him. Come on, Sharra--let's go."

Sharra looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"Come
on,
Sharra," she repeated fiercely. "Let's go."

Sharra nodded, and the two girls hopped on their bikes and shot away from the Folk Museum.

"Where are we going?" gasped Sharra when they were a couple of blocks from the museum. "What's going on, anyway? Do you know where Brandon is?"

"First stop is my house," said Jennifer. "I think

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I know who has Brandon. But I'm not sure how to get there. If that so-called beauty parlor is anything like Mr. Elives' magic shop, it could be anywhere. I'm hoping Bufo will be able to help us."

Secretly, she was hoping they might be able to use the little red phone to get hold of Mr. Elives and ask
him
for help. But that idea seemed like such a long shot she was afraid of jinxing the possibility by saying it out loud.

"Why does that woman want Brandon, anyway?" asked Sharra.

"I don't know," said Jennifer, who had been wondering the same thing herself. If it was only to get a toad that had some magical properties, then perhaps Brandon would fit the bill. If that were so, the woman would have no reason to make the beauty parlor visible again. Jennifer shivered. If that was the case, they would never find the beauty parlor.

Their only hope was that what the woman really wanted was Bufo, probably for the jewel in his forehead, and that she was going to ask for a trade. Yet it was a strange and terrible hope, for though Jennifer knew she would trade Bufo for her brother in a moment, she also felt there was something deeply wrong about just handing the toad over to someone else.

And if she did hand him over to the Mistress of the Beauty Parlor of Doom, heaven alone knew what Mr. Elives would do once he found out about it.

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To Jennifer's surprise, Skippy and Ellen were waiting in front of the house when they arrived. Bufo was with them, sitting on Ellen's shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" Sharra said to Ellen. "I thought you had to go someplace."

"Skippy called my house, looking for you two. When he told me what was going on ..."

"What
is
going on?" asked Jennifer in confusion.

"You
lost Brandon, that's what's going on," said Skippy, his voice heavy with accusation.

"How do you know about that?" cried Jennifer, struck by a new surge of panic. She had hoped to get Brandon back before anyone else knew he was gone. "Anyway," she added, "it wasn't me who lost him, it was Sharra."

"I didn't lose him!" cried Sharra. "He ran away!"

"Shut up, all of you," roared Bufo, in a voice that must have been modeled on a sergeant major's. "We have work to do."

They shut.

"All right," Bufo said, when everyone had settled down, "first we need to fill each other in. I'll start. About twenty minutes ago Brandon's phone rang. I figured it was Elives, but I was wrong; it was that woman you met yesterday. She has your little brother, but she's willing to make a trade."

"For what?" asked Jennifer nervously. Bufo hesitated. "For me," he said at last.

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Jennifer nodded grimly. "I suspected that. What are we going to do?"

"Make the trade," said Bufo, his voice equally grim.

"But what will she do with
you?"
asked Ellen.

Bufo shrugged. "I don't know. A number of possibilities come to mind, none of them pleasant. That's a secondary problem. Right now we have to get Brandon back."

"You're not kidding we have to get him back," said Skippy. "Ellen told me about the time thing. If he doesn't kiss someone before tonight, he's a toad forever."

"Maybe we should call the police," said Ellen nervously.

"I wish we could," said Bufo. "But this woman, this witch, whoever she is, said that if we ever want to see Brandon again, we come alone. Kids only. Kids and one toad. Otherwise she picks up her beauty parlor and goes home."

"How are we supposed to find the place?" asked Sharra.

"She said we were to walk along Beech Street. When we get close enough, she'll let us in."

"Let us in?" asked Ellen.

Bufo shrugged. "I'm just telling you what she said."

They rode their bikes to Beech Street, then got off and walked.

"It's somewhere around here that things keep