UnEnchanted (11 page)

He looked at her accusingly, but Mina’s
silence was the only answer that Brody got.

“
Please take me home now,”
she said a few minutes later.

“
Absolutely not! We need
to go to the police.”

“
No, I want you to take me
home. I don’t want to go to the police, and if you take me I will
deny everything.” Mina turned on Brody angrily. “I never asked you
to get involved, I never asked you to sit with me and chauffeur me
around. Hanging out with me for two days does not give you
permission to decide what I should and should not do. Besides, this
would never have happened if you hadn’t run over my bike! I never
asked for your help, and I don’t want it. Take me HOME.” The last
words flew from her mouth, and she instantly regretted her tone.
But it was too late to take them back; the damage was
done.

Neither of them spoke a word until they
reached the international district, delineated by faded Mexican
stands and restaurants, and the occasional Chinese joint. She
demanded he stop one block from her home. “Stop, here!” She
pointed, and Brody pulled over.

“
Mina, I’m sorry!” Brody
began but was interrupted by Mina’s sudden exit from the
car.

Mina quickly slipped between the colorful
stalls and people, trying to lose him. She waited until his car
pulled away into the night and she could no longer see his
taillights. When Mina was sure Brody wasn’t on her street, she ran
all the way home, trying hard not to look over her shoulder. She
grabbed her key to the blue street-level door, ran straight up the
stairs, and yelled goodnight to her mom, claiming she was tired.
Once safe, Mina crawled into bed, cradling her hands around her
knees, and cried herself to sleep, wishing she hadn’t stumbled on
the Pandora’s box that was her family’s curse, and wondering how
she’d ever survive.

Chapter 9

Mina had the full intention of going to
school the day after the attack by covering her bruises with
makeup. She was about to tell her mother about the attack at the
library, but then decided against it when Sara took one wide-eyed
look at the bruise and began to shake. Mina quickly played it off
as another clumsy gym class incident, which was not uncommon for
Mina, and it seemed to ease her mother’s fears.

If Sara found out that her daughter had been
attacked by a large man in the alley, she would make them run
again, Mina knew. She went to the small closet that housed the
family’s laundry and reached into the dryer to pull out a clean
hoodie. “What the…?” Mina said aloud. The hoodie she’d pulled out
was red, and she hated the color red.

She reached up to pull out another zippered
jacket. This one was red, too. In fact, all of Mina’s hoodies were
now permanently red. Her mother had warned her that the Story would
try to mold Mina’s lifestyle into a fairy tale, but she didn’t
believe it until now. When she went to show her mother, she could
tell it shook her, perhaps more than anything that had happened so
far. Sara didn't blink an eye when Mina asked to stay home from
school. Something about the red jackets terrified her mother into
compliance.

Sara went on a one-woman war against the
color red. She threw every piece of red clothing in the house in
the garbage. She scoured the house high and low for every red
ribbon, washcloth, marker, and pen, and even burned the red
Christmas stockings. Gone. All of it, gone.

Sara bought Mina new clothes and a few new
hoodies at the local Target, despite their limited budget. She
brought home blue, lavender, and white zippered jackets to replace
Mina’s other ones.

They lasted a day. The next morning, Mina
opened up her closet to find another sea of red.

She pulled down a hoodie that she knew
yesterday had been a beautiful royal blue; it even said so on the
tag. Today it was a deep red. Mina grabbed the next jacket, and the
next. All red. Thankfully, none of the denim had been changed, so
she grabbed a pair of jeans and matched them with a red shirt and
red jacket. Otherwise, she’d have looked like a bright red
tomato.

These events only encouraged Mina more. By
Saturday, she was even more determined to find the Grimoire. She
had to, as she knew her very life, and that of her brother,
depended on it.

Hearing voices, Mina entered the kitchen and
smiled when she saw Nan Taylor sitting at the breakfast table with
Charlie. Nan wore a stocking cap over her blonde braids and had
layered two long- and short-sleeve shirts. She had already helped
herself to a bowl out of the cupboard and filled it with three
different cereals. Charlie had a huge grin on his face exactly
parallel to Nan’s deep frown as she dug in.

After she managed a few bites without
puking, she stood up and pointed her finger at him. “Ha! I’m
telling you, I have a stomach of steel. I can eat any kind of
concoction you come up with.” Nan did a little victory dance around
the table, and Charlie shook his head and pointed to his own bowl
of cereal.

Frowning, Nan leaned over to look at his
bowl. “What? I used the same cereals that you did! I’ve got Cocoa
Puffs, Lucky Charms, Raisin Bran, and Mini Wheats. What else could
you have fit in there?” There was obviously some contest going on
between the two, and Charlie was finding a discrepancy in the
winner.

Nan was one of the few people who had no
problem carrying on a one-sided conversation with Charlie.
Considering that she usually talked enough for three people,
anticipating what Charlie was going to say was probably easy for
her. Or so Mina guessed.

Nan picked up Charlie’s spoon and began to
dig around in his bowl to see what else he’d put in there. “I don’t
see it. I made mine the same, and I ate half of the bowl, so I win,
pipsqueak.” Dropping the spoon into the bowl with a clank, Nan
leaned back and put her foot on the table. “Pay up.”

Charlie grinned again and shook his head no.
Standing up, he went over to the small refrigerator and yanked the
door open. A few seconds later he emerged holding a brown bottle of
caramel syrup. Walking over, he put it down next to Nan’s
half-eaten cereal bowl with a satisfied grin. Nan sat up in
disbelief.

“
NO WAY!” She leaned back
over and looked closely at the tan-colored milk in Charlie’s bowl.
Her victorious grin faded as she realized what she had to do. “That
is some serious sugar going on there. How in the world do you sleep
at night?” Nan asked respectfully. She never criticized Charlie, or
ridiculed him for his weird eating habits, but praised him for his
uniqueness. “So I have to add this to my cereal, huh?”

Charlie’s smile got wider.

Nan gulped visibly, and her hand wavered for
an instant in front of the bottle, but she took one look at the
smiling boy and regained her resolve. Popping open the top, she
poured a few good tablespoons into the bowl and mixed it up with
her spoon, watching Charlie the whole time. Right before her first
bite, she paused and pursed her lips in thought. Suddenly she
jumped up and went to the fridge, rummaging around inside, and came
back with a white and blue container. Retrieving a clean spoon, Nan
scooped a huge tablespoon of the mixture into her cereal. Charlie’s
face went green with disgust. Charlie hated cottage cheese, and Nan
knew it.

Fearlessly, Nan stared down the
eight-year-old boy, grabbed her spoon, and dipped it into her
intensely gross breakfast. She put a huge spoonful into her mouth
and chewed slowly, even thoughtfully, as if she were tasting all
the flavors. Charlie watched Nan chew in awe before he visibly
paled and started to gag. The boy dropped his spoon and raced for
the bathroom.

As soon as the bathroom door slammed, Nan
turned to the sink and spit out the mouthful of food. She turned on
the water and leaned forward to rinse out her mouth. When that
didn’t work, she reached back into the fridge and grabbed a
container of orange juice and began to chug right from the
container.

“
Nan, that’s disgusting.”
Mina laughed.

“
Tell me about it. I’m the
one who actually had to taste the thing. I don’t think I’ll be able
to eat cottage cheese again.” She gargled orange juice.

“
What possessed you to put
cottage cheese in the cereal?”

“
When I saw what Charlie
was eating, I challenged him to a contest. Winner gets to pick out
a movie and make the loser watch it. Believe me, I had no idea he
added caramel to his cereal. Blech!” Nan shuddered
dramatically.

Mina had forgotten that Nan hated caramel
almost as much as Charlie hated cottage cheese. “So you thought you
would cover the taste of caramel with something else you
liked?”

Nan bobbed her head. “Yeah, I actually love
cottage cheese and thought it was a great idea, and would surely
make your brother freak out and I would win. The only problem was
that when I added the cheese to the cereal and put it in my mouth,
it took every ounce of strength not to immediately eject it out. My
mind thought the milk had gone bad. But I did it–I won.” Nan began
to do a victory dance around the kitchen.

Sara walked in and looked at the bowl in
front of Nan, turning her nose up. “Okay, Charlie has taken it too
far, he’s wasting cereal. I paid good money for those boxes.”

Nan looked sheepish and grabbed the bowl
away from Sara. “No, Mrs. Grime, that’s actually my cereal. I’m
having breakfast with Charlie.”

Sara raised one eyebrow at Nan.

Feeling pressured to prove her point, Nan
took the spoon and shoveled another gross spoonful into her mouth,
screwing her face into a big fake grin.

Satisfied, Sara busied herself in the
kitchen while the girls hid their laughter. “Where is Charlie,
anyway?”

“
Bathroom,” Mina answered
quickly. When Sara went back to her bedroom to grab her keys and
wallet, Nan spat the cereal out into the garbage and began the sink
and orange juice routine all over again.

Mina took the bowl of cereal away and dumped
it down the garbage disposal, removing any hint of Nan’s stupidity.
“So now that you’ve won, what are you going to make Charlie
watch?”

“
I don’t know, I was
thinking of something really horrible like the whole first season
of Power Puff Girls, something completely girly and embarrassing.”
Nan’s face lit up with the prospect of torturing Charlie. “Or maybe
I could find a documentary on the making of cottage
cheese.”

“
You do realize that you
would have to sit through it as well.”

“
Hmmm, then that won’t do.
What do you suggest?”

“
Why don’t you pick
something you’ll both like?”

“
What?” she squealed.
“That takes away the whole fun of the competition! NO! He must
suffer.” Nan pointed her finger in the air dramatically.

Mina thought Nan would have made a great
sibling if her parents hadn’t divorced when she was young. Neither
one remarried, making Nan the quintessential only child: loved,
spoiled, and a little lonely, which was why she enjoyed hanging out
with Charlie. Nan always said if she had a younger sibling she
would want a brother, because then she wouldn’t have to share her
clothes.

“
Don’t you mean YOU must
suffer?” Mina conjectured.

“
Meh, whatever.” After Nan
had finished with her tirade, she directed her radar Mina’s way.
“So dish.”

“
About what?” Mina asked
casually.

“
About WHAT? I can’t
believe you. I didn’t drive all this way for nothing on a Saturday
morning. I have cartoons to watch. Dish about what happened two
days ago that made you miss school and send Brody into a
coma.”

“
He’s in a coma?” Mina
panicked.

“
No, not literally. Yeesh.
He’s been walking around the school like some sort of zombie, not
talking, just completely withdrawn. Something happen between you
two?”

“
You promise it’s not
going to show up on any web page, interview, tweet, or text?” Mina
knew when dishing important info to Nan that she had to cover all
her bases.

Nan rolled her eyes and held up two fingers.
“Boy Scouts’ honor.”

“
You’re a
girl.”

“
Fine then, Girl Scouts’
honor.” Nan held up three fingers.

“
Don’t think it counts if
you’ve never actually been a Girl Scout,” Mina countered, making
sure there were no loopholes in her friend’s
credibility.

Mina looked over Nan’s shoulder toward her
brother and mother’s room and decided that they needed to find a
more private spot. Tapping Nan’s shoulder, she motioned down the
hall and into her room. When the door was securely shut, Nan jumped
across Mina’s hastily made bed. Mina perched on the end more
daintily.

“
Nan, I’m
cursed.”

“
Yeah, I know. We all
are.” Nan kicked her legs back and forth and grabbed a magazine
from Mina’s nightstand. “It’s called being a teenager. You, more
so, because you live in the Stone Age.”

“
No, my last name isn’t
even Grime, it’s Grimm. What I am telling you is, I am personally
cursed, or fated, to follow the same path as the Grimms before me.”
Mina already felt better now that she’d gotten it in the open. She
had been thinking for the last few days on how to break the news to
her best friend.

Nan just stared at Mina, blinking her eyes
in thought. “Yeah, right. I’m supposed to go to Yale and become a
lawyer like my father and his father before him, but do you see me
treading down that path? No way, Jose. I’m hitchhiking to Julliard
instead.” Nan flipped a couple more pages and then oohed over a
cute skirt.