Big Love by Saxon Bennett, Layce Gardner Read Free Book Online

situation as Miracle climbed up the rung of the stool armed with a snow shovel. She stood on top of the stool which stood on top of the kitchen chair.
    “Here we go,” Miracle said, positioning the snow shovel so it could scrape the sticky dough. She got the dough off with one quick scoop—a good thing in theory. The bad thing was that Miracle scooped so hard that it thrust her off the stool, which toppled off the chair.
    Miracle hit the floor the same time as the stool. And then it seemed as if everything moved in slow-mo. The shovel arced high in the air, then spun, and began its downward descent. The tip of the shovel was aimed right for Miracle’s exposed neck.
    Zing used her superior angel reflexes to quickly reach out and grab the shovel by its handle. She stopped the shovel when it was a mere two millimeters from Miracle’s throat.
    Miracle gulped.
    Zing pulled the shovel away and gently set it on the table.
    “Wow,” Miracle muttered, slowly climbing to her feet. “I almost pulled an Anne Boleyn.” She looked at Zing. “You saved my life.”
    Zing’s face was ashen. She began to tremble and shake.
    “Are you okay, honey?” Miracle asked.
    Zing turned and ran from the room.
     
    ***
     
    Zing threw herself down on the bed, wailing, “What have I done?” She snatched up the The Guardian Angel’s Handbook from the nightstand and frantically paged through it, looking for a section that explained what happened when a guardian angel overstepped the boundaries of another guardian angel. Had Miracle’s time come—was she intended to die, decapitated by a snow shovel while removing pizza dough from the ceiling, dough that Zing had thrown up there? Was the entire universe going to wobble and fall because Zing had altered it by saving Miracle’s life? Was that possible?
    Zing couldn’t find anything in the book that even remotely addressed what had happened. She was on her own. She wailed into her pillow, cursed herself, and beat the pillow with her fists. She wondered if this was what keening felt like. She’d seen people do it but never experienced it herself. There were so many things she hadn’t experienced until now: donuts, flowers, sunsets, baths, shopping, and she had so much more left to experience. And now she’d never get to do those things and it was all her fault. But she couldn’t have let Miracle cut her own head off!
    Someone tapped Zing on the shoulder. Zing looked up from her pillow. Annabelle sat on the edge of the bed. Zing fell into her arms. “I’ve done it now. Haven’t I? Bertha’s going to kill me and the universe will be thrown into complete chaos because of me.”
    “Technically, Bertha can’t kill a guardian angel, but you will most likely be grounded for the next thousand years,” Annabelle said.
    “Is that possible?” Zing asked.
    “I don’t know. But this isn’t as bad as you think,” Annabelle said.
    “Really?” Zing wiped her snot and tears on her sleeve.
    “You’re supposed to use a Kleenex. You don’t want to ruin your pretty new shirt.”
    “You like it?” Zing brightened looking at her shirt. She’d gotten it at the thrift store. Zing figured she should go thrifty because she was spending Miracle’s money, not her own. The store had racks of silky Hawaiian shirts and they were five shirts for three dollars. Zing couldn’t believe how cheap they were. She bought five, of course.
    “I like it very much,” Annabelle said. She ran her fingers over the hem. “It’s so soft.”
    “I know, right?”
    “Let me get you a Kleenex.” Annabelle went to the adjoining bathroom. “Have you taken a bath yet?” she called out.
    “Yes, they have these bath salt things that make the water smell nice, like flowers.”
    Annabelle returned with a box of tissue. She handed them to Zing, who wiped her eyes and blew her nose. It suddenly occurred to Zing that she was blowing stuff out of her head and through her nose and she didn’t know what was coming out.