over to the school. I heard police sirens when I was leaving. It’s hardcore there now. Someone will see us.”
She looks panicked. “Do they know it was us?”
“Yes, Miri, when they spotted cows in the gym they assumed one of their student’s little sisters had cast a magic spell.”
She throws her hands over her eyes. “Oh, no!”
“I was being sarcastic. Of course they don’t know! They think it was a senior prank.”
She takes a deep breath. “Well, what’s going to happen?”
“I just got an e-mail. School is closed tomorrow and Wednesday but reopening on Thursday. So the good news is I get two more days off. Thanks for your help!”
The phone rings and I grab it.
“He has mono!” Tammy says happily. “That’s why he didn’t e-mail! He was too tired to even make it to the computer. Isn’t that great?”
“Hold on,” I say, and lead Miri out of my room.
“Can you call her back, please?” Miri cries. “Hello? Important?”
“Give me two secs. This is a private conversation,” I say, and push my door closed. “Tam, I’m happy that he wasn’t breaking up with you, but aren’t you worried you’re going to get sick?” And then she’ll have to miss school. Some people have all the luck.
Pause. “I feel fine.”
I whisper into the phone since Miri’s a little young to hear this. “But it’s the kissing disease. You know? Passed from saliva? And you guys . . . made out.”
“I’m healthy. And anyway”—now her voice drops to a whisper—“my mom would kill me.” You’d think that having two moms would make Tammy’s household super-liberal, but Tammy doesn’t tell them a thing. “But isn’t that great news?”
“You fell asleep on my couch today. Watching Casablanca. You love that movie,” I say, more to myself than to her. Sleepiness is one of the signs of mononucleosis.
“I was tired, Rachel. Diving is exhausting. Especially with sharks.”
Miri is banging on the door. And Tammy so has mono and is going to desert me at school. “Terrific. I gotta go. Wanna come over again tomorrow and watch Titanic ?” She likes anything that won an Oscar. And maybe we can share toothbrushes and I’ll catch mono from her. Awesome.
We hang up and I let my sister back in. “What are we going to do about the cows? Should we tell Mom?” she asks helplessly.
“Rachel!” my mom, apparently psychic, screams from her room. “Your school is on TV!”
Miri and I run to my mom’s bedroom and there, on TV, are the cows.
A reporter is standing in front of them. “Today, at JFK High School, a school prank has been taken to a new level. Someone has mooooooooved”—I groan—“fifty cows into a high school gym. In related news, this explains the mysterious Saturday disappearance of the cattle at Sammy’s, a slaughterhouse in upstate New York.”
The scenery changes to Sammy’s. “Hey!” my mom says from under her purple duvet. “Isn’t that near . . .”
La, la, la. Miri starts biting her nails. I twirl my hair. An elderly man is on TV. “It was the strangest thing,” he says, looking utterly mystified. “The animals were here grazing at seven p.m. but gone by four a.m. We didn’t hear a thing. It’s almost supernatural. If we didn’t know better, we’d think it was the work of aliens. . . .”
“Girls,” my mom says, her eyes bearing into us, “something you want to tell me?”
Squirm.
“Rachel,” she begins. “This is your plan to get school canceled?”
She thinks I did this? Hello? I’m the kid who was left behind. The child to whom nature forgot to hand down the witch gene. “Mom, I swear, I did not know this was going to happen.”
She thumps the still-tucked-in spot beside her. “Why don’t you two sit down and explain.”
Miri’s face squishes up like a raisin. Here come the waterworks. “It’s my fault!” she wails, tears spilling. “I was trying to save the cows!” Sob. “I didn’t mean to put them in the school gym, I swear, and
Jody Gayle with Eloisa James