The Knaveheart's Curse by Adele Griffin Read Free Book Online

sound half good, either.

“Thanks!” Lexie beamed. “It belongs to my guitar teacher, Zelda. She’s letting me use it to practice. She’s performing at the Candlewick Café at the end of the week, if you want to come.”

“Uh-huh.” Blech, an acoustic guitar concert? No way.

Maddy knew if she wanted to think up her Knave-slay strategy, she’d have to leave this room of tuneless, strummy music. She snapped back the covers and jumped out of bed.

“Where are you going?” Lexie glanced up, alarmed.

“Up to my room,” said Maddy as she hopped out of bed. “Sorry, Lex. If I want to get back to my old self, I need to stop smelling the flowers and start smelling the mold.”

She also wanted to see if there was any online information about Knavehearts. On her way upstairs, she detoured into the family room and ran a search on the computer.

Nothing. In the e-world, Knavehearts had covered their tracks so carefully, it was as if they had never existed.

A letter was waiting in the Livingstones’ in-box. It was from [email protected]. Uh-oh. Maddy double-clicked and read:
    G’day, Livingstones, this message is for Maddy:
    Hi, Maddy,
    Your mom told my mom you got in a scrape after running off. Are you okay? Mum was quite worried about the whole thing, esp. b/c she had to call the police and it was such a to-do. Is this the end of our Day of Friendship?
    Yours,
    Dakota
    P.S. It was fun playing I Packed My Grandmother’s Trunk with you. You came up with some goodies. Call or w/b.
    Maddy flushed. Dakota had told Lisi they were fake friends. So why was she pretending to care if Maddy was feeling better?

No way was she going to call or write back. Instead, she hit delete. Fast.
     

 

9
     

    SECOND THOUGHTS . . . AND THIRDS . . .
    M addy!” her mother sonic-hollered. “Phone!”

Whoa! Stop the presses—who’d be phoning her? Dakota, maybe?

Maddy took advantage of the fact that her whole family was in the kitchen sharing a melon cup breakfast to slide down the banister from her attic all the way to the first floor. She hit bottom on her bottom in under ten seconds, nice!

“Hello?”

“Madison Livingstone!” boomed a voice. “Please come over for a brief visit. Your opera cape is ready. You won’t be disappointed, so I suggest you bring your payment.” Click. The caller had hung up before Maddy could get a word in.

But she knew who it was.

Maddy smiled. It had been a few days since her Lullaby fiasco, and she was ready for something wonderful to happen to her.

She ran back upstairs and fished in her hamper for some not-quite-dirty but still pleasingly smelly clothes and rounded up her walking cane, hat, sunglasses, her outgrown sneakers since she’d lost her other pair at Lullaby, and, finally, her von Krik necklace before taking to the street.

“Bye, everyone! I’m having breakfast at Susanality’s,” she yelled as she ran out the door. Thank goodness for imaginary friends. Although, Maddy decided, a real one would have been plenty okay, too. Guess not this summer.

Another hot day. In three blocks she was out of breath, but using the cane was fun. It clopped so loud that people stepped out of its way.

She used the cane to rap on the door of the tailor’s shop.

A window screeched open as Carlyle looked down from above. “Mademoiselle Livingstone, I presume?”

“Here I am! May I have my cape?” Maddy upped her politeness by using a British accent. British people always sounded so polite.

Carlyle disappeared, and the door buzzed. Maddy bounded inside and up the stairs, panting with excitement.

“Normally I don’t like to be too hospitable, because it gives the wrong impression of me,” said Carlyle, “but you look rather dehydrated. Would you like a glass of water?”

“Sure.”

She drank three glasses before she saw it.

“Ooh!” The finished cape, hanging from a mannequin dummy, was capital S Splendid.

“Lucky you’re so short and a cape pattern is so simple,”