The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer Read Free Book Online Page A

food to last them for weeks.
    Mrs. Bailey was sitting at the kitchen table going through another stack of mail with bright red warning labels on them. She quickly pushed them to the side when the twins and their grandmother paraded into the kitchen with the groceries.
    “What’s all this?” Mrs. Bailey asked.
    “Hello, dear!” Grandma said to her. “I’m planning on cooking the twins a huge birthday dinner and wasn’t sure what you had in the house, so I went to the store and picked up a couple things.”
    Their grandmother always had a talent for sugarcoating the truth.
    “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Mrs. Bailey said, shaking her head, unprepared for the kind gesture.
    “It wasn’t any trouble at all,” Grandma said with a small but reassuring smile. “Alex, Conner, how about you go get your birthday presents from the front seat of my car, and I’ll catch up with your mom for a second? But don’t open them until tonight!”
    They happily did as she asked.
Presents
was a word that had been absent from their vocabulary for a long time.
    “See, I told you!” Alex said to Conner on their way to their grandmother’s car. “Optimism always pays off!”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah…” Conner said.
    Half a dozen wrapped presents with bright bows, each marked to one of them, were waiting in the front seat of the car.
    The twins returned inside with their gifts. Their grandmother and mother were still having a conversation that they most likely weren’t supposed to hear.
    “Things are still tough,” Mrs. Bailey said. “Even after selling the bookstore, the house foreclosed, and we still have some debt and things unpaid from the funeral. But we’re making it somehow. In a few more months we’ll be back on our feet.”
    Grandma took Mrs. Bailey’s hands into her own.
    “If you need anything, dear, and I mean anything, you know where to find me,” she said.
    “You’ve already helped so much,” Mrs. Bailey told her. “I don’t know where we’d be now if it weren’t for you. I could never ask you for anything else.”
    “You’re not asking, I’m offering,” Grandma assured.
    The twins knew if they eavesdropped any longer, they’d be caught, so they walked back into the kitchen with their presents.
    “Well, I have to go back to work,” Mrs. Bailey said, and kissed both of the twins on the tops of their heads. “Have agreat night, you guys! I’ll see you tomorrow. Save some celebration for me!” She gathered her things and mouthed a meaningful
thank you
to their grandmother on her way out.
    Grandma put her things away in the guest bedroom and returned to the kitchen, where she found the stack of bills Mrs. Bailey had put aside. She plopped the mail into her own purse with a smile. And that was that. Grandma loved helping people, especially if it was against their will.
    “Let’s get started on dinner, shall we?” Grandma said, clapping her hands.
    Alex and Conner sat at the table and visited with their grandmother while she cooked up a storm. She told them all about her recent trips, the difficulties she and her friends experienced getting into and out of places, and all the interesting people she had met along the way.
    “I’ve never met a person I didn’t learn something from!” Grandma said. “Even the most monotonous people will surprise you. Remember that.”
    She was cooking so many different things, it was impossible to tell which ingredient was going where. Everything she did was so fast, and she used almost every pan and dish they had. With every second that passed, the twins’ stomachs growled louder and louder, and their mouths salivated more and more.
    Finally, after a few hours of aroma-teasing torture, they ate. Alex and Conner had become so accustomed to frozen dinners and takeout, they had forgotten how good food could taste.
    There were plates of mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese, oven-roasted chicken with carrots and peas, and freshly baked rolls.