Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #2)(37)

But Mina wasn’t able to carry the trays and both crutches and she began to lose the tray and all of the food on it. Nan caught the trays and dumped them into the nearest trash can. “If you really wanted to get out of here, you could have just told me,” she answered somewhat annoyed.

Mina was proud of her recovery. “I just remembered. I overheard a senior saying that they were dissecting various brains on these tables today.” It was an obvious lie, but one that seemed to get Nan moving in the direction of the door.

“Oh, that is disgusting! I should have never even brought our lunch in here. I’m surprised we could eat with all of those Frankenstein animals in the cabinet anyway.” Nan began to turn her head and point to the aforementioned cabinet, when Mina heard a distinct clicking sound. Without looking, she knew it was the chicken tapping his beak on the jar, desperately trying to break free.

She pushed Nan bodily through the door as the clicking sound grew louder.

“Did you hear something?” Nan turned and tried to crane her neck back into the classroom.

“Nope,” Mina answered quickly, too quickly.

“I thought I heard tapping?” Nan looked at Mina.

“Uh, you did.” Mina began to tap her fingers impatiently against the metal support of her crutch.

Nan’s head tilted to the side. “No, I could have sworn it sounded like glass.” Nan couldn’t press the argument further because the first warning bell rang.

Mina closed the lab door firmly behind her and started a frenzied hopping toward her next class, hoping Nan would follow her lead. She didn’t. Mina stopped when she realized Nan wasn’t behind her. She turned and looked over her shoulder at her blonde best friend who hadn’t moved from her spot outside the Biology lab door.

Nan’s face was furrowed in confusion as if she was listening intently for something, but it was obvious she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of rushing feet and slamming lockers. She made a move toward the door as if to open it.

Mina was helpless and stared at her friend in horror. What could she do? Thinking fast, she pretended to fall again, but this time with fanfare. She was so desperate to gain attention she even threw her crutch into the path of an oncoming student and screamed loudly as she flopped hard on her butt on the cold hard floor, right in the middle of the hallway.

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as Frank, the unlucky student tripped by her wayward crutch, fell on top of her.

“Ouch!” Mina cried out.

“Sorry! Oof, sorry again,” Frank mumbled as he tried to extract himself from the mess of his tangled backpack, Mina’s crutch, and the hands that came out of nowhere to help them up. But the spectacle did its job as Nan released the biology door handle and raced to rescue her.

After the incident and the gawkers cleared the hallway, Nan smiled brightly and pulled out her camera phone.

“Six!” she laughed while pointing it at both of them and clicked the phone.

Chapter 15
A knock sounded at the door. Mina and Charlie were spread out on the floor playing a card game and both looked at each other expectantly.

“You get it,” Mina stated.

Charlie smirked at his sister, crossed his arms, and shook his head no.

“Charlie, I’m on crutches. It’s not like I’m going cheat and look at your cards when you turn your back,” Mina lied.

His hands flew in the air so fast Mina had problems understanding him. “Yeah, but that was only the one time.” He continued signing. “Okay, and I cheated at Uno.” When he didn’t stop, Mina had to interrupt. “All right, I cheat at all card games. But if you don’t catch me, is it really cheating?” She laughed.

The knocking at the door continued; Charlie glared at Mina, picked up every single one of his cards, and carried them with him to the door. He made a wide berth around Mina, keeping the cards to his chest as he passed by. Mina swung playfully at his cards trying to knock them out of his hands.

Whoever was at the door was becoming impatient, and Mina heard a key being inserted into the lock. Mina’s hand clutched the crutch on the floor next to her to use as a weapon. The door swung open and a very small Chinese woman entered with her hands full. It was Mrs. Wong, their landlord.

“Meehna, you keep me waiting. You won’t get your get betteh dumplins if you don’t geht over here.” Mrs. Wong shuffled into their small kitchen carrying a large pot and a small cloth grocery bag. Charlie forgot about the card game and jumped into the kitchen chair waiting with anticipation of the food Mrs. Wong began to pull out and place on the table.

Mrs. Wong and her husband owned the entire building and the Chinese restaurant underneath the Grimes’ home. At first Mina hated it, because if someone forgot to close their windows at night their clothes would usually smell like Chinese food. But now Mina couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, for the Wong’s were almost like surrogate grandparents for Mina and her brother and spoiled them with presents come every holiday and all-they-can-eat dumplings the rest of the year, which for a cash strapped family was a very welcome blessing.

“Ahh, Meehna, why you not reesting? You should be lying down, getting stronger so you can go get a cute boy, eh?” Mrs. Wong never missed a beat in her chatter about Mina’s nonexistent love life as she made her way comfortably around their kitchen pulling out dishes and silverware while setting the table. Mina hobbled over to the kitchen table to join her brother and continued to receive plenty of unwanted dating advice. She opened up the container of dumplings and put one whole in her mouth and listened halfheartedly to Mrs. Wong’s rants.