UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #1)(13)

“Are you excited?” Nan bit her lip and leaned in eagerly, her hands itching for her iPhone.

“Not really, because I don’t really plan on going there. I was hoping you would go for me,” Mina pleaded and slid the blue folder with the sticker of the Happy Maids logo across the table to Nan.

Nan looked at the folder in shock and slid it back. “Uh, no! This is your dreamy stalker moment, not mine. You do it.”

“I can’t Nan. I just can’t.” Mina looked at Nan and pleaded silently. “I’m not ready to talk to him.”

Nan peeled the paper from around her cupcake and gave it a bite. “If you can’t talk to him now, after you saved his life, you’re never going to talk to him. Besides I have a good feeling about this. Trust me.”

Mina wished she could say that she did trust Nan. But every time Nan said those two words, she usually ended up in trouble.

“So how’s Charlie?” Nan quickly changed the subject.

“He’s doing well; he really likes the new school.” Mina knew what her friend was trying to change the subject and she let Nan get away with it.

“Do they think they can get him to talk?” Nan asked swiping her finger through the frosting on her cupcake. Mina’s brother Charlie was born shortly after her father died, and even though the doctors could find nothing physically wrong with him, he never spoke.

“They hope so. They seem to think it’s because he was in the womb when Dad died, that he absorbed some of Mom’s post-traumatic depression or something.”

“What do you think?” Nan asked, licking the rest of the frosting from her fingers.

“I think Charlie never spoke because he never needed to.”

“You still think he will just one day awake from whatever silent spell he’s under and begin talking, like some sort of fairy tale.”

“Nan, you know I don’t believe in fairy tales.” As soon as the words left Mina’s mouth, a crash of thunder shook the cafeteria and the lights flickered on and off. Girls screamed in fright and the boy’s laughed out loud, pointing fingers and trying to re-scare some of the girls.

“Whoa…freaky!” Nan bobbed her head and looked around in wonder. “That was cool.” They looked out across the campus and could see the wind begin to pick up but no visible rain or thunderclouds yet.

“It’s just a storm,” Mina tried to answer carelessly. But her heart was racing with adrenaline. When it finally settled, Mina went on, “But Nan if I believed in fairy tales, then wouldn’t there have to be a dashing Prince that comes rushing in to save me from my pathetic life?”

“Well, you know,” Nan began to counter, trying to bring up what she saw on the bus yesterday.

“Forget it. There are no happily ever afters. Look at my mom; she’s a maid for crying out loud, a widowed mother with two children. Where’s her happy ending?” Mina opened her chocolate milk and took a drink. “There are no such things as fairy tales.” Another crash of thunder shook the metal roof of the ceiling, causing Mina to spill chocolate milk down her jacket. A downpour of rain followed a second after, pinging loudly on the roof.

“Do you see what I mean?” Mina pulled her wet hoody away from her body as she tried to wipe up the mess with a wad of napkins. “I’m cursed to be a loser forever.”

“You know Mina.” Nan said thoughtfully as she grabbed napkins, that didn’t have any hint of frosting on them, to help her friend. “Not every tale has a happy ending. In fact many of them are grim.”





Chapter 4


Mina couldn’t believe she was doing this. She must be completely insane and the only reason she decided to go through with it was because she heard a rumor through the grapevine that Brody was staying after school for a polo meeting.

So if Mina rode her bike like a madman straight to the Carmichael’s residence, she could drop off the folder and ride out without seeing him. So Mina did just that. It was a fifteen minute bike ride to Sunset Drive and she was winded by the time she drove up to the palatial estate. Every house, including Brody’s, was surrounded by tall walls and heavy iron gates. Mina was unsure what to expect when she pedaled over to the call box and hit the green button.

“No solicitors,” a voice rattled through the high tech electronic speaker. Mina looked around in surprise to see that next to the gate was a camera that turned and zoomed in on her.

Mina pushed the speaker button and leaned in. “Um, I’m dropping off an information packet for Happy Maids for my mother. We were told to bring it by this afternoon.” The voice didn’t come back on right away. Mina assumed it was because whoever was working the voice box was checking with the Carmichael's.

“Name?”

“Mina Grime.”

“Enter. Stay on the path. Don’t ride that thing on the grass!” He must have been referring to her bike, but it was her only mode of transportation and she thought it deserved more recognition then thing.

The giant iron gates swung inward and Mina rode up the driveway, mesmerized by the extravagance that money provided. What she originally thought was the main house turned out to be the garage, which housed the family’s vehicles. Mina’s whole family plus the Wong’s and the apartments next to hers could all live comfortably in the Carmichael’s garage.