UnEnchanted (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #1)(26)

She reached up to pull out another zippered jacket. This one was red too. In fact all of Mina’s hoodies were now permanently red. Her mother warned her that the Story would try and mold Mina’s lifestyle into a fairy tale, but she didn’t believe it until now. Mina could tell this new event scared her mother even more. Sara didn't blink an eye or argue when Mina asked to stay home from school for a few days. Something about the red jackets terrified her mother into compliance.

Sara went on a one woman war against the color red. She threw every piece of red clothing in the house in the garbage. She scoured the house high and low for every red ribbon, washcloth, marker and pens and even burned the Christmas stockings. Gone. All of it, gone.

Sara even bought Mina new clothes and hoody jackets at the store, despite their limited budget. She brought home blue, lavender and white zippered jackets to replace Mina’s other ones.

That lasted a day. The next morning Mina opened up her closet and pulled down her new jacket with the tag still on it and threw it on the bed in disgust.

It was a beautiful royal blue yesterday, it even said so on the tag, but today it was a deep red. Mina grabbed the next jacket, red. The next one, red. Once again, all of Mina’s clothes had turned a deep red. Reluctantly Mina put on the white shirt and red jacket and was thankful that the curse hadn’t tried changing her jeans or shoes red too.

These events only encouraged Mina more, by Saturday, she was even more determined to find the Grimoire. She had to, her life depended on it.

Hearing voices, Mina entered the kitchen and smiled when she saw her best friend Nan sitting at the breakfast table with Charlie. Nan wore a stocking cap over blonde braids and had layered long and short sleeve shirts. She had helped herself to a bowl out of the cupboard and filled it with three different cereals. Charlie had a huge grin on his face and Nan was chomping down with barely contained disgust.

After she managed to swallow a bite without puking she stood up and pointed her finger at him. “See I told you, I could eat whatever concoction you came up with.” Nan did a little victory dance around the table and Charlie shook his head and pointed to his own bowl of cereal.

Frowning, Nan leaned over to look at his bowl. “What? I used the same cereals that you did! I’ve got Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, Raisin Bran and Mini Wheats, what else could you have fit in there?” There was obviously some contest going on between the two and Charlie was finding a discrepancy in the winner.

Nan was one of the few people Mina knew that had no problem carrying on a one-sided conversation with Charlie, and seemed comfortable doing it. Well, also considering that Nan usually talked enough for three people, anticipating what Charlie was going to say was probably easy for her.

Nan picked up Charlie’s spoon and began to dig around in his bowl to see what else he had done to make his different. “I don’t see it. I made mine the same and I ate half of the bowl, so I win Pip Squeak.” Dropping the spoon back into the bowl with a clank, Nan leaned back and put her foot on the table. “Pay up.”

Charlie grinned again and shook his head no. Standing up he went over to the small refrigerator and yanked the door open. A few seconds later he emerged holding a brown bottle of caramel syrup, walking over he put it down next to Nan’s half eaten cereal bowl with a loud clank. Nan sat up in disbelief.

“NO WAY!” She leaned back over and looked closely at the tan colored milk in Charlie’s bowl. Nan’s victorious grin faded as she realized she was going to have to add caramel flavoring to her cereal. “That is some serious sugar going on there. How in the world do you sleep at night?” Nan asked respectfully. She never criticized Charlie, or ridiculed him for his weird eating habits, but praised him for his uniqueness. “So I have to add this to my cereal, huh?”

Charlie’s smile got wider.

Nan gulped visibly and her hand wavered for an instant in front of the bottle, but she took one look at the smiling boy and she regained her resolve. Popping open the top, she poured a few good tablespoons into the bowl and mixed it up with her spoon watching Charlie the whole time. Right before she was about to eat it, she paused and pursed her lips in thought. Nan jumped up and went to the fridge, rummaged around inside, slammed the door and plopped a white and blue container on the table. With a clean spoon, Nan scooped a huge tablespoon of the mixture into her cereal and Charlie’s face went green with disgust. It was cottage cheese. Charlie hated cottage cheese and Nan knew it.

Nan stood and stared down the eight year old boy, grabbed her spoon, dipped it into her intensely gross breakfast and put a spoonful of the mixture of cereal, caramel and cottage cheese into her mouth and chewed slowly. Charlie watched Nan chew in awe, and then he visibly paled and looked like he was starting to gag. The boy dropped his spoon and raced for the bathroom.

As soon as the bathroom door slammed, Nan turned to the sink and spit out the mouthful of food. She turned on the water and leaned forward to rinse out her mouth. When that didn’t work, she reached back into the fridge and grabbed a container of orange juice and began to chug it right from the container.

“Nan, that’s disgusting,” Mina laughed.

“Tell me about it. I’m the one who actually had to taste the thing. I don’t think I will ever be able to eat cottage cheese again.” She gargled orange juice.

“What possibly possessed you to put cottage cheese in the cereal?”

“I asked Charlie what he was eating and he pointed to the cereal boxes and I casually challenged him to an eating contest. Winner gets to pick out a movie and make the loser watch it. Believe me, I had no idea he added caramel to his cereal. Blech!” Nan shuddered at the mere mention of the food again.