Angie, the Taco Truck, and the Red Dragon #2
Breathing hard, she sprinted through the empty school and into the principal’s office.
It was empty. It was never empty, not even during a fire alarm.
Angie ran into the space where the receptionist usually sat and looked for a phone.
There was a green plastic squarish blob on the desk—an old-fashioned thing with buttons and a dog-bone-looking other thing on top—which was probably a phone from back in the Revolutionary War time.
Angie had no idea how to use it, but she knocked the dog-bone-thing off and noticed holes on either end.
A tone was sounding, so Angie called her mama’s number by pushing the buttons, and she heard ringing, followed by her mama’s voice saying hello.
“Mama, we got a problem.”
“Angie?” Mama said. “Why are you calling on the schools’ number? Wait. What do you mean a problem?”
“Longfellow is here, and there’s a witch throwing curses at a taco truck, and all the teachers and the principal and kids are spellbound, and I’m all alone in the school, and we need help.
I need help!” The thought shocked her. Angie never needed help.
Not ever. She had more magic than any two or three normal witches. But she needed help right now.
Her shivers worsened and her teeth chattered, which made no sense. She wasn’t that cold, was she?
“We’re on the way. Where are you?”
“I’m in the principal’s office. I’m cold.” Angie’s whole entire body was shaking. “I feel sick. I might puke Mama.”
“You go ahead and puke, Angie Baby, but do it on the floor or in the garbage can, okay? Stay right where you are. Daddy and I are driving. Evan, slow down. You’re gonna get a ticket. Angie, we’ll be about five minutes.”
◆◆◆
That afternoon, after the ruckus was settled and all the people were mollified—that’s what Mama called it, mollified, which was funny because Mama’s name was Molly—Mama and Daddy sat Angie down, to tell her what had happened.
They picked the kitchen table, near the brand-new AGA oven and stove, at the brand-new table, that replaced all the stuff that had burned when their family was cursed by a witch not so long ago. Everything had burned. All her clothes, all Mama’s plants, Daddy’s big recliner.
That’s what curses did. They destroyed everything.
Mama put a mug of her homemade organic rosehip tea in front of her and stirred it with a spoon.
The smell of rosehips and honey reached Angie’s nose and she took the mug in both hands.
The cup was purple and warm. “Am I in trouble?” Angie asked.
She hated it that her voice was so squeaky and worried.
Mama said, “No one is in any kind of trouble, Angie Baby. Not anyone, not even a little.”
Mama and Daddy both were smiling and looked relieved, so Angie knew Mama was telling the truth, not a white lie, like adults usually told, to keep a kid content, when really, they were in loads of trouble.
Daddy said, “The witch council authorized your mama and me to counter the curses and to bind and detain the witch. She’s in custody in a null cell, and she’ll receive medication and counseling to get her through the mental breakdown.”
“You did well,” Angelina,” Mama said, gently.
Angie nearly peed herself with relief. She gulped the tea, sweetness on her tongue.
Mama’s face was kind and maybe a little proud. Also, she had said, You did well. Not good. Well. Mama almost always used proper English.
“Who was she? The witch?” Angie asked.
Mama and Daddy looked at each other real quick and back to her. This time Angie knew they weren’t going to tell her anything.
“Why was she cursing the taco truck man?” Angie asked. “What’s a mental breakdown? Is it like going crazy?”
“That’s a . . . a grownup problem,” Daddy said.
“Did he cheat on her? Did he have a baby momma on the side? Was he a playa?”
“Son of a witch,” Mama said in witch cussing. “Where did you hear things like that?”
Angie scowled at her parents. “I’m not just a kid. I know stuff. Mrs. Smith’s husband had a baby mama and they got a divorce and she said if she had magic she’d turn his pecker into a wet noodle.”
Mama’s eyes went wide.
“A pecker’s a penis, Mama,” Angie clarified.
Daddy got red in the faced. Well, redder. He was a ginger, too, and he turned red easy. He got up and left the table and went out the kitchen door. Angie and Mama could hear him laughing from inside the house.
“Lord, save me,” Mama said.
Things must really be interesting if Mama was praying.
“Is anyone gonna arrest me for stealing the taco truck?” Angie asked.
“No. No Angie Baby. No arrests, no time out, no suspension from school, because your name did not come up at all and no one knows what part you played in the taco truck disaster. Also no baby mamas, and no . . . no peckers.”
“Okay.” Angie drank half the tea and slid from the chair. “I’m gonna do homework,” she said and left for her room. Angie was satisfied that no one would ever know she was a thief.
Sadly, Angie never learned who the witch turned out to be or what the man did to deserve to be cursed or if his pecker fell off. That was witch counsel stuff. And she never learned why Longfellow was hanging around the taco truck. But at least she didn’t get in trouble. This time.
THE END