Rule of Three (19 page)

Alex made her voice soft and spooky again. “‘Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.’”

Thunk!
“What was that?” I asked.

“Just a branch hitting the roof,” said Alex.

I opened one eye and peeked. A reflection of firelight flickered in the troll doll’s eyes. Alex was holding a play program from
Beauty and the Beast,
and Joey had an origami frog in her hand.

“One . . . two . . . three . . .”
Boom!
A loud crack of thunder shook the house just as we tossed our Special Objects into the fire. I jumped. Joey screamed and grabbed onto Alex. A streak of lightning flashed blue. The fire flared up, crackled, hissed. Tongues of flames licked the edges of Alex’s program and
poof,
it disappeared into ash. Joey’s frog went up in smoke. The troll doll melted quicker than the Wicked Witch.

All of a sudden, a string of pearl-size goose bumps ran up and down my spine. A thrilling kind of tickle at the base of my neck needled me. I scratched it, as if touching it might make it go away.

Maybe it was just the dark, the night, the storm. The gleam in my sister’s eye. What was Alex playing at? Wasn’t this just a game? What if we had done something, started something, called on something — unleashed something invisible, something bigger than us, this room, this night?

“Joey, I thought that was your favorite origami frog,” I said to break the spell. “The one you got to jump the best.”

“Hey! You’re not supposed to peek,” said Joey.

“It doesn’t matter. We all know anyway,” I said.

“Nuh-uh,” said Joey. “Nobody knows what Alex threw in the fire.”

“But we all know what she wished for,” I said.

Alex’s head snapped around to glare at me. “What?”

“To get the part of Juliet in the play. Duh. What else?”

“Oh,” said Alex. “Yeah.” She laughed a nervous laugh, but something secret and shadowy passed over those Mona Lisa eyes of hers.
“Look like the innocent flower/But be the serpent under it,”
I thought as another line from
Macbeth
sprang to mind.

I’d have to wait and see if something new and exciting happened to me. Time would tell. I guess the most I could hope for was that the spell didn’t turn my hair neon green and make it stand up as straight as the troll’s had.

One glass troll eye stared at me from the bottom of the fireplace. Part of me wanted to yell
Wait!
and take it back. But it was too late.

A last line from
Macbeth
niggled the back of my brain.

“What’s done is done.”

MEGAN McDONALD
is the author of the best-selling Judy Moody series and its companion series starring Judy’s younger brother, Stink. As the youngest of five sisters, she knows all about the real-life ups and downs of sisterhood. Megan McDonald lives in Sebastopol, California.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Text copyright © 2009 by Megan McDonald
Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Pamela A. Consolazio
Cover photograph (cupcakes) copyright © 2009 by Stacy Brogan/iStockphoto

“The Glory of Love” written by Billy Hill. Used by permission of Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc. International copyright secured.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First electronic edition 2011

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

McDonald, Megan.
The sisters club: rule of three / Megan McDonald ;
[illustrations by Candlewick Press]. — 1st ed.
p.  cm.
Summary: In Acton, Oregon, sisters Alex, Stevie, and Joey take turns telling about their lives, including auditioning for the same part in the school musical, baking contest-worthy cupcakes, and becoming obsessed with
Little Women.
ISBN 978-0-7636-4153-5 (hardcover)
[1. Sisters — Fiction. 2. Acting — Fiction. 3. Theater — Fiction. 4. Baking — Fiction. 5. Alcott, Louisa May, 1832–1888. Little women — Fiction. 6. Clubs — Fiction. 7. Family life — Oregon — Fiction. 8. Oregon — Fiction. 9. Humorous stories.]  I. Candlewick Press, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.M478419Ru 2009
[Fic] — dc22    2008028859

ISBN 978-0-7636-4830-5 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5194-7 (electronic)

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