The Multiplying Menace (Volume 1) (Magic Repair Shop, Band 1) - Softcover

Marrone, Amanda

 
9781416990338: The Multiplying Menace (Volume 1) (Magic Repair Shop, Band 1)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 141699033X ISBN 13: 9781416990338
Verlag: Aladdin, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Twelve-year-old Maggie Malloy can make wishes come true. But she’s learned that people like magic better in storybooks than in real life, and longs to find someone who understands her power. When she’s forced to spend a year with her grandmother, Maggie discovers an old magic repair shop—and the owner, Mr. McGuire, is a real magician, just like Maggie! She becomes Mr. Maguire’s apprentice and learns how to repair cauldrons, break disfiguring hexes, and mend magic hats that won’t stop duplicating rabbits. But Maggie is in more trouble than she bargained for when an evil magician, Milo the Magnificent, comes to town with his deadly magic act….

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Amanda Marrone grew up on Long Island where she spent her time reading, drawing, watching insects, and suffering from an overactive imagination. She earned a BA in education at SUNY Cortland and taught fifth and sixth grade in New Hampshire. She now lives in Connecticut with her husband, Joe, and their two kids.

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1
Because of Cockroaches

I sat outside Mrs. Stearns’s office, waiting to hear my fate. I was pretty sure this was the first time in history a kid had gotten in trouble for ruining the Fifth Grade End-of-the-Year Celebration. According to a number of my classmates, I had upended a container of cockroaches on top of Roxie Johnson’s head before running out into the hall and pulling the fire alarm.

I had pulled the alarm—but only to buy myself some time to think, and honestly, the part about me bringing in a box of roaches to get back at Roxie was a much safer explanation than what had really happened.

I stared at the closed door, listening to the angry, muffled conversation on the other side. My parents had been in there for more than an hour, and I’d made out the word “expulsion” no less than four times.

The secretary, Mrs. Beamer, sat at her desk typing, but she looked up every few minutes to shake her head and glare at me like I was a cockroach. I wanted to tell her the whole thing was a horrible accident. That the wish I’d made had just slipped out after Roxie had humiliated me in front of the entire fifth grade.

I wanted to tell Mrs. Beamer how extra careful I’d been over the years to not say the word wish in public—and how I never, ever would’ve said it if I’d known Roxie’s hair would disappear along with the roaches.

I squeezed my eyes shut to erase the picture of Roxie’s bald head from my mind. Mrs. Stearns had insisted I take a “long, hard look” at a sobbing Roxie so I could see “the devastation” I’d caused with my “little prank,” while the school nurse, Mrs. Pope, had said she was sure it was an extreme allergic reaction to cockroaches that had made Roxie’s hair spontaneously fall out.

I leaned over and put my head in my hands. How had I let this happen? How could I have slipped up in front of everyone? The only good thing was that nobody knew my secret—nobody knew my wishes really came true.

As I sat across from Mrs. Beamer, I remembered the disastrous wish I’d made six years ago. My parents are entomologists, or in other words, big, fat bug nuts, and we’d stopped for the night on the way home from the twenty-fifth annual Putnam County Cockroach Appreciation Conference in Texas. It was my birthday, and I wasn’t exactly happy spending what should’ve been the most exciting day of the year besides Christmas surrounded by scientists applauding the virtues of the world’s most indestructible insect.

To make it up to me, my parents surprised me in our hotel room with a little pink cake topped with five blue candles.

“Blow them out and make a wish, Maggie,” Mom said.

I let out a big puff, then closed my eyes. “I wish I had a monkey like the one in Barty Bananas Saves the Circus,” I whispered.

My eyes flew open in a flash as the piercing cry of a chimpanzee, followed by my parents’ screams, echoed in the room.

Right in front of me—sitting in my cake—was a scowling Barty Bananas wearing a yellow-and-red-striped vest. At first I was upset that the cake was ruined. I mean, even a five-year-old knows better than to eat something a monkey’s butt has been sitting in. But then I looked at my parents.

Their eyes were wide, their mouths hung open; they looked like they were on the verge of keeling over.

I didn’t understand. Yes, Barty Bananas had flattened the cake; but my wish had come true, so why weren’t they happy?

The chimp howled again, dipped his long fingers in the cake, and flung a chunk at my dad—covering his face in a splatter of pink frosting. My mom shook her head disbelievingly and stared at Barty, opening and closing her mouth like a fish on dry land.

Barty bared his yellow teeth and shrieked. Dad’s eyes rolled back, and he hit the floor like a coconut dropping from a palm tree.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the problem wasn’t Barty Bananas shaking his pink-frosted behind and flinging cake around the room. The problem was that my parents hadn’t expected my wish to come true.

With my dad passed out and my mom looking like she might join him any second, I wished Barty and the mess away, and sat on the bed looking innocently at my magically repaired cake—candles still smoking.

Once my dad came to, he started talking about group hallucinations and something called Legionnaires’ disease that’s common at conventions. My mom kept asking me how Barty had appeared, but I pretended I didn’t know what they were talking about.

The cake went uneaten, and I learned an important lesson—people like magic in storybooks, far away from real life.

From that point on, I was always on my best behavior, because I was a little worried about what parents did with kids who could conjure up crazed monkeys. I even had nightmares about being sent to a home for the magically insane.

So after Barty’s appearance I tried not to wish for anything unless I was in my room with the door locked. And I didn’t wish for anything big like a monkey—just candy and an occasional soda. Because besides insects, my parents are obsessed with healthy foods, and there’s just so much chocolate-flavored tofu a kid can eat without craving the real thing.

There was also the time I wished up some earthworms to scare my babysitter, Ashley, who was more interested in texting her boyfriend than playing with me. She ended up with a lapful of garter snakes instead of worms—a classic example of how sometimes my wishes go wrong—and after that I realized I had to be extra, extra careful and keep my magic under wraps! And I’d been doing a great job, if I do say so myself—until today.

Finally, Mrs. Stearns’s door opened, and I jumped up. Mom and Dad looked as pale as they had when Barty had made his appearance.

“Let’s go,” Dad said. I gulped as I stared at a vein I’d never noticed before bulging on his forehead.

Mom turned to Dad. “Maybe Connecticut,” she muttered.

My heart just about stopped. Connecticut was where Gram lived. Gram, who I only saw once a year when she’d come out for Thanksgiving. Gram, who’d never been a cookie-baking, huggy kind of grandmother. Gram, who never smiles.

“Connecticut?” I asked as we left the building.

Mom sighed. “Nothing’s been decided, but we are in the difficult position of finding a new school for you next year.”

We got in the car and drove home in silence.

Two weeks later my worst fear came true.

“I thought Connecticut was out! I thought you said there was a good chance I could get into Buxton Prep?”

“We can’t afford the tuition,” Dad said.

“My grades are pretty good—maybe I could get a scholarship?”

Mom shook her head. “I’ve already spoken to the admission officer. Expulsion from the Academy district disqualifies you from scholarship awards.”

“Did you tell them Roxie had been bullying me?”

“Roxie’s teasing does not excuse what you did, young lady!” Mom snapped.

I hung my head and, for the hundredth time this week, considered telling them the truth. “You could homeschool me,” I said instead.

“Well, that would be rather difficult, considering your mother and I will be in South America.”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “What?”

My parents exchanged looks....

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Verlag
Aladdin
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
141699033X
ISBN 13 
9781416990338
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
288
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Verantwortliche Person
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