Word meanings: creative fiction 4

Page 1313

1. After everyone went to sleep, I crept into the backyard with The Book of Peculiar Spells. I opened to page 1313 and got to work concocting the “Super Strong by Dawn” potion. The “slime of a slug” was the easiest ingredient to obtain. I found the creature by the giant rock, then scraped its goo into a mug.
2. Next I read “the agony of a moth." Huh? Moths seem pretty happy to me. Wait! I got it—my mom has a box of mothballs in the basement and did they STINK. I chucked two into the mug and then added four more just to be safe.
3. But when it came to the last “a fluffy feather from a quail," I was out of luck. No quails around here, but laundry lint is fluffy—that’ll have to do.
4. Finally, I was supposed to “swirl the brew” at dusk, but the sun had set hours ago. So, I just spun the mug in circles under the full moon and recited, “Powers of the coming night, transform me by morning’s light.”
5. The instructions recommended that I drink half of it. But, hey, I wanted to be super strong, so I somehow managed to chug the whole thing.
6. When I woke, I didn’t look any different, but I could sense that my Herculean muscles were waiting to be unleashed.
7. But right away things started to go wrong—very wrong.
8. When I turned the shower knob, the entire shower contraption pulled from the wall, causing a pipe to burst. Obviously, my parents were less than thrilled with the Poseidon-worthy flood.
9. The refrigerator door coming off its hinges? Yup. That was strength, too.
10. At school, when Horatio tossed me his basketball, the thing deflated with the gentle touch of my fingers.
11. “Ugh!” I cried. It’s like the Midas touch!”
12. That’s when I marched straight to the teacher who had lent me the book of spells.
13. “Mr. Nguyen," I said, “would you use licorice to make meatloaf, or would you top your ice cream sundae with ketchup?”
14. He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Alicia?”
15. “Some combinations don’t agree. People need to do magic spells just as they’re described or bad things happen. You’ve got to put a warning in this book.”
16. He nodded, assuring me that he would. But, to tell you the truth, I don’t think he ever did—you should’ve seen what happened to Horatio when he borrowed the book.