‘Bon, do you mind if I head out?’ asked Bobby, interrupting their bickering. He massaged his temples, blinking blearily.
Bonnie frowned. He looked terrible. ‘Are you okay to drive?’
‘I’m fine. Just a bit off.’ He mustered his usual smile. ‘Whatever you put in that cocktail must have been seriously strong.’
Bonnie pretended to think about it. ‘Ah, the Drano! I knew I shouldn’t have put that in there!’ She said it lightly, but felt a pang thinking that she could have hurt Bobby with a misspell. What if he didn’t get better and she’d done some actual damage?
No, Bonnie. You know you can barely use your magic to fix your own hair. It’s probably just a touch of food poisoning. Or a mild cold.
But she was worried about him. He wasn’t far from home, but it only took an instant for things to go wrong behind the wheel.
Bonnie could drive him back, but she still had a million tasks to complete before opening.
‘Kirsty, could you drive him?’ she asked, sliding the mug into the dishwasher. ‘Just in case?’
Kirsty made a face. ‘Me?’
‘Please. I’ll owe you one.’
‘Well, in that case, sure. But we’re taking my car. I can’t be seen in that truck.’ Kirsty looked Bobby up and down. ‘At least my windows are tinted.’
Bonnie was about to leap to poor Bobby’s defence when a group of tourists burst into the bar, bragging among themselves about who would drink whom under the table.
‘Are you open?’ they called, weaving around Kirsty and the dazed Bobby, who made an extremely uncomfortable-looking pair.
Joy, thought Bonnie, as she regarded the excited tourists, who were snapping selfies and pointing at the neat rows of craft beer bottles behind the bar. Just what she needed.
But itwasjust what she needed. Because until she got her spells figured out, what she needed was tips.
Bonnie plastered on her brightest smile and smoothed back her hair. It was time to turn on her natural charm. Which was the only type of charm she couldn’t mess up.
‘Hey, babes!’ she exclaimed. ‘What’ll it be?’
Chapter 9
CRAFTY WITCHES
Effie
It was craft night at the library, and Effie was rushing about printing last-minute signage and hunting for the boxes of safety scissors, which always seemed to go walkabout. Perhaps there was some connection between this and the missing pages in theNational Geographiccollection, thought Effie, as she rifled through the storeroom.
‘It’ll be fine, Eff,’ called Tessa easily, leaning back in her chair as Effie hurried into the community room again, this time with a box of crayons, which she was fairly certain weren’t needed for a crochet turtle night. But you could never be too prepared. Especially at this particular moment in time, where anyone could come striding through the doors with an armload of poetry and a giant donation cheque.
‘Found the scissors,’ she panted, setting down a red plastic tub shaped like a giant Lego brick.
‘Brilliant,’ said Tess. ‘And I brought stress balls for when everyone gets stuck trying to figure out the slipknot and casting on. Well, not actual stress balls. Hacky sacks. But close enough.’
Effie and Tessa spent a few minutes arranging and rearranging yarn and crochet hooks until everything looked perfect, then slumped down in their chairs, ready for the chaos to begin.
‘I do love these classes,’ said Tess. ‘Gives me something to do.’
Effie straightened the chairs around the table. ‘The dog walking isn’t fulfilling you, huh?’
‘I’m starting to think I might need something that involves occasional conversations with someone of the human persuasion.’ Tessa’s phone buzzed, and she smiled down at the message. ‘Oh hey, Claudette just received her cat statue. His name is KitKat, and he’s going to have pride of place on her bookshelf.’
She flashed a photo of Claudette’s room, which was packed like Tetris on hard mode with cat statues of all shapes, colours and sizes. Effie wondered how Claudette could sleep without worrying about being crushed to death.
‘I’m glad Uncle Oswald was able to do some good,’ Effie said, zooming in on the cat picture.
