I didn’t bother to say, "But we just got home," or anything foolish like that, because: Dead End.
"She’s wearing a magical truth-telling brooch?—"
"A what?"
"It’s a piece of jewelry. Actually, it’s a really ugly piece of jewelry. A pin. She’s wearing it on the lapel of her jacket, and the magic in it is forcing her to tell the truth. All day."
I climbed into the truck. "I don’t understand why that’s going to cause chaos. She’s the mayor, and she’s Ruby. She pretty much always tells the truth, doesn’t she?"
Tess groaned. "No, you don’t get it. This … it’s like she was drunk. Not just telling the truth, but bringing up things from the past that she never would have said out loud, certainly in front of Shelley."
"Like what?"
"Like how she danced in her underwear?—"
"STOP!" I did not, under any circumstances, want to hear about Ruby—who was practically my mother-in-law—dancing in her underwear. "Okay. If I get it off her, do the effects stop? Will it affect me when I touch it?"
"I … don’t know."
I could almost see her biting her lip.
"The sellers told me just touching it isn’t enough to activate the magic, and that you have to wear it, but I admit I probably didn’t do proper due diligence. Just pick it up with gloves or a cloth to be safe. But please get to her now, Jack. She said she had to get to work to meet the new doctor she wants to hire for the clinic. If this doctor meets Aunt Ruby in full, magically induced truth mode, she or he might run fast and far."
"It’s she. She’s hot," I told her.
Silence.
"Excuse me?" she finally said in a cool voice.
I laughed. "I picked up lunch at Lauren’s, and she told me the new doctor is hot."
"Oh.Oh.Please, Jack. Get going. Cut Aunt Ruby off before she says something we’ll all regret."
"On my way." I ended the call, turned on the truck, and headed for town hall, hoping fervently that I could get the jewelry thing away from Ruby before she said something to me that embarrassed both of us.
Or that Tess’s Uncle Mike would kick my butt for.
Sadly, I was about five minutes too late.
6
Tess
Idrove as fast as I could without breaking Dead End traffic laws, trying not to say very bad words under my breath since Shelley was in the car with me.
"I’m really sorry," she mumbled, looking out the window. "I didn’t mean to cause more problems."
"Oh, honey, no," I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "This is not your fault. I should have put the brooch away where nobody could touch it. Or I shouldn’t have bought it in the first place."
I sighed. "I may have to institute a new no-magical-items policy for the shop. They’re always more trouble than they’re worth."
"But they make good money," my little sister, the capitalist, ventured. She liked to help in the shop and was a wizard with numbers.
"They make good money," I admitted. "But if this brooch causes us to lose out on a great doctor for the new clinic, it won’t be worth it."
"Why would it make us lose out on the doctor?"
I braked at the stoplight and waved to Mr. and Mrs. Frost as they drove past us going the other way.
