UnEnchanted (6 page)

“
No, I’m talking about
before I even got to school.” Mina began to relay the entire
morning’s events, even up to Principal Hame's office, but Nan only
heard one thing.

“
WHAT!” she squealed,
kicking Mina excitedly under the table. “Are you serious? You get
to go to Brody Carmichael’s house?”

“
Nan, you’re not
listening. Something strange is going on. I think I’m going crazy.”
She looked out the window and could see the sky beginning to turn
green, a sure sign that a storm was coming.

“
You bet you are. I can’t
believe you didn’t tell me about the Carmichaels as soon as you saw
me.”

“
You’re missing the
point.”

“
No, I heard it. You’re
being terrorized by strange domestic animals. I’ll buy you some
repellent.”

“
Don't forget the donkey.
I don't know if I would call that a domestic animal. What do you
make of that?”

“
You said yourself it
could have been a large dog. But do you hear yourself?
You
are going to Brody’s
house. You’ve had a crush on him for two years. When were you going
to tell me?”

“
I’m telling you
now!”

“
Are you excited?” Nan
leaned in eagerly, her hands likely itching for her
iPhone.

“
Not really, because I
don’t really plan on going. I was hoping you would go for me.” Mina
slid the blue folder with the sticker of the Happy Maids logo
across the table to Nan.

Nan looked at the folder in shock and slid
it back. “Uh, no! This is your dreamy stalker moment, not mine. You
do it.”

“
I can’t, Nan. I just
can’t.” Mina looked at Nan and pleaded silently. “I’m not ready to
talk to him.”

Nan peeled the paper from around her cupcake
and gave it a bite. “If you can’t talk to him now, after you saved
his life, you’re never going to talk to him. Besides I have a good
feeling about this. Trust me.”

Mina wished she did trust Nan. But every
time Nan said those two words, Mina ended up in trouble.

“
So how’s Charlie?” Nan
said, changing the subject.

“
He’s doing well. He
really likes the new school.” Mina knew why her friend was trying
to change the subject, but she let her get away with it.

“
Do they think they can
get him to talk?” Nan asked, swiping her finger through the
frosting on her cupcake. Mina’s brother Charlie was born shortly
after their father died, and even though the doctors could find
nothing wrong with him, he never spoke.

“
They hope so. They seem
to think it’s because he was in the womb when Dad died, that he
absorbed some of Mom’s post-traumatic depression or
something.”

“
What do you think?” Nan
asked, licking the rest of the frosting from her
fingers.

“
I think Charlie doesn’t
speak because he doesn’t need to.”

“
You still think he will
just one day awake from whatever silent spell he’s under and begin
talking, like some sort of fairy tale?”

“
Nan, you know I don’t
believe in fairy tales.” As soon as the words left Mina’s mouth, a
crash of thunder shook the cafeteria, and the lights flickered on
and off. Girls screamed in fright, and the boys laughed out loud,
pointing fingers and trying to re-scare some of the
girls.

“
Whoa…freaky!” Nan bobbed
her head and looked around in wonder. “That was cool.” They looked
out across the campus and could see the wind begin to pick up, but
no visible rain yet.

“
It’s just a storm,” Mina
tried to answer carelessly. But her heart was racing with
adrenaline. When it finally settled, Mina went on, “But, Nan, if I
believed in fairy tales, then wouldn’t there have to be a dashing
prince to save me from my pathetic life?”

“
Well, you know,” Nan
began to counter….

“
Forget it. There are no
happily-ever-afters. Look at my mom—she’s a maid, for crying out
loud, a widowed mother with two children. Where’s her happy
ending?” Mina opened her chocolate milk and took a drink. “There
are no such things as fairy tales.” Another crash of thunder shook
the metal roof of the ceiling, causing Mina to spill chocolate milk
down her violet jacket. A downpour of rain followed a second after,
pinging loudly on the roof.

“
Do you see what I mean?”
Mina pulled her wet hoodie away from her body as she tried to wipe
up the mess with a wad of napkins. “I’m cursed to be a loser
forever.”

“
You know, Mina,” Nan said
thoughtfully as she grabbed napkins that didn’t have frosting on
them to help her friend. “Not every tale has a happy ending. In
fact, many of them are grim.”

Chapter 4

Mina couldn’t believe she was doing this.
The only reason she’d decided to go through with it was because she
heard a rumor that Brody was staying after school for a polo
meeting. But still, you never knew. She was nervous just to meet
Brody Carmichael’s mom.

She hoped if she rode her bike like a
madman, she could drop off the folder and ride out without seeing
him. So Mina did just that. It was a fifteen-minute bike ride to
Sunset Drive, and she was winded by the time she rode up to the
palatial estate. Every house, including Brody’s, was surrounded by
tall walls and heavy iron gates. She pedaled over to the call box
and hit the green button.

“
No solicitors,” a voice
rattled through the high-tech electronic speaker. Mina looked
around in surprise and saw that a camera next to the gate had
zeroed in on her.

Mina pushed the green button once more and
leaned in. “Um, I’m dropping off an information packet for Happy
Maids. We were told to bring it by this afternoon.” The voice
didn’t come back on right away. Mina assumed it was because whoever
was working the voice box was checking with the Carmichaels.

“
Name?”

“
Mina Grime.”

“
Enter. Stay on the path.
Don’t ride that
thing
on the grass!”

The giant iron gates swung inward, and Mina
rode up the driveway, mesmerized by the extravagance that money
provided. What she had originally thought was the main house turned
out to be the garage, which housed the family’s vehicles. Mina’s
whole family plus the Wongs could all live comfortably in the
Carmichaels’ garage.

The main house sat back from the street,
three stories tall with a terra-cotta roof. Majestic statues of
horses were scattered throughout the estate, and Mina could see
gardeners trimming hedges and mowing the manicured grass. Behind
the estate were training yards and stables for the Carmichaels’
horses. Their prized racehorses were probably at another
facility.

This was the first time Mina felt acutely
aware of her family’s small income in comparison to others. She
didn’t really care about money, but she understood the phrase "out
of her league."

She was embarrassed when she got to the
steps of the main house and couldn’t decide where to leave her
bike. With the kickstand broken, Mina tried to lean it against a
pillar and got a heated look from a maid. She went to lean it
against a bush and received a horrified stare from the gardener.
Giving up, Mina let it lie in the driveway, its back wheel spinning
pathetically.

She took the front steps two a time and
found herself in front of huge mahogany double doors with a silver
mustang knocker. Knocking, Mina decided she would count to ten
Mississippis, and if no one answered she would do leave the packet
and go home. She’d only gotten to seven when Mrs. Carmichael
herself opened the door.

Mina recognized the soft eyes and elegant
smile, not to mention signature pearls and perfect coif, from the
tabloid magazines.

“
Yes?” Mrs. Carmichael
asked sweetly.

“
Hi, I’m Mina. I’m
supposed to deliver this Happy Maids packet on behalf of my mom.”
Mina thrust the packet toward Mrs. Carmichael, hoping to get this
delivery over with. Mrs. Carmichael wasn’t cooperating, because she
didn’t take the packet.

“
I’m sorry, what?” Her
brow furrowed in confusion.

“My mother’s boss,
Terry
Goodmother of Happy Maids, said you
requested an informational packet. I’m just dropping it off for
them.” Mrs. Carmichael still looked confused, and Mina had a
sinking feeling that this was a huge mistake. “I’m sorry. I must
have the wrong residence.” She turned away in
embarrassment.

“
Wait! What was your name
again?” Mrs. Carmichael called out. Her eyes softened with
compassion. Or it could have been pity.

Mina had made it to the bottom steps and
turned to look back up at Mrs. Carmichael. “I’m Mina Grime.”

“
Mina. You’re the one who
saved Brody!” Her confusion disappeared and her face lit with
happiness. “We have much to thank you for…oh, Brody, watch out!”
she practically shouted.

Just when Mina had begun to wonder about
Mrs. Carmichael’s strange re-enactment, she heard a sickening
crunch of metal on metal and turned to see her bike crushed to
smithereens beneath the wheels of a black car. “My bike!” Mina
groaned.

“
Brody!” Mrs. Carmichael
yelled simultaneously.

Mina froze. She didn’t know what was
worse—facing her long-time crush with a brown chocolate milk stain
on her jacket, or the fact that he had just run over her pathetic
bike with his expensive sports car.

The driver’s door opened, and Brody jumped
out of the car. “Mina, I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

Brody started to run up to them but then
seemed to hesitate, stopping about halfway.

Mortified that Brody had run over her bike
and with no good explanation as to why she was at his house, Mina
could only think of one thing to do. Run.

It was obviously a
terrible mistake that had sent her to the Carmichaels’ house, and a
cruel twist of fate that led to Brody driving up and crushing her
red bike. Maybe if he had driven up and hit her car, it wouldn’t
have seemed so pathetic, but all Mina could think about was how
when he asked his mother why she was there, it would seem like she
was stalking him. It wasn’t until she’d reached the main gates and
run through them that she realized she had dropped the info packet
on the ground.
Oh, no!
He would know that her mom cleaned houses for a
living.

Mina heard someone call her name, but she
ignored it and turned the corner. While she ran, tears formed in
her eyes, and the cold wind swept them away. She wanted to die of
embarrassment. Everyone at school would hear about how Mina made up
some excuse to stalk Brody at his own house. How she made up a fake
pamphlet so she could talk to him. How she was so desperate and
poor that she rode her broken bicycle up to the mansion and how it
was crushed like tin foil beneath Brody’s expensive car.

If Mina were a stronger person, she would
have confronted him about the bike, but when her whole reason for
being there seemed fabricated, she lost her resolve.

It took Mina fifteen minutes to ride to the
Carmichaels’ house on her bike from school, but an hour to walk
home from the Carmichaels’. She was tired, sore, and grateful that
the rain had stopped shortly after sixth period. She couldn’t
imagine making this walk home in the rain.

When she finally reached the restaurant,
Mrs. Wong called out to her. “Woo-hoo! Meenha. I seen you in pahper
today. You beeg celebrity.” She walked out holding a newspaper with
a picture of Mina splattered across the front page.

The article must have been written before
the assembly, since they used Mina’s high school yearbook picture.
Mina grabbed the paper and stared in shock. It was the worst photo
of Mina in school history. She remembered that horrible day all too
well. Mina had attempted to wear makeup, even put her hair in
rollers so it would look like Savannah White’s, and tried to wear
something nicer than her signature hoodie. In the end, Sara got a
flat tire, so Mina had to ride her bike in the rain. Mina’s makeup,
curls, and clothes were drenched for the photo shoot.

“
Oh, no!” Mina grabbed the
paper and crumpled it up. “Has my mom seen this?”

“
Yes.” Mrs. Wong smiled
proudly. “I show her as soon as she got home. See!” She pointed to
the front window of her restaurant, where she had made a collage of
Mina’s face as part of a giant display. “I advertise we have big
star, live above us. Good for business. I bought every pahper from
the store for miles.” Sure enough, there were five stacks of
newspapers piled neatly against the red and gold door. “Everyone
that comes tonight gets complimentary free sample and pahper.
Business is dooming.”

Mina groaned and handed the paper back to
Mrs. Wong. “You mean booming?”

“
That’s what I say,
dooming.” Mrs. Wong smiled, her eyes disappearing behind her
cheeks.

Mina trudged up the stairs and unlocked the
door to their flat. The neat and tidy apartment looked as if a
storm had blown through. “Mom!” Mina called out.

Sara tore out of her bedroom with armloads
of clothes and a wild look in her eye. She dumped them into an open
suitcase on their kitchen table, and turned and pointed at Mina.
“YOU! Go pack!”

“
Mom, why? What’s going
on?”

“
Don’t you ‘Mom’ me.” Sara
looked panicked. “Do as I say, we’re leaving.” She flipped the lid
on the suitcase and zipped it. Mina grabbed the suitcase from her
mother, and they tugged on it until Mina won.