Which Witch Switch - Julie Steimle (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .TXT) 📗

Most people say to tell a good story one ought to start at the beginning, but in my case that would be a big mistake. This story is much like the riddle about the chicken and the egg. Which came first? Where did it start? But to do this story justice I’d have to know more about the origins of the universe, or at least what the others were thinking, because it sure didn’t start with me.
Unfortunately, this is not a just world.

*

Jane tugged on my arm. “Eve, don’t look now, but there are three weirdoes staring at you.”
“Everybody stares at me, Jane.” I didn’t bother to look. Our town wasn’t a major tourist attraction though it did have a distinct flavor that occasionally attracted the unusual. It had something to do with the vampires in the mountains nearby, I think. “What makes those three so special?”
“They’re smiling,” she said.
I paused, tilted my head and peered through my sunglasses at them; three women outside of our town’s one motel getting out of a taxi. One was in a pair of slacks and a business jacket. The other two were more casually dressed, the youngest in a trendy spaghetti strap dress with a pink handbag and clogs on her feet. She smiled at me then practically skipped into the motel office to join the businesswoman. The last one had a kind face with all the look of a simple homemaker in a tee shirt and jeans, not much different from my own mother. There was nothing particularly interesting about any of them except that I noticed their imps, whom only I could see, were grinning at me. I always took that as a bad sign.
“No offence, Eve,” Jane said with a frank nod. “But most strangers shy away from you.”
I bit my lower lip and nodded. She was right. Most locals shied away from me also. They were weird.

But I didn’t see them at all after that until two days later. I was at school helping Jane with the sign up booth for the homecoming decorating committee during lunch hour when I spotted the youngest one of three-some saunter into the school hall as if she belonged there. She looked left, then right and then left again before she spotted me. Tossing her hair with a grin set on her face, she went directly to our booth as if to sign up herself.
“Hi!” Her perky and grinning face suddenly stuck over our table, peering at the list our classmates were filling out. She then grinned at me. Her teeth were white as if she had come from a toothpaste ad, her full lips smeared with shimmering pink lip-gloss. I also noticed she was wearing a particularly unusual and alluring perfume that even drew my interest though I wasn’t sure why.
“Hello?” I peered at her face, watching also her imps that were again strangely silent. The last time I saw imps that silent someone was up to no good.
She grinned wider and extended her hand to me. “I’m Danna.”
“That sounds like a yogurt,” Jane said.
I broke into snickers, ducking my head down. For some reason, I really did not want to touch that woman’s hand. A feeling, maybe.
Danna’s grin slipped, her eyes suddenly cold as she looked down her nose at Jane. “Wrong name.”
Then turning to face me again, Danna hiked her smile back up, still reaching for me. “You’re Evelyn McAllister, right?”
I cringed. “No. It’s just Eve.”
Chuckling, Danna retracted her hand, now seeing that I was not going to take it. “I see. Eve, as in the original sin.”
I got chills. There was something eerie about the way she said that. Stiffening up, I replied, “No. As in Evening. I have a sister named Dawn. Who are you again? And what do you want?”
“Evening and Dawn…” The woman murmured, ignoring me. However, she straightened up and started to fumble with her purse, opening it. I saw her take out her lip-gloss, twist off the top, pull out the wand and spread the shiny goop over her lips. The boys around her practically turned their heads as she did that, ogling her. And there was plenty to ogle. Her dress was more like a camisole than real clothes. Smacking her lips together, she smiled and then looked back down on me. “Nice names. Much like mine. I was named Danna after the goddess. I suppose I can assume you were born in the evening. Specifically, Hallow-een.”
Everyone around me froze, listening in. I expected it. As ‘Creepy Eve’, I have drawn that kind of attention for years, though most especially this last year. But as she said it even I got chills.
I rose from my seat. “Wrong again. I was born two weeks before Halloween. And you still didn’t answer my question. What do you want?”
Her lips spread into a thin line as her smile curled at the ends of her mouth while she leaned back on one foot and set her hand on her hip, her bag hanging from her wrist. “What do I want? Curious question. I’m here to give you what you want.”
I glanced to Jane and then at some of my classmates, blinking with puzzlement. “An ipod?”
Jane busted up. My classmates just stared.
The woman rolled her eyes and hung her shoulders with a decided look of annoyance at me. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Eve McAllister, are you going to help at the booth or not?”
I turned to face the History teacher I had last year who was creepy in his own right. “Mr. McDillan, I’m trying. But this weird lady—”
Yet as I said that, Danna suddenly whipped around on her clogs and rushed away from the booth, hastily going through my classmates to the school doors to get away. I detected some fear in her looks, even as her imps were shouting for her to knee my old History teacher in the groin. Both he and I stared after her. She was gone in two blinks.
“I….” I pointed after her. “You saw that! This weird lady just came up to Jane and me and started talking funny.”
“What did she say?” Mr. McDillan asked still peering down the hall at the doors as if to see through the wall to the outside.
Scratching the top of my head, I shrugged. “I dunno. Something about being here to give me what I want.”
Mr. McDillan’s imps suddenly shouted out for him to stake me. Not like that was anything new, but their tone seemed extra urgent as if he would not have another opportunity to do so. His eyes on me were certainly like he was considering it. However, he merely exhaled and stepped back from me. “And what did you say?”
“She asked for an ipod,” Jane cut in.
Looking to her, my old History teacher blinked then started to chuckle, shaking his head. “Of course. This is Eve we’re talking about.”
But then he turned to me and tried to lead me down the hall from the booth to speak in private. I knew that posture. So did Jane. Jane waved goodbye to me as he led me along. We stopped in a doorway where he whispered.
“Whatever you do, don’t go with her,” he said.
I just stared at him. “Why would I go with her? She’s a total stranger. Did you hit your head or something?”
He smiled at me despite the gravity in his voice. “Miss McAllister, I mean it. She gives off a creepy vibe.”
“You give off a creepy vibe,” I said, and folded my arms. Besides being a professed vampire hunter, Mr. McDillan loved gory history and talked a great deal about beheadings and how people are drawn and quartered. He was perhaps the only thing that creeped me out.
Mr. McDillan made a face. “I’m not joking. Let me check her out, see what she is here for.”
Generally I didn’t agree with suspicion of outsiders, but he had a point. I shrugged and said, “She’s staying at the motel in town with two others. You can start there.”
Narrowing his eyes suspiciously at me he asked, “How do you know that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Jane and I saw them arrive two days ago. Jane spotted them first.”
He exhaled then nodded. “Remind me to give her an A at the end of the term.”
Jane had his class that year. I was glad I didn’t. I had him last year and that was bad enough.
Shrugging I turned to go back to the booth.
“Eve?” He reached out to stop me. “One more thing. Be careful going home today. I have a bad feeling about that woman.”
Shrugging again, I returned to Jane and sat back down.

But Mr. McDillan’s fears were well founded. As soon as school let out and I started for home with Jane and my sister Dawn we hardly got two blocks down the road before a car drove up and one of the women I saw at motel climbed out.
This one had that confident entrepreneurial look about her face. Her hair even had that perfect set with the slight feminine flip to it, frosted with blond streaks in her caramel colored hair. She smiled at me, calling out my name. “Eve. Could you come over here and talk for a minute?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “But my mother said to never talk to strangers.”
Jane busted up again, though Dawn stared at the woman and then at me.
“Well…what’s this about?” Dawn asked, halting as if she thought I had been rude.
The woman smiled at her, reaching her long elegantly manicured fingers into her black leather purse, and pulled out a business card. She extended it to Dawn. “I work for a corporation that empowers women in the world: Coven Inc. I am one of the marketers in the company but I also search out for young hopefuls wishing to get ahead in the world. We have an extensive scholarship program, and you have come to our attention as a potential candidate for our newcomer scholarship this year.”
I paused, suddenly intrigued. “What for? I didn’t apply for anything.”
Dawn frowned though, handing the card over to me. I figured she wished that they had come to offer her the scholarship instead of me.
The businesswoman closed the car door, walking over to us. “True, but we scout out schools searching for ideal candidates, and you fit the criteria perfectly. You