Nine-year-old Amy Winter's holiday plans have gone from exciting to total disaster.
How is she supposed to have any fun being packed up and sent to stay with a weird relative she can't even remember?
And Aunt Penelope is as weird as they get. With...
"Ughhh....This, is not good." Miranda looked most upset, her pointy nose, jutting out from her sunken cheeks, was sent high into the air.
"Everything's not good to you first thing in the morning." Her sister Hilda reminded her, throwing the two toads into the pot.
"True... but this is so, so not good!" Miranda shook her head, unable to remove the image from her mind.
"Whatever it is, one drink of this toad tea, my dearie, and everything will be fine." Cybil poured the boiling liquid into the tiny china cup.
"You don't understand. This could ruin everything! Everything I tell you!"
"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Miranda," Hilda sniffed.
"But you didn't see it. My vision... I just know we are doomed."
"Doomed? Really Miranda. Mumsy would turn over in her grave if she heard you." Hilda scoffed. "You may have her beauty but we all know I am the talented one. Her acting skills were wasted on you."
"Were not!"
"Were too!"
"Girls... enough! Mumsy would be most displeased." Cybil the eldest and tallest of the three stood up, stretching to her full sixty centimeters. "Just tell us what you saw, Miranda."
"Penelope..." Miranda paused.
"See? It was nothing. I told you... drama queen."
Miranda stuck her tongue out at Hilda.
"Hilda! Do you want to be put in the pink dress again?" Cybil threatened her youngest sister.
"No, no... not again! That last time gave me nightmares!" Hilda's bulging purple eyes grew even bigger as she shuddered with disgust. "I looked so... pretty!"
"Well then, let your sister speak."
""Alright..." Hilda relented. "If I must... But I know she's -"
"HILDA!"
Hilda held up two fingers and pulled them across her mouth like she was closing a zip, then acted as though she threw away the key, staring crossly at Miranda the whole time.
"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted..." Miranda's triumphant smile dropped like a lead balloon as she remembered what she had seen. With a very serious and worried expression she continued, "Penelope was supposed to be alone. Right?"
She looked at Cybil who nodded.
"Well, she's not. She has someone else with her, now."
"Is that all, dearie?" Cybil sighed. Miranda even had her worried for a moment, there. "You know we can easily get her friends to leave. Just like before. Penelope will never suspect a thing."
"Yes, I know, I know. But this is not just one of her friends."
"What do you mean?" Cybil said slowly. "Who is it?"
"Its... a child."
The three sisters fell silent, sharing fearful glances.
A child? Now, that was bad news.
Very bad news, indeed....
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