“Who was that on the phone, Lulu?” Jake asked, having entered the room just in time to see her stick out her tongue at the receiver and hang up.
“It was nobody, just some person claiming to be a witch. She says she's going to get me and Reggie and Bob and take us to Texas, wherever that is.”
“Oh, no. That wasn't nobody. You'd better tell me exactly what she said.”
“Hey, what's going on?” Reggie asked as he came in followed by Lulu's little dog Bob.
“Sit down, Reggie, and don't interrupt.”
“But...”
“Sit.” Jake ordered pointing at a chair. Reggie was about to argue some more, Lulu could tell, but then saw how serious Jake looked and thought better of it. Bob also sat, but nobody noticed, so he trotted off to Lulu's bedroom.
Lulu recounted the conversation with the wierdo several times, as Jake kept making her repeat it. He sat there shaking his head and saying over and over: “This isn't good,” as if saying it more times was going to make it better.
“Tell me everything she said, Lulu,” he demanded yet again. She’d once tried meditating and had to repeat something called a “mantra” over and over. Jake seemed to have found just such a phrase.
“This isn’t good,” he said, running his hand through his hair in such a way that it stuck up all over as if he’d been electroshocked. Lulu imagined him getting electroshocked and convulsing uncontrollably.
“This really isn’t good.” His hair was still standing on end, aided by his stupid hair gel which made it stiff and icky looking.
“I just told you everything she said at least ten times. The story won’t change just because I say it again.”
“This isn’t good.”
“I think you mentioned that.”
“Just tell me again, and don’t leave anything out.”
“You’re out of luck now. I just forgot the whole conversation.” Lulu twirled her hair and batted her eyelashes, as Jake scowled.
“It only lasted ten seconds. How could you have forgotten it?”
“My point exactly.” Lulu scowled back. “I told you what she said.”
“Here,” she grabbed a note pad and a pen from the coffee table. “I’ll make you a list.”
Here’s the list Lulu made:
The Wicked Witch of West Texas intends to kidnap me and Reggie and Bob.
Maybe not Reggie. She wasn't clear on that point.
She’s got a dimensional portal.
She wants taco slaves.
She’s somewhere in West Texas (a place I don’t believe exists).
She’s a complete lunatic.
She called me a fool.
The End. That’s all she said. (Except the lunatic part.)
Lulu handed the notepad and pen to Jake, who stared at it dumbfounded. At least, Lulu thought, it shut him up so she could imagine things.
Lulu was already imagining what it would be like to be kidnapped. It was probably horrible, she thought, but also it could be a little exciting. Would the witch tie them up? Definitely, she decided. She would escape, though, like Houdini, because she was going to start practicing that right away. Then she'd have to fight the witch. She'd look for anything that could be a weapon and the first thing she would do would be to knock the witch's wand from her hand. The witch might have a backup weapon, though, like a sword or something. Maybe she'd lose an arm and she'd come back and have to get a hook, which would make her the best pirate in Walla Walla.[6]
Even as she repeated the conversation yet again for her dad she tried holding her left hand like a hook.[7]It would have to be the left since she wrote with her right, and she didn't feel like imagining how she would write if she didn't have the right hand. With the left it would be kinda cool.[8]She'd look really scary with a hook instead of a hand, and she'd probably be able to get out of PE whenever she wanted. At least she wouldn't have to do the rope climb, which she hated because she wasn't good at it and Reggie was.
This is when it first occurred to Lulu to subvert an imagining, which she quickly did by instead imagining a costume involving a fake prosthetic.
“There's no such thing as wicked witches, though,” Lulu pointed out, hoping she wasn't going to have to repeat it any more. There was simply nothing left to tell, and she couldn't see why her dad was getting so worked up anyway.
“It was just some weirdo who's seen too many movies and wants to be a witch,” Lulu theorized, “so she sits around all the time imagining she is one and since nobody cares about her she calls people on the phone and tries to scare them. She's just a weirdo.”
Jake looked up from the notepad and shuddered, his complexion having gone as pale as, well, a ghost, which Lulu didn’t actually believe in any more than she did witches, having been told about their un-realness plenty of times.
“Yeah.” Reggie put in, his sulkiness making clear he was not happy about Lulu getting center stage for so long. “Witches are just made up.”
“Unfortunately, kids, that's where you are mistaken. Maybe you should sit down while I tell you about my sinister sister.” Jake began to pace in front of the couch, clutching the notepad to his chest and sighing like a pathetic sparkly teen vampire in love, though he looked more scared than that. He looked more like a sparkly teen vampire in love who just found out he’d drunk blood infected by flesh eating bacteria. He was turning positively puce to boot.
Lulu was appalled at his maudlin posturing over a crank phone call and the more he huffed and puffed and turned mauve, the more sure she was that he was up to another one of his “jokes.” They always involved ham acting and stupid plots. He’d probably paid someone to place the call just so he could engage in these dumb shenanigans all weekend, which he would later call “educational.” She wasn’t going to fall for this one, she decided. Not like last week’s supposed tainted cereal scare that turned out to be because Jake didn’t want to share the Choco-Saur Crunch. Or the time he paid random strangers at Pioneer Park to offer Lulu and Reggie candy to show how easily they could be lured away. After that he tried to make them both wear WWJD[9]bracelets.
“You’re lying again,” Lulu said. “You don’t even have a sister.”
At this, Jake actually fell to the floor and began to gag, writhing around as later they would have occasion to see an unfortunate hex victim do. Even for a drama king like Jake, this was taking things a bit far, but perhaps he’d been working on his technique. Lulu wondered if he'd been taking acting lessons.
“I do. I do have a sister,” he gasped between sobs. Yes, sobs. He was now crying and emitting wounded animal sounds and a lot of snot. This was somewhat entertaining. However, Lulu was starting to suspect he wasn't joking, but other than that she had no idea what to make of this development.
“You don't have a sister,” Reggie reiterated, redundantly, but Jake took no notice of the repetition. Reggie glared at Jake, who still was acting like a princess who’d just mistaken hair removal cream for conditioner and wound up bald. Lulu smiled a little despite her attempt to remain stoic. She imagined Jake bald and wearing a rainbow sequined gown, his tiara having fallen off due to lack of hair. A bald, psychedelic princess with the face of an insane pug. She imagined putting hair removal cream in his hair gel, or perhaps his leave-in conditioner. Her face muscles hurt. She considered a fake cough, but knew she'd not be able to stop once she started. A tear welled and spilled down her cheek.
“Don't worry. I know exactly what to do.”
“Lulu,” her mom called from the kitchen, “come help me make the enchiladas for dinner.”
Lulu pictured the enchiladas and held her breath until the image of the colorful princess went.
“Not now, Anne,” Jake howled at his wife, followed by a donkey-like braying sound. “What will we dooooooo?”
“Is something wrong?” Anne asked coming into the family room. She gasped when she saw Jake. Apparently, whatever Jake was trying to pull, she wasn’t in on the plan. Or she wasin on the acting lessons.
“The Wicked Witch of West Texas just called Lulu.”
“What? Who called Lulu?” Asked Anne, turning to face Lulu.
“The Wicked Witch of West Texas,” Lulu and Jake said in unison. Anne was in on it, Lulu thought.
Anne just stared at him for a moment. She looked a little stiff. It was a good thing she wasn't a real actor because she'd never get a part.
“I think it's time I told the kids about our least favorite relative.” Yeah. He'd worked on it, but she could still see the doofus underneath the mask.
“Oh, my.” Anne looked like she'd discovered a tarantula sitting on top of her tuna casserole. Lulu thought that would be pretty funny if it happened. She pictured Reggie not noticing it and accidentally putting it in his mouth. It would probably bite him on the tongue. Lulu wondered if tarantulas were poisonous.[10]Reggie would turn purple or something and keel over, and she'd have to try not to laugh, which she was just about to do. She pictured her math teacher writing a problem on the board, but even that was barely helping. To make matters worsely hilarious, Jake was starting to hyperventilate. Another tear slipped down Lulu’s cheek.
“Don't cry, Lulu, it's bad, but we'll think of something. You see, the Wicked Witch of West Texas, also known as my sister, has been out to get me for years.” Jake grabbed a tissue from the box Anne held out to him, blowing his nose loudly before he continued. “Once she even tried to kill me by spraying me with a cloud of poison fog. I barely survived.” He dabbed at his eyes – prissily, princessly even, Lulu thought. He’d never managed real tears before. Maybe he was finally losing it. Going crazy, that is. Maybe he’d get locked in the attic. She imagined him up there tromping around, wailing, while the family ate dinner. It could have advantages. Slumber parties would be way more creepy. She choked a chortle with cough-ish huff before regaining her composure, but luckily it sounded like upsetness.
“You’re just making up more stupid stories like Doofus McGoofus,” said Lulu. “Remember that one?”[11]
“The witch is real. Indubitably.” Anne assured them. She could see that Lulu still had doubts.
“But why? Why would his sister, of whom we have never even heard, try to kill him? And why would she call threatening to kidnap us? And what is this crap about tacos? I'm dubious.”[12]
“She went away a long time ago. Before you were born, Lulu.” Jake propped himself up on his elbow, and dried his eyes, regaining some composure, at least for the moment. “And don’t say bad words.”[13]
“What about her trying to kill you?”
“Well, it's a long story. The first thing you have to understand is that she’s a witch. She was always a witch. Even when she was a kid. She was just born weird.”[14]
“Okay…” Lulu didn’t know what to make of this assertion. “So, this, uh, your sister, the witch, wanted to kill you. Why would that be?”
“How do you guys think I know so much about freaks and wackos?”
Lulu wanted to answer, but she picked at an imaginary thread on her shirt.
Jake sat up, cross-legged, blowing his nose again.
“It’s a long story, but we were in the back yard conversing, you might even say arguing, when she suddenly pulled out something that appeared to be a fire extinguisher, but turned out to be filled with a putrid green and purple fog. She sprayed it at me and the cloud surrounded me. It was horrible.”
“Stay calm, Jake,” Anne touched his shoulder.
Jake shuddered as he recalled the incident and Lulu was afraid he was going to start crying again. She really hoped he wouldn’t. She missed his less good acting.
“It was choking me and smothering me all at once.” His voice cracked as he began his tale. “I felt like my whole head was on fire and frozen solid. It was the worst feeling imaginable. The only reason I survived was that I attempted to run away just as the witch made her move and most of the poison fog missed.”
Lulu smiled a little picturing it, in spite of the fact that it really was scary and if Jake caught her smiling he’d probably go into some faux-hysteria and then she’d be really sorry. The thing was, poison fog sounded incredibly cool. You could keep it around in case someone came in the house and wanted to do something horrible, like kidnap you, for instance. She doubted this was a good time to point out the potential up-sides of poison fog, though. He’d probably blubber for a week. He often boasted of his endurance.
“It was pretty awful. It should have killed me,” Jake whined and Lulu cringed and Anne looked serious and Reggie picked at a scab. What Jake didn't mention, because he was unaware of it, was that the fog did kill four flies, forty-two mosquitoes and a mole that was burrowing underground.
Lulu wondered if the witch had any more of this poison fog stuff. What if she did and it was inside of something in the house? Like a hairspray can? Someone could try to use hairspray and then... well she didn't want to picture what would happen. She was never going to use hairspray, she vowed. Even if she was dressing up like the Bride of Frankenstein, which she sometimes did. She was going to have to will herself to stop imagining hiding places for poisons before next Halloween, or things were going to take a drab turn.
“My own sister. She tried to KILL me.” He was getting weepy again.
“But why would she want to kill you?”[15]Lulu asked her dad, who had gone silent. She wondered about non-aerosol styling products – other than gel.
“Like I said. It's a long story, and I've avoided telling you for all these years because, well, I just didn't want to have to think about my horrible wicked witch of a sister. I was too traumatized.”
Lulu noticed Reggie scrutinizing her and gave him the dirtiest look she could.
“I remember when I watched the Wizard of Oz when I was like, five, and got all freaked out and you told me that wicked witches didn't exist. Now you tell me that I have an aunt who is one? And that she tried to kill you?”
“What are you trying to say, Lulu?” Jake asked, giving her a pained look. Anne looked away, shaking her head.
“I don’t know. This just seems a little sudden. Are you sure you aren’t up to something again?”
“Lulu. This is serious. Tell them, Anne.”
“Lulu, Reggie. Listen to me. It’s true,” Anne said. “He really does have a sister and she really is a wicked witch. She did actually try to kill him.” Anne looked worried and disgusted.
“I don't understand. Why didn't you tell us about her? And why would she want to kill you? Or kidnap me?” Lulu asked her dad.
“You see, Lulu and Reggie, the witch was sure, still is, actually, that I stole her poison-neutralizing bezoar, which she brought to Thanksgiving dinner,”[16]Jake explained.
“What the heck is a bezoar?” Lulu asked.
“A bezoar[17]is a very nasty large hairball yacked up by some animal. In this case a non-existent cat.”
“Gross,” Lulu scrunched up her face, and for a moment she wasn't sure she wanted any cheese enchiladas for dinner, “But why would a witch want a disgusting hairball?”
“Well, that part doesn't make much sense. But then, a lot of things the witch says don't seem to make sense. The witch claimed that the bezoar was coughed up by something called Schrödinger’s cat at the exact moment he was both alive and dead during a time-travel thought experiment. The fact that the cat was composed entirely of thoughts, making it mostly imaginary, and that it was the only creature in the known universe that had time-traveled made the bezoar a one-of-a-kind object of immense magical importance, or so she said. It's best to take what she says with a grain of salt, though, even if it's a grain of radioactive salt.”[18]
“That's ridiculous. How can an imaginary cat upchuck a hairball in an imaginary experiment?” Lulu objected. “The hairball would also have to be imaginary.”
“Yeah. What a stupid story,” Reggie said. Jake turned to look at Reggie like he’d forgotten his presence. He winced and then turned back to Lulu to continue the explanation.
“I told you. She doesn't always make sense, but that doesn't make her any less dangerous. There are plenty of people, in fact, who don’t make any sense who just happen to be the most dangerous people in existence. Killer clowns are an example of the genre.”
“That doesn’t explain why she’d want to kill you,” Lulu pointed out.
“She believed that because of the supposed strange origins of the hairball that it had very special poison-neutralizing powers, and she had added some extra enchantments to it as well, because after taking up wickidity she didn’t trust anyone. She came to dinner that day and, after touching the hairball to all of her food, she somehow misplaced it. I remember her wrapping it in a napkin because it had gravy on it after she treated her mashed potatoes.”
“She touched it to her food?” Lulu was appalled, as would be most people with good sense. “That's disgusting.” She'd like to see this bezoar for herself, though she wasn't sure she'd be able to touch it to her food. She decided to read up on poisons as soon as possible because if she knew all about them she'd have a better chance of avoiding them. The thought of hairspray still troubled her.
“Okay, so the bezoar was supposed to neutralize poison, which then led to her poisoning you?”
“The witch's expectation that someone in her immediate family would poison her, along with the loss of the enchanted bezoar, was probably the reason for her relocation,” Jake continued. “It's probably also why she never comes to Thanksgiving dinner anymore, which isn't something anyone is complaining about. The truth is, I wouldn’t have touched the disgusting hairball[19]for anything, but try telling her that. She's not the easiest person to reason with, since she's crazy. You were just a baby when all of this happened.”
Lulu could barely believe what she was hearing. A wicked witch? Poison magical fog? An enchanted hairball? Said witch right here in Walla Walla, at the Thanksgiving dinner table? Could it be true? She did get the creepy phone call. That much she knew. But the story Jake was telling her was almost too much to be believed, which was not without precedent.
But then, there was that package under the tree last Christmas. It had her name on it, but her parents claimed not to know from whom it came. When she opened it there was a witch doll inside, but no note or anything. Lulu still remembered the look on her parents' faces when they saw it. The witch doll disappeared almost immediately and her parents claimed that she'd misplaced it, even though she knew better.
“Why would she think you'd poison her?” Lulu asked.
“Like I said, I tried to reason with her,” Jake continued his story. “You have to have a fairly bad conscience to be so afraid of being poisoned by your own family members that you will actually touch a gross, disgusting hairball to your food, right? I have no reason to fear being poisoned. Except, as the witch pointed out, by her. That's when she pulled the poison fog capsule out of her purse and let me have it just to prove her point.”
“But you ran?” Reggie asked.
“That poison was supposed to be enough to kill an ox. It's a good thing I was wearing my lucky socks, or I wouldn't be here right now.”
Lulu knew better than to say anything about his “lucky socks.” She traded a glance with Reggie. Even he wasn't going to touch that subject. Not even if it meant a chance to assert himself as the center of attention. Better to face a murderous witch than be fossilized by accreting boredom.
“That was the reason I reacted so quickly. It's also why I always wear lucky socks now. So, if you ever start in about “there's no such thing as lucky socks,” just remember that you would be an orphan if it weren't for lucky socks. No, you wouldn't even be that, because this all happened before you were born. You would never have been born if it weren't for lucky socks. Or if you were, you wouldn't be you because you would have a different dad which would mean you'd be a different person. You just think about that next time you want to get smart with me about my lucky socks.”[20]
He'd just said she was a baby when it all went down. Lulu, Reggie and Anne all dropped their eyes to the carpet, as if there might be some discarded candies littered about which Bob overlooked. They didn’t actually drop their actual eyeballs, but they may as well have because nobody would even look in Jake’s direction.
This was why nobody ever discussed the subject of lucky socks with Jake. He tended to rant about it because nobody believed his theories. He attributed every good thing that happened to him to his lucky socks. For example, the previous week he found a quarter on the ground. Nobody even bothered to disagree with him when he started in about how his lucky socks had just made him twenty-five cents richer. It wasn't worth the trouble. Likewise, when he laterlost the quarter through a hole in his jeans pocket, nobody breathed a word about socks. Or anything that rhymed with socks, or even almost rhymed, or featured too many sounds in common with, as in syzygy. There was no point in speaking on the subject of socks or accidentally glancing footward. When something bad happened, he would simply say those particular socks had worn out their luckiness and he'd get rid of them unless they became lucky again during the same wearing, which often happened.
“I really don't understand why you never told me about my aunt being a wicked witch. It seems kind of important,” Lulu remarked, trying not to sound too harsh. She was actually struggling to disguise her rising irritation, but she didn’t want to risk him crying again.
“Yeah. Why didn't you tell us? We had a right to know.” Reggie stood there with his arms folded in front of him, looking offended.
“It would only have scared you,” Jake explained. "Parents have to tell their kids that there's no such thing as witches or monsters and stuff like that, so that kids won't be afraid."
“I'm going back to the kitchen,” Anne said, and turned to leave. “I'm not the one who insisted the kids shouldn't know, and I have tortillas to make.”
“But if you knew she existed, then wouldn’t you want us to be warned about her?”
“What good would it do? I figured I’d tell you if you ever needed to know, and otherwise, you’d be happier if you thought that nothing so horrible was possible.”
Lulu thought about the many things Jake had, at one time, assured them needn’t be worried about. The list was long enough she might not even remember a fraction of them and they were all back on the table as possibilities. Then there was the stuff that he assured them did exist. Killer clowns, for instance.[21]
Jake let out a loud sigh. Maybe he should have been more forthcoming regarding family secrets. Because of his unfortunate history with his twisted sister, he knew it would be just like the Wicked Witch of West Texas to kidnap Lulu and Reggie, and perhaps even Bob. In fact, although he hadn’t told anyone, not even Anne, the witch had called several times lately, asking him an ominous question: “Have you checked the children lately?” Then she would just hang up. It was troubling, but he wasn’t sure what he could do about it, which was why he hadn’t said anything. He didn’t know yet about the witch’s plan to create an intergalactic taco conglomerate, but if he had, he’d have been even more concerned.[22]
“I am going to have to do something about the wicked West Texas witch. I may have to go see the Marginal Wizard of Calamity Flats and hope that he has some idea what to do about this mess.”[23]
What he didn’t say was that he had little hope that anyone could really stop the witch if she was determined to make trouble, and knowing her, she probably was. He definitely couldn't fix the real problem, which was that the witch was his sister. Jake slumped forward and buried his face in his palms. The witch coming back after all this time away was just too much to contemplate. His reputation in Walla Walla would be re-ruined and he’d probably have to relocate, particularly if she decided to re-occupy the town. That much was clear. The stories he’d made up about her supposed retirement to a nice place in the country weren’t going to work again.
The fact that Jake still looked so disturbed was starting to worry Lulu. He hadn't yet broken character at all, and more concerning was the fact that her mom hadn’t either. She usually barely played along. The big reveal should be soon and usually that meant Jake starting to puff up, but he seemed now to be deflating, if not imploding. She studied his sagging posture. It was all wrong. She felt a little ball of warm anticipation beginning with a flutter around her belly, like she'd swallowed some fireflies and they were happy, singing even, as they glowed, which seemed wrong for news of a real witch on the warpath.
What she had seen of wicked witches in the movies and on TV indicated that they were usually absurdly ill-tempered and unfriendly. Books she’d read were of the same opinion, though she'd always been assured they were fictional, which meant that if there werewitches, these books may well have been slander. Lulu was glad she'd taken it upon herself to sneak-read so many books that her parents would deem “inappropriate” now that she knew they'd been holding out on her. (And luckily, the subject matter of these tomes was not limited to witches.)
Sources, Lulu knew, didn’t necessarily agree on what, exactly, witches did to kids. Some held that they dined on them, while others had them turning kids to mice, or worse. Yet others featured vague threats and horrible minions; poisoned fruits and imprisonment. None of it was good. There were simply too many horrid possibilities for Lulu to know what evil she should be imagining, making this threat disturbingly ambiguous, yet specific.
What Lulu hadn’t worked out is why witches were so bent on doing bad things. If witches could really do magic it seemed to Lulu that they would want to do nice things in order to make everyone happier, like turning all the Komodo Dragons in the world into nice, gentle giant lizards that people could ride like horses and train to do tricks, or turning all the broccoli into rainbow sherbet. Probably, Lulu thought, there was some flaw in her thinking. Perhaps there was some other horrid critter in Komodo that needed eating and the lack of dragons would create an imbalance. The idea of magic was working on her.
“She can't really do magic, can she?” Lulu asked her dad.
“Yes. Unfortunately she can.”
“I don't believe it,” Reggie said. “She's just making things up to scare us. You've always said there's no such thing as magic.”
Jake took his wallet from his back pocket.
“Look at this,” he said holding out a picture he'd withdrawn from one of the pockets.
“Eww, that's horrible looking. What in the world is it?” The critter in the picture was some kind of hideous rodent-like thing with a misshapen head.
“Well, Lulu, it's a Hot-Headed Naked Ice Borer, and it's also your second cousin, Laurie.” Jake sounded sad.
“I don't have a second cousin, Laurie,” Lulu said.
“It's true you don't any more, or at least nobody really knows. There was a report some time back of her having been spotted at the South Pole, but who knows what's happened to her since.[24]She actually was very average looking until she made an unfavorable comment about my twisted sister's chain mail prom dress.”
Lulu and Reggie stared at the picture. For a moment neither knew what to say.
“The wicked witch was just a beginner back then,” Jake said, staring at the picture. “Poor Laurie. She was really very nice and I doubt she meant the prom dress comment in a bad way. All she said was that chain mail was a weird thing to make a prom dress out of. I mean, her tone was a bit snide.” He looked wistful as he stared out the front window toward the street corner.
“Most people also don't know that the witch is the source of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. They didn't even exist until some guy in her Spanish class annoyed her by using the wrong tense. Then she turned his girlfriend into one too, just for good measure. She said it was so he wouldn't be lonely, but everyone knew it was pure spite.”
“Do you think that witch is really going to get us?” Reggie asked. The picture was pretty awful. It might not be real, though, he told himself. Maybe their dad was just trying to frighten them yet again. Like the time he tried to convince them that he'd fought off an evil clown named Bad Clowner who'd tried to rob them when everyone was asleep at night. Jake had even made a cardboard and duct tape helmet for his supposed nightly battles, but this was different. He wasn't claiming credit for any act of heroism, which his tall tales always included. No, if anything, Jake looked slightly horrified. That couldn't be good.
Reggie had gone pale, Lulu noticed. She was glad he hadn't read any of her books on the subject of witches, or he'd probably be passing out by now. He was a year younger than Lulu, so she felt that she should say something to reassure him.
“Don’t worry Reggie, the Marginal Wizard will have a solution.” When she got her dictionary and looked up the word “marginal” she was somewhat less than reassured. It was defined as: “Of minor importance or of a low standard of quality.”
“Really, Reggie, marginal means: very skilled and effective.” She rationalized that it was probably alright to lie in order to make her brother less scared. Even though she had pretty clearly been taught that lying was always wrong.
But then, Jake once told a lady at church that her hair looked lovely, only to tell Anne on the way home it looked like a beetle-infested topiary[25]created by a one-armed blind man using a dull chainsaw, but he didn't say so because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. So, she had gathered that lying was sometimes done for good reason and the reason usually involved feelings. This, Lulu thought, was a case of lying for a good reason. There was no sense in Reggie being scared if he didn't have to, but unfortunately, Lulu couldn't tell herself anything reassuring.
There also was another case of lying she didn't want to think about, and that one involved her dad, her mom, and her evil aunt. Her dad said he did it so they wouldn't be scared, which was her reason for lying to her brother. Lies and truth were beginning to be more confusing than she had ever thought possible. There was, as well, another puzzling factor. The enigma of “Uncle Al,” whom Lulu had encountered visiting her house on several occasions, but whom her parents insisted did not exist. They called him an “imaginary friend,” positing that Lulu made him up or worse, imagined him. She’d always known they were wrong. Now she questioned their motives.
Reggie did feel a little better after Lulu mentioned the Marginal Wizard. Not for the reason Lulu would have thought, however, but because it occurred to him that the wizard was a boy and he was sure boys were better than girls, so he’d know more than that West Texas witch. He didn’t say this to Lulu, though, because she would probably tell Jake, or worse: she’d twist his ear and then he’d tell Jake and they’d both get in trouble for fighting.
Unfortunately Reggie couldn’t have been more wrong about the wizard's superiority. A Wickidity Warrant is the highest magical attainment and only a handful of officially certified Wicked Witches actually exist. There are a number of Vile, Evil, Horrid, and Diabolical Witches that would all be truly undesirable enemies, but all of them put together don’t compare to the Wicked Witch of West Texas.[26]
And as for the Marginal Wizard, the only thing he was truly qualified to do was read your aura, so going up against a wicked witch with his help was a bit like trying to fight off a tiger with your farts. The only thing you could possibly accomplish was to make the creature angrier. Add to it that the witch had lately put out a wanted poster depicting the Wizard, and offering to not punish any party who turned him in. According to the poster, he'd stolen something valuable from her. Thus you get an idea just how little good his help would do them. In fact, one would surmise, the only reason the Marginal Wizard was still a mammal was that the witch had been mighty busy with the grays.
Lulu had no way of knowing this, but Jake suspected at least part of the truth. He couldn’t simply do nothing, though, and the Marginal Wizard was all they had in the area.
“If only they’d hire a real wizard,” Jake said. “They must know the Wicked Witch of West Texas has ties to this area.” Alas, Calamity Flats was the only town around with a wizard budget and it was only a few dollars, so they had to take what they could get. It was more than a little odd, in retrospect, that they could get a wizard at all.
[6]A bionic limb did not occur to her. Any claims otherwise are just not true.
[7]She was also picturing a bionic limb.
[8]Having what is known as a prosthetic limb is likely not as great as Lulu pictured, but Lulu was caught up in her imaginings and didn't think through the practical problems of such an outcome. She'd gotten most of her understanding of this situation from animated movies. This is definitely a part of the story that some will find distasteful, but, be that as it may, it is what Lulu was thinking and she doesn’t always conform her thoughts within the strictest bounds of propriety. Let this serve as a warning regarding future reported or purported thoughts attributed to any fictional or real character herein. You were also warned in the prologue not to read this book, so suck it up.
[9]What would Jake do?
[10]They aren't very. But some spiders like the Australian Atrax Robustus, and the Brazilian Walking Spider are quite poisonous. Those spiders don't live in or around Walla Walla, with the possible exception of a hexing or cursing event.
[11]Formerly a made up deranged killer who targeted kids who were late for dinner.
[12]Precise memory of the exact wording here is in doubt since it's all so ridiculous.
[13]Lulu should have opted for a more Latinate word for crap, like feces, as Latinate words come from the French and are never dirty even when they describe the same things as words that are dirty. This is a good strategy for using dirty language in a way that nobody can criticize and it's educational. Always choose the educational route, or it will choose you.
[14]As the witch is older than Jake, it's unclear that he has any authority on the subject, which is something he's never let deter him from commentary.
[15]It should be noted, just for the record, that she still has plans for Jake when her busy schedule permits.
[16]Wicked portmanteau: vacatiocide- a vacation taken for the express purpose of committing homicide. Precludes being invited back, so must be used sparingly. This was likely what she had planned before being flustered by the bezoar loss.
[17]In 1575, a doctor named Ambroise Pare decided to test the efficacy of a bezoar. At the time bezoars were deemed to be able to neutralize any poison. Pare convinced his cook, who had been caught stealing silverware to ingest some poison in order to test the bezoar. The cook died a horrible death when the bezoar failed to work. The advantage of this for Pare was that he had settled the matter of whether or not the bezoar worked. The cook had also settled for himself the same question.
[18]A saying that means to remain skeptical. Taken from a poison antidote recipe written down by some guy named Pliny the Elder.
[19]The bezoar in question is actually fairly compacted and not particularly dirty. The witch was carrying it because the chain she wore it on broke. She did not touch it to her food, as she’s immune to poison anyway. It was simply a horrid fashion accessory of un-imaginal magical significance. Jake was just trying to amplify the drama.
[20]The lucky sock effect is something that is now being studied for possible past-future application.
[21]These have since been eradicated.
[22]Her plan was to control all taco-making in our Milky Way Galaxy, along with the Andromeda Galaxy. The fact is, her plan was already well underway.
[23]Marginal is the lowest level of magical credential. Marginal magic practitioners are not qualified to even think about, much less give advice on, wickidity, unless that advice is something along the lines of “run away.”
[24]The sighting was reported in the April, 1995 issue of Discover Magazine.
[25]A shrubbery trimmed in an ornamental shape, like an animal. Perhaps Sasquatch, or a Jackalope, for example. These shrubberies may or may not move about on their own depending upon where one lives.
[26]The Wicked Witch of West Texas is officially the most powerful evildoer in the known universe. This matter had once been a subject of debate until her competition was discovered to have become an entirely new species of slime mold. That settled the matter and contributed to the body of knowledge (along with some other slime emitting creatures of later creation) surrounding slime and it’s many uses.
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