The Snake Queen

Chapter 25

Aye everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. And a thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and had a drink for me. Please comment the drink you had below. Anyway, on this holiday, I am thankful for all of you who read my stories. The amount of love I have for all of you is amazing. Now to show you how thankful I am, here's chapter 25. Enjoy. :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Riiinnnggg.

The sound of the final bell on the last day of school is music to my ears. I had been through a lot in the last nine months, so it'll be nice to focus on everything but school. It'll be nice to put all my energy into breaking this curse without having to stop to go to class to do homework. At least until September.

"Wait. His name is Tombutoo?" Jay asked me as we walked out of the science lab.

"That's what I said. Apparently I was supposed to know that."

"Book didn't say?" I turned the dial and opened my locker.

"Nope. Book didn't say, he never said, no one ever told me. My dad had to tell me."

"How would your father know?" I gave her a knowing look. "Wait. Your dad's side of the family?"

Aside from where this curse is heading, no one really knows anything about it. All they know is what it's doing to me physically. If hey couldn't see all the physical changes, they probably wouldn't know about it at all. Unless Tombutoo would still be following me around. In that case, I'd be stuffing him in my locker.

"So, I'm guessing you're going to be spending your summer trying to break the curse?"

"On top of working at the shop and the farm, and I know Ash'll have me on call all summer. Plus I'm sure Ryan has summer romance on his mind. But until that starts, I'll be at Skye's." I closed my locker.

"And I'll be babysitting Casey and Thomas for the next two weeks. At least until Thomas starts summer camp."

I envy my friends' sense of normality. Until I can figure out a way to break this curse, I won't know what normal is. Even if I wasn't cursed, I still wouldn't know what normal is. I'm an only child. Everybody on my dad's side is either an only child or has half siblings.

"All of you are doing something with your siblings. If I do anything with any of you, at least one of your siblings get sucked in. Except Hazel and Chelsea because they're twins, and we all hang out with both of them."

"Yeah. The only time we don't have to worry about siblings being involved is when we hang out with you because you're an only child."

"No. With me, you don't get siblings. You get Tombutoo." I opened my car door.

"Where is he?" Jay and I slid into the driver and passenger seats.

"I told him I wanted him to leave me alone because it's the last day of school. Then Dad threatened to turn him into a belt if he didn't."

"He really doesn't like him, does he?" I pulled out of the school parking lot.

"Would your mom like him if he bit you?" I put my right foot on the gas, my left foot on the clutch and shifted into fifth.

"Touché."

I shifted my car into fourth as I turned the corner onto Jay's street. Speak of the devil, her mom's watering the plants as I pulled into the driveway. She waved as I put the car in park. Jay said her goodbyes and told me to call her later as she got out of the car. I put my feet on the gas and clutch as I put my car in first and took off down the street.

Skye only lives two blocks over from me. I technically could park my car in my driveway then walk over. I just choose not to because I like driving and showing off my Chevelle.

Unfortunately, going over to Sky's means parking on the street. Parking in a driveway made of rock makes me paranoid for some reason. I turned my car off and climbed out. I walked up the driveway to the white garage door attached to the small one story blue house. I knocked three times on the garage door and it opened.

Sky stayed home from school to watch her little brother, Sealey, who's a grade below us. Much like his sister, Sealey has brown hair and blue eyes, but he is a whole foot taller than her. Their older brother, Salinger, has brown hair and blue eyes as well, and he's half a foot taller than Sealey. Salinger's home for the summer after completing his first year at the University of Arizona. Evidently, Mr. Pre-med opened the garage door.

"Hi, Salinger."

"Maggie's here. I see you finally finished you car."

"Yep. She's been done since March."

"How long did it take to rebuild her?"

"Three years. I'm just glad she's done." He opened his mouth. "No, you can't drive her. She's a stick shift."

"Damn." I walked into the kitchen.

"Olly olly oxen free!" I called.

"Hey, geeks, it's me!" I heard Sealey yodel back. "Hi, Sealey." He poked his head out of his room.

"Hi, Mag." He smiled, and I could see the blue and green rubber bands on his braces.

"Bananarama!" Sky yelled the name of her mother's favorite band from the basement.

The house only has three bedrooms since Sky's parents planned on not having anymore children after she was born. That didn't last very long. When Sky was six months old, their mom found out she was three months pregnant with Sealey. Suffice to say, Sky and Sealey are Irish twins.

Originally, Salinger and Sky had their own rooms. When Sealey got too big for his crib, he moved into Salinger's room. After their parents decided Sky could be trusted on her own, they made a room for her in the basement. She's been down there ever since. Now Sealey has his own room, and Salinger has his room for when he comes home from school.

I walked down the white carpeted steps I fell down several times as a kid. At the bottom of the steps, the carpet turned to blue. Her queen size bed sat in the middle of the room with purple bedding covered in white stars. Her walls were painted pink and neon green, and her black ceiling was covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. She had a red oak end table next to her bed, a foot locker at the foot of her bed, a black loveseat in front of that, and a TV mounted on her wall.

She has a walk-in closet with a built in thing for shoes that she rarely uses because she's not a shoe hoarder like Hazel and Chelsea. Her coat rack rotates! We used it as a merry-go-round when we were kids. She also had her own bathroom with a double sink and a clawfoot tub.

"Marco."

"Polo." I heard her voice from her closet.

"I have found your brothers."

"Expected." Most of her clothes were on the floor.

"What are you doing?"

"Since the school year is over, I'm cleaning out my closet to make room for next year's. I'm giving away some of my old clothes to Goodwill. Would you mind if we stopped at the clothing drop on the way back?"

"Can we do it tomorrow? I have some stuff I wanna give away too."

"Yeah. Sure." She turned back to her clothes. "You want any of this before I give it away?"

"Sure. I'll go through it, and see if there's anything I want. Before we do that, would you mind helping me with something?"

"Depends what it is."

"School year's over, and I wanna let go of some of the stress I had this year. I wanna do something different for a change. Can you help me dye my hair?"