Read The Rosemary Spell for Free Online Page B

“Together?”
    â€œTogether.”
    Before we can sit back down, the bell rings, and we automatically start stowing our lunch stuff.
    I stash the diary in my backpack, where the bright colors of my other books shout, “Everything is fine here. Nothing to see. Move along.”
    We merge into the traffic of bodies moving every which way in the hall. “Who do you think Wilkie was?” Adam asks, dodging a tiny sixth-grader with a supersized backpack.
    â€œHow would I know?” I wave at Aileen. “Someone gone, I guess, otherwise they wouldn’t have to worry about remembering him.” I want all those Wilkies burned in my brain to go away. “Let’s just put it out of our heads.”
    We walk together into social studies and slide into our seats.
    Adam’s not putting it out of his head. I can tell because his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth, which means he’s puzzling through something.
    I speak fast and low. “Since the book is so old, Wilkie’s obviously dead. There’s really nothing we can—”
    He cuts me off. “We can show Shelby.”
    It’s like the ground was crooked and just righted itself. Shelby will know how to respond to
Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie.
    Adam looks at me closely. “You don’t mind, do you?”
    â€œNo! Why would I? Besides, we already showed her.”
    â€œYeah, but we thought it was blank. Plus, you didn’t want to show your mom.”
    â€œThat’s different. She has her own thing with books, but Shelby’s thing is the same as our thing.”
    I move through the rest of the school day, listening and discussing and smiling. But Wilkie won’t leave me alone, and I can’t wait for Shelby to explain him away.

    Adam and I stand under the overhang at the front of the middle school, staring at his phone, waiting for Shelby to text back.
    Nothing.
    I try
Need your help. Pick us up?
She can’t ignore that.
    But she does.
    I call her. It doesn’t even ring before her recorded voice trills happily, “Hey, this is Michelle. I’m busy right now. Leave a message.”
    Finally, Adam calls his dad at work. He turns away from me while he talks, but the slump of his shoulders means his dad is being short in that I-don’t-have-time-for-you-now way.
    â€œHe thinks she has rehearsal for the musical,” he reports. “She’s probably not allowed to have her phone on.”
    â€œAt least she’s not ignoring us,” I sigh.
    We amble toward home in a comfortable silence. We don’t talk about the diary. We don’t talk about how Shelby is always so busy, and instead of always being three, we’re usually just two now.
    On my wall, on the hook where Dad’s stupid Escher print used to be, is the picture of the three of us that Adam gave me when we were nine. He painted down one side of the frame,
For My Best Friend,
and across the bottom, he painted
From Adam the Great,
and Shelby added
And His Super Sister
in little letters underneath because she took the picture, or actually her auto-timer thing took it. It’s a close-up of the three of our faces. Shelby and I are cheek to cheek, with my brown hair and her blond hair all tumbled together. Adam’s chin rests on top of my head, and his head tilts toward his sister’s. We’d just finished doing a pajama march from my house to theirs, and we were proud of how silly and brave we were. On the two sides of the frame without any writing Adam drew sprigs of rosemary. For me.
    Adam’s house comes first. We both check our phones again.
    â€œWe’ll come over when she gets home,” he says. “If it’s not too late.”
    It will be too late. It’s already too late. I can’t even remember why I thought it was so important to talk to Shelby. The book is really old and used to belong to a really famous poet, but it’s mostly blank and not actually all that