Hand-Me-Down Magic #2

Dedication
For my daring and delightful nieces and nephews, the best cousins my kid could hope for: Ellen, Amy, Shane, Brennan and Milena
—C.A.H.
For my mom
—L.U.


Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1. Delightful and Daring
2. A Possibly Perfect Present
3. Madame Del
4. Fortunes for Everyone
5. Madame Alma
6. Something Black and Fuzzy
7. A Full Moon
8. Look Out Below
9. Closed Eyes
10. A Cursed Cousin
11. The Very Scary Shadow
12. An Important Mission
13. A Dozen Cats
14. Fraidycat
15. The Best Fortune-Teller Around
Acknowledgments
An Excerpt from Hand-Me-Down Magic #3: Perfect Patchwork Purse
About the Author and Illustrator
Books by Corey Ann Haydu
Copyright
About the Publisher


1
Delightful and Daring
-Del-
There were only sixteen hours to go before Del’s Delightful and Daring Dress-Up Party. She had been counting down the hours for an entire week. It was a tradition because Del loved birthdays, and Abuelita loved hosting parties, and the whole family loved cake and party hats and singing one round of “Happy Birthday” followed by one round of “Feliz Cumpleaños” at the top of their lungs.
“How many people are coming?” Alma asked. She was putting together goody bags for the guests. She’d helped Del pick out stickers and sparkly pens and three different kinds of chocolate. “This seems like a lot of chocolate.” She gestured to the enormous pile. Their littlest cousin, Evie, couldn’t stop eyeing it. It was so tall that Alma couldn’t see over the top of it from her seat at Abuelita’s kitchen counter. The pile was so tall that Evie had named it Chocolate Mountain and said they should keep it just like that forever.
“Like a million people,” Del said. “Pretty much everyone ever. And they’re all going to be dressed up! I can’t wait to see what everyone’s wearing!”
“A million?” Evie repeated. She was bouncing up and down on her toes. “Really?”
“No, not really,” Del said. She rolled her eyes at Alma. But Alma looked nervous, like she thought there really might be a million people shoved into Abuelita’s apartment tomorrow too. “More like twenty. But still. That’s a lot. That’s more than were at my party last year. But I’m going to be another year older, so it makes sense.”
“Twenty is a lot less than a million,” Evie said, huffing. “You’re not very good at math, Del.”
“Not as good as you, I guess,” Del said, laughing.
Evie thought about this. “Do you think I’m good enough at math to count all these chocolate bars?” she asked.
“Why don’t you try?” Del said. Evie started counting pieces of chocolate very loudly. So loudly, in fact, that Abuelita and Titi Rosa came into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about.
Abuelita made a startled noise—“Oh!”—and smiled. Del and Alma turned to see what she was looking at. She was facing the window that looked out at the backyard. And right there, perched on the birdbath, was a little black kitten. It was dipping its paws into the birdbath, then shaking them off, over and over, like it was trying to figure out something very important.
“What a darling gatito!” Abuelita said. “¡Hola, mi gato!” she called out to the kitten.
The kitten jumped in surprise, and the jump made it stumble all the way into the birdbath with a cute kitteny splash. Del thought the kitten might be scared, taking that fall. But instead it seemed interested in the water. It licked it. It pawed at it. It jumped out of it, then right back in.
Del had seen a lot of stray cats before, but never one that acted anything like this one.
“It’s time to start winding down,” Titi Rosa said, directing them away from the window and the now-very-wet kitten.
“But we have so much decorating left to do!” Del said.
“And so much chocolate to eat—I mean count!” Evie said.
“I’ve never been to a delightfully daring dress-up party,” Alma whispered to Del. She sounded nervous.
“Don’t be a fraidycat!” Del said. “This party is going to be perfect.”
“I hope so,” Alma said. “And I’m not a fraidycat. I just get scared of new things sometimes.”
“How can you be scared when you’re going to be wearing this?” Del ran to the closet where she’d been storing her big surprise: two big, fluffy boas. They’d been planning their costumes for the party for a while, but this would be the perfect addition, Del was sure. She wrapped the orange boa around Alma and the purple one around herself.
“What can go wrong when you have a boa?” Del asked. She twirled her purple boa and did a little birthday dance.
Alma put her boa around Del’s shoulders. “You’re the birthday girl,” she said. “You should have both.”
“Are you sure?” Del asked. She liked wearing both boas. It made her extra glamorous.
“Positive,” Alma said.
Del grinned. “Tomorrow will be the best day ever.”


2
A Possibly Perfect Present
-Alma-
Alma, Del, and Evie stood in front of Titi Rosa’s full-length mirror admiring their costumes. Alma knew Evie loved Titi Rosa’s mirror. It was carved with birds and flowers. Plus, it was fun to dance in front of.
Alma usually liked the mirror too. But today she didn’t think she looked quite right in it. She was wearing an old dress of Abuelita’s from when she was a little girl. It was blue and puffy and shiny. She was also wearing a pair of butterfly wings that Del said looked perfect with the dress.
“Are you sure this looks okay?” Alma asked her cousin.
“Definitely,” Del said. “Do you think I need another tutu?” Del was already wearing three tutus, a flower crown, and sparkly leggings.
“Yes!” Evie said. “You definitely need more tutus.” Evie had on a Superman T-shirt, a pair of overalls, and the big straw hat that Abuelita used when she gardened. She had a sticker of a star on her left cheek.
“I think three’s the right amount,” Alma said.
“I wish I had a purple tutu to match my purple boa,” Del said.
Alma’s heart sank. She wished she’d known that Del wanted a purple tutu. That would have been the perfect gift for her birthday!