Hand-Me-Down Magic #2

hand and led her to the playground. Every few steps Del would ask if the kitten was there. It didn’t matter how many times Alma told her everything was fine. Del was still scared.
She didn’t get less scared at the playground. With her eyes closed, Del kept hearing noises that she was sure were that dangerous black kitten. Some scratching on the slide sounded like a kitten clawing at the plastic. Alma insisted that was just a little kid playing with a branch. Next, Del was sure she heard the kitten meowing. Alma told her that it was just a very squeaky swing.
When Del felt something soft brush against her ankles, she screamed. “It found me!”
Alma rushed to her side. The black kitten was nowhere to be found. Del’s favorite dog, Oscar, was just trying to say hello.
Del bent down to let Oscar lick her hand.
But just when she decided to relax and enjoy her friend Oscar, the kitten appeared again. It ran right up to Oscar and batted his fluffy white tail with its tiny paw. A kitten that small should be scared of a dog, even a cute white fluffy one. But this kitten wasn’t scared at all. Only curious. And determined. And Oscar didn’t seem to mind. He wagged his tail in response, causing the kitten to bat it even harder.
Evie watched, delighted.
Alma giggled and tried to find someone with a phone to take a photo.
But Del ran straight out of the playground and all the way back to her room. She dove right under the covers.
That black kitten wouldn’t be able to find her there.
. . . She hoped.

10
A Cursed Cousin
-Alma-
Alma wasn’t sure how to help Del. She wasn’t used to being the brave cousin. Or the in-charge cousin.
“What do we do?” Evie asked, and Alma didn’t know how to answer.
“Do you think I’m cursed?” Alma asked her littlest cousin. “Do you think I can only tell bad fortunes?”
Evie thought about it. “Maybe,” she said. She didn’t seem very worried about it, though. Maybe all along, Evie was the brave cousin. “We should ask Abuelita. She’ll know.”
Abuelita knew the answers to most things. She knew how much frosting was the perfect amount of frosting to put on a cupcake, and she knew where to find a cool costume, and she knew how to make a garden grow really fast, and how to make perfect rice and beans every time. And she knew all about magic.
Evie and Alma found Abuelita in the backyard garden when they got home. She was pulling weeds. Titi Clara was there too, helping. They both had large glasses of Abuelita’s famous lavender lemonade and they were talking very quickly, half in Spanish, half in English. Alma could have sat all day and listened to the pretty way the two languages sounded together. But she didn’t have all day. She had to help Del right now.
“Abuelita,” Alma said, “do you think I’m cursed? Do you think all my fortunes are bad?”
Abuelita smiled. “I don’t believe in curses,” she said.
“But you believe in magic,” Alma said.
“Those are very different things,” Abuelita said.
“How?” Alma asked.
Abuelita gave her Abuelita shrug. One slow shrug. One very fast shrug. And a lift of her eyebrows. “You’ll see,” she said at last.
Alma wanted to believe Abuelita. And she almost did.
“Ouch!” Titi Clara yelped. Alma turned to face her. Titi Clara shook out her hand. “I got pricked by that rose’s thorn!” she said. “I guess I’m not much of a gardener.”
The rose was red. Just like Madame Alma had predicted it would be. And when Alma counted the number of red roses on the bush, there were exactly twelve.
A dozen red roses for Titi Clara.
Alma’s heart sank. Another one of her Madame Alma fortunes gone bad.
Abuelita might not have believed in curses, but Alma was sure starting to.


11
The Very Scary Shadow
-Del-
That night, Del couldn’t sleep. Every creak of the building made her nervous. She tossed and turned and tried to think of not-scary things like empanadas, and Oscar in the fancy black jacket and top hat he wore to Del’s birthday party, and the silly songs Evie sometimes sang to make Del laugh.
But that kitten kept creeping into her thoughts. She imagined the scary kitten eating all their empanadas. The kitten in a tux, sneaking up on Oscar. The kitten singing a scary song. Del just couldn’t get away from thoughts of that kitten.
The kitten didn’t act the way Del expected a kitten to act. That might have been what scared her most of all. She wanted to understand her fortune and the crystal ball and that little black kitten.
But she didn’t understand any of it. And that made her want to hide away for as long as she could.
Del tried to close her eyes again. She shut them tight. She tried to order herself to sleep, but her body wouldn’t listen. When she opened her eyes again, Del saw the scariest thing she’d ever seen. An enormous shadow of the kitten was on her wall. The kitten was now the size of a horse! It moved its legs and tail in a scary way. Del thought she might cry.
“Please go away!” she said to the kitten. But the shadow stayed. If anything, it grew bigger and closer.
“Leave me alone, kitten!” she said. But the kitten’s shadow only stomped its scary paw.
Del hid under her covers, all the way at the bottom of the bed in a little ball. She would have to stay there until morning. Maybe she would have to stay there all week. Or all month! She didn’t know when the kitten would finally go away and find another family to scare.
Meanwhile, the kitten didn’t have any idea how scared she was making Del.
The kitten didn’t know it was supposed to be bad luck.
The kitten didn’t know it didn’t act like a usual kitten. The kitten didn’t know most kittens were scared of water