Wicked Appetite - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,15

Glo asked Clara. “Do you have a secret Unmentionable ability? Mrs. Morganthal said you used to be able to bake bread just by touching it.”

Clara snapped her glove off. “Mrs. Morganthal has conversations with vegetables.” She removed her apron. “I’m going to run out to the store. I’ll be back in a half hour.”

Even in a white chef coat, Clara is startling, with her electric hair and sharp features, and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine her as a sorceress of some sort.

Glo manned the counter, and I returned to the kitchen. I filled the big pastry bag with vanilla butter cream and swirled the icing on three different batches of cupcakes. I decorated the tops with flowers, multicolored sprinkles, miniature edible gold stars, and chocolate jimmies. I pulled Clara’s loaves of raisin bread out of the oven and set them on racks to cool.

At precisely ten o’clock, Glo rushed into the kitchen. “Shirley’s here! She’s standing in front of the bakery with her back to the window, waving her arms and talking to herself.”

“What’s she saying?”

“I don’t know. The door’s closed. I can’t hear her. What should I do?”

“Has she got a gun?”

“Not that I can see, but she has her purse. She could have the gun in her purse.”

The bell tinkled when the bakery door opened, and Glo and I froze.

“Eeek,” Glo whispered.

“Stay here,” I told her. “I’ll bring the cupcakes out.”

I wrapped my arms around Shirley’s cupcake boxes, plastered a smile onto my face as if nothing unusual was going on, and I walked out of the kitchen and up to the counter.

“Hi!” I said.

Shirley pressed her lips together and passed me a piece of paper with crayon drawings of two cupcakes. One was obviously my Sunflower Lemon and the other looked like my Dazzling Red Velvet.

“Do you want these cupcakes?” I asked her.

She nodded.

I reached into the display case for a cupcake and she shook her head. “Go go,” she said.

“More than one?”

She nodded.

“A dozen?”

She nodded again.

“Of each? Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked her. “It’s a lot of cupcakes.”

Shirley nodded her head.

I ran to the kitchen and shoveled a dozen Sunflower cupcakes into a box. “Shirley’s getting an extra two dozen cupcakes,” I told Glo.

“The spell’s broken? She can talk?”

“No. She gave me a note.”

I filled a second box with the red velvets and carried them to the counter just as Clara walked in.

“Hello,” Clara said to Shirley. “How are you today?”

Shirley bit her lip. “Hmmp,” she said.

Clara leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

Shirley swiveled her head in my direction. Her eyes were approaching frantic. “Mmmph.”

“Shirley isn’t talking today,” I told Clara. “It’s hard to explain.”

Shirley vigorously nodded her head.

“That’s a lot of cupcakes,” Clara said, eyeballing the two extra boxes. “You must be having a party.”

More head nodding.

Glo peeked out from the kitchen, and Shirley spied her.

Shirley sucked in air, her eyes narrowed, and her lips squinched tight together.

“Oops,” Glo said.

Shirley pointed her finger at Glo. “Butter turd blaster.”

“Tell you what,” I said to Shirley. “The extra cupcakes are on the house.”

Shirley snatched her boxes up. “Briggum.”

“You’re welcome,” I told her.

Clara put her hand on Shirley’s arm. “Are you all right?”

“Squiggy wiggy,” Shirley said. “Spooner fig rot iggam jeepers.” She turned and pointed at Glo. “Bad bird beak. Booger bad.”

Clara fixed her eyes on Glo.

“I sort of messed up a spell,” Glo said to Clara. “I didn’t have any yak brain.”

“Well, for goodness sakes, reverse the spell!”

“That’s the sticky part,” Glo said. “I haven’t been able to find a reverse spell. I was hoping it would wear off all by itself.”

Shirley set the cupcake boxes on the counter, opened the box of Sunflower cupcakes, and ate one. “Shum,” she said. And she ate another.

“Are you sure it’s a spell?” Clara said. “Have you ruled out a medical problem?”

“It was an instantaneous coincidence,” Glo said. “I’m pretty sure it was the spell.”

Twenty-four hours ago, I wouldn’t have considered such a thing. Even now, after seeing it happen, I wasn’t entirely convinced. I mean, what do I really know about Shirley? It could all be a hoax. Or it could be a form of hysteria from seeing Diesel in her apartment.

“Did you look through the whole book for reverse spells?” Clara asked Glo. “How about the store where you bought the book? Maybe the shopkeeper can help you.”

Shirley shoved a third cupcake into her mouth and looked from me to Clara to Glo. Hopeful.

“Worth a try,” Glo said.

“I can manage