The Magic Half (16 page)
“Okay,” said Miri. “Sure. I’ll help my sister.” Like a sleepwalker, she approached a wall.
“Mama!” yodeled Nell from down the hall. “Nora stapled my socks!”
“Oh Lord,” sighed Mom, making for the door. “Dinner in about a half an hour,” she called over her shoulder. “And Molly, I forgot to get ketchup. Do you want sour cream on your potato?”
“Sure. Sour cream,” rasped Molly.
Mom’s footsteps moved briskly away.
Their hands dropped to their sides and they stared at each other.
“Sisters,” Miri said.
“Sisters,” Molly repeated, her voice solemn. Then an uncontrollable smile blazed across her face. “Is that okay with you?”
“With me?” said Miri incredulously. “Okay with me? It’s the best thing that ever happened to me in my whole life!”
“It’s impossible, you know,” began Molly. “It’s totally impossible that I’m just suddenly part of your family. It’s completely—
impossible
.”
Impossible! Miri laughed. Nothing was impossible now. “Don’t you remember?” she asked. “Magic is just a way of setting things right.”
“Everything’s right now,” said Molly, looking around at the dusty room as though it were a palace.
Miri joyfully ripped a strip of the old paper off the wall. “Just wait,” she said. “It’s going to get righter and righter.”
A
NNIE
B
ARROWS
always hoped that she would travel to the past and that she would get an attic bedroom, but she didn’t have luck with either wish, so she decided to write about them instead. Annie is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
as well as the popular Ivy and Bean series. Annie lives in northern California with her husband and two daughters.
Copyright © 2008 by Annie Barrows
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in the United States of America in January 2008
by Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children's Books
E-book edition published in August 2010
www. bloomsburykids. com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Barrows, Annie.
The magic half / by Annie Barrows. - 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Eleven-year-old Miri Gill feels left out in her family, which has two sets of twins and her, until she travels back in time to 1935 and discovers Molly, her own lost twin, and brings her back to the present day.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59990-132-9 • ISBN-10: 1-59990-132-3 (hardcover)
[1. Twins—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B27576Mag 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007023551
ISBN 978-1-59990-584-6 (e-book)
