read the first part
Di and I sat silent in the back of the car while Miz Liz drove us to ballet. In the front, Ree fired off question after question.
“So how come I’ve never heard of the League of Magical Nannies?”
“It’s a secret,” Miz Liz snapped, leaning on her horn as a cab cut us off. She turned her wheel slightly and we were somehow three lanes over and two spaces ahead. Di gasped and grabbed my hand, then gave me a huge grin.
I scowled back. This was serious! What else could this woman do?
“If it’s a secret, then how come you have a business card?” Ree said, as if she hadn’t noticed the car’s sudden change in position.
“Because,” Miz Liz said.
“Can you pop in and out of pictures? Because there’s this really weird abstract in the upstairs hall and I’ve always wanted to see what it’s like inside.”
“Let me drive, already, would you?” Miz Liz said.
The shock at finding out we had a witch for a nanny was beginning to wear off, and now my brain was working out whether this meant anything to our plans. We just needed someone we could handle, someone we could distract until Ree made enough on the stock market to buy us three plane tickets from New York to Dallas. Two days, Ree had said. Two days, and then all we had to do was ditch Miz Liz long enough to get to the airport. And then we could spend the summer with Grandma and Grandpa instead of stuck here in the city with a rotten nanny.
I didn’t see how Miz Liz’s ability to magically clean our apartment in two seconds would be any obstacle. In fact, we had something on her. If this was supposed to be a secret, she probably didn’t want us to tell Mom. And then even if Miz Liz found out a little bit of our secret plans, we could blackmail her into silence.
In the front, Ree was still pelting Miz Liz with questions. I very quietly opened my notebook and wrote, STICK TO THE PLAN, and passed it to Di. Di read it, gave me a nod, and then carefully passed the notebook up to Ree, between the seat and the car door, where Miz Liz couldn’t see it.
We were bumping our way up level after level in the parking garage next to the building where we had ballet lessons, and Miz Liz was too busy looking for a spot to notice we were passing a notebook around. Ree saw my note, passed the book back, and gave us a thumbs-up behind the seat.
Operation Cowgirl was still a go.
read the first part
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