Wicked Whoopie Pies by Addison Moore (english novels to improve english TXT) 📕

twist, and yank, and do my level best to get myself over the felonious finish line, but I only get half of my caboose to come along for the ride.

“It’s no use!” I say loud enough for them to hear me. “I have to back out.” I try to do just that and I can’t seem to budge in that direction either. “Gah! I’m stuck!”

“Don’t worry, Lot,” Charlie calls out. “I’ve dealt with this before. I’ve got a solution.”

Just as I’m about to ask what that might be, I feel a couple of shoes kicking my rear, and before I know it, by sheer willpower and the inertia initiated by a few severe kicks, my body glides in the rest of the way.

“Ugh,” I grunt, crawling on my elbow over a few feet. “It’s as if the door just gave birth to me.” I roll over and note my legs feel peculiarly cool. “My pants are missing!” I shout, but before I can retrieve them, Charlie crawls in after me, sans her top. And once she spots me sprawled out in my underwear, she’s losing her own pants to match.

“I’m not going to let you best me, Lottie Lemon,” she snips.

I struggle to rise just as Carlotta wiggles her way in and I help her up.

Carlotta takes a moment to inspect the two of us. “If the two of you think we need to be naked, then so be it.”

And just like that, the three of us are staring at one another in our underwear.

I shake my head. “Nell would be so proud of this branch of the family tree.”

“Oh hush, you,” Charlie hisses as she walks past me and gives that cereal box a firm rattle. “Go find what you’re looking for. I’ll fix myself a snack.”

“You do that,” I say. Typically, I would protest the thought of someone pilfering a dead woman’s pantry, but with Charlie this might be the very best scenario. “In fact, why don’t you join the buffet, Carlotta? I’ll be back in a flash.”

“Hurry this way, Lottie.” Binky lights the way down the hall and into what looks to be a study. “Her desk is over there. I took the liberty to glide through the walls while they were giving you the boot.”

“Quite literally on both counts,” I say. “Hey? Can you up the wattage on your glow?”

Sure enough, the room is nearly bright as noonday. And the best part? This supernatural light show is for my eyes only. Technically, Carlotta and Charlie’s, too, but that’s because we’ve all been bonked on the head with this bippity boppity curse of sorts.

I take a quick look around and—geez—I hop back a little as thousands of miniature porcelain dolls stare vacantly in my direction.

“Someone had one serious hankering for baby dolls,” I seethe at the pale faces glowing all around me. “Believe you me, I don’t think I’m going to be snapping these up at the mall for Lyla Nell. They’re creepy. And I half-expect them to talk back to me.” Or kill me.

One tumbles off the shelf and bleats, “Mama,” as soon as she hits the floor.

A horrific moan evicts from me. I waste no time speeding to the desk, yanking open the middle drawer, and an entire litany of loosely folded papers shiver in the breeze I’ve just created for them. Each one is small and rectangular just like the one Terri handed me that day.

I go to pull my phone out and gasp. “Oh no. I must have left my phone in my purse. Shoot.” I suck in a quick breath. “What if Lyla Nell needs me? What if there’s already been an emergency? Maybe that’s why I sprang a leak? Maybe my boobs are sort of like the universe’s Bat-Signal? Good grief, I’d better hurry.”

I fish out all the notes I can, spread them over the table, and begin to read them out loud to Binky, one by one. “Stop what you’re doing. You’re a sinner, not a saint. How can you live with yourself? Do you see a monster when you look in the mirror? I know what you’re up to. You are a menace that deserves to be destroyed. I hate you. You deserve to die. Time is running out for you. This is your last warning. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“Lottie!” Charlie’s voice carries in this direction, and it seems to be carrying a panic right along with it. “The popo’s comin’! Get your rear to the door. We’re hauling on out.”

“What’s a popo?” I ask, staggering out of the room for a second and Carlotta snatches me by the elbow, dragging me right back to the kitchen.

“We done tripped the alarm!” Carlotta howls.

I’m not sure why, but the more frazzled Carlotta seems to get the more country-fried she seems to get, too. And I’m pretty sure I just witnessed the same thing happen to Charlie.

“What alarm?” I ask.

“The security system.” Charlie points past the pantry. “I didn’t see it until it started to flicker like a strand of Christmas lights a raccoon chewed through.”

Binky snickers. “Thank you for not blaming it on my kind. So often we’re the brunt of everyone else’s dirty work.”

Charlie looks to Carlotta. “Boy, can I ever commiserate.”

“Stop your whining, Cha Cha.” Carlotta hits the floor. “It’s time to make tracks.” She pokes herself right back through that doggie door and gets her shoulders through before Charlie opens the door with Carlotta still in it, hops over her mama, and bullets down the street.

“Oh geez,” I grunt as I yank Carlotta free. “For the love of all things good.”

“She’s not good, Lot. Did you see that? She up and abandoned me. She up and abandoned the both of us. She’s wicked, I tell you, wicked!”

“Carlotta, you up and abandoned both of us. Charlie just learned from the best.”

“Thank you. It’s nice to be appreciated.”

From the window I can see a light flick on at the house across the street, so I grab Carlotta