Maggie Malone and the Mostly Magical Boots

Copyright © 2014 by Jenna McCarthy and Carolyn Evans

Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Cover design by Demeter Designs

Cover illustration © Brigette Barrager

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the authors.

Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

(630) 961-3900

Fax: (630) 961-2168

www.jabberwockykids.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

Source of Production: Versa Press, East Peoria, IL

Date of Production: March 2014

Run Number: 5000907

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1: When I Get the Worst News of My Entire Life

Chapter 2: When History Strikes Me Down at Stinkerton

Chapter 3: When I Realize I Am Totally Invisible

Chapter 4: When I Gag on Tiny Pig Parts

Chapter 5: When the Most Boring Birthday Present Ever Shows Up

Chapter 6: When Frank Freaks Me Out

Chapter 7: When I Find Out Magic Might Be Real

Chapter 8: When Stella Almost Busts Me

Chapter 9: When I Accidentally Say Exactly the Right Thing

Chapter 10: When Frank Fills Me In

Chapter 11: When I Get Caught Horsing Around

Chapter 12: When Things Get a Little Hairy

Chapter 13: When an Amazon Woman Wants to Tattoo My Face

Chapter 14: When I Survive Another Close Call

Chapter 15: When I Try Too Hard to Act Cool

Chapter 16: When I Meet the Meanest Dude in Show Business

Chapter 17: When I Speak Japanese

Chapter 18: When I’m Attacked by a Dinosaur

Chapter 19: When I First Hear the Scary Sounds of Stardom

Chapter 20: When I Come This Close to Losing It

Chapter 21: When I Take the Stage

Chapter 22: When I Do Something Really Nuts

Chapter 23: When I Meet My Fans Up Close

Chapter 24: When I Put a Woobie in My Mouth

Chapter 25: When I Realize It Really Happened

Chapter 26: When It’s Back to (Stinky) Reality

Chapter 27: When My Life Circles the Toilet Bowl

Chapter 28: When I Figure Out How to Turn Things Around

Maggie Malone’s Totally Fab Vocab

A Sneak Peek at the Next Maggie Malone Adventure

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Back Cover

We dedicate this book to our respective children. Raising you all is an out-of-this-world adventure, every single day. Never forget that you get to choose how big you want your lives to be.

It’s going to be fine, Stella tells me. Really.

I try to nod my head up and down like I agree, but the tears pouring down my face are a pretty good sign that I don’t agree. Like, at all.

"How…can…they…do…this…to…me?" I sob between huge, heaving breaths. A tangle of strawberry blond curls sticks to my wet cheeks. I am a total mess.

Maggie, your dad didn’t lose his job on purpose, you know, Stella says softly, removing a ringlet that’s plastered to my neck.

I absolutely love Stella, but sometimes she acts like she knows everything. About everything. Like the time she insisted that her bowl of Lucky Charms had a green heart in it when everybody knows that the hearts only come in pink.

Look! Look! I got a green heart in my Lucky Charms! she shouted one morning after a sleepover at my house. That’s soooo lucky for me! I’m going to save it and wear it on a necklace!

I tried explaining that her green heart was just a messed-up green clover, but she wouldn’t listen. Some things you just have to let go. And I do, because we’ve been friends since before we were born (and our moms have been BFFs since forever) and she really is a great friend. Like, get this: when that green heart shriveled up to half its size but still had plenty of good luck left in it, she gave it to me—not Ginger Poole, not Alexis Parker—me.

"Of course I know he didn’t lose his job on purpose, I practically shout at her. But it still stinks. I’ve gone to Sacred Heart since kindergarten! How would you like to start a brand-new school in the middle of the year? And I don’t know a single kid who goes to Stinkerton Middle School!" The name is actually Randolph J. Pinkerton Middle School, or RJPMS or sometimes just Pinkerton for short. But everybody at Sacred Heart calls it Stinkerton.

Wait, yes you do. Doesn’t Izzy Zimmerman go to Stinkerton? Stella asks, yanking around thirty tissues out of the box and handing them to me.

Stella and I are in Ranger Girls with Izzy Zimmerman—or at least we were, until Izzy got kicked out for stealing all the cookie money our troop raised. I went all over the neighborhood one day in the pouring rain wearing my too-tight ladybug rain boots to sell seventy-seven boxes of those suckers. Izzy only sold four lousy Snickerdoozles, all of them to her mom. At least I got a merit badge.

Oh, sweet, I say sarcastically, wiping my face with a huge wad of tissues. The one person I know at my new school is a criminal. This is going to be great. Just great.

You know what? I just remembered I heard she got expelled, Stella says. "Apparently stealing cookie dough wasn’t her only offense. Get it? Cookie dough?"

I know Stella is just trying to help, but I can’t even manage a smile. I bury my head in my pillow and groan like I’m about to face the end of the world. Because in a way I am. The end of my world, at least.

Let’s see what Magic 8 Ball says! Stella shouts, grabbing the worn black orb from my nightstand. The screen is pretty scratched up, and the inside usually gets stuck on it is certain, so we like it better than the app on Stella’s iTouch. That thing is always saying ask again later. How annoying is that? If I’m asking right now, I’m pretty sure I need the answer, like, now.

Stella opens my closet door and pulls out the black magician cape I got the year we were twin vampire bats for Halloween. Stella always wears it when we consult the Great Eight.

Come on, Stella, that cape is ridiculous, I say. I snatch the ball out of her hand and toss it—hard—toward the trash can next to my desk. Of course I miss by about half a mile. It’s just that kind of day.

There’s no such thing as magic, anyway, I add. "And that thing’s just a dumb old toy. When we don’t like the answer, we just ask it again until we get the one we want. Stupid pretend magic can’t help me now. Nothing can help me now. My life is ruined."

Hey, what about me? Stella asks, her huge brown eyes filling with tears. Stella is the exact opposite of me, at least in the looks department. I’ve got what my mom calls a buttermilk complexion (I’ve never seen freckly buttermilk, but whatever), and Stella has skin the color of a perfectly toasted bagel. My head is covered with unruly reddish-blondish ringlets that tend to grow up and out before they grow down, which is why I only get my hair cut every few years. Right now, it’s about halfway down my back when it’s dry, and I can practically sit on it when it’s wet. Stella’s hair is so black it’s almost blue, and it’s raw-spaghetti-straight and cut into a super-neat bob. One time, we set her hair in my mom’s tiny hot rollers and left them in all afternoon. When we took those curlers out, there wasn’t even one tiny bend on her whole head. How can that happen? It’s got to be some sort of medical mystery, if you ask me.

"Did you ever think about how my life’s going to change? Stella demands. Nothing is going to be the same anymore. Everybody at school knows us as Maggie-and-Stella. I bet there are people who have no idea which one of us is which! Sure, I know everybody at Sacred Heart—but I’m not going to have my best friend around either." A tear slips down Stella’s face, and she quickly wipes it away.

I’m sorry, Stella, I say, hugging her as hard as I can. I know it stinks for you too. I just can’t even believe this is happening. This is without a doubt the most horrible day of my whole entire life.

The most pathetic part is I have no idea how much worse my life is about to get.