Curse of the Wickeds (The Cinderella Society, Episode 2) by Kay Cassidy

thirty-nine.
    Talk about a major life shake-up. Mom and Nan might not always get along, but when you’re closing in on forty with two babies on the way, I guess you need all the help you can get.  
    So here we were, in the house Mom grew up in so Nan could downsize into something that required less upkeep. And here Mom was . . . pregnant, not working, and trying to put down roots for the first time in her adult life. She’d been trying so hard to make the house feel like home (a real and true home , which was a novelty for our transient ways) that she hadn’t gotten out to meet people. I could count on one hand the number of visitors other than Nan that we’d had since we’d moved here.
    “I mean, how many people are going to go into the nursery?” I said, trying to cover. “Don’t you usually bring the babies down to show people?”
    “Not if they’re sleeping.”
    “If they’re sleeping, the lights will be low. Who’s going to notice if the rocking chairs coordinate?”
    Logic was still the best way to get Mom back on track when hormones got in her way. She thought that over. “So you think one of each in the darker wood?”
    “Sounds groovy.” Mostly, it sounded like a decision that put us one step closer to getting out of there.
    We wandered over to the changing tables. She’d already chosen one, so that saved us time. But now she was considering the options for covering the changing pad. Knit fabric or terry cloth? Or maybe a cute yellow gingham? One gingham and one stripe?
    All for something the babies would end up rubbing their bare butts all over.
    I was counting the minutes until I could get back to the Club and figure out how in the heck to defeat Lexy and the Wickeds while saving Heather at the same time. But yeah, let’s debate the pros and cons of poly-cotton knit over cotton terry.
    Mom seemed to sense my waning enthusiasm and shifted her attention to me. She brushed my hair out of my eyes. “I like how you’ve been keeping your hair down,” she said. “These lights really pick up the highlights in it. Where did you say you got it done?”
    At a place you can’t get into without a gold coin you definitely don’t have.  
    I knew it wasn’t her fault she wasn’t a Cindy. But it didn’t make it okay. Innocent questions and no way to answer them without being vague were turning me into a very stressed girl.
    “It’s this place where Sarah Jane goes. Do you have everything you need here?” I rolled the shopping cart out into the main aisle as a hint. “I think the lights are giving me a headache.”
    She put her hand on my forehead. “Do you think you’re coming down with something? Maybe you shouldn’t go in to work today.”
    “It’s just a headache. Fluorescent lights do that to me sometimes.”
    Mom went back to the rocking chairs and pulled tags for the ones she wanted. I used the lights as an excuse to wait outside in the sunshine. My head did hurt, but the lights weren’t to blame.
    I found a wooden bench in a courtyard and planted myself there to wait. They’d probably installed it for all the soon-to-be-dads who had to escape their pregnant, hormonally insane wives while they discussed the merits of the Diaper Monster versus the Diaper Annihilator.
    Ten long minutes later, the stock guy was helping us load up the minivan with this week’s haul. I’d survived, and I even managed to finagle a lunch out of it at my favorite chain restaurant across the parking lot.
    We walked over, much slower than normal because of Mom’s sore back, and out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement behind the bushes. I circled around to Mom’s other side and saw Leah Michaels crouched down behind the row of hedges lining the restaurant sidewalk. She was staring at Corrine Duncan, one of the nicest Reggies I knew, as Corrine got into the car of someone who was definitely not her boyfriend.
    I told Mom I’d just seen a friend and would meet her inside the restaurant. She nodded,