First Frost by Liz DeJesus Page A

split up?” Bianca asked.
    “Hell, no! I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that’s a bad, BAD idea. We stick together the entire time.”
    “Fair enough. I’m going to check in Mom’s office and see if I find anything there. It should be safe enough with you here and the museum being full of normal people.”
    “Don’t you have walkie-talkies or anything like that just in case you see anything suspicious?”
    “Umm…we have cell phones. They should be good enough for now.”
    “As long as you’re okay with that,” Ming said.
    “All right. I’m gonna take a look around and if I don’t find anything, we’ll go to the attic together when I close the museum.”
    “Okeydokey. Oooh, look a wand! I’m totally buying this,” Ming said as she picked up a pink, sparkly, plastic wand.
    Bianca sighed. It was going to be a long day.

    At four o’clock in the afternoon, they closed the doors of the museum, a couple of hours earlier than usual. Thankfully no one complained. Bianca locked the doors, counted the money in the cash register, and locked it in the safe underneath Rose’s desk. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found anything in her mother’s office or in any other room in the museum, at least nothing that seemed like an obvious place to hide a really old spell book.
    “Done?” Ming asked as soon as Bianca stepped out of Rose’s office.
    “Almost. I have to set the alarm before we leave here tonight,” Bianca said.
    “Okay. I’ll try to remind you,” Ming promised.
    Bianca went to the utility closet and grabbed two flashlights. She handed one to Ming and lead the way up to the attic. She thought about the last time she was in that room. Rose and Bianca had explored one of the trunks and had found a treasure trove. She could only hope that she would find what she was desperately searching for.
    “So what does this book look like? Any idea?” Ming asked.
    “I have no idea what it looks like.” Bianca took a deep breath and added sarcastically, “This should be fun.”
    “Well…I’m sure it’s not going to say Evil Queen’s Spell Book on the cover of it. Right?”
    “Right.”
    Bianca wondered why no one recognized that Queen Mirabel was evil sooner. How it was that she could hide her true nature for so many years. Most of the time people can sense when there’s something wrong with a person. Yet…Queen Mirabel was able to hide her intentions very well. The only one who saw right through the charade was Snow White.
    Maybe that’s why she hated Snow White so much. Maybe it had nothing to do with Mirabel’s jealousy of her beauty and everything to do with the fact that Snow White saw right through her.
    “Right!” Bianca shouted.
    “What?” Ming asked with a frown.
    “It’s not going to some big creepy book. She was a queen. She needed to hide what she really was from her husband, the king, and everyone else. It has to be in a book that looks harmless and possibly even…boring.”
    “Boring, huh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Ye Olde Knitting Book?” Ming joked.
    Bianca giggled. “Probably something along those lines.”
    “Ye Olde Cooking Book?” Ming suggested.
    “Ye Olde Cleaning Book.”
    They made more jokes that involved “Ye Olde” as they looked in the boxes in the attic.

    After an hour of searching, Ming suddenly let out a blood curdling scream. Bianca tripped over her shoelaces, scrambled up to her feet and ran to Ming, expecting to see the worst.
    “What? What is it?”
    “Spider,” Ming squeaked. A tiny spider crawled underneath a box that Ming had been searching through.
    “A spider? You screamed as though someone were trying to kill you.” Bianca took off her shoe and killed the spider with a single stroke.
    “Next time you feel like screaming, save it for when the bad guys show up,” Bianca said as she put her shoe back on.
    Ming stuck her tongue out at Bianca, and they resumed their search for the spell book.
    “I don’t think it’s up here, B,” Ming