Jinx On The Divide Read Online Free

spell worked perfectly, although Mrs. Sanders insisted on baking a cake for them to take with them. It was one of her best -- a walnut sponge cake with chocolate butter-cream sandwiched in the middle. She put it in a plastic container and snapped the lid shut so that it was airtight. Then she gave them both a hug and warned them not to eat it just before going on the roller coaster.
    They left conventionally by the front door, and then they ran around to the backyard. Nimby was lying rolled up on the grass, where they'd thrown him out of the bedroom window. "That was the most undignified descent I've ever done," said the carpet. "Why did I have to stay rolled up?"
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    "In case someone saw you," said Felix. "OK. Back to the Pennine Divide. You know the way."
    It was nearly dark by the time they reached the Divide, and they would never have known where it was if they hadn't been there before. Felix read out the spell, and there was that curious little jump sideways as the magic positioned him with mathematical precision, and froze him into place. Then everything went black as the second half of Ironclaw's ingenious spell failed to split Felix's indivisible self in two, and, as intended, shot him off to the other world instead.
    The library in Andria, where Betony was studying to be a historian, was the biggest center of learning in her world. It was an ancient wooden building, housing thousands -- if not millions -- of handwritten volumes, and even a few of the newfangled printed books as well. Betony was Thornbeak's apprentice. Thornbeak had recently become famous for her History of Flint feat her and now had her own office. It was situated in the new history section, with a little picture of a brazzle on the door, painted in gold. It was a rather nice painting. It caught the sheen of Thornbeak's plumage perfectly, as well as the gleam of her claws and the soft velvet curve of her hindquarters.
    Soft velvet wasn't the best description of Thornbeak's mood as she slammed the door shut with her wing, lashed
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    her tail, fixed her daughter with an acid yellow stare and said, "You're not going, Fuzzy, and that's that."
    "Mom." Fuzzy lowered her feathery brows and glowered. "I've flown farther than that on my own before."
    "Yergud's a japegrin town. You're a brazzle."
    Fuzzy clenched her talons in annoyance. "You're living in the past."
    "That's what I'm paid to do," snapped Thornbeak. "I'm a historian. Which you're not, not until you've passed your exams."
    "I don't want to be a stupid historian, anyway," said Fuzzy. Thornbeak's eyes narrowed. "So I've heard."
    "Who told you?"
    "Never you mind."
    Fuzzy unsheathed her claws, and then sheathed them again. Naked claws were the height of bad manners, and a well-bred brazzle never exposed them indoors. She had been expecting a more extreme reaction from her mother -- either a full-scale squawking session or a sharp peck where it hurt. "You don't need two assistants," she grumbled, "because you never think anyone else can do anything right. You give Betony all the interesting stuff. I want to travel. I want to see snow. We never get any snow in Andria. I could be a courier."
    "A courier?" Thornbeak lashed her tail so hard this time that the tassel knocked a twig off the antique perching branch fixed to the wall. "With your education? Are you out
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    of your mind? Cock brazzles are mathematicians. Hens are historians. That's the way it is."
    "Why?" returned Fuzzy, who liked math very much.
    "You're little more than a fledgling, Fuzzy," said Thornbeak icily. "Wait until you've been around for a couple of centuries like me, and you'll see that a sinistrom doesn't change its spots."
    [Image: Fuzzy.]
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    "Except when it's disguised as a lickit," said Fuzzy, with a superior lift of her beak as she notched up the best points she'd scored over her mother in a long time.
    Thornbeak's eyes narrowed even more.
    "It's not fair," complained Fuzzy. "You let Betony go off to another