T*Witches: Building a Mystery Read Online Free

the boy seemed satisfied.
     
    "What can I get you guys?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Cam.
     
    "Um, where's... the new waitress?" Beth asked, peering around him. "Blond with sunglasses, likes to play tricks on unsuspecting customers?"
     
    Jason was clueless. "There is no new waitress," he said.
     

Chapter 4 – Building a Mystery
     

    Cam's friends stormed the table. They were all talking at once, complaining about the flat they'd gotten on the way over, teasing Jason, high-fiving Beth, ragging on Cam about the soccer game she'd blown the day before summer vacation, and demanding to know what her big surprise was.
     
    Then they saw Alex.
     
    "Who... I mean, what...?" The gracefully athletic Asian-American girl with the glossy black braid actually clutched her heart and took a step backward. "Is this a joke?"
     
    Who's the neat freak? Alex wondered, taking in the girl's fresh white tee, crisp khakis, and spotless white sneakers.
     
    Telepathically, Cam did the cheat sheet. Kristen Hsu , she silently told Alex. She's artistic... very into computer graphics. Which, I guess, is kind of precise and orderly—
     
    What a relief, Alex responded. Knowing that we'll have so much in common.
     
    Eyes and mouth wide open, Kristen turned to see whether the others had checked out Alex yet.
     
    "So, uh, you guys are... related." Sukari Woodward, pretty, plump, and brown-skinned, sporting granny glasses and a peroxide-blond 'fro, laughed out loud at herself. "Brilliant, right? Just me keepin' it real."
     
    "And that, folks," Cam narrated, "was the hypothesis of Dr. Sukari Woodward, brainiac and science buff."
     
    "Related?!" Kristen cracked up. "It's like the Olsens on steroids!"
     
    "You met her in a theme park in Montana" Sukari said. "Dag, what was it called, Xerox-land? Do they make copies of everyone who goes there?"
     
    "No," Kristen said, "I bet they have a ride called the Cy- clone . Get it, clone?"
     
    "Well, I think it's cosmic," a whispery voice noted. "Totally astral." This from the third member of the trio—a sunny redhead in earthy sandals, a gauzy Indian-print sarong and one long feather earring peeking through her tangle of curls. "You two look almost identical."
     
    "It's the blue streaks," Beth pointed out Cam doesn't have any."
     
    "No, really, Cami," the redhead said, "she is so the yin to your yang!"
     
    "Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda Carter," Cam reported.
     
    Laughing, 'Manda took a seat.
     
    Jason took their orders.
     
    Sukari took over the bench on Beth's side of the booth.
     
    And Kristen took out her cell phone and speed-dialed Bree.
     
    They had been warned. The bearded psycho in the heavy boots was trying to find them. He couldn't go after them himself, so he was sending someone else. "And we're supposed to watch out for what?" Cam asked on the way to school two days later.
     
    "Anyone who's drawn to us or who we're drawn to," Alex recited.
     
    "Kind of cramps your social life," Cam observed as a crossing guard signaled that they could step off the curb now.
     
    "After meeting your crew, that's fine with me," Alex cracked.
     
    A block away, the plaza in front of Marble Bay High was swarming with kids. All of them strangers to her except for Dylan, who had left for school with his own pals. And five of Cam's Dirty Half Dozen, which was one of the names Alex had started calling the Six Pack. The Lollipop League was another. And the Jellybean Jar.
     
    "Dag, it must feel whack," she remembered Sukari saying, "leaving all your homeys behind."
     
    And then Kristen, twirling her silky black braid like a bullwhip, going, "Didn't you hear her, Suki? She only had two friends in Wyoming. Lulu and Evan—"
     
    "Montana," Amanda had corrected in her breathless little whisper. "And it was Lucinda, not Lulu. Lucinda and Evan. Anyway, that's not what she meant, Kristen. You meant you only had two best friends, right, Ali?"
     
    Red curls, ebony braid, peroxide-blond 'fro. They looked more