The Magic Shades

Chapter 1
Discovery
“It stinks in here,” Gena said, pinching her nose and breathing through her mouth. “Like smelly socks.”
Anne laughed. “And no one’s more of an expert on smelly socks than you, Gena.”
Gena slipped her foot out of her shoe and wiggled it near Anne. “My secret weapon,” she said.
“Guaranteed to exterminate roaches, rodents, and rude boys.”
“And best friends!” Anne backed away and stood on the other side of Juniper.
Gena slid her shoe back on and watched Juniper dig through a box of old baseball cards.
She thought a thrift store was an odd place for Juniper to buy her little brother’s birthday gift.
“Look for the dead guys,” Gena suggested.
Juniper held a bulky stack of baseball cards in her hand. She didn’t raise her head, just her eyes to look at Gena. “Why?”
“Aren’t dead players worth more?” asked Gena.
Juniper shook her head. “Popular players are worth more. Dead or alive.”
Gena wasn’t interested in searching through old baseball cards, and she could tell by Anne’s fidgeting that she wasn’t either. “Let’s go look around.”
Gena and Anne wandered about, looking through bins filled with old purses, hats, toys,
and books. Some bins were just a dumping ground for miscellaneous items.
A young woman approached, straightening things that were strewn about the shelves. Then she reached down to pick up a toy that had been tossed on the floor. Her long brown hair fell passed her shoulders, but Gena could make out her Thrifty Saver badge and knew she was an employee. She watched the lady work, and wondered how someone could force herself out of bed every morning to work at a place that smelled like this. She must be desperate or immune to the dank air, thought Gena. Probably both.
Gena stepped over by Anne, who was thumbing through a box of old postcards.
“These look about as exciting as the baseball cards,” she said, picking up one that showed a crispy white Vermont church with a bell nearly as big as the steeple.
“Those are five cents a piece,” the woman said, sweeping by Gena and Anne and hurrying to the other side of the store.
“Why would anyone pay five cents for these?”
Gena asked when she was sure the woman couldn’t hear. But Anne was staring down at the cards with a look of disbelief on her face.
“Some are worth more than a nickel!”she squealed, pulling up a faded card from the pile.
“This one is mine,” she said, grinning like she’d struck gold.
Gena snatched the postcard out of Anne’s hands. “Lucky!” The card was titled The Fortune Teller and showed a woman in white holding a magic wand. The card also had four wheels, a pointer, and instructions. Gena read them out loud. “Cut out the arrow and stick a pin through its center and the center of the circle.
Circle 1 gives a YES or NO answer. Circle 2
spells the name of the person you will marry.
Circle 3 tells his business. Circle 4, how many children you shall have.”
She handed it back to Anne. “Are you going to cut out those circles?”
“Of course not!” Anne said. “I’ll use it as a guide to draw my own. I plan to frame this card.
Look how old it is.”
Gena peeked at the tiny copyright date in the corner. 1812. “Yeah, I bet that card’s worth more than a nickel, but don’t tell that lady who just walked by.”
Anne laughed. “I wonder what other gold mines are in this store.”
Gena wondered too. Suddenly, the place didn’t smell so bad anymore. She looked through a bin that had costume jewelry. Nothing weird or mysterious.
She found a plastic sunburst that she thought would make a cool necklace, but it looked more like a broken belt buckle than a pendant.
Then she saw a bin filled with sunglasses.
Gena rummaged through the bin, examining each pair. She liked the zebra print pair, but the rest looked like they’d come from an Old Lady Fest. Old ladies with pointy noses and French poodles,
Gena thought. But then, she noticed one pair lying near the bottom. A pair of black cat-eye sunglasses with mirrored lenses. Each point had a gold emblem, the symbols of Comedy and Tragedy. Gena ran her finger over them. These are great, she thought. She wiped the smudges off the lenses with the bottom of her t-shirt,
then tried them on. The glasses fit like a cozy hug and felt like a part of her face. She turned,
searching for a mirror. She had to see how they looked.
She passed several racks of clothes and boxes of shoes and there on the wall was a full-length mirror.
Gena stood close and gazed at herself. A lot of descriptions ran through Gena’s mind as she stared. Awesome. Cool. Movie star. She didn’t care how much they cost—she had to own them.
“Hey!”she said, rushing over to Juniper, who now had about a zillion baseball cards piled up beside her. “How do I look?”
Juniper didn’t say a word. She just doubled over with laughter.
Gena felt like the boy who had cried wolf. She joked around so much, her friends didn’t know when she was serious. “You don’t like them?”
“You do?” Juniper asked, still giggling.
“I think they’re great,” Gena said, glancing around the store.
Juniper slipped them off Gena’s face. “For Halloween!”
“Well, I like them,” Gena said, not wanting Juniper to know how hurt she felt. “I’m going to ask that sales lady how much they are.”
She pointed to the brown-haired woman who’d been straightening things earlier.
“Excuse me,” Gena asked, putting the glasses back on. “How much are these?” Blue-white lightning.
Gena blinked her eyes. When she looked at the sales lady, she barely recognized her. The lady’s face was bruised and scabbed, her left cheek red and swollen. Her left arm was cradled in a sling and her smile revealed a chipped tooth.
Startled, Gena jumped back, feeling she’d left her thumping heart two feet in front of her. Was this lady in a wrestling match that she’d just missed?
“How much is what?” the sales lady asked through her scraped lips.
Gena took off the sunglasses, her hand trembling.
“These.”
The woman reached for them with her left hand, now miraculously healed. Gena took a deep breath. One minute the woman looked like the victim of a train wreck, the next minute she was the same little mousy woman who’d said “Those are five cents a piece.”
A weird chill snuck through Gena as the woman handed the glasses back.
“All our sunglasses are fifty cents each,” the lady said.
Gena held the glasses close. “Thank you,” she said, hurrying away.
“Are you really going to buy those?” Juniper asked.
“Yeah,” Gena said, still staring at the woman,
now unloading a box.
Anne had just walked up with her prize postcard.
“Buy what?”
Juniper pointed to the sunglasses.
“Ewww,” Anne said, wrinkling her nose. “Why do you want those?”
Gena wished she knew. She wished she could explain. She looked at Anne and Juniper, feeling desperate and unsure at the same time. She shrugged. “I need them.”