Excerpt: SHRUNK: THE EXILE OF MAURICE, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 8
"Good luck."Ken held out his hand. He caught his breath when a spark shot up his arm at thetouch of Jo's warm, smooth hand.
His last task beforehe left the decorating party was to haul two garbage bags to the back storageroom and put them in the wheeled garbage bins. Angela was waiting for him whenhe picked up his coat from the pile in the book room.
"I hope youdon't think making that wish was a waste of time." She rested a hand onhis arm.
"I'm not exactlyin a mood for believing in wishes and magic." He felt almost ashamed tosay that to her. What was Divine's Emporium, if not a magical place?
Angela sighed, andthe sympathy in her eyes was warming, and didn't tie him up in knots insidelike the sympathy he saw in other people. That was part of the magic of thisplace, too. A magic he could still believe in, maybe even needed, desperately.
"Just becauseBrittney used you to get Allistair's attention doesn't mean you, Ken Jenkins,are worthless or a fool. There is still magic in this world. There is stilltrue love. And those who are willing to look for magic and love will find them.Take a chance."
~~~~~
Jo sighed as the lastfew people left the decorating party. Only she, Angela and Holly were left inthe main room, though she thought she heard Lanie and her brothers talking inthe book room. She watched Ken stride out the front door, into the swirlingsnow. His shoulders were bowed like Santa Claus carrying an impossibly heavypack.
He seemed like SantaClaus right now. In the three years since she had moved to Neighborlee to takecare of Aunt Myrtle, Jo had made many wishes at Divine's, but none had evercome true this fast and this clearly before.
She laughed silentlyat herself when she felt the business card crumple in her fist and watched Kentugging his Willis-Brooks College varsity jacket closer around his shoulders.Her smile faded, remembering the stress lines around his mouth and eyes.Somebody needed to do something nice for him. How many people nowadays liftedtheir heads out of their own problems to help someone else?
