Gwendolyn's Revenge: Skylar Robbins Mysteries, #4

By Carrie Cross

Thick fog ballooned over the Malibu sand on Zuma Beach. The slate-gray ocean was deadly still. A mansion that everyone in Shadow Hills thought was haunted perched silently, shrouded in shadow. The back yard contained a magic garden where an eighth-grade bully named Gwendolyn plotted revenge.

Gwendolyn opened her witchcraft box and looked at the nest of hair she had stolen from her cousin Skylar Robbins's brush. She planned to use the teen sleuth's shiny locks in a nasty spell. Maybe giving Skylar a giant patch of hairy warts. A year of horrendous dog breath. And loud, unstoppable farts whenever Skylar was around a cute boy! Unfortunately, Gwendolyn had skimmed the instructions, and missed one very important step.

The first day of eighth grade was right around the corner. Bullies who had known Gwendolyn since third grade and called her Dumbdolyn and Zitface would be joining her again in a few short days. So, with the help of a friendly wizard and a stolen hank of Skylar's hair, she performed a beautifying spell on herself before school started. But she ignored the old wizard's warning: "Don't let your ego turn you nasty. Or the spell will slowly reverse. Or worse."

Would Gwendolyn start eighth grade with a new gorgeous face and long, lustrous hair? Or would her mean-spirited actions cause a series of embarrassing middle school disasters that no eight-grader could ever have imagined?

Gwendolyn's Revenge is a fantasy novella that is a standalone read, and a mini-sequel to Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of Shadow Hills.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carrie Cross
• Release date: May 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463335710

Carrie Cross

Carrie Cross is an avid reader who fell in love with books as a little girl after listening to Goodnight Moon at bedtime. Carrie discovered her passion for mysteries while reading Nancy Drew and The Happy Hollisters series--and then Judy Blume arrived with her unputdownable coming-of-age novels like Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret and Deenie. A dancer since age six, Cross took three years of ballet and nine years of jazz dance, until a horrific car accident at age 18 put her in the hospital for five weeks with a broken neck, a broken hip, and severe head trauma resulting in coma. After a year of rehabilitation, Cross returned to C.S.U.N., earning a degree in Speech Communication. During college, Cross pursued a modeling career and was a note-taker and sign language interpreter for the hearing-impaired. During an interview she was asked, "Where do you get your inspiration?" "When I was six years old, my parents decided we needed to buy a bigger house. We looked at a creepy two-story in Santa Monica Canyon, and I played hide-and-seek with the little girl who lived there. There were closets and secret hiding places with doors that opened into other rooms. Later, I wondered, "What if there was a clue hidden in one of those closets?" And the idea for the Skylar Robbins mystery series was born. Cross's influences include YA authors Deb Caletti, Kara Thomas, and Sarah Dessen, as well as Robert Crais and Lee Child. She lives in Southern California with her graphic designer husband Ed-- creator of the Skylar Robbins book covers--and their affectionate rescue cats, Tiki and Kona. When she isn't writing, favorite pastimes include boating (ocean imagery appears in every Skylar Robbins novel), watching Food Network, eating sushi, playing Words with Friends, driving her Porsche "like a Grandma," trying new recipes and restaurants, and traveling to exotic islands. Skylar Robbins mysteries have won multiple awards, and several have achieved #1 Bestseller status in Children's Detective Books on Amazon. Other accolades include being voted Book-of-the-Month by LASR readers, three 5-star Reader's Favorite awards, the 5-Star Literary Titan Book Award, and one was a Top Ten Finalist for an Author Academy Award in the YA/Middle Grade category. Many reviewers have compared Skylar Robbins to a modern Nancy Drew. Skylar's adventures begin with THE MYSTERY OF SHADOW HILLS, and continue in THE MYSTERY OF THE HI...

Book preview

Gwendolyn's Revenge

By Carrie Cross

Copyright © 2018 by Carrie Cross

Smashwords Edition

Visit the author at www.carrie-cross.com

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to your favorite ebook retailer to discover other works by Carrie Cross.

Excerpts from: Carrie Cross, Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of Shadow Hills.

Copyright Teen Mystery Press 2013. Reprinted by permission of Teen Mystery Press.

Cover design: Ed Ward www.mental-ward.com

This fantasy novella, Gwendolyn’s Revenge,

is dedicated to The Shirley Locke Holmes Detective Agency,

The Wilkerson Boys, P.I., and Skylar Robbins Secret Agents

everywhere who love to search for clues and solve mysteries.

Contents

1. Stolen Gems

2. Dead Aunt Evelyn’s Magic Box

3. Gwendolyn’s Plan

4. Magic Number

5. Secret Stash

6. BAD LUCK JELLUS GIRL

7. Dubious Wish Beads

8. Beautifying Spell

9. Rich and Famous

10. She isn’t the thief.

11. A Wicked Smile

12. Feverish Whispers

13. Two Witches, Betwixt and Between

14. Eyes Round with Terror

15. One Magic Silver Stone

16. The Monstrous Thing

17. Loud, Unstoppable Farts

18. The Hairy Warts on Her Forehead

19. A More Important Lesson

20. Evil Bud

21. Apology

1

Stolen Gems

Ha! Gwendolyn shouted. Fooled her again. She smirked, peering into the car window at her cousin, Skylar Robbins, as she and her parents pulled out of the driveway. Sure, I’ll water the forgotten garden for you until you come back next summer. Gwendolyn cackled. Then she shut the front door and stomped up the stairs to her room. Skinny little know-it-all thinks I’m stupid, she muttered, huffing a bit as her legs reached the top step. She tore a hand through her short shrub of hair and grinned wickedly as she shoved her bedroom door open.

Gwendolyn had plans.

She had sneaked into Skylar’s bathroom while her cousin was outside, and rummaged through her belongings. Gwendolyn needed a lock of hair to use in a most important spell—and it had to be done before the new school year started. Walking over to her dresser, she slowly pulled open a shallow drawer and stared in at the stolen contents.

She had removed several strands of long brown hair from Skylar’s brush.

That wasn’t the only thing Gwendolyn had stolen.

"Some detective. She actually thought I couldn’t find her diary in that great hiding place…a hatbox in the closet! Gwendolyn screamed, doubling over in a huge belly laugh. And—oh, how sneaky! Writing in your diary backwards. As if a five-year-old couldn’t figure out how to hold it up to a mirror and read it." Gwendolyn had, in fact, held her cousin’s diary up to the mirror, and read it.

And she had silently followed Skylar and her creepy friend Kat as they’d sneaked into the forgotten garden, unaware that they had an audience while they were casting their spells. Gwendolyn had peeked between the boughs of the weeping willow tree and memorized their grounding ritual so she could use it herself, in case their witchcraft worked and her spirit needed a pathway back into her body.

Kat had convinced Skylar that she was a genuine junior witch, and that her spells would produce a fortune in gems. So, if there was magic to be had—in Gwendolyn’s garden—she was gobbling up her fair share.

When her mother gave their dead great-aunt Evelyn’s Ouija board to Skylar, Gwendolyn had gone out and purchased her own. And hers was bigger, better, and much more powerful than Evelyn’s had ever been.

Gwendolyn had also stolen the feather from the bird that Skylar had rescued, and Skylar hadn’t even noticed. Now Gwendolyn had a witch’s starter kit of her own, which would prove to be much more potent than Kat’s. Skylar thinks she’s such a big shot because Kat’s sister is in a coven with twelve other witches. Whoop-dee-do, Gwendolyn scoffed, cracking open the lid. She poked a stubby finger into a compartment that was filled with smelly green goo. Wiping a bit of the slime into a tiny box, she shuddered, remembering the torture she had put the frog through to get it.

Next, she dipped a small metal spoon into a vial of powdered pigs’ feet that she had purchased from one of her favorite stores, Penelope’s Potent Potions and Powders, and added a dash of that to the container. She stirred the mixture with a bristle she’d stolen from the poop broom in the stable, remembering with glee how the missing broom had upset the stable boy, Carlos. Skylar’s friend Kat had a huge crush on him, which made his torment even sweeter for Gwendolyn.

After mashing in seven dead spiders she had collected from the foyer, the smelly paste was complete. She stuffed the tiny box into her pocket, ran down the stairs, and scurried through the butler’s pantry and into the balmy back yard.

Looking toward the raging ocean as she walked toward the forgotten garden, Gwendolyn grinned, proud of how much smarter she was than everybody else. She marched across the nine steppingstones that her great-aunt Evelyn had placed there when she was alive, thankful that someone in her family was smart enough to do something right.

Opening the creaky wooden gate, Gwendolyn stepped inside the garden. She walked up to a crumbling pink fountain that her cousin Skylar had named the chalice, and kicked the rotting cushion off its matching stool. Then she took the tiny