Page 2 of Giddy Up, Daddy

No! My tuna noodle casserole!

She had to turn that alarm off! If Mr. Brandt heard it, he wouldn’t be pleased. He hated any sort of noise. And Blakely needed this apartment. It was the only place she’d been able to find that she could afford.

As she spun, the ropes suddenly slid off her.

Huh. How had that happened?

“Magic,” she whispered with a smile. It worked!

Well, sort of.

The blasting of the smoke alarm infiltrated her happiness.

Shoot!

Rushing into the tiny kitchen, she saw the smoke drifting from the oven.

“No.” She reached for the door and smoke billowed into her face. “No. No. No.”

Smoke stinging her eyes, she searched around for her oven mitts. She grabbed something, not paying attention to what it was as she used it to lift out the hot dish.

But whatever she’d grasped hold of, they weren’t her thick oven mitts. And the heat from the dish seared her hands.

She quickly dumped the dish into the sink.

Sobs broke free as she stared down at her hands in horror.

“Ouch,” she cried. “Ouch, ouch, ouchie!”

Don’t just stand there. The alarm!

Shit! She searched around for something that she could stand on to turn it off.

Spotting a dining chair, she ignored the pain in her hands as she dragged it over to the alarm and stood on it. She hit the button on the alarm, but it still kept going.

Urgh!

She finally managed to remove the alarm so she could pop out the batteries.

The noise immediately stopped, and she sat down on the chair with a sob of relief.

This was all too much.

Tears filled her eyes. Her hands hurt, her casserole was ruined, and the apartment smelled of smoke. If Mr. Brandt was home, then he’d probably be here soon to complain about the noise.

Another noise blared at her. It sounded cymbals chiming. Ooh or a magic wand.

Oh, witches and wizards!

That was her phone alarm.

Standing, she scrambled around for her phone. Her hands throbbed and burned and in the back of her mind she knew that she should be running them under cool water.

But she had to know why her phone alarm was going off.

If it wasn’t for her phone’s calendar and reminder alarms, she’d never remember to do anything. So she never ignored that chiming.

Finally, she found it lying on the coffee table in the living room.

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