Free Don't Drink the Punch! by P.J. Night Page B

collect the beetles. Once I had the paralysis solution complete, I had to wait for the perfect opportunity to enact my revenge. And then you walked right into the shop that day and made it all so easy for me. It was almost like fate played a role.”
    Her thin lips curled up into an evil smile as she watched Kayla pick up the pen.
    Please, please can you give me back my voice ?
    â€œWhy should I?” Matilda practically spat, after she read what Kayla had written. “You’re as bad as the rest of them. You—”
    Jinx chose that moment to leap up onto a display case next to Kayla. He sat down and curled his tail around his front paws, and then stared from Kayla to Matilda and back again to Kayla.
    Matilda glared at the cat. Then she heaved a sigh. “Oh, all right, I get it, Jinx. I suppose she did bring you back here after you got hit, although I have my suspicions. She probably helped cause the accident in the first place. She probably let that wretched dog chase you into the street.”
    Kayla shook her head vigorously.
    â€œFine. Hold on a moment.” Matilda turned and walked back through the velvet-curtained doorway. She seemed to be gone for a long time. Kayla tried to quell the panic that kept rising in her stomach. Outside, she could see the snow falling silently, heavily, covering her tracks, blanketing the quiet world. Anything could happen to her in here. She wondered what Tom was doing in that terrible house, surrounded by all the frozen people. She shuddered at the horror.
    Matilda returned, holding something in her hand. She thrust her closed fist out to Kayla. Then she turned her hand over and opened it to reveal a small pillbox. She hit a button and it sprang open. “Take this. Suck on it. Your voice will be back in a few minutes.”
    Kayla shot her arm out, eager for the pill, but then hesitated. Matilda let out a low chuckle. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, my dear,” she said. “Either take this or lose your voice forever.”
    Kayla took the pale-orange, oval-shaped lozenge from Matilda’s box and popped it into her mouth. It tasted bitter—terribly, awfully bitter. She gagged and retched. It tasted worse than anything she could imagine, worse than a spoonful of instant coffee, or sucking on the stems of a handful of dandelions. Her mouth twisted up, and she gagged again, trying not to throw up. But as she gagged, a small sound emerged from the back of her throat. As she swallowed, careful not to swallow the lozenge itself, she felt a sharp pain in her throat that reminded her of the time she’d had strep throat.
    â€œI—can I—spit it out now?” Kayla rasped. She felt like she’d swallowed a handful of jagged glass.
    â€œNo. Suck the whole thing till it’s gone,” said Matildawith a smug gleam in her eye. She seemed to enjoy watching Kayla’s distress.
    At last, Kayla felt she could talk without throwing up. “What’s going to become of all those frozen people?” she gasped out.
    Matilda raised an eyebrow. “All?”
    â€œYes,” Kayla replied. “See, it’s not just Alice, Pria, and Jess. Alice gave the punch to everyone at the party—even the parents. Everyone in that house is frozen, except for me . . . and well, Tom.”
    Matilda smiled slightly at the mention of Tom’s name. “Nice boy,” she murmured. “As for the others, it all depends on the dosage they took. I told that nasty friend of yours, Alice, to be very careful with the proportions, but did she listen? Doubtful. Anyway, the older you are, the more susceptible you tend to be. It works more quickly on older people. Still, pretty much everyone who drank the punch should be in an irreversible frozen state by the morning. Even I won’t be able to help them. They won’t be dead exactly. Just in a permanent state of vegetation. Their vital signs could continue