Free Maggie Malone and the Mostly Magical Boots by Jenna McCarthy and Carolyn Evans Page A

leggings, a hoodie, and Becca’s bunny slippers. I have a pair almost exactly like them at home, and I’d wear them to school if my mom would let me. They’re that comfy.
    I’m about to curl up with a magazine when there’s a knock at my door.
    â€œCome in!” I shout. Vi nudges the door open. She’s got her cell phone in one hand and she’s covering the mouthpiece with the other.
    â€œSo sorry to bother you, Bec, but I’ve got Jonie Lake on the line,” Vi says. Jonie Lake? Sister of a striped stegosaurus! Jonie Lake is the infamous, thousand-year-old entertainment journalist who gets her kicks ripping celebrities apart in her gossip column for Starz magazine. She’s had so much plastic surgery she looks like a cross between the Joker from Batman and one of those creepy dolls whose eyes are supposed to close when you lay her down but they get stuck open all the time. Talk about scary with a capital S.
    â€œWhat does she want?” I ask nervously.
    â€œWhat she always wants,” Vi says. “A comment on her absurd, made-up story. This time, she’s going to be writing about how all of your Becca Starr merchandise is manufactured by underpaid children in Chinese sweatshops.” Vi sighs and shakes her head. “No comment, I assume?”
    â€œBut…but…why wouldn’t I comment?” I stammer. “That’s a horrible thing to print!” Then I have a terrifying thought.
    â€œIt’s not true, is it?” I ask.
    â€œOh Becca, of course it’s not true,” Vi assures me. “Nothing that vile woman prints is true! You know that.”
    â€œThen…shouldn’t I defend myself?” I ask.
    â€œYou certainly can ,” Vi says. “You just usually don’t want to deal with it.”
    â€œWell, I feel like dealing with it today,” I tell her. “I’ll take the call.”
    Vi lifts both eyebrows but says nothing as she hands me the phone. I take a deep breath before speaking into it.
    â€œThis is Becca Starr,” I say with confidence I definitely don’t feel. “May I help you?”
    â€œJonie Lake here,” she growls. “So, you got kids in China, working their little fingers raw for peanuts so you can make millions selling piece-of-junk dolls that don’t even look like you, if you ask me. Any comment?”
    â€œFirst of all,” I say slowly, “I’d like to know where you got this information.” It’s not just a stall tactic. In my journalism class at Sacred Heart, you weren’t allowed to make any sort of claim without being able to back it up. That’s pretty basic stuff, in fact.
    â€œCan’t reveal my sources, sorry,” Jonie snarls. “You got a comment? I’m on a deadline here.”
    â€œMy comment is that it is absolutely not true, not a single word of it,” I say. “All of my products are made right here in the United States. And for your information, I don’t make millions off those dolls. In fact, I don’t make a penny. I donate every single cent I make on my merchandise to the Pack It Up Foundation. You are welcome to confirm that with them.”
    I so nailed that! Stella and I have watched the Becca Starr documentary at least a dozen times, so I’ve actually seen her manufacturing plant. It’s in somewhere like Detroit or Pittsburgh or one of those other cities where they make a bunch of stuff. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m positive it’s in the United States because they made a big deal about it in the movie about how hardly anybody makes anything in the United States anymore, which is sad. Then later in the movie, there’s this whole scene about Becca’s work with Pack It Up. Every year, she gives them money to buy backpacks and fill them with school supplies for kids who can’t afford to buy them. Becca even helps them pack those bags herself. I’d never even