Free A Tale of Magic... by Brandon Dorman

altogether.
    “You’re a bad girl , Brystal Eve Bailey,” she whispered to her reflection. “A very, very bad girl .”



CHAPTER THREE

    JUSTICES ONLY
    B rystal read more books in just two weeks of cleaning the library than she had in her entire life. By the end of her first month, she had devoured every title on the ground floor and was working her way through the second level.
    Her quick consumption rate was thanks to an efficient schedule she developed early on: Each evening, Brystal dusted the shelves, mopped the floors, polished the silver globe, and wiped the surfaces as fast as she possibly could. When the cleaning was finished, Brystal selected a book—or a few books if it was the weekend—and snuck them back to her house. Once she finished washing the dishes from her family’s dinner, Brystal would lock herself in her bedroom and spend the rest of the night reading. The following evening, Brystal would return what she had borrowed and her secret routine would start all over again.
    Brystal couldn’t believe how quickly her life had changed. In just one month, she went from having an emotional breakdown in public to the most exciting and stimulating time she had ever experienced. Working at the library gave her access to biographies, encyclopedias, dictionaries, anthologies, and textbooks that expanded her grasp of reality, and it introduced her to works of fiction, poetry, and prose that expanded her imagination beyond her wildest dreams. But perhaps most gratifying of all, Brystal found the library’s copy of The Tales of Tidbit Twitch and finally learned how the story ended:
    Tidbit reached in all directions as he fell off the side of the cliff, but there was nothing to grab hold of. He feared his fall would come to a brutal end against the rocky earth, but by some miracle, the mouse plunged into a rushing river instead. The dragon swooped down the cliff and flew over Tidbit as he floated in the river. The monster tried to swipe the mouse from the powerful stream, but the water was moving too fast for the dragon to get a steady grip.
    Tidbit thrashed around the river as it swept him toward a towering waterfall. As he rolled over the edge, the dragon dived after him with wide-open jaws. The mouse was convinced these were his last moments alive—he would either be consumed by the monster above him, or collide with the boulders at the base of the waterfall. As he fell farther and farther, the dragon dived closer and closer, and soon the creature’s sharp teeth encompassed him in midair.
    Just before the monster sank its teeth into the falling mouse, Tidbit fell through a small crack between the boulders at the bottom of the waterfall, and he safely dropped into the lake at the river’s end. When Tidbit surfaced in the water, he saw the dragon was spread out across the rocks behind him, lying lifeless with a broken neck.
    Tidbit washed ashore and took his first deep breath in years. With the dragon finally defeated, the Kingdom of Mice was free from the reign of terror at last. The world welcomed a new era of much-needed peace, and it was all thanks to a tiny mouse who braved a big monster.
    Naturally, Brystal’s new routine was exhausting. She only managed to sleep for an hour or two each night, but the excitement of getting to read more the next day energized her like a drug. However, Brystal found clever ways of resting so she wasn’t entirely sleep deprived.
    During Mrs. Plume’s lessons at school, Brystal tied a quill to her fingers and lowered her gaze so she appeared to be taking notes, but was actually taking a much-needed nap instead. On one occasion, while her classmates learned how to apply makeup, Brystal used the supplies to draw pupils on her eyelids so no one noticed she was sleeping through the demonstrations. At lunch, while the other girls went to the bakery in the town square, Brystal visited the furniture store and “tested the products” until the owners caught on.
    On the