Trouble's Brewing (Stirring Up Trouble Trilogy 2)

Anya’s mom finally got there to pick her up just as my mother got home from aerobics class. Anya’s mom honked like usual.

“See you soon, Finn,” Anya called flirtatiously as she left the kitchen. “I’m here a lot.”

Not until Thursday, I thought, but I couldn’t take even one more day like this. I had to stop her from coming.

Mom came rushing in as soon as Anya was out the door. “We forgot all about Anya seeing Dr. Finnegan!” She set her purse on the counter by the fridge and came over to us.

“How we did that I’ll never know,” I muttered.

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Finnegan,” Mom said.

He held up his hand. “These things happen. Although I must admit it was a little unnerving to have someone young enough to be my great-granddaughter leering at me.” He laughed. “Yet another unforeseen effect of my selfish transformation.”

“We haven’t even started yet,” I told my mother. “What a waste.”

“I don’t have any pressing engagements, Zoe,” Dr. Finnegan said. “I’ll be happy to stay until we complete today’s lesson.”

“Really? Thanks!”

“And start calling me Finn, even in private. We don’t want to raise anymore eyebrows than we have to.”

“Gotcha. Finn.”

“Finn,” my mother mumbled. “Got it.” She gave me a tired smile. “I’ll let you two get to work. I’ll be in the library if you need me.”

“You are so lucky!” Anya said at my locker on Wednesday morning.

“Good morning, Anya.” I hoped she wasn’t going to spread the news about my tutor all over the whole school.

“Finn’ll be there tomorrow, right?” Anya clutched her science book to her chest.

I nodded.

“I am so lucky that Mom is making me get to stay with you after school!”

I was so lucky she had no clue about Dr. Finnegan coming to my house on Saturdays. She’d move in if she found out.

Wednesday lasted forever. Anya kept pestering me about Finn which made Jake more and more annoyed. I wanted nothing more than to dive in and start working with Finn.

I couldn’t concentrate on my classwork because I had a big decision to make. I might not be able to continue with the toad slime, but I had a long list of potion ingredients that needed low cost, edible substitutions. Tomorrow night, I was going to convince Dr. Finnegan, Finn, that we should work on either unicorn horn or eye of newt. Unicorn horn would be tough. I only had a few ideas of where to start. Eye of newt shouldn’t be too bad because I already had a long list of possibilities. Whatever gut instinct I had that helped me find the toad slime substitution was working a lot better on the eye of newt. But unicorn horn was the rarest of all the potion ingredients. I had sixty-four ounces of it saved up because I’d been asking for it as a gift for special occasions for years.

Newts might be happy about keeping their eyes, and yes, my substitution would make a difference in getting by the FDA. But to find a replacement for unicorn horn would be epic. The scholars like Dr. Finnegan had written that we’d probably only found one-tenth of the possible potions that unicorn horn made possible. The expense kept academia from conducting the extensive experiments that had been instrumental in developing potions with other ingredients. Unicorn horn could be essential to the cure of cancer, to solving the problems that witches hadn’t yet conquered.

Anya was going to her aunt’s this afternoon, so I didn’t have to dread dealing with her.

On Thursday, Anya’s mother picked her up at 5:15, and Finn arrived at 5:30.

“Perfect,” I said when I answered his knock.

“The coast is clear?” he asked, glancing warily into the house.

“The coast is clear,” I confirmed.

“Excellent!” he said, coming inside.

With a nod at the large brown leather briefcase he carried, I said, “I think you might need a new bag if you’re going to be bringing lots of stuff.”

“Oh dear,” he said, looking down at the well-worn leather. “I’ve had this for years.”

“It doesn’t match your new look.”

He followed me to the kitchen and set the briefcase down. “I suppose you’re right.” Tugging at the plaid shirt he wore over his T-shirt, he said, “What do you suggest?”

“A backpack,” I said. “A non-descript navy blue backpack. An expensive one from the University bookstore so it doesn’t break.”

“Consider it done. My apartment is only a few blocks from there.”

“You live on campus?”

“More campus-adjacent than on campus.”

“You live in Fort Sanders?”

“I blend in best down there. No one gives me a second glance.”

“But it’s kind of gross, right? Some of those houses are so old.”

“Many are in a shameful state of disrepair.”

“Is your apartment okay?” I didn’t want him sacrificing too much to tutor me. He’d grow to resent me, and having him as a mentor meant everything to me.

“My apartment is satisfactory.”

My expression must have given away my disappointment because he added, “I found a basement apartment that is quite comfortable. The adjacent space was unfinished, and I have converted it into a fine laboratory. I designed a revolving bookcase to enter the space, and my landlord is none the wiser.”

With a smile, I said, “Sounds cool. I’m glad you aren’t living in a slum.”

“I have something for you, Zoe.” He opened his bag and removed a small ring box. “I asked the Council to provide a rapid response mechanism in case of crises with your potions or science projects.” He opened the box to reveal a simple silver ring with a round purple stone. “You may press this to summon the Environmental Emergency Aversion Unit.”

“I’ve never heard of a ring like this. I shouldn’t have any problems if I use rubber gloves.” The rubber, safety gloves in chemistry class worked to block the magic. A fortunate happenstance for witches.

“We use these quite often for high school and college witches who brew potions and have chemistry classes, and for the poets who are taking courses which could trigger undesirable results.”

He handed me the ring, and I slipped it on my finger. “What if I push it accidentally?”

“You won’t. You have to trigger it with the index finger on your right hand. No other contact will trigger it.”

Good. The last thing I needed was to accidentally call for help. I couldn’t even dial a phone number with nines and ones in it without worrying I’d mess up and call 9-1-1. I hadn’t shared my fear with anybody.

Once I knew the ring wouldn’t activate accidentally, I had to admit it looked good on my finger. “Thanks, Dr. Finnegan!”

“Finn,” he said.

He started unloading books and an iPad from his bag.

I grabbed a bottle of water for each of us from the fridge and sat on the stool across from Finn.

Before we could dive into the potion text, the doorbell rang.

My mother had already left for the late aerobics class, so I went to see who was here.

I opened the door to find Jake standing there, a fat toad in his hands. “Yikes!” The whole toad thing was taking some getting used to.

“He was sitting on your porch,” Jake said, then leaned down to return the frog to the porch.

“Jake? What are you doing here?”

“I thought we could study,” he said, holding up his biology book.

“I have my chemistry tutor,” I said. “You knew that.”

“I guess I forgot,” he said, but he didn’t meet my eyes as he said it.

“No you did not. What is going on?”

He raised his eyes and admitted, “Anya showed me a picture of your tutor.”

“She what?”

“She had a picture of you and this guy on her phone.”

Anya had taken a picture of the picture? What a freak. “Why did she show you?”

“I d

on’t know. I guess she wanted to taunt me.”

“So you came over here to what? To check him out yourself? To threaten him?”

Jake laughed. “No, I came over so he’d know you had a boyfriend.”

“Jake, this is ridiculous. He’s here to teach me.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I kind of feel like an idiot here, Zoe, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

His chagrin was endearing. “Come in and meet him and then you have to leave. I have work to do.”

I moved out of the way to let Jake in the house. As I shut the door, Finn stepped into the kitchen doorway and held up his cell phone. “Hey, Zoe, my girlfriend is on the phone. Is it okay if I step out back for a minute to talk to her?”

For a minute, I stared. Girlfriend? Then the situation slowly penetrated my shocked brain.

“Zoe?” Finn urged.

His girlfriend phone call was a stroke of genius. “Uh, yeah. I mean, first meet my boyfriend Jake, and sure, I’m ready for a break anyway.”

“Hey, man,” Finn said with a nod at Jake.

“Hi,” Jake said.

“Gotta take this.” Finn motioned to the phone and turned to go out the back door.

For those short minutes, he perfectly channeled a 19-year-old guy.