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The End is really the beginning (or Prologue) as Bernice Blossom Bolton, age 10, prepares for the first day of fifth grade by luxuriating in a Jacuzzi filled with bubbles, as she recalls the most awful summer of her life.
Bernie, who believes her full name should belongs only to grandmothers, was going to turn ten in a few days when disaster struck! As she attempted to baby-sit for her stepbrother, Kirby, while her very pregnant stepmother, Priscilla, took a nap…the worst possible thing happened. Worse even than getting Miss Boggs for fourth grade! Kirby climbed a tree, and by the time Bernie and Emmy, her best friend, discovered his whereabouts, he was attempting to touch the sky from the very highest branch.
He fell…landed in the emergency room, and lingered in a coma for most of the summer. Bernie was convinced it was her fault, and vowed to find a way to wake him. She tried everything, from prayers, which she wasn’t very good at, to intimidation, which she was, to loud Elvis music and peanut butter. Nothing worked…until Emmy suggested visiting Mr. Ralston. He was the oldest person in the neighborhood, and lived in a scary looking house on Hitchcock Street.
The house was old, and cluttered, and kind of creepy…and it smelled like fish…lots of old stinky fish. It was also full of cats…everywhere. But Mr. Ralston made wonderful cookies, and had a mysterious, secret box, which he opened for the girls after telling them a story from his childhood.
The story was about how his little brother, Val, got shot by accident with a BB gun and was in the hospital just like Kirby. That same night, Mr. Ralston, who was just a kid, went out to sit in the field out back of the hospital and prayed for a miracle to save Val. Just then a shooting star streaked across the sky and fell to Earth. Later that night, Mr. Ralston’s older sister, CeCe, told him that if you see a shooting star you get one wish and it was guaranteed to come true. The next day, Mr. Ralston went to see what had fallen from the sky and discovered a large “star rock” lying in a big hole. He picked up a handful-sized piece that had broken off, took it up to Val, placed it in his little hand and made a wish. When Val woke up, Mr. Ralston was convinced the rock was magic.
Inside the box he showed to the girls was the rock, the answer…the magic, that might wake Kirby from his long sleep.
Really believing that the rock was indeed magic, Bernie borrowed it, waited for an opportune moment when she would be alone with Kirby…and tried out the magic star rock. She made her wish… Within hours Kirby was awake and Bernie was sold on the rock’s magical powers.
When she returned the rock to Mr. Ralston the next day, along with some of Priscilla’s dreadfully disgusting muffins, Mr. Ralston gently explained how the rock might not, in fact, be magic…that the “magic” might really be the love she had for her little brother. Bernie wasn’t convinced, but all ends well when Mr. Ralston gives her and Emmy two of his new kittens.
The Beginning is really the end (Epilogue), as Bernie finishes her bath and comes to the conclusion that this awful problem was successfully dealt with. She feels strong and confident and ready to tackle fifth grade. Except… now there was the other problem. A problem that looked a lot like three new babies (her married sister, Lizzy, was pregnant too…with twins), one stepbrother, and cute, but obnoxious Freddie White. The problem was called …boys.
In this 112 page, 23,000-word middle-grade novel, Bernie Bolton learns about taking responsibility, trusting in the power of love…and, if you believe, using a little magic.

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