Chapter Seven - I Turned My Mom Into a Taco

CHAPTER SEVEN

I Turned My Mom Into a Taco

SILENCE.

TOTAL, ABSOLUTE, salsa-thick silence.

Max stared at the spot where his mom had been standing.

Now?

Now there was just a taco.

A warm, slightly steaming, soft-shell taco with the tiniest little green tea mug sitting next to it.

“No,” Max whispered.
“No no no no no no no.”

He dropped to his knees.

“Mom?”

The taco didn’t respond.
Of course it didn’t respond.
TACOS CAN’T RESPOND.

Max scooped it up gently with a napkin.
He cradled it.
Like Simba in The Lion King.

He thought he might cry.

“She was just checking on me,” he said to the taco.
“She brought tea. You were gonna say everything would be okay. You always say everything will be okay.”

His voice cracked.

“This is not okay.”

Then it hit him.

He was alone in the house.
With a taco.
That used to be his mom.

He had two options:

1. Freak out.
2. Really, really freak out.

He chose both.

He paced the room.

Back and forth.

The taco sat on his pillow. Peaceful. Like nothing had happened.

Max, on the other hand, was losing it.

“I can’t even bury her,” he muttered. “The ants would just eat the grave.”

And that’s when a terrifying thought crept into his head like sour cream under a fingernail.

What if he got hungry?

No.
No.
NO.

He shoved the taco into a shoebox.
Labeled it: DO NOT EAT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
Put three padlocks on it.
Taped a sticky note that said THIS IS YOUR MOM.

Then sat down and whispered:

“I need help.”

And for the first time since the curse began…

He knew exactly where to go.