“Maybe Stella has a measuring cup.” Marjorie went to look among the boxes and jars on the shelf. She found a teacup with a broken handle. Marjorie filled it to the brim with sand from the yellow paper bag.

Nick watched her. “How are we going to get a bag for the spell? That Domino Sugar sack would fall apart in the brew.”

Marjorie was carrying the teacup over to the table. On the way the sneaker without a shoelace fell off. Marjorie set the cup on the table and went to get her shoe.

She was about to shove her foot into the sneaker when she caught sight of her sock. Marjorie pulled it off and shoved her bare foot into the sneaker. “Go get six tigers’ teeth, Nick.”

The sock was a stretchy one. Marjorie poured the sand into it. Nick dropped in the teeth, one at a time. Then Marjorie took the key from around her neck and pushed it into the sock. She left the string on it and pushed that in too.

The sock was bulging. Nick held it while Marjorie tied it to the wooden spoon with the bright new shoelace. She twisted the lace several times around the spoon and the sock. And then she made a double bow.

“Now for the spell!” Nick said.

Marjorie carried the spoon with the heavy sock tied to it over to the iron pot. Slowly she let it down into the steaming witch’s brew.

The steam turned yellow and then green. The brew foamed up. Marjorie was afraid it would boil over.

“Don’t forget to stir,” Nick reminded her.

Marjorie counted to twenty-one, giving a wide stir with each number.

“Stop!” Nick said.

Marjorie hauled up the spoon with the dripping sock. She walked over and laid it on the table in the middle of the cave.

Nick came after her. “Marge, look at the shoelace.”

Marjorie stared at it. The lace was stained and the tips were frayed.

“It’s just the way it was before we enchanted it,” Marjorie said. She began to untie the double bow. It took her quite a while because the shoelace was soaking wet, but at last she managed to undo it.

Marjorie dumped everything out of her sock onto the table. “Nick,” she said, “the desert sand is still dry and so are the tigers’ teeth!”

“Where’s your key?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know.” Marjorie looked at the sand scattered across the table. She counted all the tigers’ teeth, but she didn’t see the key. “Mother will have a fit when she finds out I’ve lost it.”

“What’ll we do, Marge?” Nick asked. “We can’t get into our house without the key. I’m hungry. It must be lunch time.”

Marjorie sat down on the dirt floor and put on the wet sock. She laced the old shoelace back into her shoe. “We’ll have to do without lunch. Let’s go home and wait for Mother and Dad.” She stood up and took a look at the table. “Before we go, we’d better put everything away.”

Nick went to get the Domino Sugar sack. Marjorie picked up the tigers’ teeth. She dusted the sand off each one and dropped them all into the green bottle. With her hand she brushed the sand into a neat pile at the edge of the table.

Marjorie felt something hard in the sand. She took hold of it. “Nick, here’s the key!”