Darbie O'Brien

**Deborah "Darbie" O'Brien** is one of the three main characters in Just Add Magic and is a protagonist in the series and a tritagonist of Mystery City. She has two best friends: Kelly Quinn and Hannah Parker-Kent whom are former protectors along with her.

== Appearance Darbie has a freckled face, light blue eyes and is mostly seen wearing her fiery red hair loose. She also sometimes wears it in pigtails, a ponytail, or half up, half down. She is mostly seen in western outfits, t-shirts and long, blue, denim jeans.

== Personality Darbie is a fun character. She is immature from time to time, but is a great person to spend time with. She is shown to be very determined when she puts her mind to it, but she never puts her personal interests above those of her friends. She is very prone to making jokes when nervous. Although at first Darbie doesn't appear to be as good at solving problems as the other two girls, she is revealed to have many clever ideas and to be very logical. As seen in the picture, Darbie loves food. Cool and energetic, Darbie can brighten anyone's day with her go-lucky attitude. Darbie is also well known for her *best spell ever* catchphrase. She was also happy that there was no homework for 3 months over summer break, implying that Darbie is not too fond of homework.

== Biography

=== Early Life Darbie met Kelly and Hannah in kindergarten. The three of them were at Mama P's. She was taking her food back to her table while walking backwards when she accidentally bumped into Kelly. Hannah appeared with an extra shirt to replace the one Darbie had spilled food on. They instantly clicked and became inseparable. Later on they forget their friendship, so Jake and Ms Silver's helped them reenact this moment to get their memories back.

=== Meeting the Cookbook

==== First Season While in seventh grade, Kelly, Hannah and Darbie find a magical cookbook in Kelly's attic. They are unaware that it is magical at first, and cook Shut 'Em Up Shortcake without knowing that it will literally shut up whoever eats it. Darbie puts in the Cedronian vanilla, so she suffers the downside of not being able to stop talking. This is fixed by Kelly. Throughout the first season, Darbie is instrumental in figuring things out about the book and the secrets behind it. Then, the trio meets RJ White in Just Add RJ and learns about his plans for The Cookbook. They get the Cookbook back and RJ warns them about something, only to be spelled by Caroline Palmer, who went by the alias Jill, when she said Magic. Nöelle Jasper, Jake Williams, and Arthur Morris suffer the same fate as RJ, and the trio knows that they are next. Arthur Morris, Hannah's teacher, was helping them on the case, and he gave them details about Jill. However, when they attend Darbie's play, he loses his memory of magic.

==== Second Season Darbie and her friends face a very challenging antagonist, the mysterious Charles Peizer, who goes by the alias Chuck Hankins. The trio tries to convince him to trust them, but eventually, he got his memories back and knew exactly what he was hunting for. Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie witnessed their recipes missing after they cooked them, and they immediately suspected Chuck, or rather Charles. When the girls found a counter in their cookbook, it led them to Charles's trailer. Kelly and Darbie came back in a few days, under the spell of Big Mussels and Spinach. Kelly was physically strong, while Darbie was determined. Kelly opened the door not knowing there was a spell that would trap her inside while she was stealing Chuck's cookbook. Darbie opened the door and freed Kelly. Now that they had his cookbook, they saw a victorian drawing of a girl, Rose, who was Chuck's sister who he had very accidentally trapped inside the cookbook. The OCs had trapped Chuck in Lavender Heights after moving him and his trailer there, giving the trio some time to figure the mystery out. In the excitement, Jake Williams, a friend of them, had his body taken over by Chuck, and when the trio got him out, he went on to put Hannah into the cookbook to swap her out for Rose.

==== Third Season Darbie, Kelly, and Hannah show up briefly to make sure the new protectors Zoe Chua, Leo Sellitti, and Ishita "Ish" Gupta and give them the pocket watch that belonged to Ian Maddox, Zoe's father. The pocket watch corresponded with Zoe's necklace, and when paired with it, the pocket watch stopped at the time 7:13, which the protectors accurately assumed as 7:13 AM, the time they get off the subway and into Unity Station with Walk Through Wall-fles, a spell that Darbie had always wanted to try out. The old protectors help the new protectors find the starter by putting their hands with the current protectors' hands between the 3 poles that formed an equilateral triangle, which Darbie identifies, surprising herself as she was not very skilled in Geometry Class. They then help the new protectors destroy the starter and helped Zoe travel in time to get ideas on how to destroy the starter. However, they did not succeed as the Wessons spelled them under the Honey Dew whatever I say Sorbet spell, making them give the starter to them. The Wessons began to use them for bad things, like getting gold. Eventually, Pierce Hamilton's house, while Cody Hamilton and Lexi Hamilton were in the subway, got crashed down as gold was in the pipes that were holding the house up. Darbie, Kelly, and Hannah then helped Ish, Leo, and Zoe to make Time Stop Lollipops, Teleporting Tamales, and Metal Manipu-Latte to save the people. Then, they made the starter into pizza and created a recipe that would make magic known to everyone.

== Relationships

=== Kelly Quinn Kelly is one of Darbie's best friends. Darbie gets along very well with Kelly and always tries to help her out the best she can. Although they have rough times in their friendships, the girls are inseparable.

=== Hannah Parker-Kent Hannah is Darbie's other best friend. At first, the girls seem like polar opposites: Hannah being very precise and Darbie being more carefree. Hannah worries, but Darbie doesn't. Even the girls thought for a time that they wouldn't have been friends if Kelly hadn't been holding them together. However, the girls balance each other out and are great friends. Hannah acts as a voice of reason for Darbie and Darbie helps Hannah to relax and take things easy. Hannah even takes charge of Darbie's things like her homework.

== Trivia

* She is named after one of the composers in the show "Deborah Lurie".
* Darbie is a huge fan of Trudith Winters and her books.
* Darbie has a huge sweet tooth.
* She says almost every spell in the cookbook is the best spell ever!

== Etymology

=== Deborah Deborah is a female given name derived from Dvorah, meaning bee, a costume that Darbie dressed up as a year before she came into possession of the cookbook. In the United States, the name was most popular from 1950 to 1970, when it was among the 20 most popular names for girls. It was the 25th most common name for women in the United States in the 1990 census. It has since fallen in popularity. It ranked as the 780th most popular name for baby girls born in 2007 in the United States, down from 676th most popular name in 2006. Check out wikipedia for more: Deborah

=== O'Brien O'Brien is a surname of Irish origin, so it could possibly mean that Darbie is Irish. O'Brien is also the surname of a character in Downton Abbey, Sarah O'Brien.