Mom left just minutes after I came back upstairs. Claire was done with breakfast and was sitting at the table singing and drawing. As soon as she saw me, she jumped up.
“Do you think Miss Sato is better?”
I shook my head. I was hoping that that would be enough, but I was talking to Claire, so of course it wasn’t. She wasn’t one to give up.
“Can we call the hospital and find out?”
I pointed to her colored pencils.
“Why don’t you draw her a card? Everyone likes cards. And when you’re done, we’ll go to the VS Depot, and when we get home, we can make cookies.”
I hadn’t planned on making cookies—that had just slipped out. But now that I’d said it, I liked the idea. Maybe we could even try something different, like surprise cookies. It probably wasn’t as good as surprise pies, but I couldn’t make pastry. I wasn’t that much of a cook.
Claire made two cards for Miss Sato. One had a big heart on the front, and the other had a picture of Steve, with a word bubble that said GET WELL SOON. They were cute, and if Miss Sato had been able to see them, I’m sure she would have liked them. It was weird to think about her lying in bed, totally unaware of everything around her. I shook my head to get rid of the thought.
Like usual, we rode to the VS Depot, and when we got there, Claire ran in ahead of me. This time I had a plan: find out more about Peter and the PJ Walker books. Maybe Lucy was right—maybe it was suspicious that he knew who PJ Walker was. But mostly it was just going to be something to talk about so I could get my head away from thinking about Miss Sato and the wishes.
Peter was behind the counter, and by the time I got up to it, Claire was too. Peter gave her some colored paper, and she ignored us, disappearing into her drawings. Peter smiled and waited patiently for what I was going to give him. What was he imagining? Something amazing? After the coconut, the frame was kind of a letdown, but it was all I had. I pulled it out and put it on the counter. He frowned and then smiled. I knew why—the frown was for the drawing, and the smile was for the caption. It was nice how the caption made the picture suddenly good.
I gave myself a countdown—three, two, one—and I started: “So, I’m liking the book now.”
Peter nodded and put the frame on the scale. I continued.
“PJ Walker is such a good author, but not many people know her. How did you find out about her?”
Peter turned toward me.
“Really?” he asked. “I thought PJ Walker was quite popular.”
I didn’t know what to say; I nodded. This was harder than I thought it would be. I tried again.
“Have you read all her books?”
Now Peter was smiling. Why? He pushed a button, printed out the stamp, and stuck it on the frame. “What makes you think PJ Walker is a her?”
For a second I was confused. What did he mean? Of course PJ Walker was a her—but then a second later I wasn’t so sure. Did I have proof? I’d never seen an author photo, and the bios on the backs of the books never used the words her or him—they only said “author.” But PJ Walker had to be a her; Viola Starr, the main character, was a girl. I shook my head, but it didn’t help; the pieces didn’t fall into place.
“I’m sorry,” said Peter. He’d stopped smiling. “I didn’t mean to confuse you.”
I nodded. He held up the frame to show me where he’d put the stamp, and I nodded again.
“Maybe you’re right, maybe PJ Walker is a she. But does it matter? You like the books—that’s the most important thing, isn’t it?”
What he was saying made sense, but it did make a difference. I didn’t want PJ Walker to be a man. I liked her being a she, and I wanted it to stay that way. Claire looked up, and I motioned toward the door. It was time to go. I left without waving or looking back. I was upset. Just because something is true, it doesn’t mean you want to know about it.
Claire helped pedal home, which was good, because I wasn’t feeling very energetic. As we got closer, she got more and more excited about the cookies. Sometimes Claire’s energy was contagious, and it filled you up like a balloon. When we got home, we parked the bike and went inside. We had a mission—cookies!
Before we started, I checked the mail. Just as I was hoping, there was a postcard from Lucy. It made me happy that we were both keeping our promise. No matter what, we sent one every second day. I was in a better mood this time, and reading about all the cool stuff she was doing made me feel excited about camp. There were only eight days left. It was hard to believe. In eight days I’d be zip-lining with Lucy.
“What kind of cookies are we going to make?” asked Claire.
I put the postcard down and smiled. I had an answer for her. “Surprise cookies!”
After we made the cookie dough, Claire and I picked out a bunch of stuff to use for the surprises. I even found some lollipops. Now we could do exactly what Shue and Ashley had done, only ours would be cookie-cycles. At first, making the surprise part was kind of hard—there’s not much room in a cookie to hide anything. But after a few tries we figured out how to make it work. We made the cookies larger, and put two together with the surprise part in the middle—like a filling. Most of Claire’s surprises had to do with chocolate. I was going to have to be careful when it was time to eat. Chocolate was not a surprise I wanted to bite into.
We made a lot of cookies, but my favorite was the one I made for Lucy. Even though she’d only mentioned one new friend in her letters, I knew she must have more. Why wouldn’t she? Everyone loved her. She was a little like Claire—superfriendly, without the unpredictable and crazy part.
Lucy’s cookie was a lot bigger than any of the other cookies. I started with a big circle of dough and then put all of Lucy’s favorite stuff on top—peanut butter chips, marshmallows, M&M’s, and chocolate chips. After that I took six lollipops, unwrapped them, and arranged them around the edge of the circle with their handles sticking out, and covered it all with another circle of dough. When it came out of the oven, I wasn’t so sure what I thought of it, but after decorating it with icing, I was happy. The lollipop handles sticking out made it look like some kind of strange, exotic flower.
When Mom got home, she came straight into the kitchen. She was probably following her nose—the house smelled delicious.
Claire pointed to the cookies. “They’re surprise cookies!”
Mom stopped moving and gasped. “How did you think of that?”
She looked at me, but I shrugged; I couldn’t tell her. Mom’s favorites were the ones with the lollipops in them—the cookie-cycles. What’s not to like about a cookie on a stick? Claire was too excited to keep any secrets, so before Mom even had a chance to pick out a cookie to eat, Claire told her what all the fillings were. So much for the surprise part. When Mom saw Lucy’s cookie she went and got her camera. I took that as a good sign.
Before I went upstairs for the night, I looked up some new color names on the computer. I didn’t want to give up on my can-you-hear-me? tests, but it was getting harder and harder to think of words. Plus it was wasting wish time—me trying to think of a color, when I should have been paying attention to what was happening. It didn’t take long; after only a few minutes, I had a list. I wrote them down in my notebook, and because I wanted to be extra prepared, I picked out a test word for the next wish—fuchsia cow.
It was nice to be excited about the Have Mercy, Percy book. I’d never had so many different feelings with a book—loving it, being annoyed by it, almost hating it, and finally loving it again. Was it on purpose? Did everyone who read it feel this way? Or was it just me? I was going to have to ask Peter about it. It would be something good to talk about, after the way we’d walked out of there today.