When I came downstairs the next morning, Mom wasn’t in the kitchen, but Claire was. She was sitting at the table, drawing.
“I’m making a ‘welcome back’ picture for Peter,” she said.
I nodded. He’d only been gone a day, but I was hoping he was back too. The PJ Walker book was good again, and I wanted to talk about it. It’s more fun to be excited when someone is excited along with you. Excited alone just isn’t the same.
I put my notebook on the table and grabbed a poppy-seed muffin off the counter.
“Do you want one?” I asked.
It was kind of a test, to see if Claire would eat something other than pancakes. It didn’t look like she’d had any yet; her plate was still clean.
She shook her head but didn’t look up.
I sat down with the muffin. “It’s really good.” I took a bite.
Claire made a face. “What’s the black stuff?”
I picked one out and put it on my finger. “Poppy seeds.” I held it out for her. “They’re the special part that makes it taste good.”
She leaned forward and looked. “Seeds?” She shook her head. “That’s bird food.”
I finished the muffin. “Have you seen Mom?”
Claire nodded. “She had to go to the store for more maple syrup.” She looked up and then suddenly noticed my notebook on the table. She made a grab for it, but I was faster. I pulled it away before she got to it.
She sat back in her chair. “What’s inside? Drawings?”
“No, it’s . . .” I stopped myself before I went any further. Here I was about to lie again, but what choice did I have? I had to keep the lie going. “It’s for my writing. I’m writing a story.”
Now Claire was interested. She pushed her pencils to the side, like she was hearing some kind of fabulous secret that needed all her attention. “What kind of story?”
I hesitated.
“Is it a love story? Does it have to do with that jar thing you were holding?”
I thought for a second. Sure. Why not? If she wanted a love story, I could tell her a love story. In fact, it could be anything, because it was a story within a story—fiction on top of fiction—and I wasn’t really writing anything. This time the lying felt worse. But it was too late to turn back, so I moved ahead—colorfully. I had Claire’s full attention, so I tried to make it good.
“Well, it’s a love story. But it’s more than that. The girl in the love story has amazing adventures, because she’s got a magical jar that is filled with tickets to all sorts of wonderful and strange places.” I was surprised; it felt good to be talking about the wishes, even if it was in code. It was a release.
Claire leaned in closer. Now we were almost face-to-face. “Is the girl like me?”
I nodded. Why not? Claire would be a great character. Fun, energetic, brave, daring—but kind of sad too. “But she’s older than you, and pretty wise.”
“Like an owl?” asked Claire.
I looked down and flicked a few stray poppy seeds off the table. “No, like a person who knows and understands things.” Talking about the story almost made me want to write it. It was unlikely I’d follow through, but sitting there with Claire, I felt creative.
I stayed with Claire until Mom got back, and then I went downstairs to the basement.
I was liking this routine—time traveling after breakfast. I pulled out the jar and picked a wish. There were a lot left in the jar—maybe thirty or forty. I was glad about that; I didn’t want to be near the end. I didn’t like ends, or beginnings even—I was more about middles. Middles were comfortable. I opened the wish and looked down.
I Hope the Lady Finds Her Shoes
Ashley and Shue were in Ashley’s room. They were looking out the window. I walked toward them and said my test words, “Beige llama.”
“Nothing’s happening,” complained Shue. She twirled the edge of the curtain around her finger, released it, and then started again.
Ashley shrugged. “We had to do it. You know that. Sometimes people need a push to fall in love.” She glanced out the window for a second and turned back to Shue. “Can we do something else instead of just sitting here watching? What if they don’t come out for hours?”
Shue ignored the question. “What if the lady comes out first?” She pointed to the back of Anderson’s. “Will she know where we put them?”
Ashley looked back out the window. “Of course! Last time, he was like Prince Charming fighting the Dumpster dragon to get her shoe. She wouldn’t forget that.”
Shue wasn’t sure. “Not much of a prince; he was the one who threw it in there.”
“Ugh!” Ashley threw her hands up. “Can’t you be just a little romantic?”
For a second I wasn’t sure what would happen next. Was Shue going to be upset? Were they going to argue?
Shue was quiet for a minute or two, and then she spun around to face Ashley. “How about this: The princess has lost her magic shoes. She’s sad, distraught, but she’s not alone—a prince has seen her. He will help her. He carries her across a rocky desert in search of the shoes. He is tired and thirsty, but he doesn’t give up. He gets his energy not from food or water, but only from her beauty. Finally he sees the shoes, but oh, no, they are being guarded by two evil boot dragons. The prince must battle them. The fight is dangerous, and the dragons are strong, but the prince is victorious. He holds the shoes up and smiles at the princess. She jumps into his arms and they live happily ever after.” Shue twirled and looked up.
Ashley was smiling. “Not bad; I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Shue looked out the window, lingered for a second, and then turned back to Ashley. “Okay, we can do something else.”
Suddenly I was back in my chair. It was fast and without pain. I smiled. Suddenly the basement door opened. The light from the kitchen shone down on the top half of the stairs.
“Can we go give Miss Sato her letters now?” It was Claire. She was leaning through the door.
She’d never come down, I knew that. “Can you hear me?” she shouted. “Are you writing?”
I put the wish jar down and groaned. The pain couldn’t stop me, but Claire could. I didn’t want to go upstairs yet. I heard Claire talking to Mom. Maybe Mom could pull her away so I could have more time.
“Am I bugging you?” shouted Claire.
Yes, she was. I waited a second, but didn’t hear Mom. I guess I had to go upstairs.
“I’m coming,” I shouted.
Now Mom was talking to Claire. I didn’t hear what Mom was saying, but I heard Claire’s response.
“See, I wasn’t bugging her.”
I rolled my eyes and put everything away. I took a deep breath and ran up the stairs. Sometimes when you are forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do, faster is better than slower. Like pulling a Band-Aid off your arm—it hurts less.
It didn’t take me long to get ready, but Claire still complained that she’d been waiting forever. I didn’t say anything, but her forever was probably only five minutes long.
The first thing I noticed when we got to the old people’s home was Sam’s bike. Now I felt better about coming. I made Claire wait for me while I locked up our bike, and we walked in together. I didn’t want anyone telling her a different Miss Sato story than the one she already knew. All we had to do was find Sam and we’d be safe. We found Sam in the room where we’d seen him on that first day. He waved when he saw us. He was sitting with Mr. Fred, and they were looking at slides with the projector. There was a picture up on the wall, a man and woman.
Claire pointed to the woman. “Is that Miss Sato?”
The woman in the picture was much younger than the Miss Sato we knew. She was smiling, and the man she was standing next to was tall and handsome.
“Yes, those are my parents,” said Mr. Fred.
Claire looked confused.
“It’s Miss Sato and Mr. Gripes,” he explained.
“But they look so different.” Suddenly Claire seemed sad. “And so beautiful. It’s not fair that they had to get old.”
Mr. Fred nodded. Looking at the pictures probably made him feel like that too.
“I like this picture.” He smiled. “It was taken before I was born. They had their whole lives ahead of them.” He was quiet for a minute and then told Sam he could have a twenty-minute break. Sam grabbed a snack from his backpack and walked outside with us. I let Claire go first. Even though she could have given her cards to Mr. Fred, she’d held on to them. She had to do it her way.
When we got outside, she handed Sam the big pile of cards.
“Can you give these to Mr. Fred, to give to Mr. Gripes, to show to Miss Sato?”
Sam started to flip through the cards, but she stopped him. “The one on the top with your name on it is for you. But don’t open it until after you give the cards to Mr. Fred, because it’s a thank-you card.”
I could almost see Sam’s brain at work, trying to make sense of what Claire was talking about. Finally he looked up and smiled. I guess he got it.
Sam and I sat under the big tree near the front driveway. Claire ran around the other side of the tree to chase a squirrel. When she was far enough away so that she couldn’t hear us, I asked about Miss Sato.
Sam took a bite of his cheese stick, swallowed, and answered me.
“She’s getting better. She still can’t move very much, but she can kind of talk, and Mr. Fred said they’re expecting her to get a lot better.”
I nodded but was confused. What did “kind of talk” mean?
“What can she say?”
Sam put his cheese stick down and leaned forward.
“It’s kind of weird.”
I looked around for Claire. I didn’t want her to hear this. She was fine, over by the steps, digging a hole with a stick. I looked back at Sam. He continued.
“She can only say one word. It’s a Japanese word, raishuu. Mr. Fred says it means ‘yesterday.’”
Why a Japanese word? Was Miss Sato Japanese? She didn’t look Japanese. Maybe she was part Japanese. I asked about the word.
“Why is she saying ‘yesterday’?”
Sam shrugged. He said no one could figure that out, but they were trying. Miss Sato could blink once for yes and twice for no, but so far that hadn’t helped very much. It was still a mystery.
Now was definitely not the right time to ask about Anderson’s, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it. I fiddled with the chain and key around my neck—too bad it didn’t unlock something useful, like the mystery of Anderson’s. Claire and I followed Sam back inside. It wasn’t part of the original plan, but Claire decided she had to personally give Mr. Fred his thank-you card. She said it was more polite to do it in person, but I think she just liked all the attention. I stood in the doorway while Sam got the projector running again. Mr. Fred was making a big deal of the card, and Claire was loving it. Suddenly Sam was standing next to me. I hadn’t noticed him move from the projector. I jumped.
He touched my shoulder. I jumped again. I hoped he didn’t notice.
“Can you get me something?” he asked.
“Sure.” I nodded.
He explained what he needed, and then I was off—on my little mission. All I had to do was go to Miss Sato’s room and pick up a slide tray he’d forgotten on the table.
I’m not great with directions, so I was a little bit nervous, but I got there without any trouble. I unlocked the door and went in. I was in a living room; off to the side was the small table Sam had described, and on it was the slide tray. I picked it up and turned to go, and there right in front of me on the wall was Miss Sato’s goldfish purse. It was the one I’d seen in the photo, but in person it was much more beautiful. Claire would have loved it. It gave me an idea: maybe Mom and I could find her one—not fancy like this one, but something cute. I picked up the tray and walked out, smiling. It was a great present idea.
When I got back to the room, I traded the slide tray for Claire. I held her by the shoulders so she couldn’t escape. It was time to leave. Claire talked nonstop all the way to our bike. The talking was fine, but her using the word “nifty” every ten seconds really bugged me. I was hoping that was going to wear off quickly.
As I was unlocking the bike, she said, “Miss Sato doesn’t have a stomachache.”
I cringed. What had Mr. Fred told her?
Claire smiled. “But she’s getting better. Mr. Fred said she’s going to love my cards. Do you know why?”
I put the lock and chain in my backpack and shook my head.
“Guess,” said Claire. She jumped on the back of the bike. We put on our helmets.
“Is it because they’re so beautiful?”
“Nope.” She shook her head.
We were pedaling now, and it was harder to hear her.
“It’s because she’s like me,” shouted Claire. “She loves goldfish!”
I nodded big so she could tell that I’d heard her. Somehow, that wasn’t a surprise.
We got home pretty fast, even though for the last half of the ride I was the only one pedaling. Claire wanted to go to the VS Depot to see if Peter was back, but it was out of the way, so I said no. After that, in protest, she refused to pedal.
When we got home, Claire left me with the bike and stomped off into the house. She was trying to punish me, but really she was giving me a gift—more alone time. I told her where I was going and headed down to the basement. I pulled out the jar, took out a wish, and hid the jar again. If Mom came down to find me, I’d be safe. She wouldn’t see the jar.
I sat down in the chair and opened the wish. As soon as I read it, I cringed and wished I’d picked a different one, but it was too late—I had to go. A second later I was gone.
I Wish I’d Never Met Ashley
“Black snake!” As soon as I saw Shue, I said it. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but I knew it was going to be bad. I forced myself to concentrate on what I was seeing, but it was hard not to worry about the trip home. It was going to be painful. Shue was up ahead of me, walking. We were on the street where I’d first met the girls. It was almost the same: Shue was walking toward Ashley, only this time Ashley had two other girls with her. I didn’t know them, but somehow I already didn’t like them. I ran up to Shue so I could see her face. She looked nervous. Ashley and the girls were talking and laughing. As they passed, Shue said, “Hi.” Ashley mumbled back a “hi” and then slowed down. Was she going to stop? Was she going to talk to Shue?
“Who’s that?” asked the girl on the left.
She was loud, one of those bossy types. Ashley didn’t answer.
“She looks like she’s twelve,” said the girl.
“I remember when I was twelve,” said the other girl. “I was such a baby!”
Both girls laughed. Suddenly Ashley was walking away fast. The girls next to her had to run to keep up. They were too far away for me to hear their words, but we could still hear their laughter, and somehow that was worse.
I tried to catch up with Shue, but she was fast, and I was fading away. Was she crying? Was she angry? Was she mad? And then I braced myself.
The zap was stronger this time. I wiped away my tears. But my tears weren’t only for the pain; they were for something else. Something that made them hard to control, something that wasn’t over in ten seconds—they were for Shue.
I sat in the chair for what seemed like an hour before I finally had the energy to get up. An hour of sitting gives you a lot of time to think. Ashley and Shue’s story wasn’t hard to figure out. They were best friends over the summer, and then when school started, Ashley dumped Shue. I tried to understand why Ashley had done this, but I couldn’t. No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem fair. I wanted their story to end happily ever after, but that wasn’t going to happen. It was a tragedy. That kind of story is hard to watch. I had to drag myself up the stairs.
There was a lot going on in the kitchen. Claire was talking to her dad on the phone, Mom was making pasta sauce, and there was a postcard from Lucy sitting on the table. I sat down and read it. She had gotten the coconut! That made me laugh. Mom looked over, and I waved Lucy’s card at her. I didn’t want to explain the reason for my laughter, but I showed her the why. Lucy was having fun. I liked that she was finally telling me about what she was doing—not worried it would hurt my feelings. The coolest-sounding thing was a swimming obstacle course that had a rope swing and a trampoline, and they were both in the water. Only six more days to wait.
Claire finished the call with her dad just as I finished my postcard. Just like before, she was filled with energy.
“Guess what?”
Before I could guess, she was telling me.
“Daddy just got back from working at a circus, and he saw acrobats and three elephants. There were clowns too, but they weren’t wearing their makeup, so they weren’t funny.” Claire was quiet. Was she thinking about the clowns? Disappointed for her dad? Whatever it was, she got over it and a few seconds later was back to her old self. “And when I go back home, we get to go there and watch the show.”
I smiled and nodded. I hadn’t thought about that, her being gone. Would I miss her? I was glad that she was happy, and clowns without makeup didn’t sound disappointing at all. It was a bonus. It was nice that we both had something to look forward to.
The whole rest of the day was pretty uneventful. It gave me lots of time to recover. I didn’t know why, but the wishes were different now. They were the opposite of Claire—they were sucking the energy out of me.