I woke up feeling horribly sick and looking even worse.
“They force you to skip school. They drag you into traipsing all over town at night. And now, what? They give you a cold!” Mum was making an herbal concoction out of plants from our garden and tons of honey. She claimed it could cure death itself.
“The Goolz didn’t give me this.” I was staring blankly at my cereal, my head pounding and my stomach roiling with nausea, trying to pretend that the curse of the Stone was nothing more than a common cold.
I looked up and turned to the hall when someone knocked on the door.
Mum went to open it, and I caught a glimpse of Ilona on the porch.
“Harold is having breakfast,” Mum said, staying firmly in her way. “He’s under the weather. He might miss school today—this time for the right reasons.”
“I’ll just share a piece of toast with him,” Ilona said, slipping past her. “Cheer him up.”
“Hey!” Mum said. “He doesn’t need cheering up, he needs quiet.” She followed Ilona to the kitchen, both of them walking ridiculously fast, each trying to get to me first.
“Oh, we’ll be so quiet, Margaret,” Ilona said. She won the race and sat down beside me, giving Mum the smuggest gotcha smile ever.
Mum conceded defeat and went back to working on her healing mixture. She started stirring so hard that the liquid sloshed over the sides of the cup and dripped onto the counter.
“Anything you want to tell me?” Ilona asked, her smug smile gone.
I pretended to be too busy watching my cereal get soggy to look her in the eye. “We don’t have any toast. We’re into Froot Loops right now,” I said weakly.
“I need to get ready to meet a client,” Mum said, setting a cup of her magic potion beside me on the table. “Drink up. It tastes as bad as it smells, but it will make you feel better.”
Once Mum had gone upstairs, Ilona pushed the cup away, making a disgusted face. She leaned in close and punched my shoulder. “Besides your breakfast routine and your fart-smelling tea, anything else we need to talk about?”
“Depends what you already know,” I said.
“I saw you and Suzie coming back after the little brat was gone for an hour.” She looked over her shoulder, making sure Mum was still out of earshot. “And then I saw that eerie white light in your window. So naturally, I climbed up to your room to see what was going on. And there you were, in the middle of your room, staring at your dresser like you just discovered fire.” She leaned even closer. “Is that where you’re hiding the Stone? In a dresser drawer? Did you really think Suzie wouldn’t find it in there?”
I looked up from my cereal. “You were spying on me?”
“I was about to knock on the window and ask you what happened, but you started to get undressed.”
“You watched me undress?!”
“Cheese, no! I left. I’m not a perv and I’m not interested in the male anatomy. At all!”
“The male anatomy?” I repeated. “Can you even hear yourself?”
“Harold, the point is that I didn’t give you the Stone so you could use it. I gave it to you to hide it from Suzie.”
“She is good at finding things.”
“And you’re not good at hiding them,” she replied. “Seriously? In a dresser? In your room?”
I shrugged. “There was a ton of underwear over it. It was camouflaged.”
“Why didn’t you keep it on you as we agreed?”
I pushed the cup even further away. The smell was making my nausea unbearable.
“Suzie is boiling with fever, just like Dad was. And look at you. Have you seen your eyes? You’re turning into a corpse!” She put her hand on my forehead to check for a fever. Her hand felt good on my face, even though she was so mad at me. “You’re just like them, sick from using that Stone. You know how dangerous that is?”
“I’m fine,” I said, but I didn’t feel fine. I did indeed feel sort of corpsey.
Ilona took her hand away and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Why did you do it? Why did you activate the Stone when I told you not to?”
I was getting frustrated fast. I dropped my spoon onto the table and closed my eyes. Then I opened them and took a good long look at Ilona. “It does things that are unexpected. Things you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
There was an intensity in her eyes that matched how I felt. As angry as she was, I knew she was the only person I could tell this to. Anybody else would think I was full-on crazy. “It made me stand. On my legs. Twice. When Suzie used it and then when I used it after that. The Stone can make me walk again.”
It took her a minute to process what I’d said, then she shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
“Exactly!” I barked back. “That’s what everybody’s been telling me all these years. It’s impossible. But the Stone, it doesn’t know that—it doesn’t care. All I have to do is turn it, and it will bring me anything I want.”
She stood up. “Harold, I want it back!”
“Did you hear anything I just told you?”
“Yes, and you need to stop using it. I don’t know what it did to you or why. But if you keep activating it, it will kill you.” Ilona’s voice was shaky. She wasn’t angry anymore. She was just plain sad, and that was worse. “I want it now.”
“It’s yours,” I said, but the words made my heart sink. “I’ll give it back to you if you want. But it’s better if I keep it safe here.”
“You’re not safe with it. It was a big mistake putting you in so much danger. I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine!” I slapped the table hard, causing my headache to go nuclear inside my skull. “And I don’t need your pity.” I pushed myself away from the table and went to the stairs. She followed me.
We went upstairs and Ilona carried my chair again, only this time it felt awkward. I was angry and lost and sick, and I could tell she felt sorry for me, which aggravated me even more.
We went into my room. The Stone was still in my drawer, wrapped in my Superman boxers. I went right to the dresser and grabbed it before she could. Part of it was showing through the layers of blue and red fabric.
“Give it to me, Harold.”
I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“No,” I said, my own voice sounding unfamiliar. I turned to face Ilona. “I’m keeping it. I need it.”
I clung to it harder, knowing full well I was about to experience the full force of her grit.
She lunged forward, aiming for the Stone, and landed hard on my chest. My chair rolled all the way back against the wall. I tried to fight her off, but her hair was covering my face and her hands were moving fast, trying to get a grip on the Stone. The Superman boxers fell to the floor, the first casualty of the fight.
“No!” I shouted. I pushed her away, but I knew I was losing the battle.
When she straightened up, her hands were shaking, but she was holding the Stone.
“I’m sorry I pulled you into this,” she said. I glared at her.
She grabbed the boxers off the floor and wrapped them back around the Stone, then wiped her hand off on her coat. Mum chose that moment to stick her head in the room.
“All good in here?” she asked, her eyes on my underwear in Ilona’s hands.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Ilona said. Her cheeks were glowing red and her hair and clothes looked like she had just finished wrestling a monkey. I must have looked exactly the same. “We’re good, right?” Ilona asked me.
“Just leave,” I said, and she did, practically pushing Mum out of her way.
“What’s going on with you guys?” Mum asked once we heard Ilona slam the door downstairs.
“Nothing. Everything’s okay,” I said, sounding like everything was the opposite of okay.
“That girl just left with your underwear and you look like you’ve been through a tornado. There’s something going on.”
Mum stayed there staring at me, waiting for me to confess.
“It’s nothing,” I insisted, rearranging my hair and pajamas. “Can I be alone for a second so I can get dressed for school?”
“You don’t need to go to school. You’re sick.”
“I’m fine now,” I said. The idea of staying locked in and Stoneless was suffocating. I needed out fast. “It’s your fart-smelling tea,” I said, borrowing a phrase from Ilona. “It really disgusted the sickness away.”
She tried to touch my forehead like Ilona had, but I shoved her hand away.
“Mum! I just want to get out of these stupid pajamas without everybody staring at me and go to school. Okay?”
“Everybody?” Mum said. “I’m not everybody, and I’ve seen your skinny butt before.”
“Please,” I said, my frustration reaching new heights.
“If that girl hurts you in any way,” Mum said, “she’s going to have to deal with me. I’m scared of no Goolz!” and she left the room, closing my door behind her.