Chapter 17

Sleeping in the forest was not the way I liked to pass my nights. Sometime before dawn I woke up, freezing cold. I said hello a bunch of times, using that consequence to grow out my sleeves until they covered clear past my hands. I had hoped my newly grown shirt would be enough to warm me, but my teeth were still chattering.

So then I woke up Ridge and impulsively wished for a blanket. As a result, whenever I brushed my teeth, the toothpaste would taste like cauliflower. The consequence would only last the week, and I didn’t imagine I’d have a lot of time for teeth brushing before the quest ended anyway.

I accepted the consequence, and I think secretly Ridge was grateful that the blanket was extra large so he could curl it around himself, too. By the time I was finally warm and somewhat comfortable, the sun was up and it was time to get moving.

I took a deep breath, stretched like a cat after napping, and stared off into the forest. Two days of my quest to save the world had passed. Five more to go.

“Did you make the wish yet?” Tina asked, coming over to check on us as she breakfasted on one of the peanut butter sandwiches from Ridge’s backpack. I knew she was talking about the second missing page from Thackary’s notebook. We were directionless without it, but I wasn’t looking forward to discovering what kind of consequence I’d have to endure.

“I’m getting to it,” I said, shrugging off my blanket and rolling up my extralong shirt sleeves. “I just want to be prepared for whatever the Universe is going to throw at me.”

“I don’t think any of us can ever truly be prepared,” Tina said. “It’s painfully random.” She adjusted her feather boa. It looked matted and gross after a night in the forest, but I still felt like I had things worse.

I gave Tina a flat stare. “You got a fashion accessory,” I said. “I forgot how to read.” I waved her off. “Besides, your genie can transform into a wolf, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

“Yeah,” Ridge cut in. “How does she do that?”

Tina shrugged like it was no big deal. “It was a wish,” she said.

“But you didn’t say it,” I pressed. “I’ve seen Vale transform a couple of times and I’ve never actually heard you say the wish. She just does it when you say that weird word.”

“It’s called a pay-as-you-play wish,” Vale said, joining us with a sandwich of her own. “Ridge should tell you about those.”

I looked at Ridge. Judging by the look on his face, he was just hearing about pay-as-you-play wishes for the first time, too.

“It works like this,” Vale said, when it was apparent that Ridge wasn’t going to explain it. “Sometimes you might want to wish for the same thing more than once. But when you’re in the heat of the moment, you don’t always have time to verbalize the wish and debate whether or not to accept a new consequence.”

Tina stepped in to clarify. “So, I made a single wish that allows Vale to transform between human and wolf anytime I say a certain word.”

“Paradiddle,” I specified. “What does it mean?”

“It’s the name of a drummer’s rhythm,” answered Tina.

“I didn’t know rhythms had names,” I said.

Tina nodded. “I took a year of percussion lessons. But it wasn’t for me. Now that I quit, I’m pretty sure that’s not a word I’ll be using in normal conversation. I needed something that I wasn’t going to say by accident.”

“I get it,” I said. “If you had picked ‘and’ as your trigger word, then Vale would have been transforming practically every time you spoke.”

“Exactly,” said Tina. “And while it’s good to have her in wolf form for protection . . . it has an ongoing consequence. This is why it’s called pay as you play.”

“What’s your consequence?” Ridge asked, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

“Every time Vale takes the wolf shape, I’m forced to hop around like a bunny.”

“You should consider something like that,” Vale said to me.

“Hopping like a bunny?” I asked. No thanks. I’d seen Tina do that a few times and she looked ridiculous and rather helpless.

“A pay-as-you-play wish,” Vale clarified. “Pick an animal or some other form of protection that Ridge can become. Think of a trigger word, make the wish, and take the time you need to consider the consequence when it’s not a crucial moment.”

I glanced at Ridge, trying to imagine him as a grizzly bear or a lion. It was a stretch of the imagination, watching the skinny kid pick absently at a scab on his elbow. “Hmm,” I mused. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Not to pressure you, but the point is that you don’t have to think about it,” Tina said. “When those rock creatures attacked, I didn’t have to make a wish, debate the consequence, and decide whether or not to accept it. That decision was already made. All I had to do was say the trigger word, and Vale sprang into action.”

I liked the idea of a pay-as-you-play wish, but I didn’t want to take another consequence right now. Especially when I was about to wish for something that the Universe considered highly important.

“While you’re thinking about it,” Tina said, “why don’t you ask your genie what was on the second page of that notebook?”

I couldn’t tell if she was just anxious to get on the road, or if she was gloating over the fact that she’d beaten me in rock, paper, scissors. Either way, I couldn’t put it off any longer.

I turned to Ridge. “I wish I could know exactly what was written on the second page of that black notebook we found in the Anderthons’ trailer.”

“You got it,” Ridge said, seeming pleased to be the middleman between me and the Universe. I had some sympathy for the new genie since our conversation the night before. Understanding that I was his first Wishmaker made it clear why, frankly, he wasn’t very good at genie-ing.

“If you want to know what was on that second page,” said Ridge, “then your left arm will go missing for a day.”

“Go missing?” I cried. “How does a person’s arm go missing?”

“It’s going to fall off,” Ridge said. “But it’ll be completely painless.”

“Then how do I reattach it?” I asked, horrified by the thought of my arm dropping off.

“Oh, you’ll just grow a new one in twenty-four hours.”

“What if I don’t like my new arm as much as I liked my old arm?” I asked. I couldn’t believe I was actually having this conversation.

“It’ll be identical,” Ridge said. “You’ll never know the difference.”

“I think you should do it,” Tina contributed.

Of course she did. It wasn’t her arm that was about to fall off. I glanced down at my hourglass watch, strapped around my right wrist. Luckily, that wouldn’t fall off with my arm.

“If you don’t accept the consequence,” Tina persisted, “then we’re basically stuck out here.”

It was time to make a choice. “Fine,” I said, shooting a piercing glare at Tina. “I’ll do this. But you’re taking the consequence for the third page.” She stared blankly at me and I knew my hourglass time was about to expire.

“Bazang,” I said. There was a thud on the ground beside me. When I looked down, I saw that it was my arm.

The whole thing had come detached at the shoulder and dropped right out of my extralong sleeve! I was mortified by the sight of it, and for a moment I was seized with fear that the Universe could have lied, and my arm would never grow back.

At that same moment, my mind was flooded with the knowledge of exactly what was written on the second torn-out page of the notebook.

All I had to do was open my mouth and the Universe practically spoke for me. “‘The second task lies to the west, in the state of California. You must enter an amusement park known as Super-Fun-Happy Place and eat the green cotton candy, sold by a man with a pink mustache.’”

I paused, staring into the anxious faces of my three companions.

“And?” Tina prompted.

“That’s all of it,” I answered.

“We’re just supposed to eat some green cotton candy at Super-Fun-Happy Place?” Ridge said. “That’s weird.”

“Weirder than poking a stone statue of President Roosevelt in the eye?” I reminded him. Nothing about this week was shaping up to be very normal. And, talk about weird . . . now I only had one arm!

We stood in a small circle, silently pondering the absurdity of our task. I’d never been to Super-Fun-Happy Place. At least, not in the last three years that I could remember. Kids were always raving about how fun the rides were, so maybe our trip there wouldn’t be too bad.

Yeah, right.