PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, LET ME GET WHAT I WANT

Eight Years Ago

I MUST HAVE BEEN UNCONSCIOUS FOR ONLY A few moments after the fairy orbs exploded, because when I opened my eyes and the world reappeared in front of me, it was full of smoke and chaos. The air smelled like rotten eggs. I tried breathing through my mouth, but it had a matching sulfurous taste that coated my tongue. Pulling my shirt up so that it covered my nose, I headed toward where I had last seen you.

You weren’t there.

That was when I first felt afraid. Truly afraid.

“Piper!” I screamed your name. “Piper!” The sound coming from my mouth was shrill and crackly. It made my throat ache. But I couldn’t stop yelling as I stumbled across the field, sometimes tripping over bodies. Beyond a quick glance to make sure they were not you, I tried not to look at them. They were frozen in the poses they’d been in at the moment of the explosion—eyes wide, mouths smiling, and arms stretched out, reaching toward something wonderful.

I circled around and around in the field, every time making the circle a little smaller, until finally I was at the center. LuAnn was curled up, a ball of misery, sobbing into her hands.

I stood over her for a moment, trying to hate her for what she’d done. But I couldn’t, not even with you missing—or worse. Crouching down, I tapped her shoulder.

She shuddered. “Is . . . is it time to go?”

“No, I’m not from the reformatory,” I corrected her.

Finally, she glanced up at me. Already she looked like a different girl. “Oh. They’ll be here soon then.”

“Yeah,” I quietly agreed. There was no use in denying it. Then I asked, “Have you seen Piper?”

LuAnn’s hand went to her mouth. “I’m not sure I know her. Did she touch one?”

I nodded.

“You’re one of the Gardners, aren’t you?” LuAnn said, recognizing me. “Is Piper your friend?”

“She’s my sister.” I spit the words out.

I hated her then. Just a little bit.

Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. That’s right. I knew that. It’s just that everything is so fuzzy right now. I don’t even know why I did it. I really don’t.” She began sobbing again, and her face fell back into her hands.

Standing, I looked over the field. The smoke had cleared, but the last of the sun was gone and it was a dark night. I decided to circle the field again, but already I knew you weren’t there. Except you had to be there. You couldn’t have just disappeared. I marched back to the spot I’d last seen you, while giving myself a little pep talk. “Piper is alive. She is fine. She did not disappear. She will be lying right there, and when I finally find her, she’ll open up her eyes and say, ‘There you are, Pollywog. What took you so long?’”

And amazingly enough, that is exactly what happened.

You were right at the spot I expected you to be. The same spot I’d already gone over four or five times. Your eyes fluttered open as I threw myself onto the grass beside you. Then you said the exact words I’d imagined, as if I’d put them into your mouth.

I never told you any of this, Piper. It was like I wished you back into existence. And I knew you wouldn’t like that.

“I feel funny,” you said as we were walking home.

“Funny how?” I asked, worried.

You hugged your arms to yourself and then held them out, wiggling your fingers in front of your face. “I feel funny like I’m not all here. Like something is missing. I feel . . . I feel like a ghost.”

I laughed, or tried to anyway, but it sounded hollow and false.

“That bad, huh?” Piper laughed too. Hers sounded a little closer to the real thing.

“You’re fine. You’ll see when we get home. You look the same as always. You are the same as always.”

“Okay, yeah.” Piper stopped wiggling her fingers and let them fall to her side. “The same. I still feel like a ghost, though.” She laughed. “Maybe I’ve always been a ghost.”

A horn sounded behind us then, and we had to jump to opposite sides of the street to let the reformatory car carrying LuAnn up the hill pass by. With the car between us, I couldn’t see you, and for a moment I worried that you had disappeared again. That maybe you really were a ghost. But then the car passed and you were still standing there, and Chance came running down the road with one of his “so happy to see you” barks.

You never mentioned the ghost thing again, and we never spoke of that night. We never even put it on tape. It was like we thought if we could just forget it, then maybe it had never happened at all.