Dreamer, Wisher, Liar Read online

  It’s not always easy to be in control of your thinking. Sometimes even when you are having fun, your brain can still mess things up. There I was, happy one second, and the next, completely sad. It was like being struck by lightning. You can’t ignore lightning, and mine was a bolt of worry.

  With Lucy gone, how would I recognize people?

  It’s not easy to overcome a weird problem, but Lucy had helped me do it. If I didn’t know someone, she’d quickly whisper a name or say, “Don’t worry—we don’t know them.” It had worked perfectly, and with her there, I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t the same as everyone else. But now things were going to be different. And this kind of different was not going to be good.

  I could have sat there for hours feeling sorry for myself, but I didn’t. Maybe it was because “worry” and “wishes” both start with w, or maybe it was just because I was desperate, but whatever the reason, I got up, put the gloves back on, and went to find the jar with the word “wishes” written on the side of it. It was my new hope, and suddenly I wanted to believe in magic.

  chapter six

  Wish Jar

  The jar itself was nothing special—probably just an old mayonnaise or pickle jar, but I couldn’t tell for sure. The lid didn’t have any writing on it; that would have helped. There was something inside, little white things. At first I thought it was packing peanuts or popcorn, but when I brushed off some of the dirt and looked closer, I could see that it was paper—tiny balls of crumpled white paper. But none of that mattered, because what was most interesting was the label on the front. It was a rectangular red frame highlighted in gold, and inside the frame, against a cream-colored background, was the word WISHES in golden writing. It was beautiful and elegant. That’s why I’d remembered it. Fancy label and crummy old jar—they didn’t fit. I looked at it closely and made my own wish: Be magic. It was impossible, a fantasy, but it’s what I wanted more than anything, so I held on to them both—the thought and the jar. I was desperate.

  I carried the jar back to the chair and sat down, but only for a second. I jumped up again. I needed something else. After a quick search of the workbench I was back in the chair, a pair of safety goggles in my hand. I cleaned the lenses on my pants and pulled them on. It was ridiculous, but still, better safe than sorry. I was hoping for a wish-granting genie—the friendly kind, but you never knew; it could go the other way too. It could happen—I’d seen it on TV; there were grumpy genies. I leaned forward, grabbed the hammer off the bench, and put it next to me on the chair.

  I shook off the rubber gloves and very slowly rubbed the side of the jar. My fingertips tingled, my ears pounded with my heartbeat, and suddenly everything seemed far away. It was just me and the jar. If this had been a movie, the audience would have been watching an extreme close-up of my hands. And the music would be tense. Supertense. I unscrewed the lid.

  If this had been a movie, the audience would have been disappointed, and maybe even wanting their money back, because even though I had done everything right, nothing happened. It was just me, sitting in the basement, holding an old jar. I slumped back into the chair. Had I really expected that to work? I waited for a second, dumped all the paper balls out onto the floor, and stood up. I wasn’t giving up. There was a pen and a notebook on the bench. I ripped a page out of the notebook and then, in my best printing, so there would be no mistake, wrote down my number one wish.

  I Wish That Lucy Stays Here

  After saying “please” about twenty times and “come true” about thirty times, I kissed the paper and dropped it in the jar. I twisted the lid back on, set the jar on the floor, and waited for the magic to begin.

  The longer you have to wait for magic to happen, the less you end up believing it’s going to work.

  Minute one—“This is so exciting!”

  Minute two—“Any second now.”

  Minute three—“Huh.”

  Minute four—“Maybe I did something wrong.”

  I checked the lid to make sure it was tight and gave the jar an extra shake.

  Minute five—“This isn’t going to work.”

  Minute six—“Maybe another minute.”

  After you’ve been waiting for a long time, you might have to get up and go to the bathroom, or do something else in another part of the house while you continue to wait.

  Lucy’s mom called just as we finished up dinner to say that Lucy was fine and that she’d made it to camp. After that, I was pretty sure the wish jar was not going to work.

  I helped Mom clear the table and load up the dishwasher. When we were done, I told her about the name sign I’d made for Lucy.

  “Oh, Ash!” she said. “That’s fabulous! Amazing!”

  She was being way too enthusiastic, probably relieved that I wasn’t in my room sulking, feeling bad, and crying. But she was wrong; I was still sad. In fact, her thinking I was okay made it worse. Didn’t she know how I was really feeling? Couldn’t she tell? But Mom didn’t notice; she smiled and kept talking.

  “Can I see it?” she asked.

  I nodded and went downstairs. Since I was down there anyway, I tried some last-minute stuff with the jar, just in case. It’s not easy to give up on a dream.

  THINGS THAT MIGHT MAKE MAGIC WORK

  • Spin around three times while holding the jar.

  • Shake the jar for two minutes while saying, “Come true, come true, come true!”

  • Rub the jar and say, “Genie come out!”

  • Rub the jar and say much louder, “Genie come out!”

  • Open the lid and say, “I command you to come out!”

  THINGS THAT PROBABLY WON’T MAKE MAGIC WORK

  • Call the genie stupid and lazy.

  In the end I was probably just lucky that I didn’t break the jar. Mom would have been mad about broken glass all over the floor. Working with magic was exhausting. I gave up and collapsed into the chair. What was I thinking? Of course it hadn’t worked. I opened the jar, took out my wish, and shoved it into my pocket. A few minutes later all the paper balls were picked up, and the jar was back in a junk box. I sat in the chair, disappointed, but not devastated. I hadn’t really believed it would work anyway. I pulled Lucy’s sign off the workbench and looked at it. Mom would gush over it, I knew that; maybe it would make me feel better.

  I ran up the stairs full of fake energy.

  “Hey Mom! Look, here it is.” I held it out.

  Mom walked over and took it from me. “Oh, Ash, Lucy will love it,” she said.

  I smiled; it was exactly what I wanted to hear. Maybe I was feeling better.

  “How are you going to send it?” asked Mom. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Did you know that the post office can mail that just like it is? All it needs is a stamp.”

  I turned the sign over and thought about what Mom was saying. I could paint a note and the address on the back, and then mail it like a postcard—only it would be a wooden postcard. I liked that idea—it was exactly what Lucy and I had promised each other, only cooler.

  “Do you want to watch TV with us?” Mom pointed to the living room.

  Dad was watching something I wouldn’t like; I could tell by the gunfire. If I went in there, Mom would make him change the channel to make me happy. Then Dad would be grumpy and I would feel guilty. It was too much mood shuffling.

  I shook my head and said, “I think I’ll go upstairs. I’m pretty tired.”

  Mom looked disappointed, but she didn’t say anything. She smiled, nodded, and walked toward the sirens—I guess the good guys were coming.

  I wasn’t sad to leave Mom and Dad; I wanted to go upstairs. There was something up there I’d been saving, just for tonight. It was PJ Walker’s new book, Have Mercy, Percy. It was under my mattress, somewhere in the middle of the bed. I’d done that on purpose, so I wouldn’t cheat and start reading it early. PJ Walker was my favorite author. I’d read all her books. I wished she wrote faster, but she was slow—only one a year. I’m not a big fan of mysterie
s, but hers were different. They were smart and funny, and usually if I paid attention, I could figure them out before the main character did. That was my favorite part. I couldn’t wait to start this new one. I had it all planned out—one chapter a night, no matter what. It was like being on a diet, but with a book.

  Nighttime is the worst for sadness, but PJ Walker was going to save me—literally. I was going to fill my mind with her story so there would be no room for anything else. The book had nineteen chapters—that was almost three weeks of reading. After that I didn’t have a plan, but I’d worry about that later. I studied the cover. There wasn’t much to it—just a picture of some broken glass on a table, and in the distance a small furry thing on the ground. You couldn’t really tell what it was, but my guess was a squirrel. PJ Walker had a thing about squirrels. All her books had squirrels in them—not as main characters, but still, they were there, scurrying around in the background. It didn’t matter; I’d find out soon enough. I stretched out, fluffed my pillow, and opened the book. This was going to be the best part of my day.

  chapter seven

  Dream

  It was nine p.m., and I was standing in the kitchen, reading a cereal box and eating handfuls of Crunchy O’s. I’d rather have been reading my book, but I’d breezed through the first chapter superfast, and I didn’t trust myself not to read more. I’d shoved it back under the mattress, but still, it was safer to leave the room.

  Now that I was fortified with vitamins, I was thirsty. After cereal I like to drink a cold apple juice, but we didn’t have any in the fridge. There was only cranberry juice, and I hate that stuff.

  Mom and Dad were still watching world destruction in the living room. But the humans were putting up a fight—at least it sounded that way. I stuck my head out in the hall and added to the noise.

  “I’m going to the basement to get juice!” I shouted, but there was no response—my voice was drowned out by explosions. I thought about trying again but decided against it. I wasn’t scared of the basement.

  As soon as I got to the pantry shelves, I could tell that Dad was the one who had unloaded the groceries. The heavy apple juice bottles were on the top shelf, and the not-heavy toilet paper was right in front of me, at perfect grabbing height. There was no way I could reach the apple juice without standing on something. Suddenly I remembered the box where I’d put the wish jar. It wasn’t a normal cardboard box; it had wooden sides. It was strong, and if I was careful and put my weight mostly on the wood, it would hold me.

  I found it and dragged it to the shelf. Apart from the wish jar, it was filled with bags of fabric and wooden spools. I emptied it and turned it upside down. The trick was not to stand on the bottom of it—that part was just cardboard. I stepped up onto the wooden sides and wiggled a little. It was strong. I felt safe. I took a deep breath and then slowly and carefully reached up for the apple juice. As soon as I pulled the bottle from the shelf, I knew I was in trouble. Sometimes, in the second before something bad happens, your brain can sense what’s coming. It’s not enough time to change anything, only to be superaware, and suddenly everything can seem like it’s happening in slow motion.

  A second later I was on the floor—hurting, but not broken. My knee was throbbing. I looked up at the shelf. I was lucky; the whole thing could have fallen right on top of me. I shivered just thinking about it. Other than the broken box under me and the plastic apple juice bottle a few feet away, nothing seemed out of order, but then suddenly I noticed the wish jar. It was lying in the middle of the floor. How had it gotten there? Was it broken? I stood up and hobbled over to check. It was fine. But my knee wasn’t; it was killing me. I needed to sit down. I dragged myself over to the chair, put the jar on the floor, and pulled up my pant leg. I was expecting a large welt, bruising, maybe even blood, but there wasn’t anything. It was just a little red. It was crazy, but I was almost disappointed; I wanted it to look as bad as it felt. I leaned back in the chair. I needed a rest before I tried to climb back up the stairs to the kitchen.

  I nudged the wish jar with my toe, leaned over, and picked it up. The little paper balls jiggled. I shook the jar, and they spun around, like snow in a snow globe. But they couldn’t float; a second later they were still, clumped together into a white mountain at the bottom of the jar. What were they? Why were there so many? I opened the jar, picked one, unfurled it, and flattened it out against my leg. Unfolded, it was just a skinny rectangle of paper, but there was something written on the other side. A faint outline of blue swirls, dots, and dashes showed through. I turned it over and read the words.

  I Wish Ashley Wouldn’t Ignore Me

  WAIT! WHAT? THAT’S ME! WAS THIS ABOUT ME? I was confused. Suddenly my body was tingling—my toes, my fingertips, everything—and a second later it was over. It took me a minute to recover. I rubbed my eyes and looked up.

  Surprise!

  Shock!

  The basement was gone. Instead of sitting in the chair, I was outside, sitting on the ground in the rain! And it was daytime! This couldn’t be real. I stood up and shook my head. It was a dream; it had to be.

  Two girls were up ahead, walking toward each other on the sidewalk. I had a million questions.

  Where am I? What happened? Where’s my house? Why am I here? What’s going on? Who are you? Suddenly I froze; I had three new thoughts, and the last one I couldn’t keep inside. It came out of my mouth in a scream.

  It can’t be! I’m dead! “I’M A GHOST!”

  The girls didn’t stop, or even look my way—they hadn’t heard me. I was a ghost. The one with the short blond hair smiled at the one with the long brown hair. When they passed she said, “Hi.” The dark-haired girl stared straight ahead; she didn’t respond. Maybe she couldn’t see her? Maybe the blond girl was like me. Maybe she was a ghost too! I ran to catch up to her.

  “Excuse me! Can you help me? Where are we? What’s going on?” My voice got louder and louder as I tried to get her attention, until finally I was screaming.

  “HEY! BLOND GIRL! STOP WALKING!”

  But she didn’t. She looked straight ahead like she hadn’t heard me. She was almost running now. I stopped following her. No, she wasn’t like me; she wasn’t a ghost. Her hair was soaking wet, and mine was perfectly dry.

  “WHAT’S HAPPENING?” I yelled. But there was no answer. I stood there watching the girl until she disappeared. I couldn’t be. I didn’t want to be. Was it true? Was I dead? I shut my eyes and dug my nails into my palms, trying to make them hurt.

  “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! DON’T BE DEAD! DON’T BE DEAD!” Suddenly there was a jolt, a zap, a sting, but not like from an insect; my whole body hurt. Was it death?

  There wasn’t time to think—someone was calling me.

  “ASH! Are you okay? I heard shouting.” I recognized that voice. It was Mom.

  I looked around; I was home—back in the chair, back in the basement. I was alive! Mom was at the top of the stairs calling down to me. I wasn’t dead! YAY!

  I dropped the wish and ran upstairs. What had just happened? It had seemed so real. I was confused. Was it the jar, or the wish? I didn’t want to be near either of them. Mom was waiting for me at the top of the steps.

  “What about the apple juice?” she asked.

  Stupid! I’d left it downstairs. I wasn’t going back down there.

  I shook my head. “I decided to have water instead—healthier.”

  I pushed by Mom and walked to the cupboard to get a glass. My throat was suddenly dry; it was hard to talk. My heart was racing, and my hands were shaking.

  Mom followed me. “Is everything okay?”

  I filled the glass with water and took a sip. “I think I fell asleep in the chair and, uh . . . had a dream.” I didn’t want to say more. It was all too weird.

  Mom shook her head. “Oh, sweetie, I bet you’re tired. It’s been a . . .” And then she stopped.

  I knew she was looking for a word that would describe my hard-impossible-stressful-emotional-devastating day, but
I didn’t help her. Instead, I stood there pretending I had no idea what she was talking about.

  Finally she just gave up and said, “Okay, well, try to get some sleep.”

  chapter eight

  Reflection

  Reflection is when you do serious thinking about things that have happened. I had a lot of thinking to do. What had happened in the basement? Was it magic? A dream? I lay down on my bed to try to figure it out. Serious thinking and beds do not go together. The next thing I knew, Mom was shaking me by the arm to wake me up, and it was morning.

  “Ash, wake up! Hurry. Claire will be here in ten minutes. Her dad called. They’re coming a day early.”

  My brain felt fuzzy. I jumped out of bed. I had to get dressed. I staggered to my dresser and suddenly remembered the basement. It made me shiver; I pulled on sweat pants and a sweater over my T-shirt. The doorbell rang just as I was brushing my teeth. I finished up and spit in the sink. On the way downstairs I went over the list of things Mom had already told me about Claire:

  • Seven years old

  • Needs lots of attention because of her mom

  • Is an only child

  • Likes fashion

  It wasn’t a big list, but Mom had said she’d tell me more before Claire got here. Now that she was here, it was too late for that. I guessed I’d find out more on my own. When I got to the last step, I could see that the front door was open. I walked over slowly and stood next to Mom.

  “Are you sick?”

  Those were the first words Claire said to me. She was standing in the open doorway looking in. A man, probably her dad, was hanging back. He was younger than Dad, but more tired and kind of grungy looking. He reminded me of the people on those TV shows who go off into the wilderness with only a tent and the clothes on their back. I glanced at Claire—no, she didn’t look like she’d been camping. He saw me staring and nodded. I looked down, embarrassed.