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  Pink.

  Are there still workers here, taking down the party decorations?

  I wrap my neon-green-and-orange plaid quilt around my body even though I’m wearing a dorky flannel pajama set that covers me from head to toe and lean against the windowsill to get a better look. Below me, the backyard looks exactly as it did forty-eight hours ago: plain old grass. The cedar fence is no longer adorned with flowers, the tent has disappeared, and the punch bowl—er, fountain—has been retired. The aggregate patio below me is once again sporting the black, wrought iron patio set, nothing more.

  So what was that flash of pink?

  I yank the window open and press my forehead into the screen so that I can look to the right and left of the house. And that’s when I see it again: a burst of pink as it rounds the corner.

  Hmm. This reeks of my brother. He probably has a water-balloon ambush planned, and he’s trying to lure me outside. It’s probably fifty-four degrees out. He’d just love soaking me.

  And there’s no way I’m falling for it. He’s one of those people who will try the same gag over and over, as long as it works. And he did this exact thing a month ago. He set up camp and then threw the balloons at my window. I went out the back door to yell at him, and he totally slammed me with an explosion of water.

  Maybe I can go around the front of the house and use the element of surprise to snag his own weaponry and use it against him. Years of playing little sister have shown me that brains are more powerful than brawn, especially if you’re talking about my brains and his brawn.

  I throw on a fluffy blue robe with clouds all over it. It was a Christmas present, which is why I didn’t get the black one with a cute lime-green skull-and-crossbones design.

  I take the stairs two by two and am at the front door in seconds. I click it open as silently as possible and then walk across the slate-tiled stoop and down the steps. I hoof it across the lawn, the grass cold and dewy on my bare feet. I tiptoe into the backyard. My brother is probably on the other side of the rhododendron bush, staring around the corner of the house, expecting me to exit out of the back door.

  As I turn to shut the gate behind me, I feel it: hot breath on my neck, whiskers tickling my ear. Ew, my brother has a serious five o’clock shadow. So gross.

  I spin around to face my brother, but I see nothing but dead air. And that’s when I feel it again: hot breath, this time on the bare part of my stomach, between the top and the bottom of my blue flannel pajamas, where the robe has fallen open.

  And when I finally look down, I scream and leap back, crashing into the gate and hitting my funny bone. Pain ripples up my arm.

  The pony—the pink pony—its dark eyes widening, sort of jumps into the air and then plants all four feet, as if I’ve startled it. Its nostrils flare, and it takes in a big, quivery breath. It’s not very tall—its back probably reaches my waist. Maybe it’s a miniature horse and not a pony. Or are they the same thing? Either way, it’s not supposed to be pink, and it’s definitely not supposed to be in my backyard.

  We stare at each other, seemingly frozen, until it spins around and trots away, its blue-streaked tail dragging behind. It lets out a long, shrill whinny as it disappears around the corner.

  Someone has seriously messed with that pony. I’m guessing it was white at one time, because that’s the only way dye that pink would ever take. And the mane is mostly white too, except those crazy electric-blue streaks.

  And I swear to you, it had an ice-cream cone painted on its hindquarters. Three scoops. Sugar cone.

  I rub my eyes a few times. This isn’t real, is it? Did the little guy escape from a local farm? Who did this to him?

  Or wait. If it’s pink, it’s probably a girl.

  I stomp after it, annoyed that I’ve gotten out of bed for something this insanely ridiculous. Who paints a pony pink? Shouldn’t that be animal cruelty or something?

  When I round the corner of the house, I get a full view of the backyard and the totally empty expanse of grass. Huh.

  I walk around the garden shed and peek inside, but the pony isn’t in there, either. The side gate is open on the other side, so I walk around to the front of the house and stand on the sidewalk. I look both ways, down the street, but I don’t see her.

  I close my eyes for a long moment, half expecting to feel warm breath and whiskers again, but there’s nothing. The pony is gone.

  It’s official: I’m crazy.

  I go back to the house and walk into the entry, where my mom is putting on a pair of sensible black pumps, her hair blow-dried and curled to perfection.

  “What are you doing outside?”

  I stand there dumbly. “Um, looking for the paper. For a current-events homework assignment.”

  “It’s on the counter,” she says, giving me an odd look. It is always on the counter.

  “Oh.”

  She stands to leave.

  “Mom?”

  “Mm-hmm . . . ”

  “Did you rent a pony for my party?”

  My mom laughs. “Of course not, honey. You’re too big for a pony.”

  And then she walks away, toward the garage door, where her shiny Lexus awaits. I watch her go, wondering if I’m crazy or if the perfect events coordinator doesn’t even know what kind of activities she booked for her daughter’s sweet sixteen.

  Shaking my head, I go back to my room. Clearly, my brain doesn’t function properly without twenty minutes of a hot shower.

  And I only have nineteen before I’m late.

  6

  THE SECOND I WALK through the double doors and into the wide carpeted hallways of EHS, Nicole ambushes me.

  “I am so, so, so sorry,” she says.

  I don’t say anything, I just keep walking, clenching my teeth a little.

  She walks backward in front of me, her blonde hair blowing in her face a bit. She sweeps it back with a newly French-manicured hand and looks me in the eyes. She’s wearing a diamond pendant on a fine, delicate silver chain.

  I wonder if it was an anniversary gift. I try to remember if she was wearing it last night, but I never got within a hundred feet of her, so I’m not sure.

  “I completely, totally lost track of time. I swear I freaked out when I finally looked at my watch. We raced straight to your house, but we got stuck in traffic. There was this semi-truck rolled over, and we had to go around and . . . ”

  She seems to realize I’m not really listening.

  “What happened is not important. I swear, I will make it up to you somehow.” She stops walking and I’m forced to stop too, to keep from slamming into her.

  I stare into her blue eyes for a moment. They are crinkled up in concern, like at any moment I may tell her she’s as good as dead to me. I cross my arms. “I sent you, like, a hundred texts.”

  “My phone was dead.”

  I twist a strand of my damp brown hair, resisting the urge to just yank it right out. “The whole thing was a disaster, you know. The whole thing.”

  She purses her pouty, perfectly glossed lips. “I’ll do your bio homework for a week! I’ll loan you anything in my closet. I’ll go to the concert of your choice.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Any concert?”

  “Any concert where they won’t throw me in a mosh pit or something.”

  I screw my lips up to the side and give her a long, hard look. Maybe if I had ninety-nine other friends, I could at least give her the silent treatment for a day or two, but my resolve is already weakening.

  I cross my arms. “Swear? You’re not forgiven until you actually do it, you know.”

  She lets out a long, slow sigh of relief. “I swear.”

  “Fine.” I uncross my arms. It’s sad how fast I just gave in. But obviously, she didn’t mean to be so late. And I’m more mad about the stupid party than I am about her. “How was your anniversary dinner?”

  She brightens. “The food was so amazing. I got this risotto thing and OMG, my mouth waters just thinking of it. And the view! It�
�s right on the Puget Sound, near Point Defiance. They have a deck, but it was closed for the winter. But the windows look right out over the water, and you can see all the ferries and sail-boats and stuff. I could have stared at it all night. And Ben said the funniest thing about the waiter! We kept laughing all during dinner about it and at one point I actually spit out my soup, but Ben was really nice about it and pretended he didn’t notice. It was so cute. We talked about you, too, ya know. Ben thinks you’re a rebel. That’s his word, not mine.”

  A rebel? Ben thinks about me?

  “So,” I say, feeling a new flush of anger that she clearly had so much fun without me. “It was worth missing my party.”

  “Yeah—no, no, of course not.”

  Argh. “Whatever. I’m over it.” Except I’m not. “But you owe me, like, a hundred of your mint-chip brownies.”

  Her smile brightens. “I’ll commence baking tonight.”

  We pick up a walk again, heading toward biology. “And also, you might have to do my bio homework for the rest of the year. I’m lost already.”

  Nicole laughs. “My mom is making us all go visit my grandma tonight, but what if we get together tomorrow? We can go over the cell diagrams.”

  I nod, and we step into class, the fight over my party mostly forgotten.

  If only the party itself was as easy to forget.

  AS I SIT in photography several hours later, I can’t stop worrying about Nicole and the inevitable moment she realizes she’s totally outgrown me. We may have resolved our dispute, but what if it’s just the first of many?

  If she abandons me on my birthday, just about anything could be fair game, right?

  I should be working on the assignment that is sure to sink the only A I have, but instead I keep flicking glances over at her.

  Right now, she’s standing over a tray of developer, a pair of tongs in her hand as she swishes her paper around in the fluid. Today she’s been developing an entire roll of photos of Ben, stuff they took while at their dinner last night.

  I saw a few of them. They went walking on the waterfront afterward. She took pictures of him on a pier, and the sun is just a sliver on the horizon. The water stretches out behind him, beautiful and serene.

  She wasn’t kidding when she said they lost track of time. Because when the sun was setting, she should have been standing in my backyard, but she was an hour away, totally oblivious, happily strolling along Ruston Way.

  I’m still kinda angry. I’d never do that to her! But I’m also a mixture of other things: worried, annoyed, concerned, sad.

  The thing with Nicole is that we’ve both changed a lot in the last few years. We’re either going to grow closer or farther, and I think I know which way things are going.

  See, Nicole used to be truly unfortunate looking. I never cared that her face was covered in acne, that she was at least twenty pounds overweight, or that she was unusually short.

  But whatever she’s been doing to her face is working, and in the last year or two, she’s sprouted like eight inches, I swear.

  Which, since she hasn’t gained a pound, means she’s thin now, though she’s still got way more in the chest department than I do. Her hair has grown out of the truly tragic haircut she had throughout junior high, too. She still has that edge of shyness about her, but it’s disappearing more every day.

  She’s figured out that she’s not a geek anymore. So now I just have to wait for her to figure out that I still am, and then she’ll probably ditch me. If yesterday is any indication, things are getting hot and heavy with Ben, while our friendship is getting more distant than ever.

  I lean into the countertop where my enlarger is sitting, trying to focus on my project and get the negative adjusted so it won’t look fuzzy or cut off anyone’s head. Considering I’ve already had a few days to work on this project, I should be further along.

  I mean, Nicole is so far along she’s not even worried about it; she’s developing photos of her boyfriend instead.

  Mr. Edwards wants us to do a “self-portrait.” But his definition of self-portrait is clearly skewed, because we’re not allowed to take any pictures of ourselves. It has to be something “representative” of ourself. And then we have to use one of the special effects we’ve been taught to make it more creative, like reversing the negative or changing the focus or something.

  I picked this class because it sounded less torturous than one of those FFA agricultural classes or drama or, God forbid, choir. But as it turns out, I kind of stink. Apparently I have no vision.

  Mr. Edwards has given me reasonable grades because I’ve managed to keep the technical aspects just perfect, but he keeps harping on how I need to use my “inner eye” and “watch the world around me” and “blah, blah, blah.” Then he assigned our first major project—half of our first semester’s grade—with a big emphasis on creativity. Ouch.

  The worst part is he’s one of those teachers that you really like—the kind that actually cares about his students and spends a ton of time outside class talking with them and helping them.

  So I guess I feel a little guilty, turning in utterly boring work, week after week. But what else am I supposed to do? Some of the other people in this class just look at something and click, and it becomes insta-art. I just don’t have that natural talent.

  So now I have less than two weeks to finish this project, and at the rate this is going, I’ll have a big over-exposed nothing. What else can I possibly take pictures of that represents me? A big empty bedroom? A phone that never rings? My mom’s day planner that has precisely zero time for me in it? The back of Nicole’s head as she’s walking away or worse—making out with Ben?

  Nicole puts her photo into the dryer and then packs up the stuff scattered around her enlarger. Class ends in a few minutes.

  “What time do you want to get together tomorrow?”

  Nicole zips her backpack shut. She looks pretty in the red light of the dark room. It makes her complexion look clearer, more flawless, and her blonde hair shines. “Um, like seven? I have a doctor’s appointment right after school.”

  “Sure, that works.”

  Nicole tosses a few rejected Ben photos into the trash between our enlarger stands. “Cool.”

  The bell rings, and I groan and start packing up my things. Another class period . . . totally wasted.

  As I shove the last of my things into my bag and turn to go, I toss a ruined photo into the trash, except I miss and it flutters to the ground.

  I kneel down and pick it up to put it in the garbage, but Nicole’s discarded photos catch my eye.

  They’re not too bad, actually. The first one is too blurry, but the second, of Ben on the pier, has a soft, ethereal focus to it, like the clouds have parted to shine down just on him. There’s something wrong with one side, like Nicole caught her finger in the frame, but the center, where Ben is standing, staring over the water, is perfect.

  I glance around the room. No one is looking at me.

  And then, feeling as if I’m stealing the Mona Lisa, I tuck the photo into my binder, my heart racing.

  7

  I TOSS AND TURN that night, dreaming of Ben and Nicole making out, giant cameras chasing me around with bright flashing lights, and thousands of punch fountains overflowing with pink liquid. Except the liquid is lava, and I spend the dream running from it. By the time I open my eyes, I’m in a decidedly grumpy mood. What I really need is an IV of caffeine and about a hundred Krispy Kreme donuts.

  As I yawn and stretch, I swing my legs out of bed and start to stand, but something wobbles beneath me and my legs slide out in opposite directions and I slam to the floor, my face bouncing off the carpet. My teeth smash against my tongue, and I’m pretty sure I’ve nearly bitten it off, because the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth.

  It all happens so fast I wouldn’t have been able to save myself in normal circumstances, let alone four seconds after waking up.

  What the?

  Then I open my eyes and ev
erything comes to focus.

  I can only stare, my mouth hanging open and my eyes bugging out.

  Gumballs.

  Thousands of them.

  Giant tubs and little packages and huge buckets. They’re stacked up around me and they’re rolling underneath my bed and I’m lying on at least fifty.

  All I can do is stare, my cheek still smashed to the Berber. This many gumballs would cost hundreds of dollars. Did my brother rob a candy truck?

  I sit up a little, wincing because that fall did not feel good, and get a better look at my room.

  The gumballs are on my desk and windowsill and chair and stacked up against the walls and . . . there is not a square inch of my room that is gumball free. I try to swing my legs underneath me and am halfway to my feet when a few gumballs slide out from underneath me, I go down in the splits, then shriek in pain and fall over again, my thigh pulsing as if I pulled a muscle. A few gumballs shoot out the door and hit the hallway wall, then bounce out of view.

  I decide to skip standing and crawl toward my closet, raking my hands back and forth in front of me to clear a path. It doesn’t work very well, because they just roll in front of me again. It’s like I’m in a sandbox, except the sand is gumballs. Or maybe it’s more like the big ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese.

  All I need is a change of clothes and I can go to the bathroom and get ready. Then I can go find my brother and strangle him.

  I make it to the door and twist the knob, then realize belatedly I’ve made a huge mistake: I’ve underestimated the size of this natural disaster.

  Hurricane Gumball is clearly a category five.

  The door flies open and nails me in the chin, and gumballs pour out in an avalanche of rainbow colors.

  I roll back and then curl up and cover my head as they rain down, bouncing off my elbows and head and pooling around me. The sound is intensifying as they hit each other, bounding and ricocheting through the room.