Autumn Falls (10 page)

Of course, that doesn’t prove anything, really. Maybe he would have hung out with me either way.

Or maybe not.

What’s for sure is I will lose my mind if I keep going back and forth. I need to test the journal. I excuse myself to the bathroom
—en français, bien sûr
—and bring my bag. I lock myself in a stall.

Bad idea. In theory, great for privacy; in practice, disgusting. I leave the stall and the bathroom and opt for a corner in the hallway. I only need a couple of minutes. Ideally no one will come out and bust me. I pull the journal out of my bag and almost scrawl down the wish, but I remember all my other wish entries started with a note to my dad.

Maybe the journal’s into that.

Dear Dad,
I write,

I take a second to congratulate myself on my genius. I know the lunch menu for the week. Today is tamales. They’re set. There’s absolutely no reason for that to change, aside from some supernatural interference.

I go back to class and somehow manage to survive through the next two torturously slow periods. The second I can, I race to the Tube as if the food weren’t as likely to give me dysentery as it is to fill my stomach. I force myself to not look ahead in line. I know it makes no sense; the food either is or isn’t tamales, but I feel as if peeking would jinx the result. Like the wished-for pizza would morph back into Mexican food the second before it entered my line of sight.

I even close my eyes as the lunch lady plops it onto my tray.

“Are you saying grace or praying it doesn’t kill you?”

It’s Sofia Brooks. I don’t know her, but I recognize her from algebra. I toss her a smile then look down at my tray.

Pizza.

There’s a slice of pizza on my tray.

“Excuse me,” I say, feeling my pulse quicken. “Isn’t it tamale day?”

“It was, but the tamales were rotten,” the lunch lady says, “so we swapped out with pizza. Got a problem with that?”

I’m so giddy I almost laugh out loud. “Are you kidding? You’ve made my wish come true.” I scooch my tray to the drinks station and gaze down at the miraculous plate of food. “I made you,” I whisper to it. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me.”

“What is wrong with you?” Sofia asks.

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” I say, blushing as red as my hair.

“Oh, there’s something,” she says, and adds as she brushes past me, “Freak.”

Okay, that sucked, but still, I have wished pizza into life. I’m a culinary Dr. Frankenstein. The world is my oyster-morphed-into-crab-cakes.

Unless it’s just coincidence. Given the quality of Aventura High’s tamales, it’s not hard to imagine them showing up rotten.

Maybe the journal only works for things that were going to happen anyway … which means it doesn’t “work” at all. Or only for things that
could
happen, which is a better explanation for Reenzie’s dung-dive.

“If you could wish for anything and have it happen,” I ask J.J., Jack, and Amalita when we’re all settled and eating—moment to bask in the triumph—pizza, “what would it be?”

“I’d have Reenzie Tresca drop Taylor Danport flat on her ass, leaving her alone, friendless, and weeping into the
Hello Kitty pillow she secretly sleeps with every night,” Amalita says, glaring across the lawn.

I follow her gaze and see Taylor laughing with Reenzie, Sean, Zach, and a bunch of other people I don’t know. Taylor leans against Zach, and he has a beefy arm slung around her. I guess they’re together now.

“Would you really?” I ask. “Like, for real. If you had the power and could make anything happen by wishing it, would you wish for her to get hurt?”

“Absolutamente!”
she says. Then she thinks about it a second. “I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe I’d just have her old nose grow back for a day and watch her freak.”

“What about you, Jack?” I ask. “What would you wish for?”

“A night with Rogue and Wonder Woman?” Jack suggests.

“Promise me you’ll never write fan fiction,” I say. “J.J.?”

He kind of hangs his head. “I dunno,” he says, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

“Oh, come on,” I say, trying to catch his eye. “I want to know.”

“Yeah, you do,” Jack agrees.

“Dude, seriously?” J.J. says. Then he turns to me. “I don’t have a wish. I’ve got everything I want.”

“Except a certain lady love on your arm for the Winter Formal,” Jack says.

The Winter Formal’s at the end of the month. Signs just started appearing in the halls this week. I honestly
haven’t thought about it until this second. I’m surprised it’s on J.J.’s radar. I wouldn’t have thought it was his deal.

“Really?” I ask. “Who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” J.J. says. “But yeah, okay. If I could wish for anything and make it come true, I wouldn’t go revenge or comic-book fantasy. I’d go hopeless romantic.”

It’s funny—I don’t generally think of J.J. as a romantic, but when he says that, I do. I notice the way his pale skin makes his dark eyes stand out and seem deeper and richer, like they could be full of secrets. I bet when he turns them on someone he really likes, it’s intense. Makes me wonder what he was like with his ex-girlfriend Carrie Amernick.

It also makes me think about what I should do next with the journal. I don’t have the chance to write in it again until I’m back on the sidelines, watching Sean’s track practice.

Dear Dad,
I write,

“So tell me, Dan Marino,” I say, “when you say football’s your thing, do you mean it’s your Thing?”

“First of all,
not
Dan Marino, Peyton Manning. Second of all, I have no idea what you’re asking me.”

Sean and I have been together for a couple of hours already, which sounds obscenely long, but we spent most of that time doing homework. Correction: Sean did his homework. I’ve attempted to focus on
Hamlet
while stressing about whether or not my latest journal wish will come true. I listened to and read the same scene six times without taking in a word of it. Then Sean offered to help. Turns out he actually enjoys Shakespeare. He explained the scene, then helped me finish the rest of my work so we could get food.

“It is my experience,” I clarify between forkfuls of fried rice, “that most people have a single all-consuming Thing
they love more than anything else. Is that what football is for you, or is it just something you like to do?”

He thinks a minute. “Can it be a temporary Thing?”

“Depends,” I say. “Define.”

“Football’s my Thing
now
. It’ll probably be my Thing through college. I’d love to go pro and have it be my Thing for life, but I don’t think I’m that good. So at some point I’ll have to get a new Thing.”

“Isn’t that kind of depressing?”

“Nah,” he says. “I like it. I feel like I have a pretty clear road map that goes all the way through the next six years, but then anything can happen. It’s like there’s all huge surprises just waiting for me, you know?”

“Huge surprises aren’t always good,” I say.

“That’s true. But sometimes they are.”

He says it with a knowing smile that makes me shiver. I’m pretty sure he means me, but I will be mortified if I say something similar back and I’m wrong. I take a drink of water to stall.

“Are you going to the Winter Formal?” he asks.

Only a miracle keeps me from choking.

“You mean do I have a date?” I ask. “No.”

“Do you want to go with me?” he asks.

This time I do choke … but only a little. When I recover, I smile and say, “I’d love that.”

He drives me home in an SUV he says was once his parents’, then went through each of his three older brothers
before he inherited it. The outside still looks nice, but the interior is more duct tape than leather, and the air conditioner only gasps out short bursts of air that make it feel like it’s laughing at us.

Doesn’t bother me. Also doesn’t bother me that there’s no attempted kiss when I get out of the car. I certainly wasn’t expecting one, nor did I wish for one … though next time perhaps I should.

Inside, I say a very brief hello to Mom and Erick, then race upstairs and shut my door. I fire off a warning text first:

Ten minutes later I’ve told Jenna everything.

“Are you insane?” is her response.

“I know the journal thing sounds crazy, but—”

“I’m not talking about the journal granting wishes,” Jenna says. “I get that. You explained it. It’s real.”

This is one of the many things I love about Jenna. Anyone else would cart me away after hearing what I’ve said. Jenna takes it in stride. If I believe it, it’s real.

“My problem,” she continues, “is you wished for Sean to ask you out.”

“You’re serious? You’ve seen the pictures I texted you.”

“He’s hot. Doesn’t matter. He likes you anyway. He might have asked you without the wish.”

I frown at her through the phone. “So now you’re saying the journal
doesn’t
grant wishes.”

“No! I’m saying it
does
!” I can hear the frustration in Jenna’s voice. I have no clue what she’s getting at, but it’s obviously important. “Haven’t you read ‘The Monkey’s Paw’?”

“Have I read the monkey’s paw? Now you’re just speaking in code.”

“ ‘The Monkey’s Paw.’ Famous short story. A guy gets a monkey’s paw that can grant three wishes.”

“A cut-off monkey’s paw?” I ask. “Who’s going to even touch that?”

“Just listen,” Jenna says. I can hear her tapping her fingers on the counter. “For the first wish the guy asks for money. How does the paw answer? His son’s killed, and insurance pays off exactly the amount of money he asked for. Then he wishes his son back to life, but he shows up mutilated and decomposed. Third wish? He has to use it to send his son back to the grave.”

My frown deepens. “Okay, well, I already wished for my dad to come back and he did
not
show up mutilated and decomposed. But thanks so much for putting that image in my head.”

“I’m sorry,” Jenna says. “My point is that in every story, wishes lead to bad consequences. Always.”

“But my dad wanted me to use the journal,” I say in a small voice. “He gave it to me.”

“Through Eddy,” Jenna reminds me. “You need to talk to her.”

I’m not convinced. “Why exactly would I do that to myself?”

“There are rules to these things. Eddy might know what they are.”

“ ‘Rules to these things’?” I repeat dubiously. “How many magical wish-granting journals have you dealt with lately?”

“How many books have you read lately?” Jenna retorts.

She has me there. Jenna reads everything, and always has. At any given moment she’s in the middle of an audiobook for long runs, one ebook on her phone, and one on her e-reader. All this in addition to whatever she has to read for school.

“Okay, so maybe there’s rules,” I cede. “But Eddy won’t know them. Last time I saw Eddy she was getting ready for a hot date with my very-long-dead grandfather.”

“She was sane enough to tell you about the journal,” Jenna reminds me.

“Barely. And she didn’t do well with direct questions. I just don’t think she’d help.” Plus, I have no desire to go back to Century Acres. Mom hasn’t bugged me, so I figure I might be able to stay away until we all go to visit on Mother’s Day.

“Fine,” Jenna says. “But here’s the thing. If the journal really is from your dad—and if Eddy’s as crazy as you say—he wouldn’t want you to use it randomly. If you ask me, you shouldn’t use the journal at all. Hide it somewhere. Keep it in your bookshelf if it reminds you of your dad. Don’t write in it.”

There’s an edge in her voice I’ve never heard. “You’re
really freaked out about this,” I say slowly. Maybe Jenna is right. Maybe I should forget about it for a while.

“There are reasons things happen the way they do,” she says. “Horrible reasons, maybe, because there’s no possible good one for what happened to your dad, but still, reasons. I really feel like it’s dangerous to mess with that.”

“So, like, have you been going to church all of a sudden?”

“Autumn, I’m serious. I’m worried about you.”

“I know you are. Thank you. And I promise I’ll be careful.”

After we hang up, I think about what she said, then open the journal.

Dear Dad,
I write.

My phone chirps while I’m writing, but I don’t check it until I’m done. It’s a text from Sean with a link.