Be Careful What You Wish For (2 page)

Daphne made Judith and me shake hands and apologize to each other after she dragged me back into the classroom. I had to do it. It was either that or be tossed out of school.

“It really was an accident,” Judith muttered under her breath. “What’s your problem, Byrd?”

Not much of an apology, if you ask me.

But I shook hands with her. I didn’t need my parents being called to school because their daughter had tried to strangle a classmate.

And I showed up — reluctantly — for basketball practice after school. I knew if I didn’t show, Judith would tell everyone that she had scared me away.

I showed up because I knew Judith didn’t want me to. Which I think is as good a reason as any.

Also, I needed the exercise. I needed to run back and forth across the court a few hundred times to get the anger out. I needed to sweat out
the frustration from not being able to finish strangling Judith.

“Let’s do some fast laps,” Ellen suggested.

Some of the other girls groaned, but I didn’t. I started running before Ellen even blew her whistle.

We were all in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts. Ellen wore gray sweats that were baggy in all the wrong places. She had frizzy red hair, and she was so straight and skinny, she looked sort of like a kitchen match.

Ellen wasn’t very athletic. She told us she coached girls’ basketball because they paid her extra, and she needed the money.

After running our laps around the gym, practice went pretty much as usual.

Judith and Anna passed the ball to each other a lot. And they both took a lot of shots — jump shots, layups, even hook shots.

The others tried to keep up with them.

I tried not to be noticed.

I was still simmering about the tapioca pudding disaster and wanted as little contact with Judith — or
anyone
— as possible. I mean, I was really feeling glum.

And watching Judith sink a twenty-foot jumper, catch her own rebound, and scoop a perfect two-handed shovel pass to Anna wasn’t helping to cheer me up one bit.

Of course, things got worse.

Anna actually passed the ball to me. I muffed it. It bounced off my hands, hit me in the forehead, and rolled away.

“Heads up, Byrd!” I heard Ellen cry.

I kept running. I tried not to look upset that I had blown my first opportunity of the practice.

A few minutes later, I saw the ball flying toward me again, and I heard Judith shout, “Get this one, Stork!”

I was so startled that she had called me Stork to my face that I
caught
the ball. I started to dribble to the basket — and Anna reached a hand in and easily stole the ball. She spun around and sent an arching shot to the basket, which nearly went in.

“Nice steal, Anna!” Ellen cried.

Breathing hard, I turned angrily to Judith. “What did you call me?”

Judith pretended she didn’t hear me.

Ellen blew the whistle. “Fast breaks!” she shouted.

We practiced fast breaks three at a time. Dribbling fast, we’d pass the ball back and forth. Then the one under the hoop with the ball was supposed to take the shot.

I need to practice
slow
breaks!
I thought to myself.

I had no trouble keeping up with the others. I mean, I had the longest legs, after all. I could run
fast enough. I just couldn’t do anything else while I was running.

As Judith, Anna, and I came roaring down the court, I prayed I wouldn’t make a total fool of myself. Sweat poured down my forehead. My heart was racing.

I took a short pass from Anna, dribbled under the basket, and took a shot. The ball flew straight up in the air, then bounced back to the floor. It didn’t even come close to the backboard.

I could hear girls laughing on the sidelines. Judith and Anna had their usual superior smirks on their faces. “Good eye!” Judith called, and everyone laughed some more.

After twenty minutes of fast-break torture, Ellen blew her whistle. “Scrimmage,” she called out. That was the signal for us to divide into two teams and play each other.

I sighed, wiping perspiration off my forehead with the back of my hand. I tried to get into the game. I concentrated hard, mainly on not messing up. But I was pretty discouraged.

Then, a few minutes into the game, Judith and I both dove for the ball at the same time.

Somehow, as I dove, my arms outstretched, Judith’s knee came up hard — and plunged like a knife into my chest.

The pain shot through my entire body.

I tried to cry out. But I couldn’t make a sound.

I uttered a weird gasping noise, sort of like the honk of a sick seal — and realized I couldn’t breathe.

Everything turned red. Bright, shimmering red.

Then black.

I knew I was going to die.

Having your breath knocked out has to be the worst feeling in the world. It’s just so scary. You try to breathe, and you can’t. And the pain just keeps swelling, like a balloon being blown up right inside your chest.

I really thought I was dead meat.

Of course I was perfectly okay a few moments later. I still felt a little shaky, a little dizzy. But I was basically okay.

Ellen insisted that one of the girls walk me to the locker room. Naturally, Judith volunteered. As we walked, she apologized. She said it had been an accident. Totally an accident.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want her to apologize. I didn’t want to talk to her at all. I just wanted to strangle her again.

This time for good.

I mean, how much can one girl take in a day? Judith had tripped me in math class, dumped her disgusting tapioca pudding all over my new Doc
Martens in Home Ec., and kicked me unconscious in basketball practice.

Did I really have to smile and accept her apology now?

No way! No way in a million years.

I trudged silently to the locker room, my head bent, my eyes on the floor.

When she saw that I wasn’t going to buy her cheap apology, Judith got angry.
Do you believe that?
She shoves her knee through my chest — then
she
gets angry!

“Why don’t you just fly away, Byrd!” she muttered. Then she went trotting back to the gym floor.

I got changed without showering. Then I collected my stuff, slunk out of the building, and got my bike.

That’s really the last straw,
I thought, walking my bike across the parking lot in back of school.

It was about half an hour later. The late afternoon sky was gray and overcast. I felt a few light drops of rain on my head.

The last straw,
I repeated to myself.

I live two blocks from the school, but I didn’t feel like going home. I felt like riding and riding and riding. I felt like just going straight and never turning back.

I was angry and upset and shaky. But mainly angry.

Ignoring the raindrops, I climbed onto my bike and began pedaling in the direction away from my house. Front yards and houses went by in a whir. I didn’t see them. I didn’t see anything.

I pedaled harder and harder. It felt so good to get away from school. To get away from Judith.

The rain started to come down a little harder. I didn’t mind. I raised my face to the sky as I pedaled. The raindrops felt cold and refreshing on my hot skin.

When I looked down, I saw that I had reached Jeffers’ Woods, a long stretch of trees that divides my neighborhood from the next.

A narrow bike path twisted through the tall, old trees, which were winter bare and looked sort of sad and lonely without their leaves. Sometimes I took the path, seeing how fast I could ride over its curves and bumps.

But the sky was darkening, the black clouds hovering lower. And I saw a glimmering streak of lightning in the sky over the trees.

I decided I’d better turn around and ride home.

But as I turned, someone stepped in front of me.

A woman!

I gasped, startled to see someone on this empty road by the woods.

I squinted at her as the rain began to fall harder, pattering on the pavement around me. She wasn’t
young, and she wasn’t old. She had dark eyes, like two black pieces of coal, on a pale face. Her thick black hair flowed loosely behind her.

Her clothing was sort of old-fashioned. She had a bright red heavy woolen shawl pulled around her shoulders. She wore a long black skirt down to her ankles.

Her dark eyes seemed to light up as she met my stare.

She looked confused.

I should have run.

I should have pedaled away from her as fast as I could.

If only I had known …

But I didn’t flee. I didn’t escape.

Instead, I smiled at her. “Can I help you?” I asked.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. I could see she was checking me out.

I lowered my feet to the ground, balancing the bike between my legs. The rain pattered on the pavement, big cold drops.

I suddenly remembered I had a hood on my windbreaker. So I reached up behind my head and slipped it over my hair.

The sky darkened to an eerie olive color. The bare trees in the woods shivered in a swirling breeze.

The woman took a few steps closer. She was so pale, I thought. Almost ghostlike, except for the deep, dark eyes that were staring so hard at me.

“I — I seem to have lost my way,” she said. To my surprise, she had an old woman’s voice, sort of shaky and frail.

I squinted at her from under my hood. The rain was matting her thick black hair to her head. It
was impossible to tell how old she was. She could have been twenty or sixty!

“This is Montrose Avenue,” I told her, speaking loudly because of the drumming of the raindrops. “Actually, Montrose ends here. At the woods.”

She nodded thoughtfully, pursing her pale lips. “I am trying to get to Madison,” she said. “I think I have completely lost my direction.”

“You’re pretty far from Madison,” I said. “It’s way over there.” I pointed.

She chewed at her lower lip. “I’m usually pretty good at directions,” she said fretfully in her shaky voice. She adjusted the heavy red shawl over her slender shoulders.

“Madison is way over on the east side,” I said with a shiver. The rain was cold. I was eager to go home and get into some dry clothes.

“Can you take me there?” the woman asked. She grabbed my wrist.

I almost gasped out loud. Her hand was as cold as ice!

“Can you take me there?” she repeated, bringing her face close to mine. “I would be ever so grateful.”

She had taken her hand away. But I could still feel the icy grip on my wrist.

Why didn’t I run away?

Why didn’t I raise my feet to the pedals and ride out of there as fast as I could?

“Sure. I’ll show you where it is,” I said.

“Thank you, dear.” She smiled. She had a dimple in one cheek when she smiled. I realized she was kind of pretty, in an old-fashioned way.

I climbed off my bike and, holding onto the handlebars, began to walk it. The woman stepped beside me, adjusting her shawl. She walked in the middle of the street, her eyes trained on me.

The rain continued to come down. I saw another jagged bolt of lightning far away in the olive sky. The swirling wind made my windbreaker flap against my legs.

“Am I going too fast?” I asked.

“No, dear. I can keep up,” she replied with a smile. She had a small purple bag slung over her shoulder. She protected the bag by tucking it under her arm.

She wore black boots under the long skirt. The boots, I saw, had tiny buttons running up the sides. The boots clicked on the wet pavement as we walked.

“I am sorry to be so much trouble,” the woman said, again pursing her lips fretfully.

“No trouble,” I replied.
My good deed for the day,
I thought, brushing a drop of rain off my nose.

“I love the rain,” she said, raising her hands to it, letting the raindrops splash her open
palms. “Without the rain, what would wash the evil away?”

That’s a weird thing to say,
I thought. I muttered a reply. I wondered what evil she was talking about.

Her long black hair was completely soaked, but she didn’t seem to mind. She walked quickly with long, steady strides, swinging one hand as she walked, protecting the purple bag under the other arm.

A few blocks later, the handlebars slipped out of my hands. My bike toppled over, and the pedal scraped my knee as I tried to grab the bike before it fell.

What a klutz!

I pulled the bike up and began walking it again. My knee throbbed. I shivered. The wind blew the rain into my face.

What am I doing out here?
I asked myself.

The woman kept walking quickly, a thoughtful expression on her face. “It’s quite a rain,” she said, gazing up at the dark clouds. “This is so nice of you, dear.”

“It isn’t too far out of my way,” I said politely.
Just eight or ten blocks!

“I don’t know how I could have gone so far astray,” she said, shaking her head. “I was sure I was headed in the right direction. Then when I came to those woods …”

“We’re almost there,” I said.

“What is your name?” she asked suddenly.

“Samantha,” I told her. “But everyone calls me Sam.”

“My name is Clarissa,” she offered. “I’m the Crystal Woman.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard that last part correctly. I puzzled over it, then let it slip from my mind.

It was late, I realized. Mom and Dad might already be home from work. Even if they weren’t, my brother, Ron, was probably home, wondering where I was.

A station wagon rolled toward us, its headlights on. I shielded my eyes from the bright lights and nearly dropped my bike again.

The woman was still walking in the center of the street. I moved toward the curb so she could move out of the station wagon’s path. But she didn’t seem to care about it. She kept walking straight, her expression not changing, even though the bright headlights were in her face.

“Look out!” I cried.

I don’t know if she heard me.

The station wagon swerved to avoid her and honked its horn as it rolled by.

She smiled warmly at me as we kept walking. “So good of you to care about a total stranger,” she said.

The streetlights flashed on suddenly. They made the wet street glow. The bushes and hedges,
the grass, the sidewalks — everything seemed to glow. It all looked unreal.

“Here we are. This is Madison,” I said, pointing to the street sign.
Finally!
I thought.

I just wanted to say good-bye to this strange woman and pedal home as fast as I could.

Lightning flickered. Closer this time.

What a dreary day,
I thought with a sigh.

Then I remembered Judith.

The whole miserable day suddenly rolled through my mind again. I felt a wave of anger sweep over me.

“Which way is east?” the woman asked, her shaky voice breaking into my bitter thoughts.

“East?” I gazed both ways on Madison, trying to clear Judith from my mind. I pointed.

The wind picked up suddenly, blowing a sheet of rain against me. I tightened my grip on the handlebars.

“You are so kind,” the woman said, wrapping the shawl around her. Her dark eyes stared hard into mine. “So kind. Most young people aren’t kind like you.”

“Thank you,” I replied awkwardly. The cold made me shiver again. “Well … good-bye.” I started to climb onto my bike.

“No. Wait,” she pleaded. “I want to repay you.”

“Huh?” I uttered. “No. Really. You don’t have to.”

“I want to repay you,” the woman insisted. She grabbed my wrist again. And again I felt a shock of cold.

“You’ve been so kind,” the woman repeated. “So kind to a total stranger.”

I tried to free my wrist, but her grip was surprisingly tight. “You don’t have to thank me,” I said.

“I want to repay you,” she replied, bringing her face close to mine, still holding onto my wrist. “Tell you what. I’ll grant you three wishes.”