Wishful Thinking (12 page)

“Are you okay? You're so quiet.” He coughed again, and Sophie realized she must've just been standing there staring at him.

“Oh, right, yes, I'm fine,” she hastily assured him while forcing herself not to wish for the ground to swallow her up whole.

“Good.” He shot her an adorable grin, which Sophie would've enjoyed a lot more if she didn't know what was coming. “The thing is, I wanted to talk to you about the concert.”

“It's okay,” she quickly assured him, deciding that the rip-the-Band-Aid-off-quick method was probably the least painful way to do this. “I mean, I totally understand how you must feel, what with the jeans thing and your sister. Not that it was my fault,” she hastily added. “You see, Ryan, who I was babysitting, stole my jeans, and I promise you I had absolutely no idea in the world that he had gone into your yard and swapped them over, and—”

“I know,” he cut her off. “That kid's a nightmare. In fact, I like to call him the ultimate ev—”

“Evil.” Sophie finished off in amazement. “Yeah, me, too.”

“And I told Melissa that it was probably Ryan who took her jeans, but unfortunately, logical thinking and good listening aren't really two of my sister's strong points.”

Sophie blinked. “Are you serious?”

“What? That my sister isn't always the nicest person in the Universe? I've sort of had twelve years of proof. I mean, she has her moments when she's okay, but they are so few and far between, most of the time I just tend to stay out of her way. So anyway, back to the concert. Did you manage to get tickets?”

Sophie was about to shake her head and tell him no, but before she could, he pulled a wide blue ticket out of his pocket and showed it to her. Sophie's eyes widened at how gorgeous it was. There was even a hologram on it, and she looked longingly at it for a moment before Jonathan started to study his sneakers (and nice sneakers they were as well, just like the ones she had zapped up for Harvey but blue instead of green).

“I spoke to my brother, and he's cool with taking you and your friends along. And my mom said that she would call yours to make sure it was okay.”

“Really? But what about Melissa?”

“She would rather rip off her arm and eat it than be seen at an NJ concert,” he assured her, and for a moment Sophie just stared at the ticket. Then she looked up at Jonathan and stared at him some more. He was so gorgeous and so nice, and did she mention gorgeous? Plus, what were the chances of this situation ever happening again? Never, that's what. This was her one and only chance to see the Joes in the company of Jonathan Tait, and if that didn't constitute an emergency, then she didn't know what did. “So do you want to come with us?”

“Of course we do,” Sophie said in a rush before she could change her mind. Then, after pausing for a moment to shut her eyes and make a wish, she pulled three pristine, identical Neanderthal Joe tickets out of her back pocket. “There's nothing my friends and I would like more. In fact, it would be awesome.”

M
EG, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO come into my room?” Sophie complained the following morning when she heard the door open and looked over to discover her little sister standing in front of her. Of course, considering Sophie was on her head trying to do one of the exercises Malik had given her, Meg appeared to be upside down, but that was beside the point. The point was that she shouldn't be in the room at all. Sophie let her legs fall down and collapsed in a heap on the floor next to Harvey's flowchart.

“Mom wants to know why it's taking you so long to come down to breakfast,” Meg said, as if that made it okay. Then she wandered over to the nightstand next to Sophie's bed. In between the photos and the small silver box that Sophie's dad had given her long ago, there was an article that Malik had printed out yesterday from Rufus the Furious's Web site when he had been on his computer marathon. Naturally, Meg picked it up. “What's this? And why is there a picture of an orange person on it?”

“It's nothing.” Sophie scrambled into a standing position and snatched the piece of paper out of Meg's hand while letting out a small prayer of thanks that Meg couldn't read properly, since the accompanying text was all about what to expect in your first fifty years as a djinn. (Unfortunately, none of it was remotely helpful unless she cared about being able to attend Djinn Council open days and vote in Djinn Council elections, and she had the feeling that Malik had printed it out only because it had a picture of some female djinn on it who he'd apparently once had a thing for. Gross.)

“Why were you standing on your head?” Meg continued.

“I was meditating. It's what enlightened people do,” Sophie retorted as she patted her hair and hoped that the static bird nest that it had become would disappear before she got to school. Actually, she
wished
it would disappear. A second later her blonde hair felt smooth and shiny—and like it had some extra volume to it. Because, well, just because. . . 

Then she realized that Meg was still looking at her. “Can you please stop asking so many questions.”

“Why?” Meg instantly asked, but Sophie ignored her as she hurried downstairs to where their mom was once again burning something in a saucepan. She couldn't wait for next week when they could all return to toast and cereal.

“I thought you were never going to come down,” her mom said as Sophie grabbed a glass of orange juice.

“Sorry.” She drank the juice in three long gulps. “I didn't realize the time.”

“Because she was standing on her head so the clock was upside down,” Meg added in a helpful voice. Sophie shot her a dark look.

“Standing on your head?” Her mom raised an eyebrow as she came over to the table with a pan in her hand. “What brought that about?”

“Oh, I just read about it in one of my positive-thinking books. It's a good way to relax,” Sophie improvised as she crossed her fingers. The truth was that while Kara and Harvey had been excited to see the Neanderthal Joe tickets yesterday—especially the part on them that said Access All Areas—Kara had also been a bit worried about the fact that Sophie had used yet more magic. Which was weird since it was normally Harvey who worried, but he still didn't quite seem to have recovered since Malik turned himself into Selena Gomez.

Of course, she had tried to explain that the situation was a complete emergency, and even though Kara had eventually admitted that it was pretty cool, it was only after Sophie had promised faithfully to do double the amount of exercises that Malik had given her. Hence the extra head standing.

“Interesting. Perhaps I should give it a go as well?” her mom wondered as she started to push something gray and sludgy onto Meg's plate. Her little sister looked at it in disgust, and even Mr. Jaws started to shudder delicately from his spot over by the window.

“I don't want this.” Meg pushed the plate away as a petulant frown made its way onto her face. “It looks disgusting.”

“It's oatmeal. It's good for you, so I want you to eat it,” her mom insisted as she used the back of her hand to wipe her brow. “Now,” she added, as she waited for Meg to unenthusiastically hold a spoonful up to her mouth.

“I still don't want it. I wish I could have Coco Pops,” Meg persisted in an unrelenting voice as Sophie felt a wave of pain go racing through her stomach. She immediately doubled over. Ouch, ouch, and ouch.

“Sophie. Are you okay?” Her mom's Worried Mom face went into overdrive, and Sophie waited a moment until the pain and the nausea subsided. She had no idea what had just happened, but she was 100 percent sure that she didn't want it to happen again.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she managed to croak as she tried to figure out if it was some kind of djinn thing that Malik had forgotten to mention. “I just got an upset stomach, but it's gone now.”

“Are you sure?” Her mom looked even more worried. “I wonder if you should stay home from school today?”

“What?” Meg poked out her lower lip in a mulish frown. “How come she gets to stay home?”

“Because she's sick,” her mom said.

“No, I'm not. I'm fine,” Sophie insisted, since there was no way she was staying away from school today. Especially since, as promised, Jonathan Tait's mom had called last night to check about the concert, and Sophie's mom had given her the big yes. “Anyway, if I stayed at home, then you'd have to miss work, and you don't want to do that.”

“Well, it would be awkward,” her mom conceded. “But only if you're sure that you really are okay,” she double-checked, then frowned at Meg. “And you, young lady, I'm still waiting for you to eat your oatmeal.”

“Fine,” Meg muttered as she took a bite. “But that doesn't mean. . . hey, it does taste like Coco Pops.”

“What?” Sophie and her mom both looked at her in surprise. Meg was notoriously grumpy in the morning, and normally it took a lot more than lumpy oatmeal to snap her out of one of her moods, but Meg was too busy shoveling spoonfuls of gray sludge into her mouth to bother answering.

“Let me try that,” her mom said as she stuck her pinky into the saucepan and tasted it. Then her eyes widened. “She's right. I've got no idea how that happened. I guess I must've used cocoa instead of cinnamon.”

“Well, you should do it again,” Meg finally spoke. “Because it's nice.”

“Yes, but it's hardly good for you.” Her mom put down the saucepan and looked even more stressed than normal. “Which is why—”

But before she could finish, Kara poked her head around the door, and Sophie jumped to her feet and grabbed her bag.

“Got to fly, but I'll see you this afternoon.” Sophie grinned as she hurried out the door to where her friends were waiting. She didn't even need to ask if Mrs. Tait had spoken to their parents because their smiles said it all. Sometimes it was just great to be alive. And to think that she'd been worried about becoming a djinn.

*  *  *  *  *

“So tell me again what he said?” Kara whispered in excitement as Señor Rena walked into the room that afternoon just minutes after Sophie had bumped into Jonathan Tait in the corridor. Did she mention that she loved this school?

“He said that he's heard what the concert set list is going to be and that he's going to burn me a CD of it all in the right order.” Sophie sighed a happy sigh.

“And have you decided what you're going to wear?” Kara wanted to know, and Sophie grinned.

“Well, it's a toss-up between my new jeans—not my Melissa Tait–tainted new jeans, but the other ones that I conjured up—and my old NJ tour T-shirt that I was wearing when Jonathan first talked to me,
or
my green skirt and. . . Harvey, seriously, what are you doing?”

They both turned to where Harvey was systematically pulling all the books out of his bag. He looked up at them both and blinked. “Oh, right. I was just feeling hungry, so I was sort of wishing that I still had a candy bar in my. . . oh sweet. It's a Twix.” He suddenly pulled a candy bar out and gave it a happy kiss just as Sophie doubled over in pain and a wave of nausea hit her. It was almost identical to the one that had hit her in the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” Kara looked at her in concern. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sophie gasped as the pain subsided. “I mean, my stomach hurt for a second, but it's better now.”

“Really?” Señor Rena was suddenly by her side. “Are you sure that you wouldn't like to make some more noise and continue to interrupt my class for a bit longer?” he asked, but Sophie, who knew better than to engage in conversation with short, bald, passive-aggressive teachers, quickly shook her head.

“No, Señor Rena.”

“Well, good. And since you're so eager to draw attention to yourself, perhaps you would like to stand up and talk about last night's homework questions?”

Sophie gulped as she got to her feet. This was going to be a long lesson.

*  *  *  *  *

“Man, Señor Rena was so harsh just then,” Kara complained as they piled onto the bus that afternoon.

“I know, right.” Sophie nodded. “Mucho harshisimo. But it was funny to see his face when I got all of the homework questions right. Anyway, enough about boring Spanish, let's get back to the concert. We still didn't decide on jeans or skirt.”

Harvey rolled his eyes and muttered something about “please just kill me now” before he turned his attention to his unfinished Twix, leaving Sophie and Kara free to spend the rest of the journey home debating how many bracelets was too many bracelets. By the time Sophie waved good-bye to her friends, they had decided that six was definitely enough. She jogged up the front path, humming “Zombie Vegas” to herself.

The black cloud that was coming from the kitchen let her know that her mom was in there cooking, while Meg's legs were once again poking out from under the couch. For a moment she debated whether to go into the kitchen, but as she caught a whiff of the smell that accompanied the black cloud, she decided to go see Meg instead. Because she was in such a good mood, she went and sat down on the floor and tickled her sister's bare feet.

“Get off.” Meg immediately flicked her leg.

“What's wrong with you? Don't tell me you still hate first grade?” Sophie wrinkled her nose. “Because you know, Mom's right. It will get better. I mean, look at me. I had the worst start to sixth grade ever. I mean, I'm talking ‘Just kill me now and bury the body' sort of stuff, but here we are, a few days later, and not only am I going to see the Joes in concert next Saturday afternoon, but I'm going to hang out with Jonathan Tait as well.”

Meg didn't bother to answer and so Sophie, feeling generous, got down on her belly and joined her sister under the couch.

“What I'm trying to say, Meggy-pops, is that you just need to keep a positive attitude and trust that everything will turn out right. . . hey, what are all these letters doing under here?” As she spoke, she looked at the enormous number of white envelopes that were sitting in neat stacks. She turned her head (not easy when you're stuck under the couch) and stared at Meg. “What's going on? Why are you hiding all of the mail?”

“Because.” Meg poked out her bottom lip and added more letters to the pile.

“Because what?” Sophie insisted as she grabbed some of them and wriggled out from under the couch so that she could read them. All the envelopes were addressed to their mom, but in the top left-hand corner of each envelope was a different logo. One was from JK Everest and Son Realtors. Another was from Gibson Property Experts, and a third was from Trenton Real Estate. Sophie immediately grabbed Meg by the ankles and pulled her out from under the couch. “Okay, spill. Tell me what's going on.”

“Mom wants to sell the house, and I don't want her to.” Meg shot her a defiant look as she reluctantly squirmed up into a sitting position. “So I've been hiding the mail to stop her.”

What?

What!

That couldn't be possible.

Their mom couldn't sell the house. Sophie's mouth went dry as all the happy Neanderthal Joe/Jonathan Tait–induced feelings were replaced by panic. She glanced around the room as her heart thumped like a drum against her ribs. Sophie loved this room. She loved this house.

It's where she and Meg had been born (literally, since their mom and dad hadn't believed in hospitals and had wanted home births, which if you asked Sophie was a little bit gross, and she was very pleased that she had no memories of it). But apart from that one small isolated ick-factor event, she loved everything about their home. Plus, they had to stay in this house for when their dad came back.

How could he come back to them if they moved?

The answer was that he couldn't.

Sophie's throat tightened, and it took all of her willpower even to make the words come out as she finally turned to face Meg. “H-how come you know about this, and I don't?”