Wishful Thinking (9 page)

W
HERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” KARA DEMANDED SEVERAL minutes later as she tapped her watch and pushed away the salad she had been eating. “I've been freaking out, worrying that something weird had happened. Why are you smiling like that?”

“I'm not smiling.” Sophie smiled. “But seriously, I've just had the most surreal conversation in the whole wide world. Ever. With bells on top.”

“More surreal than being told by a ghost that you're now a djinn?” Harvey stopped shoveling a hot dog into his mouth for a moment and lifted a surprised eyebrow.

“Okay, so perhaps that was pretty surreal as well,” Sophie was forced to concede before smiling some more. “But trust me, this is up there.”

“What?” Kara's eyes were so wide that Sophie was pretty sure they might burst any moment. “You're killing me here. Tell me what happened.”

“Okay, so you're never going to believe this, but Jonathan Tait came up to my locker and started talking to me. In real words and everything.”

“What?” Kara, who had been doodling on a napkin, snapped the end of her pencil as she looked at Sophie in excitement. “Details. I need details.”

“Gladly.” Sophie grinned while Harvey made a choking noise on his hot dog. The two girls ignored him as Sophie recounted the entire conversation, complete with hand actions and facial expressions. Once she had finished, she wrinkled her nose. “So what do you think it means?”

“That he has no friends his own age,” Harvey piped up.

“Of course he does. Everyone loves Jonathan,” Kara corrected before grinning at Sophie. “It's obvious what it means. He was asking you to be his date at the concert.”

“Do you really think?” Sophie started to fan her face. She wasn't sure if it was because of the djinn thing or the fact that Jonathan Tait had possibly asked her out.

“I do.” Kara nodded, and her long dark hair bounced. “I mean, why else would he offer for us to go with him and his brother? It's just so wonderful. I mean, I know that my mom said she would take us, but seriously we've all seen how edgy she gets when she hits the checkout line at Walmart. Going with Jonathan's brother Finn will be like a zillion times better.”

“Apart from the fact that Sophie isn't going to the concert,” Harvey reminded them, and Sophie felt her good mood drop. “Besides, not meaning to act like a killjoy here, but considering what happened yesterday, don't you have other things to worry about besides a dumb crush?”

“It's not a dumb crush,” Kara retorted in an angry voice before Sophie even had a chance to reply. “And Malik said that there was no reason why she can't lead a normal life, and what could be more normal than this?”

“Okay, fine.” Harvey held up his arms in surrender. “It's just, what's the point of dating anyway? I mean, you might get on to begin with, but it's not like it's going to last. I saw a photo of my folks when they were sixteen and all in love. Now when they're in the same room together, it's like they want to gouge each other's eyes out. And I don't need a body-language book to tell me that eye gouging is bad.”

“Oh, man, that sucks,” Sophie immediately said, suddenly remembering the text message he received yesterday afternoon. And even more alarming, the fact that he hadn't finish his Cheetos. “Harvey, has something else happened?”

“Yeah.” He nodded his head so that his straight hair fell into his eyes. “The reason they wanted me to come home yesterday was to tell me that my dad's looking for a place to stay. He's definitely moving out.”

“I'm so sorry, H. Why didn't you say anything this morning?” Kara instantly flushed as she reached out and squeezed his hand.

“Well, there was the whole Sophie turning orange and becoming a djinn thing.” He shrugged before looking up and letting out a reluctant sigh. “Besides, it's been coming for ages, so I shouldn't really be so surprised. But I didn't mean to bum out Sophie. Especially since Jonathan really isn't that bad—”

“Don't worry about it.” Sophie waved aside his apology, but before she could say anything else, a shiver went up her spine and the space around her seemed to go cold. Finally, someone spoke in a low voice.

“Ah, so there you are. I was wondering when I would find you.”

Sophie didn't even bother to look up as she realized that, thanks to all the distractions going on around her, she had completely forgotten about the worst problem of them all.

Melissa You-Owe-Me-Two-Hundred-Bucks Tait.

Sophie gulped as she scrambled to her feet and tried not to notice that her face was feeling even hotter than normal. So far no one at school had even mentioned the jeans incident, but Sophie didn't kid herself that it was because Melissa was too kind to tell anyone about it, but rather because the seventh grader liked to play with her victims before she destroyed them. In other words, when she found out that Sophie didn't have any money, she was going to be dead meat.

“So?” Melissa arched one of her eyebrows (an eyebrow that seemed more perfect than it had yesterday. How was that even possible?). “I can see that you've gone back to wearing your regular jeans.”

“Oh.” Sophie felt her face flush as she glanced down. While the Universe might've been kind enough to guide her into throwing on her favorite Neanderthal Joe T-shirt this morning, it hadn't been quite so considerate about her bottom half, and after deciding that she couldn't wear the jeans again, she had randomly put on the first pair she found. Complete with pink zigzags stitched around the bottom of the leg.

“So anyway, as much fun as it to stand here and chat to a bunch of boring sixth graders, I really have a lot of things to do, so if you could just give me my money, then I'll be on my way,” Melissa said as she inspected her nails. They weren't supposed to wear polish to school, but even Sophie, who was a makeup novice, could tell by the shine that Melissa's nails weren't natural. All of which was beside the point, since the only thing that really mattered was that Sophie had spent her entire life savings to buy some anti-orange potion from a djinn called Rufus the Furious yesterday afternoon.

Somehow she didn't think Melissa would be delighted when she found out.

“Okay, so the thing is—” Sophie started to say, but before she could finish, Melissa stopped inspecting her nails and instead moved her hand terrifyingly close to Sophie's nose.

“No. You see I don't do
things
.
Things
are boring. In fact,
you're
boring, so just give me my money or a brand-new pair of jeans so we can stop having this conversation.”

“I wish I could give you the money or a new pair of jeans. In fact, there's nothing that I'd like more,” Sophie assured her. “But what I was trying to say—”

“Okay, so perhaps I'm not being clear here?” Melissa fluttered her lashes in a dangerous manner. “Either give me what you owe me, or else. You've got until ten. One. Two. Three—”

Sophie felt her head start to spin as the entire cafeteria seemed to go strangely quiet. She'd heard that when you died things often went into slow motion, and that's obviously what was happening here, since it was so silent she could hear a pin drop (not, of course, that anyone would be dropping a pin right now, but it sure sounded like someone was scraping a chair over in the far corner).

This was not good. And by not good, she meant that she was completely screwed. Normally, Melissa's preferred method of retaliation was through public humiliation, but at Miller Road Elementary, she had occasionally been known to dish out the odd charley horse as well. Sophie shut her eyes and tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
Fear has no place here, fear has no place here,
she chanted to herself.

“Eight,” Melissa continued. “Nine, and finally we have. . . 
oh
.”

Sophie, whose eyes were still shut, stiffened.
Oh?
What did
oh
mean? Did it mean Melissa was going to change her method of punishment?

“Soph,” Harvey hissed from somewhere behind her. “I think you should open your eyes.”

Really? Because Sophie wasn't so sure; however, she knew she had to face up to it eventually, and so she reluctantly snapped them open just in time to see Melissa holding a Bella's Boutique bag in her hand. A Bella's Boutique bag that had a brand-new pair of jeans, neatly wrapped up in layer upon layer of delicate tissue paper.

Sophie wrinkled her nose.

Okay, so was this some kind of weird joke?
She glanced over to Harvey and Kara and shot them a confused look, but the pair of them shook their heads and looked just as astonished as she felt. Not that Melissa noticed any of this because she was far too busy meticulously inspecting the Motion jeans that were now in her hands. However, she finally finished, and after carefully folding them back up and slipping them into the carrier bag, she turned to Sophie.

“Well, I must admit, I didn't think you were going to come through.”

That would make two of them, and Sophie blinked. “S-so does that mean we're okay now?”

“Please, we're hardly okay, and don't think for one minute that I'll be forgetting about this. But since you've given me a new pair of jeans, I won't be mentioning this matter to anyone. Though”—she suddenly narrowed her eyes—“if I ever see you anywhere near my house again, I can assure you that you'll be sorry.”

Then without another word she turned and started to saunter away to where her minions (Harvey liked to call them the Tait-bots) were waiting for her. Sophie immediately felt her knees start to wobble, and she staggered back to join Kara and Harvey at their table.

“Um, so what just happened there?” Sophie looked at them both helplessly. “I mean, one minute I was preparing for a horrible and completely painful death, and the next minute—”

“The next minute a bag with a pair of jeans suddenly appeared in Melissa's hands.” Kara rubbed her eyes for a moment as if to check that they were working properly.

“I mean, it was literally from nowhere,” Harvey added, his voice full of awe. “You should've seen Melissa's face. It was like she had just been given a bag of snakes. Whatever it was she had planned for you must've been pretty gruesome, and she almost seemed disappointed that you came through like that.”

“Yes, but how did you come through like that?” Kara wrinkled her brow. “I thought that you spent all your money.”

“I did.” Sophie nodded as she rubbed her brow. “Not to mention the fact that I'd completely forgotten about it all. So where did the jeans come from?”

“I don't know.” Harvey picked up the spoon from his Jell-O and started to tap it against his chin. “Melissa said that you either had to give her the money or the jeans, and then—”

“Then Sophie said that she ‘wished' she could,” Kara finished off, her eyes wide. For a minute Sophie felt like a million little spots were dancing in front of her eyes, but she ignored them as she stared at her friend.

“Okay, so you seriously think that I did that?” she asked. “Because that's crazy.”

“Well, it's not that crazy,” Harvey reasoned. “I mean, yesterday you found out you were a djinn, and today you granted a wish. Of course, according to the movies, you normally grant wishes to other people, whereas this wish seemed to be for you, but all the same, it sort of makes sense.”

“But I didn't do anything. There was no nose twitching or hand waving or anything. All I said was that I wished it would happen, and then it did happen. Plus, remember that Malik said I couldn't access my powers until the djinn ring was cleansed.” Sophie unconsciously started to twist the ring that was on her finger. “But then again, he also said that all djinns lied, himself included, so perhaps he just made it all up?
And did I really just do some magic?
”

“Well, it does seem like it.” Kara glanced over to where Melissa Tait was sitting, surrounded by her Tait-bots, still holding the bag of jeans. “Hey, why don't you try wishing for something else? That way we'll know if it is just one of those bizarre coincidences or not.”

“You think this could be a coincidence?” Harvey spluttered. “Because in my book, a coincidence is when two people sit down on the bus and discover that they're reading the same book. When a two-hundred-buck pair of jeans turn up out of nowhere, that's a whole different league.”

“Okay, so it wasn't a coincidence,” Kara conceded as she started to get her stubborn look on her face. “But I still think that Sophie should try it again and see what happens.”

“But what should I wish for?”

“I don't know. Anything.” Kara shrugged.

“No.” Harvey looked at them in alarm. “Not anything. Just something small. Like a. . . oh, like a Snickers bar.”

“Harvey, stop thinking about your stomach,” Kara said.

“I'm not,” he protested. “It's just, what if it works and Sophie goes and wishes for Neanderthal Joe to turn up in the cafeteria? How on earth would we explain that one away?”