You Wish (10 page)

Today, though, her hair looks like it belongs on a curling iron box, demonstrating how fabulous your hair
could
look if you bought their product. Perfect, spiral curls. Huh.

“Your hair looks . . . cute,” I say. It does, too. But it’s so different I can’t stop staring at it as if it’s freakish, which probably wasn’t what Nicole is going for.

“Thanks! I had to get up at, like, five to curl it. I found this great new hair spray.”

I nod and keep staring at her. It’s not just her hair. Her skin is . . .

Flawless.

“Wow. You look . . . ”

Nicole’s grin widens. “We finally found a medication that totally works. Isn’t it awesome?”

I nod. She looks radiant, positively glowing with happiness. “Yeah . . . I mean, wow . . . you look amazing.”

Her grin widens and she gives a little spin, her curls tumbling over her shoulders.

I sense that something else is up, because Nicole doesn’t sit down after her spin. She just stands there, holding her salad, grinning about her newfound beauty.

And then she finally drops the bomb. “Breanna says we can eat lunch at her table.”

My jaw drops and I just stare at her. I can’t believe she actually wants to eat at Breanna Mills’s table. Or that we were actually invited to sit at Breanna’s table.

I glance over at the alpha table, which is chock-full of jocks and cheerleaders. “There are no empty seats,” I say, stating the obvious. I wouldn’t sit over there even if there were several open seats and they were gold plated and heated and came with a personal assistant who would wipe my lips between bites.

Nicole’s expression doesn’t change as she glances back and sees that I’m right. She sets her salad down and sits across from me. She pops open the tab on her Diet Coke. “She’s not that bad, you know. She’s actually really funny.”

I resist the urge to say, “Funny
looking
,” because even I know that line got old in fourth grade. Instead I say, “Unless you’re on the wrong end of her jokes. And just to remind you, we usually are.”

Nicole just shrugs, but she obviously sees my point, because she nods too and then glances back over at them. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what they’re talking about. Probably planning their Stalin-like takeover of the cafeteria.

“I have a really, really crazy story to tell you,” I say, once she’s given up on being besties with the dictator.

“Yeah?” Nicole is chewing her salad and staring out the window.

“Yes. I feel like we’ve hardly talked since my birthday, so you have no idea what’s been happening.”

“Yeah, sorry, I’ve been crazy busy. . . . ” Her voice kind of trails off and she stops chewing as she keeps staring out the window, the one that overlooks the courtyard where the seniors usually eat. “Are you seeing this?”

She uses her fork to point out to the windows. I follow her gaze, and when I see what she’s pointing at, my mouth goes dry.

Uh-oh.

Code red.

Raggedy Ann has left my closet. Sound the alarm! Abandon ship!

She’s standing outside playing hopscotch. She’s still decked out in a blue-print dress, white apron, and neon-bright stockings. To make matters worse, she’s added my black combat boots, so now she looks like Raggedy Ann on D-day.

I watch for a second, stunned, as a few of my classmates stop outside and talk to her. She stops playing hopscotch and puts her hands on her hips and starts a conversation with them.

Oh God, she’s probably telling them she lives with me! This is the end of life as I know it.

“Uh, I think I ate a bad burrito or something,” I say, getting up from the table. “Catch up with you later?”

Before she can respond, I ditch my hardly eaten lunch and rush outside. Raggedy Ann is so not on my happy list.

14

IT TAKES ME
the full lunch period to stash Raggedy Ann back at my house, with a stern lecture about staying put. I make it back to class just as the late bell is ringing, my still-empty stomach gurgling in protest. Ann has moved up a notch on the list of people I am not digging right now.

During photography, Nicole and I make plans to go to a party-supply store in the nearby town of Puyallup, and I force her to stop at Wendy’s along the way for fries and Frosties. Only after devouring both do I feel the world seems back to normal.

As Nicole parks her Cavalier in an empty space at the mall, my phone rings.

It’s my mom. Weird. “Hello?” I answer as I climb out of the car. I pull the hood on my zip-up lime-colored hoodie, tucking my scraggly brown hair inside as it begins to sprinkle.

“Kayla?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you skip school today?”

My eyes bug out and I look over at Nicole.

“What?”
she mouths.

I shake my head, willing her not to talk. “Um, no. I was a little late, but I was there.”

“I just got a call from your principal, and he begs to differ.”

“I swear, Mom, I went to school today. I was late because I tripped and fell into a mud puddle right outside school, and then I ran home and changed. I missed a little class, but I went.”

“I give you free rein because I trust you, Kayla.”

Damn it, I actually snort, because what she’s said is totally ludicrous. She gives me free rein because she’d rather work than hang out with me or Chase. I realize too late what I’ve done, and I can’t undo it.

“What’s that for?”

“What?”

“Do you have something to say?”

I roll my eyes. “Nothing, Mom.”

“I give you everything, Kayla. I work hard for our family. Don’t forget that.”

“Mom, I gotta go. Talk to you later,” I say, snapping my phone shut before I get myself in trouble.

Nicole is standing under the overhang near the mall entrance, waiting for me, and I jog across the parking lot to catch up. “What was that all about?”

“She found out I missed class today and wanted to lecture me about it.”

“Lame.”

“Yeah. She tries to act like she’s mother of the year. So annoying. I could wear a giant chicken costume to school every day and she wouldn’t even know unless someone told her.”

Nicole nods. “Send a picture to her BlackBerry. Then she’d notice.”

I grin. Nicole totally understands the dynamic in my family, and she always makes me feel better about how screwed up everything is despite the fact that life is perfect on her home front. She’ll let me vent for an hour if I need to.

But today I don’t want to think about it. I follow her into the mall, and we meander past all the little kiosks selling overpriced impulse buys and finally get to the costume store, our destination.

Although Halloween is still over a month away, the store is already fully stocked with choices. Scary hoods and scythes, presidential masks, skanky wench and witch options . . . the possibilities are endless.

“What if we do zombie queens?” I ask, picking up some green face paint. With my other hand, I grab some rubber teeth, ones that would make it look like your whole mouth was rotting out. I hold them up on either side of my face and give Nicole a cheesy smile as I model the costume options.

Nicole glances over her shoulder and then shrugs. “Hmm. I guess that could work.”

I frown. Not the enthusiasm I’m looking for.

We’ve been planning since last year to crash homecoming dressed as something totally ridiculous. See, we went for the first time last year, as freshmen, and found the whole display of school spirit to be totally ridiculous. It starts with the pep rally, where the cheerleaders and football players parade around like kings and queens. And then later, at homecoming, they’re actually
crowned
kings and queens, while the peons worship them.

Last year, just a month into our high school existence, Nicole and I were not yet wise to the archaic rite of passage. We thought we could show up without dates, have a good time, and get some fun pictures together.

But we apparently missed the memo that required that we show up in couture dresses on the arms of our dates in rented Calvin Klein tuxes. We were supposed to have corsages and salon-created updos. We were supposed to ride around in limos and eat hundred-dollar dinners.

We vowed that night that no matter what happened—even if we both got boyfriends—we’d come back this year in some silly costume and make fun of the whole thing. We knew if we
had
boyfriends that they’d be the cool type to go along with our goofy antics.

“I mean, if we wore tiaras and everything, we could mock both the dance and the homecoming queen. Dual purpose.”

Nicole nods and picks up a tiara and gives it a close inspection. “I don’t know, I’m not really feeling it.” She puts it back on the hook. “We should check that costume place down the street.”

“I doubt they have a better selection. This place is huge. I’m sure there’s something here. What if we go as giant dolls?” I ask, turning to look at Nicole. She’s staring at a his-and-hers costume of bacon and eggs.

“Huh?”

“Like, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. I have the perfect dress. You can go as Andy.”

She curls her lip up and practically snarls. “No way.”

“Fine, fine, you can be Ann,
I’ll
be Andy.”

“I meant the whole thing,” she says. Her phone is vibrating, so she flips it open. It takes her about fifteen seconds to text something, and then she snaps it shut again.

I imagine the sort of text she’s probably sending:
Oh, Benny boy, It’s been a whole hour since I’ve run my fingers through your perfect, tousled blond spikes!

I snicker, happy to have amused myself, because this whole afternoon is a bust.

Nicole is not into our costume idea anymore. I can tell. I’m just standing here, waiting for her to admit she’s going to ditch me and the costumes and go to the dance with Ben, wearing a sparkly dress and heels. “Are you still into this, or are you having second thoughts?”

She snaps her phone shut. “Of course I am. We’ve talked about this for a year. There’s no way I’m going to ditch you again, I swear. I promised I’d make amends for missing your birthday, remember? It’s just that there’s nothing here. Let’s just go get smoothies. There’s a salon next to Orange Julius that sells this awesome heat-activated curl spray.”

That whole last sentence just makes me want to roll my eyes, but I don’t, I just follow her out of the store, my heart sinking as we leave the costumes behind.

Maybe for my self-portrait photography project I’ll just take a picture of a big empty hole, because that’s how I feel.

15

THOUGH I DREAM
that Ann and the pony run away to Mexico, I instead wake up early Friday morning to her leaning over my bed, staring me in the eyes, her nose touching mine.

She doesn’t move when I open my eyes, either. She just smiles in this way that creeps me out because she’s an inch from my face.

“I thought you’d never wake up!” she says, her green eyes flaring even wider so her thick lashes brush against her eyebrows.

“Uh, yeah, can you back up?” I’m surprised I haven’t already knocked her over with my morning breath.

“Oh.” She straightens up and takes a step back.

“Don’t you need sleep?” I ask, sitting up in bed and pulling my blanket up around me. It’s both creepy and weird to have a stranger watching you sleep. Even if said stranger was once a doll. Or maybe
especially
if said stranger was once a doll.

Ann shrugs and plunks down on the ground. “I’ve spent the last six years sleeping; I’m ready for adventure.”

Great. Raggedy Ann wants to go Lewis and Clark on me. Somehow I don’t think she’s going to take kindly to me stuffing her back into the closet.

I cross my arms and scowl at her. “You and the pony are supposed to be in Mexico.”

“That pony?” Ann asks, pointing out the window.

I hold my breath and then turn to look out my window.
Please be wrong.
I haven’t seen the pony since Ben brought it back to my house, and I was crediting my strategically placed open gate. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d convinced myself that it was long gone.

But it is
so
not. I watch the pony graze on my mom’s shrubbery. What am I supposed to do now? Does the Humane Society accept ponies? What about pink ones?

That’s when I hear the washing machine start up.

My mom is home. And so is the pony. This is not good.

“You have to hide that thing!”

I leap to my feet and run toward the door. “Climb out my window, use the cherry tree to get to the ground, and then go get that pony into the garden shed, okay? I’ll keep my mom distracted. Then climb back into my window and wait in here.”

I start to step outside my room, but I trip on something and fly to the floor, skidding a couple of feet and totally skinning my chin.

A gumball bounces off the wall.

Stupid,
stupid
gumballs! I am going to . . .

Pony. Pony is the priority right now. I scramble back to my feet and am halfway out the door when I turn and give Ann another look. She’s got one leg outside the window, on the roof, and the other on the carpeted floor of my bedroom. “I repeat,
come back in here
. She can’t see you either or I’m totally screwed!”

I run down the stairs, taking them two by two. My mom is in the laundry room, which has no windows, but any second she’ll walk into the kitchen, probably grabbing a cup of coffee along the way. She’ll look out the window as she pours, and she’ll see a bright-pink pony.

With an ice-cream cone on its butt.

I can fake like I have nothing to do with the pony, but unless I get the wishes to stop, crazy things are going to keep happening, and my mom is going to notice that there is only one thing they all have in common: me.

I slide around the corner in my socks just as my mom is walking out of the laundry room. “Mom! So good to see you,” I say, walking toward her. I position myself so that in order to talk to me, she’ll have her back to the window.