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Not the yellow kind of dandelion; the wishing kind.

It’s funny because I don’t actually believe in wishes—not with any kind of certainty. But I believe in the possibility of wishes.

Hear me out. Say you wish on a dandelion, and it comes true. Does that mean dandelion magic is real?

Nope. Just because the wish came true doesn’t mean the dandelion did it.

But it could have been the dandelion.

So now let’s take this scenario and flip it. Different wish. But this time, the universe ignores it. Honestly, you might as

well start designing the YouTube thumbnail graphic. High-saturation selfie with an exaggerated shocked face, holding an impotent

dandelion by its broken, bent stem. Dandelion magic: exposed as a FRAUD??? Right?

Wrong! Because maybe your wish will come true in an hour. Maybe it’s in progress. Or it was a faulty dandelion. Maybe you

submitted the wish incorrectly. Didn’t get all the seeds off in one blow. There’s simply no real way of knowing.

So you have to leave the door open a crack. That’s all I’m saying. Make the wish, just in case.

Which is why I pluck both straight from the ground when we walk past the bench. A wish for me, and a wish for Nat.

“Use this responsibly,” I tell her. “Nothing about ex-girlfriends, got it?”

“Not even if it’s a revenge wish?”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s allowed. Encouraged, even.”

“Noted—”

“Though, feel free to run it by me just in case,” I add. “Painstaking graphic detail is fine. We wouldn’t want to violate

the guidelines.”

“The wishing ball guidelines.” She nods soberly. “Good thinking.”

Wishing balls. I really used to think they were called that. Natalie’s the one who broke the news that they were dandelions. To which my

dumb ass responded by informing her dandelions were yellow.

“Well,” she’d said. “Sometimes.”

It was the first night of camp, the summer after seventh grade. Sing-along had already started, but we’d slipped away for

a quote-unquote “bathroom break.” As in: past the old outhouse and up the path to the lake. Per the map on the Camp Kunin

website, that’s where they’d hidden the boys.

“You’re telling me these are dandelions. These.”

“Yup. Same plant.”

“I’m sorry, what ?”

“No, for real! She’s in her seed head era. Whole new part of the life cycle.”

I shook my head. “So it’s just... a baby dandelion?”

“More like a dandelion in heat.”

“Heck, yeah! Single and ready to mingle!”

She laughed. “Pretty much.”

“Now we have to blow them,” I’d said. “It’s our civic duty as wingwomen.”

“True.” Then she paused. “What are you gonna wish for?”

“Kissing,” I said.

“Uh, what?” She looked startled. “Kissing who ?”

“I’m thinking... Zach Fine.”

“Oh, I can’t let you do that.” She pointed to the crown of her head.

I laughed incredulously. “You can’t let me kiss him because he wears a kippah?”

“I can’t let you kiss him,” she said, “because his kippah says yeet .”

“In Hebrew!”

“Amelia, that word is not in my Torah.”

Then she puffed her cheeks out without warning; took out both dandelions in a single sharp blow.

“For your own protection,” she told me. “You’ll thank me one day.”

The park is small, but in a good way. It feels like a place you could know every inch of. There’s a steady backbeat of arcade

bleeps and zings, cut by the occasional roller-coaster whoosh. And every single molecule of air smells like fried dough.

“Rides before games, I think?” Zora says. “Looks like the weather might get iffy later.”

“Says who?” I tilt my head up toward the cloudless blue sky.

“My app.” Zora shrugs. “Might not happen though.”

“I say we start with rides anyway. Don’t want Mark to have to carry all our prizes around.”

“There’s that good old-fashioned internalized misogyny,” Mark says.

I pat his shoulder. “I mean it in a Mommy way, not a big beefy muscle-guy way,” I assure him.

He narrows his eyes. “In a—”

“Not a MILF way. Please. You’re no MILF.”

Admittedly, hungover-mom-at-the carnival-reluctantly-holding-everyone’s-ice-cream-cones is essentially Mark’s whole personality.

But maybe this place could thaw him out. Is it even possible to be cynical here? As amusement parks go, this one’s definitely

not like other girls. No corporatized merch or branded gift shops by the exit of each ride. Nothing’s branded here at all.

The entire space looks like it was plucked from a picture book.

“I’m making an executive decision,” I say. “We’re starting chill.”

I point to a ride called “the Himalaya”—seems to be a mini roller coaster, where cars zoom up, down, and sideways along a

simple, short track. There’s hardly any line; just two girls waiting for the previous cycle to finish.

Zora looks amused. “I don’t know if that one’s chill.”

Mark bows out like the mommy he is, but it works out in our favor. The rows of seating are just big enough for three.

“Ladies.” I sweep my arm toward the car.

“Please don’t wink,” Natalie says. “It’s giving fedora.”

I pantomime tipping an invisible hat. Jordan Cohen, your legacy lives another day.

Zora climbs in first, with Nat in the middle—then me.

A minute later, Natalie’s practically on top of me.

More than practically. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the three of us have fused into a single compressed entity.

Also, I clearly underestimated the power of the up-and-down undulation while taking whip-fast turns on a tilt.

Not to mention the sheer visual chaos of roaring through a red-striped circus tent.

On the bright side: now I know what it feels like to be digested. My bones are actual dust by the time the ride jerks to a

stop.

Zora exhales, unclicking her seat belt. “How are we feeling?”

“ Amazing. ” Blink. Double finger guns. The metal restraint bar lifts up, and I stretch until my knuckles crack. “Galaxi coaster next?”

Natalie squints. “Oh, hell no. That thing’s a million years old.”

“Exactly! It’s a piece of history!”

“Absolutely don’t want to be strapped into a moving piece of history.”

“Natronica, everything is history. We are pieces of history. Look!” I lean sideways to hug her. “You’re strapped into a piece of history right now .”

Natalie lets out a giggle, and everything’s one hundred percent rosy. Until the stupid thing happens, and my brain glitches

out.