Page 3

*snurk alert*

K ENNEDY YELPED, HER EYES WIDE as she looked at me.

I dove onto the ground, scooping up the packet and throwing it into the hole like it was a live grenade. My heart was racing as I watched it disappear into the portal.

“What just happened?” Allie screamed, blinking fast and staring at the hole.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the new kid— Jackson Matthews—was standing right behind us, with my brother, Noah, beside him.

What. The. Whaaaaat?

“Noah?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

My brother was a seventh grader, so he wasn’t even allowed to be on the field trip. He hadn’t been on the field trip until now—I was sure of it.

So how did he even get there?

And what was he doing with the new guy?

And—AND—what the heck was the new guy doing at the portal?

Jackson had been at our school for a couple of weeks, but he was still a mystery. He had dark hair and these bright blue eyes that kind of made you feel like they could see your every thought. He lived a few houses down from Kennedy (we all lived on the same street) and I’d seen him shooting hoops with Noah from my window, but I hadn’t really even heard him talk yet, except to give Snurk one-word answers when she called on him in science, and I’d definitely never seen him smile.

Which was why it felt like my breath was being sucked out of my lungs as he grinned at me right now.

“Big Noah Rockford’s on our field trip?” Kennedy said, smiling at my brother because she’d had a crush on him for a hundred years. “How the how?”

“Did you skip school, Noah?” I asked, wanting him to say anything other than yes as I climbed to my feet. We weren’t the type of kids who ditched class, so this made zero sense.

“And what are you guys doing here ?” Allie asked, pointing at the hole. “Specifically?”

But I knew.

Holy schmoly, I knew exactly what Noah was doing there. My eyes went straight to my brother’s face, and he stared right back at me.

We were there for the same reason.

Noah might’ve pretended like Nana’s notebooks were silly, but he’d obviously cracked the code, too, and he was there to get his wishes granted.

Just like me.

I felt like Nana would be cackling right about now as Noah and I eyeballed each other while standing on the perimeter of the wish hole, but she’d also be throwing salt at Jackson because whyyyy was he there at the secret portal?

I stared at Noah, waiting for him to answer me, but instead he whipped something out of his pocket and threw it down the hole so fast, so sneaky-like, that I wasn’t even able to tell if it was a wish packet or not.

But I knew it was.

“Would you be careful?” I snapped, feeling unsure about everything because nothing was going right all of a sudden. In my daydreams, none of these things had happened.

“Would you relax?” he said with an eye roll.

“Why did you bring him with you, by the way?” I said under my breath, scared that everything was going to be ruined now. “And why would you throw a rock into the portal?”

“ I didn’t,” Noah said, giving me his usual you’re-so-annoying squint. “It was Jackson, and it wasn’t a rock—”

“EMMA! ALLIE! KENNEDY! JACKSON!”

Allie gasped, because those were definitely our names being yelled by Snurk through her bullhorn.

And the sound was coming closer.

“Come on!” Kennedy said. “Let’s go!”

“Does it look like they went down okay?” Noah asked me quietly, his focus on the portal, not the teacher.

“I think so, no thanks to you. Does mom know you’re here?” I asked. “How did you even get—”

“Can’t talk,” he said, shaking his head. “You never saw me.”

And then my brother took off running deeper into the woods.

What is happening?

“WHY ARE YOU NOT AT THE BUSES?”

I turned in the opposite direction, and Snurk was coming toward us. Full-on, like she was planning to tackle us when she got close. The woman was built like a linebacker, dressed from head to toe in safety-yellow, and it was impossible to look away from the spectacle.

“THE BUSES ARE ABOUT TO LEAVE!” she yelled, still sprinting, and I wondered if she knew that yelling wasn’t necessary when using a bullhorn.

“We got lost,” Jackson said calmly, quietly, like a neon madwoman wasn’t flying toward us with a loudspeaker in her hand.

“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET LOST WHEN YOU STAY WITH THE GROUP!”

“Technically that’s untrue,” I heard Jackson mutter under his breath, and I started to laugh in spite of everything.

But then I looked at the bright red cheeks hard-charging toward us, a bold contradiction to the screaming yellow of her fabric, and any thoughts of humor disappeared instantly.

We were in very big trouble.

Snurk launched into a lecture that sent spittle spraying everywhere, her teeth-clenched enunciation delivering tiny bursts of saliva onto all of us as she raged about our irresponsibility.

I knew she wasn’t wrong for being mad—we shouldn’t have wandered off—but my mind was racing too fast for me to concentrate on her rage.

Because I needed to know—had my wishes landed okay?

Was I good?

How in the world had Noah ended up on my field trip, and where had he run off to?

Snurk marched us back to the picnic area, so red-faced and angry that we didn’t dare utter a syllable as we trudged through the trees out of fear of getting bullhorned to death. It appeared that everyone in the sixth grade was already loaded up on the buses when we got there— awesome —so they were all seated and watching like we were putting on a play for them as the four of us got on the last bus.

But once I was in my seat and the bus started rolling back toward school, I took a deep breath and focused on what was important.

I’d found the portal and made my wishes.

Somehow I knew that wherever Nana Marie was, she was happy. Knowing my nana, she was probably standing on top of a table somewhere above the clouds shouting, Whoo whoo whooo!

Because I’d done it!

It might not have gone exactly according to plan, but I’d followed Nana’s carefully laid trail of breadcrumbs, and my wishes were now in the portal.

It was going to work, I just knew it.

Allie and I grabbed a seat in the middle of the bus and Kennedy sat in front of us, leaving Jackson Matthews to go sit… wherever.

“I am so sorry, you guys,” I said quietly as the bus started moving.

I felt really bad that they’d gotten in trouble because of me.

“Are you kidding me?” Kennedy said, her mouth sliding into a huge grin. “That was epic!”

Allie nodded, then slowly started to giggle. “It kind of was, oh my gosh.”

I stared at them, in shock that they weren’t freaking out.

“I kind of thought ol’ Nana was a little wacky in the nightgown, if you know what I mean,” Kennedy said. “But there was something to that hole. Like, I felt the magic.”

“I think I did, too!” Allie squealed, which made me shush them both while the three of us giggled.

I didn’t fall asleep on the bus this time, mostly because my brain was running wild. I kept thinking through my wishes and how my life was going to look if they all came true.

I mean, it wouldn’t be that different, because my wishes weren’t exactly “epic.”

My wishes were relatively small things.

It felt wrong, somehow, to wish for things like fame and fortune, so I was sticking with simple things that would improve my life. My first three wishes were low-key asks, but my fourth was THE wish, the one that meant everything to me.

I stared out the window and went through my wishes in my mind.

1. I wish for noninvisibility. I want boobs (nothing huge, just SOMETHING), blond hair (my mother refuses to let me dye it), and to grow past the shrimp-height I’ve been stuck at for two years (six inches would be perfect).

I knew the request was a little selfish, and I’d be embarrassed if anyone ever knew I’d wasted a wish on that , but I was tired of being short, flat, and boring. Was it so much to ask that just once, when I walked into a room someone might say “ Wow” ?

I closed my eyes and could almost feel what it’d be like to show up for the first day of school in August and have Evan Winters look up from his desk, see my transformation, then say in that scratchy voice of his, “Wow.”

According to Nana, the wishes would start coming true four months from today, which would be August 4. She’d mentioned getting one wish per week for four weeks, but she’d never said how things got started. If I was a grantee, would I wake up on August 4 instantly gorgeous, or was I going to start gradually growing and changing over the next four months, both chestally and vertically, and then hit my noninvisibility goal in August?

The details of the grantings were sketchy, but I was fine with waiting and seeing.

2. I wish to be appointed as one of the seventh-grade senatorial candidates.

I’d filled out all the paperwork and already had the interview, so it was only a matter of time until I got the official call. Even without magic, I felt good about this appointment happening, because I had great teacher recommendations and I’d slayed the essay.

But now that I’d tossed it into the wish portal, it felt as good as done.

I wanted to squee like Allie at the thought of wearing that navy blue blazer to school on meeting days, walking through the halls with the businesslike confidence of a middle school senator. I was picturing it with the wind blowing my blond hair and something by Taylor Swift playing as my theme music. I already knew the exact jeans and shoes I was going to wear with that fab jacket, although now that curves and height were on the way, I’d probably need to update that part of my daydream.

Squeeeeeee!

But just as important as the senatorial fashion statement was the job; I couldn’t wait to get to work. The student legislature got to do fun things like plan dances and organize charity outreach events, but they also got to have monthly meetings with the administration, where they brought forward student concerns.

I’d be able to actually discuss with teachers the things that students didn’t like and maybe find solutions; like, how amazing would that feel? For some reason, it felt like a role I was supposed to take; it had since I’d first learned of it during middle school orientation.

3. I wish to no longer be awkward. I want to be able to say the RIGHT things in uncomfortable situations (without verbal diarrhea and oversharing), and not choke whenever people are watching me.

I didn’t need to be graceful and charming, I simply needed to not be a rambling, bumbling buffoon every time I felt nervous. I was the girl who’d once told Libby Solomon (extremely popular) about how my cashew allergy made me “puke out of both ends” simply because she’d offered me a piece of candy, and I was the girl who’d also shared with my entire English class that I used special shampoo because my scalp gets really dry in the winter.

The minute I felt nervous, my brain shorted out and sent mortifying words to my mouth.

So even though it wasn’t a life-shattering request, I needed my third wish.

It was a small ask—tiny, in fact—so hopefully the wish-granting authorities would appreciate my simplicity and happily un-awk me.

I took a deep breath through my nose and tried not to get overexcited when I thought about my fourth wish.

Because that wish was everything.

4. I wish for my mom to meet a good man and for them to fall madly in love.

It almost seemed like a selfless wish on the surface, like I was sacrificing one of my wishes for my mom, but it definitely was not that. I wanted that fourth wish with everything in my being, and I would give up all the other wishes for that one to be granted.

Because, yes, I wanted my mom to laugh like I remembered her doing before Nana Marie died and every responsibility in the world had landed on her shoulders.

But I also wanted a dad. I mean, that wasn’t so much to ask, was it?

Every time I hung out at Allie’s house, or Kennedy’s, I got a tiny pinch in the center of my chest when I was around their parents. It was like my body got a cramp from how badly I wanted what they had.

Because both of my friends had awesome fathers.

They were dorky and cheesy and wildly embarrassing (when was Mr. Holford going to ditch those eight-pocket shorts already?), but they looked at their daughters like they were the centers of their universes. They teased them and scolded them and showed up for things like class picnics and parent-teacher conferences, usually side by side with the wives they adored.

My mom deserved that , not the ex-husband who lived on the other side of the country and never cared enough to help out or check in. My parents had split up right after I was born, so I didn’t remember my dad ever being around, but now that he had a shiny new family, I knew it had to hurt her, to see him like that.

Happy, in love, the proud papa of twin baby boys.

It had to make her so sad that he loved them so much, but not us.

I was still thinking about that wish when I got home from school, and its importance felt greater than ever as I used my key to let myself in because my mom had to work late that day.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, Noah was in charge until my mom got home at seven thirty.

I hated it.

I liked seeing her face when I walked in after school, and I liked telling her about my day while we ate food together.

I didn’t like Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

“Noah?” I yelled when I walked in, dropping my backpack and closing the door behind me.

“Yeah.” He didn’t even look up from his spot in front of the TV in the other room, where he was playing Xbox.

“What happened today?” I asked, slipping off my shoes and moving closer. “Where did you go?”

He shrugged and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry about it?

“You showed up on the sixth-grade field trip and then you ran away!” He couldn’t act like this was no big deal, even though that was how he acted about everything these days. My brother used to be fun, but lately he thought everything was stupid.

Including me.

Especially me.

“So?” he said, his fingers pounding the buttons on the controller.

“So?” I couldn’t believe he was being so nonchalant. “So how did you get out there, Noah?”

“It’s easy to fake a dentist appointment, so then I figured out which bus had all parent chaperones and no teachers, thanks to the kid down the street, Jackson Whatever,” he said, still smacking the buttons. “And I hopped on at the last minute.”

“What?” That was impossible. Impossibly criminal . “Are you serious?”

He finally looked at me, and his grin told me he was pretty proud of his pluckiness. “I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but it was easy.”

I shook my head, but couldn’t help being impressed. “Honestly, I’m shocked you were smart enough to decipher Nana Marie’s notes.”

“Honestly, same goes for you.”

It was nice, for a half second, that we were getting along. That we were smiling and not yelling at each other as a lifetime of nana-hood hung between us. I asked, “So you didn’t tell Jackson Matthews about the wishes and the portal, right? Like, he was already there, tossing rocks or some—”

“No, I told him.” He shrugged and said, “I mean, I needed him to help me out, and odds are good the whole lore-of-four thing is bogus, so why—”

“I cannot believe you told him!” Suddenly I was back to wanting to smack my brother. How could he tell someone he didn’t even know about the stories passed down to us—under assumed vows of silence—by Nana Marie? I was torn between wanting to cry and rage, all at the same time. “Did you not listen when she said—”

“Emma. Sweet summer child, Emma.” He sighed and his attention was back on his game. “I wanted to see if I could find the hole and I succeeded, because I’m a baller. Since I was there, I figured why not make a few wishes. But this isn’t a big deal, and the kid down the street isn’t going to take our wishy-wish birthright, for God’s sake, so calm your pants.”

“You calm your pants,” I said through gritted teeth, rolling my eyes and going upstairs, wanting to get away from him before we got into a fight that ended with one of us calling our mom at work and adding to her already stressful day.

But instead of simply walking by Nana Marie’s room, like I’d done every day since she died, I turned on the light and stepped through the doorway.

It still smelled like her somehow, the combination of flowery perfume and dryer sheets, and I dragged my fingertips over the bedspread before climbing onto the bed, lying down, and staring up at the ceiling.

“I did it,” I whispered, even though I was sure Nana Marie wasn’t hanging out on top of that dusty ceiling fan, looking down at me. I closed my eyes and said, “I took the clues you left, found the portal, and I made my wishes, Nana.”

And even though it was silly, I felt her when I said it.

I felt her in the weight of the air, in the quiet of the room, in the softness of her bed as it cushioned my body.

It didn’t make sense, but I felt her with me.

And I fell sound asleep on her bed.