Page 4

*block party*

Four months later (August 4)

F OUR MONTHS AFTER THE FOURTH DAY of the fourth month, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, trying my hardest to see a change.

Any change at all.

I turned to the left, turned to the right, then turned my back so I had to look at my reflection over my shoulder.

I looked exactly the same.

No taller, no curvier, no blonder.

I was the same old version of myself, only with a little bit of a tan after running around at the pool with Kennedy all summer, and a faint bruise on my chin from an unfortunate collision between my face and our front door.

I sighed, disappointed.

I’d really been hoping to wake up looking like more of a wow version of myself.

But I was very un-wow.

And it was too early for my other wishes (senate, me less awk, mom in love) to be happening.

No one else was even awake yet.

“Em?” My mom knocked on the bathroom door. “You okay?”

I stand corrected.

“Yeah,” I said quietly, opening the door. “Up early today, that’s all.”

“Excited to start school tomorrow?” she asked with a smile, already dressed in her hospital scrubs. She worked from seven in the morning until seven at night on Tuesdays, so since this year school started on a Wednesday, she was going to miss the block party.

As long as we’d lived in this neighborhood—my whole life—there was a block party every year on the eve of the first day of school.

Aka the last night of summer.

“Ish,” I said with a shrug, but I was unbelievably excited about starting school. Because when my wishes kicked in—and I knew that I was a grantee; I knew it down to my bones—this school year was going to be next-level amazing.

I was going to be a not-awkward, not-invisible student senator with a mother in love.

How could I not be over the moon excited?

“I get that,” she replied, moving to stand beside me in front of the mirror and pull her hair back into a ponytail. “Fun to see people, but not fun to be back at that whole learning thing, right?”

“Exactly,” I agreed, wondering (for, like, the thousandth time) if I’d have any classes with Evan Winters.

“Well, I have a great feeling about this year,” she said, smiling at me in the mirror, one of those tired grins that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I see cute boys and easy classes in your future.”

I see cute boys in your future, too , I thought. “Please be right.”

“Oh, I will be,” she said. “Just you wait and see. Hey, do you want to go get donuts?”

“Always.” I leaned closer to the mirror. Is that a zit? Please, God, no. “But do we have to wait for Noah?”

“Who’s got that kind of time?” she said breezily. “No, I say we let him sleep while we run to Casey’s, and he can eat our leftovers when he wakes up.”

“At noon,” I added, because all he did anymore was sleep.

“Probably at noon,” she agreed.

We ran to the gas station and got a dozen donuts, and every exchange my mother had with humans who weren’t me felt rife with electricity, now that magic could be at play.

The guy who smiled and let her go in front of him in line?

He looked like a nice person, and I approved of his I-probably-work-in-a-bank fancy suit.

And the dude who held the door for her when we left? He looked a little too old for her, but there was a dad-quality to his smile that I didn’t hate.

I was obsessed with these thoughts as I wolfed down two sprinkled donuts, and I felt like my life was about to change in the very best ways. Even though I couldn’t see the physical changes in my body, I sensed they were underway.

“Dude, if you throw another hot dog, I will pound you!” Kennedy yelled.

“How do you live with them?” I asked, reaching into the cooler on her porch to get another Coke.

Every year, Kennedy’s triplet brothers terrorized the block party, and this year was no exception.

Their weapon of choice today was the hot dog. They apparently thought it was hilarious to throw hot dogs—fully dressed in bun, ketchup, and mustard—at random people. Hazel Simon had to run home because her adorable white sundress now had a condiment blob that looked a bit like a smiling clown, with the mustard leaving eye glops and the ketchup forming a garish grin. The troublesome trio—Clark, Kent, and Roy, all nine years old—had been an awful staple of the block party since their birth.

One year they set a bush on fire when they were setting off fireworks they’d saved from the Fourth of July; one year they wrote the bad word in the middle of the street with smoke bombs (it took months for the word to disappear); and this year they were all hopped up on the joy that apparently came from tossing weenies at people and making them mad.

“I throw a lot of punches,” she said, shaking her head before yelling, “Knock it off!”

Kennedy’s parents were across the street, planted in lawn chairs and fully immersed in visiting with their neighbors. The adults always let the kids run wild at the block party, taking the night off from parenting since the road was closed to traffic.

It’s what made it so awesome.

Dads were tossing footballs and discussing grilling, mom groups were bunched together in laughing clumps, and the kids did whatever they wanted while having access to an arsenal of sugary beverages, leftover fireworks from the Fourth, and cookout food.

Everyone was running around like they always did, and nothing appeared to be different, but I could feel it in the air.

Magic was afoot.

I knew it.

Also, it helped to focus on the possibility of change instead of the fact that Nana wasn’t there this year (no world-famous pasta salad for everyone to freak out about), that I didn’t have a dad at all, and that my mom had become a hermit.

She used to be part of the street’s social circle, talking to neighbors at the mailbox and crossing the street for occasional cups of coffee and gossip, but she’d stopped that after Nana died. Now she only had time for work, driving Noah and me where we needed to go, and cleaning.

Oh—and bills.

Last night she’d fallen asleep at the kitchen table while working on bills, which made me fall asleep and dream about the wishes that were about to come true.

Kennedy hadn’t mentioned the magic at all today, which meant she’d probably forgotten about it altogether. I’d suspected she still didn’t really believe in the lore, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Whoa,” Kennedy said out of the side of her mouth, “check him out.”

I followed her gaze to the other side of the street. Kennedy was obsessed with boys, so I assumed she was talking about the tall guy in the hat who was blowing something up with Rafe Eckert (a year older than us and a total jerk).

Only the dude wasn’t just tall—he was jacked . He had pecs like he’d been doing push-ups twenty-four seven.

“What is up with the stupid hat?” I asked. The guy was wearing a beanie, the kind of knit hat you wore in winter when you went out in the snow. It was pulled down over his forehead, so low that you almost couldn’t see his eyes.

But it was ninety degrees outside.

And it was July.

“Holy cheeseballs—that’s Jackson!” Kennedy said it around a gasp, her eyes popping out of their sockets.

“What?” I squinted and looked at the guy again, and… holy cheeseballs , it actually was Jackson Matthews. “How can that be?”

I was still irrationally irritated that he knew about the lore and had been at the portal, so the mere sight of him annoyed me.

“My mom, during one of her endless annoying TED Talks about puberty,” Kennedy said, “told me that a lot of guys leave for middle school summer break and come back looking like men in the fall. Like, they have crazy-fast growth spurts because of testosterone.”

She said it with awe in her voice as she stared across the street, and added, “But this is, like, next level.”

“He looks like he should have a driver’s license,” I said, blown away by the change. I hadn’t seen the guy at all since school got out, so he’d probably been gradually growing for months and we’d missed it.

“That is wild,” Kennedy said.

“I was going to say freakish , but wild definitely works.”

“Emma!”

I was a fool and turned around when I heard my name, which was how I took a hot dog to the face. One minute I was staring at our neighbor on the other side of the street, and the next, I was blinded by a stinging burst of ketchup and mustard to the eyeballs.

“Gahhhh!” I yelled, wiping at my eyes and stumbling around. “I’m going to kill you, Roy!”

“It wasn’t Roy,” one of those triple jerks said, giggling.

“I’ll kill you all, then,” I growled, because the condiments were burning my eyeballs into oblivion.

“Come on,” Kennedy said, grabbing my arm. “You can wash and change at my house.”

Ten minutes later, my vision was restored and I’d changed into Kennedy’s Battle of Borgledoush shirt. She was so obsessed with the video game that she had no fewer than ten shirts with that weird little elfin dude on the front. I didn’t get it, her gaming thing, but that was Kennedy.

She liked what she liked and didn’t care what anyone thought about it. She was obsessed with gaming, documentaries, and everything miniature, and she’d tell anyone who’d listen about every tiny detail.

“Are you guys up here?”

It was Allie.

She’d been at her grandparents’ since school got out in May, and only got back to town a couple hours ago. Finally, she was back!

“In my room,” Kennedy yelled in kind of a squeal-scream as we shared a grin.

The AT3 (we’d named ourselves “the awesome threesome” in third grade and sometimes my brain still liked it) were back together!

Bring on the seventh grade.

I was leaning down, reaching for the scrunchie I’d dropped on the floor, when Kennedy said in a shocked voice, “Allie? What the heck happened to you?”

I looked up, expecting to see bandages or a disfiguration, but it was just Allie.

A stunningly beautiful Allie.

She hadn’t been unattractive before, she’d been… fine.

That was a word that described all three of us—we were fine .

Allie, like Kennedy and me, blended in with everyone else.

Until she knocked something over, that is.

Allie was the klutziest person I’d ever met, always tripping or bumping into things. In first grade she fell off the risers during the Christmas program and somehow managed to land directly on her nose, which left the floor of the multipurpose room looking like the set of a horror movie.

If you looked closely, there was still a tiny bloodstain next to the ear of the Hartwood Elementary wolf.

But that didn’t matter, because she looked ridiculous at the moment.

Ridiculously gorgeous.

I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was different, because it wasn’t like she’d had a makeover or gotten a new haircut. No, it was like she was different, the bones of her.

Her pointy chin now looked gracefully defined, and her slightly crooked nose (see previous reference to the Winter Wonderland nasal massacre) now seemed Disney-princess perfect. It was perky, if a nose could be perky, and perfectly straight.

Allie practically glowed as she stood there smiling at us, her skin smooth, her long hair falling in soft waves that belonged on the head of a supermodel.

A huge firework exploded outside the window, sending pink and green lights scattering in front of our stunning best friend.

She was the same size and shape she’d been before she left, but her legs looked like perfect legs. Her arms looked like perfect arms. Her face was a perfect face.

“What did they feed you in Connecticut, Allie?” I asked, wanting to gorge myself on a feast of whatever the heck could make you look like that.

Allie’s eyes were practically dancing as she closed the door behind her, like we needed privacy. Then she lowered her voice and said, “All I’m going to say is that I woke up like this today.”

Another firework popped outside the window, illuminating Allie with a golden spotlight.

It probably would’ve taken a minute for me to get what she was saying, but she was giving us ginormo eyes and talking slowly, like she was saying something that she wasn’t saying. I tilted my head, looking at her, and she repeated, “I woke up like this today. Today, which is August fourth. The fourth .”

“Oh my God!” Kennedy shrieked, covering her mouth.

“Oh my God,” I repeated in shock, my heart fluttering while my stomach sank—all at once.

Because I was so excited for Allie—this meant she was a grantee—and also for the undeniable proof that the magic was real. This was absolutely incredibly amazing, and I’d always known Nana Marie was right!

But I was also a little scared because of her “woke up like this” comment. Since I hadn’t woken up with blond hair and a B-cup, did that mean I was not a grantee?

Was Allie’s gorgeousness indisputable proof that the magic was real and that I was not going to benefit from it?

“Tell us everything,” Kennedy said, grabbing Allie’s arm and dragging her toward the bed. “Every single detail of today. I want to know what time you got up, what you ate for breakfast, when you noticed you’d become a princess—that sort of stuff.”

“Okay,” Allie said, laughing. Once she was seated in the center of Kennedy’s huge bed and we were sitting around her, she said, “Okay, so I woke up at six this morning, went into the bathroom, and when I glanced at the mirror while I washed my hands, I saw this looking back at me!”

No way, no way, no way. I couldn’t stop staring at her because it was so incredibly strange. She looked the same, yet she also looked like an entirely different person. It was like she was using a filter or something.

She was like an AI-illustrated version of herself.

“Have any other, um,” I said, pausing to make sure my words didn’t specifically ask about her wishes because no way was I going to risk ruining everything by breaking that cardinal rule, “things in your life seemed different today?”

“Nope.” She shook her head—man, that was some perfect hair—and said, “Nothing. Any other, uh, things I might’ve been looking for in my life have not yet appeared.”

Which made sense. Nana said the legend granted one wish per week for four weeks.

“Thank God,” Kennedy said, “because that means there’s a chance I might still see things appearing in my life.”

“Oh, for sure,” Allie agreed, nodding in a way that made her long hair bounce adorably. “Today is only the beginning.”

There was something about the way she was speaking, like she was an expert on the magic simply because she was a grantee, that irritated me a little. Nana Marie had been the expert, with her extensive documentation, but Allie had lucked into something she knew nothing about.

I was happy for her and her amazing good fortune, but receiving a wish didn’t make her an authority on its processes.

“That’s right,” Kennedy said in a high-pitched voice, doing the tiny clap thing with her hands that she always did when she was overexcited and trying to keep it contained.

“Just the beginning,” I agreed, powering through my own irritation because who cared about anything other than the magic? It didn’t matter who was acting like an authority when the wish potential was within our grasp. I wanted so badly to believe there was still a chance for me that I was going to ignore every negative thought and expect the best. “It’s only a matter of ti—”

“Ken?” Kennedy’s mom chose that moment to knock on the bedroom door, saying her name from the hallway. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Kennedy said, getting up and walking over to the door. She pulled open the door and said, “What’s up?”

Mrs. Holford was holding a whole bunch of cans in her arms, like she’d stopped inside just long enough to grab drinks for the entire neighborhood. “I got a voicemail from Dr. Braces that must’ve come in yesterday or something, because I didn’t see it until now.”

Kennedy’s orthodontist was the infamous Dr. Braces, the dentist from TV who’d changed his last name to Braces like a way-too-literal dork. Come see Dr. Braces, and he’ll give you beautiful faces. That stupid jingle didn’t even make sense, yet it could get stuck in your head and stay with you for hours.

“I am not getting them tightened. I already got them tightened like two weeks ago,” Kennedy snapped. “I refuse.”

“As much as I appreciate your terrible attitude,” her mom said with a smile—everyone in her family was sarcastic—“he doesn’t want to tighten your braces. His message said that he was looking at your X-rays and he thinks you’re done. He said it’s time to get your braces off.”

“WHAT?” Kennedy yelled, throwing her arms into the air. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?”

Her mom was laughing when she said, “I’m not—you’re getting those things off this week, kiddo.”

“Wait.” Her dad popped up in the doorway behind her mom, grinning at Kennedy as he quipped, “You mean I’ll no longer be blinded when my kid smiles at me in direct sunlight? Say it ain’t so.”

“Oh, it’s so,” Kennedy very nearly screamed, her entire face all lit up like she’d never heard such great news.

Which was fair. She was the first person in our grade to get braces, so she’d had an extreme amount of metal in her mouth for at least three years.

Maybe four.

“Are you ever coming back with those drinks?” her dad asked her mom. “I was sent to find you.”

“So impatient,” she said, shaking her head.

“So thirsty ,” her dad quipped, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her up off the ground. “Let’s go, Holford.”

Kennedy’s mom screamed and started giggling as they disappeared from the doorway.

“They’re so embarrassing,” Kennedy said, rolling her eyes, but her smile was big.

My smile would be big, too.

The way her parents were together, constantly laughing, and the way they obviously adored their pack of wild children, always made me feel antsy.

Like a timer was set and I needed to help my mom find that before it was too late.

As soon as her parents were gone, Kennedy sprinted over to the bed, but instead of sitting she leaped on top of it and started jumping.

Which made Allie and me scramble off the bed, because no way was she not going to end up stomping us. Overexcited Kennedy was the equivalent of a bull in a china shop.

“Do you guys realize what this means?” Kennedy said—well, shouted , her eyes the size of dinner plates as she jumped on the bed.

“That you’re getting your braces off,” I said, grinning at Allie.

Kennedy leaped from the bed, landing in front of us in a squat-crouch move that was kind of cool and also kind of made her look like a dog who was doing its business.

Still—I gave her bonus points for the dismount.

“Yes,” Kennedy said, “but it also means that on the fourth of August, I got the message that I’m getting my braces off. I got this magically amazing news on the fourth .”

“Wait,” I said, unable to blink as I looked at her and my mind ran wild with implications. Her hair was sticking up all over and she looked utterly crazed, with excitement in those huge eyes. “Are you saying—”

“That is exactly what I’m saying but not saying!”

Holy, holy cheeseballs.

It felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest.

Kennedy had wished to get her braces off.

Which meant that Allie and Kennedy were both grantees.

It was hard to believe that we’d been that lucky.

And one of Kennedy’s wishes had just been granted right in front of me, in real time!

Thank you, Nana Marie.

Suddenly I just knew that I was going to be a grantee, too, and I felt like leaping onto that bed and making it into my own personal bouncy house.

Because it made sense.

Not only had I been with them when they’d made their wishes, but I’d given them the wish-making protocol. I’d taught them the wish ways.

As I stood there, looking at Allie’s perky nose and Kennedy’s shiny smile, I knew my first wish was on its way.

On its way, and landing any minute.