Careful What You Wish For (3 page)

“Nothing.” A coffee wasn't going to make things better. Not even close.

“Okay. Now I want to explain what you heard before,” Lou said, his voice all syrupy sweet. “It wasn't anything bad. Really. That guy you heard on the phone, well, his name is Gremory. He heard I was looking for a replacement, and he wants to take over. He tries very hard, and he was looking for an opportunity to prove himself. So he went out and tried to take a soul. All on his own. I had nothing to do with it. But when things backfired, he came to me for help. I am the expert in the field, after all.”

“Yeah, the expert at tricking people,” I said, shredding a napkin that was sitting on the table.

“No, the expert at granting wishes. It's very cool actually. With the proper focus you can make someone realize their biggest dreams. Whatever they want is theirs for the taking. They just need to focus really hard on it while I do it at the exact same time. No questions, no strings. Just a perfect wish.”

“Yeah, in exchange for their soul.”

Lou waved his hand, brushing away the awful truth like it didn't matter. “It's not so bad. It just means they work for me for eternity. I could think of worse things.”

I bet he could.

“Besides,” Lou continued, “they know what they're getting into. Like that guy Gremory was helping.”

Helping
was not the word I would have chosen.

“He wanted to be a major-league baseball player,” Lou went on. “Now presto. He's an all-star. No one even questions the fact that yesterday he was a nobody. It's an opportunity he never would have had without the underworld.”

Lou sounded proud of himself. Like taking a soul was the same as taking a dollar from the guy. It was disgusting.

“Well,
I
have a wish,” I said, my hands gripping tightly on the table.

“Anything,” he said.

“I wish you would stay out of my life forever.”

He gave me a small smile. “You know that won't happen. Besides,” he said, his smile spreading wider, “I couldn't grant that even if I wanted to. I'm immune to the wishes of others. They don't work on me. I added that ages ago—as a precaution. Couldn't risk someone wishing to destroy me—or worse—wishing to
be
me.”

The last thing the world needed was two Lous. “Your three minutes are up,” I said.

“So do you see?” he asked, ignoring what I had just said. “I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was fixing a mistake that someone else made. Someone who wants to take over for me. And the sooner I get someone else up to speed with how my job works, the sooner I can get out of the devil business completely. But I can't just walk away from it. Not without leaving someone I trust in control. Otherwise the underworld would have a power struggle on its hands—everyone trying to be the leader. That would cause a lot of chaos. Even up here on Earth.”

“That still doesn't excuse you helping to grant a wish and taking a guy's soul.” The napkin I was playing with was now in two hundred little pieces.

“Wish granting isn't bad,” Lou said. “It's just giving people what they truly want. That's a good thing in my book. Plus”—he held up his finger in the air for added effect—“these souls seek me and my associates out, not the other way around. That should count for something.”

It didn't. Lou could try and put his spin on soul taking any way he wanted, but I wasn't buying it. And I was done being all sad and mopey because of it.

Maybe I couldn't stop him from being evil, but I could make sure I didn't follow suit. I knew what to do. I needed to be the best person ever. A real angel. After all, Kindness is my middle name.

All morning at school on Monday I kept an eye out for ways I could help make the world a better place. And for signs of Lou. (I had warned him to stay away from me, but he wasn't exactly a listen-to-what-you-want type of guy.) I wasn't having any luck. . . .

Until I left gym class. I was one of the last ones out. (I don't like to change in front of people.) There were a couple of guys, including Max Richardson, standing in front of the boy's locker room, and no one looked happy. Especially Max. I decided to investigate. I hid behind the trash can and watched.

“Drop something, freak,” Rick Drager said as he shoved Max's books right out of his hands and onto the floor. It made me so mad. How dare Rick treat Max like that!

“Hey, careful,” Porter Ciley warned him. “You might make the giant angry. You don't want him to step on you.” It was kind of nervy for the guy who played Linus in the school's production of
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
to go around picking on someone else. Carrying around a blankie onstage for everyone to see didn't exactly up his cool quotient.

Besides, Max really could step on them. Well, not literally. But he definitely could have swatted them down. He towered over them and everyone else in the eighth grade. Max is pretty massive. He's also the nicest, gentlest, most harmless person ever. But add in that he's awkward, speaks in a whisper, and never stands up to anyone, and unfortunately, you have the perfect middle school target, which is something I know way too much about.

I'm not exactly Miss Popularity. Courtney Lourde, the queen bee herself, would choose swimming in honey with a swarm of hornets coming her direction over hanging out with me. And when Courtney felt that way about someone, they had a better chance of winning Mega Millions five times in a row than securing a spot at the popular table at lunch.

“Are you going to step on me?” Rick said to Max while pushing him until he was smashed up against a locker.

Max didn't say a word. He just stared at his shoes.

“Well?”

Do something, Max,
I thought.
Defend yourself.
But he just stood there like a snowman. The one the kid down the street was just waiting to decapitate. I couldn't let Max's snowball head roll away. Then it hit me. I could
help
Max. He'd be my first good deed. With a flick of my fingers I sent Rick sailing backward into the lockers on the opposite wall. That would teach him not to pick on people. At least I thought so until I saw Rick's face. His nostrils were flared and his eyes were set directly on Max.

“Did you just push me?” he asked, getting up in Max's face. “Did you?”

I didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to send Rick flying back again? From the looks of things, that would only make him angrier with Max. Did that mean I was supposed to just do nothing? Neither option seemed right.

“I'm talking to you,” Rick yelled, slamming Max's shoulders into the locker. “Did you just push me?”

Oh my God. Even my good deeds backfired. I managed to make the situation worse for Max. Maybe I
was
evil.

“Answer me,” Rick demanded.

Max shook his head no.

“You look up while I'm talking to you.” Rick smacked Max's chin.

I jumped up from behind the trash can. “Leave him alone.” It just came out of me. I couldn't help it.

Both Rick and Max turned in my direction, noticing me for the first time. “Aww, look, Max,” Rick said. “Do you need a
girl
to come save you?” Porter laughed like Rick had actually said something witty.

“Now before that little freak show goes and tattles on us, tell me you're sorry,” Rick instructed Max.

“I'm sorry,” Max whispered.

“Louder,” Rick said.

“Sorry,” Max repeated. I didn't want to watch this; it made me feel as nasty on the inside as Rick was on the outside.

“Good,” Rick said. “And if you ever push me again”—he slammed Max into the locker—“you're going to be sorry.” Then he walked off with Porter behind him.

And I thought girls were bad.

“Are you okay?” I asked Max as soon as the guys left.

He turned away from me. “I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm fine, Angel,” he whispered again. But I was pretty sure he was holding back a sob.

I didn't know whether to stay or go. I was afraid my being there was making it worse. Max had been crushing on me since forever. And there was nothing more embarrassing than being humiliated in front of your crush. Another thing I knew all too well . . .

Disappearing shirt
. Need I say more?

I didn't want to torture Max the same way. But I couldn't really leave. So we just stood there in silence.

“Do you want to come sit with Gabi and me at lunch?” I finally asked. Max always wanted to do stuff together.

But he didn't take me up on it. He shook his head
no
ever so slightly. “I have to get to my tutoring session.”

Then he left, not even making eye contact.

So much for doing good.

“You should have seen it,” I told Gabi as I stabbed my spork into my mashed potatoes. “They were absolutely awful. And Max just stood there. There has to be some way to help him.”

“Maybe we can spread a rumor that he's Lance Gold's cousin or something,” Gabi suggested. Lance Gold was the hottest actor ever.

“No one will buy that. Max is like the opposite of Lance.”

She took a long sip out of her juice box. “Maybe we can give Max a total makeover?” Gabi suggested. “Like one of those eighties movies where they help the really geeky kid get a new look, a new attitude, a new everything, and the kid ends up ruling the school.”

“You want
us
to do that?” I asked. “Everyone either ignores us or hates us. What do
we
know about being popular?”

“
You
made it to the A-list.”

I rolled my eyes. When my dad first came back into my life, he “helped” to get Courtney and Co. to like me. “For a millisecond. And that was because Lou used his powers.”

Gabi paused and then gave me a huge stare-down. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but Lou's not the
only
one with special powers. . . .”

“Yeah,” I said. “And when I tried to use them to help Max, I almost got him beat up. Not exactly what I was going for.”

“You only tried one thing. Maybe you just need a different approach. A different power,” Gabi said, fiddling with the wrapper from her straw.

Was she hinting I try something advanced? I grabbed the wrapper from her. “You know I don't know how to do anything
really cool.
Not properly, anyway. You've seen the problems I've caused.”

“Nothing
really
bad ever happened.”

Okay, she was obviously having a small case of amnesia. Either that or I accidentally erased her memory. Again. “
Not that bad?
I've turned everyone into statues, sent us to outer space, practically destroyed the school musical, and that's not even the half of it.”

Gabi started to giggle. I swear, sometimes she had a messed-up sense of humor. “It all worked out in the end,” she said. “And come on, some of it was pretty funny.”

“Yeah, hardy-har. What's gotten into you, anyway? Since when do you support me trying new powers?”

She twirled her finger around a strand of hair and wouldn't look me in the eye. “Since you don't have Lou to train you anymore.” The hair was turning her finger purple. “Without him you kind of have no choice but to learn by trial and error.”

“Unless I don't use my powers at all.”

That made her look up. “You? Yeah, right. You have no self-control. I give you a day before something
forces
”—she put that world in air quotes—“you to spring into action.”

Maybe she had a teeny tiny point. “Fine. Maybe you're right. But it's not like you'd be any different. Probably worse. I bet if you had powers you'd be wishing for a pet unicorn or something.”

“Would not,” Gabi said, tossing a soy chip at me. “I have self-restraint. If I had your power—”

“Your
what
?”

It was Cole. Had he heard what Gabi said?

“Nothing,” I assured him, and stuffed some potatoes in my mouth. I needed time to think of something to tell him. And there was no talking with your mouth full.

He took a seat next to me. “Did she say your
power
?”

I practically choked down my food. “No, don't be silly,” I said, and gave Gabi a help-me-out-of-here glare. But all she did was give me back an I'm-glad-I'm-not-in-your-shoes stare and bit her lip.

“M-my power,” I practically stuttered. “In my house. It went out this morning. I almost missed school because my alarm didn't go off.”

“I wouldn't have minded missing first period,” he said. “Nothing like a pop quiz to ruin the day.”

He bought it. Thank goodness.

“That quiz
was
brutal,” I said, not taking my eyes off him. Cole was at my table! He ventured out from popular paradise to the land of Loserville just to be near me. No one ever did that. But Cole was one of the rare few who wouldn't even lose his friends in the process. That's how much everyone liked him.

“Between school and Bar Mitzvah lessons, it's like all anyone expects me to do is study. Can you believe how long our Torah portions are?” Cole said, turning his attention to Gabi. They were in the same class at Hebrew School.

“I know, it's massive,” Gabi said as she put her trash into her lunch bag. “I don't know how I'll ever get it down. Or remember the tunes.”

I didn't really know what they were talking about, so I just smiled and nodded.

“I can help you with that part. Music is the one thing I do know,” Cole said.