Careful What You Wish For (8 page)

“I guess,” Gabi said, smacking a piece of gum between her teeth.

Wait a minute.

“Where did you get that?” I lunged toward her, as if getting a closer look would make the gum disappear. “Where did that gum come from?”

Gabi opened her mouth and the gum dropped out—right into my hand. Which totally would have grossed me out and sent me running to the nearest hand sanitizer if I wasn't freaking out.

“It just appeared. I wished for a piece of gum and there it was.” She giggled. “Ha! That just made another piece appear.”

“Shhh,” I said. “Then don't say anything else. You need to stay quiet. Don't wish for anything else. Don't even think about anything else.”

I'd made a Frankenstein! A cuter, skinnier one, with long, light brown hair and perfectly pressed clothes.

But Gabi didn't follow orders very well because all of a sudden a hot fudge sundae appeared in front of her.

“Sorry,” she said, licking her lips in anticipation. “I didn't mean to. It just kind of popped in my head. And now here it is.”

Gabi eyed the dessert. Then me.

“I wish I had a spoon. And extra whipped cream,” she said super fast. One after another the things she wished for appeared. “Sorry, but come on. It's only ice cream. And it looks so good.”

“Gabi!” I screamed. “What are you doing? You know how easy it is for wishes to get out of control. You've seen what's happened to me. Something that seems like it won't matter turns into a huge nightmare. What if you accidentally said something like—” I stopped myself. I didn't want to put any ideas in her head. Last thing I needed was for her to repeat some harebrained thing I said, like, “I wish Edward from
Twilight
was my boyfriend.” We already had a devil in Goode—the last thing we needed was a coven of vampires. Hot or not.

“Can you please try to reverse what you've done? Try something small first. We'll work up to the bigger things.” Like reversing what she did to Max and figuring out a way get rid of her newfound ability.

“Fine,” Gabi said, letting out a big sigh. “I wish the sundae would disappear.”

It didn't budge.

“Try actually meaning it,” I said.

“I
am
trying,” Gabi said.

But I didn't believe her. I saw the look on her face. She was enjoying the power rush. She didn't want it to go away. Sure, maybe some of it, like making Max a Courtney clone, but not the other part. The part that got her ice cream and straight As and who knew what else.

“You have to want to get rid of the sundae. Think of the possibilities. Maybe it's poison.”

“A poison sundae?” she said. “Come on.”

The shade of ice cream got a little darker, and I dumped it out into the grass before she could take a bite. “See,” I screamed. “Did you see that change? One wrong word and you could accidentally kill yourself. DO NOT REPEAT THAT. Gabi, you have to be really careful until I figure out a way to fix this.”

“Don't worry,” she said, looking way too relaxed for a girl who just had a brush with death by mint chocolate chip. “I'll be careful, and I won't wish for anything crazy. I can handle this. I've seen how you've dealt with your powers. I'll be fine. I promise.”

Her reassurance didn't calm me down one bit.

I was in for big trouble. I could feel it.

I took a big chug from a bottle of Mom's sweetness serum. I was game for anything that promoted goodness, even one of Mom's concoctions. But it didn't help me solve any of my problems. I was still at a loss about how to undo Gabi's wishes. And I had to hurry. It wouldn't be long before Max made the whole student body his personal butlers. Or . . . Gabi accidentally wished for the end of civilization.

The doorbell distracted me from my thoughts. I tossed the container back in the fridge and made my way into the living room. Mom beat me to the door. “Well, I'm glad to see you are finally learning some manners.”

She was talking to Lou. My fists clenched. What did he want? And since when did he bother waiting to be invited in?

“I know you hate it when I pop in unannounced. So I'm working on it.”

“Thank you,” Mom said. And she sounded like she
actually
appreciated the gesture.

Was Lou trying to use Mom to get to me? Make her all sympathetic to his cause to get to know his daughter? It wasn't going to work. I'd just tell her everything he'd been up to with the soul stealing. Then he'd never be allowed back in.

“Mom,” I said, giving Lou a smug look. “Do you know why Lou's really here? What he's been up to recently?” He wasn't going to win this time.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Lou's—”

He cut me off. “Here to help Angel with her pow—”

“NO!” I shouted. Mom didn't know I inherited Lou's evil powers, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“Her what?”

“Her PowerPoint presentation. I suggested she try one for her science project—to give her a leg up on her classmates. I told her I'd help her make it. Isn't that right, Angel? Didn't we say today after school?”

Blackmail. That was Lou's plan. Hang out with him or he'd rat me out to my mom. Nicely played. He really was good at this manipulation thing. “Yeah, that's what we said. Let's go.”

I slammed my bedroom door shut. “This is not making me like you more.”

“You'll come around,” he said.

That's what
he
thought. I sat on my bed, put on my iPod, and stuck in the earbuds. So he sat down next to me and plucked them right out. “We need to talk.”

I looked up at the ceiling.

“What you said before, about thinking about granting wishes, don't do it.”

“Why? Don't like the idea of me helping others?”

“What I don't like,” he answered, “is the idea of you doing something that could hurt you.”

I ignored him.

“Angel, I'm serious. You don't know what you're doing. Look what happened to Gremory. It was a mess, he thought he was making the man's wish to become a baseball player come true. But his focus wasn't right.”

“Yeah, you told me,” I said, hoping to end the conversation. “He ended up granting all of the guy's wishes.”

“Yes, and that's why I don't want you trying it. It's a very common mistake. Gremory's thoughts were so wrapped up in giving the guy what he wanted that he ended up granting all of the guy's wishes.

“So? It's not like you couldn't reverse it in a millisecond.”

“It's not that simple. Once a wish is made it's done. No going back, no altering it. Unless the person who made the wish wants to give it up.”

Again Lou was making a big deal out of nothing.

“Okay, if the guy wished for something bad, why wouldn't he want to reverse it?”

“Because,” Lou said, “it's all or nothing. The wish was that
all
his wishes would come true. To undo it means giving everything back. Not just the bad stuff. Gremory's subject wanted to be a baseball player way too much to give it up. Sure, there were some things even he would have wanted to reverse. Like when he accidentally wished his coach would shut up, and the guy could no longer speak at all. But nothing was worth giving up his dream.”

Then he was a jerk. I wouldn't have that problem with Gabi. She wasn't that baseball player. She wouldn't let someone suffer because of her. She was the nicest, best person in the world. She would definitely give it all up. She wouldn't leave someone silent for the rest of their life or Max all self-absorbed—not even for all the ice-cream sundaes and straight As.

Lou went on with his story, pretending not to notice that I was back to ignoring him. “Gremory, of course, couldn't leave things as they were. And with a little help from me we made the man realize he was better off without wishes. But do you see how dangerous playing around with this power can be? What if the person wished
everyone
would shut up? There would be worldwide ramifications.”

“Okay,” I said. “You made your point. You can go now. I won't try to grant a wish.”

Too bad I already did.

I got to the McBrin house extra early the next morning to meet Gabi. Which, if you know me, is super impressive. I am not a morning person at all. But I couldn't sleep. I kept having nightmares that a zombie was after me, wanting me to grant him a wish. Between that and thoughts of Gabi transforming the town into Wonka World, I got my butt in gear extra early. I was there a whole twenty minutes before Gabi showed up.

“Thank God,” I said when she finally arrived. “You didn't make any more wishes, did you?”

She said she didn't. But Gabi was the worst liar ever. She looked like she just swallowed a baseball bat, she was that uncomfortable.

“Gabi . . .”

“Okay,” she said, and dropped down to the grass. “I may have made a few itty-bitty ones. But not on purpose. They just happened. And honestly, they're so small, it's like they don't exist at all. I mean, it's nothing to worry about.”

“What did you wish for?” I said before she went into a fifty-eight minute oral presentation on why I shouldn't freak out. The girl could talk when she wanted to.

Gabi pulled at her ponytail and twisted the strands around her fingers. “Well, my mom totally doesn't care what I eat anymore or how I do in school.” Her voice got higher and faster. “My room has its own dessert bar, a hundred-inch flat screen TV, a whole wall of new books, a water bed, a—” She saw the look on my face and stopped. My jaw was skimming my sneakers.

“Come on,” she said, standing back up. “You have to admit it's pretty cool. It didn't hurt anyone. And Rori is sooo jealous. It's awesome.” Rori was Gabi's little sister, who was more than a little spoiled—and used to getting whatever she wanted.

“Yeah. Cool until something bad happens. We have to reverse it.”

“Too bad we don't know how,” she said. The sincerity in her voice was totally fake.

“Good news,” I said. “We do.” I filled her in on what Lou had told me about how Gabi had to want to give up her new “power” and relinquish everything she wished for in order to put things back the way they were.

“Everything?” she asked. “I really like the dessert bar in my room.”

I put my hands on my hips. “I'll buy you a Twinkies value pack,” I promised. “Now please. Before you do something you regret.”

“What if I promise to be extra careful?”

“It's too risky.”

She knotted her fingers together. “Your powers are risky, too, and you manage.”

“It's not the same thing. You just have to say or think something and poof, it's here. I have to have perfect concentration to make anything go right. My passing thoughts don't make things appear out of thin air.” I took an extra long pause for dramatic effect. “Do it for Max. Do it for all the people he's bossing around and turning into his servants. Do it for me.”

My little guilt trip worked. Gabi nodded. “Fine.”

“Just clear your mind and focus on how you don't want wishes.”

I watched her. It seemed like she was concentrating. Her eyes were squeezed closed and it looked like she was holding her breath. “Okay,” I said when she opened her eyes. “Try to make a wish.”

“I wish for a diamond—” She paused when she looked at me.

Way to think small,
I thought.

“Bracelet,” Gabi finished.

And the shimmering jewels appeared encrusted around Gabi's wrist.

“Whoa,” she said, her face almost as bright as the bracelet.

The reversal hadn't worked. Gabi was still as magical as before. What went wrong? I watched her hold the jewels up to the light. She looked relieved. “Gabi,” I said. “You have to want to give the wishes back for it to work.”

“But what if I don't really want to?” she asked.

“Then you're dooming Max to be all Courtneyesque for the rest of his life, for everyone in school to worship him for eternity, and for me to who knows what. All because you want a few wishes. It's totally selfish.”

She dropped her head. “You're right,” she conceded. “I can do this. I wish I could undo everything. I don't want wishes.”

I hoped that was enough. “Test it.”

“I wish I had a matching diamond necklace,” she said, her voice sounding the tiniest bit hopeful.

Her neck went from having nothing on it to being covered in jewels.

Trying to give back the wishes didn't work.

Gabi obviously wanted them, and I had no clue how to change that.

“I thought you said you'd give up the wishes,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air.

“I tried,” Gabi said. “Really!” she added when she saw the look I was giving her. “But it's not my fault if way down deep I want to keep them. How am I supposed to control that?”

“Maybe by thinking about the harm your wishes have caused?! That should make you want to give them up.”

Gabi scrunched up her nose. “What harm?”

“Max for one. All the name-calling and pushing people around. How do you think his parents are going to feel when they realize their son has turned into a monster?”

Gabi shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I don't think it's so bad. Courtney's the same way, and she seems pretty happy. She gets whatever she wants.”

Sounds like someone else I know.
“Then what about the danger?” I asked. “If you accidentally wish for the wrong thing? Something really, really bad. Then what?”