Wish Girl (5 page)

I
could tell Annie didn't want to talk anymore. And I was sort of glad. Because when we got a little farther down the stream, we found the most beautiful place I'd ever seen, and words would have spoiled it for sure.

I almost slammed into her coming around the last bend. The trees had thinned out, but there was a bunch of brush and a huge red oak right at the corner, and when she'd gone around the turn, she'd stopped stock-still in the middle of the narrow path.

I could see why.

Ahead of us, stretching for hundreds of yards, was a wildflower field. It was red and yellow and orange, all black-eyed Susans, firewheels, and Indian paintbrushes. I took a deep breath and smelled air thick with pollen and nectar.

The sound of the waterfall had died off, and now what I heard was bees. Thousands of bees, humming and buzzing over the field. Grasshoppers, too, I saw, as Annie stepped carefully into the middle of the field, and the long-legged insects flew away to both sides.

Annie said what I was thinking. “I wish I could stay here forever.” She went to the very center of the field and sat down right in the flowers. I could barely see her head, the small brown cap over the tops of the wildflowers looking like a giant Mexican hat flower poking up. Then she reached up and pulled her hat off.

What in the world?
Her hair was red. Not red like normal red hair—hers was dyed red, the color of fire trucks and ambulances and stop signs.

I couldn't help making a sound then. I laughed out loud, in surprise. Annie shot me a look. “You got a problem?”

“No,” I said, making my way through the flowers to sit next to her. She looked like an enormous Indian paintbrush. “It's just, I've never seen a girl with hair that color. Except on TV. Your mom must be cool.”

“I told you, my mom lets me do whatever I want.” She closed her eyes again.

Spoiled
, I thought. “I bet you don't even wash the dishes.”

“So?” she replied, eyes still shut. “Why would you wash dishes when you could be making art? Do you think Frida Kahlo spent her days leaning over a sink full of soapy water? Do you think Andy Goldsworthy spends all his time doing the laundry?”

I didn't answer. I felt pretty stupid. I mean, I'd heard of Frida Kahlo—she was the Mexican painter with the unibrow. We'd studied her in art, and I liked her paintings because there was usually a monkey in them.

A deep sigh came from Annie. “Go ahead,” she said. “Ask.”

Fine. “I know Frida Kahlo. Who's Andy Goldsworthy?”

“Oh my gosh,” Annie said, suddenly bubbling up with excitement. “Only the coolest nature artist in the world. I went to New York City when I was eight for my first wish, and I got to go out to this sculpture park. Andy Goldsworthy had taken the things that were there—stones, wood, all sorts of stuff—and used them to make art out of nature. It was . . . amazing.”

I didn't get it. He took sticks and rocks and made art? I shook my head. “How can you improve on something like this?” I waved a hand at the flower field.

“You don't get it,” Annie said. “I mean, I'm not sure you can, unless you've at least watched his videos or seen one of his books. I wish I had my books here with me. I would show you art like you never imagined—I have books about all sorts of artists, modern ones and the old masters, too.”

I smiled. She was this excited about art? I wondered out loud, “Planning to grow up to be an artist, huh?”

“I'm not going to wait until I grow up,” she whispered. “I'm going to do it now. I have to.” She stopped talking and looked around, her gaze flashing like a hummingbird from flowers to sky to tree limbs. I glanced around, too, wondering what she was looking for.

“I
will
do it. Now. This week!”

“Do what?”

She didn't answer, just kept talking to herself. “I'll have to think about it,” she said at last. “It's tricky. The hill country has a rather limited palette. . . . ”

I settled back in the grass, wondering what she was going on about. Whatever it was, it seemed to have cheered her up. Or distracted her, at least. She paced around the clearing, muttering and picking up small things from the ground—leaves, sticks? I couldn't tell. I lay slowly back on the grass, sending a silent apology to any ants or beetles who might still be in the danger zone. I didn't want to hurt anything in this beautiful place, not even accidentally.

I'm sure I squished a few ants, though. I couldn't help it; there were hundreds of them on the ground, all around me. I fed one of them a tiny crumb of the granola bar I was gnawing. It was strange: The ants weren't crawling on me like they usually did. They came up to my legs or arms, felt at me with their antennas, and then went around. Like they were giving me personal space.

So weird.

Weirder was the way the birds flew. I'd been staring at the sky, trying to ignore Annie and her frustrated sounds as she searched for whatever. If a bird flew overhead, I would trace its path with my finger, following the shapes of its flight. Then I thought about designing new paths—how I would fly if I could be a bird, just for a moment—all loops and inclines and steep descents. I started drawing imaginary trails overhead, slowly, my finger moving carefully—and then, a few seconds later, maybe a minute, I swear, a bird would start across the sky, echoing the exact path I'd sketched.

Not close to the pattern, but exactly on it.

At first I figured it was a fluke. But after the third swallow—or sparrow, I couldn't tell at this distance—flew directly along my course, I sat up. Was I imagining it?

One way to tell. I got more creative, drawing imaginary curlicues and spirals, even letters—
Annie
—in cursive. I held my eyes open wide, to make sure I wasn't falling asleep, dreaming the whole thing.

And then a bird—a scissortail, I think—came along not thirty seconds later and followed the track like it was being pulled by a magnet.

Unreal. Magic. The wind ruffled my hair like it had the day before, and I whispered, “Cool. Thanks.”

I had to show Annie this.

But when I stood up, she was gone.

Dang it. I never knew a girl who could disappear so quickly. She was like a grasshopper, here one second, gone the next. I scanned the meadow. With her bright red hair, she'd show up there. Maybe she'd gone back to the stream. I didn't want to call out and destroy the quiet of the valley, but I was starting to get worried. She'd had a headache, and she'd fallen . . . maybe she was sick.

I was annoyed again. Just my luck, to find the coolest place in the world but have to spend my time looking for a lost girl. But as I searched for Annie—by the stream, up the hill, around the rocks—and didn't find her, I started to feel guilty. Maybe she was really lost. Maybe hurt somewhere . . .

I hadn't examined the other side of the meadow that well. Maybe she'd fallen down into a sinkhole or something. I'd have to go back. I started calling softly as I ran. “Annie!”

I thought I heard something from a long way off—much deeper in the valley, across the meadow and through at least one more grove of trees. I ran, not paying attention to how much noise I was making. “Annie!” I called again.

And then I heard one word, clear as day but still too far: “Help!”

I
wasn't the fastest runner. Dad said it was because I spent too much time indoors. He could run; he'd even been the quarterback on his high school football team before he tore some tendon and had to quit.

But I might have broken an Olympic record racing toward the sound of that small “Help!”

I ran through a stand of trees faster than was safe, probably, ducking under grapevines and low limbs, jumping over rocks and small bushes.

In less than a minute, I emerged from the trees and found myself in another meadow. This one was dotted with huge boulders and didn't have any flowers in it. No colors but gray and green.

Well, except for Annie's bright red head, which poked up behind a boulder. “Help me!” she said again.

I was right, she must have gotten stuck or bitten or . . . My brain buzzed with possibilities as I raced to her side, wondering how far we were from real help, medical help.

But when I got to her, I stopped. She wasn't hurt. Wasn't stuck. She was . . . “What are you doing?”

Annie smiled. “I'm making art. But it's going to take a while.”

My heart pounded, and I had to lean over to suck in enough air to breathe. My fingers actually itched to reach out and shake her or something. “Then why were you screaming for help?” I sucked in another breath, wondering if I could keep from strangling her. It was so tempting. . . .

“Screaming for help?” She laughed. “No, I was yelling for you to
come
help. It's fun, see?” She motioned to the ground, and I saw an enormous pile of tiny, bright green pieces of new grass. Ladybugs crawled all over the grass, making the piles shift like they were alive.

My pulse still too fast, I stood there panting, staring at what she'd started. The boulder in front of her had some strange markings on it. Trenches and divots that looked sort of like . . . “Dinosaur tracks?” I managed.

“Well, I don't think they're real ones,” Annie said, plucking blades of grass a few at a time—ladybugs and all—and placing them in thick beds inside the tracks. “I think they just look that way. But I'm fascinated with the ideas the materials bring—blades of grass and
T. rex
tracks. And living jewels.” She held up a ladybug on her finger, but it didn't fly away. “Like, once there was an enormous violent creature that tromped all over everything in its path, and then millions of years later its fossil footprints are filled with freshly picked grass and tiny ladybugs like this one? Don't you like the way it hints at permanent things and ephemeral things at the same time?”

My mind was full. “Ephemeral?”

“Yes,” she said, raising one eyebrow. “You know, changing, not lasting . . . ”

“I know what it means,” I interrupted. And it was true. I knew what it meant. Now, anyway. “What I want to know is why you just ran off like that!” My heart was still racing so hard I could feel it in the back of my throat.

I was close to yelling, really shouting, not caring about the valley or the quiet. If I wasn't careful, I'd be screaming like Laura. This girl was almost making me lose it. “You're so stupid,” I said as softly as I could manage. “I thought you were dying!”

“You thought I was dying?” Annie said, standing up so fast flower petals flew all around her. “And here I thought
you
were the stupidest boy in the world. At least you got one thing right.”

And she stormed off, leaving me there, staring at her back and down at the ephemeral grass blades in the dinosaur tracks.

That's when it all clicked. Wish girl.
Wish
girl.

Oh, wow. My heart sped back up. All the things she'd said that I hadn't quite understood, all those “wishes” she kept going on about. I hoped I was wrong. But if I was right . . . I had to apologize. I ran after her. It didn't take long to catch up, and when I did, she stopped. She wouldn't look at me, but she was listening. “Annie, I'm sorry,” I started.

“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. Just go away.”

I shook my head, even though she couldn't see. We both began walking back to the flower field. Toward home. After a few minutes, I spoke again. “When you said you were a wish girl, you meant Make-A-Wish, didn't you?”

“Yes,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, flat.

My mouth got dry. I knew what Make-A-Wish meant. They only gave those sorts of wishes—for trips to Disney World or the beach or . . . summer camp—to kids who they thought might not get to have the rest of their wishes come true.

Wishes like growing up, going to college, having a family.

Living.

We'd entered the flower field again, and Annie had stopped, soaking in all that color and beauty. I had to ask. “Are you . . . dying?”

She sighed. “I wish,” she said, then let out a sad giggle. “Well, not really. Maybe I do. My thing? It's . . . worse, I think. Well, sometimes I think.” She sank down in the flowers again.

Worse than dying? I froze, wondering what in the world could be worse. I wasn't going to ask any more questions right then, though. She'd closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. I could see darker freckles through the brown of her skin.

My curiosity could wait. I leaned back on my hands and followed her example, tilting my face up to the sun. It was still fairly cool this low in the valley, and the breeze was much softer. When it moved, though, it carried the scent of thousands of flowers. It smelled like honey and dust. I breathed deeper, letting it fill my lungs.

A few minutes later, Annie spoke, soft as a bee buzzing.

“I have cancer.”

I had sort of guessed that.

“I've had it since I was little. It's a kind of leukemia. It started in my bones when I was six. I feel like I've spent most of my life in hospitals. They thought it was in remission. For years. But last month, I started getting headaches.”

I nodded, even though she couldn't see me.

“When I went in for my checkup, they found cells in my spinal fluid. Like, a lot. Way more than last time. If they don't do radiation—a lot of radiation soon, and a whole bunch of chemo—they think I might die”

I didn't understand. I knew radiation made people sick or something. But why did she think treating her cancer could be worse than dying? Maybe it was incredibly painful or something. “Does the treatment hurt?” I asked at last.

She breathed out a long, shaky breath. “Well, spinal taps and getting ports put in are no fun, that's for sure. And the days right after chemo . . . ” Her face twisted. “But I can handle pain. It's the other part that's scary.”

What other part?
I wanted to ask. But I didn't. I let the breeze move over me, and I held still. It felt like the whole valley was holding still with me. Waiting.

“It might fix the cancer,” she said after a long minute. “It did before. But it's the late effects that have me freaked.”

“Late effects?” I'd heard of side effects, sure. But what was this?

“Yeah, stuff that stays with you after. Like a really, really sucky souvenir. ‘Welcome to Cancerland, here's your brain damage. Oh, and don't forget to leave all your motor skills when you check out!'”

Brain damage. For real? I remembered my thoughtless comment about how much brain she had left and swallowed hard. Should I apologize again? Or would that make it worse? Like I'd meant it.

“How much?” I asked, watching a bee land on her face and walk around, leaving tiny pollen tracks on her cheek. I didn't try to swat it off; I knew better.

“They don't know,” she said, once the bee had gone. “I won't be able to do a lot of things as well, they think.” She laughed once. “
Think
. That's one of the things I won't be able to do as well for sure.”

I couldn't believe it. This girl who used words I'd never even heard wouldn't be . . . smart anymore? Could it get any worse?

It could.

“I might not be able to walk. I know a girl like that. She has to use a wheelchair now.” She shook her head, like she was shaking the thought away. “Like I said, they don't know. Last time, I got off easy. I mean, I have weak joints because of it, so I have to wear those supports.” She motioned to her bag, where she'd shoved her ankle wraps earlier. “I used to take dance. I had this stupid dream about being a ballerina. After I got cancer, that was pretty much out of the question.”

Annie let out a short, bitter laugh. “Anyway, that's why Mom's letting me run around this weekend and go to camp, even though the doctors really wanted me to start my treatment on Friday. She knows that in a few weeks, I may not be able to run ever again. Or read. Or even draw. Sometimes it affects memory, too. I won't exactly . . . be me anymore. Not like I am now.”

She stopped talking, and I could tell she needed to think about something else. I know I did.

I felt it, her need for me to say something, change the subject. And even though my mind was humming louder than the bees, filled with thoughts of things that were worse than dying, I didn't know how to say words that might make her feel better, didn't know if any words existed like that. So I walked to the edge of the clearing and did the only thing I knew how to do well.

I held still and let my stillness be a question.

A wish.

And the valley answered me.