Wish Girl (6 page)

S
omething to make her feel better, I'd wished.
Something to distract her.

A snuffle in the tall flowers, just underneath the shade of the nearest tree, made me hold my breath. An animal was there, rooting around in the shadows, rummaging through the old acorns and dead leaves. “Annie,” I whispered as softly as I could when I saw what it was. “Come see.”

She heard me, my words carried on the breeze across the meadow. I was glad of her quiet feet; she barely made a sound as she crossed to me. One lifted eyebrow was her only question. I took her hand and led her, silently, into the shadows.

We both dropped to a crouch. She couldn't help it; she let out a happy sigh. I knew how she felt.

The baby armadillo was less than a foot away from our knees. It was no more than six inches long, a soft gray, with tiny black eyes. I was pretty sure it couldn't see us—not well, at least. It hadn't even tried to run away.

“Look at its shell,” Annie breathed. She stretched a finger out to touch it but hesitated when the creature sniffed and turned its head. The baby's dimpled shell wasn't hard like an adult armadillo's; I could tell from the wrinkles and folds on the top and sides that it was still pliable. It made me think of the soft spot on Carlie's head when she'd been an infant.

I wasn't worried Annie would hurt it, but I remembered something else. “Don't touch it,” I said. “I think armadillos carry leprosy.”

Annie smiled and rolled her eyes. “I'm already dying,” she said. “I'm not afraid.” And she reached out to stroke the armadillo.

It didn't run away, just kept shuffling around at our feet for twenty minutes like it had forgotten what it was supposed to be doing. By then Annie had taken out her sketchbook and done a quick picture of it, of course.

“It's exquisite,” she said, standing up, wiping the leaf mulch off her knees.

“Yes,” I said. I knew what she meant. Armadillos weren't exactly beautiful, but this one, so small . . .

“I didn't even ask if you wanted to draw it.” Annie pushed her sketchbook toward me. “Do you draw?”

“No, I stink at art.”

“Well, what are you good at? Playing music?”

I wanted to laugh. I shook my head.

“I know,” Annie said suddenly. “You write.”

I couldn't help it, I shivered. “Not anymore.”

“Why not?” Annie put her sketchpad away, but she was watching my face, waiting. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I lied, remembering the last thing I'd written. The thing that had made my mom and dad go nuts, that had turned my life upside down.

All of our lives.

Time to change the subject again. I pointed to the armadillo. “Do you think its mother is looking for it?” I peered into the darker shadows of the trees nearer the stream. A shadow, small and low to the ground, moved restlessly there. “She is,” I answered my own question. “We'd better let it go back.” I took Annie's hand again, and we both stepped away, watching as the baby disappeared in the shade.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the valley, soft enough that Annie wouldn't hear. I didn't want her thinking I was as crazy as the Colonel's wife.

Although I was starting to wonder myself.

We walked slowly across the meadow. There was some sort of path I'd missed before, in between the trees ahead, with great looping grapevines hanging from them. I could see clusters of unripe grapes decorating the vines. Annie seemed to know everything, so I asked her when they would be ripe. “I don't know,” she answered, running one hand along a vine as thick as her wrist, testing it to see if it would hold her weight. It did.

She found a loop low enough to sit on and sat down, using the vine as a swing. “Push me.”

I had to laugh. She'd sounded just like Carlie when she would yell, “Peep!” and hold out her arms for me to pick her up. Maybe girls learned how to do that princess voice when they were a month old or something. “Your wish is my command.”

Annie smiled and said, “That's right, all my wishes must come true. And if you push me long enough, maybe I'll make one of yours come true, too. But don't count on it, serf.”

I pushed her for a while, high enough that the grapevines protested and slipped a little. “So, Peter Stone,” she said, hopping off. “If you could make one wish, what would you wish for?”

I answered without thinking. It was the one thing I'd been wishing for years. Especially since I'd discovered the valley, since I had felt what real quiet was like. “I wish I could just be alone. Like, feel the peace and quiet. For a long time. Not have to share it with anyone. Not have to worry about anyone ruining it.” Not ever have to go home, I didn't say. Of course, I was thinking about my family, how they wouldn't get it—wouldn't understand the beauty in the quiet. Never would, I figured.

But Annie didn't know that.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth and I saw her face, I realized what I'd said. “Wait,” I tried, “I didn't mean
you
. I meant other people. My sister, and—hey, don't leave!” Too late.

“Your wish is my command,” she threw back over her shoulder as she hurried away. “I won't bother you anymore, Stone Boy.” I could hear tears in her voice. I kicked the ground, and a bee zipped up out of nowhere and stung me on the hand.

“Ouch!” I yelled, pulling the stinger out and squeezing the sting. “I'm sorry,” I called again, just short of a yell. “You don't have to leave!”

She was already gone. By the time I'd crossed the meadow, gotten stung by another bee, and started back up the hill, I knew there was no hope.

I couldn't catch her, and no matter how fast I ran, I couldn't outpace the cloud of angry gnats that followed me.

Their sharp bites made me feel on the outside just like I felt inside. All chewed up.

I was such a jerk. The valley seemed to think so, too. I tripped twenty times on the way back, rocks that seemed perfectly stable slipping at the last second. My knees and hands were scraped bloody by the time I got to the top.

Of course, then I realized I'd climbed the wrong hill. My house wasn't over the rise on this one. Instead, there was another house smack dab in front of me, a strange triangular-shaped one, painted red with white trim.

And this one also had an old woman standing at the front door, holding a shotgun. Pointing it at me.

“T
his is private property, boy,” the woman said, soft but clear. I didn't look at her face; I was too concerned with the gun. “
My
property.”

“Sorry, ma'am,” I managed, though how I didn't know. My mouth was drier than cotton. “I think I'm lost.”

“You've been down in the valley, haven't you?” She laughed. “The valley threw you out. You're pretty beat up. That'll teach you to trespass on my land. You're lucky it didn't pierce your ears—or something else—with porcupine quills.”
Uh-oh. This must be the Colonel's wife
, I thought. The crazy one.

She looked crazy enough, dressed in a pair of old overalls and a long-sleeved shirt, with her black-and-gray hair stuck in a bun on the top of her head and held by what appeared to be a dirty stick. She walked closer, feet clomping in big, mud-stained brown men's boots, and lowered the gun. “I thought you were one of them boys that's been killing birds over there. But you're new. Where do you live?”

“Um.” I looked around. “On one of the hills?” I managed. I didn't even know my address. “There's this fence made out of railroad ties.”

“Oh, the old Carlson place! I wondered who'd been suckered into renting that pile of junk lumber.”

“My mom and dad,” I said. “Maxine and Joshua Stone.” I paused, wondering if I could ask her to put the gun away.

“Do you hunt, boy?”

Why was she asking this? Then I thought about the gunshots Annie and I had heard. Maybe it had been the Colonel's wife shooting, after all. Maybe she'd been out hunting . . . but for what? “No,” I answered.

“Own a gun?”

“No,” I repeated, backing away slowly. “I've never actually shot one.” And I didn't want to see a demonstration either.

She wasn't letting me get away that easy, and she matched my backward steps with slow, steady paces toward me. “Ever shot a bird before in your life? Or killed one? Ever drowned a kitten or dropped a puppy in a creek?”

“No,” I said, my stomach twisting. She
was
crazy. “That's horrible! Why are you asking me this?”

She clicked something—not the trigger, thank goodness; the safety?—and slung the gun over one shoulder. “Well, you're all bit up from my valley. You did something to earn those bee stings.”

Oh. “I said something to Annie I shouldn't have.”

“The little cancer girl?” The Colonel's wife gave me a beady glare. “You like being mean to sick girls, is that it?”

“No!” I sputtered. “No, I don't. I was trying to tell her what I loved about the valley, how it was magi—how it was special,” I substituted.
Magic
sounded crazy. But from the gleam in her eye, the Colonel's wife knew what I'd been about to say. “I was trying to tell her why I liked going in the valley . . . and she took it wrong. I need to find her and apologize.”

“Well, any kid who can see the valley's . . .
specialness
can't be all bad, bee stings or no,” she said at last. She clomped away toward the house and motioned for me to follow. “Kid, you're a good ways from home. And it's almost as far to that camp Annie's going to. Get in my go-kart, and I'll take you home. You can chase after the girl tomorrow. If I know girls—and I do, having been one back in the Stone Age—she won't listen to any of your stories until at least Tuesday. Give her time to cool off.”

The Colonel's wife was going to take me home. I felt simultaneously relieved and terrified.

I knew I shouldn't get in a car with a stranger. And this woman was certainly strange. But it wasn't a car, as I saw a few minutes later. It was the most amazing monster go-kart I'd ever seen. And it was getting late. My parents were going to kill me, and I had no idea at all how to find my house. I had to trust someone.

She handed me a helmet to match hers—both of them painted black with red and orange flames—and told me to “strap in.” I buckled up and hung on to the foam-wrapped side bar where the door should have been attached.

I held on for my life. Whether she was really crazy or not, the woman drove like a maniac for sure. Over the wind and the roar of the engine—it sounded like forty leaf blowers all working at the same time—I heard her yell, “Yee-haw!” just in time to take an enormous downhill. My stomach dropped to my feet—it was as scary and fast as any roller coaster I'd ever been on.

A corner was coming up, a sharp one. We were going way too fast. For a second, I wondered if she was trying to kill me, if we were going to crash. But she slammed on the brakes at the last second, fishtailing just a little bit on some gravel near the edge of the road, and then gunned it again on the next uphill.

After a few minutes, I forgot to be scared. This was the most fun I'd had since . . . well, possibly ever.

“There's cancer girl's camp,” I heard over the rush of the wind. The Colonel's wife was pointing across a smaller valley at a red-painted barn surrounded by a few goat-shed-looking things. Were those the cabins? There was a muddy-edged lake—more like a pond—with a fishing boat tied to a stake at one end. Definitely not a swimming hole. And there weren't any horses or gardens or . . . anything, from what I could see.

It wasn't what I had expected for a Make-A-Wish camp. In fact, it sort of . . . stunk. That was the best they could do for a bunch of kids dying of cancer?

“Your house is just over there,” the Colonel's wife shouted. She pulled up to the top of the hill and cut the engine. “See it?”

It was there, the roof barely visible over the oak trees in front of it. “Yes, I see it,” I said, wondering why she'd stopped.

“Well, get out and get going then,” she said. “I've got a beef with some other boys that live two more hills over. Bird killers. Heard them shooting earlier. If I hurry, I can catch them before they get back home.” She grinned and reached behind her, placing her shotgun on the seat I vacated.

I barely had a second to pitch my helmet into the cart before she peeled out, kicking up little bits of gravel and a cloud of exhaust and dust.

After she had gone, and the motor's roar had faded into the distance, I realized just how quiet the valley had been. On this side of the hill, I could hear lots of manmade sounds: a lawn mower, music playing from a radio station . . . my mom calling my name with a side of panic and a whole helping of mad-as-heck.

Uh-oh. I ran for the house, wishing once more that I was in the valley, surrounded by wind, birds, the rustling of leaves, and Annie's laughter.