Wish Upon a Star

Wish Upon a Star by Sabrina Sumsion

Published by Sanguine Publishing

339 S Logan Ave

Minden, NE

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Copyright 201
3 by Sabrina L. Sumsion

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

A beam of light filtered down from the heavens to rest upon the magical words inscribed on the parchment. A few motes of dust danced in the beams as the words penetrated my brain.

Sadie Hawkins Dance!
Gals grab your guys and boogie!
When: March 3
rd
at 7PM
Where: The Gym
Why: To have FUN!

Okay, so it wasn’t a heavenly message or anything, but it was exactly what I’d been waiting for. This was my chance to ask out David Stauffer –the amazing, dreamy, handsome, awesomely wonderful guy I’ve had my eye on! I needed to plan out my line of attack. I wanted to be more than friends, but I didn’t want to ruin anything if he wanted to keep things platonic. Gah!  I needed girlfriend time to work out these important details.

***

“Girl, ask him already! We all know how much you two like each other!” Dierdre exclaimed between bites of her hamburger. Dierdre had been my best friend for years.  Our first day of Kindergarten, we forged a life-long alliance when the ever-annoying Eric Longstein had pulled my hair and she had punched him in the arm.

“Seriously, you are a couple made in heaven.
David and Jen. Your couple name can be Daven!” Lacy chimed in. Lacy’s and my friendship was a weird one. Opposites in almost every way, she is short, soft spoken and always dresses like she’s headed to church.  A tall bean-pole and a little too loud for most situations, I prefer to dress like the guys in baggy jeans and t-shirts with funny sayings. Somehow it works. She reins me in and I help her come out of her shell every once in a while.

“Or at least forged in battle,” Jamie added. We exchanged a smirk. For some reason, at the beginning of the year, she’d decided to start dressing Goth. She dyed her hair black and used thick black eyeliner. That didn’t affect our friendship though.  She and I play on the same Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game. We were junior guild leaders and loved to raid together. She and I had both squealed over Vent when we discovered David played on our server.  I was in sheer heaven when I accepted his request to join our guild.
The fact that he played a tank? Even better!  It was a perfect match to my geared healer. I sent him love in the way of epic heals. Was it really time to evolve our relationship into something a little less digital?

“I really want to ask him, but what if he’s not into me like that?” I asked.

“Seriously? You two are always hanging out online. He even eats lunch with us sometimes.” Dierdre said.

“Yeah.
And he makes googley eyes at you offline and sends you winkies online!” Jamie chimed in.

I opened my mouth to answer when Lacy kicked me.

“Ouch!” I glared at her. She made meaningful looks at me and then behind me so I turned around. He was walking towards us!  My Adonis in sneakers carried a tray full of food of which my mother would disapprove. He headed towards my table. I smiled and waved. He nodded with a big grin and veered our way.

“Ladies.”
He plopped his tray down next to me.

“Hey,” we chorused. An awkward silence descended as no one seemed to know what to say. Dierdre looked as though she would pop from excitement and anticipation.

“Did you see the new epic gear they released? I’m not sure I’m crazy about the colors. It comes off as kind of girly for my DPS offset,” David said.

“I glanced at the healer set and it looked alright. Then again, I play a chick, so girly doesn’t bother me too much,” I said.

David chuckled as he wolfed down a mouthful of hamburger and fries. Even though the quantity and speed at which he ate would turn my stomach normally, he was charming with a dab of mustard on his chin.

“The caster set isn’t bad,” Jamie chimed in, “My spell flinger is gunna look hot as she’s chucking fire balls.”

Dierdre cut into our conversation. “So that’s cool and all, but have you all seen the posters for the Sadie Hawkins dance coming up?”

I shot her a look meant to convey my horror. She simply grinned in return.

Everyone looked at David and waited for his response. It took him a moment to realize we were waiting for him. “Uh, yeah. I saw something about it. Are you guys going?”

“Definitely!”
Lacy blushed after her enthusiastic outburst.

David shot one of his charming half-grins. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Well, I sit next to a guy in Algebra II who is really nice and funny. I’m thinking about asking him.”

“What’s his name?” Jamie asked.

“Greg Horrocks.”

“I know him,” said Dierdre, “Well, kind of. I had him in science class. He was super smart. We were paired up on an assignment and it’s the only one I got an A on.”

Lacy smiled weakly. “He’s not a total geek. He’s really nice.”

“You think he’s cute, don’t you?” I asked.

She nodded.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to us! Ask him already. You don’t want someone else to snatch him up, do you?” Dierdre said.

“Isn’t that him over there?” Jamie pointed a few tables away.

I looked towards where she was pointing. There was a table of guys and a couple of girls. “Which one is he?” I asked.

“See the one in the blue shirt?” David asked.

I noticed a scrawny kid with zits, a head of curly hair redder than mine and full head gear.
“Yeah.” I said weakly. I didn’t want to judge, but he wasn’t what I expected for Lacy.

“That’s not him,” David continued.

I punched him in the arm. He laughed while rubbing his arm.

“He’s sitting next to that kid,” Lacy said.

I looked again and spotted a nice looking guy in a pale green polo shirt. He looked a little taller than Lacy, short hair, glasses. He was smiling at something someone at his table said. I could totally see him and Lacy as the cutest couple ever!  Next to David and me, of course.

“How are you going to ask him?” Dierdre asked.

“Um. I don’t know.”

“You could do something really fun like hire an airplane to write the message in the sky after school!” Dierdre suggested.

“Yeah. I’ll have my chauffer call my personal pilot and arrange it,” Lacy deadpanned.

“Okay, so maybe not,” Dierdre laughed.

“You could make him cupcakes and take one to each of his classes with part of the invitation message on it,” Jamie suggested.

“That’s a good one Jamie. Guys like food,” Dierdre said. She pointed at David with his stuffed mouth to make her point. He grinned.

“Oh, I know! You can buy a box of Cracker Jacks, open it really carefully, take out the prize and put a message in there asking him to Sadie Hawkins!” I chimed in. Inwardly, I did a face-palm. Now I had to come up with a different idea if I gathered the courage to ask David.

“Ooh, ooh, I have another idea. You could have the chorus serenade him at his locker!” Dierdre said.

We all nodded. Lacy looked unsure.

“Why don’t you just ask him?” David asked.

We all looked at him as though he’d sprouted a third eye in the middle of his forehead. I noticed he had finished his whole platter of food. I looked down at my half eaten meal. How did he eat so fast?

He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “What?”

“Just ask him?” Dierdre asked.

“Yeah.
Why not?”

“As in, simply saunter on up to him and ask him to the dance?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t know about the sauntering part, but yeah. Just ask him.”

Lacy sat up a little. She seemed interested in what David was proposing.

“But that’s no fun,” protested Dierdre.

“Look, we guys are simple. Give us food, we eat. Ask us to a dance, we say yes or no. You don’t need all this fluffy, hard work stuff.”

“But, but . . .” Dierdre stuttered.

Lacy sat forward. “But what if he says no?”

“Well, then you find someone else to ask.” David shrugged.

Lacy flopped against the back of her chair. “I couldn’t handle the rejection. I wish I knew what the answer would be before I asked.”

“Welcome to my world,” David muttered.

Dierdre shot him a dirty look. “This isn’t about you.”

“Look for the whole year, the guy is expected to do all the asking. It’s nice to have the pressure and risk of rejection gone for a short time.”

I shrugged. He might have had a point. Not for the first time, I wished I had telepathy. I could read Greg’s mind for Lacy. Not to mention read David’s mind to figure out how he felt about me.

“Maybe I’ll skip Sadie Hawkins this year. I have two more years of high school to go,” Lacy said.

“No!” Jamie, Dierdre and I cried out together.

“We have to all go so it’s fun for everyone!” Dierdre said.

“I’ll go stag,” Lacy said.

“Naw,” David said, “I’ll take care of this.”

David stood up and walked towards Greg’s table. I leapt up and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m going to find out what Greg would say if Lacy were to ask him,” he answered.

“You can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Well, what if he’s not in to her? What if he says he’d say no? She’d be crushed and embarrassed.”

“At least she’d have an answer. I know the guy. He’s good people.”

He removed my hand from his arm and walked to the table. I slowly returned to our table and sat down. The gals looked at me with expectant eyes.

“He’s going to find out what Greg would say.” I started chewing on my index finger nail.

Lacy blushed again and covered her face with her hands. Dierdre’s jaw dropped. Jamie smiled and watched David. 

I watched David approach Greg. He grabbed an empty chair from another table, pulled the chair over to Greg and sat down on it backwards with his arms folded over the back of the chair. He leaned over to Greg and spoke in his ear. Greg looked up at him then scanned the cafeteria and spotted our table. I looked away quickly to pretend like I wasn’t staring.

When I dared look up again, David was headed back our way with a huge smile on his face. I glanced around him at Greg. He was talking to his friends and was blushing, too. As soon as he drew close, we all attacked him with questions.