by Josh Allen
I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling like a lazy cheater. I don’t think I’d like that. I really don’t.
That’s how wishes work. It’s called irony. Or comic justice. Or something.
Well, no thank you!
So yeah, there’s this genie—an actual poofy-pantsed genie floating right in front of me—and sure, there’s Caroline Spencer—the green-eyed, hair-tucking Caroline Spencer in the back (okay, front) of my mind—but I think for a minute and look at the genie. He’s got a devilish grin I didn’t notice before. He’s also got these hungry-looking eyes. He slithers around in the air, and he wets his lips, waiting, so I say, “No thanks. No wish for me.”
The genie folds his arms and scowls.
“You can go back to your, uh, slumber,” I say. “Sorry I disturbed you.”
The genie’s eyebrows lower, melding together into one big eyebrow that stretches across his forehead. He doesn’t look happy. “You summoned me,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m sorry about that. I really didn’t know you were in there.” I point to the lamp. “I was just messing around.”
A breeze picks up and the genie drifts a bit.
“You will make a wish,” he says.
I can tell this isn’t a request. I don’t think anyone’s ever turned this genie down before, and it’s obvious he doesn’t like it. He wets his lips again—his thin tongue flits out and back real quick. He hovers closer, floating almost right above me, and his eyes flash with fire.
And now I know something for sure.
This genie is no good. This genie is trouble.
There’s no way I’m making a wish. A lump fills my chest, and I take a few steps back.
“Do you wish for wealth?” the genie says. He says it low and kind of threatening.
I don’t say anything.
“Do you wish for fame?” he says.
He wants to destroy me. I can see that. He’s been in his lamp for who knows how long, and he’s dying to get back to his old business of using wishes to ruin people. That’s obvious. But he can only get to me if I wish for something, so I keep my mouth shut.
“Do you wish for a special someone?” he says.
I stay quiet, but my face must give something away because the genie says, “Ahhh! You have but to speak her name, and she shall be yours!”
In my mind, Caroline’s green eyes shine, but the truth is, I’m not even a little bit tempted. Sure, I probably ruined things with the whole neat-o burrito thing. But this wish, I know, would destroy me. Worse, it would destroy her, too. Because the genie’s not offering love. He’s offering slavery—slavery for Caroline Spencer.
I mean, suppose I do wish for her, that I blurt out the words, I wish for Caroline Spencer!
Then what? Just like that she’s mine? I own her? She has to do whatever I say?
No. That’s not what I want. That’s not…chivalrous. So I say again, “No wish for me,” and I start walking.
The genie follows. His lamp stays back in the gutter.
“Wish for her,” he says, floating beside me. His voice is low and dark.
“I don’t want anything,” I say. I turn the corner.
“Wish for her,” he says again, after a few minutes. His voice is quiet but commanding.
“Leave me alone,” I answer.
We pass the sandlot where the guys play baseball, Eli Turner and the others. A few call out, and I wave, knowing they can’t see the genie. I trudge up my front steps and push through the door. The genie stops and seems to scowl at the doorframe, and I realize he can’t come in, not unless I invite him. I realize if I step inside and close the door, I’ll be free of him. He’ll have to go back to his lamp, and it’ll all be over.
“Wish for her,” he says one last time, and his hungry eyes narrow.
“Never,” I say, and it’s time for him to find someone more gullible because I’m not falling for it.
I start to close the door, and the genie says, “We shall see.” But then the door latches, and it’s done.
I breathe. I count to ten. I check the peephole, and sure enough, he’s gone. Honestly, I’m pretty proud of myself. Not everyone could have resisted a limitless wish. In the kitchen, I grab a banana and sit at the table. I think for a minute about the things I could have had—money, eternal life, my own private island to share with Caroline Spencer.
I wonder if I’ve done the right thing. Maybe there could have been some other way—some safe wish I could have made to end up with Caroline. Maybe I could have just wished my neat-o burrito away. But no. I should do things myself.
And no one—I mean, no one—should be wished into love. Ever.
I’m about halfway through my banana when something strange happens.
Suddenly the world kind of goes poof, and I’m not in my kitchen anymore. I’m back on Magnolia Avenue.
The genie is there, hovering over the fire hydrant again. I’m so freaked out I drop my banana onto the sidewalk.
“Hey,” I say. “I told you I didn’t want anything. I told you to leave me alone.”
The genie hovers and smiles his devilish smile. His thick eyebrows come down and form the one big eyebrow, and he laughs a big, deep belly laugh.
“You, oh Matt, have been wished for,” he says, grinning, and he points.
It’s her. Caroline Spencer. She’s holding the lamp. She’s looking at me, and she’s wearing this shy smile. She’s finished cleaning Miss Sutherland’s erasers, and on her walk home she must have seen the lamp in the gutter and picked it up.
“Hi, Matt,” she says quietly, and she tucks the lamp behind her. Her green eyes flash, and suddenly I feel all numb. Something goes click in my head, like a light going out, and then I forget about the Red Sox and the hot dogs at Fenway Park and the catcher’s mitt I got for my birthday—forever. I feel my eyes glaze over.
I forget about everything once and for all, because how could anything else possibly matter? Anything, that is, except for Caroline Spencer and her green eyes and the way she tucks her hair behind her ears when she makes comments in History class?
I mean, she’s here, and I’m here. And for the rest of my life, I’ll do everything she wants. I’ll go everywhere she tells me. I’ll get anything she asks for. Always.
Because I am hers.
I am hers.
I am hers.
OWEN hunched forward and tightened his backpack straps.
Today was the day.
He could feel it.
He was finally going to beat his sister, Hannah, in their weekly race. Each Monday, on their way to school, he and Hannah would toe a sidewalk crack at the bottom of Millhollow Hill, ready themselves, and count down…three, two, one, go!
And then, like fired cannonballs, they’d take off.
They’d churn their legs, pump their arms, and before they’d reach the top of the hill, some hundred yards ahead, they’d both be huffing and panting.
But always—always!—Hannah would win. Just barely.
It isn’t fair, Owen sometimes thought. Hannah was one year and eighteen days older than him, and that made her one year and eighteen days stronger, one year and eighteen days bigger, one year and eighteen days faster.
And every Monday for years, when she crossed the finish line, marked by one of those yellow-and-black school-crossing signs, a fraction of a second before him, she chanted the exact same thing.
Girls always win! she’d say. Girls always win!
The crossing sign at the finish line seemed to agree with her. There were two children on it, a girl and a boy, walking in a crosswalk, and the girl was always just slightly in front of the boy. Always a few steps faster. Always coming in first.
Just like him and Hannah.
But lately, things had been changing. He’d been gaining on Hannah, losing to her by le
ss and less each week. He’d been getting faster and was inching his way to a win. His time was coming. He could feel it.
I can do it today, Owen thought as he and Hannah toed the line and started their countdown.
“Three!”
Owen narrowed his eyes.
“Two!”
He felt a kind of electricity in his arms and legs.
“One!”
He took in a breath and held it.
“Go!”
He burst off the sidewalk crack perfectly, getting a quicker start than Hannah. He pumped his legs, striding on his toes, trying to “run light” like Mom had taught them.
Already he was half a step ahead. Electricity seemed to crackle in the air around him. He was going to do it!
But midway up the hill, he saw Hannah out of the corner of his eye. He heard her pounding feet.
She was inching closer.
If only he could hold on…
He focused on the finish line, the boy and the girl in the yellow diamond-shaped sign. Something about those two children pulled at Owen’s eyes for just a second. The sign felt different. Wrong, even. But Owen pushed the distraction aside and told himself to go faster…faster!
He fought through the burning in his lungs and the aches in his legs. He focused himself. Still, Hannah crept up alongside him, and his stomach sank.
The sign was just twenty yards away. But Hannah sprang forward and edged ahead.
Come on, Owen thought, trying to catch her. Go, go, go!
But with only a few steps left, Hannah was definitely in front. Not by much—just a few inches. It’s her longer legs, Owen thought, her one-year-and-eighteen-days-longer legs, taking bigger steps.
They flew past the sign. Again, something about the boy and the girl on it felt off, making Owen’s skin tingle.
But the race was over.
He had lost. By inches.
He stopped, hunched forward, and rested his hands on his knees.
“Girls always win!” Hannah chanted through panting breaths. “Girls always win!”
Wait a second, Owen thought, and goose bumps rose on his arms.
He trudged back to the finish line. He stopped beside the sign’s metal pole and looked up.
No way, he thought.
Because the two children in the sign, the girl and the boy, were not where they were supposed to be.
The girl was not in front.
Owen blinked and looked again, and it was true. The girl was not in front!
The boy was.
Owen’s skin buzzed. Despite panting and sweating from the race, he felt cold all of a sudden.
“Hannah, come look at this sign,” he said. “Something’s strange.”
“Oh, little brother,” Hannah said. “There’s nothing strange. I won. As usual.” She blew on her fingernails and polished them on the front of her shirt.
Owen ignored her. He tried to put his most recent loss out of his head because something was definitely up. Definitely.
“I mean it.” He waved Hannah back. “Come look at this.”
Hannah sidled up next to him.
“Isn’t that girl usually in front of that boy?” He pointed.
Hannah shrugged.
“Well, she’s behind him now, see?” He waited for Hannah to say something.
She looked from him to the sign and back to him. “What’s your point?” she finally said.
Owen sighed.
“My point”—he lowered his voice—“is that this sign has changed.”
“Changed?” She looked at the sign again. “You get weirder every day, little brother.”
But the buzzing on Owen’s skin quickened. His heart thudded.
Owen tried to call up a picture of the sign from his memory. He’d passed it hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. And the girl had always been in front of the boy. Hadn’t she? That was what had bothered him about the sign all these years. The girl…always in front. Like Hannah.
Could he have been wrong about the sign? All this time?
“So the city put up a new sign,” Hannah said. “Big deal. Can we go now?”
Owen tilted his head and thought.
Hannah let out a frustrated puff of air. “If I miss another History quiz, Mom will kill me, Owen. She’ll just kill me.”
“But—” Owen said. And then a car stopped at the crosswalk. The driver, an older woman in a bathrobe and hair curlers, waved them across.
Hannah stepped into the street. Owen followed reluctantly, but he turned to look at the sign once more. One of its bottom corners was slightly bent, and little cracks ran all through the yellow and black paint. A small divot pockmarked the top of the sign, like it’d been hit by a rock.
Owen shook his head.
Hannah had said the sign was new. But the cracks and pockmark and bent corner told Owen the truth.
This sign was old.
* * *
At dinner, Owen chewed his burrito slowly.
“You’re quiet,” his mother said.
“I’m thinking,” he answered. He considered telling her about the sign, asking her which kid was supposed to be in front on a school-crossing sign, the boy or the girl, but he didn’t want to bring it up again in front of Hannah. She’d tell him he was acting crazy, and she might even tell their parents that she’d beaten him—yet again—that morning. So he decided to stay silent.
Maybe Hannah was right after all, and the sign had been replaced—not with a new sign, but with an old sign, a recycled one. But would the city have done that?
Or maybe something was happening. Something strange. Maybe that boy, now in front, was a kind of…prediction…or a premonition. Yes, that was the word. A premonition of things to come.
Of him, finally winning.
He shook his head and gulped down his milk.
No, he told himself. That’s crazy. More likely, he’d just been wrong about the sign for years. Probably the boy had always been walking in front, and he’d been seeing it wrong all this time. That was all.
Owen closed his eyes. He tried picturing the sign, going back to his memories to get a clear view of it. But everything felt fuzzy. Confused.
Which kid was supposed to be in front in a school crossing sign? The boy? The girl?
Thinking about it, Owen could see it both ways.
* * *
The next morning, Owen hooked his thumbs in his backpack straps and walked quickly up Millhollow Hill.
“Hey, wait up,” Hannah said as Owen pulled away. “It’s not a race day, you know.”
At the top of the hill, Owen stopped. In the sign, the girl was in front of the boy.
The girl was back in front of the boy!
They had switched! Again! It couldn’t be!
“Hannah,” Owen said. “Think hard. Is this what we saw on this sign yesterday?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hannah said.
Owen spoke low and tried to make his voice sound serious.
“I think this sign keeps changing,” Owen said.
Hannah rolled her eyes.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
Hannah shrugged. She didn’t even look at the sign. “Your mind’s playing tricks on you, Owen. That’s all. It’s just a street sign. So no, it doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is missing History quizzes.”
Hannah stepped off the curb and crossed the street. But Owen was sure of it now. He wasn’t seeing things wrong. Or remembering them wrong.
Those two children in the faded, flaking sign—that boy and that girl—they could move.
* * *
For the rest of the week, each time Owen passed the sign, his skin tingled. He didn’t know if the sign was trying to give him a prediction or a premonition or something else altogether, but t
he sign did seem to be giving off some kind of radiation, like a beacon, signaling him.
Each time he passed it, he took a mental picture of what he saw.
On Wednesday, the girl was in front, but the book she usually carried was on the ground next to her. Her head was bent, and she seemed to be reaching for it.
On Thursday, the book was back in her hands, but now she was behind the boy.
And on Friday, the boy was holding her book.
Each day, the sign made some small change, and each day, Hannah refused to talk about it.
“It’s a stupid sign, Owen!” she’d said, throwing her hands up the last time he’d mentioned it.
No matter how much he begged, Owen couldn’t even get her to look at the sign. He’d begun to wonder if anyone looked at it besides him.
The next Monday, he toed the sidewalk crack next to Hannah, and he tried to put the sign out of his head. But he couldn’t help peering at it, a hundred yards ahead. He couldn’t make out the boy and girl from so far away, so he couldn’t see just how they’d changed this time.
While he was still squinting ahead, Hannah started the countdown.
“Three, two, one, go!”
She burst ahead right from the start.
No, he thought. Not again.
He hadn’t been ready. He’d been so distracted by the sign that he’d forgotten to tighten his backpack straps, so he ran, and his backpack flumped on his shoulders. He churned his legs. He pumped his arms. But it was no use.
He never even got close to Hannah.
She beat him by at least five steps.
Instead of running hard through the finish, Owen slowed and stopped beneath the sign. He slid his backpack off his shoulders and dropped it to the sidewalk. The boy and the girl were back to normal. The girl in front. The boy a few steps behind. The sign was ordinary. Regular.
