“I’m not obsessed!” Cassa said. “I just don’t get it. I thought she’d at least apologize for making us fail our social studies project.”
“Wait, you failed?” With everything else that had been going on, I hadn’t had a chance to send Cassa any more of my research.
“My mom was so mad when she found out,” Cassa said. “She made me explain the situation to the teacher, and he said he didn’t want to get caught up in our ‘little drama.’ ” She rolled her eyes. “He did agree to let us revise what we did and hand it in next week for a better grade. But only if we work together this time.”
I shook my head. How on earth was I going to make that happen?
I realized Cassa was shaking her head too. “I don’t know,” she said, half to herself. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
“A sign of what?” She was starting to sound like me.
“It’s just … I wanted this year to be different. Maybe this is proof that I made the wrong decision.”
“Why do things have to be different? Why can’t they be good like they’ve always been?” I demanded. Then I stopped. “Wait. What decision?”
But at that moment the warning bell rang. “Forget it,” Cassa said. “It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head and hurried away.
When I got to first period, Mrs. Connor handed me a detention slip the moment I walked through the door.
“What’s this?” I asked in disbelief. “The late bell didn’t even ring yet!”
“It came from the main office,” she said. “You have an unexcused absence.”
“Wh-what?” Suddenly, I realized what she was talking about. I’d missed school to go see Austin in the hospital last week, and even though I’d reminded my parents to send the school a note, they must have forgotten with everything else going on.
When I tried to explain that to Mrs. Connor, she shook her head sadly. “You can go speak to the guidance counselor,” she said. “But I’m afraid I can’t undo the detention. I’ll see you at lunch again today, okay?”
I definitely didn’t want to see the counselor—there was no way I could even begin to explain my problems to her—so I stopped arguing and took the slip. My third detention in a week. It felt as though I were some alternate version of myself, a Lexi who got in trouble and was late for things and wasn’t perfect at math. I didn’t like this new Lexi, but the more I tried to get rid of her, the more determined she seemed to stick around.
When I got to lunch detention later that day, Mrs. Connor announced that we’d be working in pairs again and talking about our feelings. When she asked Felix to partner up with me, I was surprised when he called out, “Can’t I work with someone else?”
Mrs. Connor shook her head and moved on to the next person. Great. Now Felix didn’t even want to talk to me, and I was supposed to be his best customer!
Even though I was offended, I had no choice but to pull my desk over to his. “Are you still here for selling things on school property?” I couldn’t help asking. By my count, he should have been done with detention already.
Felix didn’t look up from his desk. “Um, not exactly. It’s, um, for something else.” I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t.
Huh. Whatever it was, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But that was too bad for him, since that’s exactly what we were supposed to talk about.
“Okay, so … how were you feeling when you, um, did whatever it was you did to wind up here?” I asked.
Felix shrugged. “Annoyed, I guess. At getting caught.”
“And, er, what made you feel that way?”
He took a deep breath. Finally, he leaned forward and said, “Okay, look. I’ll tell you the truth because you’ll find out from someone else anyway. I’m here because I got into a fight with a kid after school yesterday.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to tell me that?”
“Because of what the fight was about. He found out that …” Felix lowered his voice. “That my clovers are fake.”
I blinked. “Fake?”
“Oh, come on, Lexi. Don’t look so surprised. You had to know they weren’t the real thing.”
Not real? The four-leaf clovers weren’t real?
Felix must have seen the shock on my face because he shook his head and said, “Seriously? Where did you think I found them all?”
“I—I guess I thought you were super lucky.”
“I glued them together, okay? Just stuck an extra leaf on there and packaged them up.”
I thought of my coin purse, stuffed full of dozens of clovers. All of them glued. All of them fake. I suddenly wanted to throw up. Was this what Felix had meant the other day about “making your own luck”?
Of course I should have known it was all a hoax. He’d even tried to warn me not to waste my money!
Felix was giving me a pitying look. “You don’t really believe in all that luck stuff, do you?”
Did I? I’d thought of the clovers as an insurance policy, a way to add another layer of good luck into my life, just in case. And now it turned out it was all a lie. A fake, glued-together lie.
“How could you do that to people?” I demanded. “How could you mess with their lives like that?”
Now it was Felix’s turn to look stunned. “I … I didn’t think anyone would take it so seriously. My family’s been having a hard time ever since we had to put my grandmother in a nursing home. I thought maybe I could help out by making some cash on the side.” He shook his head. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“Well, you did!” I cried.
But of course I wasn’t really yelling at Felix. I was yelling at myself. Because what he’d done with the four-leaf clovers was low, but what I’d done with the wishing stones was even lower. I doubted Felix’s scheme had hurt anyone nearly as much as my wishes had.
When I left school, Elijah was waiting for me on the front steps. He looked as though he was about to burst with excitement.
“I found something at the library about Gem that might help us figure out where the stones came from,” he said.
“Really?” Finally, some good news!
He nodded so fast that his glasses slid down his nose. “There was no record of anyone named Gem living in town in the 1990s, but there was a woman named Gemini Matthews who opened up that bead shop in town.”
“Beady Buy?” I asked, thinking of the place where Marina had dragged Cassa on the day I’d found the wishing stones. Elijah nodded. “Do you think it could be her?”
“It might be,” he said. “And the best part is, she still runs the store. If we go see her right now, we can ask about the tape.”
“Elijah, you’re a genius! But I need to get home and watch my brother while my mom has a phone interview for a new job.”
Elijah’s excitement deflated. “This is your mystery we’re trying to solve, remember?”
“I know, and I’m glad you’re helping. But it’s going to have to wait, okay?”
I figured Elijah could understand that, but he got a strange look on his face. “I can’t believe you’re going to blow me off,” he said. “I thought we were best friends.”
I blinked at him. Huh?
“Now you don’t even want to hang out with me?” he went on. “What’s up with that?”
He sounded hurt, which made no sense. “Elijah, it’s nothing personal. I have to get home, that’s all. Besides, I told you. Cassa’s my best friend.”
“So where is she?” he demanded. “I never see you two together.”
“That’s none of your business,” I snapped.
“Fine,” he said, his jaw tightening. “If that’s how you feel, maybe we weren’t meant to be friend soul mates after all.”
Friend soul mates? What on earth was he talking about? This didn’t sound like Elijah at all!
Before I could try to reason with him, he was hopping on his skateboard.
“Elijah! I’m sorry!” I called after him, even though I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. But
he was already halfway down the street.
As I watched Austin playing in the yard while my mom had her interview, I couldn’t stop thinking about Elijah and all the stuff he’d said about Cassa. It didn’t matter, I told myself. I didn’t need friends anyway. I was fine on my own.
I swallowed the aching feeling in my throat and went back to watching Austin dig around in his tunnels.
“Buddy?” I asked, going over to kneel beside him. “Um, are you okay? You’re not … you’re not miserable like this, are you?”
He gave me a few squeaks and then he smiled. At least he didn’t seem unhappy, but that didn’t mean he could stay this way.
“Kids!” Mom cried, practically skipping out of the house. “I got it! I got the job.”
I jumped to my feet. “Really? That was fast.”
“They just had someone quit and are desperate to fill the position. And get this. It has more flexible hours and better pay. That means your dad won’t have to go on so many trips anymore. It’s like a dream come true!”
This had to be because of my Family wish. Finally, one of the stones was working the way it was supposed to!
“When do you start?” I asked.
“If all goes well, next week,” she said. “Austin’s been healing so well, he should be able to go back to preschool any day now.”
My brother let out a loud squeak, hopped back into his exercise ball, and thundered off toward the other end of the yard.
Mom’s smile faded as she watched him. “I’ve never seen Austin play the same game for this long,” she said. “And he’s been so nonverbal lately, almost like he’s regressing. Maybe I should call the doctor.”
The last thing my family needed was another medical bill to worry about.
“He’s just being a kid,” I said, a little too loudly. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
Mom nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced. Which meant I was running out of time.
The next day, I finally headed to the cafeteria instead of to lunchtime detention. Between that and the day I’d missed because of Austin being in the hospital, it had been over a week since I’d eaten with Cassa. For the first time, I wondered what she’d done during all those days. Had she sat at our table alone, reading history books?
When I got to our usual table, it was empty. Huh. Maybe Cassa had gone to the library the way I did on the days when she was out sick. I thought about going there to find her, to let her know it was safe to come back to the cafeteria.
Then I heard her laugh echoing nearby.
I turned to see Cassa sitting with a table of kids I barely knew. She was giggling away with Kallie Krueger, as if the two of them had been friends for years. What on earth? How did they even know each other? Kallie had moved to town a couple of years ago, but Cassa and I hadn’t really talked to her.
For a second, I wasn’t sure what to do. Finally, I managed to catch Cassa’s eye, and her laughter died. She said something to the other girls and then she picked up her lunch and headed over to me.
“Lex, I didn’t know if you’d be here today,” she said, sliding into the seat beside me.
“I figured you might be at the library.”
She shrugged. “I thought about going there when you weren’t here that first day, but Kallie said I should come sit with her.”
“How do you know her?”
“I met her at the knitting club meeting. She grew up in England, so she’s been telling me all about it.”
I couldn’t believe it. It was happening all over again. I’d gotten Marina out of the picture, and now Kallie was swooping in to take her place.
“Oh … cool,” I managed to say.
“She even knows the town where my dad’s been living,” Cassa went on excitedly. “She said her mom grew up there. It sounds adorable. I can’t wait to go visit.”
I sat up. “You’re going to visit your dad? When?”
“This summer probably.” For some reason, Cassa wouldn’t look up from her lunch.
“For the whole summer?” I pressed.
“Or part of it. I don’t know yet.” She cleared her throat. “I’m still figuring it out.”
“What about …” But I couldn’t finish that sentence. Because “What about me?” sounded so silly and so selfish. Just because we usually spent the summers swimming at the town pool and riding our bikes to the library and making rainbow Popsicles from scratch, clearly that didn’t matter to her.
“It’s still months away,” she said. “It might not even happen.” She cleared her throat again and then looked up at me. “We’ll always be friends. Nothing’s going to change that.”
But that wasn’t true. Things had already changed between us. And the more I tried to keep them the same, the more out of control they got.
Instead of heading home after school, I went over to Beady Buy to follow the Gem lead that Elijah had told me about.
When I ducked into the bead store, the first person I saw at the counter was Marina. Ugh. Okay, universe. I get it. You don’t have to keep rubbing her presence in my face!
“I don’t know what to do,” I heard her saying to the old lady behind the counter.
“I’m sorry, love,” the lady said to her. “It’s tough when you have a good thing and then things go south. But hang in there, okay?”
Marina nodded, and she looked sadder than I’d ever seen her. Was this because of everything with Cassa?
At that moment, I accidentally bumped into a shelf of jingling earrings. Marina turned, and her eyes narrowed when she saw me.
“Um, hi,” I blurted out.
“Oh, so you can see me?” Marina said. “You’ve only been pretending that I’m invisible, is that it? Just like Cassa won’t even be in the same room as me anymore?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but she only glared at me and rushed out of the store.
“Can I help you?” the lady behind the counter called out to me. She had a gold beaded headband in her gray hair that made her look like an elderly princess.
“Yes, hi. Um, are you Gemini?”
She smiled. “Most people call me Mimi, but yes, that’s me.”
“Did you ever go by Gem?”
She shook her head. “To be honest, I’ve always been a bit embarrassed by my name. Why do you ask?”
“I’m trying to find someone named Gem. I think she grew up here. She would have been my age about twenty-five years ago.”
“I’ve been in this town all my life and I can’t remember anyone with that name. And trust me, I would have remembered.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, disappointed. Clearly, this lead was a dead end. If Gemini wasn’t Gem, then I had no idea where to look next.
I turned to leave, but Mimi called out, “That girl who was just here. Do you two go to school together?”
“Yeah, she’s in my grade.”
“Well, would you do me a favor and be extra nice to her? It’s tough being at a new school. She and her family move around a lot, and I think she’s looking for some roots, you know?”
I tried to imagine what Marina’s life was like, changing schools all the time, moving around year after year. It had all sounded so glamorous when Cassa talked about it. But honestly, if I were Marina, I’d probably want some roots too. Maybe I’d be so desperate to make new friends that I might not even notice that I was taking away someone else’s best friend.
Okay, maybe I’d been a little hard on Marina, but she’d been trying to take my roots away from me. I couldn’t let that happen, could I?
So I only shrugged, thanked Mimi for her time, and hurried out of the store.
When I got home, I was surprised to find Aunt Glinda there waiting for me. My insides lurched.
“Is everything okay? Where’s Austin?” I asked.
“He’s fine. Everyone’s fine,” she assured me. “Your mom had to go in to her new office to fill out some paperwork, and your dad took Austin to a follow-up doctor’s appointment. They asked me to be he
re when you got back.”
I closed my eyes as my heart slowed to its normal thumping. Would I spend the rest of my life jumping to the worst conclusions? Was this how things were going to be from now on?
“I was thinking of cleaning out the attic this weekend,” my aunt said. “Any chance you’d feel like helping me? I can pay you in cookies.”
“Sure.” I certainly didn’t have anything else going on. Cassa hadn’t said a word about our usual Saturday-night plans. Honestly, I was kind of hoping she’d forget about them. “Don’t worry about the cookies, though. I’ll do it for free.”
“You’re the best, Lexi,” my aunt said. “I’m so glad we’re getting to spend more time together.”
“Me too,” I said, and I actually meant it.
“So, what do you want to do now?” my aunt asked.
“I’m supposed start on my homework.”
She smiled. “If you want to put that off for a while, I brought over some music,” she said. “Stuff I listened to back when I was your age. I found some tapes when I was cleaning out the guest room closet. Considering you and I have similar taste in music, I thought you might enjoy going through them.”
“Oh, sure,” I said.
She laughed. “But I realized no one has tape players anymore!”
“Actually, I do. Hold on a sec.” I went up to my room to grab Dad’s old one. Maybe we could hook it up to the stereo and both listen to it somehow.
I brought it back down and my aunt’s face lit up. “A Walkman,” she said. “I haven’t seen one of those in ages!” She took it out of my hands and turned it over carefully, as if she were holding a priceless antique.
Then she let out a little gasp. “Where did you get this?”
“The Walkman? It was Dad’s. I found it in the garage.”
“No, this.” She opened the tape player and took out the cassette inside. It was the mixtape with “For Gem” written on it. “Where did this come from?”
There was an odd tone in her voice, almost an accusing one. “I didn’t steal it or anything,” I said. “It was at the Antique Barn and Ms. Hinkley said I could take it and …” I sucked in a breath. “Wait, do you recognize this tape? Do you know who it belonged to?”
Secondhand Wishes Page 9
