“I mean,” I continued, “now that I don’t have powers anymore we could live together and it would be a normal thing. A normal life. It seems like that’s what you want, too.”
She stared at me for a moment.
“No,” she finally answered.
“Why not?” I asked quietly.
She shrugged her shoulders before saying, “I dunno. I have a lot going on. Not sure if motherhood is for me.”
I couldn’t believe it. Was she really saying this? “But you are my mom.”
“Genetically,” she agreed.
Now the tears were really trying to force their way out of my eyes. I held my breath, trying to will them not to emerge, but that had started to make me light-headed.
She continued, “Having a teenager in your life? That’s a big commitment. It’s not like you’re a cute little baby or something.” My mom kept on talking, but my brain was starting to go elsewhere.
Her words were digging into me, gutting me. She didn’t want to be my mom. After all this, she didn’t want me. I felt hollow.
“Ahh!!” my mother screamed, bringing me out of my thoughts.
She was staring at me. A look of extreme panic was etched on her pale face.
“What? Wait, did I hit the seat adjuster or something?’ I asked. It seemed I was looking up at her now.
I felt the side of the seat, but it was fine.
“Y-you liar!” My mom’s panic had turned into something worse: disgust. She pointed at my waist.
I looked down, trying to figure out what she could be so upset about. I wasn’t even wearing a sassy T-shirt. Then, I saw it.
No, no, no, I thought. This can’t be happening.
“This can’t be happening!” I said.
Much to everyone’s surprise, my stupidpowers had activated. I was starting to shrink, but I didn’t feel smaller; I felt heavier. Looking down, I could see the horrible truth. The soles of my shoes were spreading outward. The rejection from my mom had left me feeling empty, which sparked my powers to make it appear like I actually was empty. I looked like I was melting.
“Get. Out,” she commanded.
“I didn’t lie,” I tried to explain. “They told me I was cured—”
“Sure! And your guardian angel coming to threaten me this afternoon? I’m sure you didn’t know about that either.”
“What? Betsy?” I was so confused.
“None of it matters now. Your secret is out. This is not normal.” She gestured to my wobbly torso.
“Please,” I begged. “I just want to live with you. I just want us to be normal.”
She pointed to the door. And that was all it took. Devastation swept over me, and I felt an extra-special second wave of stupidpowers starting. I turned to get out of the car, trying to escape before my mother witnessed another freak show, but the jiggliness of my upper body was making it hard to move at any reasonable speed. Plus, there was this extraordinary heaviness in my heart that seemed to be dragging my whole body down.
“Hurry! Get your mess out of my car!” my mother demanded.
It was then that the powers went into high gear, and so did the melting process.
The jelly-ness of my belly was now a cute memory. I was rapidly getting shorter and wider. Flatter and rounder? Yep. That too. Finally, my mother reached over and opened the car door for me. She was about to push my globulous self out of her SUV when she thought better.
“Yuck,” she said, then rifled around in the back seat until she found a snow brush/ice-scraper thingy. Using the dingy blue sweeper side, she brushed me out of the car. I stuck about halfway through and she had to employ the scraper side.
“That’s uncomfortable,” I told her as she pried what had been my left elbow off the seat.
“This is unacceptable, Veronica,” she hissed.
A second later, I splatted onto the curb. My mother slammed the door and took off. Her wheels screeched as she peeled out. I needed to get myself together. I was a gelatinous, roughly girl-shaped blob that was hanging out on the sidewalk! With a lot of effort, I dragged my gooey bits behind a nearby hedge. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths before trying to assess the sitch. My mother hated me. I was an actual mess. A few more breaths and the powers were starting to wear off, but I still wasn’t anywhere near back to normal. The hedges were taller than me and I had an overall gummy bear–like appearance. Not to mention my butt kept getting stuck to the grass. I lifted my hand to inspect it, but noticed it had a mini candy bar wrapper stuck to it. I plucked it off only to see that there was a large crow’s feather stuck to my ankle. That one was really stuck.
As I slowly returned more and more to my natural self, I could see that the wrapper and feather were the least of my sticky problems. My whole body was covered with grass clippings, litter, and even a few bugs. Once I was stable enough to walk, I could only hope they’d fall off as I made my way home.
SPLAT! STICK! SPLOOP!
SPLAT! STICK! SPLOOP!
SPLAT! STICK! SPLOOP!
That was my lovely, limby soundtrack all the way home. My feet hadn’t quite recovered and stuck to the sidewalk on Every. Single. Step. I was so late getting home that there were already party guests arriving!
“Dad! I’m here!” I called out as I burst through the door. “Wow…,” I said. All of my decorations had been put up, and they looked great! I peeked into the living room and spotted Charlie, who was taping up the last bit of streamer. He wasn’t looking at it, though; his eyes were focused on the other side of the room. Betsy. She was working with Lizzie and Dean to get the fancy video camera ready. At that moment, her head shot up and she looked over at Charlie. Even from this distance I could see how red his face turned. Betsy whipped her head back to Lizzie and Dean, pretending it had never happened.
I wanted to hug both of them.
But that would’ve been really gross. I had just remembered I was still crawling with actual, living bugs.
“Kiddo! We’re in the kitchen!” Dad called out. I could tell by the voices that some of his dude friends had already arrived.
“I’ll be right there! Just gonna go change!” I said too loudly, hoping Dad would think I didn’t hear him. I raced up the stairs, but stopped abruptly on the landing. Ms. Watson was standing there staring at me.
“Hi,” I said, flashing a big fake smile.
“What happened to you?” she asked as she gently picked a ladybug out of my hair and set it on our fern.
“Oh, well … nothing.”
“Powers?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah. I’m fine, though,” I assured her as I slid past.
SNIFF-SNIFF!
Did Ms. Watson just sniff me? Whatever. I needed a moment when no one else could see me. Once I was safely inside the bathroom with the door locked behind me, I inspected the damage. Yep. I was encased in ick. There were sticks nestled under my armpits and moss on my kneecaps. I sat on the edge of the tub and ran the water. I didn’t have a ton of time—the party would be in full swing soon—so a scrub with a washcloth would have to be enough for this deforestation.
I began the process of soaking and scrubbing, soaking and scrubbing. It was super monotonous, so I started making a mental list of what still needed done for tomorrow. The portrait! I needed to give that to them that night. I hoped they would like it, and not just an “oh, this is nice” kind of like. It was the hardest I’d ever worked on a drawing.
There was a tap-tap-tap coming from the floor below—Dad’s personal Morse Code for “You’re wasting water.”
“Oh, crud,” I mumbled, realizing I had totally zoned out. Now that I was more human than roadside debris, I got ready in a flash, grabbed the portrait, and ran downstairs.
The rooms were filling up with people I had known my entire life, some of whom I hadn’t seen since I was a wee baby. It was really trippy. I should have counted how many times I heard, “Veronica?! Is that you? You’ve gotten so big!” My guess would be at least twenty-two million times. Even
tually I dropped off my portrait, wrapped and decorated with the most enormous bow I could make, next to the fireplace.
It took longer than expected, but then I found Charlie. “Thank you for doing all of this!” I marveled at the decorations.
“At your service.” He bowed. “But, actually, I needed something to keep me busy. It took me ages to get off the art room floor.”
I gasped. His comment had set off a reminder.
“The favors!” I had left them at school!
“Chill your grill,” Charlie said as he pointed to my dad’s friends Waldo and Frank, who were popping a cracker open. “I brought them.”
“You are a real American hero.”
“A real American zero, you mean.”
His face fell a little as he snuck a glance at Betsy.
“Wanna go talk to her?” I asked.
He shook his head violently.
“Okay.”
This was tricky. Really tricky. Part of me—and I acknowledge how not cool it is to say this—but part of me was a little happy. There. I said it. I’m a horrible human being. Charlie was my best friend again. I could still be friends with Betsy in that weird way we were friends. Things could go back to the way they were. Well, except that one thing …
“Oh. You need to tell your moms something. Something not good.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “Side effects? Itching? Burning? Flaking? Organ prolapse?!”
“It stopped working. I’m powered up again.”
“Yes!” He rejoiced before correcting himself. “I mean, so sorry to hear that, love. How bad?”
I had had a bad itch behind one ear since I came downstairs and had a sneaking suspicion of what it was.
“One hundred percent bad,” I answered, pulling my hair to the side so Charlie could take a look.
“Is that part of a funny from a newspaper?” He picked at it. “What happened?”
“I was a human Jell-O mold.”
“This is gross. Beautifully gross,” he said in awe as he pulled out the stuck comic strip.
“Which comic is it?” I asked.
“Looks like a panel from Garfield.”
Charlie took a picture of the comic and texted it to his moms with an update about my power surge.
It only took a few minutes for them to write back.
“Hey, they say they can make you more. Sounds like it would be like a vitamin you have to take every so often to keep your powers away.”
“Okay. Gummy bear me.”
“You sure about this?” Charlie asked, his thumbs looming over his phone screen.
“Yeah.”
Charlie hesitated before typing his response. “Order placed.”
I could see that Dad had noticed the giant-bowed gift. It wouldn’t be long until he couldn’t resist anymore.
“I should get Betsy and the twins. Make sure they’re filming.” I gestured to the crowd that was gathering. “Wanna come with me?”
“Nah. I’ll, uh, hold down this corner of the room,” Charlie said.
Betsy and the twins had really gotten into their jobs. Betsy was filming guests from dramatic angles while they told her about how they knew Dad or Ms. Watson. The Tech Twins were prepping the next video well-wishers, smoothing down fly-aways, and adjusting lighting. I waited until they were between spots to bother them.
“You three are blowing my mind!”
“If you’re going to do it…,” Lizzie started.
“Do it well,” Dean finished.
“Yo,” Betsy said, “your dad knows some interesting-looking characters.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. He did. In fact, he had one friend I only knew as Fist Face. He was from Dad’s rough-and-tumble phase, so I had never asked if it was because his face looked like a fist or if it was because he used his fists a lot. On faces. Some questions you just shouldn’t ask.
Lizzie nodded. “I feel like there is a subject of a documentary in here.”
The twins went back to prep.
“So, how is he?” Betsy asked me quietly.
“Embarrassed,” I said.
“That’s lame.”
“Maybe you should break the ice?” I asked.
“I tried to go talk to him, but he kept running away.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose. Maybe he didn’t notice you.”
“No, he literally saw me. Then I waved. Then he ran away. Blew napkins off the table he was going so fast.”
“Oof.”
“I dunno. I ruined it. I’m just going to let it go.”
Again, I was conflicted. Sharing Charlie was not my favorite thing.
Tink-tink-tink!
We turned to see my dad, who was tapping a butter knife on the side of a beer mug.
“Where’s Veronica? Where are you at, kiddo?”
“We’re on!” I whispered to Betsy and the twins.
I joined Dad and Ms. Watson by the fireplace. The guests had gathered around.
“I take it this is your doing?” Dad asked as he lifted the package onto the edge of a coffee table.
“I know it’s tradition to give the bride and groom something on the wedding day, but … this was way too frickin’ big to haul to the mansion,” I kidded.
“Can we open it tonight?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah,” I said nervously. Suddenly I wasn’t sure my art was any good at all. “I mean, maybe…” I reached toward the present, but it was too late; Dad the Present Annihilator ripped off the wrapping paper in the blink of an eye and stood silent before the canvas. Several of the guests gasped.
Panic bolted up my spine. I could feel my powers starting to churn. My eyes darted between him and Ms. Watson, trying to gauge their feelings before mine reached the point of no return.
Dad turned to me. He had tears in his eyes.
“Veri, this is amazing!” Dad beamed at me. “I knew you were impressive, but this … THIS!” He picked me up and spun me around before planting a big fat kiss on my forehead.
I let out a huge sigh of relief and an even huger one when I felt my powers taper off.
“It is stunning,” Ms. Watson said. “Thank you.”
The rest of the adult guests gathered around the canvas to get a better look while I slid back into the group of kids. Charlie had gotten brave and was within talking range of Betsy, but neither of them would even look at the other.
“Way to show us all up, weirdo,” Betsy joked.
“I’ll take that as the highest compliment,” I told her.
“You probably should.”
“Just one thing, Veri,” Charlie added. “Why aren’t you in it? Family portrait and all that.”
I watched Dad and Ms. Watson, their arms wrapped around each other. They were in their own little world.
“I guess it didn’t look right.”
* * *
A little while later, the guests were starting to mill out, but I was waiting for one in particular.
“Ted!” I called out as his head bobbed toward the front door.
“What up, little dunk?” he asked.
I wasn’t at all sure what a little dunk was, but I had more important things to discuss. And I wanted to do it before I lost my nerve.
“Uh,” I stammered. “I need to ask you another favor.”
“As long as you don’t need me to pee in a cup for you, consider it done.”
“Oh, no, I don’t know why—”
“I mean, I would normally, but I just peed like two minutes ago, so I’m running on empty.”
“Oh, boy. No, Ted, what I need is for you to tell my mom that I’m fine now. And I’m going to be fine from now on. I can even get professionals to tell her that. I’m done with all that weird stuff.”
He scrunched his brow. “And you’re sure you don’t need to pass a drug test?”
“More than anything in the world, I don’t need you to pee in a cup for me. Please tell my mom that. Please.”
“All right…”
; “Soon! Please.”
Ted nodded as he left, though he still looked extremely confused.
Might be time to put myself in a new picture.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOREVER AND NEVER
Wedding day! Aaaaaand I was already running late. I was supposed to have met Ms. Watson fifteen minutes earlier. But. But I had seen a puppy. You try to resist a ball of mushy fluff!
I rushed into the Dress Depot and found Ms. Watson—well, at least her feet and hair. She was in the dressing room trying on her wedding dress.
“Ms. Watson! I’m here! I’m so sorry!” I said through the curtain.
“Your stuff is in the next changing room,” she instructed.
“Did we get Dad’s suit?” I asked as I closed myself into the dressing room.
“Yep.”
“When does he try his on to make sure it fits?”
“Leave it to the patriarchy to make all men’s sizes to be in their actual measurements whereas our sizes are a mere guideline. He won’t even need to take his out of the dry-cleaning bag until two minutes before the ceremony.”
I unwrapped my outfit. It had taken me ages to pick it out. The dress I had ordered was tea length, which meant it hit at about the middle of my calf. It was made out of about a zillion layers of different pastel-colored tulle. It was gloriously dramatic. I wriggled into it before I left the dressing room to show Ms. Watson.
“Maid of honor reporting for duty!” I called into her changing stall.
A few seconds later she came out of her own, and …
“Wow…,” I said. She looked great. Before, I had thought the sleek, off-the-shoulder dress she had picked out was too plain, but seeing it on her now, it was perfect.
“This is adequate?” she asked nervously.
“It’s more than adequate! You’re a total baberella!”
A little color came to her cheeks before she turned the attention to me. “Your outfit is very clever. Very you. I like it quite a bit.”
“Thanks,” I said. There were a lot of emotions flowing through me right then. Here I was, about to be maid of honor and best man to two people I was not going to live with soon. She looked at herself in the mirror and gave a small, hesitant smile. Then she looked at my reflection.
All the Feels Page 10
