Hide and Don't Seek

by Anica Mrose Rissi

  ABIGAIL:(ignores her) Ready? (she spins) Vanisher, Vanisher, take me away. (she stops) Hey, aren’t you going to do it with me?

  ABIGAIL, SYLAS, MABEL, and JACEY:(spinning, and chanting louder with each turn) Vanisher, Vanisher, take me away. Vanisher, Vanisher, take me away. Vanisher, Vanisher, take me away. Vanisher, Vanisher, take me away.

  TAWANA:(jumps up) No, stop, don’t! (she lunges toward ABIGAIL) Stop! This is your seventh!

  ABIGAIL, SYLAS, MABEL, and JACEY:Vanisher, Vanisher, take me away.

  TAWANA:(screams) No! (just as she reaches ABIGAIL, ABIGAIL disappears) No! (SYLAS, MABEL, JACEY, and TAWANA vanish as well)

  Author’s note: With the sudden disappearance of the actors from the stage, stunned audience members waited for the kids to return. Eventually, a few people clapped, thinking the play must be over and the actors would come take their bows. But the event we’d just witnessed was not a trick of the light or part of the play. The children did not reappear.

  A cry went up from the middle of the audience, as the first person realized the five students had truly vanished. Seemingly all at once, the rest of the audience caught on, and panic and chaos erupted.

  I will not attempt to recount the minutes and hours that followed, as the deep distress and confusion of every person present made us all unreliable witnesses. Even my own memories of the course of events I do not fully trust.

  But all this time later, two facts remain: The play was over. And the children who summoned the Vanisher were never seen again.

  The boy had never really thought about the crow before. He knew it existed, of course, but he rarely had reason to notice. It didn’t affect him. It was just there. It was weird of his friend to be pointing it out.

  If you looked around, the crows were everywhere. Lots of people had one. It’s just the way things were.

  “You know what a group of crows is called? A murder,” the friend said.

  The boy smiled. The crows were harmless. In fact, in some ways, they were good.

  The crow dropped a cookie on the boy’s lunch tray. “You’ve earned it,” the crow said, and flew a short distance away.

  The boy picked up the cookie. It was chocolate chip and still warm from the oven. It smelled delicious.

  “What did you do to earn it?” the friend asked between bites of an apple.

  The boy knew the answer. The crow had mentioned it once before. “I work hard,” he said.

  “You do,” the friend agreed. “So do I.”

  The boy shrugged. “I guess the crow thinks I work harder.”

  “Hmm,” the friend said.

  The boy felt bad for a second. The crow had never brought the friend a cookie. But the boy often shared his, so the crow was good for the friend too. Besides, the boy hadn’t asked to be rewarded.

  He broke the cookie in two and held out the smaller half. The friend accepted. They both chewed. The boy felt pleased with his generosity.

  “You never wonder about it? Where they came from? Why they’re like this? What it would be like if we shooed them away?” the friend asked.

  The boy shook his head. “Why would I?”

  The friend’s eyebrows jumped. The boy quickly explained: “It’s like gravity. You can’t change it, so what’s the point in thinking about it? You don’t think about the air all day, do you?”

  “I do if someone stinks it up with a fart,” the friend said.

  The boy snorted. The crow snickered. The bell rang, and lunch was over.

  After school, the boy walked home with his sister, like usual. The crow swooped along beside them. It was annoying, suddenly being so aware of its presence. The boy kept noticing small things, like that his sister didn’t have one. Like how sometimes the crow tossed pebbles in her path. Like how sometimes it cleared them from his.

  What was the big deal? Pebbles didn’t matter. The crow didn’t matter. The friend was getting worked up about nothing. The boy felt huffy just thinking about it. He whirled around to check what the crow was doing—nothing. See?—and when he turned back, he walked straight into a tree.

  “Ow!” the boy cried. His hand flew to his nose, which smarted from the impact. Tears prickled his eyes. He felt humiliated as much as hurt.

  “Are you okay?” the sister asked. The boy shook her off and kept walking. He didn’t want her—or the crow—seeing his tears.

  But he knew from the cackle behind him it was too late.

  The crow landed on the boy’s shoulder. The boy stiffened. “Awww,” the crow said softly, right into the boy’s ear. The boy relaxed for a second, thinking the crow was comforting him. But it pecked his skin, hard, where a tear had escaped down his cheek. “You baby,” the crow hissed. “Weakling.”

  The boy walked faster. He wanted to scream and push the crow away. He wanted to let all the tears he’d been holding in fall. But he didn’t.

  The boy wiped his cheek, smearing it with blood. “Ha,” he said in his toughest voice. “Whatever.”

  The sister ran to catch up. “Hey. Are you all right?” she said.

  The boy couldn’t box up his feelings any longer. He picked up a pebble and flung it at his sister—not hard enough to hurt her, just hard enough to sting. It bounced off her arm. She stared at him in shock.

  “Are you all right?” he mimicked in a squeaky, horrible voice. The sister shrank, and the boy felt a surge of power. On his shoulder, the crow chortled.

  The sister stormed off down the sidewalk, and the boy laughed. The crow laughed too. Other crows around them joined in. The boy didn’t feel quite so lousy anymore. He looked down at his forearms, where dark, soft feathers grew. They were beautiful, just like the crow’s.

  The boy walked home proudly.

  That night after dinner, he took a stroll with his dad around the neighborhood. The crow came too, along with the dad’s crow—sometimes hopping, sometimes flying, but not really with them. Just there.

  The boy lowered his voice. “Do you ever think about the crows?” he asked.

  The dad shrugged. “Not really. What is there to think about?”

  The boy was pleased. “That’s what I said!” he said. “My friend who doesn’t have one was weird about it today. Saying, like, maybe we should shoo them off and turn down the things they give us. That maybe it isn’t fair.”

  The dad rolled his eyes. “You’re supposed to give up your crow just because not everyone has one? What would that solve?”

  The boy had no answer, but the dad didn’t expect one.

  “Look,” the dad said. “This friend. The one looking for handouts. Being sensitive. Always bringing up crows. Don’t listen! It’s all nonsense. The system works for us. Always has. And the only thing wrong with it is people like the friend, who want to change it. Eat your cookies, son. Enjoy what you’ve earned. You deserve it.”

  The boy beamed. The crows cooed. The dad was right. Of course he was.

  They turned the corner and saw a commotion. Across the street, a stranger ducked for cover as five, six, seven crows swooped down to attack, pecking and beating the stranger with their wings.

  The boy’s heart raced. “Should we help?” he asked.

  The dad looked away. “Nah, I’m sure the crows have got it.”

  “Oh,” the boy said, feeling foolish. He’d meant should they help the stranger. But of course if the crows were acting that way, the stranger had done something wrong. The crows had never attacked the boy like that, and he knew they never would. He wasn’t the type to give them reason.

  The boy walked on with his dad and ignored the kerfuffle. “Your feathers are really growing in nicely,” the dad said.

  The boy stood taller. “Thanks.”

  Over the next several weeks, the boy took the dad’s advice and stopped thinking about the crow. If the friend brought it up, the boy changed the subject or stopped listening.

  When the boy earned a cookie, he enjoyed it—sometimes sharing, sometimes not. He didn’t want the friend to expect it.


  The boy started spending less time with the friend and more time with the others in his class who had crows—but that was by coincidence, not design. The new friends were easy to talk to. They never, ever brought up the crows. They certainly never judged the boy for having one. And when the boy shared his cookies, these friends shared the candies, cupcakes, and chocolates their crows had brought them. The system worked well for everyone. Everyone who’d earned a crow.

  One day, the boy bought his lunch and walked past the spot where he used to sit with the friend, way back when they had lunch together. He didn’t even glance in the friend’s direction, until he heard a noise that made him look—almost a squawk, but more like a sob.

  The boy’s gut twisted when he realized what was happening: The friend had cried out because of a crow—a crow that flew inches from the friend’s face, taunting and teasing and mocking, until the friend broke down in tears. The boy couldn’t hear what the crow was saying, but he didn’t need to. He still saw what the friend was feeling.

  “No!” the boy said without thinking. “Stop!” He slammed down his lunch tray and swatted the crow, shooing it away from the friend. “Enough!” he said, and the crow went still. It blinked at the boy. Other crows circled around them and tittered.

  The boy was about to scold them too, when he realized what they were staring at: A dozen black feathers slid from the boy’s arms and wafted to the floor. They formed a small pile at his feet.

  He was losing them. He was losing his beautiful feathers.

  Frantic, the boy looked at the fallen feathers, looked at the crows, and looked at the frightened yet grateful eyes of the friend. “Thank you,” the friend said. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

  The boy started to shake. Standing there in the circle of crows and seeing his feathers drop, he felt vulnerable. Powerless. Alone.

  He finally saw the crows for what they were. He finally got what there was to lose.

  The boy stared at the friend. The friend stared back.

  “Caw!” a crow said.

  “Caw!” the crows answered, and the boy understood what was about to happen.

  The crows lifted their beaks and prepared to attack. The air filled with the sound of their wings.

  The boy closed his eyes against it. He did not warn the friend. It soon was too late for warnings.

  “Caw!” the crows cried as they swooped and pecked.

  “Caw, caw!” the boy said, and ruffled his feathers.

  It was time to join the murder.

  Terry was reading on the couch with his softly snoring dog when his sister came home. She went upstairs without even stopping to take off her coat.

  “Hey,” Terry called.

  “Hey, yourself,” Trish replied, and closed the bedroom door behind her.

  Terry sat up. That’s weird, he thought. His book fell shut, but his finger marked his place. He looked at the dog. Bowser gazed back, heaved a doggy sigh, and let his eyelids droop shut.

  Terry used the TV remote as a bookmark and stood. It wasn’t like Trish to breeze past him. His twin-sibling radar detected something fishy, and Terry was instantly curious. Whatever Trish was up to, he wanted to know—especially if she was trying to keep it secret.

  He tiptoed upstairs, avoiding the squeakiest step, and stood by Trish’s door, holding his breath. He listened without moving but didn’t hear a sound. He would have to go inside.

  In one swift motion, Terry turned Trish’s doorknob and pushed open the door, knocking once as he entered. “Hey, sis.”

  Trish swiveled in her desk chair, eyes wide with shock, then narrow with fury. “Excuse me. Don’t you know how to knock?” she said.

  Terry grinned. “I did knock,” he said. Her face twisted with annoyance. Terry pretended not to notice the old, weathered notebook she clutched to her chest—the one she’d been reading when he entered—and kept talking. “Just wanted to know if you’d like a snack. I’m about to make nachos.”

  Trish’s shoulders relaxed but her grip on the notebook didn’t. “No, thanks,” she said. “Can you close the door? I’m trying to study.”

  “Sure,” Terry said. “Good luck. Study hard.” He backed out of the room without acknowledging the notebook. The best way to get his hands on it was to pretend he had no interest in it at all.

  That night while Trish was taking a shower, Terry snuck down the hall to her room. He checked her usual hiding places—under the mattress, top shelf of the closet, back of the middle desk drawer—but didn’t find the notebook. Did she take it into the bathroom with her? Yeesh, he thought, peeking inside her school binder. No notebook.

  He was just about to give up when, in a flash of twintuition, he checked inside her pillowcase, and there it was.

  He opened it quickly—Trish would finish her shower any second now—and read the beautiful, faded calligraphy that looped across the first page.

  Rule One, it said. One wish per person (no wishing for more wishes).

  It’s a fairy tale, Terry thought. But why hide that?

  Rule Two: No wish can undo another wish.

  Wait, are these, like, instructions? he wondered.

  Rule Three: The Wish Book must be found, not given.

  Terry read the last line, intrigued.

  Rule Four: Be careful what you wish for.

  Ha. He turned the page.

  Terry’s heart sped up when he saw what came next: page after page of handwritten wishes, scrawled in many different languages, by all different hands. He flipped through the ancient, yellowed pages, being careful not to bend them, and read some of the wishes.

  I wish we were rich.

  I wish I could turn invisible.

  I wish Father wasn’t sick.

  I WISH TO GET A GOOD PRICE FOR THE CALF.

  I wish the hurricane never happened.

  I wish Albertus loved me back.

  I wish to die old and happy.

  I wish to live forever.

  A thrill shot up Terry’s spine. Was this real? Real magic? Surely not, but the Wish Book was a cool idea even if it didn’t make wishes come true. He wondered what his sister had written.

  Terry turned to the last page of wishes, but saw only unfamiliar handwriting. Trish hadn’t made her wish yet. He was dying to know what she’d choose.

  With a start, he realized the shower water was off. He slipped the Wish Book into the pillowcase, tossed the pillow onto the bed, and dashed over to Trish’s bookshelf, just as she entered the room. He pulled a random book from the shelf.

  “Hey, sis,” he said, trying not to sound guilty of snooping. “Sorry to be in your room, but is it okay if I borrow this?”

  Trish straightened the towel on top of her head and lifted both eyebrows. “You want to borrow The Girly Girl’s Guide to Super Sleepovers?” she said.

  Whoops. Terry’s cheeks flushed. He hoped she wouldn’t notice. “Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “I figured I might learn something, you know?”

  Trish nodded. “You might. Let me know. I haven’t read it.”

  Terry glanced at the sparkly cover. “Aunt Donna gift?” he said.

  She smirked. “You guessed it.”

  “Cool. Well, thanks!” He bolted, sweating relief.

  Every night for the rest of the week, Terry snuck into Trish’s room and checked the Wish Book. Every night, he found it the same: no new wish from Trish.

  It didn’t surprise him, really. It was just like Trish to take her time, think things through, and make sure her wish wasn’t wasted. She was the careful twin. Terry was the impulsive one.

  He was tempted to grab a pen and write a wish of his own, but then he’d be caught, and of course she’d be furious. Besides, his wish kept changing. And what he really wanted, most of all, was to find out hers. This was better, even, than finding a secret diary, because he’d only have to read one sentence, and he was sure it would tell him everything.

  On Saturday, Terry took Bowser to the park, where they played fetch and ran through pud
dles and snow. He was toweling Bowser off in the kitchen afterward when his mother appeared, looking distracted.

  “Did Trish go with you?” Mom asked.

  Bowser wagged his tail beneath the towel. “Nope,” Terry said. He wiped the mud from Bowser’s hind paws.

  “Well, have you seen her? Do you know where she is?” Mom pressed.

  “Nope and nope,” Terry said. Bowser wiggled free, grabbed a squeaky toy, and tossed it in the air.

  “Hmm,” Mom said. “It’s not like her to go off without telling us. She didn’t even leave a note. When she gets back, have her call me at Aunt Donna’s, okay?”

  “Sure,” Terry said. Bowser tossed the toy again. Terry picked it up and threw it for him. “You know, if you got us cell phones, you’d be able to text her.”

  Mom rolled her eyes. “Nice try. Not until you’re thirteen.” She kissed him on the head and left.

  As soon as the door closed, Terry ran up to Trish’s room. Sure enough, she was gone—but the Wish Book was there, lying open on her desk. She hadn’t even bothered to hide it. Her favorite purple pen lay uncapped beside it. Wherever she had gone after writing her wish, it looked like she’d left in a hurry.

  Terry stepped closer and read what his sister had written: I wish I could fly.

  His heart skipped. Seriously?

  He read it again and shook his head. What a waste of a wish. Humans couldn’t fly. That impossible wish would never come true. Even if the Wish Book was magic, no way was the magic that strong. He couldn’t believe Trish had done that.

  No wonder she was gone.

  Terry pictured his twin writing the words in her careful penmanship, realizing her wish was wasted, and fleeing the room in tears. She’d probably gone for a walk to burn off her disappointment. Terry almost felt sorry for her.

  But . . . now that Trish had written her wish, maybe he could write one. He had just found the Wish Book, so it was fine according to the rules.

  He sat in her chair and thought about what to wish for. A million dollars? A week of snow days? For Steve, Mom’s boring boyfriend, to go away?

  No, that would make Mom sad. Terry didn’t want his wish to hurt anyone. And as Trish always said when Terry joked about breaking them up, their mom had a right to her own choices. Even dull choices. Even choices with coffee breath. Ugh. Maybe he’d wish for Steve to discover Tic Tacs. That would be nice for everyone.