After a long stretch in the blazing sunlight, Vale suddenly stopped under the shade of a scrubby tree. She turned around and threw her hands in the air, red hair sweaty and plastered on her forehead.
“You have the power of the Universe at your fingertips, and we’re walking!” Vale shouted. She looked at Tina, and then at me. “Would one of you please make a wish?”
As Ridge and I drew into the shade beside the girls, I could see that Tina’s resolve was weakening. I completely understood her desire to avoid a consequence, but wasn’t walking in the summer heat a consequence of its own?
“Rock, paper, scissors,” I said to Tina.
“What?” she asked, wiping a bit of sweat from her face.
“Let’s play rock, paper, scissors,” I said. “The loser has to make a wish that’ll help us get to Mount Rushmore.”
Tina squinted out across the highway, apparently deep in thought. “Yeah, all right,” she finally said. Tina held out her right fist, ready to compete for the wish.
“Best out of three?” I asked.
“Waste of time,” Tina said. “First round wins.”
Tina was smart and she didn’t mess around. I studied her sweaty face, wondering if she was the type to play scissors or a rock. For some reason she didn’t seem like a paper person to me.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” I said, the two of us shaking our fists and displaying our choice on the third count. My hand was out flat, and my decision to play paper paid off.
Tina’s fist was a rock. I held up my paper hand, a victorious smile tugging at my lips. Tina stepped back, scuffing the ground with her foot.
“That’s never made sense,” Ridge said.
“I beat Tina’s rock,” I replied.
“With paper?” Ridge asked. “How does paper beat a rock?”
“Paper covers rock,” I answered.
“But a rock could easily rip through paper,” Ridge said, “even if it was covered.”
I scratched my head. “It’s not supposed to make sense,” I said. “It’s just a game.” I turned back to Tina, shrugging good-naturedly. “And I won.”
Tina was biting her cheek in thought. I was anxious to see how she would handle the wish. On one hand, she could wish for something big and magical—a hover car or a giant eagle to carry us to our destination. But that was likely to have a fairly steep consequence, putting us back on Thackary’s trail without any effort on our part. Ridge had said that a less direct wish would typically result in an easier consequence.
“I wish,” Tina began, “that the next car to pass us will blow out a tire.”
“Umm,” I cut in, as the hourglass watch opened on her wrist. “Are you sure that’s a good wish?” It made no sense to me. If we wanted a car to take us somewhere, it would need four tires.
“All right,” said Vale, ignoring my concerns. “If you want the next passing car to lose a tire, then every time you sit down, you’ll scream.”
“How long will this go on?” Tina asked.
“Just until the end of the week.”
“Will I constantly scream?” Tina asked. “Or just let out one little shout?”
“One short scream,” answered Vale.
“How loud will I scream?”
“That’s hard to describe,” Vale said. “About like this.” She gave a little shriek. It wasn’t a full-volume bloodcurdling scream, but it certainly wasn’t very quiet.
“What if I don’t want to?” Tina asked. “Or if I forget?”
“The Universe won’t let you miss it,” answered Vale. “It will be a reaction. Like sneezing.”
Tina was getting into the details, which I could appreciate, but her hourglass was nearly out of time!
“What do you decide?” Vale asked.
I don’t know why Ridge thought it was a good idea to cut in with a scenario for Tina to consider. Her time was already short. “What if you get kidnapped, and someone comes to rescue you? The only way to get out is to sit down on the ground and slide through a laundry chute. But when you sit down to escape, the consequence makes you scream and the bad guy comes in and stops you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I just want her to think through all the possibilities,” Ridge said. “Sometimes a consequence doesn’t seem so bad at the time you accept it. Then later, you regret not thinking it through.”
“You don’t think it through when I make a wish,” I pointed out.
“There usually isn’t time,” said Ridge. “We’re under a very strict deadline before the deal expires.”
“So is Tina,” I said. “She doesn’t get extra time to make her wishes.” I paused. “Does she . . . ?”
I turned to ask Tina how long her white hourglass timer was, but in that precise moment, there was a loud bang, a screeching of tires, and a clunky blue Oldsmobile veered off to the side of the interstate. Its tire had blown to shreds, and the driver looked a mix of angry and surprised as he limped the vehicle to a stop just fifty yards ahead of where we stood.
“Our ride’s here,” Tina said, gesturing to the old Oldsmobile. She must have accepted the consequence while Ridge and I were debating. “And, no,” she added. “I don’t get extra time.”
Chapter 12
The four of us jogged to the crippled Oldsmobile, while other vehicles continued to zoom by on the westward interstate.
“Now what?” I asked Tina. “You got a car to stop, but it only has three tires. That’s not going to get us to Mount Rushmore very fast.”
“It’ll have a spare,” Tina said. “Cars always have spare tires. We’ll help put it on, and in exchange for our good deed, the nice driver will give us a ride west.”
It would have been a good plan, but we quickly learned that the driver was not nice. Nor did he have a spare tire. Nor was he interested in giving us a ride anywhere.
“Ahoy, ye little scallywags!” shouted the man, as soon as we drew close. He was standing beside the blown-out tire, one hand on his bony hip, the other tracing through his stringy hair. His pants were a bit too short, his shirt a bit too long, and the expression on his face a bit too ornery. And for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why the man was talking like a pirate.
“It be yer fault fer standin’ around on the highway like vultures! Ye be causing me to swerve and wreck me tires.” The man was ranting, his angular face sneering at the four of us. “Look what ye’ve done to me carrrrr!”
Looking through the back window of the car, I saw a kid in the passenger seat. He looked a little younger than me—maybe ten or eleven.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Tina began. “We’d be happy to help you put on the spare.”
“There be no more spares in this here vessel!” shouted the driver. “The tire that blew? That was the spare!”
I sighed. Tina had gotten us into a mess by making a tricky wish. Now she would scream whenever she sat down, and it would be for nothing, since the angry driver couldn’t take us anywhere.
I quietly backed up until I was right beside my genie. “Ridge,” I whispered. “I wish I had a spare tire for this car.”
My hourglass watch clicked out, and I casually held it behind my back to conceal it from the man, although Ridge had explained that the Universe would shield our magic from suspicion.
“You can have the tire,” said Ridge, “but for the rest of the week, you’ll have to salute every time you see a white car.”
“Salute?” I asked.
In response, Ridge clicked his feet together and raised a stiff hand to his eyebrow in a classic military salute.
“What if I forget to do that?” I asked.
“You won’t,” he answered. “It’ll be like Tina’s scream. If you accept the consequence, the Universe will make sure you salute. You won’t even be able to control it. It’ll be a reflex.”
I nodded to show I understood. Saluting white cars wouldn’t be too bad. I was about to accept the consequence when Ridge decided to add a little hypothetical situa
tion.
“What if you find yourself dangling from a branch over a pool of alligators in the jungle. One arm is broken, but the other is clinging for dear life. Then a white car drives by, and the Universe forces you to salute, causing you to fall to your death.”
“There are so many things wrong with that example, I don’t even know where to begin,” I said. “Why would there be a branch dangling over a pool of alligators? And how could a white car drive by if I’m in the middle of the jungle?”
Ridge shrugged. “I’m just talking it through with you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
I took a quick peek at my hourglass and barely hissed out, “Bazang!” before the sands expired.
Instantly, I felt a huge weight fill my backpack. Such a large weight that I was thrown backward and pinned to the ground. My backpack also ripped, and smashed peanut butter sandwiches flew everywhere.
“Why did the spare tire appear in my backpack?” I asked, slipping out of the straps and leaving my ruined pack in the roadside dirt.
Ridge shrugged. “You should probably be glad it didn’t show up in your pocket.”
A short distance away, Tina was arguing loudly with the angry driver, and I saw the boy inside the car watching with intensity.
“I only offered to help,” Tina was saying. “You don’t have to be so rude about it!”
“Yar!” cried the stranger. “When I was a lad I spoke with respect to me superiors! Yer motley crew can walk to the grave and I’d sing a serenade as ye go!”
“Excuse me,” I said, walking over to them. But the heated argument would not be so easily interrupted.
“Looks like you’ll be walking with us!” Tina retorted. She pointed inside the car. “What kind of father drives his kid clear out here without a spare tire for emergencies?”
“Don’t ye be speakin’ to me son!” said the driver, putting his hand over the window to block the boy’s view. “We be two birds of a feather.”
“Excuse me!” I shouted, stepping between Tina and the pirate speaker. “I happen to have a spare tire.”
“You do?” Tina asked.
“Ye do?” asked the man.
I pointed to my ripped backpack in the dirt, surrounded by peanut butter sandwiches. “It would be crazy to leave home without one,” I said. Ridge was pulling the spare out of the pack and trying to tip it upright with all his strength. “We’d be happy to put it on your car, if you could give us a lift.”
The strange man paused in thought for a moment. “Where be ye headed?”
“Mount Rushmore,” I said, pointing west. “Or as far as you’ll take us.”
“A popular destination,” answered the man. “Ye have yerself a deal.”
I looked back at Ridge, who had finally managed to tip up the tire, only to have it roll down the roadside. Luckily, Vale moved in, halting the runaway spare with her foot.
It would have been easier if Tina or I had wished the tire on, but we were being stubborn again, both feeling like our latest consequences were in vain.
If you had been the driver, you would have been grateful for our help. You might have even thought we were guardian angels, waiting on the roadside with a perfect spare tire in a backpack, ready to install it and send you on your way. You certainly would have helped us install the tire.
But not this guy. He stood by, arms folded, and watched four kids figure out how to install a spare tire. My skin crawled under his stare. It was almost like his eyeballs could shoot little invisible darts that made me feel worthless.
Twice during the gritty work, I stopped to salute a passing white car. It was the strangest sensation to lose control over my body. Just as Ridge had described it, the gesture was completely automatic. One moment, I was down on my knees in the gravel, the next moment, I was leaping up, my heels clicking together and my hand jetting up to my brow.
“That should do it,” said Tina, stepping back from the tire. Her hands were completely black and her face was smudged from where she’d brushed at the sweat.
I looked up, hoping to finally get the thanks and acknowledgment we deserved for our good service. The man was nowhere in sight. I glanced into the car and saw the back of his greasy head just settling into the driver’s seat.
With a few cranks, the car turned on. I reached for the handle on the back door, but before my fingers made contact, the man sped away, his new tire kicking up rocks and dirt on us.
I heard him laugh as he merged onto the freeway. His window was down and he reached out one bony arm, shaking his fist as he taunted. “Yar! That’ll teach ye! The world is full of suckerfish! Maybe next time ye won’t be one!”
Chapter 13
We got to Mount Rushmore. Eventually.
Tina must have felt responsible for the way things went down with the pirate man, because after another hour of walking, she wished for a nice old granny to pick us up on the interstate. I thought she got off easy, the Universe’s consequence causing Tina’s socks to turn to dust.
I wished for a new backpack, for which I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” for a half hour straight. I think that kind of annoyed the granny who was driving.
She drove us west for several hours and dropped us off in a town I’d never heard of. From there, we used some money Tina had to catch a bus up north until we reached the national tourist destination.
“I can’t believe that guy,” Ridge muttered as we got off the bus. It didn’t matter that it was now late in the night, and our exchange with the roadside pirate had happened almost twelve hours earlier. The insult still felt fresh and we were all feeling a little upset about it.
The moon was full, the night was warm, and there were hardly any tourists hanging around the park so late. The four of us strolled through the front entrance and down a walkway lined with flags until we stood at a big open terrace, where we got our first view of the famous mountain sculpture.
“Hmm,” I said. “It’s smaller than I imagined.” Far out in the distance, the stone faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were brightly illuminated by powerful unseen lights.
“It only looks small because we’re far away,” Tina said. “If we get closer, they’ll be like giants.” She turned to me. “What’s next, Ace?”
Another reason that I hadn’t mentioned more than our destination was because the instructions on the missing page of the notebook seemed absolutely bizarre. I wanted to make sure that Tina was committed to our quests before I explained the craziness.
“Here’s what the page said,” I began. “‘The Undiscovered Genie jar is hidden in a cave. To reach it, you will need to pass through certain tasks. Completing each task will enable you to receive a key to enter the Cave of the Undiscovered Genie.’”
I paused.
“Is that it?” Tina asked.
“There’s more. This next part is where it starts getting weird.” I began to quote again. “‘The first task will take place at Mount Rushmore, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Using your hand, you must poke Theodore Roosevelt in the right eye.’”
The others waited for me to go on, but this time I was finished. There wasn’t a lot of information. We’d just have to trust that the Universe had revealed the right thing. No matter how strange it seemed to poke a statue in the eye.
“Okay,” Tina said, glancing toward the distantly illuminated stone faces. “So Thackary Anderthon is going to try to climb the face?”
“Unless he already did,” I pointed out. “We have no way of knowing what kind of head start he had.”
“We’re too far behind,” Ridge said, seating himself upon the low stone wall of the terrace.
“It’s a waste of time sitting around here and hoping he shows up,” I said. “If Thackary is ahead of us, then our best chance at stopping him might be to beat him to the cave.”
“You think we should go ahead and do the task?” Tina said. “Climb up there and poke Roosevelt’s eye?”
“It’s th
e smartest move,” I said. “And if we happen to run into Thackary tonight, we can nab him and sit on him for the rest of the week.” How was that for a pep talk? “But Tina and I should definitely poke the president’s eye so we can complete the task. Otherwise we won’t qualify for the key when we get to the Cave of the Undiscovered Genie.”
The others were nodding their approval, which made me feel very smart for coming up with a good plan.
“Let’s head over to the faces,” Vale said. “They’re shutting off the lights in fifteen minutes.”
“How do you know everything?” Ridge asked, shaking his head in amazement at her.
Vale gestured over her shoulder. “It’s not a mystery. I read the sign when we came in.”
“Not all of us can read,” I pointed out, as Tina led the way off the illuminated terrace.
We passed an amphitheater and stepped onto a boardwalk that led down into the trees. Even though I couldn’t read, I’d seen a diagram on a sign that showed how the boardwalk would take tourists on a big loop, passing them just at the base of the sculpted mountain.
The four of us moved quickly and quietly into the dark tunnel of trees. Off both sides of the boardwalk, I could see that the terrain was littered with rocks of all sizes. The Universe would shield onlookers from strange, magical things. But if we didn’t find a place to hide until the lights turned off, we’d look like four loitering delinquents.
“This is pretty exciting, don’t you think?” Ridge suddenly asked at my side. “Sneaking around, saving the world . . .”
I grinned, glad that he was enjoying himself. Sure, he seemed a little clueless at times, but I was grateful that Ridge was an experienced genie. I didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into, so I’d be relying on him.
“You’ve got to admit,” he continued, “this is probably the most exciting thing you’ve ever done.”
Without knowing anything about my former life, I didn’t know how to respond to Ridge. I stuck my hand into my pocket, flicking the edge of my card. I’d carried it with me for as long as I could remember. Maybe once we settled into our hiding place, I’d ask him my burning question. I could make the wish and finally get some answers.
The Wishmakers Page 6
