talks right over me, and I remember that he doesn’t just refuse to hand out apologies, he also has a policy against receiving them. He holds out two hands curled into fists. “Pick a hand.”
I work hard to resist the urge to touch him. “Left.”
Smith opens his left hand and I watch as he reads the fortune. His lips quirk in a little smile and he looks up to share it with me. “You have unusual equipment for success. Use it well.”
“Shut up. It does not say that.” I grab the fortune from his hand. And holy shit, it really does say that. It says that exactly. I look at Smith, expecting to see him laughing at me, but instead he’s reading his own fortune. “What’s yours say?”
Smith gives me a lopsided grin. “You gonna tell me to shut up again?”
“Probably.”
“Never underestimate the power of the human touch.”
“Shit,” I say.
“Yeah.” Smith drags a hand through his hair. “You think the universe is laughing at us, Lennie?”
I scrub my eyes, which feel tired and sticky, even though it’s not even nine a.m. “I’d guess it’s laughing so hard it’s crying by now.”
OKAY
Smith and I silently chew our way through the burritos he found at the back of the freezer, stretching out every bean-filled bite as long as possible. Neither of us needs to say that we don’t know what to do next. Or at all.
Okay, I do have one idea. Go home. Tell my uncles everything. Beg them to help. Hope they have answers and a way to fix everything. Only problem there is I’m pretty certain right now they’re crossing my name out of the family bible, changing the locks, and putting all my stuff in boxes on the front lawn.
It’s actually sort of a relief when my phone, still tucked into my back pocket, starts vibrating. As I pull it out, I make sure to curl my hand around the beaten-up old iPhone, not wanting Smith to recognize the grinning pink skeleton on the plastic cover.
It’s possible he’d freak out.
Dyl gave me this phone the week before she disappeared. She’d gotten an upgrade and knew I’d been dying for something other than my crappy old flip phone. So she gifted me her old one instead of trading it in. Never mind the giant crack running the length of the screen or that the battery couldn’t make it through a whole day. I loved it. I was supposed to wipe the phone of Dyl’s photos and playlists and all that other stuff, but I never got around to it and then Dyl was dead and the phone became a sort of digital memorial to her.
The phone buzzes in my hand and I glance down at the screen. Larry’s picture grins back up at me.
Guilt hits me hard. I haven’t given Larry a single thought since last night when we had our little fight. Knowing him, he’s probably calling to make sure I’m not mad at him. Or . . . a worse possibility occurs to me. Has his life been royally screwed by a wish too?
It takes me a minute to remember what his wish was for, and as soon as I recall it my shoulders sag with relief. He didn’t want his mom to be mad at him. Lame Larry and his lame wishes. If the idiot was standing in front of me right now, I’d hug him.
I quickly pick up the phone call, a little surprised by how happy I am at the prospect of hearing Larry’s dopey normal voice.
“Hey,” I say.
In response, Larry whispers something so quietly that all I can make out is my name and the word help.
A shiver of something—I guess you’d call it foreboding—goes through me. I shake it off. “Larry, use your big boy voice and talk louder.”
“I can’t,” he whispers back in a slightly louder whisper. “I’m hiding.” With his volume raised, I can hear the tremble in his voice.
“You grounded or something?” Please, let that be it.
“I wish,” he squeaks back. “I’m at Michaela’s house. We all are.”
I shove myself away from the table. My chair tips and hits the floor with a bang. “What are you still doing there?” I ask, trying to contain my panic.
“No one can go past the end of the driveway. It’s like there’s a force field or something. And people are acting weird. Everyone’s gone crazy. I’m afraid, Lennie. I’m really afraid.”
I wait for him to connect the craziness to the wishes and say