I do my own skin begins to burn with a red-hot blush. Unable to meet his eyes, I look down at our interconnected hands. “I’m scared too. About everything.” I don’t say more than that. I can’t. It’s a freaking miracle I was able to get those words out with my mouth, which is suddenly Sahara desert levels of dry. But I hope he understands that when I say “everything,” I don’t just mean the wishing stuff plus him. I mean him, too. Or maybe especially him.
Being near him. Kissing him. And most of all, hearing that he might feel the same way. That last one scares me most of all. Because like lame old Todd, I’m realizing it’s one thing to watch someone from a distance and daydream about them and think what if, but it’s a whole ’nother thing to have them in front of you making your heart beat so hard it might explode out of your chest.
The former is safe, the way I always like to be. The second is bungee jumping with a cord made out of moonbeams and promises. It’s falling without knowing if you’ll bounce back up.
And I’m falling. I’m falling hard.
AS AWFUL AS IT CAN BE
We bury a cardboard shoebox filled with Cheetos in the backyard.
I am fairly certain Michaela would not have approved.
Actually, I know it for a fact. One of Michaela’s heartbroken minions informed me in a whispered aside as I led the informal funeral procession through the house that this was not the protocol. Prior to Michaela, three other people had reached an unfortunate end at Zinkowski’s hands, and after each . . . er, death, Michaela had ordered a moment of silence over their remains. Then she’d gathered them up into a Tupperware container and hid it in the attic to be used as emergency rations.
So, no, she would not be happy to have her decision overruled just because she’s no longer around to enforce it.
No doubt she would’ve been equally critical of the shallow hole hurriedly dug in the rose garden.
And of the battered old shoebox we’d chosen to hold her remains.
But most of all, I can imagine her scorn if she had witnessed the awkward shuffling of feet after she’d been lowered into the ground as we all wondered what to do or say next.
Perhaps she would have liked the moment when Todd appeared, tearing at his own clothes in grief, before throwing himself upon her grave and watering it with an abundance of hot salty tears.
Probably, though, she would’ve told him to knock it off before he killed all the roses.
None of us do that. Instead, everyone disperses and scatters, quickly taking refuge inside the house until only Smith, my uncles, and I are standing there watching Todd noisily sob and beg Michaela’s forgiveness.
“Poor bugger,” Uncle Dune says in a low voice. “Love wishes never end well.”
Jet and Rod nod in sage agreement.
“Okay, so how can we fix this?” I ask, feeling more than a little impatient with my uncles, who have been maddeningly silent.
When they returned to Michaela’s bedroom where Smith and I had obediently waited for them, they barely acknowledged our presence. And when I asked what happened with Zinkowski, they only said, “He’s okay. Tucked away where he won’t hurt anyone.” And when I asked what we should do next, meaning “let’s get some new wishes going,” they told me it was time to bury Michaela. Still, I’d pushed back, demanding to know what happens next. For that I got a sharp reprimand from Uncle Rod. “A girl’s dead, Lennie.” He paused and I could hear him editing out, “because of you.”
I could have explained that doing something was my way of paying my respects to Michaela. But instead I followed their orders to, “Find something to put her in,” and so dug through Michaela’s gigantic closet looking for a box to hold her remains.
Now, though, I am done with waiting. It’s past eight o’clock, which means that we have a good amount of time to grant some wishes before the sun rises again. “Michaela told me what you said about me granting wishes to fix this.”
My uncles are already shaking their heads. “We told her a few carefully chosen wishes might make everyone a little more comfortable. But trying to wish your way out of this . . .” Uncle Jet pauses to give another shake of his head, this one almost mournful. “More wishes would only make this worse.”
“But you