The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress

by Shani Petroff

“I have Gabi’s vote,” I said.

  “And I have Cole’s,” she shot back.

  I was now grasping the desk so tight, I was afraid I was going to tear a piece of it off. “He’s not even part of the committee!”

  But she knew that. She just wanted to get under my skin. And it was working. It felt like she plucked every little hair out of my arms with tweezers. “Let’s just wait for Miss Simmons. She can be the deciding vote.”

  “She’s not going to care,” D.L. added, still holding Courtney’s hand. “She’ll just make us decide.”

  “So Under the Sea it is,” Courtney declared.

  “Hawaii,” I fought back.

  “Under. The. Water.” She stood up to tower over me.

  I jumped to my feet, too. “Hawaii.”

  “UNDERWATER!”

  “HAWAII!”

  And suddenly, we were in what had to be Hawaii. There was no tornado, no vortex thing this time. Just a flash.

  But we weren’t on the mainland. We were out in the water on surf boards.

  A big wave was approaching. We were about to be underwater in Hawaii.

  chapter 28

  Courtney let out a scream so loud, I would have heard it even if I was still in outer space. I felt like joining in, but I kept my cool. Sort of. While I may not have been screaming on the outside, I was certainly doing it on the inside. This was not in my plans. I certainly didn’t want to be in Hawaii. Especially not with my worst enemy and her boyfriend.

  “Calm down,” D.L. yelled out over Courtney’s shriek. “And focus. That’s the only way to get out of this.”

  At least one of us was keeping their cool. And even though D.L. was a jerk, he was also right. I needed to focus.

  “Just center yourself and do it,” he went on.

  A little weightlessness sure would have come in handy right about then. I was having a hard time balancing on the surfboard. I took a deep breath.

  “That’s right,” D.L. encouraged. “Now concentrate on your goal.”

  “Okay. Center.” Wait, what? If I didn’t know better, I would have thought D.L. was on to me. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Either way I had more crucial things to focus on—like stopping the wave before it killed us. I did not want to be fish food. Why hadn’t I practiced Lou’s lessons more? If I had learned to stop the pencil midair, I probably would have been able to stop the wave. The two seemed pretty similar.

  I held my breath as water splashed all around us. But it went right up my nose causing me to gasp for air. The water got in my mouth making me have a coughing fit. If I didn’t do something soon, the wave was going to overtake me.

  “You can do this,” D.L. yelled. “I know you can.”

  “What?!” Okay, he was freaking me out. Did he know?

  It didn’t matter. I was going to take the advice, anyway. I could do this. I had to. Otherwise we were all dead meat.

  I focused my energy on the wave. I even pushed my arms out, but the wave kept coming. I gathered up all the strength I possessed. “Stop,” I screamed.

  And it did. The wave didn’t move any farther. It slowly cascaded down into the rest of the water as I dropped my arms. Everything was calm. Except for my mind, that is. It was still racing from what just happened and the thought that D.L. was somehow onto my secret.

  “See, you did it,” he said wrapping his arms tight around Courtney. They were on the same surfboard. “You stayed calm and you didn’t fall into the water. You’re going to make a great surfer.”

  Then I realized. D.L. wasn’t onto my powers. He hadn’t been trying to help me. I had misunderstood. He had been talking to Courtney the whole time, trying to get through the whole ordeal. He probably didn’t even remember I was there. Figured.

  Courtney was shaking. “How did we get here?”

  “Don’t know,” D.L. said, squeezing her tighter. “But who cares? This is sweet. I haven’t surfed in forever. I hope we never go back. This sure beats detention.”

  I tried not to look at him. Why wasn’t he panicked like Courtney? Or me? He was probably in shock. Because teleporting to some random location—even a tropical one—was definitely something to freak out about. “Maybe we should get to shore?” I suggested before he started flipping out, too. I lay down on the surfboard and started paddling my arms just like they do it on TV.

  By the time we made it to the beach, I was completely out of breath. Surfing was pretty exhausting.

  But Courtney had a burst of energy. She ran all the way to a little juice bar farther up the beach. D.L. chased after her. And seeing as I couldn’t lose them if I ever wanted to return them to Goode, I mustered up the strength to stand up and go after them.

  “Wait up,” I called out.

  Big surprise. They both ignored me.

  When I finally caught up, D.L. was trying to pull Courtney away from the counter. The guy working there was looking at her like she escaped the nut house. Courtney fought to get loose from D.L.’s hold. “You don’t understand,” she told the counter guy. “We were in the middle of detention in Pennsylvania and then ended up here.”

  “Dude, your girlfriend’s losing it,” the guy told D.L.

  “I am not losing it,” she said, swinging around at turbo speed. It caught D.L. off balance causing him to lose his footing and knock his head on the counter. He was out cold. But still breathing.

  “I’ll see if there’s a doctor around here,” the counter guy said, running out onto the beach.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Did I just kill him? D.L., please wake up.” She hunched over him and lifted his head. “Please.”

  “He’s going to be okay,” I said.

  A tear slid down her cheek as she looked at him. “He has to be. We have to get out of here. We’ve got to get him home.”

  I wasn’t used to seeing this side of Courtney. The side where she thought about someone other than herself. I guess she was way into D.L.

  “Just calm down,” I told her. “Everything will be okay.” She seemed so helpless. Even though I can’t stand her, I felt the need to reassure her.

  “No, it won’t. We don’t even know how we got here.”

  “This is all a dream.” I had to tell her something.

  “If this was a dream, you would not be here.”

  My sympathy for her was waning. Even in panic mode, Courtney was evil. “Fine. You’re having a nightmare.”

  A local checked out D.L., while Courtney stood hovering over him. The doctor told us he’d be fine and would come to shortly—to just let him rest a little. Then he excused himself to get back to his luau.

  “You’re having a luau?” I asked. “I always wanted to go to one of those.”

  “Join us,” he said. “Both of you.”

  “I’m not leaving D.L.,” Courtney declared.

  She was right. We needed to stay with him, and I needed to get us home. Although, Gabi would totally give me a hard time when I got back. She would say I should have at least tried to have a little fun while I was here. That I needed to lighten up. Maybe she was right. I was always taking things too seriously. “Let’s wake D.L. up,” I suggested. “Then we can all go to the luau.”

  “No,” the doctor said. “The boy needs his rest. Let him come to on his own.”

  The guy behind the stand offered to watch him for us, so we could go to the luau. I wasn’t so sure about leaving him there, but when a woman sitting nearby with her two little kids promised she’d keep her eye on him, too, I felt reassured.

  “Cool, let’s go,” I said, figuring the more fun Courtney had, the more likely she’d believe the whole thing was a dream. I mean, really, how often did you get to go to a luau on a random Tuesday when you were supposed to be in school?

  “We are not going with a stranger,” Courtney protested.

  Normally, I would have agreed with her. But the luau was going on about twenty feet away, and we were stuck there until D.L. came to, anyway. What else was there to do? Just stare at hi
m sleeping? Besides the guy at the counter said a local DJ was hosting the luau and broadcasting it live on his show. Sounded safe to me. If anything went wrong, I would just scream for help. Not only would everyone around hear me, but all his listeners would, too.

  “Well, you can stay,” I told Courtney, “but I’m going.” I deserved a little fun. My life had been pretty awful lately. And this was Hawaii! I was going to make Gabi proud.

  Courtney looked at D.L. laying there unconscious. “You’re not leaving me here alone.” She sneered at me. “I can’t believe I’m going to a party with you.”

  “It’s your dream,” I said. “You picked me to be here, not the other way around. I guess deep down you must wish we still hung out.” Okay, I couldn’t resist messing with her just a little.

  She didn’t answer, just followed me over to the crowd.

  “Welcome,” a woman said, putting flowered leis around our neck. They smelled so good. They were real flowers, not the fake plastic ones I pictured us getting for the dance.

  I didn’t know what to take in first. The water was gorgeous. The color was almost turquoise. Not like the lake in Goode which was a mix of brown and green and only the brave dared go in.

  Everything in Hawaii was beautiful, and the people at the party were nice. Nothing like the people I went to school with. They even told us to help ourselves to the food. There were colorful drinks and a whole buffet out there, including a giant roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. (I tried not to look at it, though. I don’t like to eat—or even see—food that still has its head attached.)

  What really caught my attention, though, was a group of three women hula dancing over to the side. They were wearing grass skirts and moving their hips better than Shakira. I waited until they finished a number, took Courtney by the wrist, and went up to the woman in the middle. She seemed the nicest—warm eyes. “Can you show us how to do that?”

  She agreed and pretty soon I was shaking my hips like I’d been hula dancing my whole life. It was super fun. Even Courtney couldn’t help but move to the music. I wanted to keep going, but I caught a glimpse of my watch. We had been there awhile. It was only a matter of time before Miss Simmons went back to class and noticed we were missing.

  “We should go check on D.L.,” I told Courtney.

  She seemed to be over her fear and having a blast, because I practically had to drag her back to the juice stand to see how her boyfriend was doing.

  D.L. still hadn’t come to, but there was no time to waste. I was going to have to bring him back to school unconscious.

  I grabbed one of D.L.’s hands and one of Courtney’s. She looked at me funny with one eyebrow raised in the air. “Your dream,” I said. Then I closed my eyes and chanted, “Bring us back to Goode. Bring us back to Goode.” Courtney even joined in. But when I reopened my eyes, we weren’t in the gloomy, detention classroom; we were still in sunny, fabulous Hawaii.

  chapter 29

  What was I going to do? We needed to get back to school. ASAP. But without my powers working, that was impossible. It wasn’t like I could just go buy three airline tickets.

  There was no other option. My powers had to function properly. I had to get us back before Miss Simmons found us missing and contacted our parents. My mother would no doubt call the police, the local news, and even the Boy Scouts to form a search party. That was not the kind of publicity I needed.

  I want to go back! I want to go back!I thought it, I said it, I even jumped up and down for emphasis. Then I felt the ground give way. Was I teleporting us? I looked down. Yep. I certainly was. Only not where I had hoped. I managed to send us back in the water on surfboards.

  Courtney was struggling to keep D.L.’s head from going underwater. “I’m ready to wake up,” she shrieked. I jumped onto her surfboard to help keep D.L. afloat. He was dead weight. And while I thought he was a complete jerk, I didn’t want to see him die.

  D.L. was really heavy. I didn’t know how much longer we’d be able to manage with him. The water was coming up all around us. It even destroyed the leis around our necks. “Take us to school, please,” I yelled as I watched the last of the flowers float away.

  And my wish was granted. The three of us were standing at the front of a classroom. Too bad it wasn’t our classroom. In fact, it wasn’t even our school. I had gotten it wrong. Now twenty sets of eyes I had never seen before were glued on us.

  “Sorry, wrong room,” I said, as the class started erupting into chaos. The students looked like they were kindergarteners, and they were completely baffled by our unusual entrance. One girl started crying, which made the kid next to her break down in tears, too.

  I was a little afraid Courtney would join in the cry fest, too.

  “Wacky dream,” I told her. “Keeps getting crazier.”

  A couple of screams filled the classroom and some giggles. Finally, one little girl came up and grabbed onto my sleeve. “Aloha,” she said.

  We were still in Hawaii. The teacher shooed the child back to her seat.

  “Who are you?” the teacher demanded of us. “How did you get here?”

  “Ooh, ooh, I know,” a boy in the second row called out, waving his hand in the air. “It was magic.”

  “Ha!” I said, trying to humor him. “We came through the door. You saw that, right?” I hoped I could get at least one of the kids to agree with me. “But this is the wrong room. We’re going to get going now,” I said, trying to drag D.L. to the door. “Sorry for the inconvenience.” I couldn’t move him on my own, so I forced Courtney to help me. She seemed in a trance, but listened to what I said. “Hurry up,” I told her.

  I was definitely getting my exercise in for the day. Possibly the whole week. We dropped D.L. outside the door and sat next to him, our backs to the wall. I just needed to catch my breath, but I could hear the teacher paging someone on the intercom. There was no time to rest.

  “We want to be back in Miss Simmons’s classroom in Goode, Pennsylvania,” I said adding extra detail this time as a precaution. I didn’t want to land in some classroom she taught in years ago. “Send us there!”

  It wasn’t working. And I could hear footsteps getting closer. We were going to get in tons of trouble if anyone caught us.

  My heart sped up and my breath felt frozen inside of me. “Now!” I managed to get out.

  Then it happened. We were back in Miss Simmons’s classroom, just like we never left. Something finally went right.

  chapter 30

  Courtney was up in my face, like before my powers went out of control, and D.L. was seated in his desk. Had I brought us back to the very moment before my powers transported us?! How awesome would that be? Nothing to explain, no messes to clean up.

  As I let out a sigh of relief, I got another look at D.L. He wasn’t just seated at his desk; he was slumped over it. That meant he was still unconscious. And he was soaking wet. I hadn’t undone anything.

  “Thank God,” Courtney said, taking a step back to inspect her surroundings. She ran over to D.L. and shook him. He finally came to.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, rubbing the back of his head.

  Courtney’s face scrunched up like a shar-pei’s. “Wait. Am I still dreaming?”

  “Forget what just happened. Forget what just happened. Forget what just happened,” I whispered as Courtney stared at her boyfriend.

  D.L. gave her a super big, cocky grin. “You dream about me?”

  Barf. Gross. Did I really need to be a part of this? “You’re awake now,” I answered before I was forced to listen to them profess their undying love for each other. But at least D.L. wasn’t talking about surfing or Hawaii. Did that mean my chant worked?

  “I don’t remember waking up,” Courtney complained. “So either I’m still dreaming or everything that just happened was real.”

  I took a seat and pulled out my copy of Romeo and Juliet. “Forget what just happened,” I whispered again.

  I crossed my fingers that it would do the trick
. “What is going on?” Courtney complained. “How did we get back here?”

  Shoot. She still remembered, but at least D.L. was looking at her like she was talking Pig Latin. Maybe I managed to make him forget.

  “You’re awake, but you were sleeping before. I saw you,” I said and pretended to study the pages of the play. But really I was keeping my eyes on Courtney. If she could jog D.L.’s memory, it would be only a millisecond before they linked everything back to me, and my secret became public knowledge.

  Courtney wasn’t buying my lies. “I’d remember getting up. I don’t fall asleep in school.” She turned her attention to D.L. “You remember, don’t you? The water, surfing, Hawaii, whacking your head, right?”

  “Barely remember walking into detention. Everything is kind of a blur,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulder.

  Major relief. I don’t know if it was my powers or D.L.’s injury that made him forget. But I was certainly happy that he couldn’t recall what happened.

  “You’ve got to remember.” Courtney was almost pleading with him. “I’m not making this up. We ended up in Hawaii, you almost drowned, then we poofed into some random class and now we’re back.”

  D.L. watched her like she was putting on some out there one-woman show.

  “Weird dream,” I offered.

  “It was not a dream,” she yelled, walking over to me. “You were there, too. We went to a party.”

  “You two at a party together?” D.L. asked, leaning back in his chair. “Must have been a dream. That would never happen.”

  “It did,” she protested. Then her eyebrows got high. “Your head,” she said to D.L. “You were rubbing it. Explain that.”

  “It hurt.”

  “Exactly,” she cried out. “Because you bumped it on the counter in Hawaii.”

  “No, he didn’t.” I had to stop this before it shook D.L.’s memory. “Umm, he hit it on the back of the chair when he fell asleep. I guess it’s just that this room is so warm. You both conked out. It was funny. I wish I took a picture.”

  “Then why are we all wet? Huh? Explain that!”