An acrobat looked up, then shook her finger at me. “That? It’s not going to fall. It’s supposed to do that!”
My stomach lurched. I had been wrong. About everything. The other performers glared at me, clearly annoyed that I had caused all of this for nothing. My head started throbbing and I felt kind of nauseated. I didn’t prevent doom. I created a disaster.
So here’s what I did next.
I ran.
20
“Ooooooooo! Ooooooooooooo!” I could hear the fifth graders inside the haunted house trying to make spooky ghost noises. I could tell which one was Milo by the way he made his voice rise super high and quiver like crazy. It was even more annoying than before, but maybe that’s because I’d been hiding behind the haunted house for the past hour. And I was never coming out. After falling onstage, ruining the acrobat show, completely humiliating myself, and worst of all, doing it all for nothing because I was totally wrong about my vision, I had decided to stay here, away from everyone on the planet, for the rest of my life.
Except I kind of wanted a candy apple.
As I wrestled with the difficult choice of never moving again or taking just a few minutes to get a yummy snack, I was interrupted by a voice next to me. It was Elizabeth.
“Hi, Hazy Bloom,” she said quietly. Honestly? I didn’t know Elizabeth could speak quietly. But it wouldn’t have mattered if she was screeching like a baboon (which come to think of it was what Milo sounded like in the haunted house). I was just so happy to see her.
“Hi,” I said back.
“I heard what happened at the show,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Then I paused. “No, I’m not okay! For real live! Elizabeth, I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday.”
Elizabeth leaned in intensely. “No, I’m sorry! I was a pain! I was just worried the cupcakes wouldn’t get done—”
“Because of me! I didn’t help at all! I was the pain!”
“Well, that’s true.” She paused. Then she went on. “But you’ve had a lot on your mind. And it all worked out anyway because May helped me and … well … I just really miss you. And I want us to be friends again.”
“Me, too! I want that, too!” I said. “And I totally want you to be my sidekick. Okay?”
“Okay.” Elizabeth smiled. Boy, did I feel better! It was so nice to have my best friend back. We sat leaning against the haunted house for a minute. And that’s when I remembered why I was hiding there. I covered my face with my hands.
“Oh, Elizabeth, it was awful.” I told her about the green-glitter hat, and the rainbow balloons, and the swinging disco ball, and how I was wrong about all of it.
Elizabeth chewed on her lip for a minute. Then she said, “Okay, let’s just think about this. We can figure it out.” And I totally believed her.
But then May appeared and told Elizabeth the judging for the cupcake contest was starting.
On the field, the long table was being wheeled over with all the cupcake displays on it, and right at the end was Elizabeth’s cupcake tower. Even from here I could see that it looked amazing.
“Wow!” I said. “Your cupcake tower looks incredibleous” (not a spelling word, or any word, but totally should be).
“Thanks.” Elizabeth smiled proudly. And that’s when I saw that each of her one hundred cupcakes was in a sparkly, green-glitter wrapper.
Elizabeth and I looked at each other, realizing the same thing at the same time. We jumped up and started running as fast as our superhero and sidekick legs would carry us.
Music pumped through the carnival speakers, making it feel like we were in a superhero movie. Maybe that’s why when I saw Mapefrl in my way I yelled, “Move, kid, I’m saving the day!” It just felt like the right thing to say. Even though he ignored me and then I tripped over his foot.
Up ahead was another balloon archway, just like the first one, and we ran through it. Maybe that was the one I was supposed to pay attention to. I still really liked it.
We got to the contest just as the judging began. May was in the front, waving for Elizabeth to come over. But there was already a crowd gathered, and we couldn’t get closer. We were trapped in the back. At the cupcake table were the judges, who were actually just teachers. Mrs. Agnes was one of them. They were walking around the table, carefully observing each display and marking their clipboards importantly like they were analyzing a new species of jellyfish, not looking at homemade cupcakes at a school carnival. I noticed that the table wobbled like crazy whenever somebody touched it. It looked about a thousand years old. I might suggest the school use some of the money from the carnival to buy new furniture.
Across the crowd, I saw Kingston (remember him, the fifth-grade version of Mapefrl?) running around. It didn’t seem like he cared at all about the contest because he wasn’t even paying attention; instead, he was being annoying and waving around the biggest, fluffiest stick of pink cotton candy I’d ever seen. Like, extra-fluffy, for real live.
Fluffy, pink …
The fluffy pink cat from my vision came rushing back. Only now I realized it wasn’t a cat at all. It was cotton candy. Wild!
Now I had figured out everything from my vision, except for one thing: the falling object.
Kingston and his cotton candy were getting closer to the cupcake table. The judges didn’t notice and continued their judging. One of them brushed against the table and it wobbled even more.
Suddenly, I knew what the falling object was. It was Elizabeth’s cupcake tower.
“Catch the cupcakes, catch the cupcakes!” I hollered. But we were too far away and the music was blaring, so no one could hear me. I tried to push through the crowd, but there were too many people in the way. How was I going to get through? How would I save the cupcakes? Then I got an idea.
“CaaaaaaaaYAAAYAYAYAYAYAAAA!” I shrieked. It was the loudest, best birdcall I had done yet. Aunt Jenna would have been impressed. Everyone stared at me, probably wondering why I was calling birds in the middle of the carnival. Also, it’s possible they thought I was crazy because as I charged forward, they jumped right out of my way. So my plan worked. I ran straight to the end of the table. Mrs. Agnes looked at me in surprise.
“Hazel, what are you doing?” she whispered harshly.
“Saving the cupcakes!” I whispered back.
Mrs. Agnes looked around. “What are you talking about? Nothing is happening to the cupcakes!”
“It will,” I declared. And then it did. At that very moment, Kingston, still not paying attention, tripped over a leg of the thousand-year-old table. The leg buckled, the entire table tipped downward, and all the cupcake displays began sliding toward the ground, the first one being Elizabeth’s. And I was right there to catch it.
I. Saved. Elizabeth’s. Cupcakes. From. Doom. Which in my opinion was kind of better than making them.
Elizabeth swooped in and grabbed the other side of the display because let me tell you, holding a tower of one hundred cupcakes all by yourself is no walk in the park. We carefully set it down on a nearby picnic table while the teachers grabbed the rest of the displays and set them down, too. Elizabeth and I quickly checked that all the cupcakes were okay, which they were. Then we started jumping up and down and hugging and laughing and woohooing. Wow, we were good!
Mrs. Agnes turned to us, grinning from ear to ear. “Girls, that was amazing!” Then her expression switched from happy to baffled. “But Hazel. How on earth did you know that was going to happen?”
“Oh, just a hunch,” I said. Elizabeth and I smiled at each other and squeezed hands. Off to the side, I saw a teacher escorting Kingston and his cotton candy to his parents, who did not seem pleased. That made me smile even more.
Then, to ruin the moment as usual, the original Mapefrl bulldozed over. I was sure he was about to yell at me about picking up garbage, but instead he said, “Hey, good job, Hazy Bloom.” And he kind of smiled.
Maybe he wasn’t the most annoying person ever.
&n
bsp; Then he burped in my face.
Okay, he still was.
21
The rest of the carnival was a blast, and I say this even though I went right back to picking up trash. The truth is, after all the craziness I had just been through with my tomorrow vision, the acrobat show, and the cupcake-saving, I wanted to do something boring and simple that had nothing to do with tomorrow power. Trash pickup was just the thing.
I even told Mapefrl to go take a break and I’d do it on my own for a while. That’s how happy I was about how everything had turned out: I did a nice thing for Mapefrl. He gave me a sort of goofy smile, then headed straight to the “messy zone,” where you got to play with icky things like Silly String, shaving cream, cooked spaghetti, and lots of other stuff. The Baby would have loved it. Speaking of the The Baby, toward the end of the carnival, Mom, Dad, The Baby, and Aunt Jenna all showed up to check it out. I recommended the haunted house to them. And reminded them to throw away their trash.
Did I mention Elizabeth won the cupcake contest? Well, she did! At the end of the carnival, they called her name in front of everyone and handed her a big gift certificate for Camp Showbiz. She gave a short speech where she thanked May for helping her at the last minute, her mom for buying the ingredients, and me for saving her cupcakes from doom. Everyone laughed at that, but only we knew why it was so funny.
After her speech, Elizabeth ran up to me. “Camp Showbiz, here I come!” she said, making jazz hands. I think she’s a natural, for real live. Me? I’ll stick to space travel. Except I am pretty great at the Funky Chicken.
That evening, my family took Aunt Jenna out to dinner for her last night in town. At the restaurant, the two of us cracked everyone up with our birdcalls. Even Milo attempted one or two.
To my relief, I didn’t have any visions for the rest of the day—well, except for one where I saw the shape of a star, but I honestly didn’t give it much thought. After all the excitement of the carnival, I figured I could ignore a vision for once. Although I was kind of curious what it meant.
* * *
By Sunday afternoon, I was feeling tired and content. Everything seemed to have worked out just how it was supposed to. And I really got to like having Aunt Jenna around. So when I saw her wheeling her suitcase out of my room I was more than a little bummed. “Are you going now?” I asked her, even though I knew the answer.
“Afraid so,” she said, smiling.
Aunt Jenna crouched down next to me. “I’ll visit again soon. Promise,” she said, hugging me tightly. “’Bye, Hazy Bloom,” she whispered. “I had a lot of fun with you this week. I think you and I need to do a better job of staying in touch. Who knows, we might have lots to talk about.” Then with a little wave she headed toward the door, where Dad was waiting to drive her to the airport.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” She reached into her purse and pulled out a small polka-dot box. “For you,” she said. Then she left.
I opened the box and found a pretty silver chain—a necklace, with one single charm hanging at the bottom. A star.
All of a sudden, I got the weirdest tingly feeling in the whole world, not because I was having a tomorrow vision, but because I was beginning to realize something. I started thinking hard about all the kooky things from this past week with Aunt Jenna and how they actually weren’t so kooky after all. The rain boots just before a rare rainy day, the advance notice of the word jubilant, the birdcalls that saved the cupcakes. In fact, I thought, my pulse quickening, almost every gift or idea from Aunt Jenna turned out to be something I needed … the very next day.
Could it be … Was it possible…?
Did Aunt Jenna have tomorrow power?
As Dad pulled out of the driveway, Aunt Jenna waved to me through the car window. And as she did, I thought I saw her give me the slightest, tiniest little nod. A nod that said I was right.
Dazed, I went back into the living room, where The Baby was hiccupping in between saying “Beefrechenutz,” and his newest word, “Spelft,” while Milo was trying to juggle grapes, all of which dropped onto the floor and were immediately eaten by Mr. Cheese. It was back to chaos as usual. But today I didn’t mind one bit. Because I was pretty sure I had just discovered something incredible.
I plopped down on the couch, thinking about the past two weeks with this new crazy power of mine. Yes, it got annoying and in some cases almost ruined things completely, like an entire acrobatic performance, my friendship with Elizabeth, and my feelings toward cupcakes.
But it also ended up being pretty great. More than great. In fact, it might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The Baby wobbled up to me and planted a kiss on my knee and I tickled him back. I wondered what new wild adventures my power would bring. I guess I would just have to wait and see what happened tomorrow. For real live.
About the Author and Illustrator
Jennifer Hamburg is an Emmy-winning children’s television writer who has worked on hit shows such as Doc McStuffins, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and Super Why! She is currently at work on another Hazy Bloom adventure, and lives with her family in Houston, Texas. You can sign up for email updates here.
Jenn Harney is an illustrator and toy designer whose work has been featured in Highlights for Children magazine. Jenn lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband, her daughter, a dog named Steve, and a fish with nine lives. She is currently at work on the next chapter book in the Hazy Bloom series. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Text copyright © 2017 Jennifer Hamburg
Pictures copyright © 2017 by Jenn Harney
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2017
eBook edition, February 2017
mackids.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Hamburg, Jennifer, author. | Harney, Jennifer, illustrator.
Title: Hazy Bloom and the tomorrow power / Jennifer Hamburg; pictures by Jenn Harney.
Description: First edition. | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017. | Series: Hazy Bloom | Summary: When third-grader Hazel “Hazy” Bloom begins having visions of trouble that will come within twenty-four hours, she finds that this mysterious power provides her the ability to make things worse.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024328 (print) | LCCN 2016052852 (ebook) | ISBN 9780374304942 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780374304966 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Extrasensory perception—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Humorous stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Mysteries & Detective Stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.H1756 Haz 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.H1756 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024328
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eISBN 9780374304966
Hazy Bloom and the Tomorrow Power Page 6