Careful What You Wish For

by Shani Petroff

  “But they’re dangerous.”

  “I can handle powers. You’re the one who should come with a warning label. Not me.”

  She did not just say that! “Gabi!”

  “What? It’s true.”

  I was afraid if I spoke, flames would come flying out of my mouth. How dare she! Okay, yes. My powers weren’t perfect, and I’ve been known to have technical difficulties surrounding them. But I was getting so much better. My powers had barely gone off on their own at all since the dance. Well, unless you counted when I saved Gabi from getting eaten by a lion. But that was a good thing.

  “Think about it,” she went on. “This is the best scenario ever. Now we’re both special. We can do amazing things.” She headed off to class with me on her tail.

  I had to make her understand. “You don’t need powers to do amazing things.”

  Gabi stopped right in front of a corkboard with pictures from the school musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown pinned to it. “No. You don’t need them. But they sure can help.”

  She eyed a picture of Courtney as Lucy. The part she was up for but didn’t get. Her finger traced the border of the photo. “I really did like being the assistant director. But it would have been fun to be the star.”

  “Gabi, let’s go,” I said. “Whatever you’re thinking—don’t.”

  I managed to peel her away from the photos.

  “Don’t hate me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do it. Honest.”

  “Do what?”

  “You’re about to see.”

  chapter 25

  “There she is,” a woman at the end of the hall said, and pointed at Gabi. Then she raced over to us, followed by a big guy holding a video camera. And there were even more people with cameras following him.

  The commotion got everyone’s attention. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole school was jammed into that hallway trying to figure out what was going on. Which I was pretty curious about myself.

  “Who is she?” I asked Gabi.

  The woman answered for her. “I’m Elena, the producer of a new reality show where we turn regular middle school kids into stars. And our first episode will feature Goode’s very own Gabi Gottlieb.”

  That’s what Gabi wished for? To be a star! And of a reality show no less! Yuck.

  “Tell us what you think, Gabi,” Elena said, shoving a microphone in her face.

  “I think it’s pretty awesome!”

  Personally, I thought it stunk. A reality show meant cameras would be following Gabi everywhere. How was I supposed to talk any sense into her when everything I said would be recorded for all of America to hear?

  “Great, and how about the rest of you?” The main cameraman turned and panned the hallway to get everyone’s expressions, which pretty much consisted of awe, excitement, surprise, and wonder. Well, all except D.L. He covered his face with his arm and said, “I’m out of here. This school is messed up. I’m not going to be on some stupid reality show.” Then he bolted. We were actually on the same page for a change. I didn’t want be a part of it, either.

  Max had the opposite reaction. He bullied his way toward Elena. “You have the wrong person,” he said. “The only one with star quality at this school is me.”

  “Actually,” Elena said, “Gabi’s our girl. I’ve never seen someone with so much star power.”

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “Sorry,” she said. “If you’re not a part of Gabi’s life, you’re not a part of the show.”

  Mighty Max looked stunned that someone didn’t gush all over him. But Elena wasn’t under the Max spell like everyone else. So she didn’t care what one snot nose eighth-grader thought.

  “Speaking of which”—Elena turned to Gabi—“we’re going to want to interview the people closest to you. Keep our eye on them as well.”

  “First there’s Angel.” Gabi pointed to me. “She’s my very best friend. And Cole sits with us at lunch. Oh, and I have a secret admirer, too. I’m not positive who it is yet, but I do have a guess.”

  She scanned the room, probably searching for Marc to see if he’d let on that he was the guy crushing on her.

  “Great,” Elena said, motioning to one of the cameramen. “Let’s start with the best friend.” Next she addressed me. “Since you seem to know Gabi the best, we’re going to devote one cameraman specifically to you. That way we catch anything you say about her even when she’s not around. So just be natural. After an hour you’ll forget you’re even being filmed.”

  No way was I letting a camera follow me around. It was bad enough Gabi didn’t seem to mind having one on her.

  “I’m going to start by asking you a few questions,” Elena said.

  I stepped away. I’ve seen enough reality shows to know the truth. She got paid to torture teens—to make their lives miserable and air it on national television. It wouldn’t surprise me if reality TV was invented by Lou.

  Lou!

  What if he popped in to spy on me when the cameras were rolling? How would I explain a man appearing out of nowhere?! Elena would totally try to uncover my secret. Or worse. Lou would realize she was onto us and banish her to the underworld. I couldn’t let that happen. I was not going to be responsible for anything bad happening to anyone.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “But I’m not going to be on the show.”

  “We need you,” she pressed. “You’re Gabi’s best friend.”

  “Sorry.” I walked away, but they followed me. “I said I’m not doing the show.”

  “I heard you,” Elena said. “But like it or not, you are a part of this.”

  What was with this woman? “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll call the police. I’m underage, and you can’t film me without permission.” Ha. So there, I showed her. You couldn’t go around filming minors. In school!

  “Actually,” Elena said, “I can.” She pulled out a stack of papers. “I have permission slips signed by the guardian of every student here. Including yours.”

  What?! No way my mom would sign something like that. She thinks TV in general is sinful. But reality TV? She thinks that is more disgusting than the sludge forming near the sewer. She says it brings out the worst in people—entertainment at the expense of people’s feelings. “Prove it,” I said.

  “Last name?” Elena asked.

  “Garrett.”

  She rifled through her bag, and then she pulled it right out. A piece of paper containing Tammi Garrett’s curlicue signature, complete with a yin-yang symbol dotting the i. It was definitely not a forgery.

  Gabi’s wish covered everything down to the last minute detail. Even the permission slips. Maybe she was better at this power thing than I was.

  Wait. No she wasn’t. She was the one who made a whole camera crew appear at school. I may not have mastered my gift, but I didn’t go around making crazy wishes.

  The late bell went off, and Elena turned to one of the camera guys. “You, stay with the best friend. We’re going to get Gabi walking into class.”

  Gabi had a ginormous grin on her face as she moved down the hall. And there was a whole group of people clamoring around her. Even Cole. Everyone seemed to think this show was super exciting.

  I, on the other hand, was pretty sure I had a look of dread on my face. Not that I knew for sure. But I was bound to find out eventually. The camera guy was recording every move I made. This was going to have to stop pronto. What if my powers accidentally went off? I couldn’t chance it.

  “Max,” I yelled out. “This guy wants to interview you.”

  Mr. Big Shot couldn’t resist the call of the camera—even if I was the one paging him. So he came racing over.

  “Sorry, son,” the camera guy said. “I need to follow her. Not you.”

  “He’s much more interesting than I am,” I said, slipping behind Max.

  “Definitely true,” Max agreed. And while he had the cameraman cornered, I made my escape. I just needed to be one of the crowd.

&
nbsp; I was not going to be exposed as the devil’s daughter on national television!

  chapter 26

  “Why so sad, Angel?” Courtney asked, skipping over to me in science class.

  “Shh.” I glanced up at her from behind my textbook. I was hiding behind it to keep the camera guy from spotting me.

  “Have a cookie,” she said, her voice extra chipper. “Cookies make everything better.”

  I highly doubted it. A cookie wasn’t going to fix anything. Not the wishes Gabi made, the fact that I hadn’t succeeded in doing any good deeds, or that I hadn’t been able to get near Gabi all day. Not without a camera crew and a whole slew of people standing by. I didn’t even try and sit next to her in class. That was just asking for unwanted attention. Max, on the other hand, jumped at the opportunity. He was kissing up to Gabi nonstop. He even insisted that he got the seat next to her. And since Miss Simmons thought Max was the greatest, he got want he wanted.

  “You can have two,” Courtney continued, handing me her baked goods.

  “Cut it out,” I said, pushing her arm away and causing her to drop the cookies on the ground.

  “Oh my,” she said. “Now we can’t leave a mess, can we? Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of that right now.”

  She bent down to pick it up, and I grabbed her shoulders. “Snap out of it. You should be biting my head off.” Was I nuts? I actually wanted Courtney to insult me? “Don’t you think I deserve to eat the cookies off the ground? Because I’m no better than a cockroach. Or something. Come on, you’re better at this than I am. Say something mean, do something.”

  “I . . .wha . . . I . . .” Courtney sat down in a chair, her hands grasped behind her neck. “I could never say anything like that. That’s just not nice.” She put her head down on the desk. Apparently this Courtney couldn’t even handle hearing mean things.

  I looked up. My attempt to dodge the camera guy hadn’t worked at all. He had been rolling the whole time. They were going to make me look like a psycho on national television and Courtney the sweetest girl ever. But that was the least of my problems. Who cared if everyone thought I was crazy. . . .

  That was the answer! That’s how I could talk to Gabi. In a crazy code. Anyone who was listening would just think I was strange, but she’d know what I meant.

  I marched right over to Gabi. “Can I talk to you?”

  She looked at the clock. We still had a little time before the bell went off. “Of course,” she said.

  I could almost feel the camera zooming in on me. I used my hand to shield my face. “Gabi, you’ve taken this too darn far. Enough is enough. We need to . . . undo . . . the . . .” I couldn’t think of anything. What do we need to undo? What do we need to undo? “We need to undo the . . . sweater!” It was the best I could do.

  “Huh?” she asked.

  “You know. The sweater.” I bugged my eyes out at her. “The one we tried to knit. There’s a big mistake in it. We need to undo it now. If we keep going forward with it, it’s just going to be harder to fix later.”

  “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Gabi said, catching on. “The sweater is fine. You’re the only one who even notices a problem. Everyone else thinks it’s great. Me included.”

  I needed her onboard. If she refused to give back the wishes, there was nothing I could do. The reversal wouldn’t work without her. “It’s not great. It’s seriously flawed and bound to get worse. I wouldn’t want to be a part of something bad. Especially with my history.”

  “You won’t be. Not if I’m super careful as I move forward. Just because your dad is an awful knitter doesn’t mean we can’t make awesome sweaters with the wool you got from him. I’ll—”

  The bell cut her off.

  “Everyone back in their seats,” Miss Simmons called out.

  “I wish I could have a minute to talk to Angel,” Gabi answered.

  “Not a problem,” the teacher answered. “Take a minute to talk.”

  “See.” Gabi gave me a big smile. She thought making Miss Simmons do what she wanted was cool. But controlling people—their thoughts, their actions—it wasn’t right. It was something the devil would do. “Everything is under control.”

  “It’s not. Don’t you understand? You can’t make people . . .” Shoot. The cameras. “Umm, you can’t make people wear a sweater they don’t want to wear. They should have the choice. But this wouldn’t even be an issue if you’d just agree to undo it. Make it so wearing it isn’t an option.”

  “Sorry.” She seemed to be saying that quite a bit.

  “Okay, everyone to your seats,” Miss Simmons said.

  Gabi’s nose scrunched up. “I said I wanted a minute.”

  “Guess your minute is up.” Every word counted when you used your powers. That was something I knew from experience.

  “Well, I wish I had the whole class to do what I wanted,” Gabi said.

  On cue, Miss Simmons announced we had a free period.

  “Gabi, stop!” I told her.

  But she didn’t care what I had to say. Obviously. Because a second later, some guy was carrying in a massage chair for her. I just leaned against the desk and glared at her. She pretended not to notice. She was having too much fun. A total power rush. Elena took the opportunity to go over plans for the reality show. Apparently as part of the show they were going to link Gabi to celebrities, have her go to great parties where she’d have her photo taken, and all sorts of things to convince people she was a rising star.

  “What do you think of Mara’s Daughters?” Gabi asked her. “They’re my absolute favorite band ever. Any chance we can get them?”

  “We can definitely have them on the show,” Elena said.

  “That would be awesome,” Gabi shrieked. “I listen to them all the time. I wish I could hear them now.”

  I wasn’t sure if she did that on purpose or not, but I was ready. As soon as the word wish came out of her mouth, I was on my feet ready to pounce. And it was a good thing, too, because just then the sound of a drumbeat came from the hallway. Booking it as fast as I could, I ran out the door, slamming it shut behind me.

  I didn’t know what to deal with first. The fact that the coolest band in the whole world, Mara’s Daughters, was playing in the halls of Goode Middle School with no clue how they got there. (This noise would inevitably disrupt the other classes.) Or the cameraman that was no doubt making his way to the hallway to see what I was up to.

  “Stop playing,” I ordered the band as I smushed my back up against the classroom door. No way was I letting the cameraman out here. But just as I suspected, he was trying to follow me. I could feel the door and myself starting to move. The guy was a lot stronger than I was. There was no choice. With a wave of my arm, I gestured for the door to close. I couldn’t help but smile a little as it swung back shut. At least I still could control some of my powers.

  With my arm out, I held it closed, but I couldn’t stay like that forever. There were too many other things to focus on. So I moved the drumstick from the hand of Beleth, the drummer, to the space between the bottom of the door and the floor, jamming it closed.

  “What?” Beleth asked, staring at the drumstick.

  “Don’t panic,” I told her and her twin sisters, Vale and Vinea. “I can explain everything. What you just saw, how you got here, everything.” And I was going to just as soon as I could come up with something that didn’t sound insane. “Umm, you see,” I said, looking up for some divine inspiration. “It’s just that, well, it’s actually kind of funny. I—”

  Vale let out a giggle. “Relax, Angel. We know about your pow—”

  “Don’t tell her to relax,” Vinea interrupted. “She can’t just go around summoning us.” Vale glared at me with a look that made my skin prickle.

  “Watch it,” Beleth warned. “Mess with her, you mess with him.”

  Vinea seemed to know exactly what that meant, but I didn’t. What were they talking about? Did they know who I was? Who my father was? I was s
uddenly very afraid. Did Gabi do something? Did she wish that the world knew my secret?

  Vale put her hands out in front of her. “Ignore Vinea. She can be a beast when she doesn’t get enough sleep. But don’t worry. She’s not going to hurt you.”

  Now it was my turn to ask the questions. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  “Angel,” she said, smiling. “You’re not the only one with a secret.”

  It took me a moment to comprehend what she said. “Excuse me?!”

  “You’re not the only one who can do things.”

  My eyes opened so wide, I thought they were going to fall out of their sockets and roll away. Did they have special powers, too? No, I reasoned with myself. They couldn’t. Although, it would explain why they didn’t flip out when I used my powers. “What kind of things?” I asked cautiously.

  Vinea moved her arm and sent me flying against the locker. “That kind of thing,” she said, smirking. “We’re like you.”

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Not so much Him,” Vinea said. “We’re more underworld type of girls.”

  No way. They were like me?! “Are you guys the devil’s daughters, too?”

  All three of them burst out laughing. “Of course not,” Vale said. “We’re demons.”

  “You?” I took a step away from them. Was my favorite band evil? Was their music their way of luring people to the dark side?

  Vinea scrunched up her nose. “For Lucifer’s daughter, you’re pretty clueless about the workings of the underworld. How could you not have heard of Mara?”

  Vale hit her twin on the arm. “Give her a break. You know she grew up up here.”

  Vinea rolled her eyes at her sister. “She should know these things.” Then she put her focus on me. “Our dad is Mara. A pretty major demon.”

  “It’s okay,” Beleth said, pushing her long, dark hair behind her ear, her signature silver bangles jingling with the movement. “You can relax.” I hadn’t even realized that I had put about twenty feet between us. “Really. You’re safe. We’re the same band you met on your birthday.”