Instant Karma

by Marissa Meyer

  BANG!

  Ari and I both yelp. For a second I think it was a gunshot. But then we see the car, nearly a block ahead, spinning out of control.

  It blew a tire.

  I press a hand to my mouth. It feels like watching a video in slow motion. The car turns a hundred eighty degrees, miraculously missing the other vehicles parked on the side of the road. It wheels onto the sidewalk, stopping only when the front bumper smashes into—not a telephone pole—a giant palm tree. The hood crumples like an aluminum can.

  For a moment, Ari and I are frozen, gaping at the wreck. Then Ari is scrambling to unbuckle her seat belt and kick open her door. She’s running toward the wreck before I can think to move, and once I finally do, it’s only to unclench my fists.

  My fingers are tingling, on the verge of numbness. I look down at them, my skin tinted orange from the streetlamp.

  Coincidence.

  Just some freaky coincidence.

  I somehow find the wherewithal to dig out my phone and call the police, and by the time I’ve given the operator the information, my hand has stopped shaking and Ari is making her way toward me. “Everyone’s okay,” she says, breathless. “The airbags went off.”

  “I called the police. They’ll be here soon.”

  She nods.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Ari sinks into her seat. “I think so. Just scared the heck out of me.”

  “Me too.” I reach over and squeeze her hand.

  Her expression is pained when she looks at me. “This is terrible, but when it happened—like, that first split second after they crashed, my first thought was…” She trails off.

  “Serves them right,” I finish for her.

  Her face pinches guiltily.

  “Ari, they were being jerks. And driving really erratically. I hate to say it, but … it does serve them right.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  Rather than respond—because I’m pretty sure I do mean that—I withdraw my hand from hers. “I’m glad no one is seriously hurt,” I say. “Including us.” Reaching up, I rub the back of my head, where the lump seems to be going down. “I don’t think my head could handle another collision tonight.”

  SEVEN

  My headache is mostly gone the next morning, but there’s a lingering grogginess that clouds the inside of my skull as I print out the anglerfish paper, along with Jude’s piece on the basking shark, and get dressed.

  “Last day,” I whisper to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. The words are a bit like a mantra, motivating me as I brush my teeth and untangle the same knots from my hair that I work to untangle every morning. Last day. Last day. Last day.

  I’ve slept in almost an hour past the time I normally like to get up, and I can hear my family’s chaos already in full swing downstairs. Dad has a Kinks record playing and it’s one of their lively, upbeat tunes, “Come Dancing.” Dad has this theory that starting out the morning with music that makes you feel good will automatically turn the day into an awesome day. I mean, I think there’s something to that, and I believe in starting out on the right foot as often as possible, but sometimes his chipper morning tunes are more grating than inspiring. Everyone in the family has tried to tell him this on different occasions, but he brushes off the criticism. I think he might have the morning playlist for the entire summer already picked out.

  Over the music, Ellie—four years old and full of Big Emotions—is screaming about who-knows-what. There are days when I feel like Ellie’s life is just one big tantrum. No, I won’t take a bath. No, I don’t want to put on socks. No, I hate Goldfish crackers. Hey, Lucy is eating my Goldfish crackers, it’s not faaaaaiiiir.

  I hear a loud thump and something crashes downstairs, immediately followed by my mom’s shrill scream. “Lucy! I said, not in the house!”

  “Sorry!” comes Lucy’s not-really-that-sorry-sounding apology. A second later, I hear the back screen door squeal on its hinges.

  Lucy, thirteen years old and embittered to be going into freshman year after the summer, where she’ll officially be back on the bottom of the social pecking order, was probably switched at birth with our actual sibling. At least, that’s what Jude and I have theorized. Lucy is popular, for starters. Like, weirdly popular. And not that cliché teen-movie type of popular. She doesn’t wear high heels to school, she doesn’t spend all her free time at the mall, and she is neither ditzy nor mean. People just like her. All sorts of people. From what I can tell, in my limited knowledge of Fortuna Beach Middle School’s current social circles, she has a connection to pretty much all of them. She plays nearly every sport. She has a functional knowledge of pep rallies and fundraisers and other school events that Jude and I have habitually avoided. It can be unsettling to watch.

  The only group she doesn’t seem to have much connection to is us. She has no interest whatsoever in music—she hardly listens to it on the radio and often puts in her headphones so she can listen to the latest true crime podcasts rather than Dad’s record of the day. She’s the only one in our family who’s never even tried to learn an instrument. (Whereas I took piano for two years, and Jude gave the guitar a real shot. Neither of us ever got any good and we both gave up by the end of middle school. The poor keyboard my parents picked up for me at the local pawnshop has been collecting dust in a corner of our living room ever since.)

  And then there’s nine-year-old Penny, who loves music, but not the kind my parents have done their best to brainwash us into loving. Instead, she likes pop and R & B and some alternative, the kind of Top 40 hits that don’t usually show up in a record store. She’s the only reason I have any knowledge of contemporary music at all, and to be honest, my familiarity is still pretty sparse. In fact, if my parents hadn’t dragged us to see Yesterday, a movie inspired by the Beatles, I probably still wouldn’t know who Ed Sheeran is.

  Ironically, Penny is also the only one of the Barnett kids who plays an instrument. Sort of. She’s three years into learning the violin. One would think that, even being a kid, she would have made some progress in three years, but the sounds she squeaks out of those strings are just as ear-bleeding now as they were the day she started. I can hear her practicing in the bedroom she shares with Lucy as I put on the most vivid red lipstick I have. I need the energy today. I’m not sure if she’s trying to play along to the Kinks or cramming for a lesson. Either way, it’s bringing back my headache. I huff in irritation and start to close the bathroom door.

  A foot appears from the hallway, stopping the door in its path. It bounces back at me.

  “Hey,” says Jude, leaning against the door frame. “Can you taste the freedom in the air?”

  I smack my lips thoughtfully. “Funny. It tastes just like Crest extra whitening.” I cap my lipstick and drop it into my makeup bag. Squeezing past him, I duck into my bedroom. “Did you make all your plans to lay siege to Goblin Cavern or whatever?”

  “The Isle of Gwendahayr, if you really must know. I’m designing it to include a series of ancient ruins that all hold clues for a really powerful spell, but if you try to chant the spell in the wrong order, or you haven’t gotten to them all yet, then something really awful is going to happen. Not sure what yet.” He hesitates before adding, “Maybe it will open up a cavern full of goblins.” He’s followed me, but lingers in my doorway. It’s an unspoken rule in our house—never enter a bedroom without a verbal invitation. In general, our family tends to be lacking in firm boundaries, so this is one Jude and I protect at all costs. The house we live in isn’t equipped for all seven of us. There are only three official bedrooms—the master for my parents, Lucy and Penny in bunk beds, and me in the third bedroom, with Jude down in the converted basement. But with “baby” Ellie still sleeping on a toddler bed in my parents’ room, and outgrowing it quick, there’s been talk lately of having to do some rearranging. I’m terrified that means I’m going to be losing my private sanctuary. Luckily, my parents have been too busy with the record store to bother with rearrangi
ng and redecorating, so the status quo continues. For now.

  “So how was the rest of karaoke?”

  I frown at him. “Kind of you to ask, as someone put my name up to sing ‘Instant Karma!’ and didn’t bother to tell me.”

  His brow creases. “Really?”

  I raspberry my lips. “Please. It’s fine. I’m not mad. It was actually”—I bob my head to the sides—“kind of fun. But still. Next time, give me some warning, okay?”

  “What? I didn’t put your name in.”

  I pause from braiding my hair and look at him. Really look.

  He seems legitimately baffled.

  But then, so did Ari.

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that. Not without your okay.”

  I wrap a band around the end of the braid, securing it in place. “But if you didn’t, and Ari didn’t…”

  We’re quiet for a moment, before Jude says hesitantly, “Quint?”

  “No.” I’d been thinking the same thing, but I have to dismiss it. Quint couldn’t have heard us talking about that song. And Carlos wasn’t around, either. “Maybe the woman who was running the karaoke? Think she heard us and thought I needed the extra push?”

  “Wouldn’t be very professional.”

  “No. It wouldn’t.” I grab my backpack from where I hung it on my chair last night. “Anyway, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I sang. I danced. I was halfway decent, if I do say so myself.”

  “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “I bet you are. I printed out your paper for you, by the way.” I hand him the one-page report.

  “Thanks. So, hey.” He raps his knuckles against the door frame. “I was thinking of going to the end-of-year bonfire tonight.”

  “What? You?” The annual Fortuna Beach High’s bonfire party is as much Jude’s scene as it is mine. We didn’t go last year, even though lots of freshmen did. I even remember some of our peers going when we were still in middle school. “Why?”

  “Just thought I should see what it’s all about. Don’t knock it till you try it sort of thing. Think you and Ari want to go?”

  My gut reaction is No way, we’re good, thanks. But I’m still trying to figure out Jude’s motives. I squint at him. He seems casual. Too casual.

  “Ooooh,” I say, sitting on the edge of my bed as I pull on my socks. “It’s because Maya will be there, isn’t it?”

  He shoots me an unimpressed look. “Believe it or not, I don’t live my life by Maya Livingstone’s schedule.”

  My eyebrows rise. I’m unconvinced.

  “Whatever,” he grumbles. “I’ve got nothing better to do tonight, and without any homework to keep you busy, I know you don’t, either. Come on. Let’s go check it out.”

  I picture it. Me, Jude, and Ari, swigging sodas by a huge bonfire, sand in our shoes, sun in our eyes, watching as the seniors get drunk on cheap beer and wrestle one another in the waves.

  My utter disinterest must show on my face, because Jude starts to laugh. “I’m going to bring a book,” he says. “Just in case it’s awful. Worst-case scenario, we stake out a place near the food and read all evening. And I’ll tell Ari to bring her guitar.”

  My interpretation of the night changes, and I see the three of us lounging around, books in one hand, s’mores in the other, while Ari strums her newest tune. Now that actually sounds like a delightful evening.

  “Fine, I’ll go,” I say, grabbing my backpack. “But I’m not getting in the water.”

  “Wasn’t even going to ask,” says Jude. He knows that I find the ocean terrifying, mostly because sharks. I would also be lying if I didn’t say that the thought of putting on a swimsuit in front of half the students at our school didn’t fill me with an abundance of unmitigated horror.

  We head downstairs. Dad has just put on a new record, and the upbeat harmonies of the Beach Boys start to fill up the living room. I glance through the doorway and see Dad swaying around the coffee table. He tries to get Penny to dance with him, but she’s lying on the floor, playing a video game on Dad’s tablet, doing a superb job of ignoring him.

  I generally try to avoid the living room, because over the years it’s become a bit of a junkyard. Cleaning and organizing hasn’t taken priority in my parents’ lives in a while, and all the random things we don’t know what to do with tend to get piled up in the living room corners. Not just my old keyboard, but also boxes of abandoned craft projects and stacks of unread magazines. Plus, there are the records. So many vinyl records, spilling across every surface, piling up on the ancient carpet. It stresses me out just looking at it.

  Jude and I turn the other way, into the kitchen. Ellie’s tantrum seems to be over, thank heavens, and she’s sitting in the breakfast nook, wearing her favorite dress with the sequined monkey on the front and mindlessly shoveling cereal into her mouth. She has a magazine spread out in front of her. She can’t read yet, but she likes looking at the photos of animals in National Geographic Kids. Through the window I spy Lucy in the backyard, kicking a soccer ball against the back of the house.

  The elementary and middle school terms ended yesterday, making this Penny’s and Lucy’s first official day of summer vacation. Eleanor’s preschool got out last week. One glance at Mom, sitting across from Ellie with a glass of tomato juice, her laptop, and a couple piles of receipts spread around her, suggests she’s already feeling frazzled by the change.

  “I wanted to make pancakes for your last day,” she says when Jude and I enter, before giving us a helpless shrug. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen. Maybe this weekend?”

  “No worries,” says Jude, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet. He would gladly survive on cereal alone if our parents allowed it.

  I plug in the blender on the counter to make my usual morning smoothie. I pull out the milk and peanut butter, then turn to reach for the fruit bowl. I freeze.

  “Where’d all the bananas go?”

  No one answers.

  “Uh, Mom? You bought two bunches of bananas, like, two days ago?”

  She barely glances up from her screen. “I don’t know, honey. There are five growing kids in this family.”

  As she’s talking, a movement catches my eye. Ellie has lifted her magazine, holding it up in front of her face.

  “Ellie?” I say warningly, crossing the room and snatching the magazine from her hand, at the same time that she shoves the last few bites of a banana into her mouth. Her cheeks bulge and she struggles to chew. The peel is still in her hand. A second banana peel lies next to her empty cereal bowl. “Eleanor! Seriously? That’s so rude! Mom!”

  Mom looks up, glaring—at me, of course. “She’s four, and it’s a banana.”

  I start to groan but bite my tongue. It isn’t because it’s a banana. It’s the principle of the thing. She heard me saying I wanted it, which is the only reason she stuffed it into her mouth. If it had been Jude, she would have passed it to him on a silver platter.

  I toss the magazine back onto the table. “Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll find something else.”

  But I’m still simmering as I start rummaging through the freezer, hoping for a bag of frozen berries. When I come up empty, I step back, balling my hands into fists. I cast a withering look at Ellie over my shoulder, just as she swallows the banana. Ugh. That selfish little—

  A soccer ball comes sailing into view. It strikes Mom’s glass, knocking it to the table. Mom yelps as tomato juice floods over the surface. She snatches up the nearest piles of receipts, while Ellie sits frozen, wide-eyed, doing nothing as a river of deep red juice spills over the edge of the table and straight into her lap.

  I blink, having flashbacks to the drunk hecklers at Encanto last night. The cherry. The spilled beer. The déjà vu is bizarre.

  “Lucy!” Mom shrieks.

  Lucy is standing in the back door, her hands still extended as if there were an invisible soccer ball in them. She looks bewildered. “I didn’t do it!”

  Mom makes a disgust
ed sound. “Oh, right. I’m sure the universe just plucked it out of your hands and threw it at the table!”

  “But—”

  “Don’t just stand there! Get a towel!”

  I know she means Lucy, but Jude is a step ahead of everyone, bringing a wad of paper towels over to help sop up the mess.

  “Mom!” Ellie’s voice warbles. “It’s my favorite dress!”

  “I know, sweetie,” says Mom, though I can tell she’s barely listening as she checks the underside of her computer to see if there’s any juice on it. “Pru, could you help your sister get changed?”

  Hearing my name shakes me from my daze. It’s just a spilled glass. It’s just a soccer ball. It’s just coincidence.

  But it’s also so weird.

  My fingers tingle as I release my fists and stretch them out. I go around the table and Ellie compliantly lifts her arms for me to pull the sticky wet dress off her.

  “It’s my favorite,” she says, pouting. “Can it be saved?”

  The way she says it is beyond melodramatic, but I can’t help feel a tug of guilt. Even though this isn’t my fault. I was nowhere near that glass of juice, or the soccer ball for that matter. Lucy really does need to learn to be more careful.

  “I’ll put some Spray ’n Wash on it and we’ll hope for the best,” I say. “Go pick out something else to wear for today.”

  She casts a feisty scowl at Lucy, though it goes ignored as Lucy helps Mom and Jude clean up. Ellie harrumphs and storms upstairs.

  “Jude, I’m going to go throw this in the wash, then we should get going,” I say. “Last day. Shouldn’t be late.”

  He nods and throws the red-tinged paper towels in the trash. “Want a bagel for the road?”

  “Sure, thanks.” I head into the laundry room, grab the stain remover from the plastic tote beside the washing machine, then spread out the damp fabric. The stain runs the whole length of the dress, from just above the ear of the sparkly monkey’s head, all the way down to the bottom of the skirt.

  It’s probably just my imagination, but I swear the stain is in the exact shape of a banana.