Dreamer, Wisher, Liar

by Charise Mericle Harper

  When I was little my favorite stroke was the dog paddle, so I started with that. Claire picked it up quickly, but once she figured it out, the swimming lesson was over. She didn’t want to learn any other strokes. We dog-paddled for a while in the shallow end, until Claire decided she was hungry. There was a concession stand next to the pool, near the deep end, so I made her a deal. She could get whatever she wanted as long as she stood in line and paid for it herself. I didn’t want to stand in line. Lines were a nightmare. It was the exact kind of place where I’d run into someone I couldn’t recognize. I was safer in the water.

  I glanced over at it—nobody looked familiar, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe I knew them all. Maybe they were all from my school. I looked again. It was at times like these that I needed Lucy. I couldn’t believe she was leaving me! For a second I was gone—inside my head—feeling sorry for myself, but Claire tugged at my arm and pulled me back to the now.

  “Can we get the money?” She pointed to the food.

  I nodded. I was hungry too.

  We got out of the pool and walked to our locker. Maybe Sam was sick; maybe that’s why we couldn’t find him. I pointed to the slide—a couple of boys were waiting in line—but Claire shook her head; he wasn’t one of them.

  I gave Claire the money and had her walk back to the pool with me, so she could see where I would be watching her from. I was going to be in the pool, in the deep end, but I could see the concession stand without any problem. After I gave her my order—a hot dog with ketchup, water, and potato chips—I let her get in line. It was long, but it seemed to be moving quickly. The pool was warm, and it was pleasant treading water and watching her. After about five minutes Claire was at the front. I scanned around for a place for us to eat—somewhere away from the crowds. There was a small tree by the fence—it was secluded; we’d sit there. It was near the parking lot, but I didn’t mind. I got out of the pool, grabbed my towel, and walked toward Claire. If I timed it just right, our food would be ready to scoop up as soon as I got there—it was perfect. But perfect didn’t happen. What happened next can only be described by one word: disaster.

  As soon as Claire saw me walking toward her, she screamed out my name and yelled, “I FOUND HIM! HE’S HERE! IT’S SAM! HE’S RIGHT HERE!”

  I froze. Everyone in line looked at Claire and then at me. Now what?

  “LOOK!” yelled Claire. “He’s making our hot dogs!” She bounced up and down and pointed to the other side of the counter. My throat felt dry, my ears burned, my stomach felt sick, and more than anything I wished I was invisible. I forced my feet forward, but it wasn’t easy. What I really wanted to do was turn, run in the opposite direction, and jump back into the pool. How long could a person hide under water? I made myself move forward, until I was finally standing there—next to Claire.

  “Hi, Ash!” said a voice.

  It was a girl’s voice, someone behind me. I turned and looked. The girl was taller than me—blue shorts, white top, and short wet hair. I had no idea who she was, but she knew me. I knew I should say more, chat with her, be friendly, but I couldn’t. I fake-smiled, mumbled hello, and then turned back to Claire. Great, now I had her to worry about too. I grabbed Claire’s shoulders and held them—for support, and so she’d stop bouncing. Her energy was making me crazy, but mostly I needed her to be quiet, so I could have a moment to think. But quiet was impossible.

  “SEE, I FOUND SAM JUST LIKE YOU WANTED ME TO!” shouted Claire. She looked up at me proudly and pointed across the counter. I cringed. Now everyone knew I was looking for him. And worse—he did too! But she was right, it was Sam. He was standing behind the counter, putting hot dogs into buns. Why was he here? I looked down at my feet, but that only made me feel worse. I’d forgotten about Claire’s painting job; my toenails were embarrassing—a nuclear disaster. I should have fixed them. When I looked up again, Sam was standing in front of us, grinning.

  “Two hot dogs, two potato chips, one water, one lemonade, and an ice cream sandwich. Is that right?” he asked.

  Claire leaned forward on the counter. “Why are you working here?”

  I picked up the hot dogs and chips as fast as I could. I didn’t want to chitchat, plus now the line behind us was huge.

  “Keep it moving! Stop talking to your girlfriend!” shouted a boy from the kitchen.

  “I’m not his girlfriend!” answered Claire.

  Sam shook his head. “Ignore him. It’s my brother.”

  I didn’t know Sam had a brother. I stole a look. He was older than Sam, definitely a teenager.

  “Ash,” said Sam.

  That surprised me. Him saying my name like that. I blushed.

  “I’m finished at one; that’s in ten minutes. Do you guys have a plan? Where are you eating?”

  For a second my brain went blank, but then I remembered, yes! There was a plan. We had one. Claire held the drinks, and I picked up the ice cream sandwich. We had everything; we could leave. I motioned toward the parking lot with my head.

  “We’re going to be over there by the small tree.”

  Sam nodded and turned back toward the kitchen.

  And then my feet were moving, without me even thinking of where we were going, and so fast that Claire had to run to keep up. I was in shock.

  We got to our spot and sat down. Right away Claire started eating, but I couldn’t. My emotions were catching up with my body. I felt dizzy, queasy, embarrassed, and tired all at once.

  Claire pointed to my hot dog. “Are you going to eat that? Can I have it?”

  I nodded. A few chips and water—that was all I was going to be able to manage. I closed my eyes and lay back on the ground. We were in the shade, but the air was warm and still, and if Claire had stopped talking, I could have almost fallen asleep.

  “HI, SAM!”

  I bolted up. Sam was standing beside us. How had he done that? I hadn’t even heard him coming. He was like a ninja. He plopped down between us—not so ninja-like anymore.

  “I brought nachos and fries.” He held them up. “I get them for free.”

  Claire leaned over and grabbed a handful of french fries. For a little kid she could really eat a lot of food. I took a chip—mostly to be polite. But it’s hard to eat just one of those things. Once your tongue has tasted the deliciousness of nacho, it always wants more. I ended up eating half of them, but Sam didn’t seem to mind. He had a lot of other stuff to eat—a burger, a pretzel, a milkshake, and a doughnut.

  Claire had a lot of questions for Sam. I thought that might get annoying, but he didn’t seem to care. He was good with little kids, and he answered them all. I was happy to listen; you can learn a lot by listening.

  Claire asked about the concession stand.

  “Normally they don’t let kids like me do it, but Gary’s working there, so they’re letting me try it out. And if I do a good job, then next year I can work more hours.”

  Claire asked about Gary.

  “He’s my brother. He’s sixteen. He’s okay, but sometimes he’s not.”

  Claire asked about working.

  “I’m saving up for a car. As soon as I turn sixteen, I’m going to get one.”

  That surprised me. I’d never met anyone who was saving up for something that far in advance—something they couldn’t even use yet.

  After that Claire switched to detective mode and started asking about Miss Sato and Mr. Gripes.

  Claire asked about why they didn’t like each other.

  “I don’t know.”

  Claire asked about how they met.

  “I think Miss Sato used to live next door to Mr. Gripes.”

  Claire asked about what they liked to do. But before Sam could answer, I asked my own question. I couldn’t wait anymore—I had to know.

  “Did you find out about the building name on the slide?”

  Sam held up his hand for me to wait. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small slip of paper, and waved it in the air. “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forge
t.”

  I held my breath.

  He looked at the paper, squinted, and then said, “Anderson’s.”

  I gasped and covered my mouth. Both Sam and Claire were staring at me.

  Sam looked confused. “Is that what you thought it was?”

  I nodded but couldn’t explain. I couldn’t say, I saw it on one of my trips, while I was time traveling to somewhere that is REAL and that MISS SATO KNOWS ABOUT. That’s the kind of thing a crazy person would say. I knew what was coming next; I got ready.

  Sam put down his milkshake and studied me. “How did you know?”

  I took a deep breath, looked right at his face, and answered him. It was a big fat lie, and I told it perfectly. “I think they filmed a movie there. I saw that building in a movie, but I can’t remember what the movie was called.”

  I crossed my fingers, hoping he’d believe me.

  He nodded and picked up his milkshake again. “Too bad. I bet Miss Sato would like to see that movie.”

  I nodded, agreeing with him. It was scary and impressive, how good I was getting at lying. Feeling confident, I continued.

  “If I remember the name of the movie, I’ll tell you.” I paused for a second, uncertain whether to ask or not, but I had to. I cleared my throat and tried to sound calm. It was the opposite of how I was feeling. “Do you think you could ask Miss Sato why she has that slide?”

  Sam nodded. He took a long sip of his milkshake. “I’ll do it on Friday; she loves talking about the pictures. Plus I need to ask her what the title of that slide is; they’re all out of order.”

  I looked over at Claire. Did she understand that she was to blame? She smiled back. Nope. She’d forgotten about it already.

  For the rest of the afternoon Sam hung around with us in the pool. We tried to teach Claire to swim, but she was resistant to everything except the dog paddle. I kind of didn’t blame her—the dog paddle is efficient and easy. It was fun having an extra person there with Claire, and it made time go by much faster than normal. As we were getting ready to leave, Claire brought up the trampoline again. This time Sam invited us to come over.

  “Why don’t you come over tomorrow, before my neighbors get back? That way we can have it all to ourselves.” He smiled.

  I nodded like that was a good idea, but it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t planning on hanging out and jumping. I’d let Claire bounce around for a few minutes, and then we’d leave.

  I picked up our towels and stuffed them into my backpack. “What time should we meet you? And where?”

  Sam pulled out the small piece of paper with the “Anderson’s” name on it. He wrote an address on the back, handed it to me, and tapped his watch. “Seven o’clock.”

  I looked at the address: 412 Melborne Lane. That was close to my house, only two blocks away. I wasn’t expecting that.

  “I’m close to you,” said Sam.

  I smiled like I’d known that all along. But it was another surprise—how did he know where I lived?

  It was easy to get Claire to leave the pool. I thought she’d make a fuss, but she didn’t. She said she was tired. I knew this was the truth, because usually she’s pretty good at helping me pedal, but this time I had to do it all by myself.

  I forced myself not to think about the Anderson’s thing, but the minute I walked into my room, it consumed me. It was all I could think about. Was it a coincidence? And if it wasn’t, what did that mean? Looking at the wish map didn’t help. Nothing had changed from four days ago. I took out the wish jar and shook it up. The answer was in there—somewhere! Tomorrow was the last day of my basement ban—I was so close. Should I risk it? Try to sneak down now? I was tempted. I opened my door and right away heard voices in the kitchen—Mom and Claire talking. Decision made—I’d wait.

  chapter twenty-six

  Bounce

  The first thing I did the next morning was write to Lucy. I’d saved one of the empty french fry wrappers from the pool. It was distinctive, and as soon as Lucy saw it, she’d recognize it. It had a little drawing of a pool surrounded by palm trees. Our pool didn’t look anything like that—I guess it was false advertising, or hopeful dreaming. Lucy was going to be surprised when she saw the wrapper. I’d never been to the pool without her. The french fry wrapper wasn’t very big, so there wasn’t much room to write, but I fit in a few sentences about teaching Claire to swim.

  Claire and I rode down to the VS Depot after lunch. We didn’t have much else to do. Claire was still waiting for me to come up with some kind of brilliant love plan for Miss Sato and Mr. Gripes. Every time she brought it up, I changed the subject. I wasn’t brave enough to tell her the truth—that it was hopeless, and we couldn’t do anything. When we got to the store, Claire disappeared inside ahead of me. There wasn’t anything unusual about that, but when I went inside, I couldn’t find her. Peter was at the counter, but there was no Claire. He shook his head when I asked him if he’d seen her. That was strange—I’d seen her go in. Peter and I both called her name, but she didn’t answer. Now I was nervous.

  Peter started toward the back of the store. “I’ll check the back, and you look out front again.”

  I ran to look. Claire was definitely not out front—I felt sick. When I rushed back inside to tell Peter, she was there, standing next to him.

  “She was outside the back door.” Peter patted her on the arm. “She must have passed through the store without me seeing her.” Claire seemed fine and even smiled at me. But I was furious, and I couldn’t keep my feelings inside. I shouted at her.

  “DON’T EVER RUN OFF AGAIN!”

  She looked surprised. “I didn’t run off. I was just outside. Looking for Peter.”

  It was a big misunderstanding, I could see that, but somehow I was still mad. I knew I should stop, take deep breaths, hold my words in, but I couldn’t. They spilled out, loud and strong.

  “You have to stay with me! And not run away! EVER! Do you understand?”

  Claire looked like she might cry. I instantly felt bad.

  “I wouldn’t run away,” she whimpered. “I’d never do that. I’m not like . . .” She stopped and was quiet.

  I froze. I knew who she was thinking about. Peter was bent down behind the counter, maybe looking for something, or maybe hiding. It’s not fun to watch people fight. I walked over to Claire to apologize.

  “I’m sorry for yelling. Are you okay?”

  She nodded and sniffed. I put the french fry wrapper on the counter. Peter was standing up again. I guess he could tell that the worst was over. I was embarrassed. I couldn’t look at him, but I forced myself to chitchat for Claire’s sake—to distract her, so she’d stop thinking about her mom.

  “Claire did a great job learning to swim yesterday! You should have seen her. She was amazing.” I looked at Claire, but I couldn’t tell if it was working.

  Peter walked over, stood in front of her, and put both of his hands on the counter. “So Claire, tell me. Did you swim like a goldfish?”

  He was trying to help. Claire shrugged and said, “My mom ran away once, but it was for a reason. It was a love reason. She was in love with . . .” She paused for a moment, looked around, and said, “Roman Helvetica. He was from Paris. They were in love. Real love.”

  Peter looked sad for a moment but then smiled.

  “That’s a beautiful love story, but are you trying to avoid my swimming question? Because if you swam like a goldfish, I have a surprise for you.”

  Claire perked up a little and gave me a quick glance. I forced a smile, but I was thinking about what she had said. Who was Roman Helvetica? Was it true? Mom hadn’t said anything about a romance.

  “I swam like a goldfish,” said Claire. She shot me another glance, and I nodded. I wasn’t going to disagree with her.

  “I thought so,” said Peter. He slapped his hand against the counter and turned around. “I’ll be right back.”

  He walked to the back of the store and disappeared. Claire and I waited in silence—it seemed
like forever. Finally he was back. He handed Claire a large envelope. She opened it and squealed.

  “LOOK, ASH! LOOK! IT’S STEVE!” She was bouncing up and down. It was Claire being back to normal. I smiled and looked at the pad of paper. It was similar to the other pads Peter had given her, only at the top of this one was a drawing of Steve. How had he done that? Peter answered my question before I even asked it.

  “I used some of the drawings you left here the other day. It’s not hard to do.”

  Claire was bouncing up and down and singing. “I love it! I love it! I love it!” She squealed and ran around the counter to give Peter a hug.

  I was confused. How had he done this so fast? It was almost like magic. I had to ask.

  “How did you have it ready, special for today?”

  Peter shook his head. “It wasn’t for today. It was just for sometime—and today seemed like the right sometime.”

  I nodded. He was right about that.

  I looked down at the ground, embarrassed. It’s not always easy to look people in the face, but Peter deserved it—he’d saved me. I forced my eyes up and said, “Thank you.”

  Peter nodded and winked.

  Claire was happy all the way home, and as soon as we parked the bike, she ran in to show Mom her new pad of paper. I wanted to ask Mom about Claire’s story, but I couldn’t get her alone without Claire around.

  After dinner I got some things together for the trampoline excursion. I wanted to make it special, to make up for this afternoon. I was lucky; Claire hadn’t told Mom about me yelling at her. I would have gotten in trouble for that. Mom is not a fan of yelling.

  While I was waiting for six thirty to turn into seven o’clock, I read my new postcard from Lucy. She’d gotten the party hat, but not the coconut. I didn’t like how postcards took so long. The party hat was ages ago. I wanted to hear about the coconut. She asked about Peter again, but I had done a bad job at getting more information. I hadn’t even thought about it while we were there today. Lucy said she and her friend Claire were practicing some kind of dance for the talent show. I was going to miss it, because it was the Saturday before I got there. It was a nice postcard, but it didn’t make me feel excited about camp. It was strange, but it made me sad. It was like we were living on two different islands, and the postcards were a crummy bridge. Mostly that was my fault; I wasn’t telling Lucy about everything that was happening. But it was too hard; I just couldn’t write, Oh, yeah, and I’ve been time traveling on a postcard.