by Liz Kessler
I looked around the class, my mind wandering as Miss Holdsworth talked about contours and map coordinates. As I scanned the room, it seemed that everyone I looked at turned and smiled at me. I could probably be best friends with anyone I wanted! Maybe I didn’t even have to settle for Lauren and Beth. Not that there was anything wrong with them, really. But we’d never been the most popular foursome in the class. We’d never been the group that everyone admired and revered. That was reserved for Trisha’s gang.
That was when I realized — perhaps even Trisha Miles would want to be my friend. Was fairy magic that powerful? A second later, Trisha turned and gave me a wink. “Meet me at break,” she whispered.
It was! It really was powerful enough to turn sworn enemies into friends! Trisha Miles wanted me to meet up with her during our break! Lauren and Beth could wait.
Trisha was waiting for me at the other end of the playground. Her end of the playground. I hesitated for a moment. Maybe it was a trick. I just couldn’t honestly believe that Trisha Miles really wanted to spend time with me.
Come on, there’s only one way to find out. I dragged my shaky legs across the playground toward her, stopping every few seconds to say hi to someone.
“Have a good trip?” Trisha asked with a laugh as a fifth-grade girl, smiling at me as she walked past us, stumbled on a loose paving stone. “Send us a postcard next time!”
Trisha nudged me, and I forced myself to laugh. I knew by now that when Trisha Miles makes a joke, you laugh. Either that or you end up being the subject of her next joke — which will be even less funny than the one before it.
I tried to think of something witty to say back to her. That’s when it occurred to me that Trisha’s jokes always seemed to be at the expense of someone else, and I couldn’t bring myself to make fun of anyone else. Not when I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of jokes like that. And especially not when everyone was being so nice to me!
I didn’t have to worry for long. Within two minutes, there was a crowd around us. Well, around me.
“Hey, Phil, I like your hair today. Have you done something different with it?”
“Phil, where did you get your shoes? I’m going to ask my mom if I can get some just like yours.”
“Hey, Phil, want some candy? I’ve got caramel chews and vanilla fudge. They’re my favorites, but you can have whichever you like.”
“Hey, Phil, which side of the bed did you get up on this morning? I’m going to get up on the same side of mine tomorrow.”
OK, so I made the last one up. But it could almost have been true. I didn’t even have time to answer most of what was said to me, because someone else was busy asking me another question. In the end, all I could do was laugh — and eat a handful of caramel chews.
This was the best day of my life!
“Come on, Phil, let’s get away from these guys.” Trisha pulled on my sleeve.
“But I —” I wanted to say I was enjoying myself. I knew better than to argue with Trisha, though. And that was another thing. She’d called me Phil, just like all the others. I’d always wanted to be called Phil. Phil sounded like someone cool and popular — two things I’ve never been, so I’d never told anyone that was what I wanted to be called. I didn’t want to run the risk of being laughed at and told I could never be a Phil. I’d always be boring old Philippa.
Not anymore! I was cool and popular now, so Phil suited me just fine — even if it did still sound a little bit strange hearing it out loud.
I wandered off with Trisha. “Hey, I’m getting sick of being followed by a mob all the time,” she complained. “Aren’t you?”
“Um . . .”
“I mean, they just won’t leave us alone. We’re like the most popular girls in the school, aren’t we?”
I wanted to say that actually it was just me who was the most popular girl in the school. “Yeah, we are,” I said instead.
I kind of ran out of things to say after that. I didn’t want to put my foot in my mouth and risk saying anything that would make her turn on me. I didn’t want to try and say something funny and have her not laugh. I didn’t want to try and say anything too clever in case it sounded boring or as if I were trying to show off. I felt trapped.
“How about I come over to your house after school?” Trisha said.
“Really?” I breathed. Trisha wanted to see me outside of school! She wanted to hang out with me!
“Sure, I’ll ask my mom when she comes to pick me up.”
“Great!” I said with a grin. Two seconds later, we were mobbed again. As we headed back into school at the end of break, in between saying hi to about twenty more people, I tried to make a mental list of things that Trisha and I could talk about later. I didn’t want to risk any more of those awkward silences.
“So what should we do?” Trisha was standing in the kitchen looking bored while I fixed us some lemonade.
“Um, we could just, um, hang out? Read some magazines or . . .” My voice trailed away. Charlotte and I used to make up stories together. I didn’t dare suggest anything like that. Trisha would probably make me a laughingstock at school if I did.
“Haven’t you got a PlayStation or anything?”
I laughed. Mom hated computer games almost as much as she hated industrial farming. The old mom did, anyway. Perhaps New Mom would buy me a PlayStation! I wouldn’t ask her today, though. She looked even more miserable than she had this morning. She hadn’t even bothered to try and smile when she picked me up. I think she was glad I asked if Trisha could come over, so she wouldn’t have to worry about me hanging around her once we got home.
“Not yet,” I said. “I might get one for Christmas, though.”
Trisha rolled her eyes. “Hey, what’s that down there?” she asked, looking out into the yard. I went over to see what she was looking at.
“What’s what?”
She pointed down to the bottom of the backyard. “That thing in the middle of the trees.”
“That’s my tree house!” I said excitedly.
“Cool. Let’s see it.”
As we made our way down the yard, it occurred to me that Daisy might be in there. We hadn’t really talked at school, other than the occasional comment in class. I’d hardly had the chance anyway, with all the others crowding around me.
By the end of the day, I’d felt really mean. At lunchtime, she sat eating her strange salad and drinking bottlefuls of water on her own. She was at a table with some others, but I could tell she wasn’t really part of the group. She was just sitting there looking down at her food, her head drooping, avoiding meeting people’s eyes, and acting as though she didn’t really mind that no one was talking to her.
Part of me wanted to run over and sit by her. I wanted to tell her how crazy it was having everyone in the school wanting to talk to me and be my friend, and how my cheekbones were starting to hurt from the amount of smiling back that I was doing. I wanted to just laugh with her — I guess I felt that I could talk to her about anything. I don’t know why I felt that; I just did.
Then I remembered not to fall into that trap again. I wasn’t going to let her — or anyone — make a fool out of me.
“Let’s sit over there,” Trisha had said, pointing to a table over at the other side of the cafeteria. I didn’t look at Daisy as we passed.
Thinking about it now, I really did wish I’d gone over to sit with her instead. Maybe I could have been hanging out with her in the tree house now, instead of with Trisha. I never wondered what to talk about when I was with Daisy.
Maybe I’d misjudged her. I mean, sure, I knew I was just a job to her. But she didn’t really have to be nice to me, did she? I mean, she had apologized for being mean in the cafeteria, and I’d realized today how much we all wanted to be in with the in-crowd. I wanted it. I always had. I couldn’t blame Daisy for wanting the same thing.
As we approached the tree house, I found myself hoping that Daisy would be there so I could apologize — again. If s
he wanted to be friends with me, then I wanted it, too. She’d made two wishes come true for me now, and she’d been trying her hardest to be nice to me all day, and I’d just ignored her. I wanted to make things right as soon as possible.
But I was really hoping more for the opposite — that actually Daisy would be nowhere near the tree house. Trisha would be in there with me, and I couldn’t run the risk of her finding out about Daisy.
“So, it was good hanging out at school today, wasn’t it?” I said really loudly as we approached the tree house. “And now we’re going to hang out in my TREE HOUSE.”
Trisha gave me a strange look. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m FINE!” I shouted. “I’m just really excited about showing you the TREE HOUSE.”
She nodded slowly and carefully. “OK,” she said nervously.
Then I had a thought. “Let me just show you the woods around the back first.” If Daisy had heard me, which she must have if she was up there, it would give her a chance to get away.
“What d’you think?” I asked, perching on the fence that separated our yard from the woods.
“What do I think about what?” Trisha replied.
“The woods. They’re good, aren’t they?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I guess they’re OK, if you like that kind of thing. I’d rather have the Tamdale Center.”
The Tamdale Center is the big mall in town, full of stores and fast food and arcades. I already knew that Trisha liked to spend every Saturday there. I’d seen her a couple of times when I was doing some shopping with Mom.
“Come on, I’ll show you the tree house,” I said, skimming through my mental lists in search of something — anything — that we might have in common to talk about.
Trisha shuddered as she looked at the ladder. “Do I have to climb up that?”
“It’s the only way to get in there,” I said with a grin.
“You first.”
I scooted up to the trapdoor and had a quick look around. Empty, thank goodness.
“Come on up,” I called down to Trisha.
“I’m coming. Give me a chance.” She fumbled her way up the ladder and dragged herself into the tree house.
“This is it,” I said, holding my arms out wide.
“OK.” She didn’t look impressed.
“This is my favorite place in the whole world.”
She raised that eyebrow again. “Really? Why?”
“Don’t you think it’s amazing? A little house all my own in the middle of the trees, where you can do anything you like and be separate from the rest of the world.”
“Anything you like? You can’t go shopping.”
“No, of course you can’t do that, but —”
“Or play a video game.”
“I don’t want to do those things!” I said.
“So what do you do in here?” Trisha asked, looking around disdainfully.
“Well, I — I read, I do puzzles, I make up stories . . .” My voice faltered and trailed off. I sounded so lame. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell her about the magic!
“Sounds like a blast,” she said sarcastically. She wandered around the tree house, searching for anything that might hold any interest for her — and clearly failing, if her exaggerated sighs of boredom were anything to go by. I was starting to wonder why I’d ever thought hanging out with Trisha Miles would be such a wonderful thing to do.
All those years I’d looked at her and her friends, wishing they would like me, wishing I could be part of their gang, thinking how great my life would be if I were in their group, how it would show the world that I’d arrived and I was worth something. And now that I’d actually made it, now that Trisha saw me as someone worth hanging out with, I discovered it wasn’t that exciting at all. In fact, Trisha Miles was boring! The only reason that everyone wanted to be in her gang was so they wouldn’t be on the receiving end of her meanness. It was crystal clear now.
I tried to think of a way to get out of hanging out with her. I could say I had tons of homework to do, but she’d probably only make fun of me if I said that — even if I was the most popular girl in the school! I could say I was feeling ill or tired, but then she might just think I was even more of a wimp than she already thought I was. I was still desperately trying to think of something when I noticed her eyes fall on the box with the final wish voucher in it.
“What’s this?” she asked, picking it up.
“That? Oh, it’s nothing, just an old box,” I said quickly. “I haven’t picked it up for ages. There’s probably not even anything in it.” I held my hand out for the box. “Here, let me have a look,” I said as casually and calmly as I could.
But Trisha ignored me. She was busy opening it.
“Hey, I think there’s something really good on TV in a minute,” I said, trying desperately to distract her. “Shall we go and see?”
“Sure, in a sec,” Trisha said. “Hey, what’s this?” She had the envelope in her hand.
“Oh, it’s nothing, probably just an old bill of Dad’s, or something,” I said with a laugh that even I could tell was about as false as a wax model. Don’t open it, don’t open it!
Trisha looked inside the envelope. “There’s something in here. Wow, it’s really colorful. It’s like there’s a light on inside it!”
“Ah, no, I know what that is,” I said, my mind completely blank. Think of something, think of something. Make her put it down!
KERRASHH!
Trisha and I both leaped about a foot in the air. What was that?
We ran over to the window to see what it had been. At first we couldn’t see anything. Then I noticed it. A huge branch had fallen off one of the old trees, crashing down on one of the other trees. How had that happened?
Mom was on her way out of the house.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go and see what’s happened.”
Thankfully, Trisha had dropped the envelope and forgotten about it now. She followed me down the ladder.
“What’s happened? What have you girls been up to? Are you all right?” Mom asked. I tried not to notice that my well-being was only third on the list.
“We’re fine, Mom,” I said. “Look, it’s one of the oldest trees; it must have just fallen over. Maybe the woodpeckers got to it.”
“Yes, well, I’ll get your father to have a look at it later,” she said, walking around the tree and examining it. “If he has the time, that is,” she added scornfully. She started walking back to the house. “As long as you’re all right,” she said as an afterthought.
“We’re fine, Mom. We’re coming back in now.”
I started following Mom up to the house.
“I forgot my bag,” Trisha said. “Hang on.”
She scuttled back to the tree house. Half a minute later she returned. “Not there,” she said. “I must have left it in the house.”
As we walked up to the house, I wondered how much more dire the afternoon could get, and if there was anything I could think of to make Trisha want to leave sooner.
“Oh, no, I just remembered something,” she said, slapping her forehead as we reached the house. “I said I’d help my dad with something this evening. I completely forgot.” She looked at her watch. “He’ll be home any minute. You know, I think I should go.”
“Really?” I said, trying not to sound too hopeful. “You’re sure you have to leave?”
Trisha looked as though she were considering it.
No! Don’t change your mind! Go!
“I think I should,” she said. “I don’t want to let him down. You know what parents are like, making you feel guilty when you don’t do things you said you would.”
Actually, I didn’t know what it was like at all. My previous parents — whom I missed more and more with every passing moment — never gave me a hard time about anything. They just let me be who I was and were totally proud of me, whatever I did. And if I ever let them down over anything, they always said they un
derstood. My current parents didn’t seem to notice what I did either way.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said.
We’d stopped in the hallway. “Oh, there it is. Silly me,” Trisha said, picking up her bag. “Well, look, this has been fun. Let’s do it again soon.”
“Of course!” I said with a great big false smile that matched hers.
“OK, cool. Well, see you at school tomorrow,” she said, opening the front door.
“Yeah, see you,” I said. I stood and waved while she headed off down the street. The moment she was out of sight, I went back inside, closed the door behind me, and fell back against it with utter relief. Thank goodness that was over. Trisha obviously felt the same way. She’d been as desperate to get away as I had.
That was close!
Another second and she’d have pulled the wish voucher out and seen everything. In the wrong hands, those vouchers can be lethal. You don’t know what a girl like Trisha might do with one. And if she held on to it without making a wish before the end of my life cycle — well, it didn’t bear thinking about. If I didn’t wrap up the assignment and get out of here in a couple of days, I’d never live to get another assignment.
No, I wasn’t going to think about that. Anyway — well, it just wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t.
I refused to think about it anymore. I couldn’t let myself. I’d never finish the job if I let those worries take hold of me.
I know it was a bit drastic, making the tree collapse like that, but I had to think quickly, and it was the best I could come up with. At least it did the trick.
It was just as well that Philippa gave me so much warning on the way there, too. Quick thinking on her part. I really had underestimated her. But I’d already figured that much out. The bit I hadn’t worked out yet was how to make her give me another chance.