Thick snow crunches under my feet. A cute couple passes me. She’s leaning into him. He has his arms around her. I keep my head down and walk faster. They look so warm, even in the cold. I don’t want to be around anybody, especially couples, and I veer away from the neighborhood and head into the surrounding woods.
I’m nearly seventeen, and I’ve never kissed anyone. I think I’m at the point in my life when I have to realize some things are just never going to happen. Kissing is one of them. I found that out the hard way last year before we moved. I went to this party where everyone in my class was invited, even me. They all wanted to play seven minutes in heaven. And, well, there’s a reason this story is about disappointment and not about me getting groped in a closet. All it took was one of the boys whispering a little too loudly to the host, “As long as I don’t have to kiss Adrienne, I’m game,” and I knew it was never going to happen.
I kick a rock at a tree. It bounces and skitters across the path. My nose is so cold, it hurts. My eyes sting when they start to water. Bitter thoughts fill my head. They fill it so full, I don’t see where I’m going. My foot catches on a tree root, and I go sprawling downhill. I slide across the snow, glad that I have gloves on. My body is so cold that every little bump I hit feels like it’s going to bruise.
I’m lying on the ground, still shocked by what just happened. That’s when there’s a flash of light. It’s kind of a bluish-white color. The smell of warm sugar fills the air, or maybe I only imagine it. Bright flashes, imaginary smells? A trickle of panic slips through me. Maybe I hit my head. Maybe I got hurt really bad, and the pain just hasn’t set in yet. I’m either too much in shock or too numb to feel it.
I scramble to my feet, sore, but okay. I look over my shoulder, up the hill. I fell pretty far from the tree, all right. I lean over to brush the dirt off of my knees, and that’s when I see him. There’s a boy standing right next to me. He’s about my age, with white-blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a confident smile. I’ve never seen him before, but I can already tell he’s one of the cool kids, and he’s way out of my league.
He probably just saw me fall down the hill and make a fool out of myself, but he doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He flips the end of his white and blue striped scarf over one shoulder and jerks a thumb to his chest. “I’m Saiph.” He says it “sa-eef,” but he slurs it a little, and it takes me a second to realize he didn’t say “safe.” He looks anything but safe.
Saiph glances around the woods, as if he just got here. As if he’s never seen trees before. “That’s right,” he says. “Saiph, also known as Kappa Orionis. My initials are K.O., and rightly so, because I am a knockout.” He emphasizes each syllable. He’s still smiling, still looking so sure of himself. Like he’s a magnet for confidence. He’s sucked it all up, leaving none of it to go around for the rest of us. He belongs on TV, and he smells like sugar, and I wonder if he’s a misplaced movie star, lost in the woods of Highville.
He snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Hey. Adrienne. I’m talking to you.”
I blink. He knows my name. And he’s a jerk. Figures. I wonder if I really did hit my head. “I don’t talk to strangers.” It’s the lamest comeback ever, not that it matters, since he’s probably a figment of my imagination. A boy radiating confidence who smells like sugar, might be a movie star, and knows my name? It has head injury written all over it. I turn away from him and climb up the hill.
“Hey! You’re the one who called me.”
“You must be thinking of someone else.” My heart pounds. I’ve got that nervous, shrinking feeling in my stomach, the one I get when I know I’m about to get made fun of.
“But you wished. You wished so hard.” The sincerity in his voice catches me off guard.
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Okay, either I did all that wishing earlier out loud without realizing it, or I really am hallucinating.
He glares at me and points a finger up at the sky. “You wanted to be bright, like us. You wanted to matter. Now I come all the way down here, just for you, and instead of hurrying up and making your three wishes so I can go home, you want to be all snotty and say it wasn’t you?”
I look to where he’s pointing. I recognize the three stars that make up Orion’s belt right away, except… There are only two—one of the stars is missing. He called himself Kappa Orionis. Like, as in Orion. I remember the bright light I saw, right before Saiph appeared. It looked a lot like starlight.
But that pretty much proves I’m crazy. A missing star?
I fold my arms over my chest. I can see my breath in front of me. My nose is still cold, but my face is warm. Stars don’t really come down to Earth. That was just a book, a story somebody made up. Besides, there wasn’t anything in there about getting three wishes.
I look up at the sky again. It seems to me that it looks a little dimmer than it did earlier. “You’re a star.” I say that with as much disbelief as I can muster. He could still just be some jerk, seeing how far he can take this prank. It’ll be all over school tomorrow. Extra! Extra! Good-looking Jerk Makes Adrienne Feel Like a Speck. Again.
But… I don’t really think that. He looks so sincere and so lost, even I have trouble convincing myself he’s just here to mess with me.
“You know it,” he says, making clicking noises with his tongue and wriggling his eyebrows.
“And you’re going to grant me three wishes?”
He taps his foot, antsy and impatient. “Just doing my job.”
“Fine.” I take a deep breath. I’m not as gullible as I was two weeks ago. I am no longer the kind of girl who believes in dreams and fairy tales coming true at the drop of a hat, no matter how many lost, sincere-sounding boys show up in the woods. “If you’re really a star, then prove it.”
He reaches inside his coat and pulls out a badge. It says his name. Underneath that, all it says is Star.
I shake my head. “Not convinced. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”
“Okay.” He grins. He points a finger at me. He closes one eye and pretends to take aim. There’s a flicker of light—the same bluish-white I saw before—and suddenly everything gets a lot colder.
My winter clothes are gone, and instead I’m wearing a bright pink bikini. Complete with orange flip-flops.
Chapter Five
“That,” Saiph says, “was a favor.”
“I want my coat back.” We’re in my room. It’s much warmer, and I’m still wearing the bikini. Like I’ve ever worn a two-piece before. I am a one-piece, hide-as-much-as-I-can kind of girl. Of course, star boy here couldn’t just zap my clothes back. He couldn’t zap us up to my room, either. We had to sneak upstairs, past my mom.
It’s not that I’m not allowed to have boys over. But the last thing I want is my mom thinking I have a boyfriend. She’d throw a party and start planning our wedding. And I don’t even want to know how she’d interpret the bikini.
Saiph makes a face as he looks around my room. He tugs on the unicorn bedspread I’ve had since I was six, the one my mom got me. “This thing has to go. If you expect me to stay here, we’re going to have to make some changes.”
“Stay?”
He ignores my question and pokes around the room, giving the unicorn and rainbow décor a look of pure disgust. He unwinds his scarf and drops it on my desk, then takes off his coat. “This room is too…” He pauses, trying to think of the word. “Girly.”
“It’s a girl’s room. And you definitely cannot stay here.”
He gives me a worried look. “You really like unicorns this much?”
“No. I just haven’t redecorated in a while.” Not that I ever had a unicorn phase. I just didn’t want to tell Mom that I hated them. They’re all still here, a new house and almost eleven years later. Unicorn bedspread, pillowcases, curtains, and even lampshades. “So, how does this wish thing work?”
“You ask, and I deliver.”
“Anything I want?” I pace across the room, rubbin
g my hands together like an evil genius. I pull on sweatpants and a T-shirt over the bikini and sit down on the bed. Three wishes. And they could really come true.
“I think your first wish should be for a sense of taste.” He starts to pull my top dresser drawer open.
“Hey!” I leap off the bed and slam the drawer shut. “This is a girl’s room. You can’t just go rooting through my stuff!”
“Take it easy, dirt princess.” He steps away from the dresser, his hands raised in mock surrender. “I’m the one who’s going to have to put up with these lousy accommodations—”
“Lousy? And who said you were staying?”
“—until little miss prissy unicorns gets around to choosing the three things she wants most, so I can get to work on granting them and getting out of here.”
“If this place isn’t good enough for you, mister genie wannabe, maybe you should just leave.”
He sighs. “You don’t get it, do you?” He surveys the room one more time and looks like he might cry in disappointment. “You called me down here. You’re a little obligated. So, while you’re figuring out your wishes—”
“I know what I want.” I storm right up to him and look him in the eyes. They’re so blue and so bright that it’s not hard to believe he came down from the sky. “Three wishes, right? And then you’re out of my life?”
“Yeah, once I fulfill them all. And just so you know, genies are overrated.”
“And I’m not a dirt princess. I prefer the term ’celestially challenged,’ thank you very much.”
“Maybe I should have made that bikini out of stone. Would have suited you better, Earth girl.”
I grit my teeth. “Three wishes, and then you’re gone.”
“Yeah, miss grateful.” He waves three fingers at me, waggling them back and forth. “Choose wisely.”
“Wish number one.” I take a deep breath. My heart races and I can feel my ears getting hot already. But this is too good to give up, even at the risk of telling this space jerk my deepest desires. “I want to be popular.”
I expect him to laugh or call me dirt princess again. He says nothing, just stands there, waiting for me to go on.
“Number two, the winter dance is in four weeks. And I want to go. With a date.” That’s the important part. Anybody can buy tickets. Getting someone to go with you is another story.
Saiph nods. “And number three?”
“I…” I wring my hands together, unable to look at him for this one. “I want my first kiss.”
He perks up. He reaches over and grabs my face, and before I know it, his lips are on mine.
Then they’re gone again. The whole thing is over before I even realize what’s happening. I shove him backwards anyway, shrieking, “Get off of me!”
Saiph smiles, all confidence and starlight. “Well, that was easy. One down, two to go.”
Chapter Six
I set Saiph up in the attic with a couple of blankets and a pillow. I lay them out on a cot hidden behind some stacks of boxes. Mom’s not going to come up here, and if she does, hopefully she’ll just poke her head in, see that there aren’t any strange boys camped out in our attic, and leave.
“There.” I finish spreading the blankets out. Saiph is still downstairs, brushing his teeth. I didn’t know stars brushed their teeth. Or insisted on staying in other people’s houses.
I have to admit, I’m a bit freaked out about all this. About having somebody stay here without Mom knowing, and, most of all, about the three wishes. Well, two wishes now.
I fluff up the pillow and add the last piece to the ensemble—the teddy bear I brought up from my room. I hesitate before setting it down on the bedding. Bringing it seemed like a good idea at the time. Just a couple of blankets and a pillow was too… sparse. Too lonely. There aren’t even any windows in here; it’s just a dark room full of junk. I figured anything to make it feel more lived-in had to be an improvement.
Saiph walks in on me tucking the teddy bear into the covers. He gives me a funny, raised-eyebrow look. “That for me?”
“It was just… In case you get lonely.”
He pulls the teddy bear out of the bed by one foot. “That’s real sweet of you, princess, but I don’t need a security blanket.”
“You wanted to go home so badly, and it’s so far away. I thought you might get homesick.”
“This”—he holds the teddy bear away from him like it’s diseased—“doesn’t remind me of home.”
He shoves the bear back in my arms. A teddy bear? What was I thinking? He’s probably way old, even if he doesn’t look it. He’s not, like, five.
What do I care if he doesn’t like it here? I didn’t invite him on purpose, and he’s the one who insists on staying. “Pardon me for attempting to make you more comfortable.”
He pokes the cot with one finger. He stares at it, tilting his head to the side. Carefully, he sits down, then wrinkles his nose and scrunches up his forehead. He breathes out a sigh of complete and total disappointment. “I suppose it’ll do.”
And I’m the one he’s calling a princess? I wonder what kind of bed he has back in star land, or wherever he’s from. “Oh, will it? I’m so glad his highness deems it worthy.” I hug my teddy bear with one arm and move to leave. “Try to be quiet. No stomping, or making loud noises, or knocking anything over—”
“I’ll try not to turn into an elephant in my sleep. Anything else?”
“No.” I resist lecturing him on staying only in the attic. I think he’s got the point. “Good night.”
“For you, maybe,” he mutters.
I get to the door and pause before turning out the light. “Saiph? How old are you?”
“Sixteen. Almost seventeen.”
“What?” I forget about turning out the light and march back around the stack of boxes, so I can stare at him. I was prepared to hear he was millions of years old, not that he was my age.
He bats his eyes. “Why? Do I look older? Tell me I don’t look a day over twenty-five thousand.”
“You’re not… old?”
“No. I’m not the first Kappa Orionis. Somebody had the job before me, and somebody else had it before that. It’s not like I’ll be the last, either.” He shrugs.
“So, have you ever done this before? Granted somebody wishes, I mean?”
He smiles. “Nope. Lucky you, you’re my first.”
Great. Just my luck, my only hope of getting a normal life, and he’s not only cranky, but inexperienced.
***
I wake up in the middle of the night, certain everything that happened tonight was all just a dream. Stars don’t come to Earth, that was just a story. And if they did, they wouldn’t wear scarves and brush their teeth and be only sixteen. And three wishes? That’s not possible.
My heart sinks in disappointment, and I keep my eyes shut tight, afraid to open them and admit none of that really happened. As crazy as all that star stuff was, at least it meant something exciting and magical was going on. But on the bright side, at least I didn’t actually tell some random, kind-of-hot guy that I want to be popular and get kissed and everything. That would be pretty mortifying.
Then I open my eyes.
The room is bright, lit by moonlight streaming in through the window, and Saiph is standing there, staring longingly up at the night sky. He’s got his back to me, so he doesn’t see me looking at him. He doesn’t know I’m awake.
He looks so lonely, so heartbroken, that I half expect to see him clutching my teddy bear after all, but of course he’s not. Even homesick and alone, he’s too cool for that. I reach my hand out, almost touching him. It would be so easy to take his hand right now, to try and comfort him.
But when he starts to turn around, I chicken out. I let my hand flop to the bed and close my eyes, pretending to be asleep. My heart races, terrified that he saw me. Even if he kissed me—even if he stole my first kiss—he’s still way out of my league. Guys like him don’t want girls like me holding their hands. I know fro
m experience. There was this one time in seventh grade when a group of popular girls told me that Corey Billings, this cute guy I had a major crush on, liked me back and was going to ask me out. They convinced me he was shy and that I should go up to him and hold his hand. Just to show him I was into it.
Do I even need to tell you that Corey didn’t even know my name, let alone like me? And when I stupidly went up to him and took his hand in front of all his friends, this huge smile on my face, he freaked. He jerked his hand away from mine, his lip curling in disgust. He spit out the words, “No freaking way,” while his friends and the popular girls who set me up all burst into laughter.
And even though that was a long time ago, there’s still this part of me that’s terrified Saiph would make the same face if he knew I wanted to hold his hand. And I don’t think I could handle that.
But my secret must be safe, because he whispers, “Good night, dirt princess,” with no trace of disgust in his voice as he leaves the room, closing the door softly behind him.
My heart pounds in my chest, my nerves tingling all over. Because no matter what went on in the past, something magical is happening now. Tonight wasn’t just a dream. My star is real, even if he brushes his teeth like the rest of us.
I smile to myself and think about the two remaining wishes that are really going to come true.
Chapter Seven
“Absolutely not,” I tell Saiph, standing in front of the front door with my arms folded, blocking him from leaving. Mom’s already gone to work, and I’m going to be late for school if I don’t hurry. And Saiph, no matter what he thinks, is not coming with me.
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