Trisha Miles was standing in the doorway.
Trisha stepped into the classroom. “Looking for something?” she asked, sauntering over toward us.
“I just dropped something on the floor. Daisy was helping me. I —”
“Save it, Phil,” Trisha said.
“It’s Philippa,” I said, trying to hold the confidence I’d had earlier. The wobble in my voice gave me away, though.
“Not to me, it isn’t,” Trisha said. “You see, I’ve worked out what’s going on. I know why suddenly everyone wants to know you, why everyone talks about you constantly — ‘Phil’ this, ‘Phil’ that — why no one’s quite so bothered about me anymore.”
“I can’t help it if they like me, can I?” I said nervously, hoping she couldn’t see my fingernails digging into my palms by my sides.
“Can’t you?” she sneered, taking a step closer to me. “Well, that was what I thought, too. I even thought I liked you myself, thought how lucky I was to have you hang out with me. Then I realized it was because of this!” With that, she reached into her bag and pulled something out. I hardly even had to look. I knew what it was going to be: the envelope with the final wish voucher.
“It’s mine,” I said weakly.
“Not anymore,” Trisha said. “Finders keepers, losers weepers. And I think you’ll find that you’re the loser!”
“Give it back to her,” Daisy said, pulling herself up from the chair.
“Yeah, that’s another thing,” Trisha said, rubbing her chin as she studied Daisy. “Where exactly do you fit into all this, new girl?”
“Daisy’s got nothing to do with it,” I said quickly.
Trisha shrugged. “Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. Won’t matter to you either, by the end of today. Your nice little geeky friends will have told me everything I need to know by then.”
“What will you do?” I asked.
“I haven’t made my mind up yet. I might use the wish on something for myself. Or I might just rip it up so that no one can use it. Then again, I might use it to get you back for fooling me and the rest of the school into thinking you’re popular.”
“I didn’t fool anyone,” I said.
“Matter of opinion. Do you think anyone would look twice at you if you hadn’t tricked them with a wish? Who would want to hang out with you?” Trisha laughed.
I didn’t have an answer. She was right. Why would anyone want to hang out with me? Who was I trying to kid? Suddenly the whole thing felt ridiculous. My second wish hadn’t improved my life at all. All it had done was make me realize how empty and false all these supposed new friendships were. Trisha was right. It was a trick. And not a very good one, either.
“I would,” Daisy said from behind me.
“You would what?” Trisha asked.
“I’d look twice. I’d want to be friends with Philippa,” she said. With a quick glance at me, she added, “She’s worth a million of you, and if you do anything to hurt her, you’ll have me to deal with as well.”
Trisha studied us both. Then she burst out laughing. “Oooh, I’m so scared!” she said. “How will I be able to stand up to the pair of you!” She turned and headed back to the door, throwing her head back and laughing again.
“Have a nice day,” she trilled, waving the envelope over her shoulder as she left us alone in the classroom.
Daisy and I stood in silence. I only had until tonight to think of a way around this. Just a few hours before Trisha would get her chance to destroy every bit of my life that wasn’t already ruined.
I grabbed Lauren and Beth on their way back into class. “Hey,” I said, sauntering in between them and linking arms with them both. “So, I thought we should talk about the idea of us all being best friends. What do you think?”
They both looked at me as though I’d just told them they’d each won a scholarship to the country’s top science school.
“Definitely!” Beth grinned.
“Really?” Lauren breathed.
“Really! Of course. Who else would I want to be best friends with?”
“Well, we thought you might want to be Trisha’s best friend,” Beth said. “You’ve been hanging out with her lately.”
“Trisha? Nah, she’s not as much fun as you two.” I paused for a moment before carrying on in the most casual voice I could squeeze out of my trembling mouth. “Hey, actually, she and I were playing a game earlier. We both had to crack a code, and I was thinking, seeing as we’re all best friends now”— I flashed them another big smile and squeezed their linked arms even closer —“that you might be able to help me out.”
“Of course we’ll help you!” Lauren said excitedly.
“Great. Well, you see, as part of the game — and this would really help me to win, and I’d be so grateful and want to reward you as much as I could — I was thinking it would be really good fun if you could somehow give Trisha a false answer if she asked you to help her crack any codes or anything like that. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
I forced out a laugh that verged on hysterical. But neither of them laughed back. In fact, they stopped walking, and both looked at me with faces as heavy as the clouds that I could see starting to bunch up outside the window.
“We’ve already helped her,” Lauren said, her voice utterly crestfallen and flat. “We just gave it to her now.”
“We would never have done it if we’d known it was a game against you,” Beth added.
“We probably got it wrong, anyway,” Lauren added. “It didn’t make any sense.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound light. “So, what was the answer that you gave her?” My voice rose a couple of octaves higher than usual. I was going to have to work on my casual-and-light voice if I was planning to get into any more of these situations. This couldn’t really be convincing anyone.
Beth glanced at me. “It was just something like, ‘Valid only at the time of a shooting star.’ It didn’t make any sense.”
“I’m sure we got it wrong,” said Lauren again.
I dropped their arms. “Yeah,” I said. “You probably did.”
“But we’re still all best friends, aren’t we?” she said hopefully.
“What? Oh, yes. Sure, whatever.”
Beth took hold of my arm again and linked it through hers. “Great,” she said, grinning as though no one’s world had just collapsed.
I wiggled out of her grip. “Look, I’ll catch up with you,” I said. “I’ve just got to do something.”
I waited until they’d gone into class, then I turned and headed for the bathroom. Locking myself into a stall, I put the lid down and sat, trying to figure out what we could do. No matter how I looked at it, the situation was completely hopeless. I’d lost my last wish, so I couldn’t wish for confidence at the talent show. I was going to have to stand up in front of the entire school without it. It was pretty much my biggest nightmare. Not only that, but if Trisha somehow found out when the next shooting star was, she’d know exactly when she had to make her wish.
And whatever she wished for, one thing could be guaranteed: She wasn’t going to be aiming to make my life any better. And I couldn’t even begin to think about what would happen to Daisy if she failed at this assignment.
I sat in my bedroom, my schoolbooks all around me. I couldn’t concentrate on my homework. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I thought of writing to Charlotte, but even that didn’t sound like fun — especially after her last letter. Our lives felt like two train tracks that used to run side by side but were now moving farther and farther apart with every passing day.
I picked up The Magician’s Handbook and opened it to the last trick: “How to Make Yourself Levitate.” I started reading it. “Getting the angles right is important for this impressive trick. Stand directly in front of your audience, raise your arms slowly to the side, and you will impress them as you create the illusion of lifting yourself off the ground.”
I dropped the book back down on the floor. What w
as the point? This whole thing was an illusion. Imagining I could change my life and become someone really happy and popular was an illusion. Imagining my parents were better than before was an illusion.
They’d just told me they weren’t even coming to the talent show tomorrow night. Dad was playing squash with his boss, for a change. And Mom had a night out with the staff at work. Nice to know where I came in their priorities. Not that I wanted them to be there, anyway. The fewer people to see me stand mute, helpless, and terrified onstage in front of the entire school, the better.
I looked around my room, wondering if I could perhaps hide in here forever. My eyes fell on the daisy in the eggcup. More than half of its petals had fallen off now. It didn’t make any difference how many times I filled the water; its days were numbered — just like Daisy’s — and there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.
Wednesday night seemed to come faster than I could have blinked. Why hadn’t I just walked out of school at the end of classes and not come back this evening? Why on earth hadn’t I done that? What was I doing here? How stupid could a person get?
The fact that I was standing there waiting for the talent show to begin — and my life as I knew it to end — was yet more proof that no matter what I pretended was happening because of my wishes, nothing had really changed. I hadn’t changed. I was still that same scared person who never broke rules, who didn’t like to let people down, who felt she had to show up just because she’d put her name on a stupid list.
Which meant I was now standing backstage in the school hall, waiting to be told my place in the lineup.
The only consolation was that at least Trisha had missed last night’s shooting star. I only knew because I’d seen her at a computer in the library at lunchtime. I didn’t want her to see me watching, so I sent Beth and Lauren in to find out what she was doing. She saw them coming and switched the page she was working on as soon as they came over, but not before Beth had caught a glimpse of it. She was on the Internet, and the web page had a picture of the constellations and a list of dates. She was still trying to find out the times of the shooting stars — which meant at least she hadn’t made her wish yet.
There’d be another shooting star before too long. I just had to pray that she wouldn’t find out when it was, or it might turn out that my problems had only just started.
“Philippa, you’re last to go.” Mr. Holmes, one of the teachers organizing the show, was in front of me with a clipboard. “Is that OK with you?”
It wasn’t OK at all. I wanted to just get it over with, and then I could get on with running away and hiding in a cave for the rest of my life.
“That’s fine,” I said.
Mr. Holmes patted my arm and moved away.
“Hi, Phil.” A couple of third-grade girls came up behind me. “We think you’re so cool,” one of them said.
“We just can’t wait to see your performance,” her friend added. They were both beaming at me as though they’d just found themselves in front of an A-list superstar. I half expected one of them to ask for my autograph.
I tried to smile back at them. “Thanks,” I said. My throat felt like cement, all glued up and tight. Backstage, more of the performers were hanging around, nervous and excited about the show. Without exception, when they saw me, their faces broke into wide grins. Some of them waved; some said hi; some looked too shy to talk to someone as popular as me. I felt lonelier than I’d ever felt in my life. I felt like I might be sick.
And where was Daisy?
I went to see her in the morning before I left for school. She looked terrible. She was lying on her rug, pale and weak and tired. “I’m not coming to school,” she’d said. “I need to save my energy.”
All day, I’d prayed that she was all right. I ran straight back to the tree house as soon as I got home — but she wasn’t there. That was another thing clogging up my throat and my nerves. What had happened to her? Had her life cycle run out? Was that it? Was I ever going to see her again?
I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t afford to. I had to think about this awful, horrible, stupid talent show and how I was going to get through it in one piece.
“There you are.”
I whirled around to see Trisha.
“What are you doing backstage?” I asked. “You’re not even in the show.”
She was holding the wish voucher in her hand, waving it in front of me. “Just wanted to share the good news,” she said, an evil grin spreading across her face.
“What good news?” I asked through gritted teeth, as if Trisha Miles were likely to share any good news with me.
“I found out when the next shooting star is. And I only have a couple of days to wait.”
“Really?” I said, desperately trying to sound as if I didn’t care. “So what will you wish for?”
“Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out,” Trisha said. “But I’ll give you a clue — I won’t be wishing for anything nice to happen to you!” She turned her back on me, laughing as she started to walk off.
As she moved away from me, for the first time since I’d set eyes on the wish vouchers, I suddenly realized something I would never have imagined could be true. I didn’t need them!
If my life hadn’t been working as it was, it was up to me to change it. It was up to me to recognize that I could change it. I didn’t need wishes that changed everyone else’s reality! How could that change my life? All it changed was the way others saw me, and even that wasn’t real. I didn’t want people to like me just because some stupid wish said they had to. Everyone in the school waving and smiling at me and wanting to change their hairstyle so it was like mine, just because I’d tricked them into it. How did that make my life better?
With the first genuine feeling of happiness I’d felt for days, I knew I’d discovered something important. I’d been busy trying to change all these things on the outside, when what mattered was what was on the inside. If I really wanted change, it had to come from inside me.
And tonight was when that had to happen.
I waited for Ray. I would have paced around the glade, but I didn’t have the energy. Instead I sat on the ground and waited.
Come on, come on. Please get here soon! I looked at my MagiCell for the hundredth time to see if there was a reply. I’d sent my message over an hour ago, requesting an emergency meeting. Come on! Soon it would be too late!
A raindrop fell on my head. Then another. Despite the sunny evening, the drops started to fall all around me. Not many, not heavily. Just enough for . . .
A rainbow.
It started off faintly, the colors all blurring into one another. Then it thinned and sharpened, reaching from the heaviest cloud in the sky, right down into the glade.
I stood up, my knees almost giving out. Rainbows were the absolute top level of ATC. Even more senior than the sun rays. I couldn’t mess this up.
“FGRainbow9254 at your service. How can I help you?” the rainbow said in a soft voice.
I’d never met FGRainbow9254 before, but I’d heard of her. She was known for being one of the fairest of the top-level fairy godmothers, but also one of the sternest.
I took a breath. This was my last chance to back out of my plan.
I thought of Philippa, about to go onstage. I thought about what she’d told me, about what had happened all those years ago, her biggest fears. I tried to imagine how she’d be feeling right now — and I knew I couldn’t back out.
“I’ve done something really stupid,” I began.
The rainbow dipped a nod. “Go on,” she said. “Tell me what you’ve done.”
So I did. I told her all about how I’d been so angry with Philippa at the start, how I’d wanted to get the assignment over as quickly as I could, how we’d had that horrible argument and the terrible things I’d said to Trisha in the cafeteria. Then I told her how I’d felt ever since then. How I wanted to do anything I could to show Philippa I cared. How much I wanted to help her improve
her life.
The rainbow listened silently as I poured out my story.
“And then I really messed up,” I said. “I lost the third wish.”
“You lost it? How did you do that?”
“I wasn’t careful enough. It was stolen.”
“Do you know who stole it?”
I nodded. “Someone who doesn’t deserve it at all. Philippa deserved her three wishes, and she still does.”
I wiped a raindrop off my cheek. But it wasn’t a raindrop. It wasn’t even raining anymore. The drop was soon joined by another, running down my face into my mouth. Salty drops. Tears. “Please, give me a chance to help her.”
“Daisy, you have had your chance to help her. You lost the final wish,” the rainbow said. “Do you know there are consequences for this kind of error?”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you at first. But I don’t care now. You can do what you want with me. Put me on traffic duty for a year. I don’t care — just please, let me help Philippa.”
The rainbow stood still, piercing the glade with her bright silence. “What do you want me to do?” she said after a while.
“Trisha will never give the wish back. She’ll probably use it to do something horrible. And meanwhile, Philippa’s about to perform in front of the whole school. It’s her biggest fear. I promised I would help her. I promised I’d make it OK, and I can’t let her down.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I want you to cancel Trisha’s wish so she can never use it, and give me a replacement wish for Philippa, one that she can use right away.” I held my breath while I waited for a reply. “Please,” I added.
The rainbow dipped and blurred, red blurring into orange, orange blurring into yellow, the colors dancing in front of me through my tears.
“I know I’m asking too much,” I added. “I know I’ll be punished. But right now, I don’t care. Please do whatever you have to do to me, but just do this for her.”
As I finished speaking, the rainbow expanded to fill the whole glade, surrounding me, filling me with warmth. Inside it FGRainbow9254 smiled broadly.