There’s a cutting remark about how off base he is ready on my lips, but I bite it back. I need to be strategic. He’s showing his cards, giving me a chance to find out exactly how much he knows. I give his ego a little prod. “Smart. But why did you say, ‘no wand waving’? That’s kind of out-there.”
“When Carmen made the Poms squad, I figured she was the most recent victim. So I went to her and told her you had offered to help me, and I wasn’t sure if I should accept. She gave me all the deets—how you approached her out of the blue, how she was sworn to secrecy and is never allowed to talk to you in public, how you called yourself her fairy godmother, and how you somehow managed to stall the tryout when she got a flat tire.”
Oh, Carmen, you sweet, gullible child. I want to smack you upside the head right now.
I huff out my irritation and keep my head in the game. No denying he’s holding some disturbingly good cards. But now I know I’ve got a few too:
He has no proof, really. It’s possible that I could get people to dismiss him as a conspiracy-theory fanatic.
He doesn’t know about the glimpses or the nudges.
He’s in love with Holly.
I pocket my pepper spray and hold out both my hands, palms up, speaking with the most contrite voice I can muster. “I’m so sorry about junior prom. But think about it. If you publish that list, Holly will suffer too. Kade will dump her. She’ll have no friends.”
“She’ll have me.” There he goes sounding heartbroken and sincere again. It tugs my heartstrings in the most annoying way. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’ll only publish the list if you force me to. Which brings me to demand number two: undo whatever you did to Holly.”
Irritation overrides my momentary lapse into sympathy. I snap, “I can’t undo it. It doesn’t work that way.”
“You could if you wanted to. Undo the brainwashing.”
I shout in frustration, “I don’t brainwash people! I glimpse their wishes, and I help them get to their Happily Ever After.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize I just let Captain Stalker into the People Who Know About the Magic Club. He officially knows me better than my own mother now. On one hand, it was a major tactical error. Memom is going to read me the riot act for an hour. But it feels kind of good to tell him. Now he knows I’m the real deal, not the narcissistic puppet master he’s made me out to be. Maybe he’ll ease off me a little.
Stalker registers the information I’ve given him with slack-jawed incredulity. “You what?”
I repeat it, clear and steady, because I might as well own it now. “I glimpse their wishes.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I see something that is meant to happen in their future.”
“HA!” It’s not a laugh, exactly. It’s the sound of a mind being blown. He shakes his head, making his clown curls jiggle. “You… you glimpse… their future.”
“One specific moment in their future. The moment their deepest wish comes true.”
Disbelief gives way to anger again. I can tell because he turns hot pink from his neck to the tips of his ears. “You’re telling me Holly’s deepest wish was to date a meathead football player?”
“I only—”
“Do you know one single thing about her? She’s an artist. She draws her own comic books. She makes these cookies that are too beautiful to eat. If you get her laughing hard enough, she snorts so loud. She… she…” He trails off, scrubbing one hand across his forehead.
I’m speechless for the first time I can remember. I didn’t actually know those things about Holly. The truth is, it never occurred to me there was anything I needed to know that the glimpse didn’t show me. I clear my throat, about to confess. Then I realize I’ve done nothing wrong, and he’s neither a priest nor a judge. I lift my chin and declare, “I’m only interested in people’s futures. The past is not relevant.”
He coughs into his fist. It sounds like “Hag.”
I roll my eyes.
He stuffs the notebook paper back in his pocket, thinks for a moment, then says, “Okay, so you had this little fortune-teller moment, and then, based totally on that, you just convinced Kade and Holly to date each other?”
“That is super cynical. But… okay. Sure. Whatever.”
“Then just convince them to stop dating.”
“I won’t. But even if I wanted to, I can’t.”
“Give me one good reason.” He crosses his arms and tucks his fists into his armpits.
Where do I start?
1. No glimpse, no wish. It’s as simple as that.
2. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
3. If granting a wish gets people to Happily Ever After, then ungranting one derails destiny.
I could think of like fifty more. But I pick, “Ruining someone’s happiness goes against my code of conduct.”
“You ruined mine.”
“That was inadvertent,” I huff, because he really needs to let that go. “I grant wishes. I don’t destroy them.”
“Fine. You grant wishes. Then grant mine. I wish for Holly Butterman to fall in love with me.”
“Aaargh.” I throw my hands up. “You are impossible. I’m really sorry that you lost your girl. But it’s time to move on. She chose someone else. It happens. I’m not fixing you up with her. Get a life. The end.”
He sighs, like I’m the one who doesn’t get it. “I thought maybe the ditzy Poms thing was just a stereotype.”
“Hey!”
“Try to get this through your glitter-filled head.” He starts talking really slowly, like I’m four. “You grant my wish, or I destroy your popular little life along with the fake lives of every person you’ve conned into ditching their real friends for a spot at the cool table.”
Now he’s really pissing me off. I grit back, equally slowly, “You give it your best shot, Captain. You’ve got no proof. It’s your word against mine. You will be the butt of every joke for the rest of the year—the gullible, paranoid, conspiracy-theory-touting loser.”
I just played my last card. And, yeah, it was mean. But worth it to win.
He sighs and reaches into his pocket. I whip out my pepper spray, assuming we’re having another quick-draw competition. He slowly pulls his phone out and holds it up. “I don’t think that’s how it’s going to go, though. Because I recorded this whole conversation.”
The words are a gut punch. I gasp, “That’s a felony.”
He pulls a whatcha gonna do face. That smug expression puts me completely over the edge. With a primal roar, I squeeze the trigger on the little can in my hand. It takes only a second to empty its contents. Then everything happens at once. The pepper spray has the desired effect—the look on his face morphs to pain and panic. He fumbles the phone, then clutches it to his chest as he drops, facedown in the fetal position, to the wood chips.
I try again to nudge: Drop it. Drop IT. But my nudger is way too overheated to get the signal through. My arms and legs go buzzy, and he’s still got a death grip on his phone. Looks like we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Coughing on secondhand fumes, I dive at him with only one thought in my head—get the phone.