After my second straight night of biscuit baking, with no more than three hours’ sleep under my belt, I stumbled off to school. There I found Jura at her desk, all serenity and poise, surrounded by no less than a dozen people. Their voices were raised, and it was a bit of a scrum, but they weren’t angry. They were wishin’.
“I’ll give my whole rock collection if Genuine can wish-fetch Mister Tabbypants home!” said Didi Orr, Martin’s little sister.
Jura noted this down.
“Here’s what I need: sixteen two-by-fours, a big box of nails, some tar, and a can of paint,” said Dennis Talley, a senior.
“What do you have to trade?” Jura asked. “Genuine takes trades.”
“Any kind of chores, I’ll do. Repairs and honey-dos and stuff, not scrubbin’ toilets, mind.”
“No toilets,” Jura noted, and looked up and saw me. “There’s the woman of the hour.” She smiled.
Everyone turned.
A chorus of voices shouted, “Genuine! Could you please—? Can you just—? You have to—!” The rest got lost in the scut and scuffle.
“Back off, people!” Jura shouted. “I’ve got everyone’s requests right here. She can’t do anything for you until school’s out for the day. Come on! At least let her put down her backpack!”
I did put down my backpack. Then I tripped over it trying to get to my chair. The chair bumped my desk, knocking all my pencils from the cubby. As I crawled around trying to collect them, I hit my head on the sharp edge of the plastic chair—though I was so exhausted it didn’t occur to me that I might be bleeding. When I looked up again, the entire seventh grade, not to mention all the would-be wishers, were gawping at me.
Thankfully, Mister Strickland appeared and shooed the other-graders from the room.
“Not turning our classroom into a wish-fetcher outpost, are we, ladies?” he asked.
“No, sir,” we both replied. Jura quickly tucked the wish list into her purse.
When Mister Strickland disappeared into the supply closet, I grabbed Jura’s sleeve and gave it a sleepy tug.
“Jura, I don’t know how many more biscuits I can bake—”
“I know, but with Scree Hopkins running through the halls bragging about Micky’s new car, I had to do something to stop the stampede! I thought if I made it barter-only, it might discourage a few people. And, if not, you’d at least get a warm winter coat and some house chores for your effort,” she said.
“Micky got his car?” I knew he would, but it still came as a shock to hear it for real.
Jura nodded. “A brand-new car. From a stock-car racing scholarship Micky never applied for.”
Sonny walked in just then and gave Jura and me a glance. His cheeks flared red. It didn’t detract one iota from his good looks.
“Wonder what that’s about?” I mused.
Mister Strickland reappeared and swatted his desk with a pointer. “If you’re finished with your conversations, folks, can we get a little work done?”
The lunchroom was a madhouse. Everyone wanted something, and they wouldn’t leave us be till they saw their names on that wish list. Finally, Jura couldn’t keep up with the requests. Though my eyes blurred with fatigue and my hand trembled in exhaustion, I tore out my own scrap of paper and started writing, too.
While I was noting down that Donut was willing to barter his junior detective skills (who knew?) for his very own milk goat, a hand settled onto my shoulder.
“Hey, Genuine.” It was Travis.
The crowd actually parted. A great silence fell, and I couldn’t help feeling it was because they were waiting to see what zinger the new queen of Sass, fourth-generation wish fetcher, would deliver.
Now, here was the thing. Travis and I had sort of crossed a line on Saturday, almost like we were real friends. It wouldn’t be right to neglect him, and I really didn’t want to. But there was this whole “Travis is a jerk” thing to deal with. And he was—he really was—to other people. So I couldn’t just ask him to pull up a chair, either.
Something warred in me right then. That day in the lunchroom was the most attention I’d ever received in my whole life. The older kids, who I usually looked on with a certain amount of trepidation, were talking to me like I was an actual person, and I could tell that the other seventh-graders were basking like lizards in the reflected light. Well, call me el lizard primaro, because I surely wanted to keep that white-hot spotlight of adulation shining brightly down. And Travis, well, what could he do but dim the beam, if you take my meaning?
I don’t owe him anything, I thought. I didn’t ask him out. I didn’t hide who I was until the last possible second.
No, but I did let him pay for my bowling shoes. And I did tell him I wanted to hang out again sometime. If I deny him now, I’d be nothing but a fair-weather friend.
So what? What does that even mean, “fair-weather friend”?
I noticed that Jura was giving me a look of such trust and faith, her eyes practically shone with it.
“Can you handle things for a minute?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she replied.
I got up and left the table with Travis.
Inevitably, we were followed by various woo-hoos, cat whistles, and even a lame hubba-hubba.
“What’s up, Travis?” I was feeling irritable and I heard it in my voice. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself that—even if he’d made himself a nuisance for the last couple years and had thoroughly earned all the dislike that me and the other kids hurled at him—Travis was now, sort of, my friend.
“I was wondering if you might want to go bowling Saturday.” He drummed his thumbs on his hips.
“Could you stop that?” I said.
“What?”
“Never mind.” I yawned, and then managed to lift my head enough to look him in the eye. “I can’t go out this weekend, Travis. Sorry.”
“You on restriction or something?”
I shook my head.