Chapter 3
It was around four o’clock pm when I was sitting on a chair at my party. Everyone was having fun but me. I don’t know why I felt so sad –I just did. Maybe it was because Vince was dancing with Hannah.
Then a lady around her thirties came up to me. She had long, like really long down to her feet black hair. I have never seen her before in my life.
“Hello Zoey,” she said with a very soft voice.
“Hi,” I replied.
I was getting a very strange feeling from her once she sat down in front of me.
She looked like a fortune teller. She was wearing a long purple-black skirt with beads all over it. On her head was a light green scarf.
“I can see that you’re sad, why?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” I lied.
She put her hand on the table and pulled mine so she can see it.
“Hm,” she hummed.
I was really scared at that moment. I didn’t even know why she was doing that. Maybe she was a fortune teller.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“Reading your future,”
“From my hand?” I asked.
Then she let my hand go.
“I’m here to help you,” she finally said.
“Huh…?”
She pulled out a notebook with my name written on it in big letters. Once she opened it there was a gold flash from it. She flipped through the pages and stopped on the fifth page.
“What is it?” I asked.
She showed me the page. It said what had happened just two minutes ago. It looks like a book about my life!
“This is a book about your sixteenth birthday,” she whispered.
My jaw dropped and she let my look through it. It didn’t say anything about the future only the present and past.
Oh my gosh, it’s written in first person as if I wrote everything down.
There on the second page it says that I got a surprise from Vince.
“Why is there a book about this?” I asked.
She took it back.
“For every sixteenth birthday we have a book about it. We try to help the teenagers have the best birthday ever by coming to them and showing this. Once they see it we help them with their wants.” She explained.
“Wants..?”
“You see how I read your hand –I just scanned your wants. I’m like your fairy God Parent. I will help make them come true, but make sure that these wants are for sure what you want and be literal.”
I was nervous. This is very strange –a fairy God Parent for me? This is as strange as it could ever get –right?
“So, what do we do now?” I said.
She pulled my up from my chair. We started to walk to the front of the party. The book was open in her hands –gold flashes were still coming from it.
“We will jump into your book,”
“Wh –at?” I barely said.
“Just as I said ‘we will jump into your book’,”
I looked around to make sure she wasn’t talking to someone else.
“Yes you,” she said.
“How and why…?”
She lied the book down on the ground and held my hand.
“To make your birthday the best it can be, and jumping in is easy –just hold onto me.”
I hugged her and we jumped into the tiniest book I’ve ever seen. Once we were in; there were gold flashes around us and then they faded.
Everything looked the same except when you looked up you saw what was happening above the book. Nothing felt different.
“Wow,” was all I said.
I was in shock as I looked everywhere. My heart thumped faster in fright.
“Now, you see that everything is frozen, right?”
I nodded. Everything was frozen, no one moved. Even Vince was in mid dance.
“Now you can make things happen,” she finished.
“How?” I asked.
She held my hand and we walked up to Vince. I noticed that he was staring at the place that I was sitting. Wait, I was still sitting there!
“Why am I still there?”
“Everything is frozen so that means you are too,”
“How, I mean I’m not now,” I asked.
“Everything is frozen to when I came up to you and that means present you is frozen.” She explained.
I walked up to myself and almost touched me.
“Don’t touch yourself!” she yelled.
“Why not…?” I pulled my hand away.
“Because then you will turn everything back on. If you wanna change the future you can’t touch yourself.”
“Can I touch others?”
“Yes,” she replied.
I walked back to Vince.
“Why is everything frozen to when you came up to me?” I asked.
“Because no one saw me, the birthday boy or girl can only see me. But when I come up to them everything freezes so I can help them.”
“Uhuh,” I said.
Everything looked strange. I didn’t even know what to do.
The lady pulled my hand and made me touch Vince –he was still warm.
“Why are you…?”
“So you can talk to him,”
I must have looked confused because she kept on talking.
She let my hand go.
“You would be something like his conscience. You would be able to read his mind.”
“I don’t wanna do that,” I yelled.
“Why not…?” she asked.
“Because, it’s his privacy!”
She made me sit down on the ground with her. I was shivering. This was so scary.
“I just though you’d wanna know what he thought about you,” she said.
“No I wou –what?”
I pulled my cell phone out and it was still four o’clock sharp.
“That’s what I thought.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked with a mad tone.
“You’re shocked that he thinks about you?”
“No, he’s my best friend –of course he thinks about me.”
She pulled me up and let me walk around. It was exactly the same as before. She was right about helping me but how can I do it.
“Zoey, come here,” she called me.
I walked up to her in the game area. It was funny to see the people in mid game. They were jumping in the air or crying.
“Here is a pencil,”
“Wow, a pencil.” I held the pencil in my hand.
“You can write in the air,”
“What?”
She grabbed the pencil and wrote in the air.
“This is how to change the future; you will write what you want to come true,”
“Um, I forgot to ask –what’s your name?” I asked.
She gave the pencil back and said “Terry,”
“Okay, thanks Terry,”
I held the pencil and started to write but Terry stopped me.
“You have to write on the people you want to change the future to, or in the area.”
“Uhuh thanks –again!” I walked up to the game area wall.
I wanted to try it.
I wrote down ‘Wii game console doubles.’ It has to be literal. The letters were gold.
Suddenly the game room lived up and I jumped from fright. Everyone started to move in here and the Wii was doubled.
“I forgot to add that when you change the future it comes to life when it happens. Then it freezes again after it
happens.” Terry said.
“Thanks,” I said relieved.
I walked up to Vince.
“Do the people see me when they come to life?” I asked Terry.
“Yes,”
I wrote on Vince ‘Stop dancing with Hannah and come to me' but then Terry started to wipe the words off.
“What?”
“You can’t change love,”
I walked away slowly and almost cried. Love…? Vince and Hannah can’t be love.
“No, they can’t be love Terry!”
“No not them,” she said and I felt relieved.
“You and him,”
“But then shouldn’t he come to me?” I asked.
She made me sit on the ground again with her.
“Because, love will happen on its own.”
“Sure,” I laughed.
“Zoey, this is serious!” she said.
I stopped laughing and looked at her with a straight face.
“Thank you,”
We got up and I decided to write on myself.
“Can I write on myself?” I asked.
“Actually yes, but be sure that’s what you want.”
I wrote ‘get off chair and ask to dance with Vince.’ This time Terry let me write this.
She pulled me to hide behind a curtain because they can see me.
I saw exactly that. I went up to Vince and Hannah and started dancing with Vince. It was weird –I felt as if I was dancing with him, but I actually was.
“Why do I feel as if I were dancing with him?” I asked Terry in a whisper.
“Because you are,” she pointed at me.
My heart was beating like a speeding bullet and I just stared at us. Vince was laughing to my jokes. I was swaying with him to One Republic.
Then time froze again.
“Aw man,” I said.
“Those are the rules.”
“At least I love what’s happening!” I walked up to Vince and I.
I touched Vince on accident and then I heard what he was thinking.
“Terry! Make this stop!” I yelled at Terry.
‘I can’t believe this…’ he thought. Terry pulled me away and I didn’t hear his thought anymore.
“Did he hear that I yelled at you?” I asked Terry.
“Maybe –okay, no.” she said.
We walked away from them. I didn’t know what to do next. This was hard to even do.
I didn’t know how other teenagers can even handle such a hard thing like this!
“Follow me,” Terry said.
I followed her to Vince’s parked car. It stood next to the party letting the sun brighten the bold red color of it.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
She opened the door and got into it. I followed suit and sat in the passenger seat. It smelled just like Vince’s Axe perfume.
“Open the glove compartment.” She said.
I opened it and saw what normally laid there. A pack of Juicy Fruit gum, a flashlight, some keys, and a little box --wait, that box was never there.
“I’m not gonna look at his private stuff Terry.” I said.
“Open it,”
“He already gave me my gift, see?” I pulled my necklace from under my top.
She pulled out the box and pushed it into my hands.
“Fine,”
I opened it and saw a bracelet. That bracelet was the one I gave him in third grade! It was a friendship bracelet. I made it in art class one time just for fun –we were knitting.
“Why does he still have it?” I asked.
That was the most stupid question I have ever asked. I could answer that myself! Because he’s my best friend.
“I mean, why does he have it in a box?” I added.
“Because he wanted to give it to you when –wait, I can’t tell you,” she said.
“Why not?”
“That’d ruin the future Zoe,”
I put it back. He is an amazing guy but I doubt it that he had any feelings for me.
I got out of the car and leaned against it.
Terry came to me.
“We have to get out of the book now.” She said quietly.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you changed two things, now we’ve gotta continue it in normal time.”
“Uhuh,”
She grabbed me and I held her tightly.
We flew into the air and popped up in the normal world. Everything was the same.
“Wow,” I said.
“Wasn’t that fun?” Terry said.
I just nodded.
Vince was sitting at the table I was sitting when I met Terry.
“Here,” she handed me a golden box.
“Happy Birthday Zoey,” she added.
I opened that box and spotted the same pencil I used to write on myself.
“The pencil again?”
“You can use it like a wand but you may only make wishes to it.”
“Cool,” I pulled the pencil out of the box.
She took the box from my hands.
“But you must say the wishes in your head –I’ll still hear them.” She said.
“Scary,” I thought.
I walked up to Vince and sat in the chair in front of him.
He looked up and smiled at me.
“You took a while,” he said.
“What?” I asked sarcastically.
I really didn’t know what he was talking about though.
“The bathroom is right there,” he pointed at the girls’ bathroom door.
“I know but I had a bad taco,”
“Oh,”
We started to laugh then I felt someone tap my shoulder.
I turned around and saw Terry.
“Who’s she?” Vince asked.
“Uh, a friend.” I smiled at him and got up.
“What?” I asked Terry.
She pulled me closer to her.
“The wish?” she asked.
“Right,”
I pulled out the pencil from my jean pocket and held it in my hands. I thought about the wish really hard and then I made it.
“I wish that Vince will wanna go out with me” I thought.
Terry waved her hands over her head and the pencil lit up. I felt something happening inside of me and then there was a flash. Everything returned back to normal and I put my pencil into my pocket.
As I turned around Vince kissed me. My body started to tingle and my stomach turned.
“Vince…” I said once we stopped.
“I wanna go out with you Zoey,”
“I do too –I mean I wanna go out with you,”
He smiled and so did I.
We sat back down and he held my hand.
“Thank you so much for this party Vince.” I said.
“I want you to be happy, that’s all.”
He was staring at me and it started to freak me out.
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asked me.
“Sure,”
He got up and left the table.
He came back and was carrying a coke.
“Here,” he gave it to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
This is so amazing.
“Zoe, I never told you this but I love you.” He said.
My mind went blank.
“I love you too,” I barely said.
He sighed.
I just stared into his eyes and fell into Vince world. This was normal at the time because he seemed to love me.
I couldn’t help but think for one second if Vince was only acting this way because of the wish? No –Terry said that there was love between us so I guess I just brought the love out of hiding…
***
Vince and I were playing on the Wii in the game area. A group of people were watching us playing some Wii Tennis.
“Man!” Vince yelled.
“Sorry, I am good at this sport,” I said.
I was scoring points like kids buying ice cream on a hot summer day.
People were cheering me on.
The sun was going down and the party lights went on. I heard music coming from the speakers. Most people were pushing around me because they wanted to see who would win the tennis game.
“I won!” I yelled.
Everyone cheered and gave me high fives. My adrenaline was high and I wanted to play another game.
Vince came up to me and smiled.
“Great game,” he said.
My heart thumped faster as I smiled.
“Yeah, I crushed you!” I said.
“It’s okay –at least we played together,” he held my arm and pulled me closer.
That’s weird –he loves competition and when he doesn’t win he breaks down. But he usually does a rematch with the
opponent.
Even with his ex-girlfriend, he was in love with her and he still made her cry with a smile on his face.
“Wait, Vince. You’re not mad?” I asked.
“No, why would I be mad that my love beat me?” he said.
I felt his hand go down my hair and that made my whole body tingle.
This wasn’t what I expected. He never acted that way… wait; he may be acting!
I playfully pushed Vince.
“What…?” he asked.
“Don’t be like that. I can tell that you’re acting all of this.” I said.
He started to look angry.
“Are you saying that you think I don’t really love you?!” his voice got louder.
“Well, I mean,” I was speechless.
“Zoey, I can’t believe you.”
He stomped his way out of the party. I was left staring blindly at the empty place where he stood in front of me.
I decided to go sit down in the front of the party.
People were cheering as I sat down and looked in front of me.
I saw Terry sitting in the seat in front of me and pull out that book.
The gold flashes came back once she opened it.
“I ruined a great friendship.” I said.
She looked at me with a grin.
“What…?” I asked.
“You wanted him too much too fast,” she calmly said.
“I didn’t think that the wish would really come true!” I said.
I put my head in my hands. My body felt so weak and almost unconscious.
“Don’t be stupid! Of course you knew, did you think I was joking?”
“No –no, I just thought that he would treat me normally and just ask me out.” I said into my hands.
I felt Terry pull my head up.
“I said be careful.” She flipped the pages in the book.
I looked at what she was doing. All I saw were blank pages and she was humming or murmuring to herself.
“What…?” I asked.
“This book needs a happy ending,” she said.
“Not all books do,” I said madly.
She looked at me with her purple eyes.
“Yes they do Zoe, now let’s make this better all right?”
“Fine,” I grunted.
We got off the chairs and she held my hand.
We started to float. Terry made us fly up into the sky in a millisecond! My whole body felt like a spaceship blasting through the air.
I was screaming but it seemed that no one heard me. Terry just winked at me and pointed below us.
I saw Vince walking home. He left his car at the party.
My heart fell and I started to cry.
“I’m an idiot,” I said.
“Now, now. Zoey –this is just a mistake that you learned from!” Terry yelled.
It happens that when you’re in the air flying like a bullet train, you can barely hear anything.
“I ruined everything and if I want us to just be friends again, he’ll leave me forever because he loves me Terry! I’m an idiot! This is the worst thing in the world. We were best friends ever since third grade and I wanted love? God.” I yelled.
Terry looked at me. I felt that we were starting to land. The air became less dense and you could hear more clearly.
We landed in front of Vince’s house.
“Go talk to him,” she said.
I looked at her and she smiled.
“Okay,” I said.
I saw him getting closer to the house and Terry flew away.
Vince stared at me once he got next to me on the long black driveway.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Vince, I’m sorry okay? I didn’t think that you’ld love me and be completely different then you were before.”
I said.
He looked confused.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Listen, you don’t love me. I shouldn’t have ruined everything,”
Everything in my body just fell and I felt like I was about to cry. I couldn’t help but think that maybe we could try again at
dating.
“But Zoey, I do love you!” he said.
“Look,”
I pulled out the pencil from my pocket.
“A pencil?” he asked.
“The same reaction I had –but no, I mean it is a pencil but not an ordinary pencil. It makes wishes come true…” I said.
“How…?”
I told him everything. I told him about the birthday wishes, books, pencils, and Terry’s.
