When Jeremy got tired of crashing cars off the raceway, I challenged him to an archery match. We set up the target near the wall at our property’s edge, then Jeremy stood ten feet away and I stood twenty. I didn’t use my compound for this game. We both used Jeremy’s junior archery set to make it fair. Every time we hit the mark, we took a step backward. Whoever missed first lost.
I should mention I’m president of the archery club. As my parents put it, I excel at the sport. I’m the only one in our family who can stand out on the sidewalk in front of the house, with the front and back doors open, and hit a target in the backyard.
Today as I played with Jeremy, I only took a few steps and purposely missed.
“I can’t believe it,” I told him. “I think the target jumped out of the way or something. If you make your next shot, you’ll beat me.”
He glanced at me, then pulled his arrow back on the string. I could tell he wasn’t aiming. His arrow fell short of the target by over a foot.
“Buddy, did you even try?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s okay, Annika. I know you like to win.”
His words made me catch my breath. “No, I . . .” I couldn’t say anything else for a moment. “I don’t always have to win.”
But that’s the problem. You can’t erase a competitive nature with one day. All I could do was change the subject. As I pulled arrows off the target, I said, “Hey, isn’t it about time to watch what’s happening in Sherwood Forest?”
He tilted his head as though I should know better. “Not until after dinner.”
I did know better. I just wanted to change the subject to Robin Hood. “Good. We don’t want to miss it. Robin Hood is really cool, huh?”
Jeremy walked over to the target and picked up the arrows from the ground. “I’m gonna get a Talking Teen Robin Hood for Christmas. His bow works for real.”
I walked toward the house and motioned for him to follow me. “Let’s go into my room. I want to tell you a secret.”
He trotted after me into the house, his bow still in hand. When we got to my room, I sat cross-legged on my bed. He climbed up next to me, fingering the string on his bow and looking serious. “What’s your secret?”
I leaned toward him, my voice low. “Well, I’ve never told anyone this before, but years ago I found a magic lamp, the kind genies live in. I rubbed the lamp, released the genie, and got three wishes. But I didn’t use them all. I still have two left.”
Jeremy tilted his chin down, and his lips momentarily scrunched together. “I’m in first grade, Annika. I know there’s no such thing as genies.”
This from the boy who wanted to ask Santa for his action figure and who, when questioned, said he was going to become a Merry Man when he grew up.
“It’s true,” I insisted. “I have two wishes left, and I want to give them to you.”
His eyes narrowed skeptically. “What was your first wish?”
“Um. . . .” You’d think I would have thought of an answer to this question, but I hadn’t. I mean what six-year-old when given two wishes asks you what you wished for?
“I’ll tell you some other time. Right now I want to explain the rules about wishing because you can’t wish for more wishes or for impossible stuff like superpowers. And don’t even think about wishing to fly, because my genie is one of those difficult genies, and he might turn you into a bird or something.”
Jeremy looked thoughtful, and I added, “Mom would be very upset if you turned into a bird, and then I’d have to use the last wish turning you back human again. It would be a total waste of wishes. I want you to use the last wish to make sure the surgery will go fine. That way you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“Why don’t I wish that I don’t have to have the surgery in the first place?” he asked, and his eyes lit up at this prospect.
It hurt to have to disappoint him. “Mom and Dad would make you have the surgery anyway. They don’t believe in genies, so it wouldn’t matter what we told them about it. It’s better just to wish it will go fine.”
Jeremy nodded, accepting this explanation, then looked back at me with skeptical eyes. “Annika, are you tricking me?”
“No. Now shut your eyes and say, ‘This is my official second wish,’ and wish for something you really want. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.” I leaned toward him, my eyes never leaving his. “What toy would you most like to have right now?”
He shut his eyes. “Do I have to call the genie first?”
“He’ll come when you say, ‘This is my official second wish.’ That’s why you have to shut your eyes. He’s shy around anyone who didn’t rub his lamp. You’re not supposed to see him.”
Jeremy opened one eye a sliver.
“Shut your eyes all the way,” I told him.
“I can’t help myself. I’ve never seen a genie before.”
I gave him a stern look. “It won’t work if you don’t shut your eyes. The genie will stomp off and you’ll lose your wishes.”
Jeremy shut his eyes but tilted his head. “He’ll stomp off? Do genies have feet?”
“Yes. Well, sort of, anyway.” I put my hand under the bed, ready to grab the Robin Hood box. “Now what’s your official wish? Think of something you really, really want.”
He fidgeted, thinking, then clamped his hands together in decision. “This is my official second wish. I wish the real Teen Robin Hood—the one on TV—would come and teach me how to shoot arrows.”
I didn’t move. My hand froze over the box, still wanting to grab it, even though there wasn’t a reason to. I felt like the breath had been punched from my lungs.
Jeremy opened his eyes and looked around the room. “Shouldn’t something have happened?”
Yes, I should have considered the possibility he’d ask for something besides the action figure. But how could I have known? It’s all he’d talked about for the last two weeks.
“Where’s Teen Robin Hood?” Jeremy asked. I could see the disappointment seep into his large brown eyes. “You were just tricking me, weren’t you?”
“No,” I said. “I forgot to tell you that you have to put a time frame on these wishes. You didn’t tell the genie when you wanted Teen Robin Hood to come. He might show up tomorrow, a year from now, or when you’re sixty-five.”
Jeremy’s mouth dropped open in frustration, then snapped shut again. “I’ll use the third wish to say now.”
“No,” I yelped. “The third wish has to be for your surgery. I won’t give you the third wish until right before then.”
Jeremy fingered the string on his bow, and I could tell he was deciding whether to believe me or not. “Genies ought to know you want your wish right away. Haven’t they been doing this for a long time?”
“Yes, but I told you this one was difficult. Hopefully it will happen soon . . . ,” I said.
The corners of his mouth tugged down. “The genie will probably mess up the surgery wish too.”
What had I done? “No, he won’t,” I said quickly. “We’ll make sure he gets it right.”
Jeremy lifted his gaze to mine, and I could tell he wanted to believe me but wasn’t sure. He picked up the bow lying beside him on my comforter. “Maybe I should practice some more. Maybe when Robin Hood sees how good I am he’ll make me a Merry Man.”
“Maybe,” I said.
He slid from my bed and walked to the door.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad about this,” I told him. “You know how they feel about strangers in the house. They’d be mad if they knew a genie was hanging around.”
Jeremy nodded and left the room.
I lay on my bed for a minute and shut my eyes. The situation wasn’t hopeless, was it? Sometimes celebrities did charity visits. Maybe the Make-A-Wish Foundation could help. That was the sort of thing they did. Of course, no one would be in their office until Monday, so I couldn’t even ask them until then, and he had to go in for surgery on Friday morning. Would four days be long enough to process a request? It seemed like such a short time, but if Steve Raleigh knew, if someone explained the situation to him, surely he would want to help out, wouldn’t he?
Four days.
I lay on my bed thinking about movie stars. Exactly how busy were they while shooting TV shows? Did they ever do spontaneous things for fans? Were they overwhelmed by requests like these?
The more I thought about it all, the more impossible it seemed. But I had to at least try.
I went to the den and sat in front of the family computer. Maybe I could find some information about Steve Raleigh and contact him myself. When I Googled his name, I got 300,000 links. I clicked on a couple randomly, but they were just chat boards where girls went on and on about how hot Steve was. I clicked on a few with Robin Hood in the title, but they were nothing but pictures of the cast and Hollywood gossip. Mostly pages of discussion dedicated to the question: was Steve Raleigh seeing the actress who played Maid Marion, Esme Kingsley, to get back at his rocker ex-girlfriend, Karli Roller?
Honestly, who cared? Well, besides Esme, Steve, and possibly Karli.
I located the Steve Raleigh fan club. It had a picture of him as Robin Hood, arm muscles rippling as he pulled back an arrow on his longbow. I dragged my gaze away from the picture of Steve and looked for contact information. I didn’t see an e-mail address anywhere, but you could write to him care of some guy named Spanky Tyler in Burbank, California. I tried to find a phone number for Spanky by calling directory assistance, but they didn’t have a listing.
So, I wrote Spanky a letter telling him about Jeremy. I enclosed a picture, my phone number, and a long plea begging for him to call me. I would overnight it and hope it would be opened first thing Monday morning. I knew it was a long shot—but the thing about long shots is sometimes when you’re lucky they still hit the bull’s-eye.
The rest of the weekend trickled by. It became more and more painful to watch Jeremy’s expectant expression, to have him whisper to me, “Have you heard from the genie yet? Did he say when Robin Hood is coming?”
I called Make-A-Wish as soon as their office opened on Monday, ditching class in the process. I stood inside the girls’ bathroom while I explained my brother’s wish to the woman on the end of the line. She was sympathetic, but she told me the foundation had to talk to Jeremy’s doctor, parents, and to Jeremy himself before they could even begin to process his wish.
I knew it couldn’t possibly all happen before Friday, but I still had to ask anyway. “If that was done right away, how long would it take?”
“Wish times vary,” she said. “Meeting celebrities—well, that always takes longer. We have to wait for agents to get back to us and then it really depends on the celebrity’s schedule. Sometimes they’re booked for months.”
In other words, not a chance that this could happen before Friday.
When I got home, I carried my cell phone around for hours, hoping Spanky had opened my letter and would give me a call. How much mail did Spanky get in an average day?
No one called, though.
I didn’t sleep much that night, although this wasn’t unusual. Since Jeremy’s diagnosis, my mind couldn’t turn off for long enough to sleep. A constant stream of what-ifs kept me awake.
No one called on Tuesday either.
As I sat in class Wednesday morning, I felt like red tape was crawling up my legs, winding around my body, squeezing my chest so tightly that I couldn’t breathe. I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and accept defeat.
After third period, I forged a note telling the office I had a doctor’s appointment and went home. Then I sat in our empty house staring at the computer like it was an enemy prisoner. Somewhere amongst its billions of links, it had information that could help me. I had to go about it another way, think of a different way to come at the problem.
I Googled “Set location for Teen Robin Hood” and immediately came up with pictures of Ballard Productions in Burbank, California.
I stared at those for a long time, letting ideas congeal into possibilities. Could I call them and ask to speak to Steve? No, that wouldn’t work. There was a huge, impenetrable wall put up around celebrities. Besides, it would be too easy to brush off a stranger calling on the phone. The only way I’d ever be able to convince him to help me on such short notice was if I asked him in person.
Finally I came up with a plan. It was desperate, stupid, and obviously impossible for the average teenage girl. But in the end, that was the thing that tipped the scales. If anyone could figure out a way to breach that impenetrable wall, I could. At least, I hoped I could. Actually, I didn’t want to think about my chances. I just had to go and do it.
I printed out directions from Henderson, Nevada, to Burbank, California—a four-hour trip—and texted Madison while I packed things into my duffel bag. “I need your help for a cover. I’m going to tell my parents I’m sleeping over at your house tonight.”
Instead of texting back, she called me. I could hear the background voices and general clanging of the cafeteria. “So, Annika, what are you really doing tonight?”
“Oh, it’s this thing I have to do. It’s private.”
“I’m your best friend. You can tell me.” Her voice sounded suspicious. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you? You’re not meeting a guy or something.”
I put my toothbrush and toothpaste into the duffel bag. “No, nothing like that. You don’t have to worry.”
“Then what?” The sounds from the cafeteria began to fade, and I could tell she was walking somewhere more private in order to hear me better.
“I’m going to drive to California and try to get Steve Raleigh to visit Jeremy.”
There was a long pause. “And to think I worried it might be something stupid.”
Then I had to tell her the whole story about the genie and the wishes.
“I have to at least try to talk to Steve Raleigh,” I said. “Jeremy is worried sick about the surgery.”
“You can’t just hop in a car and drive to California,” she said.
“Yes, I can.”