Wishing Day (6 page)

A
week passed. Natasha didn't receive any more notes.

Another week passed, and on Friday, Natasha's English teacher talked to the class about “the ides of March.” Natasha already knew what the ides of March were. It was a fancy way of saying March fifteenth, which was tomorrow, and which was Ava's birthday.

Tomorrow, Ava would turn twelve, which meant that she'd be the same age as Darya. She and Darya would both be twelve until Darya's birthday in August, when Darya would turn thirteen. Then Darya and Natasha would both be thirteen until Natasha's
birthday rolled around again in November.

It wasn't a normal family configuration, Natasha knew. Papa and Mama had popped out three baby girls in quick succession,
bam bam bam
. But it was normal for Natasha. She was used to it. She knew nothing else, since Darya had come along before Natasha was a year old, and Ava had joined the pack less than a year after that.

“Ava came early” was her autopilot response when kids asked how the three sisters could be so close in age. Early and teensy and perfect, twelve years ago tomorrow.

As Natasha walked from English class to her locker, she thought about her birthday present for Ava. It was a gold necklace with a crystal-encrusted heart dangling from the middle. It glittered and sparkled, just right for Ava.

The hall was packed with kids. The air smelled like books and Pop-Tarts. Outside, the weather was gloomy, but inside, everything was bright and cozy. Everyone was cheerful, including Natasha.

She reached her locker, twisted the lock, and pulled on the latch. It didn't open. She banged it with her fist. It still didn't open. Benton saw her struggling with it,
and he strode over and banged on it himself. The door sprang open.

“Thanks,” Natasha said.

“No problem,” Benton said. He turned to go.

“But I banged on it too,” she said, casting about for a way to keep him there longer. “Why did it work for you and not for me?”

Benton turned back. “You have to hit it in the right spot.”

“I did!”

“Well, and you kind of have to be me. I
am
pretty awesome.”

“
Ohhhhh
, of course,” Natasha said, fizzy with delight. They were
flirting
, maybe-possibly-practically. She fought not to smile too widely. “What was I thinking?”

Benton grinned. Then he looked worried. “You do know I'm kidding, right?”

“Wait—you're
not
awesome?”

“No, I am, but . . .”

He floundered. Natasha kept her expression innocent, but on the inside, she was buzzing.

He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back on his heels, and said, “Ah-
ha
. Pretty tricky, Natasha Blok.”

The way he spaced out the syllables was adorable:
prih-tee trih-kee
.

The way he said her name made her skin tingle.

“That was funny,” Benton said, nodding. “That was good.” He looked at her in a new way. “There's more to you than people think, isn't there?”

“Benton!” a guy called from down the hall. “Dude, you're holding us up!”

“Dude, chill,” Benton called back. Then he said, “All right, well, see you around, Natasha,” and he loped off to join his friends.

That afternoon, Natasha lay on her bed and re-played the moment. She tried to decide what it meant, if it had meant anything at all.

She wanted it to have meant something, very much. But could
wanting
something make it come true? Because on her Wishing Day, Natasha's last wish had been to be someone's favorite. To be seen as special just for being herself.

Benton's notes (which was how she thought of them, even though she didn't know for sure that he'd written them) had made her feel special. Absolutely! And today, when he looked at her the way he did, that made her feel special too. When he'd said there was more to her than people thought, her stomach had flipped over.

Except then he took off without a backward glance. He said, “See you around,” but there wasn't anything special about “see you around.”

So it was confusing. He'd flirted with her at her locker, but he never beckoned her over during lunch, like he had with Belinda. He never patted the table he was sitting at, encouraging her to hop up on it so they could talk.

And! Who said the notes were from Benton anyway?! She'd let herself imagine that he'd written them, and somehow the possibility of Benton being her secret admirer had lodged in her heart as truth. But what if that was just wishful thinking?

Wishful thinking
. Of course it was wishful thinking. Making wishes, by definition, was wishful thinking.

Natasha sighed. She had a hard time imagining herself
ever
perching on a lunchroom table, to be honest. But maybe thinking wishfully required taking risks. Maybe she
could
be that girl, adored by a boy who grabbed her feet and playfully swung them back and forth.

Or not.

She stared at the ceiling, which was a good ceiling, with a familiar pattern of cracks that she'd turned into a multitude of things over the years. An
old man's profile. A chapel. A duck.

Today she made a question mark out of the cracks. It was a stretch, but it suited her purpose. There were so many things she didn't know!

Her third Wishing Day wish was to be somebody's favorite. The wish before that was to be kissed, and according to the Wishing Day rules, she was supposed to make that wish come true herself.

But how???

Benton was the boy she wanted to be kissed by, if she was going to be kissed by anyone. But what was she supposed to do? Approach him in the hall, grab his shoulders, and pucker up? Find him in the cafeteria and say, “Hey, Benton, want to smooch?” Hide by the path he took to school and pounce on him when he came strolling along?

No, no, and no, with an especially big no to the hide-by-the-path scenario. She'd scare him to death if she sprang out at him with no warning. She'd scare herself to death. They'd both fall over, dead, and foxes would feast on their bodies.

Or, worse, she'd jump out, waggle her hands and arms, and go “Boogidy-boogidy-boo!” like the bogeyman. She wouldn't
want
to. She just would, accidentally, for the simple reason that the idea had floated into her
imagination and was now lodged there forever.

Ugh. No.
You will
not
go boogidy-boogidy-boo to Benton
,
Natasha
, she told herself firmly.
Understand?

She shifted positions, taking her hands out from beneath her head and splaying her arms wide, palms up. She tried to relax her muscles and let them “fall off her bones,” a phrase she'd picked up from her gym teacher during a unit on yoga.

It was a horrible phrase when taken literally. Wonderfully horrible, and she and Molly had latched onto it for that very reason. For almost a month, they let their muscles fall off their bones every chance they got.

“Sorry, Mom, but I can't,” Molly would call from her bedroom, when her mother asked her to come back downstairs and clean up her dishes. “I'm letting my muscles fall off my bones!”

Or Molly and Natasha would flop onto the lawn of the school courtyard and spread out their arms and legs like stars.

“What's new?” Natasha would ask.

“Oh, nothing, just letting my muscles fall off my bones,” Molly would say. “You?”

“Same.”

Natasha smiled, remembering. She
could
call Molly now, if she wanted. She could say, “Hey, dollface. Are
your bones falling off your body?” Wait. Not bones, muscles. “Are your
muscles
falling off your bones?”

Then she could ask Molly for her advice. She could kill two birds with one stone. (Another dreadful expression, if you thought about it. Why kill the birds at all?) But she could ask Molly how to proceed with Benton, and that would prove to Molly that she didn't have intimacy issues. That she
did
open up to her.

She owed Molly a call, regardless. Molly was going out of town next week for a family thing, which meant she would miss the Spring Festival. But Molly was okay with it because her parents were taking her to some big outlet mall to shop for a dress, because the family thing was something she had to be fancy for.

Her cousin's bar mitzvah. That's what it was. Molly had been talking about it all week, and today at lunch, she'd said, “Omigosh, and I haven't even described my aunt and uncle's house to you. What is wrong with me?”

Then the bell had rung, and Molly had groaned. “Remind me to tell you about my aunt and uncle's house. It's seriously a mansion. Okay?”

Hmm
, Natasha thought, shifting again on her bed. She was fine with hearing about Molly's aunt and uncle's house, but maybe not right now.

She could get out her journal, she supposed. Writing things down might make them clearer.

Or she could do push-ups, which her gym teacher said were an excellent all-body workout.

She sighed and shifted positions, stretching her legs out long and pointing her toes. She pulled her pillow into a better position beneath her head and continued to stare at the ceiling.

S
aturday night was game night at the Blok house. Aunt Elena was the one who'd started the tradition, and she was the one who came up with the games. Aunt Elena told Natasha and Darya it was for Ava, because Ava was the youngest, and Ava liked playing games. But Natasha knew that Aunt Elena liked playing games, too.

In the past, they'd played Rat-a-Tat Cat or Trouble or Monopoly, but Monopoly had been taken out of rotation because it took so long, and because Darya got overly competitive when it came to getting Boardwalk and Park Place.

Aunt Elena came up with nongame games, too. Games that were actually activities devised to make everyone laugh. Last month, Aunt Elena instructed everyone to stick their elbows out in front of them (one elbow per person) while lifting their hands to their shoulders (one hand per person, the hand that “belonged” with the lifted elbow).

Then Aunt Elena went around and balanced a quarter on each person's upraised elbow. The goal, she said, was for everyone to cup their hands and then whip them down, fast enough to catch the falling quarter.

Aunt Vera's quarter kept plonking to the floor. “My elbows are too pointy!” she'd complained.

Darya had mastered the trick quickly. She'd place a quarter on her elbow, swish her hand down in a graceful arc, then flip her hand over and open it. “Did it!” she'd cry, revealing the captured quarter.

Ava, Aunt Elena, and Natasha were good at it as well. Along with Darya, they'd started adding quarters to make the challenge harder. Two quarters. Three quarters. Four quarters balanced neatly on top of their elbows, then caught just as neatly when they whipped down their hands. Or clattering noisily to the floor. It went both ways.

Papa would have been good at it, Natasha suspected,
because he was good with his hands. But although he'd stuck around and watched for ten or so minutes, he hadn't participated.

“Just once, Papa,” Ava had pleaded. “Just try once. Come on.”

“I'm too old for games,” he'd said. Then he'd smiled vaguely, ruffled Ava's hair, and headed back to his workshop.

Aunt Elena had been the grand winner that night, ultimately balancing twenty quarters on her elbow and catching every single one.

“Impressive,” Natasha had said.

“Why thank you,” Aunt Elena had replied, her cheeks flushed and her hair coming loose from her ponytail.

Tonight, for Ava's birthday, Aunt Elena came up with a game that would appeal especially to her. They'd already had Ava's favorite meal for dinner, spaghetti with meatballs. They'd sung to Ava and eaten cake and passed out presents, and Ava had beamed.

“Next year, I'll be thirteen,” she'd said.

“But not until after
I
turn thirteen,” Darya had said. “I'll turn thirteen before you do.”

“Duh,” Ava had said.

“But as of tonight, you are twelve, and that's cool,
too,” Natasha had said. “Sheesh, Darya. Can you let Ava have this one night all to herself?”

Now, with the dinner dishes put away, Aunt Elena called everyone around the kitchen table and told them to take a seat.

“Peppermint Patties,” Ava said, eyeing a large ceramic bowl full of shiny, foil-wrapped mints. “Yummy. Are they Birthday Peppermint Patties?”

“Where's Nate?” Aunt Elena said, scanning the room. She opened the back door and sighed when she saw the lights on in Papa's workshop. “Nate?” she called. “Na-ate!”

“Let's just play,” Darya said.

“How
do
we play?” Ava asked.

“Yes, Elena,” Aunt Vera said. She strode to Aunt Elena, reached past her, and closed the door. “Illuminate us.”

Aunt Elena turned toward the table. Natasha caught a glimpse of sadness before she shook it off, smiled, and took her seat.

“The goal is
not
to eat them,” Aunt Elena said, batting Ava's hand from the bowl.

Ava made a sound of protest. She was wearing her new necklace, the one with the heart on it that Natasha had given her. It looked pretty.

“Not right away,” Aunt Elena said. She selected a Peppermint Pattie and unwrapped it. It was nearly the same size as a quarter. “The goal”—she tilted her face to the ceiling and put the Peppermint Pattie on her forehead—“is to get it into your mouth without using your hands.
Then
you can eat it.”

As she talked, the movement of her jaw made the mint slip off her forehead. It landed on the table, and she laughed. She tried again, and by doing a lot of undignified tensing and wiggling of her facial muscles, she was able to navigate the mint all the way down to the bridge of her nose, at which point it once again fell off.

Everyone laughed.

The chocolate coating was beginning to melt, and when Aunt Elena put the mint on her forehead for a third time, her fingers came away sticky. She contorted her face to move the mint, and this time, as it inchwormed down her face, it left a trail of chocolate. But by tilting her head sideways, she got the mint onto her cheek, and from there, precariously into her mouth.

“Yes!” she said, thrusting her fist into the air. She chewed and swallowed and grinned. “Score!”

“I want to try,” Ava said, grabbing a mint.

Natasha and Darya each took one too. So did Aunt
Vera, though she simply unwrapped hers and popped it into her mouth.

“Hey! Cheating!” Ava cried.

“Vera, that was
very
naughty,” Aunt Elena scolded. “Do you understand, or do I need to give you a time-out?”

Aunt Vera rolled her eyes. “You have chocolate on your cheek.”

Natasha giggled. Her aunts were fun when they were in moods like this. Next to her, Ava scrunched and unscrunched her nose intently. She tried to watch the Peppermint Pattie's progress, which made her cross-eyed.

Natasha glanced at Darya, and they shared a smile. They looked away quickly—both of them—but Natasha felt happy.

After several tries, Ava got her mint into her mouth. She high-fived everyone and said, “Yes!” just like Aunt Elena had. And, like Aunt Elena, she had chocolate smeared all over her.

She grabbed a second mint, unwrapped it, and said, “Silas would
not
be good at this.” She paused and tilted her head. “Or maybe he would. Would he?”

“Who's Silas?” Natasha asked.

“A boy in my class. He goes to Ms. J for tutoring
too, but he doesn't like her to say it out loud.”

“Say what out loud?” Darya said.

“‘Silas, isn't it time for you to go to tutoring?'” she said in a voice that was an awful lot like Aunt Vera's. She switched back to her normal voice. “He doesn't like people to know. I told him it doesn't matter, but . . .”

She shrugged and licked a smudge of chocolate from her finger. “Anyway, he has such a tight grip that I can't unfurl his fingers
at all
, not once he's latched onto me.”

For a moment, no one responded.

Then Natasha said, “Why does he
grip
you?”

“Because he likes me. And by the way, there is one thing about being me that I
don't
like, and it's that Silas always wants to play with me during recess, and so does Melody and so does Alvinia. So do a lot of people. But Alvinia wants me all to herself, and I don't know what to do because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.”

“Oh,” Natasha said. She frowned. When she was in the sixth grade, did she have playground problems? No, because she read books, usually. She got permission to spend recess in the library. Or, on the days she didn't, she strolled with Molly around the playground's perimeter, listening and laughing as Molly babbled about whatever.

“Can't you play with all of them?” she said. “Or, like, rotate?”

“Did you not hear a word she said?” Darya asked. “
No
. She can't.”

“Darya, watch your tone,” Aunt Elena warned.

Ava looked at Natasha kindly. She patted her hand and said, “It's okay. Mainly I was just saying that everyone thinks it's so great to be popular, but sometimes it wears me out.”

“
Yeah
, Natasha,” Darya said. She turned to Ava. “I understand, because I'm popular, too. Natasha just doesn't know what it's like.”

“Darya,”
Aunt Elena and Aunt Vera said at the same time.

Natasha wasn't as bothered by Darya's comment as her aunts seemed to be. It stung, and Darya was being a jerk, but in Darya's mind, she probably thought she was being funny.

And Natasha
wasn't
popular. So? Everyone was different, including Ava and Darya. They were both popular, but not in the same way. Darya wouldn't choose Ava's friends, Natasha suspected, and vice versa.

“Also?” Ava said. Her mint fell off her face and she groaned. She leaned down and picked it up. “Alvinia
just makes me mad sometimes, because yesterday I told her I
would
play with her, but that we had to let Melody play too or that would be mean, and I definitely didn't want to be mean with my birthday right around the corner. And Alvinia started
crying
, only it was fake crying. And then she ran to Ms. Gupta and said she'd been bitten by a butterfly! And Ms. Gupta let her go to the office and get a cold pack!”

“Wow,” Darya said. She caught her mint when it fell off her brow and just ate it.

“What?” Natasha said. “Butterflies don't
bite
.”

“I know! There weren't even any butterflies around! She basically got a cold pack for nothing, and now she's going around telling everyone how scary butterflies are!”

“Butterflies aren't scary,” Natasha said. She felt outraged that this Alvinia person had suggested otherwise.

“Of course butterflies aren't scary,” Aunt Elena said. “My grandmother, who was you girls' great-grandmother, said that butterflies represent rebirth.”

“And rebirth
isn't
scary?” Darya said. “Um, zombies, anyone?”

“Our grandmother also said never to leave an empty bottle on the counter,” Aunt Vera replied archly.
“Otherwise it will soon be filled with tears.”

Everyone gave that some thought.

“How do the tears get in the bottle?” Ava asked.

“You'd have to cry right into it,” Darya said. “Or use the bottle as a Kleenex.”

“No,”
Ava said.

“Or put Alvinia in a room with lots of butterflies, and put the bottle in there too,” Darya went on. “It could be a test. If Alvinia
was
scared of butterflies, she'd cry, right? If she filled the bottle with tears, she could prove it.”

“There
aren't
any butterflies in the winter!” Ava said. “Which is how I
know
Alvinia didn't get bitten by one, because it's too cold!” She huffed. “What I
don't
know is what the butterflies do when it's this cold. Where do they go?”

“France,” Darya said.

“Some fly to warmer places,” Aunt Elena said. “Others hibernate.”

“Butterflies
hibernate
?” Ava said.

“They tuck themselves into the snuggest spots they can find,” Aunt Elena said. “Beneath the loose bark on trees, or inside a rotten log. They stay there until spring comes, and then they wake up.”

Aunt Elena glanced at Aunt Vera. “It truly is
magical, if you think about it.”

“If you say so,” Aunt Vera said.

“I do,” Aunt Elena replied.

“Did Mama?” Ava piped up.

“What do you mean, Ava?” Aunt Elena asked. “Did Klara what?”

Ava grew uncomfortable. “Just, was she on your side or Aunt Vera's? About the butterflies. Did she . . . you know . . .”

She didn't complete her sentence, but she didn't need to, not for Natasha.

Did Mama believe that butterflies were magic?
That's what Ava wanted to know.

“Never mind,” Ava said.

Natasha sensed the barest flicker of a memory. She strained to catch it, but it had already fluttered away.