Instead of Three Wishes (9 page)

“She is.”

“We haven't had a clever person here in years.” Mechemel's mother sighed, and Mechemel promised that when he had taken care of his obligation to Selene, he'd try to find something that would amuse her, maybe a videocassette recorder.

He was always back at the house in New Elegance Estates in the late afternoon to share a cup of tea and a long talk with Selene's mother. While they talked, they ate Selene's scones. They discussed history, more often than not; it was Selene's mother's passion. She was particularly interested in Canadian history, and Mechemel, who had lived through a good part of it, was able to provide eyewitness reports of several events. He, of course, lied about the source of his information.

So a little of Selene's mother's loneliness was relieved, and a little of Mechemel's mother's boredom, but Mechemel got no closer to finding a gift to repay Selene. With each passing day, he was more determined to choose a gift without parallel. Money was too easy. He wanted something better.

In the springtime, New Elegance Estates looked as good as they ever did. All the weeds were blooming. The empty streets were washed clean by
nightly rains. Mechemel walked home one evening, avoiding puddles, carrying his bag of groceries. He heard footsteps pounding behind him and turned to wait for Selene. Behind her, the number seventeen bus pulled away.

Selene didn't bother to evade the puddles. As she ran, she stamped heavily into each one in her path, spraying water in circles across the pavement. She slowed down before she reached Mechemel, but several especially motivated droplets landed on his shoes. He leaned to look at them over the top of the grocery bag, then looked at Selene with his eyebrows raised.

“Heavens,” she said, “will you melt?”

He watched the drops evaporate before he answered dryly, “I think I'm safe. Did you have a good day at school?” He made a hook with his elbow, and she caught her arm through it. They walked shoulder to shoulder toward home.

“Good enough. Only sixteen more days to go.” When they got to the front yard, Mechemel pointed with his chin.

“Your bush has rejuvenated.”

Selene was stunned. She had never finished the job that she'd started the day Mechemel arrived. All winter, the tree had stood with its trunk sawed halfway through. Now that the warm weather had come, tiny shoots of green had sprung from the bark below the cut.

“I think you'll find that you can cut away the
dead part and those green shoots will grow up into a very pretty bush.”

“You said it was a bush before, what did you call it?”

“
Salix bebbiana
. It's one of the diamond-barked willows.”

“Goodness, you know a lot.”

“Not everything,” said Mechemel.

That was the day that the letter came. Selene found it in the mailbox at the top of the ramp to the front door. She dumped her schoolbooks down in the front hall and sat beside them while she read it. Mechemel watched her face grow pink with pleasure and then fade with disappointment.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, it's a letter from the Boston School of Culinary Arts.”

“Yes?”

“I sent them my scones by overnight mail. As a sample of my work. They liked my scones, and they say I can enroll in their school.” She looked up at Mechemel. “They are very exclusive. It's an honor just to be invited to enroll, especially for the pastry program. Listen,” and she read aloud from the letter. “We thank you for your application. The judges enjoyed your scones and feel that although their charm is rough, you may have talent worthy of cultivation.'”

“Sounds very pompous,” said Mechemel.

“They are, but famous, too.”

“Did you want to go study there?”

“Lots.”

“Then why aren't you more pleased?”

“No money,” said Selene.

“Ah,” said Mechemel, suddenly understanding.

“Besides,” said Selene as she folded up the letter and put it away, “there's Mother. She'd hate to move to Boston. And I couldn't leave her here on her own, so it's no go either way.”

“What will you do instead?”

“Probably take the job they've offered me at the school cafeteria. It's full-time.” She collected her books and left Mechemel standing in the front hall.

After a while, he put his bag of groceries down and went back out the door to visit his mother.

 

The next day was Thursday. Selene came home late, but the sunset was not yet over when she closed the front door behind her.

“Selene,” her mother called, “come into the living room.”

Selene went to the doorway. “Only fifteen days left,” she said to her mother, who had her wheelchair pulled up to the coffee table. Mechemel was sitting on the couch next to her. “What's up?” Selene wanted to know.

“Remember that elf prince?” said her mother.

“Oh, no,” said Selene. “He hasn't resurfaced, has he?”

“He has,” said Mechemel.

What now? Selene almost said aloud, but thought better of it. She looked at Mechemel and blushed.

“He's been slow,” said her mother, “but he has finally selected a present for you.” Mechemel handed Selene an envelope. Inside, a piece of parchment, much adorned with ribbons and seals, informed her that she was the recipient of a centennial scholarship awarded for excellence in the Very Fine Art of Scone Making and that the Mechemel Foundation would pay the tuition and board at the School of Culinary Excellence of her choice, so long as it subscribed to the high standards of the foundation.

“But I told you—” Selene directed a fierce look at Mechemel.

“And,” her mother interrupted her, “while you are away at school, Mechemel's mother has most graciously invited me to stay with her. For as long as is necessary to complete your education,” she emphasized.

“With her?”

“And myself,” said Mechemel.

“Yes,” said Selene's mother with a smile, “I'll be able to give Harold your regards.”

“Zowee.”

 

So Mechemel arranged for a dryad to move into the willow in the front yard and keep an eye on the house. Selene went to Boston, and her mother became great friends with the elf queen. In the
evening, they sometimes watched television together, but mostly they talked. Mechemel sometimes stopped in, and the three of them discussed the Meech Lake Accord and the French and Indian War. In the summer, Selene came to visit as well and demonstrated what she'd learned in school: cherry coulis, blancmange, clafoutis, mille-feuille, and puff pastry with fresh strawberries picked in the forest by the sprites. And every afternoon, she made a fresh batch of scones for tea.

S
ummer vacation had long since trailed off into empty days and boredom. Twice that afternoon the boys had been chased away from the bus stop, where they liked to hang out, making boasts and idle plans. The manager of Orly's deli stepped out of his doorway ready to chase them away a third time; the bus stop benches were for people who used the buses, not for a bunch of near adolescents who had nothing to do with their time but make trouble.

With their hands in their pockets and their chins in the air, the boys prepared to move on, pretending to themselves that it was their decision, not somebody's pushing, that was making them go, when a bus pulled up and squeezed out a puddle of tired commuters.

It was Kevin's idea to follow the dowdy old woman. He gestured to his friends, and they fell in behind him. Walking tough with their hands still in their pockets and their shoulders rolled forward, they followed her up the sidewalk until she turned
off on Fifty-fourth Street. They turned the corner as well and pulled a little closer. The old woman glanced back. She wasn't really old, not much older than Kevin's mother. Her skin was smooth, but the hair that pushed out from under her knit hat was streaked with gray. Her dress was gray, as well as the coat she wore. She was dingy and drab and not very interesting. Kevin wasn't sure why he had chosen to follow her.

The woman turned left at Blackstone Avenue. When she looked back again, she could no longer pretend that coincidence kept her and the boys on a shared path. She put her head down and walked faster.

Kevin, stepping along in front of his friends, matched her speed, feeling proud of the anxiety a group of seventh graders could inspire. He and his friends had never done anything like this. Although they'd bullied the younger kids at school, they'd never before intimidated an adult. He thought it was a turning point. No doubt when school started in a few days, Kevin and his friends would be able to make even the high-school kids sit up and take notice. Absorbed in his daydreams of power, he didn't notice that the woman ahead of him had stopped until he almost ran into her. Startled, he stepped back and bumped the boy behind him.

“Well, what do you want from me?” the woman snapped with a ferocity that hadn't been there only a moment before.

Kevin felt the blood rushing to his face as his daydreams broke up. He felt foolish and was afraid to be laughed at by his friends. He swept his shattered dignity together and said in a cocky voice, “I want whatever you've got.” Behind him, his friends stirred nervously. They had been teasing the old woman for fun, and Kevin was pushing things further than they were willing to go. Their hesitation drove him on.

“Come on, lady, what have you got?”

“This is what I've got and you can have it.” She pulled her hand from her coat pocket and threw something at him. He cupped his hands in front of his chest and caught it there. Something that felt like a blob of Jell-O smacked into his palms, but when he looked, his hands were empty. He looked up again as the woman disappeared into a nearby apartment building. The lock on the door clicked shut behind her.

Kevin looked down at the sidewalk to see if he had dropped whatever it was. He saw nothing. He shrugged. “Come on, let's go up to Walgreen's. Get some candy and stuff.”

 

That night, Kevin lay in bed listening to the television that was on in the living room. It was a murder mystery that his parents were watching. Listening to the dialogue, Kevin tried to visualize the story in his head. The lady had told everyone that she knew who the killer was, even though she didn't. She just
guessed. But she thought that if she pretended she had evidence, the killer would come after her and then she would have proof to take to the police. Now she was alone in the house at night and the killer was getting closer. There were long periods of silence broken by little crackling noises and suspense music. Kevin figured the killer was lurking in the bushes outside the house. The lady in the house thought she was safe, but she wasn't. The killer was getting closer. He crept up the steps of the back porch. Kevin rolled over on his side. The killer started checking the windows to see which one was open. The killer stepped from the back porch to the ledge of Kevin's window, but it was safely locked. The killer rattled the frame just to be sure. Then he stepped back onto the porch. Kevin could hear him checking the lock on the kitchen door, turning the knob, and bumping the door back and forth. Kevin wanted to call for help, but he was alone. After a few minutes, the bumping stopped. Kevin relaxed.

Then he heard the creaking of steps in the stairwell. Somehow the killer had gotten through the front door of the apartment building. He was climbing the stairs to Kevin's apartment. Terrified, Kevin realized that his front door wasn't locked. He tried to jump out of bed and run down the hall to the door, but he couldn't move. Lying there in the dark, he heard the front door opening. He heard the footsteps in the hall, getting closer and closer. The killer was coming. He was bringing something
horrible with him. He crept closer with each step until Kevin knew that the killer stood in the dark right outside his own bedroom door. Kevin couldn't see, but he knew the door was opening.

Kevin threw the covers off and jumped out of bed, ready to run, but there was no need. It was morning. The sun was coming in his window. The door to his bedroom was still closed. It had all been a nightmare. With his knees still shaking, Kevin got back in bed and huddled under the blankets.

The next night, giant snakes slid out of the ground all around the apartment building. They slithered through the dark, up the fire escapes, and across the back porch. They curled on the window ledges and pressed their cold bodies against the glass. Each one carried a mirror in its mouth that clicked and scratched against the window.

In the morning Kevin couldn't convince himself that the snakes weren't still there. He wouldn't leave the apartment until his sister had been outside and down the stairs without being eaten. By the time he found his friends at the basketball court, they had already chosen teams, and there was no room for Kevin to play.

 

After the third nightmare, Kevin was desperately happy to see the morning. He set off to the schoolyard, tired but cocksure, confident that the power he had wielded as a sixth grader in an elementary school would be waiting for him as a seventh grader
in junior high. His confidence disappeared with his lunch money when kids from the high-school side of the building shook him down in the schoolyard.

Kevin had never been in a school where students changed classes with each subject. He didn't share a homeroom with his friends; he had no one to remind him that he was cool and tough and didn't need to be intimidated by a complicated schedule and unfamiliar teachers. He had to bully a couple of kids out of their small change to make himself feel better and get enough money for lunch.

Lunch should have been a pleasure. Kevin had never known a school cafeteria to sell ice-cream sandwiches. They were all he had money for, but they were all he wanted. He never saw the foot that snaked out and tripped him as he made his way to the junior-high side of the lunchroom. His lunch tray flew into the air as he stumbled to his knees. The whole lunchroom laughed. Somebody stepped on his sandwich.

In the afternoon he got lost and ended up in the high-school side of the school, where he was chased by the same group that had taken his lunch money in the schoolyard.

“Hey, Kevin,” they called down the hallway, “we heard you're really tough.”

“We heard you were the big man of the sixth grade.”

“Big deal, Kevin.”

They tipped his books out of his arms and left him with a scatter of papers to collect.

“We'll see you tomorrow, Kev. Don't forget your lunch money.”

 

By the end of the day, Kevin had forgotten there was a reason to dread going to bed.

“Nothing,” he said to himself as he settled between the sheets, “could be worse than today.”

The giant snakes came back. This time they crawled up to the front door and slid beneath it. They came under the back door and through the bathroom drains. They slid down the hall to Kevin's door and bumped against the doorknob. Terrorized, Kevin buried his head under the covers. The snakes slid under his bed and came up along the walls. Kevin could feel them hunting through the rumpled blankets. When they found Kevin, they pushed their mirrors against his skin, cold and sharp and insistent. Kevin moaned. He kept his face hidden in the pillow until one very insistent poke forced him to turn over. He looked into one of the mirrors and saw a reflection of his day.

Over and over he watched himself handing over his money to the older boys. He writhed with misery and embarrassment as his ice-cream sandwich flew through the air, and again and again he watched the sneaker stamp down on it. He heard the whole lunchroom laughing in muffled roars
like the noise of an underground train.

“Big man of the sixth grade, Kevin?” He was surrounded by high-school students, and he saw himself with their contempt and disgust. He relived every horrible scene of the day, and there was no relief. He saw himself bullying smaller kids and felt no surge of arrogance and power. Instead, he watched from their eyes, and he looked hateful and insecure. He didn't look tough. When he was trying hardest to look tough, he only looked ridiculous.

Mesmerized by the mirror, Kevin watched his whole day pass over and over until he had seen it from the viewpoint of every person he'd encountered and felt every person's opinion.

In the morning, he was exhausted. He dragged himself out of bed and made his way into the kitchen on shaking legs.

“Mom, I don't feel well. I don't want to go to school today.”

His mother laughed. “Only one day and already school makes you sick? Go get your clothes on. There's nothing the matter with you that breakfast won't cure.”

The days passed. The nights passed, too, but more slowly. No matter what he did, Kevin spent each night reviewing his actions with loathing. Every night the snakes came and prodded him with their mirrors until he dragged his face out of the pillow. In miserable and unavoidable detail, he watched himself through other people's eyes.
Inevitably, anyone who noticed him did so with contempt or malicious amusement or loathing. The mildest emotion he ever registered was distaste from his science teacher. No one was ever impressed by him; no one ever admired him. No one thought him good-looking or fashionably dressed.

Most unfair of all, he never once saw himself through the eyes of his friends. He would have protested this, he would have protested everything, but who was there to protest to? Instead, he tried to sound out his friends. He asked them about their dreams but lied about his own. Some of the other kids had had nightmares, but they didn't sound anything like his. Of course, how was he to know? If he was lying, maybe they were, too. He began asking trick questions, hoping to catch them in a lie, but this earned him a few strange looks, and he and his friends drifted further apart. They shared no classes, not even lunch, and somehow it was easy to avoid meeting them after school. Kevin found that if he went straight home and sat in his room, those hours at least would not show up in the mirrors at night.

Why, though, did everyone hate him so much? Why did no one ever think anything good about him? Couldn't he at least dream about what his friends thought, just once?

 

The apartment was locked the next day when he got home. His mother wouldn't be back for hours, so Kevin left his books by the door and went to
look for the gang. They were surprised to see him, but they made room for him at the top of the fence next to the play lot. They spent the afternoon together. They stole a basketball from one of the littler kids and shot baskets for a while. Then they wandered down to the vacant lot by the train tracks and smoked cigarettes that Jerry had taken from his father. The rest of the gang wanted to go to Walgreen's to see if they could lift some candy, but Kevin backed out. He had an idea already that his dreams would be bad. He could guess what the people in Walgreen's would think of him. He went home. He did his homework and ate dinner and went to bed.

That night, watching himself in the mirror, he saw himself through his friends' eyes. None of his friends liked him much. Since the first day of school, when they had watched him fork over his lunch money, they'd been embarrassed to have him around. Kevin wasn't cool. He was a nobody. Every day the high school kids asked him for money, and every day Kevin handed it over just like all the other nobodies in the school.

In the morning, Kevin put his clothes on and, desperately miserable, headed to school. The first bell hadn't rung yet, and the yard was full of people talking about their boyfriends or girlfriends or future or ex boyfriends or girlfriends. Everybody was making plans for the weekend. Kevin couldn't face his friends after the previous night's revelations.
He turned left and walked around the school to the front entrance, one that was almost never used. It was deep in a recess formed by the gymnasium wall on one side and three stories of classrooms on the other. The sunlight passed right by without stopping. The wind swirled a couple of pieces of paper and a pop can in a corner against the steps while Kevin sat on the cold concrete steps and thought about how a perfectly normal life can turn into a disaster and all it takes is two weeks in the seventh grade.

The bell rang. Kevin went inside. He dumped his books in his locker and moused his way through another day. He'd never done homework in the sixth grade, but he did it now. There was nothing else to occupy his time as he sat alone in his room every afternoon. And he found that he liked it. He liked the orderliness of mathematics once he understood the rules, and he got almost the same kick out of solving problems that he used to get stealing candy from Walgreen's. He wished his life were as easy to work as a math problem.