Selfish Elf Wish by Heather Swain

Author:Heather Swain
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-07T22:00:00+00:00

chapter 15

THERE’S ONLY SO much time a person can cry, and I think I’ve exhausted my quota for a year. Since I got home last night, after we sang at Rockefeller Center, I’ve pretty much been facedown on my bed, bawling like a motherless kitten. If only I hadn’t done that stupid dance, I wouldn’t have pissed off Bella and she wouldn’t have kissed Timber like that, and I wouldn’t have gotten mad, and Timber would still be speaking to me. But I blew it! I wanted so badly to make him like me that I ended up making him run away.

All day long, my mom has been in and out of my room, rubbing my back, bringing me tea, and asking me if I want to talk about it. I don’t. My grandma has brought me ointments to sniff and balms to rub into my heart to help ease this heavy ache that’s filled up the space between my ribs, but it hasn’t worked. My little sisters and brother have sneaked in, one by one, to push my hair out of my face and leave me little presents on my pillow. Dad and Grove even stopped in this morning when they got home for their overnight gig in Boston, but I didn’t want to talk. Briar has kept watch over me the whole time, plotting and planning Bella’s downfall through a series of hexes and spells, but I’m afraid that everything I’d try would blow up in my face.

Sometime this evening Briar told me she was going out with Kenji, who, of course, can’t be apart from my cousin for more than ten minutes without losing his mind. And so, I think I’ll stay in my bed until I have to drag myself to school on Monday. I’ll just stare at the ceiling, wishing I could cry some more, except by now I feel like a washcloth that’s been wrung out and left to dry.

Then there’s a knock on my door. It’s not the soft knock of my mother, or the rhythmic knock of my dad, and it can’t be Grandma Fawna because she doesn’t knock at all. This is more of a quick pounding, followed by, “Enough’s enough!” Then Mercedes is in my room, flipping on the lights, yelling.

I pull the covers over my face. “Can’t a girl mourn in peace?”

“Get on up, mija!” Mercy says.

Ari’s close at her heels, tapping away on his CrackBerry. “I got a tweet from Kenji,” he announces. “We’re going to Red Hook.”

I pull my pillow over my head and groan. “You guys ...” I whine, then turn over and twist myself down inside my covers.

But Mercedes is having none of it. “It’s time to celebrate and you’re coming with us.”

“What’s there to celebrate?” I ask, my face still buried.

“Miss Mercedes Isabella Rios Sanchez has landed herself a professional audition,” Ari announces.

I pop up in my bed. “Mercy, that’s wonderful!” I open my arms to hug her. “Was it one of the talent scouts from the performance yesterday?”

“Hell, yeah,” she says with a big grin.

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