Spell Check Page 8

  “Don’t panic, okay buddy?” When was the last time I’d called my brother Robbie? Or buddy? I really did need to work harder at being nice to the kid. The person in the car ahead of me was now out of his vehicle and standing at the slim space between our cars assessing the damage. “Everything’s okay,” I said—total lie, as I opened my car door and climbed out on shaky legs to join the other driver.

  I popped my head back into the car and tried to look comforting. “Really, Robbie. Everything’s fine. Stay here, and I’ll deal with this situation, and then I’ll fix yours. Okay? But you have to stay right here, promise?”

  He jiggled his head in a way that I decided to take for a nod.

  I joined the driver at the crunched bumpers. “Is everyone in your car all right?” I asked, hoping that my concern for him and his family would make me look like a responsible teenager. Maybe he wouldn’t call the police if he felt bad for me.

  No such luck.

  “Do we look okay?” the man demanded to know.

  I looked into his car and found that there wasn’t anyone else in there in spite of the fact that he had said, “we.”

  “Umm . . .” That was all I got out. Um. He immediately started ranting about teens in general and how I’d probably been texting instead of watching the road. Then he got on the phone and punched his finger into the dial pad three times. Only one number required three taps.

  9-1-1.

  I stepped forward, holding my hands in front of me in surrender. “I really wish you—” I stopped myself from finishing the sentence, wouldn’t do that. What would the results of such a statement be on him? Would he recognize magic had been done on him and turn me over to the state? Would there be another witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts? I didn’t want to even think about it.

  “I wasn’t texting.” I said this loud enough for him to hear me over his own words, “I’d like to report an accident.”

  He waved me away as he glared down at his bumper and gave the dispatch officer the address to our location.

  “I wasn’t even on the phone,” I insisted. “My phone was in my pocket the whole time.”

  He hung up. “Save it for the judge, kid.”

  “What judge? You think a judge is gonna come out here tonight to take my statement? I am so sorry I hit you, but I thought my brother was . . . choking. I was trying to find out what was wrong with him, when you suddenly slammed on your brakes. If you hadn’t swerved into my lane and made that sudden stop, this wouldn’t have happened!”

  If I thought he’d been glaring before, it was nothing compared to what his face looked like after my accusation.

  I closed my mouth, thinking maybe saving my arguments for the policeman would be best after all. No reason to give Mr. Road Rage more rope to hang me with. I’d already been hanged that week and kind of wanted to avoid any repeats.

  A police car arrived with its lights flashing but, gratefully, didn’t have its sirens going too. Poor Robison looked out at the scene with enough fear. Blaring sirens would not do that kid any good.

  The cop got out with a notepad and pen already in hand as he came to inspect the damage. He asked for our licenses which meant I was doomed. I’d get a fine, or they would make it so I couldn’t take the driver’s test for another decade, or they would cart me off to jail.

  But the officer didn’t mention much about the learner’s permit he took from my trembling fingers. He shot me a look that let me know we would be talking about it at some point, but now was not that time.

  He took a few notes while the other driver ranted about me and the sorry shape of the youth of today. He mentioned texting several times. I tried to interrupt, but the policeman shooed me away. “You’ll have your turn.” He turned back to Mr. Road Rage. “You keep saying ‘we.’ Was anyone else in the car with you?”

  Mr. Road Rage opened the passenger door and fished around a moment before presenting the policeman with a ferret.

  “Bacon was in the car with me. He’s obviously very upset by the whole thing.”

  “Your ferret’s named Bacon?” the policeman asked. I’d obviously gone up several notches in the innocent-of-wrong-doing scale since the appearance of Bacon-the-ferret. The policeman looked at the man with outright disbelief in his eyes.

  I used that moment to interject. “I wasn’t texting, officer. My phone was in my pocket at the time. It still is in my pocket. You can check my records to verify the last time I used it. I was driving my brother home from our dad’s house only a few blocks from our mom’s house. I did look in the back seat for a second because my brother seemed to be choking. But it was only a glance back.” I gestured to the man with the species-confused ferret. “He swerved into my lane and slammed on his brakes. He didn’t even signal. There wasn’t any warning. I hardly had time to react, but I reacted fast, or this would have been a lot worse.”

  “She was following too closely!” Mr. Road Rage insisted while cuddling his ferret against him.

  “I wasn’t. I wasn’t speeding or following him too closely. He was driving in the lane next to me before he shot in front of me and then decided to park his car in the middle of traffic.”

  “She wasn’t paying attention to the road.”

  “I did glance back, but only for a fraction of a second.” I waved at my brother looking mournfully out the back window at us all.

  The cop grunted, and strode to my car where he swung the backdoor open. “Can you step out here, son? I want to ask a couple of questions.”

  More tears from Robison. His lip quivered as he shook his head.

  “I need you to step out of the car.” The policeman’s stern voice inspired Robison to move. He swung his legs out and hurried to comply with the officer’s request.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  Robison looked at me, his eyes filled with alarm and confusion as to what to do next.

  I stepped between them. “His name is Robison.”

  “Let the boy answer for himself,” the officer said.

  Robison was already shaking his head as I hurried to say, “He can’t. He’s mute.”

  “For the love of—Are you buying that story?” Mr. Road Rage interrupted.

  I whirled on Mr. Road Rage. “He is mute! Just because you never stop talking doesn’t mean other people get that same chance! Some people can’t talk and making fun of them is just wrong! He’s just a kid. How would you like it if people started making fun of you for stuff? I am totally telling my mother that you verbally assaulted someone with a disability.”

  The angry man with the ferret closed his mouth.

  The officer bent low to look Robison in the eye. “Are you able to talk, son?”

  Robison shook his head, opened his mouth, and looked to be straining to speak. He patted his throat and shook his head some more.

  The officer grunted again as he straightened. He strode back to where the bumpers of the two cars met. “I don’t think the damage is too bad.”

  “My bumper has a dent!” Mr. Road Rage said.

  The officer leveled a cold look at the man. “That dent is rusted, so it’s been there awhile. Was that thing in a cage?”

  Mr. Road Rage danced back a step as if avoiding a swing aimed at his head. “What?”

  “Was your animal in a cage?”

  Road Rage’s face paled visibly in the wash of blue and red light rotating over us. The officer took the man back to the front passenger door and asked a third time, “Was your animal kept in a cage?”

  Road Rage slumped a little. “No, sir.”

  “Did you swerve in front of this girl?”

  He slumped a little more. “Yes, sir.”

  “Were you distracted by your animal running around uncontained in your vehicle?”

  He straightened a bit. “What’s the difference between that and her being distracted by her brother?”

  “Don’t make me repeat the question, Mr. Davis.”

  He looked flustered—with his pale face blushing up quite a
bit and his hands suddenly stroking the ferret a little too fast. At that point, it seemed plausible that I might not be getting the ticket for fault.

  That meant I had a few moments to try to offer Robison some comfort. I put my arm around him and whispered, “How you holding up, Robbie?”

  He opened his mouth to respond and then sniffled when no sound came out.

  “I am so sorry. I really didn’t mean to do this to you. But we’ll fix it—you’ll see. It’ll all be fine once we get back home.”

  He looked doubtfully at me.

  “I promise.” I pulled him into a weird sort of hug. It’d been a long time since I’d been genuinely nice to my brother. It was definitely time to change that.

  The officer was now yelling at Mr. Road Rage to the point that I wondered if someone was going to get handcuffed or shot. Had Mr. Road Rage acted better throughout this situation, there was no doubt I’d be in a lot more trouble. I should have been thanking him and his uncaged pet.

  Mr. Road Rage got the ticket for creating an obstruction on the roadway and was sent off grumbling after we exchanged insurance information and filled out a statement. Then the officer turned to pay particular attention to me.

  “You’re driving on a learner’s permit without a licensed adult in the vehicle,” he stated.

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” Contrition was my only defense. Lots of horrible things had happened, the least of which was me driving without a license. And I felt nearly consumed with guilt. How could I have been ruining my best friend’s life, vanishing my parents to who only knew where, and permanently silencing my brother? I was a nice person. Nice people didn’t mess up so completely.

  “Does your mom and dad know you have the car?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice with the unavoidable lie.

  He pursed his lips for a moment before saying, “Well, we’ll need to call them and have them come get you both. You have to have a licensed adult in the vehicle with you while driving.”

  “It’s not possible to call them right now. They’re out and won’t be back until really late. I only live three blocks from here. You can see the address on my learner’s permit. You can follow me home if you want, just to make sure everything’s fine.” I made the last suggestion with a bit of hope in my voice.

  He shook his head. “I just don’t think that—”

  “I really wish you’d believe me that everything’s fine. You can follow us home to make sure we’ll get there all right, but we’re okay. Really.”

  I hadn’t even realized I’d used the wish word until the tingling feeling of electricity on my skin gave me goosebumps. My mouth dropped in horror, and though I wanted to close my eyes against what might happen next, the officer just looked at me for several long moments—his face scrunched up in confusion.

  “Why don’t I just follow you home,” he said finally.

  I let out a breath, nodded my head in agreement, and hurried to spin Robison around to march him back to the car. If Robison’s eyes were wide before, they were now bigger than billboards. He stumbled as I herded him along and finally shoved him into the backseat.

  I jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car. In the rearview mirror, I saw the officer wave at me, signaling that it was okay to move into the street. I waved back then we both pulled away from the curb and onto the road.

  Three blocks later, we were home. The officer got out of his car and walked us to the door. He patted Robison on the head with all the sympathy a mute boy deserved and turned to me. “I don’t want to catch you out again without an adult in the car with you until you get your license.”

  “Of course, sir. I won’t. Not ever again.”

  He looked like he wanted to say more but seemed sort of confused. His eyebrows bunched together as though he were trying to make sense of something he couldn’t focus on for very long. He nodded, patted Robison’s head once again, and got back in his car.

  Robison and I hurried into the house before anything else happened. I slumped against the door and took several deep breaths of gratitude. At least I wouldn’t be going to jail. And the dent in the bumper wasn’t bad enough for Mom to even notice when she came home.

  Rob tugged at my sleeve and tapped his throat. His eyes threatened to spill over with tears again.

  I put my hands on his shoulders. “Okay. What I’m going to do is make a wish for your voice to come back. I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing. It might make things worse, but I want it to make things better. Just hold still. Okay?”

  He nodded, but looked terrified out of his mind. I took a hold of his hand, just in case he disappeared like Mom and Dad did, and looked him straight in the eye. “I wish Robison’s voice worked exactly the way it did before!” I yelled.

  Robison cried out when the charge of electricity filled the room and shot from me to him where our hands were connected. He threw my hand off of his and backed up until he was against the wall. His voice seemed full of awe as he whispered, “You’re like a Jedi. You told that cop what you were going to do, and he just went with it. You told me to shut up, and I couldn’t talk if I wanted to.” He stared at me some more before saying, “And I really, really wanted to.”

  “I’m not a Jedi.” I approached him slowly to avoid scaring him into running off. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something weird’s happening.”

  “Where are Mom and Dad?” he asked, the awe giving way to intense suspicion and accusation.

  “I don’t know.” A confession of truth was all I had to offer.

  “You don’t know?” And then a light went on in his head. “You wished you didn’t have parents didn’t you? You idiot! You wished them away forever!”

  I grabbed his hand at the same time he tried pulling away. “I did not wish Mom and Dad away! Why would I do that? I like them both just fine.” I dragged him into the TV room and gave him a little shove toward the couch. “Sit down while we figure things out, okay? I can’t have you going insane on me right now.”

  For the first time in his ten years of life, he did as I said, and sat down.

  I turned on the TV for him, offering a silent apology to my mom for rotting his brain, and pulled out my phone to try all the numbers my parents might be available at. Robison muttered a few words every so often as though he needed proof his vocal cords really did work.

  After two episodes of cartoons, I finally left to retrieve Mom’s address book in the kitchen. I called several of her friends, but no one had seen her.

  “And you said you didn’t feel troubled by the power,” a voice said from behind me.

  I gasped and fell back into the bookcase, knocking several of the recipe books and Mom’s address book onto the floor. The white-blonde-haired woman stood before me, smiling.

  “Can you help me?” I managed to sputter once I got over the initial shock of her presence.

  She lifted a shoulder. “The best thing you can do to stay out of trouble is give the power up. It’s too much to handle, causes too much heartache. Let it go when you get the chance. Let it go.”

  And she was gone again.

  “Thanks for nothing!” I shouted to the now empty kitchen.

  Things were getting desperate. My gaze fell on the address book on the floor to a number I hadn’t ever called on my own. Katrine Peterson in Sweden. The word Farmor was off to the side in parentheses written in my dad’s handwriting. I decided to do something I’d likely get skinned for. But this was an emergency, and I had no one else to turn to since Mom’s parents were both already dead.

  I called my grandma long distance to Sweden.

  The phone rang only once before my grandma picked up. “Hej,” she said, only it sounded like a cut off version of “hey.”

  “Farmor?” My voice quaked like dead leaves shivering off a tree in a storm.

  “Allyson. I’m so glad you finally called. Did you get my messages? How are you, älskling?” That was the word she used when she meant love.
She pronounced it elsk-ling.

  “Farmor, something horrible has happened. I don’t even know how to explain this without sounding crazy, but I don’t know who else to turn to. I can’t call the police without getting locked up—either in a mental institution or jail—both are possible. Everything has just gone all wrong, and it’s all my fault. My parents—”

  “Are missing?” She finished my sentence for me.

  My heart skipped a beat. “Yes! How would you know that?”

  “I’m your Farmor, älskling. I know all sorts of things.”

  And then I felt stupid for calling. How could she help me when she was oceans and continents away? “I wish—” I stopped myself and started again. “I really need you right now. It would be so much easier if you were here already. Everything’s just so messed up, and I need an adult to help me.” I’d considered unwishing for my parents the way I’d unwished Robison’s voice, but if my parents were together, did I really want to ruin that? And would unwishing really bring them back? I didn’t know and didn’t dare find out.

  “When things are bad, you fix them, ja?”

  I’d forgotten the cadence of her voice and the way all of her W’s sounded like V’s. She didn’t visit nearly often enough, and I had only been to Sweden one time when I was very small. I didn’t remember anything from the trip. Farmor always used little exclamations like ja, the Swedish version of okay.

  “I’d fix it if I knew how.” I slumped against the counter.

  The doorbell rang. My heart thumped while I answered it, feeling only a slight hope it was one of my parents, but Dad always knocked—he hated doorbells. And Mom had her own key. More likely it was the police returning to give me a ticket after all, now that he’d had time to think about what had happened.

  “So figure out how to fix it.” Farmor’s voice sounded firm.

  “You have to understand something to be able to fix it. And I don’t understand anything anymore. Hang on a second, Farmor. I gotta answer the door.” I wedged the phone between my ear and shoulder and swung the door open.

  Farmor stood on the front porch with a phone to her ear as well.