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  The Wishing World, Book 2

  Todd Fahnestock

  Copyright © 2017 by Todd Fahnestock

  ISBN: 978-1-941528-45-7

  Parker Hayden Media

  5740 N. Carefree Circle, Suite 120-1

  Colorado Springs, CO 80917

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Art credits:

  Cover design: LB Hayden

  Cover Graphics: © Christine Knopp

  For Granny Sharon, who loved the Veloran clock and lived its wisdom.

  We will miss you forever.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1. Where Nobody Listens to Me

  2. Lawn Fail

  3. Bring On The Snot

  4. Where I Pause to Reflect . . . Which Helps How?

  5. Here, Kitty, Kitty

  6. The Mouse. The Myth. The Gangster

  7. The Sea Without A Ripple

  8. A Quiet Conversation with Connie Crazyface

  9. A Tolkien Gesture

  10. So That’s a Ferbletick

  11. The Metaphorical Forest

  12. Now A Me, Then a Me, Everywhen A Me, Me

  13. Where I Get Sucky News, Which Is Apparently What I Need

  14. Where I Have Nothing to Say. Mark It on Your Calendar

  15. The Mirror Man

  16. Change Sucks

  17. The Upside to The Upside Down

  18. This Was What Was That Was Supposed To Be A— Wait, What?

  19. Always Be Yourself. Unless You Can Be Batman. Then Always Be Batman

  20. Knock, Knock, Who’s There? Never Mind

  21. One Of Those Days

  22. Ready? Set? Mouse

  23. Why is Lorelei Broken? Wait for It . . . Yes. Literally. Wait.

  24. Where I’m Caught Red-Handed

  25. How Connie Became A Three-In-One Shampoo

  26. The Real Mirror Man

  27. My Monster

  28. Where Darthorn Says . . . Nothing

  29. Where I Do Math

  30. Jimmy’s Story

  31. Sandbox Paradox

  Epilogue

  The Wishing World Doolivanti Diary and Visual Arts Contests:

  About the Author

  Also by Todd Fahnestock

  Acknowledgments

  Aaron Brown – For always being ready to toss around ideas. For your abiding love of writing and the journey of the writer. For being more excited about this one than any of my other manuscripts.

  * * *

  Dash Fahnestock – Thank you for the Ferbleticks and the Enterruption. You are my Robsombulous Rogues Gallery.

  * * *

  Elowyn Fahnestock – For the Metaphorical Forest, the Den-eye-al, the Literal Glade and the Sense Fence. How do you come up with this stuff?

  * * *

  Lara Fahnestock – The time crush during the writing of this book was the hardest yet. Thank you for your support. I can’t do this without you.

  * * *

  Liana Holmberg – For pushing me. Every time. Your blood runs through this book.

  * * *

  Chris Lamson – For giving me the similes who are always trying to get mixed up with the metaphors.

  * * *

  Chris Mandeville – For laughing aloud at Squeak and his moment at Question Rock. You fired me up to write the rest of the rough draft. You have been a constant support all along the way, in every phase of my writing career. I’m so lucky to be able to call you friend.

  * * *

  Mom – For all the morning conversations. You are an endless fountain of wisdom and high spirits. You keep my vision focused on the right things. And you are my favorite augur of the future.

  * * *

  Jim Swayze – For helping me make the bridge between dreams and reality. For all of your support on the journey of The Wishing World, which led to this book. For helping me shape and polish the business side of being a writer.

  One

  Where Nobody Listens to Me

  My head hurt, but not from the math test. Those questions actually had answers, which was nice because nothing else was working the way it should.

  I turned the test in, went to the windows, and picked up my teacher’s giant snowglobe. The snowglobe was comforting. Like math, it made sense. Everything stayed where it was supposed to stay. You did what you thought you ought to do, and it responded the way it should, and there it was. It didn’t run away on you, and it didn’t get angry at you.

  Hey, snowglobe, how about some snow?

  I turned it upside down, and the little white flakes flurried everywhere. Good snowglobe. Happy snowglobe.

  André had left. And now my chest ached all the time, like it was hollow in there. It was my fault, but I couldn’t figure out how. He was my responsibility, and I’d botched the job. Maybe I just didn’t know what right was anymore, and while I was trying to do what I thought was right, I kept messing it up. Lorelei, making mistakes all over again. When did that become my life? Was a twelve-year-old supposed to have this much responsibility?

  He’d vanished ten days ago, and since then Bad skipped over Worse and went straight to HorribleAwful. I couldn’t do anything right. Theron was so mad at me that he’d gone completely off the rails. See, he may look like a ten-year-old boy with golden curls here on Earth, but when he goes to the Wishing World, he turns into an eight-foot-tall knight covered head-to-toe in mirrored armor plates. He rides around in a forest on a giant pug dog named HuggyBug and beats up bullies. And he’s, like, invincible. That’s his Doolivanti self, and he wants it back.

  And I’d made the mistake of telling my best friend Jayla the stories about the Wishing World. Now she’s mad, too, because she wants to see what kind of Doolivanti she’d become.

  Also Gruffy the griffon, who led me to the Wishing World in the first place—and who I could communicate with through a hand-held mirror at home and who is the sweetest, beakiest, featheryest friend a girl could have—had stopped answering me. So he was probably mad at me too.

  And then, of course, there was the new development had kept me up all night: the Wishing World was leaking through to Earth. Double yikes with a “what does that mean?” on top. A patch of Starfield was slowly spreading on the playground, and a Tasting Tulip had grown in the girl’s bathroom.

  At first, I thought this was something cool to get excited about, like talking to Gruffy whenever I wanted. But it wasn’t cool. It was like getting excited about having scrambled eggs. You get the pan out, heat it up, crack the egg, then all of a sudden you’re frying a frantic, hopping chicken!

  The Wishing World—the place where anything could happen and kids could become powerful Doolivantis who could change reality—was leaking into Earth because I’d ripped a hole in it last year. Safe bet. Jayla wanted me to take her to the Wishing World for the first time. Bad bet. Theron wanted me to take him back to the Wishing World. You bet. Let me rip another hole, just for you.

  And André . . .

  He had never asked me for anything, hadn’t asked even once for me to take him back to the Wishing World. And I knew he was miserable here, that he longed to return to his Flimflams. I kept telling myself he’d shake it off, that he just needed a little more time to adjust to Earth. I mean, we both knew that the Wishing World plus me equaled a bi
g, red rip in the sky. But now he’d vanished like a runaway.

  Or like he had found a different way back to the Wishing World and—

  A loud CRACK-O-BAM shook in the room. I dropped the snowglobe and it shattered.

  At the front of the class, a flaming guy fell through a hole in the air and crashed onto the floor. He scrambled upright, his three legs flailing and his three hooves sparking on the tiles. He was about as tall as me and three times as wide, with big, hairy shoulders. His hair was a campfire. Lava leaked between gaps in his teeth and into his bushy beard, which glowed like burning steel wool. He gripped a fire-whip that curled in the air like a lizard’s tongue, licking a black scorch line across the ceiling.

  My classmates screamed and went ape nuts. Chairs overturned, papers flew. My teacher, Ms. Freeman, slammed backward against the dry-erase board, mouth open. Some kids bolted so fast they were already out the back door to the playground.

  I so wanted to go with them. My heart jumped into my throat. But this guy was obviously from the Wishing World. Or, like, the third ring of hell. Either way, I couldn’t leave. I had to do something.

  I yelled and stood my ground. Because barbaric yawps give you courage, right?

  It petered out into a mewling caterwaul as I ran out of breath. That didn’t sound scary at all. I grabbed a pencil and forced my shaking legs to climb on top of a table.

  “Hey Flaming Beard-O!” I said, and my words came out loud and forceful. Much better. Note to self: I am better at talking than yawping. Of course, I had no idea if I could do anything to him. Except for calling Gruffy on the mirror, I hadn’t used my Doolivanti power since I’d left the Wishing World. But if the Wishing World was leaking through, maybe I could make some magic.

  Or, like, I’d be a girl crisp real soon.

  “Skyburner . . .” Beard-O said to me.

  Oh, great. Now I have a name, and I’m popular with the hairy thug club.

  Then the Flaming Beard-O peered past me at my best friend Jayla, who gaped like a fish on land. He started toward her—

  Oh, no way, Hairy Legs. Stay away from my best friend.

  I jumped onto the cluster of tables between them. Beard-O stopped, and his gaze narrowed on me. That’s right, Lava Drool, eyes here.

  He roared, raising his whip.

  Beard-O back to Veloran. I wrote hastily.

  It worked! I could feel the power flow through me like in the Wishing World. Just like the first time I’d met Gruffy in my parents’ bedroom, the words burned in front of me.

  Beard-O tried to say something, choked, then stumbled backward. The air opened up and swallowed him. It burped, and a single waft of smoke curled up from where he had been.

  “What the what? Lorelei!” Jayla shouted, looking at me, scared and excited. She hadn’t spoken to me since I had told her “No, I can’t take you to the Wishing World.” Maybe she thought this was a good thing?

  The class, and my teacher, gawked at where the Flaming Beard-O had been.

  And then it happened: Ms. Freeman blinked lazily, like she was about to conk out for the night. Then her eyes got clear, and she frowned. Her slender eyebrows bunched together.

  “Lorelei Lark!” she said sternly. “Get down!”

  Grownups couldn’t remember a thing about Veloran. Not Starfield patches. Not a giant flower in the girls’ bathroom. Not even a Flaming Beard-O that had just burned the ceiling. They swapped it out with another story in their minds, and that story was usually blaming me.

  “But I—” I started.

  “Down,” she said.

  I got down and waited while she let the rest of the class out to an early recess. I glanced at the snowglobe, glass and water all over the floor. Perfect. That summed it up.

  “To the principal’s office,” Ms. Freeman said, poking her finger at the door. She guided me down the long hallway. “It’s destroyed, you know,” she said. “You can’t put a snowglobe back together.”

  I didn’t say anything. What was I going to say? I was framed by an air-burp? Sorry you can’t remember a man made of fire?

  I just followed and kept my mouth shut. I could argue all day, using the burn line on the ceiling and smoldering hoof prints in the floor as proof, but it would all turn back on me. Adults just phased out about stuff that popped out of the Wishing World. She’d already made her judgment.

  My judge dropped me off at the jury and executioner’s office. Principal Stevenson was on the way out with his phone to his ear. “I’ll be right there.” He ended the call and looked at Ms. Freeman. “Are you kidding me? What happened now?”

  “She jumped on top of the table and threw my snowglobe across the room,” Ms. Freeman said.

  “Unbelievable.” He leveled a finger at me. “You sit. Stay.”

  Woof.

  “Where are you going?” Ms. Freeman asked him.

  He glanced at me, shook his head. “Playground. He’s up the flagpole.”

  “Who is up the—” Ms. Freeman cut herself off, almost glanced at me, but didn’t. That was probably worth a new gray hair for her, resisting that. Like I didn’t know who they had to be talking about. Who was strong enough to climb a flagpole? Gee whiz, who could that be?

  They left together, and I got up from my chair and watched them hurry up the long hallway. There was no one else in the office. I gave a quick peek behind the receptionist’s desk. Nope. No one. I waited a second, then I followed them and slipped out to the playground.

  A crowd of kids and teachers clustered around the flagpole, looking up. Yep. It was Theron. Off the rails and up the pole. Thanks for not growing up at all, little brother. Thanks for the help.

  He clung to the golden ball at the top of the pole, the American flag flying next to him. His wavy blond hair shifted in the wind; his shoulders –wider than any fifth grader’s shoulders ought to be– were bunched as he clung there. His jaw was clenched and his gray gaze flicked over the crowd like he had laser vision. He looked like a superhero recruitment poster. Join the American Derps and be a goober to your sister.

  Nobody had to tell me what this was about. Theron had found a bully. He’d stopped him, then he’d run here when the teachers came for him. Theron had recently made the Charles Hay Elementary School playground his new Kaleidoscope Forest. He spent his entire recess hunting for bullies. I’d tried to get him to quit when I first found out. Here, rhino, hold still. Let me put this collar on you. Yeah. Fail.

  Theron was spooked by everything that was happening, and when he got scared, he fought. Except there was nothing to fight against, so he went looking for a fight. He felt it was worth some sky-ripping to find out what had happened to André and Gruffy. But he hadn’t ever ripped a sky before. He didn’t know what it felt like to have the Wishing World start to die because of you.

  The adults squinted up at Theron, nervous, their hands up to block the sun. The pole was at least two stories high; a long way to fall. Theron’s teacher, Ms. Quintana, called to him, “Theron, please come down.”

  I saw Principal Stevenson on the far side of the group, so I shuffled quietly behind Ms. Quintana so he couldn’t see me.

  “He broke Eric’s nose?” Ms. Rampart murmured in disbelief to Ms. Quintana.

  Ms. Quintana nodded.

  “How can he even hit hard enough to do that?” Ms. Rampart asked. “Isn’t Eric a sixth grader?”

  “Theron’s very strong.” Ms. Quintana tipped her chin at the flagpole.

  “He’ll slide down soon.”

  Ms. Quintana shook her head. “No, he won’t. We’re going to need a fire truck with a ladder,” Ms. Quintana said.

  So it was Eric Bragg. I knew him. He was big and mean-spirited. I could see it all in my mind. Theron quietly following Eric, waiting, knowing he would cross the line sooner or later. And then Eric would have pushed someone or stolen someone’s ball or something. That’s all Theron would need. He would launch himself at the larger boy: Hi, I’m the Unstoppable Force. Have you met me?

  Ms. Quint
ana spotted me. “Oh, Lorelei, good,” she said, like she had been expecting me. Ms. Quintana was always low-key. She knelt down next to me. “Can you get him down?”

  I didn’t know what the world record was for hanging on a flagpole, but Theron could probably beat it. Especially if I told him not to. But I walked forward anyway. Everyone watched me and stepped out of the way. Even Principal Stevenson saw me now, but he didn’t say anything.

  Theron glared down at me. I knew that saying the wrong thing would be worse than saying nothing. I had to reach him, connect to him, get around his temper . . .

  “You’re being a butt!” I called up to him.

  Okay, that slipped out. But I was so angry! How was I supposed to deal with André vanishing, Gruffy going silent, and Flaming Beard-Os popping into our world when Theron refused to help me? I needed my brother. I needed him to be on my side.

  “He deserved it,” Theron yelled. “He broke this kid’s toy and was going to hit him. Then he tried to hit me! I’m not going to the office for something he deserved. They should send him to the office.”

  “Stuff is happening, Theron, and you’re not helping by picking fights,” I shouted. “This isn’t the Kaleidoscope Forest!”

  “You don’t want to do anything,” he shouted down at me. “You don’t care!”