As You Wish

by Nashae Jones

Overview

A girl learns the hard way to be careful what she wishes for in this middle grade rom-com featuring a chaos-loving West African trickster god that’s a “delightful exploration of friendship, mental health, and first love with a touch of magic” (Kirkus Reviews).

Birdie has big plans for eighth grade. This is the year that she gets a boyfriend, and since she and her best friend, Deve, do everything together, it makes sense that Deve will get a girlfriend. This is the kind of math Birdie doesn’t find intimidating—it’s Eighth Grade 101. (Birdie + Boyfriend) + (Deve + Girlfriend) = Normal Eighth Grade Experience. And normal is something Birdie craves, especially with a mom as overprotective as hers.

She doesn’t expect Deve to be so against her plan, or for their fight to blow up in her face. So when the West African god Anansi appears to her, claiming to be able to make everything right again, Birdie pushes past her skepticism and makes a wish for the whole mess to go away. But with a trickster god, your wish is bound to come true in a way you never imagined.

Before long, Birdie regrets her rash words…especially when she realizes what’s really going on with her and Deve. With her reality upended, can Birdie figure out how to undo her wish?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665939911
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

Nashae Jones is a kid lit writer because at an early age she learned what the magic of books could do for a developing mind. She always dreamed of creating worlds that would stay for a reader long after they put down their books. Nashae is also an educator and book reviewer (kid books, of course). She lives in Virginia with her husband, daughter, son, escape artist Husky, and two black cats that Nashae is convinced are reincarnations of Pinky and the Brain. You can find her on X @Jones_Nashae.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One CHAPTER ONE
Long ago, in the heart of Africa, there was the first spider, Kwaku Anansi, and he was a trickster god.

MOST FRIENDSHIPS—

Well, let me back up a bit.

There are many different kinds of friendships. So maybe I should define what I’m actually talking about. Friendships are, in fact, a lot like peanut butter. There are some really quality peanut butters (here’s looking at you, crunchy peanut butter), there are some okay-ish peanut butters (creamy can go in this slot), and then there are some peanut butters that are downright inedible (Mom’s organic, sugar-free, homemade peanut “spread”). Friendships are the same way. I have creamy-peanut-butter friends, and we get along just fine. I also have what you would call Mom’s-peanut-butter-style of friends. Well, maybe these people aren’t really my friends. The relationship is more of a love-hate kind of thing (emphasis on the hate). Okay, okay. Maybe I only imagine these people as my friends, as they’re really popular and it’s fun to envision a world where we’re friends, but in a cold, icy kind of way. Then there are crunchy-peanut-butter kinds of friends.

Let me start again. Most crunchy-peanut-butter friendships start on the playground with two kids swapping sand-filled sandwiches and soggy crackers, and then—bam—you have a built-in BFF for kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and beyond. Unfortunately for me, before I was born, my mother took a class titled The Dangers of Childhood, and she did not let me go to the playground (they were cesspools of germs) or on playdates with other children (what if they weren’t up-to-date on their shots?).

So while other children started kindergarten with friendships already locked in, I started school not knowing a soul while also donning latex gloves that stretched up to my elbows. I spent that day simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the presence of other children (honestly, didn’t somebody, somewhere, tell my mother how important socialization is for kids?), and for the most part they avoided me, only getting near enough to borrow supplies from my basket or to covertly snatch up a toy.

My first day of school was miserable, and I told my mom that I never wanted to go back. To comfort me she decided to make me my favorite food, funnel cake. And this wasn’t just any old funnel cake. This was a funnel cake with the works. It was topped with canned peaches, whipped cream, and drizzled chocolate. I was taking my first bite when the doorbell rang, and I was ushered to the door to meet our brand-new neighbors, the Banerjees. When I first met Deve, he stood in between his mother and father, his head heavy with inky curls, and his skinny body in clothes that were just a bit too big for him. Deve’s father was a tall man. He had to hunch his shoulders under our low doorframe. Deve’s mother was a beautiful woman. She clutched Deve’s shoulder with one hand while cradling a sleeping toddler with her other.

“Hello,” Deve’s father said. “We’re your new neighbors, the Banerjees.” He had a strong, sure voice, a voice that commanded attention and respect. “My name is Pratul. This is my wife, Aritra.” He pointed to the woman. “And those are our children, Deve and Mishti.” The toddler jostled in her mother’s arms when she heard her name.

“Well, hello! Come on in,” my dad said. My dad loved hosting. My mother, on the other hand, was convinced that any new acquaintance was (A) likely to be part of a covert child kidnapping ring that sold kids to the circus, or (B) a carrier of the second coming of the bubonic plague.

“Edwin, perhaps you’re forgetting something?” As in, he was forgetting about the sure dangers lurking in every corner of the world. My mom used her I am very serious. You’d better listen to me voice.

But my dad is a pro at handling my mom’s anxieties. He placed a warm hand on her back, a subtle sign of support. He was like my mom’s own personal stress ball.

“Aw, you’re right, Belle. We didn’t introduce ourselves. I’m Edwin Nkrumah. That’s my wife, Belle, and that little one over there is my daughter, Bernadette,” my dad said, pointing to me.

My dad kept his hand steady on her back, and the tension seemed to leak out of my mom bit by bit.

“Nice to meet you,” Aritra said, flashing all of us a smile. My mom, being a sucker for a nice smile, smiled back, and with that small gesture they were allowed to come in.

My mom and dad balance each other out that way.

The adults set Deve up at the kitchen table to eat funnel cake with me while my parents showed the Banerjees around the house. Before she left us in the kitchen, my mom vehemently promised she’d be back as quickly as possible, and she pleaded with me to chew my food at least ten times before I swallowed, to prevent choking. Deve sat across from me, his floppy hair in his eyes and his mouth settled into a frown. He wore the same expression that the rest of the kids at school had had when they’d seen me with my gloves on, the Look at this weirdo expression. I ignored him just like I had done with all the annoying kids at school. I stuck my fork into my funnel cake and began to eat.

Deve broke the silence first, but his mouth was full of funnel cake. “Why are you dressed like a shoe keeper?”

I huffed, losing count of how much I’d chewed that particular bite. “How do I look like a shoe keeper?”

“I said ‘zookeeper,’?” Deve insisted. “The person who takes care of the animals at the zoo.”

“I know what a zookeeper is,” I mumbled irritably. “But I don’t look like one.”

He pointed to my yellow gloves. “Zookeepers wear those to pick up poop.”

I stuck my nose in the air. “My gloves are not poop gloves. They protect me from germs,” I replied smugly. “It’s completely normal.”

But then I thought back to all the stares from the kids in my class. Was it normal?

Deve remained quiet.

“Did you know there are about one billion trillion species of germs in the world?” I asked. I’d forgotten the actual number, so I came up with a number that sounded about right. For some reason I wanted him to think I was normal.

I continued, “And you can die from germs if you aren’t careful. So I wear gloves to make sure I stay safe.”

I shoveled another bit of funnel cake into my mouth. Deve still hadn’t said anything.

“What’s the matter?” I asked slyly. “You want your own gloves now, don’t you?”

“No,” Deve said, picking up his fork to take another bite of funnel cake, this one with a peach. His expression brightened with a flicker of delight. “I don’t.”

“Well, why not?” I grumbled, folding my arms across my chest.

Deve shrugged. “Seems kind of pointless. That’s all.”

“And why’s that?”

Deve pointed to my exposed head with his fork. “You can breathe in germs through your nose. So aren’t the gloves kind of useless?”

I hadn’t thought of that. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

“It just seems like the gloves wouldn’t really work.” Deve continued to eat the funnel cake, stopping every few seconds to glance up at me. “I really like this. What is it called?”

“Funnel cake,” I mumbled back.

Deve nodded. “I like it,” he said again simply.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “It’s my favorite.”

Deve smiled, spooning a big chunk into his mouth. “I think it’s mine, too.”

“How is it yours? You didn’t even know what it was five seconds ago.”

Smiling, Deve shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it can’t be my favorite.”

I humphed. I was irritated. In fact, I was beyond irritated. My plate was clean. It had been for at least three minutes, and now I had to sit there and watch some strange boy eat my favorite food. The same strange boy who thought I was a weirdo, like all the kids in my kindergarten class did.

Deve looked up again, examining me, pushing his floppy hair out of his eyes. He noted my scowl, and his smile dropped off his face. After a moment of silence he pushed the plate toward me.

“Here,” he said. “You can have the last bite.”

“You don’t want it?”

Deve shook his head. “I’m full,” he replied.

Gratefully I speared the remaining piece of funnel cake on his plate. I plopped it into my mouth with a satisfied grunt.

Deve watched me with a smile.

I eyeballed him across the table. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Deve wasn’t who I’d originally thought he was. “I guess funnel cake could be your favorite food too. It is pretty yummy.”

“Yeah, it is,” Deve said, smiling wider.

I moved to get up from the table, grabbing our plates so that I could set them in the sink.

“You know,” Deve said from behind me, “gloves might not protect from all germs, but maybe they’re cool anyway. Maybe I will get a pair.”

So, yeah. We didn’t meet on the playground, but Deve is a total crunchy-peanut-butter friend, and he has been since that day.

He is my ride or die. My bestie for the restie. My person. And as my designated best friend, he is who I depend on during life-altering, cataclysmic emergencies. Such as the one I’m having right now.

“Deve-e,” I huff out.

Being under five feet at thirteen does have certain advantages. For example, when I’m in class and I’m feeling a bit sleepy, I can slink down a bit in my chair, and because everyone else is so much taller, I can hide and take a quick nap.

But my lack of growth isn’t doing me any favors right now, as I’m currently stuck in the gap of one of the clubhouse folding chairs during the pool’s end-of-the-summer party.

“Deve,” I whisper-hiss. This is a delicate situation. On the one hand, I definitely want to get out of this death contraption that is parading as a pool chair, but on the other hand, I don’t want to call attention to myself by yelling for Deve, since he’s currently relaxing in a dead man’s float at the deep end of the pool, near where we’ve stationed our chairs. And seeing as several of my classmates are in attendance, I do not want to make more of a fool of myself than I already am.

So, yeah. This situation is fairly sensitive.

“Deve,” I try again. But it is impossible to reach him over the splashing water from cannonballs, the high-pitched squeals of giggling girls, and the crackly music coming out of the clubhouse’s broken speakers.

“Ugh, forget this,” I mumble. I don’t need anyone else to help me. I’m a strong, independent woman.

I wiggle, trying to free myself from the chair’s grip. I sway back and forth, grasping the metal sides of the chair and trapping me under the chair.

I can feel myself loosening from the chair’s vinyl claws. Aha! Victory!

I sway a little harder, easing myself out just a bit more.

As soon as I feel myself completely loosen from the chair, I spring up with way too much vigor, and I fall spectacularly onto the ground, the chair flipping over me and trapping me under it, like I’m in a cage.

Well—I squeeze my eyes shut—I guess I’ll just have to live under this chair now.

“Birdie?”

It’s Deve. Relief swoops through me.

He moves swiftly, removing the chair from over me and setting it off to the side.

I look over to the other side of the pool, where a group of shiny, put-together popular kids are gathered in a circle talking. Good, they didn’t see anything. But relief is followed by this feeling of smallness, because of course they didn’t notice me. Why would they? I’m just the class weirdo. The girl with the extremely overprotective mom. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the complexities behind my mother’s anxieties. When I was younger, my dad sat me down for a serious conversation and used words like “brain chemistry” and “medication,” and other things that I didn’t really understand. What I did understand was that my mom was different, and it wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t make dealing with the fallout from her anxiety any easier.

Deve crouches down next to me, his normally smooth face wrinkled into a frown.

“Oh, hey,” I say, smoothing out my curls, which I assume now look similar to Frankenstein’s bride’s. “Imagine meeting you here.”

Deve’s face relaxes, his mouth melting into his signature Deve smile. He slides down onto the grass next to me, still dripping with water.

“Well, I heard a rumor that this was the place to be.”

My smile practically splits my face as our eyes connect.

Deve knows what to do to make everything okay. He always does. Even when I fall out of a beach chair in the middle of a pool party.

“Um, are you okay?” His face morphs into a more serious expression. He scoots closer to me, his hip bumping mine. His eyes flick first to my face, then to my arms and legs, checking me for bruises.

“I’m fine,” I mumble. It’s annoying that Deve still automatically checks me for bruises like I’m a toddler or something. He makes way too many irrational promises to my mom about watching out for me. I understand that she’s worried for me, terrified even, but I’m thirteen, which is practically an adult. My mom should trust me to take care of myself. I focus back on Deve. “I would be better if you weren’t sitting so close to me while literally dripping water.”

Deve barks out a laugh, moving back slightly. “You’re at a pool, Birdie. People typically expect to get wet at pools.”

I hop up and pull the treacherous chair back to its original spot. I carefully perch on the edge of it, pushing my newest thrift find—red heart-shaped sunglasses—down onto my face.

I scrunch up my nose as Deve pulls another chair next to mine.

“That’s not true.” I push my glasses farther up my nose. “I could’ve come for emotional support. You know, for you. You’d be lost without me. Admit it.”

Deve snorts. “You totally came for the food.”

“Did not,” I huff indignantly. Although, the two-for-one fries special was something I 100 percent wouldn’t have missed. Fried starchy deliciousness, covered in a gooey cheese sauce that would horrify my mother. Absolute and total heaven.

“Did too,” Deve says with a laugh.

“In fact, I came to swim,” I say, fixing the strap on my black one-piece suit.

“Uh-huh,” he replies with skepticism. “Where’s your swim cap, then?”

Darn Deve for knowing that I wouldn’t risk getting into the pool without my swimming cap. My curls and chlorine do not mix.

I give a tiny half shrug, turning away from him.

Before I can stop him, Deve is shaking his head, spraying me with water droplets.

I yelp, pushing him away. But he stays put, a smug smile on his face.

“Okay, okay,” I gasp, laughing. “You win. You’re right. You’re right.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you.” He starts to tickle my elbow, a move that is sure to make me snort.

“No fair.” I flail away from him, while in fact snorting. “But I said”—I suck in a breath—“you were right.”

I lean over him and snatch a towel from his bag, then wipe the droplets from my face and arms. I silently pass it over to him, avoiding his gaze.

“I would swim,” I say, “but my mom made me promise not to if there wasn’t a lifeguard on duty, and since the clubhouse doesn’t use lifeguards, I’m stuck on land.” I shrug, and Deve nods.

No matter how much I try to explain to my mom that her excessive safety protocols are making me the resident school weirdo, she still insists on implementing them at every turn. Dad only just convinced her that this summer I should be able to go to the pool with Deve without an adult escort. And that still required a three-hour seminar from Mom on the different strains of bacteria that live in pools.

“That’s fine. I think I need to take a break myself.” Deve towels off, making his black curls stand up in an adorable cowlick on top of his head. “Stop staring, weirdo,” Deve says with a crooked smile.

I stick my tongue out at him, and he laughs. I lean back on the chair, careful to mind the gap. Deve follows my movement, leaning back in his own chair. He’s nodding and mouthing the words to a nineties R&B song we both love. My dad introduced us to old-school R&B when we were eight. He’d let us listen to his old cassette player, sliding headphones first onto my head, then onto Deve’s. Now we’re both obsessed with the music.

Deve has put on a pair of old aviator glasses, ones I bought him for his birthday last year. He should look silly in his T. rex swim trunks, aviators, and cowlicked hair. But he doesn’t. He looks purely like Deve. My best friend.

“Did you hear me?” Deve asks.

I startle. “Um, no,” I answer honestly. “I’m sorry. I was kind of spacing out.”

Deve nods seriously, his gaze dropping to his hands, which are clutched together tightly in his lap. He opens his mouth to say something but hiccups instead. Deve only hiccups when he’s nervous. I’m immediately put on guard.

“I was just trying to say—well, I was letting you know that there’s this thing at Liam’s tonight. His parents are letting him have a back-to-school bonfire. And I kind of got invited, so—”

“Oh! Sounds… awful,” I blurt out.

In fact it really doesn’t sound awful. It sounds great. Epic even, but I wasn’t invited. Of course I wasn’t invited. But even if I’m disappointed (and I am, I really am), I can’t let Deve know that. Because then Deve wouldn’t go, because he wouldn’t want to let me down. And I can’t let him do that.

Deve’s mouth droops at the corners, and his eyebrows jump up. “Awful?” The word rolls off his tongue as if it’s completely foreign to him.

“Yeah.” I give him a one-armed shrug. “It sounds awful. All that fire and those sticks, and it’s probably going to have a lot of not great food. Sounds like something I one hundred percent wouldn’t be interested in.”

Not my most convincing argument, but it’s going to have to do. It’s going to have to be enough to convince Deve that I’m not some deadweight dragging him down, that he can go and enjoy himself without feeling sorry for his poor loser friend.

Deve doesn’t say anything for a while. He just stares at me, his cheeks pink from the sun.

After a prolonged moment of silence, Deve finally clears his throat. He absently pats the top of his head, flattening his cowlick, looking down at his knees.

“Well,” he says, still avoiding my eyes. “I guess I can forget asking you to come with me, then.”

Wait, what? I freeze in place, my eyes locked on Deve’s bowed head. He was going to ask me to go with him? A little spark of hope bubbles in me, rising higher and higher. Was I originally on the invitation list, and somehow my name was left off? Maybe Liam told Deve to invite me, because he’d made a mistake and forgotten to let me know about the party? But then the bubble pops as I think about how far-fetched that sounds. The reality is that Deve is inviting me because I’m his friend and he feels bad for me. But the truth of the matter is that I would be holding Deve back by going to this party with him.

“Look, Deve—”

But before I can finish, a loud, high-pitched voice interrupts us.

“Deve, Birdie! I didn’t know you guys had memberships here.”

We both swivel around in surprise. Ava Langley stands in front of us, clasping the hand of our neighbor, Cole Watson.

My mouth drops to the ground. If there is anyone known for being more of a weirdo than me, it’s Ava Langley. Ava, who constantly laughs so hard that milk spouts from her nose. Ava, whose parents own a traveling amphibian exhibit. Ava, who also spends her free time perfecting her cane toad mating call.

That same Ava is standing in front of me wearing a tankini and gripping the hand of Paxton Middle School’s star basketball player, Cole Watson.

“You guys know my boyfriend, Cole, right?” she says with a smug smile.

I don’t say anything. I can’t. I’m still in complete and utter shock.

Deve pinches me, and I yelp. He gives me a look that he’s made a hundred times before. The Be nice, Birdie look.

“Yeah, nice to see you, Watson.” Deve gives Cole a nod.

Cole throws his hand up in a salute. “Bro,” he says to Deve. “Are you coming tonight to the thing at Liam’s house?”

Yep, the bonfire. The hangout that Deve wants to take me to out of pure pity. The one I’m 99 percent sure I’m not invited to.

“I hate fire,” I blurt out. The words are out of my mouth before I actually realize what is happening.

Slowly all three of them turn to focus on me. Deve is back to pulling at his rogue cowlicked hair, his eyes wide and blinking in surprise. Cole looks equally surprised, his mouth hanging open so widely that I swear I can almost see his tonsils. Ava, for her part, does not stay shocked for long. Her face soon settles into a smug expression. Poor thing, her look says. In that moment I want to scream from the unfairness of it all.

Cole is the first person to break the awkward post-blunder silence.

“Um, yeah. Cool?”

Cole is acting like he doesn’t know quite what to say to me, like I’m a toddler asking him for something completely unreasonable, and he’s afraid I’ll throw a tantrum if he tells me no.

“I don’t think I’m going,” Deve replies, bringing the conversation back to Cole’s original question. He gives me a quick glance. “I’ve got to get ready for school tomorrow.”

He’s lying. Deve wants to go to this party, and he’s not going because he’s trying to protect my feelings. Deve feels sorry for his absolute loser friend.

I slump down in my chair.

“Avaaa,” a voice echoes from the other side of the patio.

We all turn toward the sound, and I zero in on the source. Gigi, who was the seventh-grade captain and is a shoo-in for the eighth-grade captain this year, waves at Ava from across the pool.

Ava turns her attention back to me. “Sorry,” she simpers with a smirk. “I have to get going. My friends need me.”

Ava pulls Cole’s hand and makes a hasty exit to the other side of the pool.

She’s climbed up the social ladder, and she’s leaving me dangling at the bottom, hanging on for dear life.

For a couple of seconds neither Deve nor I say a word.

“Ava Langley is popular,” I blurt out.

Deve runs a hand down his face. “Yeah, it looks like it.”

“And dating Cole Watson.”

“Well, Cole has always had a healthy appreciation for frogs—”

“And,” I say, interrupting him, “she’s no longer at the bottom of the weirdo ladder.” My voice breaks. “That’s me.”

“Hey.” Deve turns to face me, sliding his hands over mine. “You’re not at the bottom of the weirdo ladder. You’re—um, well, you’re—”

He stops to scratch his nose, twin spots of pink appearing on his cheeks.

“You’re perfect the way you are.”

I blink.

He thinks I’m perfect? Is that a weird thing for Deve to say? I let the thought shuffle around in my head before pushing it away. Deve doesn’t mean I’m perfect like in a lovey-dovey, hearts-and-flowers kind of way. He means I’m the perfect best friend for him. And it’s true. There isn’t another person who’d be better suited for me.

“Hey,” Deve says again, shaking me out of my thoughts. I look over at him, and he’s squinting at the area near the clubhouse vending machines. “Isn’t that your cousin Erin?”

My head whips around to the spot he’s focused on. A tingle of warmth shoots through my chest. It is Erin. Erin Johnson is my favorite cousin, and even though she’s a year older than me, and way more academically driven, she and I have always bonded over the fact that we are both outcasts. Erin and I are Black girls in a town where that is a rarity, and our mothers are the source of a lot of angst. Even though we are different in many ways, fundamentally she is the person in my family I feel the most like. That is, I did feel that way, until last year, when she started dating her boyfriend, Trevor Jin. The same Trevor who is standing next to her, holding her hand by the vending machines.

“And is that Trevor?” Deve says as if he’s reading my mind. “Is he wearing a collared shirt? It’s, like, one hundred degrees out here.”

I nod numbly. Trevor has a knack for overdressing.

I watch as Erin whispers something to Trevor, and his face lights up immediately with joy. I examine Erin, and she seems different somehow—almost like she’s morphed into a better version of herself. One thing she isn’t anymore is an outcast. That honor now belongs solely with me.

Deve is looking over at me curiously. “Are you going to go say hi?”

“Yeah,” I say, pushing myself up from my seat. “I probably should.”

But before I can, some high schoolers call to Erin from across the pool, and she and Trevor grab their snacks from the vending machine and make their way over to their group of friends. Friends that I’m certain she didn’t have before she started dating Trevor.

I plop back down, watching Erin laugh at something a girl in a pink polka-dotted bikini says.

“Never mind, I’ll just talk to her later.”

I really didn’t want to go over there. Plus, what would I say? Hey, Erin, sorry to intrude, but I just wanted to come say hi, even though it’s probably super embarrassing for your eighth-grader weirdo cousin to interrupt your vibe.

Deve simply nods.

My eyes flick over to Ava. She’s laughing with a group of girls, smiling in a way I’ve never seen her smile before. Cole is standing by her side, his arm draped lazily over her shoulder. Nobody is ignoring her, giving her weird looks, or reminding her of the time when her mother came in for career day to give a presentation on the many ways germs can kill you. She’s just existing, enjoying herself, being normal. And suddenly it clicks. It’s the only thing different about Ava. The only thing different about Erin, too. The one reason for both of their seemingly thriving social lives.

“Ineedaboyfriend.”

Even as I say it, I know that I need more than that. I need a complete reinvention, a new start. But having a boyfriend is a solid place to begin my last-year-of-middle-school transformation.

Deve’s eyes widen in surprise, and the older woman seated on the other side of Deve wrinkles her nose at me.

Deve angles his body closer to me to box out our nosy neighbor.

“Did you just scream that you need a boyfriend?”

“Well,” I mumble. “I don’t think I screamed.”

“Hmm. Yeah. You definitely screamed. I think a flock of birds just flew from that nearby tree.”

I laugh, pushing his shoulder with mine. “You’re so making that up.”

He grins and shrugs. “You can’t prove it.”

I roll my eyes and laugh. Our shoulders are still touching.

“So,” Deve says slowly. “You were saying something about a boyfriend.”

Right, a boyfriend.

I spring back from Deve. “Yes! I have a plan.” Why is my voice so squeaky? Has it always been like that?

“A boyfriend plan?” He and I look at each other at the same time, and then we both look quickly away.

“Yes,” I answer, straightening, clearing my throat.

“What I was going to say—”

“It’s our last year of middle school—”

We stop and look at each other.

“You go first,” Deve offers.

“Okay.” I shift slightly in my seat. “You remember how I said I was at the bottom of the social food chain now?”

Duh, he remembers, Birdie. You literally said it less than two minutes ago.

He echoes my thoughts. “Of course I remember. I have not experienced any kind of memory loss in the last seventeen seconds.”

“Well, I think I figured out how I can change that.”

“Really.” Is it me, or does Deve look a bit wary now?

I charge on, staring into the water. “So, here’s the plan. I’m going to get a boyfriend. A cool boyfriend like Ava has with Cole, and boom, no more bottom of the middle-school mosh pit for me. Genius, right?”

When I look at Deve, he’s turned away from me. I poke his back.

“Hello? Earth to Deve.”

Deve sighs, pulling at the ends of his hair.

“Deve?” I say again.

“You’re saying that you want to get a boyfriend so you can be more popular?”

Well, when you say it like that…

“Not just more popular,” I reply defensively.

I think about my reasons. This year, eighth-grade year, is important. It could be the year of reinvention before my reputation is cemented in the dystopia that is high school. It could be the year when I fit in. It’s not like I don’t have friends. That’s not the issue. I have Deve and our mutual friends, Summer and Arlo, who I know love me no matter what. But that’s not the same as fitting in, as being my own person. I don’t want to be the girl with the weirdly overprotective mom. I can be someone different, someone—

“Normal,” I blurt out. “I want to be more normal.”

Deve’s face softens. “Birdie, forget normal. I like abnormal Birdie. That’s the Birdie who’s my best friend.”

I offer him a small smile. There’s another reason why elevating my social standing is important. It’s that… even though Deve happily stands by me through all my mom’s weirdness, I know I’m holding him back. Deve is many things—funny, friendly, intoxicatingly nice-smelling, a pretty great lacrosse player—but sometimes I feel like the only reason he doesn’t have a horde of adoring friends and a full social calendar is because of his neighbor-turned-best-friend. But I would never tell Deve this, because he wouldn’t understand. Because unlike me, he’s normal.

“That’s great, Deve, but it’s not enough. I—”

Before I can say anything else, there’s a flash behind my eyes, and for a moment all I see is this insanely bright golden light.

One second. Two seconds. Then it’s gone, and I can see again. I shake my head in befuddlement.

I look over to Deve to ask him if he saw the flash of light too, but he’s already standing, his pool bag slung over his shoulder.

“Did you hear me?” he asks. “We’ve got to go. I can’t be late for dinner. My mom will kill me.”

I shake my head. Clearly we’ve been exposed to the smell of chlorine for too long, because now I’m seeing flashing lights where none exist.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

I scramble out of my chair, grab my own bag, and hurry to catch up to him as he walks toward the gate.

We walk the rest of the way home, neither of us speaking, not even once.

Editorial Reviews

"Delightful and droll."— --Shelf Awareness

"This fun, middle-grade offering reminds readers that what you wish for is sometimes already there." — Booklist

"A delightful exploration of friendship, mental health, and first love with a touch of magic."— Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher