Three Evil Wishes (2 page)

“N
o,” I cried. “It can't be!”

A second form stepped out from the bushes.

The Burger brothers.

No wonder Barky was yapping his head off!

“Yo!” Mike called.

“Hey—yo!” Roy greeted us.

“Wow! Two words! Good vocabulary!” Jesse exclaimed.

I shoved him. “Shut up! Don't get them angry.”

The Burger brothers shuffled toward us. Their big bellies bounced under their T-shirts. Their dirty brown hair was combed over their foreheads, nearly covering their puffy, round blue eyes.

“What are you doing here? Leave us alone!” I snapped.

Mike grunted.

Roy muttered something I couldn't hear.

Barky yapped angrily at them.

“You're scaring our dog!” Jesse cried.

Roy snickered.

“That's a dog?” Mike asked. “Sure it isn't a rat? Huh-huh-huh.”

“That's not a rat,” Roy added. “It's a gerbil.”

They both held their big stomachs and laughed really loud. Big, fake laughs.

Barky growled.

“Kind of ugly for a gerbil,” Roy said, eyeing Barky.

“That dog looks like something I picked out of my nose,” Mike declared.

They laughed again.

I noticed Jesse picking up a stone. A pretty big stone. He hid it in his fist.

Oh, no, I thought. Don't start trouble, Jesse. Don't try to act brave with these two guys.

Mike turned to me. “Yo. How come you're here?”

“We're . . . skipping stones,” I told him.

He scratched his thick brown hair. His round eyes grew wider. “Yeah?”

“Hey—show us how,” his brother demanded.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed.

“No problem,” I said. I picked up a flat white stone. Then I stepped to the edge of the shore. Pulled my hand back. And tossed the stone across the surface of the lake.

It skipped twice before it sank.

“You stink,” Roy told me.

Mike let out a high-pitched giggle. He shoved Jesse toward the water. “You try, shrimp.”

“Okay, okay,” Jesse muttered. He already had the stone in his hand. He heaved it hard. It skipped once, then it sank into the blue-green water.

“You stink too,” Roy observed.

Jesse turned on him angrily. “Can you do better?” he demanded.

“Yeah. Watch,” Roy replied.

He picked up Jesse's backpack. Raised it high above his head.

And heaved it into the lake.

“Hey!” Jesse shrieked.

The black backpack floated on top of the water for about five seconds. Then it sank to the bottom.

“Wow,” Roy muttered, staring at the water. A wicked grin spread across his face. “It didn't skip.”

“Let
me
try!” Mike declared.

He picked up my backpack and tossed it into the water. It sank even quicker than Jesse's.

“Mine didn't skip either,” Mike said, pretending to pout.

“Guess you two win!” Roy exclaimed.

The two of them bounced off into the woods, laughing their blubbery heads off.

Jesse and I stared at the lake. My mouth dropped open. My legs suddenly felt rubbery and weak.

Our books. Our homework. All on the bottom of Fear Lake.

“I'm going to get them one day!” Jesse's voice was low and angry. He balled his hands into fists. “My science project is in my backpack. My homework is in there. My textbooks. Everything!”

We stared at the water in silence.

“At least they didn't throw them very far,” I said finally. “Maybe we can pull them up and dry our stuff out.”

Jesse stared at me. “You really want to go in
there? In Fear Lake?”

The lake, just like the woods, had a pretty creepy reputation. “No. I don't
want
to go in,” I replied. “But what choice do we have?”

Jesse knew we
had
no choice. We had to go in.

We pulled off our shoes and socks and rolled up our jeans as high as they would go.

“That water is going to be freezing,” Jesse warned.

I hoped he was wrong. I walked up to the edge of the lake and peered in. Above, the sun slid behind
clouds again. The water was so dark and cloudy, I could barely see the bottom. I dipped my big toe in for half a second—and drew it back.

Cold. Very cold.

“I can't believe the Burger brothers did this to us!” I cried. “I
wish
we could pay them back!”

I took a deep breath and waded into the cold water, moving as fast as I could. The cold took my breath away. I gasped. And shivered. And gasped again. I wrapped my arms around my body to keep warm.

“Whooooa!” I shouted. Did something slimy brush up against my leg? It sure felt like it. And in Fear Lake, I wasn't taking any chances. I started to wade back to the shore—fast.

“Jesse! Something's here—in the water!” I shouted. “Something
alive!”

Jesse grabbed my wrist. “Yeah. They're called
fish.”

Together we walked a few more steps into the dark, cold water. Then, in front of me, something splashed to the surface.

A fish?

No. It bobbed in slow circles just under the surface.

What could it be?

“Got it!” Jesse cried.

He yanked his backpack up from the water. “Yuuuck!” he moaned. The backpack was covered in black mud.

I lowered my eyes to the water. The strange object began to bob toward me!

A voice in the back of my mind told me to get out of the lake right away. To stay away from that thing in the water.

I should have listened.

But instead, I took a step forward. I squeezed my eyes shut—and reached out to grab it.

I
wrapped my fingers around the object. It felt slick and hard. I pulled it out of the water and held it up to examine it.

A bottle?

Yes. It
was
a bottle. An ordinary brown glass bottle with a cork in it.

I let out a sigh of relief. Nothing spooky or weird about a bottle. Someone probably threw it in the lake after a picnic.

I was about to drop the bottle back into the water, when I noticed something strange about it. It should have been cold—but it felt warm. Warmer than my hand.

I held on to the bottle as I hunted for my backpack.

“Found it,” I called to Jesse, who was already onshore.

I dredged up my backpack. Gross. It was muddy and covered with clumps of soggy green weeds.

I waded back to shore with the bottle and my backpack. “Hey, Jess. Check out this bottle. It feels warm and—”

The bottle jerked in my hand!

I nearly dropped it.

Did something
move
inside it? Was something
alive
in there?

I tried to peer through the brown glass. But it was thick and dirty. I couldn't see a thing.

Get a grip, Hannah! I thought to myself. Nothing could be living in this old bottle.

I turned to Jesse. He frowned as he stared at his mud-soaked backpack. “Totally ruined,” he moaned, shaking his head. “Now I have to tell Dad about my sneakers
and
my backpack. He'll freak. He'll totally freak.”

I began to answer Jesse, when I felt my hand grow warmer. The bottle was heating up! It jerked in my hand again. Harder this time.

Something very weird was going on here. I set the bottle down in the grass. I didn't want to hold on to it another second.

“Hey, what's that?” Jesse asked, nodding his head toward the bottle.

“What does it look like, brain? It's a bottle I found in the lake.”

“Wow. It looks
really
old,” he said, bending down to examine it.

He reached out and picked it up. “Yuck! It's . . . it's
hot!”

So I wasn't going crazy! There really
was
something strange about that bottle.

Jesse held it up to the sun. He squinted his eyes, trying to peer inside.

“Is there a note inside? People always do that in the movies.”

“I found this in the
lake,
Jesse. People don't throw bottles with notes in them in a lake. They throw them in the ocean to see how far they will travel.”

“Hey, maybe it's got money inside!” Jesse cried. He tried even harder to see through the dark brown glass. He shook the bottle.

“Oh, yeah, people are
always
throwing bottles filled with money into the lake.” I scowled at my brother. “Look, just put it down, okay? We're soaked. We have to go home and change.”

Jesse ignored me as he squinted at the bottle. “Hey, it feels as if it's getting even warmer.”

“Jess, put it down!” I insisted. My voice quivered.

“What's your problem, Hannah? It's just a bottle.” He turned it around in his hand, inspecting every inch. “I'm going to open it.”

“No! Wait!” I cried. I grabbed the bottle from him. “There's something written on the side. Maybe it's important.”

“If you say so.” Jesse sighed.

A yellow label clung to the side of the bottle. The letters on it were so faded, I could barely make them out.

“ ‘Danger,' ” I read out loud. “ ‘Do not open.' ”

The bottle began to vibrate in my hand.

I jumped.

This was definitely
not
my imagination.

I dropped the bottle back to the ground and kicked it away. “This bottle is bad news. I'm not opening it! I don't even want it near me!”

It sat there on its side in the grass. Then, slowly, it rolled back to me.

“Did you see that, Jesse?” I whispered. “It—it moved on its own!”

Jesse groaned and picked up the bottle again. “It just rolled. Bottles do that.”

“Let's go,” I urged. “I told you what it says on the label. We are
not
supposed to open this bottle.”

Jesse took hold of the cork. “That's stupid.”

“No, Jesse,
don't!”

I reached out to swipe the bottle from him.

Too late.

He grasped the cork and tugged it out of the bottle.

T
he cork came away from the bottle with a loud
pop!
And a stream of thick purple gas shot out of the opening.

Ohhhh! What a
sick
smell!

I started to choke on the sour gas. I held my breath and clutched my throat with my hands.

Jesse was sputtering and coughing. The bottle thudded onto the ground as it fell from Jesse's hand.

The awful purple gas swirled around us like a tornado. It lifted up leaves and twigs. It howled through the trees.

“Wh-what's going on?” Jesse choked out.

I dropped to my knees and grabbed for the bottle.
I thought maybe I could cork it back up. Stop the gas from shooting out.

I gripped the bottle in one hand. But where was the cork?

Before I had a chance to search, I heard my brother's cry.

“Hannah—whooooa! Check it out!”

I raised my eyes. Dark purple clouds of smoke gathered together, growing thicker.

“Jesse,
what's happening?”
I shouted above the roar of the swirling wind.

The purple clouds floated together to form a thick ball of whirling gas. I crouched down close to the ground and held my breath. I squinted as the howling wind whipped dirt and leaves into my face.

The purple clouds pulled together. Thickened. Took shape.

I saw two arms. A broad chest. Two legs formed from the swirling purple gas.

The purple clouds tossed and tumbled.

And then a head rose on top of the swirling body.

A man's head. An old man's head.

The smoke stopped twirling. The body settled to the ground.

The howl of the wind ended. All was silent now.

No more swirling gusts of gas. Only the sour smell remained.

Jesse and I gaped in amazement. The old man—
all purple, all shades of purple—stood before us in a flowing purple robe. He blinked his purple eyes. He worked his jaw and rubbed his chin.