personal enjoyment

the story of my secret

I have secret powers. No, I'm serious. Well, really, I have one secret power, and an odd one at that. Let me tell you how it happened.
It was Halloween and I was eleven years old. My best friend Amy and I had just gotten back from trick-or-treating and we were sorting through our loot, dumped out on the living room carpet. I was a gypsy but had stripped off my bracelets and bangles so that nothing would get in my way.

"Do you want my Mounds, Lynne?" Amy asked. She was Raggedy Ann and she didn't like coconut.

"Sure. Do you want my Tootsie Rolls?"

"OK." We made little piles of different kinds of candy, threw away boxes of raisins, and counted pennies. We unwrapped Peppermint Patties and popped them into our makeup-smeared mouths. Then, among the pennies, I saw a ring.

"Lookit this," I said, picking it up. It looked like copper and was bendy, like a ring from a bubblegum machine. It was a simple band with a pattern of X's around it. "Is it yours?"

"No."

"Huh. Cool." I tried it on. It was loose on my index finger but didn't fit my thumb. I took it off. "Did you get one?" Amy looked.

"No. No fair. I wonder who gave it?"

"I don't know." So we went back to our trading.

It was a few days later that I put the ring on again. I was alone in my room playing dress-up, my favorite game. I had on a dress that had belonged to my grandmother, with a blue velvet top and a white chiffon skirt. It was big on me but when I looked in the mirror, I was royalty. I wore the ring on my index finger, taking care that it didn't slip off. I pretended that I was a princess at a ball. Unfortunately, on the way to the palace I had been caught in the rain, and now I was catching a cold! I imagined myself sneezing delicate, helpless little princess-sneezes as my prince charming looked on, concerned. It was not the first time I had imagined this. It felt good in that strange, thrilling way I could never tell anyone about, not even Amy. It felt tight but nice in between my legs. I lay on my bed and hugged my big pink stuffed snake, Frenchy. I had won it at a fair-the only time I ever won anything. Its nose was fuzzy but firm and I rocked back and forth on it. In my dream, the prince was telling me I was ill and must go to bed. And then suddenly, he sneezed too! Oh no! Now he had a cold! And then the duchess next to us started sneezing, and then the serving maid, until the entire ballroom was filled with sneezes! Everybody had caught my cold!

I sighed and rolled over. What a good dream. It was too bad real life didn't work that way. I wished I could just make people catch colds whenever I wanted.

"Ow!" I cried out. My ring was suddenly burning hot. And before I could look at it, a wave of-something-traveled through me. When I held my hand before me, the ring was gone.

And I knew what had happened.

Of course, I told myself I was being ridiculous. I was eleven, after all, not four, and I knew there was no such thing as magic. But something had happened, and there was a faint burn on my finger where the ring had been. And somehow I knew, in a way I could not explain, that my wish had been granted.

There was nothing I could do about it that night. The idea of making anyone in my family catch a cold was unbearably icky. I had to wait until tomorrow to find out whether or not I was crazy. So the next morning when I met Amy to walk to school together, I did it to her. At first I couldn't concentrate because we started talking about homework and Mrs. Bott's atrocious breath, but when a silence came, I looked covertly at her and thought, I want you to catch a cold. As soon as I did, her nose wrinkled a bit, and she rubbed it with the back of her hand as if it tickled. My heart raced. Had I really done it? Nothing else happened for the next agonizing minute, but then-