Visionary

C H A P T E R 3

"The Coveting?"

Two kids backstage start laughing amongst themselves about something I'm not listening to. Sophie uses this as an opportunity to talk.

Glancing around to make sure nobody's listening, she leans in even closer to me. "It's changed my life. It's the best thing that'll ever happen to you. And it's-"

The room falls silent for a moment and then the chatter continues. Sophie takes a deep breath, smiling with bright eyes.

"It's a stone."

"A stone?"

"More of a gem, really." Her gaze digs into mine. "You talk to it and it'll do... things. Things, I don't know what things, but it helps. It helps everything, I..." Her eyes are filled with light. "I don't know how to explain it. It's like a wishing stone, really. You make a wish, and then the Typewriter-"

"The Typewriter?"

She glances behind her. "Yeah, the typewriter. You hold the stone and there'll be a typewriter in your room. I'm not sure who puts it there. In fact, I think the stone is actually just a thing to bring the Typewriter to the- to our world."

Our world... I listen, lost.

"So really, the Coveting isn't a stone. The coveting is a typewriter. The Typewriter."

"The Typewriter..." I stare at the floor and then look up at her, disbelieving but smiling. "What do you do with the Typewriter, then?"

"You decide what you want and you type it."

My smile drops. "Wait... really?" I turn my gaze to the dark blue tiled backstage wall, scanning the chips. "So it's like... a wishing thing? Like a genie?"

"Like a genie, but real, and you only get one wish and it disappears. Oh, look!" She starts digging around in her backpack. "I keep my wish with me all the time, just for good luck.." She pulls out a piece of paper and shows it to me, holding it so that only she and I can see it.

I'm smart and I get straight A's for everything. Every time I take a test I pass and I don't have to study. School is easy for me.

I go to take the paper and look at it closely but she pulls it away. "Sorry," she says, "I want to keep it safe. Just in case."

"It's first person," I say, "and present tense. Why didn't you say, 'I wish I could...' or something like that, like they do in movies?"

"It doesn't work that way," she tells me. "This isn't a movie. You have to write it as though you were narrating... a book or something."

"How did Mr. Johnson get it?"

"I don't know," she admits. "After I used it, it just... disappeared, and I knew calculus, and all the things I haven't learned yet. It was gone, though. When we were waiting for our auditions, I could hear it whispering to me. It said, 'Sophie, I did so much for you, let me out!' I didn't know where it was coming from, though, so I got really scared and started crying. And then Taylor... yeah."

I look at her. "I'm sorry, Sophie. Mr. Johnson somehow got it, though, and isn't willing to let it go. He must've..." I think of all possible situations. "Must've... tried to lock it in the closet, and... it disappeared out of it?"

"Where to, I wonder?"

"Wait," I say slowly, some sort of suspicion suddenly dawning on me, "why are you telling me this?"

A hint of fear flashes in her eyes. "I thought maybe you'd wanna know! You don't have to use it or anything, but..." She looks down at her paper with a smile. "I think you'd like to."