Hazy Bloom and the Tomorrow Power Read online

  After I was done talking, Elizabeth looked at me like I had a tree growing out of my ear. “Okay, Hazy Bloom. Let me get this straight. Yesterday in your head you saw a bunch of peas flying through the air—”

  “Yes.”

  “And today there was a food fight.”

  “Yes.”

  “With flying peas.”

  “Among other things.”

  “Which means you saw the food fight happen before it happened?”

  “Yes.”

  I could tell Elizabeth was letting everything roll around in her brain. Then she said, “So … wait. Does that mean…?”

  “Does that mean what?”

  A slow, giddy smile spread across her face. “Does that mean you saw the future?” She continued. “Yes, it does! You saw the future!”

  In case you were keeping track, Elizabeth just asked and answered her own question. She does this sometimes when she gets excited. I guess it’s easier than talking to another whole person.

  “Okay, hold the phone there, girlie,” I said. “It’s an expression,” I explained when she looked around for a phone. “I cannot see the future.”

  “But you already did see the future, didn’t you? Yes, you did!”

  See what I mean about answering her own question?

  Then she goes, “It’s like you have a superpower!”

  This was too much. “Look, it was one vision. About the future. That happened to come true. It might not ever happen again.”

  “Or it might will happen again!” Elizabeth practically howled.

  I stared at my best friend. “That’s a crazy sentence that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I mean that it could easily happen again,” she said quickly. Then she turned toward me and got really close, like she was about to say the most serious thing in the world. Or spit on me. I couldn’t quite tell but I hoped it was the first one. “Listen to me, Hazy Bloom. You need to have another vision to figure out if this whole seeing-the-future thing is real.”

  I threw my arms up in the air. “How? How am I supposed to do that? Wave my magic wand? Use my cauldron?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, cauldrons are for witches. Anyway, I don’t know how, you just need to try! And if it happens again, you’ll call me immediately, right? Yes, of course you will.”

  Elizabeth finished the conversation with herself, then waved goodbye and skipped down the street to her house.

  I did a halfhearted wave back. My head was spinning at the strangeness of it all. Could I really see the future? Did I truly have some kind of superpower?

  I guess if it happened again, I’d know the answer.

  5

  “Hazel Hillary Bloom, what on earth are you doing?”

  It was dinnertime that same day, and my mom was talking to me like I was nuts. And maybe I did look a little strange. My nose was pressed right up against the fridge. I had been standing that way for fifteen minutes.

  “Checking the lunch menu.”

  “You’re a little … close, no?”

  Okay, I wasn’t checking the lunch menu, because if I had been I would have seen that it said Bean burrito and then I would have said, Gross, and walked away. I was trying to have another vision. It wasn’t working.

  “Move back, you’re going to give yourself a headache,” Mom said. She plopped The Baby down in his high chair and gave him some animal crackers. “Have you done your homework?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Hazel, are you listening?”

  Fine, I wasn’t listening.

  Then Milo came in. “Excuse me!” he said, which you might think sounded polite but was not because he had flung open the fridge with me standing in front of it, knocking me backward.

  “Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!” I yelled at him.

  He ignored me and grabbed the peanut butter.

  Mom turned a laser glare my way. “Seriously, Hazel, why are you acting this way?” Then she zapped my brother. “Milo, no snacking. We’re eating dinner soon. Please go tell your dad I need his help.”

  “Daaaaaaaad!” Milo shrieked.

  I don’t think that’s what my mom meant.

  I saw that The Baby was licking the back of every animal cracker on his tray. Not eating, just licking. He was so bizarre (spelling word, and a perfect description of my entire family).

  I took a deep breath. “Mom, it’s just there’s something important I want to practice—I mean, see—I mean, do,” I said.

  “What’s soooooo important?” asked Milo, who was still trying to sneak-eat a spoonful of peanut butter that did not make it into his mouth, because at that moment my dad walked in and without even stopping took the spoon from Milo and put it in the sink.

  “Nice try, kid,” Dad said.

  Pretty smooth move by Dad, I had to admit. Then he tripped over the dog again.

  I turned to Milo. “If you must know, I have discovered a new power and I’d like to work on it.”

  “Is it annoying power?” he said, cracking himself up.

  Did I mention that Milo is not hilarious?

  I put my hands on my hips. “No. That’s your specialty.”

  Ha! I looked at my mom, thinking she’d high-five me and say, “Good one, Hazy Bloom!” but all I got was, “Hazel. Homework. Now.” She didn’t even call me by my preferred name.

  “Rrrrrrrrrrrmph!” I replied.

  “Ha!” said the annoying one.

  “Ga!” said The Baby.

  We all looked at him. He had stuck the licked animal crackers all over his entire face. He looked like a cheetah with animal-shaped spots.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Mom said, and started plucking the goopy animal crackers off. Without even looking at me she said in a warning tone, “Hazel … go.”

  “Fine!” I said in my huffiest voice possible. “But just so you know, I might be able to see the future!”

  Nobody responded. Dad was taking over dinner duty, Mom was whisking The Baby away for a quick bath, and Milo had headed off to work on his ghost costume for the haunted house (the Spring Spectacular Haunted House was another thing the fifth graders were in charge of, and Milo was in fifth grade, even though he usually acts like he is in kindergarten, for real live).

  I trudged down the hall to my room.

  On the way, I stopped and stared hard at the wall and counted silently: One … two … three … four. No vision.

  Later, when I was doing the homework I had silently refused to start until after dinner as a protest against my family’s unfairness, I stared at a sentence on my Language Arts handout until the letters all melted together. Nothing.

  In the bath, I stared at the bubbles until my eyes crossed. All I saw was bubbles.

  After I put on my PJs and gave my fish their dinner, I stared inside the fish tank. My fish stared back at me. It was incredibly boring. And I didn’t see a vision anyway.

  Two more days went by, and still, no visions. By Wednesday night, I had pretty much given up. The flying peas must have been a onetime thing. Or maybe I even imagined it altogether. Whatever it was, one thing seemed clear: I could not see the future.

  Then, that night, as I was brushing my teeth, my arms suddenly got all prickly and goose bumpy, and I felt hot and cold at the same time. I peered into the sink and right next to the toothpaste I had just spit out, a big, blue, sparkly number stared back at me.

  6

  “Tell me! Tell me everything! What did you see?”

  It was recess the next day, and Elizabeth and I were sitting under the oak tree at the edge of the playground. Elizabeth didn’t ride the bus that morning, and this was our first chance to talk about my vision from last night. A bumblebee was buzzing around us, which normally might have freaked me out, but today I barely noticed because I was so excited to tell her what I saw.

  “Okay,” I said to my friend. “Shoo!” I said to the bee, who seemed to hear me and buzzed away. I turned my attention back to Elizabeth. I smiled broadly. “I saw a number.”


  Elizabeth looked perplexed. “A what?”

  “A number,” I repeated.

  “That’s it?” she said.

  “Yes, that’s it!” I said, a little insulted that my vision of the future wasn’t interesting enough for her.

  Elizabeth pondered this. “Where did you see it?” she asked.

  “In the bathroom sink.”

  “Weird.”

  “I know!”

  We took a moment to observe Lila and Derrick passing a soccer ball back and forth across the grass. They were wearing team jerseys again, but this time the colors looked much better together—Derrick’s was red and Lila’s was blue with shiny dots. For once, they weren’t clashing. Then I heard Elizabeth say, “What number?”

  “What?” I turned back to her.

  “What number did you see? In your vision,” she whispered, even though no one was around.

  “Fourteen,” I said confidently. Then I paused. “Or forty-one. Or maybe nine.”

  Elizabeth threw her arms up, exasperated (spelling word). “Hazy Bloom, your entire vision was a number and you don’t even remember the number?”

  “It was nine. Definitely nine. Probably, definitely nine,” I said.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “And what does the number even mean?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “Maybe … it’s the number to a secret door somewhere in our school! And maybe … behind that door is something terrifying, like a family of giant rats with sharp, deadly fangs! Or maybe it’s a big hunk of moldy cheese! Or … a rat family with moldy cheese and they’re planning to use the cheese to stink up the whole school!”

  Elizabeth stared at me. “Or,” she said calmly, “maybe it’s a number we need to know for our math quiz…?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I replied.

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous?” Elizabeth snapped. “But a family of giant rats attacking the school with moldy cheese is a perfectly good explanation?”

  I groaned. We weren’t getting anywhere. What was the use of seeing a vision of the future if I couldn’t figure out what that vision meant? I got up and headed to the water fountain. All this thinking was making me thirsty.

  On the field, Derrick and Lila were now both running toward the soccer ball, which sat midway between them. Lila got to it first and kicked it hard across the grass. It rolled toward me and landed at my feet. As Lila ran over to get it, I bent down to pick it up so I could give it back to her. I straightened up with the ball in my hands, and that’s when I got a good look at the front of her shirt.

  It had a big, blue, sparkly number nine on it.

  My vision was about Lila! But what about her? Was there something important about Lila’s shirt? Something else I needed to see? To do? I looked around for something, anything that could give me more information. I was at a loss.

  The bumblebee was back, swirling around me, interrupting my train of thought. What did it want from me, anyway? I shooed it away again.

  Lila stopped in front of me to get the ball. And that’s when I remembered last year, when Lila got stung on the face by a bee, and her lip swelled up so badly she had to go to the hospital.

  I looked around anxiously for the bee, which, of course, was now nowhere to be found. Where had it gone? It seemed to have vanished. Then, it occurred to me to look at the soccer ball, still in my hands. I rotated it halfway around. The bee was there.

  Lila raised her hands to grab the ball from me.

  “Stop!” I screamed, dropping the ball and kicking it and the stinging insect away.

  “Hey! What’d you do that for?” Lila said.

  “Bee,” was all I could manage to say.

  Lila’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, wow! I didn’t see it. That was a close one. You know I’m totally allergic, right?”

  I nodded, too dazed to speak.

  “Thanks, Hazy! Thank you so much!” She gave me a grateful hug, then raced back to Derrick, who had retrieved the ball. I saw her gesturing wildly and pointing at me with a big, relieved smile.

  Elizabeth ran up to me, wanting to know every detail. “Wow!” she said after I told her. “So your vision kept Lila from getting stung by a bee? You, like, practically saved her life!” Then she leaned close and whispered, “You totally have a superpower.”

  I started to smile. I was beginning to think she was right.

  7

  That night, I was in my room talking to Elizabeth on the phone. We were working on our cupcake contest plan, which began with me asking why we needed a cupcake contest plan. I mean, making cupcakes seemed fairly straightforward, as you just … made the cupcakes, right?

  Clearly I had never made cupcakes with Elizabeth.

  “Here’s how it’s going to work,” Elizabeth began. “Today is Thursday. So on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we’ll experiment with different cupcake recipes and find the absolute best one. Remember, no boxed stuff! Only made-from-scratch recipes for the batter and frosting, understand? Yes, you understand.”

  There she went, having a conversation with herself again.

  She continued, “Okay, so then on Monday we’ll set up our baking station and ingredients, on Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll bake and decorate, and then on Thursday morning we’ll bring the finished cupcakes to school, which leaves plenty of time before the Spring Spectacular two days later, on Saturday. Do you agree with this plan?”

  I wondered what would happen if I did not. I was too scared to find out.

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Okay, next order of business!” Elizabeth announced like the president of the world.

  Happily, the next order of business was discussing my new superpower. Elizabeth’s idea was for me to use my power to get pizza dippers on the menu for the rest of the year. My idea was to find out when Mapefrl was going to the bathroom and then make sure there was no toilet paper.

  We were cracking up about this when I heard a knock on the door. My mom came in. “Hazel, I need to talk to you for a sec.”

  I put my hand over the phone and looked at her. “Excuse me, I’m on the phone,” I said politely but firmly.

  Mom put her hand on her hip and did her laser glare at me.

  “I’ll call you back,” I muttered to Elizabeth, and hung up.

  Mom said, “You need to start cleaning your room.”

  “For what?” I said, looking around. I thought my room actually looked neater than usual.

  “For Aunt Jenna,” Mom replied.

  I snapped my head back to Mom. “Aunt Jenna’s coming?” I said in a surprised and maybe not-so-nice voice.

  Mom sighed her pretend sigh that I know isn’t real because it is so loud there’s no way anyone would sigh that way unless they were just doing it to be dramatic. Trust me, I’ve heard Elizabeth do it a million times.

  “Yes, Aunt Jenna’s coming,” she said.

  So here’s the thing: my aunt Jenna is very nice but also kind of, well, odd. For example, she always brings me presents but they’re kooky presents, like a thumb piano from Mozambique, or a talking pen from Japan. And yes, sometimes they end up being sort of cool, and even useful, like the time Elizabeth wanted to show me what “interpretive dance” meant and needed music and I had the thumb piano right in my backpack. The point is, I would like to visit Mozambique someday. I’ve heard you can ride bikes everywhere, which sounds like a delightful way to travel. It certainly beats the school bus. And also, I forgot Aunt Jenna was coming.

  “I told you last week,” Mom was saying impatiently. “Aunt Jenna’s coming tomorrow and she’s sleeping in your room—”

  “She’s sleeping in my room?”

  Mom pretend-sighed again.

  “Where am I going to sleep?”

  “With Milo.”

  “With Milo?” I not-so-pretend-gagged like I was choking on a chicken leg. “But—but his room stinks!”

  Milo popped his head in. “I’ll make sure your side of the bed is extra-stinky,” he said, and walked away.

&n
bsp; “Rrrrrrrrrrrmph!” I replied.

  Mom calmly said it was just for the week, and it was going to be great fun to have her sister here. Then she reminded me that Aunt Jenna doesn’t get to visit that often because she lives far away in Maryland, and we needed to make her feel welcome. I did not agree. How was I going to work on my superpower if I had to spend time with my weird aunt and share a room with my annoying brother?

  Mom told me I should start by moving some of my clothes into Milo’s room, and then I could get to the cleaning part. Then she left. Clearly, I had to do what she said. But it didn’t mean I would do it quietly.

  I stomped over to my closet and started yanking a bunch of clothes down from the hangers, storming into Milo’s room, and dumping the clothes on his floor. Back and forth, yank and dump. Back and forth, yank and dump.

  I was grabbing my last wad of clothes when I felt the now familiar sensation of hot and cold, prickles and goose bumps. And then, smack in the middle of my clothes, another vision appeared. This time, here’s what I saw:

  An upside-down ostrich

  Huh?! Getting my room ready for Aunt Jenna would have to wait. I needed to talk to Elizabeth.

  I had just started to call her back when Dad appeared in my doorway, carrying the vacuum and a bucket of cleaning supplies. He was coming to help me clean my room and we didn’t finish until it was too late to call my best friend with an update.

  I guess my room wasn’t as clean as I had thought.

  8

  Friday morning Elizabeth was at the bus stop first. When I got there she looked me up and down like she had never seen a human person before in her life.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” she demanded.

  Okay, here’s the deal. All of my clothes were still in a messy heap on Milo’s floor, so this morning when I overslept and got dressed in a hurry, I grabbed the first things I could find in the pile, which turned out to be a stained sweatshirt with unicorns on it and bright pink sweatpants that I’ve never worn in public. So, yes, I may have looked a little strange.