if i got three wishes, first i'd find out all about how wishes work

[self_composed]

Bella brings two blank notebooks to school the next day. Her old one is safely computerized and boxed up with its predecessors.

At lunch, she sits with Angela; Jessica and Eric and Lauren sit at the same table but mostly talk to each other, and Mike is nowhere to be seen.

Bella is just about on time to gym, thanks to an overnight icing that means she has to pick her way with extreme care across the slippery grass or the slick sidewalks. The second time she falls down, she gives up on attempting any dignity at all, and, cradling her thwacked elbow, scoots the rest of the way to the gym on her rear. This leaves her with damp jeans but no further injuries, and they were a little damp anyway from the falls.

She doesn't have time to do more than smile and wave at Alice on her way to get her mat and get out of the way of careening balls. She spends the class doing the subset of her safe activities that won't stress her elbow.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice blinks.

And smiles, slowly.

"Oh, I like it," he says.

[self_composed]

"Purely communicative telepathy," Bella says. "At least as concerns the contents of my brain departing it. Select notebook contents are it in that department; my thoughts are mine."

[edgeofyourseat]

He waves a hand in a gesture of agreement/dismissal. "Sure, but you'd be okay with you reading my mind, right?"

[self_composed]

She blinks at him.

"If that's something you want to hand me, I'm not going to complain about it," she says slowly. "Provided you word it in such a way that we don't wind up creepily sharing dreams or anything - I want to be able to put that sort of thing on pause, is what I'm saying."

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice laughs.

"No shit," he agrees. "My brain is definitely a place you'd wanna be able to back out of in a hurry. But I mean, it's the same as the notebook thing," he lifts his up and wiggles it a little, "but better."

[self_composed]

Bella nods cheerfully. She taps her own notebook with her pen and starts writing Charts of her own, for ways to quickly use up any coins that are in danger of being stolen, and depleting excessively tempting stashes. Me able to read pinball wizard's mind, is one of the items under "hexagon", along with "flight" and "no need for sleep" and "todo: look up list of X-Men".

[edgeofyourseat]

"Whatcha doin' up there?" he wonders.

[self_composed]

She shows him the list in progress. The pentagon list has "languages (various)" and "musical talent" and "(after masochistic magic-generator exists only) remove clumsiness?" and "cook like Hilary!".

[edgeofyourseat]

"Wolverine," he says when he gets to the entry about X-Men.

[self_composed]

"That's the one with the retractable claws? Do you really want to go around with claws in your arms all the time?" Bella asks.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, that would be kind of cool, but I was thinking more the healing factor," he says. "So you can just hurt yourself over and over and not use up a bunch of wishes fixing it afterward. ...I guess maybe I want that more than you do."

[self_composed]

"Oh, a healing power," agrees Bella, pulling back the notebook to write that down and point an arrow from it to the very top of the list. "That would be useful, but yes, more for you than me."

[edgeofyourseat]

"And probably you'd want to be able to, like... hold it off," he adds. "So you didn't have to keep your arm in the cage of rats or whatever, and in case you break your arm in front of a bunch of people and don't wanna be hauled off to a lab or something."

[self_composed]

"Right," Bella agrees, adding a "(voluntary postponement option)" note next to the item. "But having this list is mostly not useful until we have surplus coins in these ranges, which will take until I get into a spectacular accident, or we find Elias's stash and it has a hex in it, or it doesn't have a hex in it and we engineer that level of harm." She says the last with gritted teeth. "Or I chicken out and try to take over the world with squares and occasional pentagons, even though that would be harder and less fun."

[edgeofyourseat]

"I hope it has a hex in it," says Alice.

[self_composed]

"Yes. I also hope that it has a hex in it," Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

"I mean, I can think of lots of ways to get around not having a cage full of rats handy," he says. "But you probably don't wanna do any of 'em."

[self_composed]

"No, go ahead and tell me, I might as well try to get used to whatever one of the ideas is best in case there isn't a hex," Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

"...Do you actually want me to sit here listing ways I could hurt you really badly," he says—phrased as a question, but delivered without the intonation that would make it one.

[self_composed]

"Start with whatever's tamest, we'll see if I squeak and run away," sighs Bella.

[edgeofyourseat]

"I am bad at tame," says Alice, inarguably. "Okay, well, first one that comes to mind, I could just get a knife and keep cutting you until you hit the right level of hurt. Which we'd know because you'd be raining hexes instead of pentagons."

[self_composed]

"Do you know enough about anatomy to avoid me bleeding out?" Her voice is level, though she doesn't look thrilled about the topic.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Probably," he says. "Which brings me to option two: fire."

[self_composed]

"That one sounds even harder to keep under control," Bella says, scrunching her eyes closed tightly. "I think I can listen to one more possibility and then I want to stop."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, I don't mean set you on fire," he says. "Chemical burns sound any better?"