Front tagline: N/A.
Back tagline: N/A.
Summary: Alex is the first to notice the strange little booth at the back of the campus pizza place. Wishes granted, fortunes told says the sign on the glass. Inside sits The Wizard—an eerie wooden figure with sinister blue eyes.
Alex’s friends make wishes.
And one by one, they come true—in terrifying, twisted ways.
Is The Wizard behind the horror?
Or is someone else to blame, someone with a deadly wish all his—or her—own….
First impressions: It’s been a while since we visited Nightingale Hall, so I thought it was about time for a return! Is it just me, or does that last bit make it seem like the book is trying to be all mysterious by saying the bad guy could be a woman, as if that’s a totally farfetched and one-of-a-kind idea? I’m sure I’m just overthinking it, but the dashes and the italics read like “Girls can be bad guys too, you know ;)” or something. Weird.
Moving on, this sounds like a fun read! It was actually written by Diane Hoh and not Deathkins like The Roommate [If you’re new here, Deathkins is the bane of my existence and I have hated all three books I’ve recapped from her so far], thank god. As you can see, the windowpane on the cover has snapped off of my copy, but at least we’ve got an inside cover to admire! We have a stereotypical-looking wizard animatronic holding what looks like a polaroid of our terrified heroine. Simple, yet alluring. Is this a scene from the book? Let’s find out!
Recap
Let’s meet the cast:
Alex – Our heroine who kind of gets on my nerves.
Julie – Alex’s roommate/bestie and Jenny’s beautiful twin sister.
Jenny – The plain Jane twin and also Alex’s roommate.
Gabe – Julie’s boyfriend.
Marty – Alex’s love interest except they barely get along.
Bennett – Jenny’s love interest who’s on crutches thanks to some bad knees.
Kiki – Somehow part of the group despite no-one liking her that much [Except me, I think she’s gr8].
We begin with a prologue where our protagonist, freshman Alexandria Edgar, has just found a fortune-telling booth inside Vinnie’s, the local pizzeria. This prologue seems to exist solely to describe the booth [Which looks like a red phone booth] as well as The Wizard, whose eyes are a ‘deep, dark blue. Icy cold’ that terrify Alex, who can’t shake the feeling that it’s watching her [I’m not sure why this couldn’t have been included in the first chapter instead of as a prologue, but okeh].
Alex’s friends, Julie, Jenny, Gabe, Marty, Bennett and Kyle [Most of whom aren’t immediately mentioned, but are revealed to be present as the chapter goes on. I guess that’s how most books establish their group of friends, but it’s just weirdly done here. Like, at first you think it’s just Alex, Julie and Jenny, and then all of a sudden Gabe and Marty are mentioned, and then two pages later Bennett and Kyle are acknowledged, but apparently they’ve all been together this whole time?] start crowding around marvelling at how cool the booth is, but Alex isn’t so sure:
What was it about The Wizard that was making her stomach churn and the hair on her scalp tingle? Alex wondered. He reminded her of something, something unpleasant…she couldn’t think what it was. Or…didn’t want to.
[Maybe he reminds her of evil!]. Noticing ‘Wishes Granted, Fortunes Told’ on the booth’s sign, Alex’s roommate Julie wonders if it’ll make her beautiful if she asked. Jenny, Julie’s twin and also Alex’s roommate, points out that she’s already beautiful, unlike herself, who’s disappointed that they’re not identical. Alex thinks that both blue-eye, pale-skinned blondes are attractive, but notes their different looks – Julie has a more stylish wardrobe and short hair, while Jenny is more casual with long straight locks. [Weirdly, no-one else really gets this much of a physical description]. Julie complains how boring her face is and that she’d much rather an exotic look, like Alex’s Bambi eyes and the ‘”wild white streak in her hair”‘ [Which is apparently natural? That’s kinda cool].
Red-haired, freckle-faced Gabe hands Julie a coin and after inserting it, the gang watches the machine whir to life as it spits out a card that reads ‘BEWARE THE LOOKING GLASS, LEST YOU SEE YOUR TRUE REFLECTION’ [Something’s gonna happen to her face!]. Marty and Alex don’t really understand, pointing out that the fortune could apply to absolutely anyone and the machine is probably filled with dumb old sayings [But I think there’s a pretty clear connection between Julie’s wish and the fortune she received. These people are dumb].
Alex thinks the whole thing is stupid and a ‘”colossal waste of time”‘ and money, but that doesn’t stop Gabe from putting another quarter in there and hoping there’ll be some wheels in his future. His dad won’t let him have a car on campus unless he starts getting A’s, which Gabe thinks is unattainable [Get a job and buy your own damn car]. He’s disappointed when his card reads ‘SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE’, and Alex complains some more about how stupid this is [Alex, shut the fuck up and let them have their fun].
The gang heads to a table to eat, but Bennett plans on returning to the booth afterwards to wish for two new knees so he can play in Saturday’s big football game. The poor guy is on crutches at the moment because of his dodgy knees, which Gabe likens to marshmallows and insists are a result of ‘”Too much football, too many tackles”‘, but Bennett plans on being on the field again in no time [Listen to your body, Bennett!].
As they settle down in an empty booth, Alex remembers why The Wizard puts her on edge – the day her parents got a divorce, her grandfather took her to an amusement park that had its own mechanical fortune-telling booth featuring a fat lady with pink cheeks, a big grin and yellow teeth. It gave her nightmares for years, and although she eventually realised she was channelling her fear of her parents’ divorce into the plaster figure, she’d never forgotten that face, and that’s what The Wizard reminds her of.
Anyway, the gang is soon interrupted by Kiki, who plops herself down in their booth uninvited despite the fact that none of them seem to like her much. Kiki’s a star on soccer field and is well-known on campus, ‘which was not the same as well-liked’ [Oooh, drama]. Alex isn’t a fan because Kiki says whatever she wants, even if it hurts someone’s feelings, and she never feels bad about it.
As a big storm starts blowing outside, the gang learns from Vinnie that The Wizard was purchased at a flea market [Good find! I want one]. They eats quickly, nervous about driving back to campus in the bad weather, but Marty and Gabe insist on another visit to The Wizard before they leave. Before anyone can pop a coin in, though, there’s a loud clap of thunder:
Simultaneously, the room went white with a visible streak of lightning that came out of nowhere and sped straight across the room to the red metal booth. Those standing closest to it shrieked and flung themselves out of the way, yelping in fear as the arrow of white-hot lightning honed in on The Wizard.
[What? The lightning struck inside the building? Surely that’s not possible hahaha]. Everyone is completely fine [Lame], and the only sign of damage in the whole place is a scorch mark on The Wizard’s hat. Alex is unnerved by the whole thing and wants to get out of there so they all head off, disappointing Kiki who really wanted to wish to be five pounds thinner.
The gang splits up into two cars, with Julie driving Alex, Marty, Gabe and Jenny, while Kyle takes Bennett and Kiki, and on the way home, Alex thinks about how keen she is to get to know Marty better, since she doesn’t know him too well yet. There’s all sorts of fallen branches and debris from the storm on the roads, and shortly after they pass Nightingale Hall [It’s gotta be mentioned in every book, even if the plot doesn’t take place there!], they end up crashing into a fallen tree because Julie’s not paying enough attention to the road:
Just before impact, a branch impales the windshield, sending glass flying everywhere as Julie cries out and covers her face [The glass has probably mangled it already though!]. As they make contact with the rest of the tree, ‘the front of the car crumpled like an accordion’ and crushes Gabe’s legs [He’s in the passenger seat] before he falls unconscious. Julie’s also knocked unconscious after her head slams into the steering wheel, while the backseat passengers whack their faces on the front seat before the car skids to a stop.
Alex is completely disoriented at first, and Jenny’s hysterically crying, worried about Julie whose head rests against the steering wheel, her face ‘all smeared together in a sort of bright red mess’ [Oof, poor Julie]. Kyle, Kiki and Bennett are outside the car, trying to get one of its two doors open [Four-door cars all the way]. Marty manages to manoeuvre his way to the front, but the doors won’t open from the inside either, and the electric windows also won’t go down.
Help soon arrives thanks to a phone call from Kiki, and everyone is safely extracted from the car and taken to hospital. After being checked over, Alex and Marty are both fine, besides some cuts and bruises. In the waiting room, they learn from the others that Gabe’s already in surgery while Julie’s still in the emergency room, with Jenny by her side. Bennett and Kiki comment on how bad Gabe’s legs looked as he was pulled him from the wreckage [So Julie wanted a more interesting face, and she’s definitely got that now, while Gabe wanted a set of wheels and will maybe need a wheelchair for a while! Looks like we’ve got a Monkey’s Paw situation happening], and Kiki wonders why Julie wasn’t paying more attention to the road, much to Alex’s annoyance [Now is not the time, Kiki]. Jenny suddenly appears, looking grey as a mushroom [Hahaha], and gives them an update on Julie’s condition:
“Her face… her face… she hit the steering wheel so hard… and when the windshield shattered… she has so many cuts…” Her blue eyes were bleak, the edges rimmed scarlet from tears. “The doctor said… he said most of the bones in her face were broken… her jaw is fractured, and one cheekbone…” She couldn’t continue.
No one spoke. The dismal news had rendered Julie’s friends speechless with horror.
Jenny lifted her head. Her eyes, full of pain, moved to Alex’s face. “Oh, Alex,” she said so quietly that Alex had to bend her head to hear, “Julie’s beautiful face, the one she said was so boring… it’s ruined. It will never look the same again.”
[That’s gonna be a painful recovery]. Because she’s family, Jenny is allowed to stay overnight while the others head back to the campus. Kyle drives them all home and at Alex’s dorm room, Marty offers to stay with her in case she won’t be able to sleep and would rather talk [Cute!]. Sounds like the perfect opportunity to get to know him better, but Alex politely declines [I guess it’s the last thing on her mind right now] and they make plans to go into town tomorrow so they can get some flowers and magazines for their injured friends.
As Alex tries to sleep, she remembers how Julie had complained about her boring old face at Vinnie’s and grimly realises it won’t be the same face anymore. But it’s The Wizard’s face that appears in her mind as she drifts off to sleep, and he seems to be smiling [Ooky spooky! I wonder if The Wizard was always evil, or if the lightning strike has something to do with it?].
In town the next day, Alex and Marty find Kiki walking out of Vinnie’s with a box of pizza, followed by Bennett and Kyle. Kiki assures them the pizza is for Gabe, who’d called Bennett and asked for it, and Alex is glad to hear he’s OK. She also notices that Bennett’s not using his crutches, but he explains that the football team’s gonna need him more than ever with Gabe out of action and insists his knees are fine [Bad idea, Bennett!].
Kiki then shows Alex the fortune she’d received from The Wizard while inside – ‘SELF-DISCIPLINE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL VIRTUES’. Alex lectures her about how stupid the fortune-telling booth is, explaining that anyone could have gotten the same card, but Kiki doesn’t care. She thinks it’s a sign that she needs to diet to stick to her diet, and that’s exactly what she plans on doing [Seriously, how does Alex not see the connection between her friends’ wishes and the fortunes they receive? Given how Julie and Gabe turned out after their wishes, I wonder if Kiki will lose more than five pounds, or if she’ll gain weight instead?].
At the hospital, the still-sleeping Julie’s not allowed to have visitors, so everyone congregates in Gabe’s room for a feast of pizza, chocolate and cookies, including Kiki who guiltily assures to Alex that she’ll start her diet tomorrow [Hahahaha big mood. Kiki is very relatable].
Gabe is in surprisingly high spirits despite his bandaged legs, but the mood of the room immediately shifts when he asks about Julie. Luckily, Kiki’s around to bluntly explain that Julie’s face is smashed and will probably never be the same [No mincing words here! I can see how Kiki might rub some people the wrong way, but I still like her]. The subject soon changes to the upcoming football game, and we learn that Gabe, Marty, Bennett and Kyle are all on the team. They’re all pretty good, but as freshman, they don’t get much time on the field [So why does Bennett think the team absolutely needs him now that Gabe can’t play, if neither of them have actually played that much so far?]. Soon a nurse arrives to grab Jenny since Julie’s woken up, and Alex decides to follow them, although Julie’s still not allowed to have visitors. As she makes her way over, an anguished scream fills the corridor [Sounds like Julie’s looked in a mirror!].
Alex bursts into Julie’s room to find her studying her reflection in an intricately designed hand mirror as Jenny tries to wrestle it from her grip. Her face is completely bandaged with only her eyes and lips showing, but apparently that’s enough to horrify Julie [I don’t think that warrants a scream, but I guess she’d be in shock], and Alex hopes her words about wanting a new face aren’t haunting the poor girl. A nurse manages to grab the mirror from Julie before giving her an injection to calm her down. The nurse suspects Jenny gave the mirror to Julie, but a livid Alex insists she’d never do something like that to her sister and doesn’t even own a mirror like that [Did The Wizard somehow get it to Julie, magically? Or do we have a human antagonist in our midst?].
Alex lies to the nurse about being the twins’ older sister so she can get more information about Julie’s condition, and we learn that it’s not as bad as it looks because they were able to get some reconstruction done right away, but she’ll need more surgery [I’m sure it’ll heal nicely. It’ll definitely make Julie’s face more interesting like she wanted].
Alex convinces Jenny to come back to the dorm for a shower and a good night’s rest and everyone heads back to the campus, where Alex bumps into Finn [From Deadly Attraction! We love continuity!], a friend of Julie’s, and gives him an update. Alex is also super melodramatic as she thinks about how nothing will ever be the same again [It’s not like anyone died, calm down].
Jenny sleeps while Alex heads to her afternoon classes, and afterwards she heads to the campus radio station for her shift. Robert Q Parker III [That awful guy from Deadly Attraction!] used to be the station manager, and Alex has heard all about how he ‘liked to play around and treated women like dirt’, so everyone was glad when he was replaced by the cheerful Beth. The radio station is on the 18th floor of the tower, which also ‘housed offices, a barber shop, the bookstore, a candy shop, and a dry cleaners’ [I feel like that’s a lot for a college campus? Or is that normal?] as well as observation decks with telescopes.
When Alex arrives, she takes over from Kyle, who heads off with Marty, Jenny and Bennett, who’s back on crutches, to visit Julie, who can have visitors now. Working takes Alex’s mind off of everything for a while, until right before the end of her shift when someone calls up to request a song for Julie:
“Sure,” she said, hoping Julie was awake to hear it. “What’s the song?”
There was a second or two of silence on the other end of the line, and then a deep, gleeful chuckle. “Play Who’s Sorry Now?” the voice said in a harsh whisper. “And let us hope she has learned her lesson.” The line went dead.
Alex can’t believe what just happened, Julie was the victim of a horrible accident, so what should she be sorry for?. Needless to say, Alex doesn’t play the song, and as her shift finishes, she heads to the door to look for her replacement, Cath [From The Silent Scream – so much namedropping in this chapter]. Alex can’t see Cath outside the booth though, and when she tries to open it, the door is locked [!!!]. Kyle must have accidentally locked it on his way out, although she’s sure he wouldn’t have been that careless. It doesn’t make sense to her anyway, since the door is supposed to unlock when some tries to open it from inside, so she decides to call maintenance to come set her free.
But there’s no longer a dial tone on the phone that she’d been using for the last two hours [!!!]. Just as she decides she’ll to use the radio’s microphone and announce to the campus that she needs help, the lights suddenly go out, so quietly and quickly ‘as if electricity suddenly no longer existed’ [Ooky spooky]. Alex absolutely hates the dark so this is bad news for her, but the worst is yet to come:
The double glass doors to the observation deck on the eighteenth floor of the tower blew open and ushered in a wind so strong, it pulled at Alex’s hair and whipped against her face and yanked at her clothing and tugged on her legs.
Before she could grab onto the edge of the desk, a giant vacuum with a strength much greater than her own, yanked her up in its arms and lifted her toward the black, gaping hole beyond the doors.
[Wait, so the soundproof booth where all the radio work is done leads to the observation deck? Who the hell would design it like that? Surely it makes more sense that the doors to the deck are in the radio office instead, not the booth they go live on air in?]. Alex is knocked off her feet and pulled along the floor out to the deck, where she’s able to latch onto the base of a telescope to keep herself from being dragged over the waist-high barrier to her death. Eventually the wind stops trying to kill her just before station manager Beth appears and helps Alex inside. Alex tells her everything, but Beth doesn’t seem to believe her for several reasons – no-one’s ever had a problem with any wind in the booth before; the door to the booth was actually open a little when she arrived, rather that locked; the power was on and the telephone is, in fact, working [That pesky Wizard!].
Alex is understandably shaken and returns to her dorm, disappointed to find Jenny’s not there. She can’t stop thinking about how she’s almost died two nights in a row and how crazy tonight was, and soon drifts off to sleep. She decides not to tell anyone about the observation deck the next day, feeling foolish about how crazy it sounds.
After visiting Julie, who’s in much higher spirits today, the gang heads to Vinnie’s, which is as packed as ever, and Kyle seems just as uncomfortable being there as Alex is, although his reason is that it’s too loud. As they eat, Alex notices ‘with amusement that Kiki ate more pizza than anybody else at the table’ [How’s that diet going, Kiki?], and later as they prepare to leave, Alex is surprised that Kiki’s belt is loose. Kik tightens it and explains that she’s probably lost a few pounds from all the soccer she’s played this week [Sounds like The Wizard is planning on letting her waste away to nothing].
Despite Alex’s protests, Marty insists on getting his fortune from The Wizard before they leave, [Why isn’t anyone annoyed by her constant complaining about it? She sounds super annoying]. He wants to know how he’ll do on the upcoming sociology speech he wishes he could get out of, and drops a coin into The Wizard’s slot. His fortune reads ‘SILENCE IS GOLDEN’ which again, clearly relates to his desire, but no-one seems to actually realise it [Will he just lose his voice, or will something more sinister happen?], and Marty and Alex think it’s more appropriate for Kyle, since he’d complained about how loud Vinnie’s is.
The next morning, Alex gets a call from Cath to explain why she never showed up for work – apparently someone claiming to be Kyle called her and told her she didn’t need to come in. It didn’t really sound like Kyle, but Cath has never spoken to him on the phone before and he’d seemed so sure she wasn’t needed, so she agreed just accepted it. Now that she’s thought about it, it sounded like someone trying to disguise their voice, but Catch has no idea who or why [Maybe The Wizard is alive! Or maybe when the lightning struck, one of Alex’s friends who were closest to it were also affected, and now they’re doing The Wizard’s bidding or are possessed or something?]. Alex has also quit the radio station, but she assures Cath it has nothing to do with her failure to show up.
On Saturday night, Alex is surprised when Jenny wears makeup, curls her hair and borrows some of Julie’s clothes to wear to the game. She looks super pretty, but it’s such a different look for her, and Jenny explains it makes her feel closer to Julie while she’s still stuck in hospital. At the game, Alex overhears Milo, Ian and Jessica [All three also from The Silent Scream – we might be going a bit overboard with the namedropping now, Hoh] discussing how unfortunately, Bennett’s still not ready to play.
At halftime, a voice over the loudspeaker announces that there’s a phone call for Alex. Expecting it to be Julie [Although I’m not sure why she thinks Julie would call her and not Jenny], Alex finds a phone after a chunk of page-filler and is surprised when the voice on the other end isn’t her friend’s:
“Hear me well, Alexandria. Are you listening?”
Stupified, Alex stared at the stone wall in front of her.
“What?”
“Hear me well. Take me seriously, Alexandria, or you will regret it.”
No one called her Alexandria. No one. “Who is this?”
‘”Do not dispute the wisdom of the ages. Skepticism is dangerous. Heed me well.”
There was a click, and the dial tone sounded in Alex’s ear.
For the rest of the game, Alex is unable to get the voice and his words out of her head. What could he possibly mean? She wonders if it was the same person who called the radio station, but she was just soo0oOooo00OooOO0O shocked that it wasn’t Julie calling that she didn’t pay close enough attention [I feel like this means it was someone else, but who could it have been this time?].
Salem ends up winning the match, with no help from Kyle or Marty who are stuck on the bench the whole time, and afterwards, the gang heads off for a bite to eat. They try Burgers Etc. first [Where Darlene works!], but the car park is packed. Despite scoffing her face the whole match, Kiki complains that she’s soOooO000O00O000ooo hungry, and although she looks thinner today than she did last time Alex saw her, Alex is confused because she’s clearly not dieting [Kiki’s got it good at the moment, eating whatever she wants and losing weight instead of gaining it!].
Kyle refuses to go to Vinnie’s because he needs peace and quiet [Is Kyle our human bad guy? He wasn’t too far from The Wizard when the lightning struck, so maybe The Wizard is constantly in his head or something], so they head to a Chinese restaurant in town. During the ride over, Jenny flirts with Bennett a lot, which is surprising to Alex because apparently Jenny isn’t the flirty type [So she’s slowly becoming more like Julie, it seems. Jenny hasn’t made her own wish at The Wizard, but did mention wanting to be identical twins so she could be beautiful like Julie in his presence. Maybe they don’t need to actually wish for something for their desires to come true, which is dumb because that’s not how wishes work].
After dinner, Marty, Bennett and Kiki wanna stop by Vinnie’s to visit The Wizard again [Why are they so obsessed with this thing?] so Bennett can ask if he’ll be able to play in the next game of football, but as usual, Alex tells them how stupid it is and how it’s such a waste of money [It’s basically her catchphrase at this point] and is determined to go home. Out front, the others try to convince her to come inside instead of catching the bus, and Kyle jokes that she shouldn’t be shit-talking The Wizard because he might have far-reaching powers and hear her, and Kiki agrees that she’s asking for trouble, which immediately makes Alex suspicious of both of them.
Alex demands to know if either of them made a phone call during halftime, and it turns out Kiki was responsible, wanting to prank her for being ‘”such a drag about The Wizard”‘ [Finally, someone sees how annoying Alex is being! I like Kiki. Did Kiki make the call to the radio station, too? Because that one was a bit insensitive] so Alex storms off to wait for the bus. Marty comes over to check on her, wondering why she doesn’t like Vinnie’s all of a sudden. Instead of telling him it reminds her of the lightning and the accident, or that The Wizard creeps her out, Alex snaps at him, declaring that she doesn’t have to do everything everyone else does [True, don’t cave in to peer pressure!], and he leaves her to it. Of course, she’s just lashing out at him, and at Kiki earlier, because she feels like an idiot for believing The Wizard ‘actually called to warn her not to doubt him.’
Back at her dorm, Alex hears a party down the hall and since she doesn’t feel like being alone, heads over. She joins in the fun for a bit before moving to the window which happens to be directly across from the tower. There’s two people dancing on the sixth floor observation deck and at first, Alex thinks they’re having a nice, romantic date under the stars. The tower is too far away for her to see who the couple is, but there’s something familiar about the taller figure, although she can’t place it:
Suddenly the shorter figure began to back away, slowly at first, his or her head turning from side to side as if looking for something. Then he began running from one side of the stone wall to the other, while the taller one remained in place with his back to the door leading from the tower.
Blocking it, Alex thought all of a sudden. The door is being blocked so the shorter one can’t get to it.
Why?
As she continues to watch, she realises the shorter figure is trying to escape the taller one, who’s blocking the only escape from the observation deck, but Alex can’t understand why he’s running around so frantically when the taller one is just standing there, doing nothing [Yeah that’s super weird, what is going on?]. The taller figure finally advances towards the other one, who backs up against the barrier wall [Now is when they should be running though, since the taller one isn’t blocking the door anymore!].
Alex wonders if she should call security [Yes!], but doesn’t want to look like an idiot if it’s just two people horsing around [Omfg, Alex], and she struggles to place what’s so odd about the taller figure. She notices that it looks like he’s laughing [How are you too far away to recognise any faces but you can tell that one of them is laughing?], which must mean everything is fine, right [No, you idiot]? And then, as she watches in horror, the taller one reaches the wall, lifts up the shorter figure ‘and threw him up and over the side of the observation deck’ [!!!!].
The figure flails around in the air until he slams ‘into the awning over the second floor deck and bounced off, arching up again before he made his final descent’ [Oof, surely they’ll be dead] and finally reaches the ground. Alex alerts the partygoers to what she’s just seen and orders someone to call an ambulance, then she rushes over to the tower as a crowd starts to form. Jenny, Kiki, Gabe and Bennett are all there, and Marty leans over Kyle’s lifeless body [Kyle?! I guess he’s not a bad guy like I thought. Also, how did they get here so quick and why was Kyle in the tower? Alex came straight to the party from Vinnie’s while they stayed behind? Weird].
Luckily, Kyle’s still breathing, and as Alex hears sirens approaching, she bolts into the tower and makes her way up to the sixth floor, hoping to find some clue as to who the taller figure was. The sixth floor is empty, and as she searches for any evidence, she wonders why someone would ‘throw sweet Kyle to his death’ [And I don’t think he’s even made a wish at The Wizard’s booth, either? He did complain about wanting peace and quiet within The Wizard’s earshot, I guess. He’ll have all the peace and quiet he wants when he’s dead!].
She eventually finds ‘a tiny, gold football, with a small golden hoop in the center so that it could be worn on a chain’ inside a pot plant out on the observation deck. It’s relatively clean, so must have been dropped recently, although Alex acknowledges that that doesn’t mean it was dropped tonight. A security guard and two policemen arrive, and Alex tells them everything she saw and hands over the football charm [Wow, a protagonist who doesn’t keep things from the police?! Who’d have thought] before the officers encourage her not to tell anyone about what she saw [It’s a bit late for that]:
Her stomach rose up to meet her throat. Oh, God, she’d been witness to a crime, and everyone at the party knew it! They’d tell other people, and those people would tell more people, and soon everyone on campus would know that she’d seen what happened to Kyle.
Including… Including the person who had committed the crime.
[Hahahaha poor Alex] As Alex points out the window she’d been standing at in Lester Hall to the officers, she’s horrified to see how easily recognisable the partygoers are over there and realises the bad guy probably saw her [Oh no!]. She tells the cops how she can recognise the girl currently at the window and what colour her hair is, and how because of the white streak in her own hair [Which apparently no-one else on campus has, but is now everywhere in real life. Alex was ahead of her time!], the attacker probably knows Alex saw him. She didn’t see the attacker turn to the window at any point though, so the cops reassure her it’ll be OK.
The cops walk Alex back to her dorm before finding the party to warn the guests against mentioning anything, and Alex finds a note from Jenny saying the whole gang went to the hospital to check on Kyle. She tries phoning the hospital, but the only information a nurse will give her is that Kyle is resting comfortably [He fell six storeys and hit an awning on the way down, surely he’d be much worse condition?].
With nothing else to do, Alex settles into bed and has a nightmare about Jenny having no face at all, Kyle laying motionless on a table and saying ‘”I have peace and quiet”‘ and a literally legless Gabe rolling up and down a hospital corridor in a cart, happily declaring ‘”I’ve finally got wheels!”‘ [I was wondering when Alex would make the connection between her friends’ desires/wishes and their accidents!]. The Wizard makes an appearance too, throwing his head back and laughing.
The next morning, one of the cops calls to tell her what he’s found out about the football charm. Apparently they come with a gold chain and were given to all the freshman who made it onto the football team. Alex offers to ask around to see who actually wears their charm, but the officer sternly tells her not to discuss it with anyone, also warning her not go anywhere alone [If you’re this worried about her safety why not send someone to be her bodyguard?].
Jenny comes out of the shower and tells Alex that Kyle’s in a coma [Peace and quiet!]. She wonders if he’d jumped, suggesting that maybe he’s more depressed about not being a big shot high school football star than they’d all thought, and since Alex isn’t supposed to tell anyone what she saw, she bites her tongue and invites Jenny to visit him and Julie at the hospital with her:
“They won’t let you see Kyle. And I already told Julie I can’t come today. I’ve…I’ve got stuff I have to do. Research. At the library, with Bennett.”
Research? In a gold silk blouse and black velvet jeans?
[Hahahaha. How dare Jenny want to look good on her study date with Bennett?]. Alex is surprised that Jenny’s not visiting Julie today, since she’s barely seen her all week [The timeline isn’t super clear in this book, but I don’t think it’s even been a week since the accident yet, so Alex needs to get off her high horse], but Jenny explains that Julie’s bandages are off now, and she doesn’t like people seeing her face full of stitches. And besides, their parents are coming tomorrow, and they’ll dote on Julie just as they always did [Even though she didn’t actually get a fortune from The Wizard, Jenny did want to look more like Julie, and it certainly seems she’s becoming more and more like her].
Alex showers, and Jenny’s gone by the time she gets back, although Alex notices her books are still on her bed. She must be planning on Studying Bennett, hehe! Still, Alex is happy that Jenny and Bennett may have found love, especially since Bennett was dumped recently by some other girl who only dates footballers [Shallow bitch].
Alex, Kiki, Marty and Gabe visit Julie, and Alex is horrified to see how ‘every ugly black stitch, every swollen lump of tissue, every patch of purple and yellow showed through’. Alex also notices that although Kiki looks thinner once again, she’s munching and crunching on something every time Alex looks at her, and Alex is sure she’s gonna ‘”eat herself right out of those jeans”‘ [Let’s not be judgemental, Alex]. Alex and Marty head down to see Kyle and they don’t even speak on the way because as she’d learned earlier from Jenny, he’s mad that she disappeared last night instead of staying to support Kyle [He’s also mad about her for being a snappy Tom at Vinnie’s too, but she’s apparently forgotten that part].
They’re not allowed in Kyle’s room because they’re not family, but a nurse tells them there’s no change in his condition. As the nurse heads off, Alex snoops through an envelope filled wth what Kyle had on him when he was brought in, which has accidentally been left on the front desk, and finds his football charm inside. That confirms that the one she’d found belonged to someone else, but who? And how long had it been sitting in the pot plant?
Satisfied with her knew knowledge, Alex replaces the envelope and hurries away with Marty, who wants to know what that was all about, but she just says she’ll explain later. As they get back to Julie’s room, Kiki, looking even thinner than she did a few minutes before, is just finishing up another snack:
Kiki lifted her arm to aim the crumpled ball of cellophane and stood on tiptoe to throw. Then suddenly, she said in a startled voice, “Oh, wow,” and collapsed. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth fell open, her eyes shut, and she slid down, landing in a heap on the floor.
They call a nurse, who recognises crash-dieting when she sees it, and when Kiki comes to, they all get a lecture about how healthy eating is the best way to shed some fat. Then the gang bids farewell to Julie and heads to Vinnie’s and on the way, Alex asks Marty about his own gold football charm. Marty had had his on his keychain, but has lost it somewhere [I think we can rule him out as a bad guy, since that’s too obvious], and asks Alex how she even knows about them. Remembering the cop’s warning, she makes up a lie [The cop also warned you not to ask around about the charms, yet here you are] and asks where he lost it.
He tells her how stupid that question is, because ‘”If I knew where I’d lost it, it wouldn’t be lost”‘ [True, it is a dumb question], but Alex grumbles at him for biting her head off [Alex is really getting on my nerves]. She wonders if Marty threw Kyle off the observation deck, but after deciding he’s too nice to do something like that, she’s quickly scolded by a nasty voice in her head:
Oh, come off it, the voice snarled, how do you know what Marty would or wouldn’t do? You hardly know him, so quit pretending you’ve figured him out. He’s cute, he has a good sense of humour, he dresses neatly, and he doesn’t have bad breath. That’s about the extent of your knowledge of this guy, so don’t be so sure there isn’t another side to him. There is to almost everybody, you know. So just don’t be so sure.
[The nasty voice has a point, Alex!]. As they get to Vinnie’s, Alex sends the others to find a free booth while she pretends to go to the toilet, but really she wants to get a good look at The Wizard, hoping that’ll erase the nightmare version of him she can’t get out of her head. Once again, she thinks about how Julie, Gabe and Kyle’s wishes had essentially all come true [Even though Kyle didn’t make a wish at the booth, exactly], and wonders if The Wizard really is responsible. But after studying The Wizard in all his worn-out, frayed-clothed, paint-chipped glory, she realises how silly she is to be afraid of him.
And then she starts to feel sorry for the old thing, because now that electronic gadgets like Nintendo and video games are all the rage, The Wizard’s days are numbered. Impulsively, she reaches into her pocket for a quarter but is interrupted by Marty before she can drop it in. He questions what she’s doing since she’s babbled on and on about how stupid the machine is, but she says she just wants to try it out and drops her coin in.
Her fortune is the exact same as Marty’s, ‘SILENCE IS GOLDEN’, and she tosses it in the trash, declaring that the fortunes mustn’t mean anything if the machine has already started repeating cards. As they join the others to eat, Alex realises that while the fortune didn’t seem to apply to Marty, it definitely has some relevance to her. If Marty hadn’t received the same card earlier, it may have shaken her up, ‘as if The Wizard really did know what was going on in her life’ [Ooky spooky!].
Over the next few days, there’s so much gossip going around campus abut Kyle that Alex struggles to keep her mouth shut. She desperately wants to tell everyone that Kyle didn’t jump, but in the off chance the attacker doesn’t know there was a witness, she wants to keep it that way [Good thinking]. Although she doesn’t remember exactly what seemed so odd about the attacker, she eventually recalls that it was something to do with his arm [Bennett’s on crutches, maybe that would look weird? But then surely she’d have noticed crutches anyway, right?].
On Friday night, Alex attends a frat party with Jenny, Gabe, Marty and Bennett, where she notices Bennett’s off his crutches again. He reckons he’ll be good for tomorrow’s game thanks to all the therapy this week. While dancing with him, Alex gets the chance to ask about his football charm, but he’s ‘”not into jewelry”‘ and left it at his parents house when he visited them last [Or did he?! He might be lying to throw her off! Could he have made a deal with The Wizard to sacrifice his friends in exchange for working legs?]. She asks Gabe next, who admits to losing his charm a while ago.
Despite all the fun and laughter surrounding her, Alex isn’t having a good time so she decides to take the shuttle bus to the hospital to hang out with Julie, to avoid going back to her room to be alone. She heads out front to wait, and when the bus arrives, it’s completely empty! Since it’s the middle of a Friday evening, this isn’t too unusual, so she take a seat toward the middle. Soon, Alex realises the bus is going way too fast, and it continues to pick up speed despite her protests and the honking and yelling of other drivers. After weaving through traffic, never slowing down, it eventually turns off the main road and onto a dirt track leading into the woods [Uh oh].
The back of the driver’s seat is high and the rear view mirror has been tilted so that all it reflects is the aisle between the seats, so Alex can’t see the driver. She does, however, notice a dirty, torn, tan raincoat hanging down beside the driver’s seat, which is weird because ‘the shuttle bus drivers wear navy-blue uniforms’ [So what this is telling me is that she didn’t even acknowledge the driver when she got on, otherwise she would have noticed he wasn’t in uniform, right? Rude bitch. Always greet your drivers]. She cranes her neck to get a better look, holding on for dear life and to keep her balance as the bus speeds along:
All she could see was a huge, dirty gray hat, yanked down to meet the top of the raincoat, as if he didn’t want anyone to see him.
And she knew then, that it was him.
He had seen her standing in Amber’s window the night he tried to kill Kyle.
He knew who she was.
And he had come for her.
[This guy is definitely dressed like a cartoon villain hahaha. Love it]. As Alex wonders if she’s about to die, a police car arrives behind the bus, sirens blaring. Alex loses her balance at one point and is thrown to the ground, knocked about all willy-nilly, and as she struggles to get up, she watches as ‘the dirty tan raincoat threw itself off the seat and rolled itself into a ball, the floppy old rain hat covering any features’ [This makes it sound like there’s no-one wearing the raincoat, right? Weird wording]. The ‘ball of raincoat tumbled, end over end’ [So is is someone in the raincoat or not?], and Alex hears the evil laughter from her nightmares. The doors open long enough for the raincoat to go rolling out before closing again, and it takes ‘several minutes’ for Alex to realise there’s no longer anyone behind the wheel of the speeding bus [Several minutes is a lot of time to waste, lol. She could have been in the driver’s seat hitting the breaks by now, assuming for some reason the bus isn’t slowing on its own?].
Poor Alex never learnt how to drive, but she manages to get to the front and steer the bus to a stop. She was in such a state of shock that she doesn’t remember doing it, and finds out when the policemen commend her on a job well done. The officers explain how someone with a car phone had reported the erratic driving of the bus, which is how the police got here so quick, and although one of the officers gave chase when the driver tumbled out, they’d found no sign of anyone [Hmm, so maybe it’s not a real person doing it and The Wizard is a supernatural being?].
As the officers take her home, Alex is surprised how close they are to campus, having eded up right behind Nightingale Hall [Two mentions! Wow]. After answering all their questions, Alex heads back to her room and waits for Jenny to get home, and boy is she in a mood when she returns! Apparently the boys had all left her – Gabe’s legs were bothering him and he wanted to call Julie; Marty found out Alex was gone and didn’t want to stay, which Alex thinks is weird because it’s not like they’d really spoken lately; and Bennett wanted to rest ahead of tomorrow’s big game.
Jenny had gotten mad at Bennett [Why? It’s a valid reason], but when she’d calmed down later and called to apologise, she got no answer. Alex suggests he was asleep [Which is the reasonable thing to think, since he said he wanted to rest], but Jenny’s got other ideas:
“I bet anything he went to Vinnie’s. He’s been spending so much time there lately. He’s obsessed with that stupid fortune-teller.”
Alex felt a chill. “The Wizard?”
“Yeah. Everyone else is pretty bored with it by now, but not Bennett. And,” Jenny pulled her hair loose from her ponytail and let it fall around her shoulders, “I saw Marty and Gabe hanging around it a couple of times this week, too.”
[So Bennett seems like the obvious suspect, and Kiki the least obvious. My money’s on one of them. Usually the least obvious turns out to be the bad guy, but Kiki seems to be losing a lot more weight than planned, so I’m leaning more towards Bennett. Or maybe it’s just The Wizard on his own?]. Jenny thinks the booth is dumb and the cards don’t mean anything, and although she’s unsure at first, Alex eventually agrees because her fortune card was the same as Marty’s [He’s got a speech coming up that he’s worried about, isn’t it obvious he’ll lose his voice or something?].
At the big football game the next day, Alex is pleasantly surprised when Mary, Bennett and Gabe all get a little play time on the field [Surely Gabe’s legs aren’t that healed already?], and afterwards, Jenny gushes to Alex about how well Bennett played. She’s so excited to be dating a football star, since she never got to in high school because ‘”Julie dated all the star athletes”‘ [Poor Jenny was stuck in her sister’s shadow. Doesn’t seem like she ever tried to step out of it until now though].
The gang heads to Vinnie’s afterward, where Alex calls the police to find out if the bus driver has been caught yet. Unfortunately there’s still no trace of the perpetrator, which is unbelievable to Alex because surely he hurt himself when he rolled off the speeding bus [Unless he is supernatural! Somebody call Dean and Sam Winchester].
The Wizard is right near the payphone, and Alex demands he tell her what’s going on, since he knows so much. To her surprise, the machine whirrs to life and deposits a white fortune card, without even receiving a payment [We love freebies!]. Curious, she picks it up, and Marty suddenly appears [Should we be suspicious of Marty? I can’t decide] to tease her about playing with The Wizard again. Alex replies that she wanted to give him another shot [I don’t know why she doesn’t tell him she didn’t put a coin in] since Marty, Gabe and Bennett have apparently been spending so much time with The Wizard.
Alex is fully prepared for this card to have no relevance to her life, but there’s absolutely no denying the cards do mean something when she reads ‘THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND’ [OK, so there’s definitely something supernatural going on. We just need to work out if The Wizard is being aided by a human antagonist as well…]. Marty thinks it’s weird that it’s not like any of the other cards they’ve gotten so far, and Alex is sure that The Wizard’s lips have curved upwards a bit, smiling at her [Ooky spooky!].
As they head to their booth to eat, Marty asks why Alex has been so off lately, but she retorts ‘”You haven’t exactly been Mr. Congeniality”‘ [He’s trying to be a good friend to her and she’s just biting his head off constantly! It’s like she expects everyone to know what’s going on with her, even though she hasn’t told anyone?]. He explains he’s just worried about the sociology speech due on Monday [See, Alex? It’s not all about you], and although Alex would usually be sympathetic, ‘she couldn’t worry about Marty’s speech now’ [It’s Alex’s world and we’re all just living in it], so she just says ‘”Good luck”‘, and an almost unrecognisable Kiki arrives soon after they get to their table:
She was wearing a bright orange blouse, tucked into her jeans, and the jeans hung on her hips. Her cheekbones jutted out sharply. But instead of looking beautiful, as Alex had anticipated, Kiki looked tired and haggard. There were dark circles around her eyes and a sullen look about her.
She tells the gang she’s been suspended from the soccer team for being way too underweight and admits she must have gotten carried away with losing the kilos but assures them she’s eating now [But she was never not eating, as we have constantly been told. Why aren’t they more worried? I mean, obviously it’s because of The Wizard, but as far as the gang concerned, she could be bulimic or something. There’s no way they should be able to accept that she’s been eating all that junk food and still losing weight]. Kiki eats more pizza than anyone, and although she hasn’t had an appetite lately, Alex forces herself to eat, because she doesn’t ‘want to end up looking like Kiki’.
Alex can’t stop thinking about the fortune as they eat. Only the police know about the bus ride, and whoever was driving it, of course, and she wonders if her new fortune card was planted there for her to find. But how could anyone have known she was going to use the payphone, and would find the card, unless he was nearby, watching her [Which doesn’t really make sense, because even if someone was watching, they can’t have known she was going to use the phone? And they couldn’t have snuck the card there while she was on the phone, because she would have seen, surely?].
Suddenly frightened, Alex decides she needs to go and asks Marty to take her home, pretending to have a headache. She soon changes her mind when they’re outside, realising it’s a dumb idea to go back to an empty room [Just ask Marty to stay with you? God knows your relationship needs repairing anyway] and asks him to take her to the hospital instead before being a massive cow to him:
“I thought you wanted to go home. What about your headache?”
“Marty, could you practice being a human being tonight? Just for this one night? I haven’t seen Julie enough lately, and I’d also like to find out how your best friend is doing, if you don’t mind.”
[I can’t believe her attitude, lol. I would have told her to fuck off and find her own way]. They don’t say a word to each other on the way to the hospital, although Alex admits to herself she probably would have told him everything that’s going on ‘if they’d been getting along better’ [So stop being a bitch to him?]. But he’s seen so uptight and annoyed lately [And you haven’t, Alex?], and she basically blames him for her bus ride from hell because she never would have left that party ‘if he’d paid more attention to her’ [Omfg I hate her].
At the hospital, Marty apologises for being a jerk and Alex apologises for being a snappy Tom [That’s a start, at least], and then Marty goes off to check on Kyle’s condition while Alex visits Julie. Julie’s kind of hurt that Jenny hasn’t visited lately, and apparently all she talks about is Bennett whenever she calls her:
“It’s like she’s having all the fun she missed in high school. I had it, but Jenny never did. It’s kind of weird that I had to get hurt for Jenny to have fun, don’t you think?”
[It’s very weird, and I’m not even sure if Jenny’s change in behaviour has anything to do with The Wizard anymore]. Alex reassures her that ‘”Jenny would take away the accident if she could”‘, although she’s not so sure because Jenny really is living her best life.
Julie then excitedly mentions how Gabe had visited this morning and told her wants her to wear his gold football charm [But he’d told Alex he lost it!], which Julie likens to ‘”being engaged to be engaged to be engaged”‘ [Gross, no thank you]. Alex remembers that Gabe had said he’d lost it, but wonders if he’d knuckled down to find it after Alex brought it up at the party [From the sounds of it, he hasn’t actually given it to Julie yet either, so maybe he’s just planning to give it to her when he finds it?].
She’s still thinking about it as she waits outside Kyle’s room for Marty to return from the vending machine. As much as she hates to admit it, she has to be suspicious because the football charm is her only clue who the attacker is, and Gabe had lost his, then suddenly found it after Alex mentioned it? She spots the envelope full of Kyle’s things still on the nurse’s desk and remembers how much time Gabe spent in the hospital and how he still visits for therapy on his legs. With no-one else around, Alex decides to snoop through the envelope again, hoping that her theory will be proven wrong, but alas, Kyle’s football charm is no longer there [I mean it is suss on Gabe’s part for sure, but Marty was also just there by himself so he also could have taken it. Someone could have easily taken it and planted it somewhere for Gabe to find!].
Alex is caught red-handed by a nurse and quickly makes up a lie about being Kyle’s girlfriend and wanting to wear the football charm now that he’s sick. The nurse is surprised that the charm is no longer in there, since she’d put it in the envelope herself, and thinks Alex is super suss. She then takes the envelope away to lock in a cupboard [Should have done that ages ago, idiot].
Alex spends the rest of the weekend wondering about the whereabouts of Kyle’s charm, and Marty, Gabe and Bennett are her number one suspects – none of them seem to know where their own charms are [Although Bennett told her it’s at his parents’, so it’s not like he claims to have lost it like the other two had], and all three could have easily taken it from the envelope while at the hospital at some point. She can’t think of any reason why they’d throw one of their best friends from a building though, and besides, they’re not the only freshman who received the charms. There’s still no update on who was driving the bus either, and although the police want to put a guard on Alex, ‘they couldn’t spare the manpower right now, in the middle of an investigation like this’ [But…she’s like, the number one target? They’re really not doing anything to protect her? Hahaha these police are worse than Shadyside’s]. Instead, they advise her once again not to go anywhere alone.
At lunchtime on Sunday, Alex is in the dining hall when she sees Kiki walk in with lank, oily hair and a pale, wan face. She looks as skinny as ever and as Kiki sits down to eat, she collapses to the floor and is taken to the infirmary. Later that night as she lays in bed, Alex remembers the wish Kiki had made about wanting to lose weight the night of the storm – was The Wizard listening to them? [But Kiki had only said that’s what she wanted to wish for; no-one had a coin for her to use. We know she went back to the machine another day though, so she probably made a wish then, so I guess that’s what Alex means] Kiki, Julie and Gabe’s wishes had all certainly been granted, although ‘not in the way they’d wanted’ [So I guess the fortune cards just warn them about the outcome of their wishes]. All Alex had wished for herself ‘was to forget about The Wizard’, and she falls asleep thinking about how crazy she is to suspect The Wizard to be behind everything [It makes the most sense though!].
On Monday morning, Alex, Jenny, Gabe and Bennett head to sociology class, where Marty’s due to give his big speech. Unfortunately for him, he’s completely lost his voice when he tries to begin. Try as he might, absolutely no sound escapes his throat and a humiliated Marty is eventually dismissed:
“Well,” Jenny whispered sympathetically as another student replaced Marty at the front of the room, “Marty wished he could get out of giving his speech, remember? At Vinnie’s, the night of the storm.”
[He sure did, Jenny!]. Alex realises that Just like Julie, Gabe, and Kiki before him [And Kyle I guess, although he didn’t actually wish for peace and quiet, just said he needed it. The rules around these wishes are super unclear. Like, they don’t actually need to wish for something for them to get a twisted version of what they want, they just need to mention wanting it, it seems. But then Kyle was attacked by another person, rather than some seemingly inexplicable occurrence like with Kiki or Marty. Also, Gabe’s wish never even came true anyway, he hasn’t been using a wheelchair at all, except for in Alex’s nightmare, just crutches], Marty’s wish had come true, and she remembers the fortune card he’d received from The Wizard – ‘SILENCE IS GOLDEN’.
As Alex waits in the infirmary’s waiting room for Marty, Bennett’s ex-girlfriend, who dumped him after his injury because she only dates football stars, waltzes in with an injury. Alex can’t help herself and asks if Bennett had ever given her his football charm. Turns out he had, but she gave it back when they broke up. Although suspicious at first, Alex decides Bennett probably lied to her about it because he was embarrassed about the truth [But like, it’s not like he would have had to tell Alex that his ex-girlfriend returned it when they broke up anyway? He could have just said it was in his room or something, if that’s where he’s kept it? There’s no need to make up a lie at all? Bennett is suss!].
Alex also learns from a nurse that Kiki, who’s still in the infirmary, is being transported to the hospital later today for treatment for her very obvious anorexia, despite Alex’s protests that Kiki has been eating. The nurse gives Alex Kiki’s room number, and Alex is horrified to see how little the patient in the bed resembles Kiki:
The girl in the bed seemed shrunken. She was frail and gaunt. Her head turned listlessly from side to side on the white pillow. The face was without colour except for purplish shadows under the sunken eyes. The cheekbones were hollow, the hair dull and sparse. Above the neckline of a white hospital gown, a sharply etched collarbone jutted skyward.
Alex stood at the foot of the bed, paralyzed with horror. That couldn’t be Kiki in the bed. It was a mistake…had to be…
Alex remembers now that Kiki hadn’t made her wish to be thinner the night of the storm, but realises she must have gone back another day and made it, and decides there’s no way everything that’s been going on is pure coincidence. Once again she realises how everyone’s wishes have come true [I swear she’s realised this like 1395 times by now].
Marty is released from the infirmary, having been diagnosed with stage fright, and Alex asks him to accompany her to Vinnie’s. He still can’t talk so has to communicate through writing, and tells her he wants to rest, but he drops her off first. Before she gets out of the car though, he gives her his football charm, claiming he found it rolling around in the back of his car, and judging by the condition of it, he’s not lying. Alex is ecstatic and gives him a big hug, promising to take care of it [So is that the end of their issues then? That was easy] before she heads inside.
She marches straight up to The Wizard and demands to know ‘”What are you doing to my friends?”‘, but of course The Wizard doesn’t reply. She’s not giving up though – while she accepts that the car accident could have just been an accident, and Kyle’s attack wasn’t supernatural since she saw it happen, there’s no logical way to explain Kiki’s dramatic weight loss and Marty’s missing voice [I’m still thinking that The Wizard is definitely the main antagonist, but one of her friends is also behind the bus ride and Kyle’s accident, probably Gabe or Bennett, since their leg injuries seem to inconsistently better, and then worse, and then better again. One of them definitely made a deal with The Wizard to sacrifice the others, or something along those lines].
She demands to know why The Wizard is doing all this to her and her friends, and then the machine whirs to life. Watching his arm move, Alex remembers what it is about Kyle’s attacker that had seemed so weird – when he’d pointed at Kyle, ‘the arm he was pointing with was much longer than his other arm’ [I don’t know how she’d even forget something like that in the first place, fkn idiot]. The Wizard’s arms are the same length though, which rules him out [He’s also mechanical, but okeh. Also, I just had a thought… Bennett’s been on crutches, and so has Gabe. That would make their arm seem longer if they lifted it? But wouldn’t you let go of the crutch before lifting your arm to point?], and the booth spits out a fortune that reads ‘YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR’.
Alex realises she’s been right all along, The Wizard can communicate, and she demands he stop all this nonsense and make Kiki and Marty well again. In reply, The Wizard shoots out three more cards – ‘YOU DARE TO THREATEN ME?’, ‘NO ONE DEFIES ME’ and ‘YOU ARE FINISHED’, and Alex realises what a nong she is to be threatening The Wizard without any kind of plan:
And at that moment, as if she had wished aloud, someone said, “Hey, Alex, are you playing with that thing again?”
The cards still in her hand, Alex whirled to see Gabe approaching. She was surprised to see him back on crutches. Smiling, he leaned against the wall, lifted the right crutch and pointed it at her, saying, “You’re going to go broke on that thing.”
And as he pointed the crutch at her, Alex knew why, in the dim light on the tower’s observation deck, Kyles attacker had seemed to have an unusually long right arm.
He had been pointing a crutch at Kyle.
[I feel like Bennett would make more sense. But maybe Gabe made a deal after the car accident?] Alex asks what he’s doing there, and he explains he needed cheering up because he’s back on crutches. Instead of playing it cool and acting like she hasn’t just potentially solved a mystery, Alex accuses him of trying to kill Kyle, and Gabe starts raising his crutch [!!!]. A sound behind Alex makes her turn, ‘and then something slammed against the side of her head and everything went dark’ [The Wizard/phone booth is tucked away into an alcove within Vinnie’s, but still, surely someone inside the restaurant would have seen this? Also, Alex deserved this whack on the head for turning her back on someone she thinks is about to attack her, the idiot].
Alex awakens inside the storage closet in Vinnie’s and emerges just to come face to face with The Wizard’s booth. The restaurant is dark and empty now, presumably closed for the night [How long was she out for?], and as Alex plans to grab the pay phone and call the police, a cold, inhuman voice booms ‘”It is your own doing”‘ and ‘”No one doubts the power and goes unpunished.”‘ [Ugh, don’t tell me the Wizard is actually talking now?].
As Alex refuses to look at The Wizard, the voice takes credit for summoning the wind and banishing the lights after locking her in the radio booth [Did he call in the song request for Julie as well?], and Alex finally looks into his eyes, which now glow ‘hot, hot, blazing blue, red around the edges’. The voice continues that Alex’s doubt of his power and her ridicule of her friends for their faith in it is what has caused all this [See, Alex? Look what your negativity has done!], and Alex threatens to smash the booth up if he doesn’t reverse the damage done to Marty and Kiki. Looking around for a tool to use, she spots the tip of a crutch poking out from behind The Wizard’s booth, presumably Gabe hiding [I think it’s The Wizard talking to her, though, not Gabe pretending to be The Wizard].
Slowly, eyes on the crutch the whole time, Alex takes a fishing pole from the storage closet and moves back to the phone, announcing to Gabe that he can come out now because she’s calling the police [What’s her plan with the fishing rod though?]. And then the figure behind The Wizard’s booth emerges, and Alex is super surprised to see that it’s not Gabe, but Bennett [!!!].
Bennett reveals that he’d knocked Alex out, and then Gabe [I’ll ask again – no-one in the restaurant saw this? Also, where’s Gabe now?], and also admits to driving the shuttle bus. He wasn’t hurt when he jumped off because of football padding and a helmet under the rain coat and rain hat [Ugh, as if]. He also admits to throwing Kyle from the tower because ‘”It’s what The Wizard wanted”‘, and stealing Kyle’s football charm since he’d lost his on the observation deck. Although The Wizard somehow supplied Julie with the hand mirror to look at her face and is responsible for Kiki and Marty’s ailments, Bennett admits to doing everything else, for The Wizard:
“He said it was the only way I could play football again. He’d make my knees better if I did what he said.” Bennett brightened. “And he did, Alex. You saw me in that game Saturday. My knees were fine.”
“Then why are you on crutches now?” She said sharply.
He flushed. “Well, I have to keep doing stuff for him. Every time I did something he asked me to, my knees got better. But they didn’t stay better.”
Basically it all boils down to how important football is to him. He was somebody in high school because of the sport, and that was all taken away when he couldn’t play anymore [Ugh, sport people, am I right?]. He reveals The Wizard speaks to him telepathically, which is just one of The Wizard’s many powers, and all he had to do was teach his friends a few lessons. But Alex saw him attack Kyle and she’s really pissed off The Wizard now, so Bennett has to kill her.
As he advances towards her, Alex puts the fishing rod to use and slashes it sideways [Ohhhhhhh, that’s what her plan was], ‘knocking his crutches out from under him’, and Bennett falls, smacking his head into the metal booth before sliding to the floor, unconscious. Then The Wizard arks up again, eyes glowing as he roars that Alex will pay. The booth rocks back and forth while whirring and clanking, and Alex picks up one of Bennett’s crutches and smashes all the glass on the booth up before turning her attention to The Wizard himself:
She hammered the nose away, watching the plaster crumble with satisfaction, slashed at the open red mouth until it disappeared, pounded at the cheeks, and then, in one final, desperate blow, smashed the head into a dozen pieces that fell, harmless, into the bottom of the booth.
We then jump forward to a football game [I’m not sure how much time has passed], where Kiki asks Alex if she thinks Salem will win. As Alex plays with the gold football around her neck, she declares that Salem will win for sure, and ‘”Kyle, Marty and Gabe will probably all play”‘ in the final minutes like they did last week [So did destroying The Wizard make everyone better? Like, is Julie’s face miraculously healed, or does she still have scarring?]. Julie asks if they’re all going to Vinnie’s to celebrate after [And I’m mad that there’s no mention of her current appearance. Is she horribly scarred or not?! Also, where’s Jenny?], and Alex is glad that she can hear the restaurant’s name without trembling now, after thinking that would be impossible – ‘But she knew now that anything was possible. Anything….’ [What happened to Bennett? Where’s Jenny? How much time has passed?! I’m mad].
We then have an epilogue of a man finding The Wizard in an antique store, with the owner divulging that it’s ‘”in tiptop shape”‘, although he had to put new glass in it [So did The Wizard heal himself, then?]. The customer reveals he’s opening up a burger place and reckons customers will love The Wizard, and the book ends as the two men sit down to discuss a deal:
At no time do they look up and see the cold, blue eyes watching their every move, listening to their every word.
And so they do not see the red lips curve slightly upward.
Final thoughts
God, this book was long, and so is this recap, and I’m very sorry because the book wasn’t even that good. It was an interesting idea and I liked how it kept me guessing whether The Wizard was sentient or not, but there was just so much repetition and a lot of nothing going on, so it was hard to get into. Alex was also super annoying and a bit of an idiot, which didn’t help.
It was just a bit bleh to me, sadly. Definitely not as bad as The Roommate, but probably the biggest letdown so far from Hoh. I’ve enjoyed everything else I’ve recapped from her, so she’s allowed a free pass or two. Hopefully the next one is better!
34 gold silk blouses and black velvet jeans out of 47.
