Wyatt leaned against the kitchen wall and shook his head. “This is unbelievable!” he exclaimed. “Look at me. I’m trembling all over.”
“Gee, I didn’t think you cared the much,” Kelsie responded.
“No, I’m not talking about you,” What said. He handed his sister the paper he had been holding and said, “Look at this. It’s a story I wrote for English class last week. I got an A on it.”
She glanced at the title: “‘Squeeze’. Ummm… so?”
“Go ahead and read it, Kelsie.”
Kelsie Hagerman walked through the dense jungle, a feeling of doom lurking in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, what she thought was a branch began to move, and a pair of evil green eyes glared at her. Kelsie screamed in terror. But it was too late. The giant boa constrictor dropped on her, wrapping her in its deadly coils.
Kelsie glared at Wyatt and said, “What is this? Some sort of sick joke?”
“No, that’s what so incredible,” he said. “I wrote that last week. It’s all about how you were attacked by a boa constrictor. And now––days later––you actually do get attacked by a boa!”
“You really are sick,” Kelsie snapped, flinging the story at him. “I nearly get killed, and you come up with this twisted joke.”
“I swear to you that I wrote it last week. If you don’t believe me, just ask Miss Conwell. She’s the one who read it and gave me an A. It’s the weirdest coincidence I’ve ever experienced.”
“Wyatt, are you saying you’re psychic?”
“No. I’ve never made a prediction that’s ever came true––except the one about you and Rick breaking up within a month.”
“Don’t remind me,” she said with a shudder. Staring at her brother, she warned, “I definitely plan on asking Miss Conwell about this. And if you’re making fun of my near-death experience, I’ll make sure you have one yourself.”
“All right, kids, that enough,” ordered that mother. “You know better than to make threats, Kelsie. And, Wyatt, you wouldn’t be really that insensitive, would you?”
“Of course not. I’m telling you the truth.”
The next day, with Wyatt by her side, Kelsie asked Miss Conwell about his story. “Isn’t it uncanny?” the teacher said in bewilderment. “Wyatt wrote it last week and it pretty much come true––except the part about the jungle and the fact that you died.”
“See?” Wyatt told Kelsie. “It’s just a coincidence.”
“Well, from now on, leave me out of your stupid stories, okay?”
Wyatt agreed. However, he couldn’t resist using the name of his friends in his future stories to see if what he wrote came true for them. Perceptibly, it never did, which squelched any hope or Wyatt that might be physic.
“Oh well,” he thought to himself. “It was good while it lasted.”
________________________________
A year later, for an advance creative writing course, Wyatt was supposed to write a period piece from the nineteenth century. He composed a tale about a runway stagecoach carrying a group of screaming passengers. For no particular reason, he named the heroine Kelsie.
Careening down the trail without its driver, the swaying, rocking stagecoach was headed straight into tragedy. The terrified screams of the passengers couldn’t drown out the sounds of the wooden wheels crashing against the rock and thundering hooves of the out-of-control team of horses.
“I’m not ready to die!” Kelsie yelled to the others. With all her might, she climbed out through the window and up onto the roof. Then she crawled to the driver’s seat and grabbed the reins.
“Whoa!” she yelled. “Whoa!” But the horses paid her no attention.
She yanked on the reins as hard as she could, but it was no use. Now she had another problem. A sturdy oak tree stood straight in the path of the runaway stagecoach. Kelsie tried to turn the horses to the left and the other one right. The yoke between the horses slammed against the tree. The stagecoach split right in half, spilling everyone to the ground except Kelsie who was still riding the broken other half of the wagon. She couldn’t think of anything more to do other than linger until some miracle came down and save her.
About a week after he wrote it, Wyatt brought the paper home to show his mother, who always read and enjoyed everything he wrote. “Got another A,” Wyatt announced, waving the paper in his hand.
His mother who was on the phone, looked up, smiled, and mouthed, “Congratulations” before returning to her phone conversation. When she finished, she told Wyatt, “That was Kelsie. She’s having a great time in Colorado with her church group. They were rock climbing yesterday and went hiking this morning.”
“What a lucky ditz. She got to start her spring break three days early.”
“So, you received another A, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty good story. Lost of blood and guts and bodies flying all over.”
“Sounds gross. Let me read it.”
As he munched on a granola bar, Wyatt noticed his mother was beginning to frown. When she finished reading his story, she looked down and nervously rubbed her temples.
“You didn’t like it?” he analyzed her.
“It was well-written, Wyatt. But did you have to put Kelsie’s name in it?”
“What’s the big deal? I made her the heroine. Hey you’re not thinking about what happened with the snake story last year, are you? Come on, Mom. That was a fluke. Besides, Kelsie’s not even riding in a stagecoach.”
“No, but she told me they were going to be riding in a horse-drawn wagon in the mountains later today.”
“Oh, you don’t think––”
“I just have an uneasy feeling. I now this sounds silly, and I am aware of her snake attack and your snake story was just a coincidence, but why take any chances? I’m going to tell her not to go.”
“Mom, you’re really being silly right now. Quit it!”
“I’d rather be a fool then sit idly by and let my daughter hurt. Now where is that phone number?”
Mrs. Hagerman dialed the inn were the church group was staying. “Hello, may I speak to Kelsie Hagerman, please? Oh, they did? Is there any way to reach them? I see. Yes, please have her call home the moment she returns. Thank you.” Turning to Wyatt, she said, “It’s too late. They already left on their ride.”
“Mom, nothing is going to happen,” Wyatt claimed. “You’re being paranoid over nothing. I’ve written dozens of stories with names of people I know, and none of them ever came true.”
“I suppose you’re right. What can I say? I’m a mother, so I’m supposed to worry. It’s part of my job description.”
Hours later, long after the dishes had been watched and to away, the Hagerman’s still had not heard from Kelsie. Seeing his mother fret, Wyatt tried to calm her. “She’s fine, Mom. They probably forgot to give her the message, or maybe it was––”
The ringing of the phone interrupted him. In a flash, his mother pounced on the receiver like a cheetah. “Hello? Is that you, Kelsie?”
“Mom,” said Kelsie in a shaky voice on the verge of tears. “First, I want to tell you that I’m all right.”
“Oh my gosh! What happened? You got in an accident on the wagon, right?”
“Yes, Mom. How did you know?”
“The horses bolted, you had no driver, and the wagon split in two!”
“Who told you?”
“Wyatt.”
“Wyatt? How did he find out?”
“Never mind, Kelsie. Tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”
“Bruised, but otherwise okay. We’re all fine, just shaken up. We went on this nice horse-drawn wagon ride on an old dirt trail. It was really pretty going through the woods and everything. After we stopped for a break, we were climbing back into the wagon when suddenly the tow horses got spooked by a low-flying military jet. They lurched forward just as the driver was getting on. He was thrown on the ground, and the horse took off with all eight of us girls in the wagon. Before we knew it, we were moving at a full gallop.
“The driver was running like and after the wagon, but there was no way he could catch it. By now all of us were screaming, because the horses were galloping at what seemed like the speed of light. No one was doing anything, so I climbed over everybody and reached up to the driver’s seat and pulled back on a large wooden lever that I assumed was the brake. I pulled on it so hard that it started to smoke, but it didn’t slow down the wagon enough.
“I was holding for dear life, while some of the girls were threatening to jump. I yelled at them not to. But then I say that were nearing a cliff, and I knew we had to jump or we’d all die. Just then the horses saw the cliff, and they made a ninety-degree turn. The wagon leaned on two wheels. I thought for sure we’d roll over, but we didn’t. We turned off the road and were bouncing through a mountain meadow. I was screaming at the horses and the girls were screaming at me, because we were aiming for a telephone pole.
“The horses were hooked together by a large wooden toke. One horse went to the left of the pole, and the other to the right. There was a tremendous impact when the yoke hit the pole. The yoke broke, freeing the horses, and everyone but me flew out of the wagon, which literally split in two. The girls lay all over the place like rag dolls. It was a miracle no one was seriously hurt.”
“Oh, thank goodness you’re all right,” her mother sighed.
“Yeah. So who told Wyatt about the accident?”
“No one Kelsie. He wrote about a runaway stagecoach and how a woman named Kelsie climbed out onto the roof and tried to rein the horses, but the coach split in two then it hit a tree, spilling everyone.”
“Wait a minute. Wyatt wrote about me?”
“Yes, he used your name as the heroine of the story.”
“He used my name last year with the snake! Now he did it again! What’s he trying to do, kill me with his writing?”
Wyatt quickly got on the phone. “Kelsie, I’m really sorry. It was just another coincidence. I’ve written dozens of stories using the names of friends, and relatives, and nothing ever came true.”
“Promise me you will never, ever use my name in anything else you write.”
“I promise. In fact, I won’t use the name of anyone I know, even if it’s a sweet story where nobody gets hurt.”
For the rest of the year, Wyatt stuck by his word––with one exception. He wrote a first person love story about a boy who fell in love with a girl named Zahina.
She was exceptionally beautiful. Long silky brunette hair and the cutest eyes one could ever describe of. Her lips were kissably plump and tinted with a rosy hue. Her hair always blew in the wind as if it was an angel woven cloth made out of clouds, ready to drape me in its splendour. I had realised there was a sudden flutter in my heart when ever she talked to me. There was more to her, I could tell. One day I built up my courage and asked her out.
“Zahina, do you want to go out with me?”
She looked at me with awe. “I was waiting for you to ask me out. Why did you take so long?”
There was a long silence and then Zahina finally nodded.
In real life, Zahina happened to be the name of a girl Wyatt wanted to date. But this time, life didn’t imitate art. When Wyatt asked Zahina out, she turned him down flat.