Granting a Thief's Wishes

Nicole's assignment was great for Maddie and I. After semester break, their faculty was hosting a fashion show and it would be Nicole's first debut. Technically. The thing that Nicole and I had in common was our last-minute-habit.

So as I unlocked the apartment door, thanking god that we miraculously didn't get one single ticket speeding back to my apartment (although my hair puffed into a crap version of an Afro due to the freaking wind), I saw our apartment scattered with all types of fabrics and buttons and sketches.

"Suziiieeeeee," Nicole croaked. She was curled up into a ball, wrapped in a blanket and a warm cup of what was presumably coffee. "Suzzzzz-eeee. Is there anything to eat in the kitchen?"

"Lemme see," I mumbled as I walked into the kitchen, opening cupboards and the fridge. "Um...instant noodles. Expired though. And burnt spaghetti sauce. And this weird, fuzzy green thing on a stick."

You know what, we should've thrown those out ages ago.

"Let's have them all."

"Do you want to die?" I said, throwing the junk into the trash can. "Let's go out to eat."

"I can't go out. The sunlight buurns."

"Nicky, you're being ridiculous."

When I walked back into the living room, she threw a fluffy skirt towards me. "I'm supposed to make an entire set consisting of 12 outfits, okay, Susannah. I don't know if you know how huge that number is in such a short amount of time."

"Well maybe you should've done it earlier!" I argued. We stared at each other a while before throwing our heads back and laughed.

"You two are crazy," Maddie muttered as she walked into the room. Her hair was held up in a messy bun. Curls were sticking up in weird angles. She was wearing her Snoopy pajamas with a pair of bunny slippers that I got her for her welcome present. One of the left-foot-bunny's eye fell off though...

"And this place is a mess!" She shrieked. Okay, let me tell you something. Madison...she loved tidiness and cleanliness (just open her closet. She arranged her clothes by colors, from light to dark for goodness' sake...while Nicole and I kind of throw everything in our closets). Heck, if cleanliness was a person, Maddie would probably marry him.

But the good thing about having such a clean-a-holic in the apartment was that...

"Where's the feather duster? Jesus, Nicole. The least you could do is arrange all of these stuff in a container or something. Don't designers have that?"

...Maddie basically offered to clean everything herself.

"A messy table is a table of a genius!" Nicole protested.

"A table, Nicole. Not a freaking room."

"Well, uh, that just makes me more of a genius, doesn't it?"

I didn't have time for this. I was in a serious need to pick out an outfit for later that evening. Nicholas said I could come with him and meet whats-his-face. Bryan? Ryan? They were having a party for god knows why on the beach.

Not that I cared. I just wanted to look nice for someone who was going to change my entire perspective towards fairies. Maybe after that, I'll probably stop at some bookstore to survey some books about mythologies...

Or the library. That way I won't be broke.

"What do you want from me, Maddie?" Nicole said, sounding pissed off. "I'm busy! And my room's too small for any creative energy to flow!"

"I just wish," she said, pausing to snatch a piece of torn fabric and then she made her way to the waste bin near our bathroom door. "I just wish our living room would be clean like usual!"

"Guys, could you two please stop fight--" I said, but I was cut off with a loud scream coming out from Maddie. She ran towards us and jump on the sofa. Nicole stood up, looking around the apartment suspiciously.

"What, what is it?"

"There's a rat!"

Nicole shrieked too, jumping on the sofa with Maddie as I made my way near the waste bin. "Seriously guys, it's just a rat."

Oh my god.

There were two huge rats staring up at me. They were as big as freaking guinea pigs, I swear! Oh my god. Oh my...god...I didn't dare to move in case they might...jump on me and eat my face off or something.

"Oh no, my dress," I heard Nicole gasped. "Don't let them come near here!"

"Shit," Maddie cursed as I backed away slowly from the rats. They were still staring. Shouldn't they be scared too? Dammit, those were huge rats. "Shit, if you had kept the living room a bit more clean..."

"This has nothing to do with fucking cleanliness, alright Maddie?! Oh god, please just make the rats go away. I just want them to go away!"

"Grab me the broom!" I said. Nicole got off from the couch and ran towards our small storage area. But then I heard more shrieks.

"OH MY GOD," Nicole screamed. "There's more!"

This was getting ridiculous.

Nicole half-ran, half-jumped towards the couch and I tried to kick the rats away. They scurried off towards the living room area, which evoked more screams from my two, very helpful friends.

"A little help would be nice," I said, rolling up a magazine as soon as my fingers touched the glossy cover on the table next to the couch.

"No, not my Vogue!" I heard Nicole wailed, but I ignored her as I herded those two rats out before dealing with the other one that Nicole found. "Shoo, shoo," I muttered.

"Just don't let it get near me."

For some reason, it did.

Now this was getting weird. I mean, usually these were the kind of wishes that were granted. Little, meaningless wishes from my wacky friends. But when Maddie wished for a clean environment, rats came out. When Nicole wanted them to just go away, there was another one.

I was afraid that I was more of a bad luck to them now rather than a fairy of wishes.

"Noooo!"

"Stop wishing for things!" I said on impulse. "Stop wanting crap! Just...I got this under control."

Please, let me be wrong this time.

I hurried to our door, swung it open and got back to the rat that was scurrying about in the living room. I rolled up the magazine and just like an expert golfer, started to hit the rat with the magazine and it rolled and rolled and ran outside of our apartment. I slammed the door shut.

"Stupid rats," I murmured.