Free Autumn's Wish by Bella Thorne Page B

going to act differently, and the future will change again. You could probably go back to that same date right now and it’ll be different because you’re on a different path.”
    “So how do I know what to do?” I wail. “This is crazy! And J.J.—I keep making his life worse too. What should I do to make it better?!”
    “Think about your dad,” Jenna advises. “He’s the one who gave you the locket, remember? He wouldn’t want to make you crazy, right?”
    “No,” I agree, and I smile a little as I recount again his mission for me. “He’d want me to use it to bring peace and harmony to my little corner of the world.”
    “Exactly. You make changes to fix what you see in the future; then you jump ahead to make sure you got it right.”
    “Eight more times,” I say, and I tell her about the little dial window that numbers the jumps. “But what if I run out of jumps and the future’s still bad?”
    “Another gift?” Jenna suggests.
    It’s a possibility. My dad has been pretty regular about them so far. But I don’t want to count on it. What I
can
count on is what I know about my dad. He loves me. He wouldn’t send me on an impossible mission that’ll make me feel hopeless and sad. No matter how hard these futures are to see, I can’t panic over them. I have to think of them as helpful hints—signs about what I need to change today so the bad things don’t happen tomorrow. Like with Sean. In my jump, Reenzie said they airlifted him in from Tallahassee. He’s been saying FSU is his number-one pick for school. The one he’s dying for but isn’t sure he’s a good enough player to get into. Well, I just have to make sure he doesn’t get in. Or if he does get in, that he doesn’t go. He was at a Division Two school and not paralyzed in the first future I saw. That’s the one I need him to get.
    As for J.J. and Carrie, I’ve now seen two different miserable futures for them. To save them I clearly have just one choice. I need to break them up.
How
I’ll do that I have no idea, but three weeks ago I had no idea how I’d break up my mom and her bushy-beard husband, but I managed that, right?
    In the meantime, I can keep an eye out to make sure all my friends and family stay on track for their
positive
futures. Mom using the Catches Falls dogs as hospital therapy animals is genius. If I have to help her come up with the idea, I will. Reenzie seems on track no matter what, so that’s great. I’ll keep an eye out for Drew this year to make sure Tee meets him, and if I have the chance to help Jack feel comfortable telling us the truth, that’s great too. As for Ames, maybe I can work on the drinking thing with her so it never gets really bad.
    These are all amazing goals, but I have no idea how to accomplish them until the next week at school. I’m in the Senior Social Committee room, which is really just one of the classrooms we’re allowed to take over each afternoon. Carrie and the seven other girls sit at student desks, and Gus stands at the active board taking notes. I’m sprawled out on the teacher’s desk, stomach down, feet in the air.
    “Okay, seriously, ladies,” he snaps at the room. “
No one
is excited for the Halloween dance. It’s like not a thing, and it needs to be a thing. It needs to be a
huge
thing.”
    “It would help if we did it
away
from school,” whines Meegan Rudolph. She winds one of her pigtails around a finger. “We’re seniors. We’re done with dances in the gym.”
    The pigtails and whining have to go, but Meegan’s totally right. “Maybe we could rent a place,” I say.
    “No budget,” Carrie says. “We don’t want to charge too much, and we have to be smart this year so we have enough left over for our prom and the after-prom party. The parents’ fund will help, but we still need money of our own.”
    “Then what can we do at the school to make it special?” asks Mariah Amhari.
    Mariah fascinates me because she always sits or stands with