1

The first vision I ever had came on Sunday, and I know this because I was staring at the fridge.

Well, not just the plain old fridge, because that would be weird.

I was staring at the school cafeteria menu on the fridge. Mom puts the weekly lunch menu on the fridge every Sunday, in the very same spot each time: between our family calendar and the “reminder” board where we are supposed to write reminder-y things like Get milk or Remember library book, but where my brother usually draws cartoons of insects burping or monsters sitting on the toilet. The point is, my brother’s annoying. And also, that it was definitely Sunday.

I put my finger up to Monday on the menu and slid it down to the right spot. Then I squealed. “Pizza dippers!”

If you don’t know what pizza dippers are, you’ve got a lot of living to do. But I’ll go ahead and tell you that pizza dippers are long sticks of bread with gooey cheese inside and you dip the whole thing in pizza sauce. They are extremely delicious. Which is why I then said, “Yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay!”

“Ay!” chirped The Baby, who was sitting on the floor trying to eat Cheerios with a fork. The Baby has an actual name, which is Alexander, but everyone else calls him “The Baby,” so I do, too. And he doesn’t even seem to mind, which is odd because I wouldn’t want everyone calling me “The Girl” or “The Middle One.” But I guess he’s okay with that kind of thing.

Mom peered over my shoulder at the menu. “Ooh, pizza dippers. Lucky you. And lucky me—one less lunch to make,” she said with a wink.

“Yup, ’cause I’m having”—I took a deep breath, opened up my arms, and sang at the top of my lungs—“piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizza dip—”

I stopped singing. Because suddenly my arms started to get prickly and goose bumpy, and I kind of felt hot and cold at the same time. And then—well, remember that vision I mentioned? That’s when it happened, right there, in front of the fridge, my mom, and The Baby, who was now using his fork to hurl Cheerios at our dog, Mr. Cheese. It was like a picture only I could see. But it wasn’t a normal picture, like of my family, or me on my birthday.

This is what it was a picture of:

That’s right. Little, round, green peas, flying around in midair. And then, the picture was gone.

Very. Strange. Especially because I’m not even that fond of peas.

“You okay, Hazy?” Mom asked. I guess I was still staring at the fridge.

“Um, yeah, I just … saw something,” I said. Mom gave me a funny look and opened her mouth like she was going to ask more. Then everything went bananas. The Baby spit up some mushed Cheerios just as my brother Milo ran into the house from soccer practice, followed by my dad, who immediately tripped over Mr. Cheese. (My dad always trips over Mr. Cheese. I don’t know if he doesn’t see Mr. Cheese, or if Mr. Cheese tries to trip him on purpose, but the point is, if you’re ever at my house, just please look down when you walk in the kitchen door. There might be a dog.)

“Hazel, don’t just stand there. Please do something!” Mom pleaded.

I guess I wasn’t being very helpful. I grabbed The Baby so I didn’t have to clean up his disgusting regurgitation, and by the time I changed him, my dad got his throw-uppy clothes into the washing machine, and my brother got sent to his room for saying “Gross!” again and again and again, I didn’t really get a chance to talk to anyone about the flying peas. But that was fine with me. I didn’t want to think about them anyway. It weirded me out, for real live. Instead, I decided to turn to more important things.

I headed to my room to work on my space mission to Mars.

Text copyright © 2017 Jennifer Hamburg

Pictures copyright © 2017 by Jenn Harney