Do-Overs by Christine Jarmola Read Free Book Online Page A

me.
    But this insane time change ability did. Then reality hit again. I wasn’t just a freak with a magic eraser. Suddenly with Rachel recapping all the horrid things that had happened to me over the past week I had an epiphany. If I could figure out how to harness the power of the eraser, I could have what I had always wanted. I could have control over all the situations in my life. No more dog poop on my shoes, or laughing at the wrong moment, or watching my mom chase down huge underwear on the campus oval. If I wasn’t crazy then it meant that I had the power to change my destiny. Look out world. Life finally did give do-overs.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -10-
    I’m Invincible
     
    It didn’t take long for me to find a reason to use my wonderful eraser again. Less than twenty-four hours in fact.
    Being a junior in college, I knew better, but my only recourse to get out of the dreaded dog-poop-shoe Old Testament class, was to take a different section at eight. That’s A. M.—as in the morning. Ridiculous. And needless to say my body agreed, because at 8:10 a.m. I rolled over to stare my traitorous alarm clock in the dial and realized I was late. I jumped up to head for the shower, but heard it already running. One of my other suitemates must have beaten me to it. What was I to do? I’d already missed the first day of the class because of rescheduling. I was already going to spend the next two weeks lost and confused. But I couldn’t walk in late and unshowered.
    Finally my brain woke up. It had worked once, might as well try it again. I dug through my purse and found my beautiful pink eraser at the bottom. I tried to remember exactly what I had done in the cafeteria to make it work. I thought for a moment and said, “Can I do this over?” Nothing happened. I asked again adding please. Maybe good manners were essential. Nothing. I asked again a little more demanding than beseeching. Maybe I needed to show that pink thing who was boss. Nada. It was starting to dawn on me that it must have all been a dream. A very real dream, but a dream nonetheless. I hadn’t actually really changed time. I hadn’t thrown my food on the guy of my dreams and then unthrown it. I had thought at the time I’d soon wake up and it would never have had happened. In some ways it was a major relief. I wasn’t going crazy. The universe did function normally as always. But it had seemed so inexplicably real. Just as real as I felt right then sitting on my bed, late for class, holding an eraser. It had to have been real. For some bizarre reason realizing that my not changing time the day before made me feel more insane than when I actually thought I had.
    It had worked. I knew it. Something was keeping it from happening again. Something in the sequence or the words or time zone. Maybe solar flares or the hole in the ozone had to be properly aligned for it to function. I was grasping at straws. Maybe it was a one-use magic eraser? Maybe I had done something to break it? Maybe it only worked when food was involved? Exasperated I shook the stupid thing, shaking it as hard as I could, and said, “Give me a do-over so I’m not late to class!”
    This time my clock read 6:55 a.m. and I wanted to kiss it. It had worked! Then it clicked in my mind. Crazy Aunt Charlotte (I guess I needed to quit referring to her as crazy as I was the mental person talking to a desk accessory) had said just wave it around and ask. The waving it must have been vital to making it activate. Strange how relieved I felt. I was doing the impossible, but the realness of it reinforced my sanity. No time to analyze it then. Off to jump in the empty shower and get ready for a good start to a new class.
     
    Sliding into class with five minutes to spare, I found a seat in the back by a very handsome guy. He wasn’t the hunk from the cafeteria by any means, but he wasn’t anything to sneeze at either.
    “Good morning,” he said in very cultured tones. In Oklahoma you