On Monday, Charlie drives Bella to school.
As she's been discharged from the car and Charlie pulls away, a van driven by a panicking teenager screams out of nowhere towards Bella.
Making wishes is easy.
It is not automatic. It is not instantaneous.
The van creams Bella, good and proper.
Alice bites his lip, and glances at Bella, and draws a little heart in the air with his fingertip where her father can't see.
They pull onto her street.
"You haven't seen my house before," Bella remarks to Alice. "It's not as big as yours."
"Yeah, I'll bet it's not," he agrees. "And I'll bet you don't have an underground lair, either."
"There's a cellar!" Bella says. "It contains boxes and the old microwave and mousetraps and plumbing."
Charlie pulls into the driveway to let the teenagers out. "Since you're okay," he says, "I'm going to go handle some things at work. I'll be home at the usual time. Call me if you need anything, Bells."
"Will do, Dad," she says, and he waves and pulls away.
She has a key. It's in her backpack; she hasn't started separately carrying a purse yet. She lets herself and Alice in.
"I like your house," he chatters as he follows her in. "It's little and cute and it's yours and I like it."
Bella chuckles. "It's my dad's. I've had very little influence on the decor. I think the kitchen has been yellow since before I was born."
He twirls. Just because he has to let the glee out somehow or other.
"Huh," she says. "What time is it? I'm hungry. The microwave and oven are always set to different, wrong times..."
"Ooh, lunch," says Bella. "Sure, if you feel like cooking. I'm really tired - apparently vehicular collisions are exhausting - and I don't think I want to start using wishes as caffeine." She taps her chin. "I'm going to use the chicken for dinner tonight - probably with the help of actual coffee - but there's some asparagus I haven't done anything with, and pasta in the cupboard?"
"I will make you pasta and asparagus!" he says. "Do you mind if I hurt myself on your stove?"
"As long as you triangle away the suspicious smell of bacon. We are out of bacon, and Charlie always knows whether or not we are out of bacon," says Bella.
She's pretty sure the answer is that he would have taken her star, and tried that.
She's just gonna put her head on her arms on the table, that's all.