Autumn's Wish by Bella Thorne Page A

shakes it off. “I know there’s no one out there better than J.J.,” she says. “But, yeah, I’m still curious what the computer would say. It’s a good idea, Autumn. It’ll get people to pay for the dance and show.”
    “So…how do we make it work?” Mariah asks.
    Luckily—and shockingly to me, because she comes off as a complete airhead—Brody LeClair is a complete computer genius. She apparently takes college classes in coding and already has a side business building websites. She knows
exactly
how to make the program work and can get questionnaires sent out within the week. If we give people another week to fill them out, we’ll still have time before the dance for the program to do its work and for us to get everything printed out gorgeously for the party itself. We decide that even though it’s a senior event, we’ll open it up to the whole school. Since everyone has to pay ten dollars to submit their questionnaire, we figure the dance will pay for itself, plus make a little money for our class’s prom fund.
    When the meeting is over, I corner Brody and strike up a conversation. I need to be close to her. I’m still not sure how I’m going to pull it off, but I do know I’m going to use this dance to save the future. No way will I let Carrie and J.J. get paired together. I’m going to make sure they not only get other people, but also people who will really tempt them. As for Jack, I want the computer to pair him with a guy. I know he won’t ask for it on the questionnaire, but I can pass it off as some kind of computer glitch. But hey, if I choose the guy wisely, maybe it’ll lead to something fantastic!
    Brody sends out a teaser email about the Scare Pair dance that night, and by the next morning the whole school’s majorly excited, but probably no one as much as me. I’m the only one who knows how important it really is. I spend the whole week watching Carrie, J.J., and Jack closely, hoping they’ll betray their secret crushes, but I get nowhere. The only guy Carrie talks about is J.J., and J.J. gets glared at if he even
thinks
about a girl other than Carrie. This time last year he was secretly in love with
me,
but I don’t think that’s in his head at all. Even if it was, it would get messy. I need his
dream
girl—someone he’s had a crush on since before I even moved to Aventura. I try asking Amalita about it one day as we walk to class together, but she just gives me the side eye.
    “Why?” she asks suspiciously. “You want to fix him up with someone special for the Scare Pair dance?”
    I’m shocked that I’m so transparent, but I think I cover well. I drop my jaw and throw out my arms in a scandalized, “Who, me?”
    Maybe I don’t cover that well. Ames rolls her eyes. “
Dejalo.
Leave it alone. The boy has a good thing going. I love you, Autumn, but I don’t want you messing with him again.”
    She wouldn’t say that if she’d seen J.J.’s future, but I can’t tell her that. I drop the topic. If I want answers, I need to find them myself. Subtly.
    “So, Jack,” I say on Thursday at lunch. “I’m trying to figure out who I want my Scare Pair to be. What do you think?”
    “I think I want Jennifer Lawrence, ideally in her Mystique costume,” he says. “Can you make that happen?”
    I roll my eyes. “I mean for
me.
If you were going to choose a good guy—for me, I mean—who would it be?”
    Jack scrunches his face. “We don’t choose people. We just answer the questions on the questionnaire.”
    “I know, I know,” I say. “I’m just asking. If you
were
to pick a guy.”
    “For you?” Jack asks. “How about Alex Futterman?”
    “Alex Futterman hasn’t showered in three years!” I explode.
    “Oooh,” Taylor pipes up. “You could get Derek Montzer.”
    “Picks his nose, rubs it on desks,” I retort.
    “I say Wayne Jarvitz,” J.J. adds. “He’s a hottie.”
    “He’s a
freshman
!” I yell. “He hasn’t hit puberty!”
    “You’re getting a