Mom and Murphy and me and a whole bunch of kids gathered lakeside, laughing and eating. Clouds blotted out the sun, and the sky took on a yellow hue, that hot, uneasy feeling drifting in the air. Rain began to fall, pelting the party, spoiling the cookout. Canoes flipped, and children were dashed into the churning water. Lightning struck a tree, and sparks went flying. A branch fell and snapped the picnic table in two. Sirens began to wail, that eternal beacon of terror in the hearts of all Southern kids. And far off in the distance fell a spiraling brown bulldog of a tornado, squat on its haunches, ravaging everything in its path as it barreled toward the birthday party. It all happened so fast no one knew what to do. There wasn’t enough room in Mom’s car for all the kids from the party. It was loud as a railroad train, the screaming column of wind barreling down on us, lifting lake water and yanking up trees, plucking children into the air one by one, sucking them into the swirling void before they could even make a sound.

I sat up screaming. I ran to Murphy because I knew she would listen, because I knew Mom would just ignore me or ground me or worse.

“You have to cancel your birthday party,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“You have to. Or you’ll die. See, I had a vision. A tornado’s going to come. We’ll all die.”

“No.”

“Mom will die.”

Little nine-year-old Murphy sighed. “Fine,” she said. “If your vision said so.”

“It absolutely 100 percent did,” I said. “You can pretend you’re sick or something. I’ll make it up to you. Thanks, Murphy. You just saved all of our lives.”

The next day Murphy faked being sick, and the party was canceled. Murphy sat in her PJs eating chicken broth, watching her favorite movie, Point Break (the old one, with Keanu and Swayze).

Thing was, no tornado ever came. The skies were bright blue and beautiful, an even seventy degrees. The most perfect day possible to go to a lakeside birthday party. Murphy just sat on the couch and cried.

“You ruined my birthday,” she said.

And she didn’t talk to me for a whole week.

So the whole vision thing isn’t always completely accurate. I can’t tell the difference between an honest-to-god prophecy vision and one that has no shot at coming to pass. I mean, who knows, maybe some kid would have drowned or gotten snakebit at Murphy’s party and I wound up saving someone’s life anyway. It’s pretty much impossible to tell. All I know is that I can’t always trust the visions, not completely. But I’m afraid not to. Because when they’re right, they’re hideously, horrifyingly right.

Only thing is, why didn’t I have the vision about Mom in time to save her? Why didn’t it come ten minutes earlier, when it actually would have been useful?

Frankly, visions are a pain in the ass, and I wish they happened to somebody else.