The Wish (10 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

I
couldn't sleep.
I didn't want to sleep. I'd never have another night like tonight. Tomorrow would come, and then Sunday and then Monday morning, and it would almost certainly be finished.
I
would be finished. And there was nothing I could do about it.

I'd miss being popular. I'd miss being
magically
popular, so that every single kid liked me. I'd miss feeling safe to be myself, more myself than I'd ever been when I was worrying what people would think of me. But what I'd miss most were my friends—Jared, Ardis, Daphne, Nina, and BeeBee. They felt like real friends, not magic-spell friends.

I had to talk to them. But if I talked to them before graduation, it wouldn't do any good. They'd say they liked me and they'd like me forever. They'd swear it. And after graduation, they wouldn't talk to me.

Well, I'd make them. I couldn't make them like me after graduation, but at least I should be able to get them to talk to me.

Monday afternoon would be my only chance, before everyone left for camp or vacation or relatives. I'd get them all together. Except Jared. I'd talk to him alone.

 

I called Ardis first.

“Could you come over to my house Monday afternoon?” I began. “Although you might not want to.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know—you may have other things you need to do . . .” I trailed off.

“Will Reggie be there?”

“Sure.”

“Then I'll come.”

“Great! It means a lot to me. Ardis . . .”

“What?”

“Do you promise? You'll come, even if you don't want to?”

“What's going on, Wilma? I said I'd come.”

“I know. It's just that there's something important I have to tell you, only I can't tell it yet. I'm inviting Ni—”

“Why can't you tell now?”

“Because I can't. You'll see.” If the spell didn't end, I'd make up something to say. “Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“For sure?”

“Wilma! When have I ever broken a promise?”

“You never promised me anything before.”

“Oh. Well, I never break a promise. I'll be there.”

After Ardis, I called everybody else, and they all promised to come, although Nina took points off for making her promise. Now I just had to cross my fingers and toes that the promises would hold.

I didn't call Jared. I was going to catch him right after graduation. I had the most hope that he'd go on liking me, but if he didn't, I wasn't going to beg him. The others I was willing to beg, but not Jared.

 

Monday. Doomsday. I couldn't eat breakfast. Mom asked if I was sick, but I said I was only nervous.

Maud said, “It's just middle school, Wilma. It's not the Nobel Prize for veterinary medicine.”

My face was blotchy. My Claverford uniform was rumpled. I tried to put my hair up the way BeeBee had done it, but it kept coming out lopsided. For three weeks it hadn't mattered how I looked. Today it mattered, and today I looked lousy.

When the elevator door opened, Suzanne and her parents were inside.

“Wilma!” Suzanne squealed. “You look super!”

Outside, it was raining. Suzanne buzzed on and on. I looked at my watch—ten after eight.

It was almost impossible to do the ordinary stuff—walk, breathe, try not to listen to Suzanne. When we got to the subway, I looked for the old lady. The train came. No old lady. Fiftieth Street. Forty-second. Thirty-fourth. Twenty-eighth. Twenty-third. Our stop. No old lady.

By the time we got out of the station, the rain had stopped. It was the same weather as the day I got my wish.

And then we were there. We turned into the entrance. Could the transformation happen as soon as I stepped inside, ending exactly the way it had begun? I stopped outside the doorway so suddenly that the person behind me crashed into me.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Anytime.” It was Timothy.

“What's the matter with you?” Maud said.

“Nothing.” I took a deep, shaky breath and stepped inside.

Chapter Twenty-three

B
eeBee was in
the lobby with her mother. She grinned and waved to me. The end hadn't come . . . yet.

Mom and Maud and I followed people up the stairs to the auditorium. What goes up doesn't always come down. The Wilma who was going up, the popular one, might not come down.

Seventh graders handed programs to everybody as we filed into the auditorium. I had to sit in front with the other eighth graders. We were in alphabetical order, and I was between Ovideo Stout and Erica Talbot.

When everybody had come in, we all had to stand to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I just moved my lips. My mouth was too dry to sing.

When we finished, Mr. Winby gave a speech. I didn't hear a word. I wanted to climb over everybody's legs and run up the aisle, yelling, Stop! No graduation!

After Mr. Winby was done, Mr. Imber, the music teacher, played the piano. Even though the auditorium was air-conditioned, sweat beads formed on my forehead and my blouse was soaked—and I was shivering.

The next event on the program was giving certificates to the honors students. I was one of them, so I would have to go onstage. I wasn't sure I'd be able to stand up.

I managed it, although I was puffing by the time I got to the stage, convinced I'd left a wet trail from my perspiration. There had been applause for the other kids, but when Ms. Virrone, the assistant principal, gave me my certificate, the clapping from the first four rows was deafening.

After the honors awards, Daphne got up to give her valedictory speech. She was the only hope I had left, and I didn't have much hope. But I clapped hard when she climbed onstage, and the applause, which was weak at the beginning, got stronger.

Daphne began her speech by remembering how it had felt three years ago to be a sixth grader and how exciting it had been to have left elementary school behind. She went on to say that it was exciting yet again to move on to high school. She said we had to start thinking about what we were going to make ourselves into. We had to look out at the world and see where we would fit in it someday and how we would do—and she meant more than what we would be when we grew up.

Then she said, “We're different from the sixth graders who arrived three years ago. I know I am. But even though I've learned a lot and am a better person for it, most of my years here were not happy. For most of them I was without friends. And then, a few weeks ago, a friend found me. I'm saying this—”

She was talking about me! I was surprised—overwhelmed—and I missed what she said next. Then I heard “. . . friends we make during our teen years can stay with us forever, if we're lucky. And friendship is more than hanging out; sometimes friendship is picking your friend up when she's down or has been stepped on; sometimes it's bringing your friend into the same circle with your other friends; and sometimes it
is
just hanging out.

“But whatever it is, it's because of our friends that we are never really going to graduate from Claverford. In our hearts—in the truest sense—even though we get our diplomas today, we will always be Claverfordians, remaining forever in eighth grade in the company of the people we care for the most.”

That was the end. I clapped as hard as I could, and the applause grew again. It might be the last time I'd be able to help her out.

But maybe her speech had worked. Maybe staying in the eighth grade in our hearts would be enough for the old lady.

Mr. Imber started playing the piano again. The eighth graders, including me, marched up the right-hand aisle, behind the last row of seats, and into the left-hand aisle. This was it.

“And now,” Mr. Winby said, “the moment some of you have been waiting for since you came here three years ago. Camilla Abrams, you're first. Come on up.”

Camilla climbed the steps to the stage and walked behind Mr. Winby to stand on his left.

“Congratulations.” He handed her the rolled-up diploma tied with a ribbon. She took it.

And nothing happened, as far as I could tell. She shook Mr. Winby's hand and left the stage.

Nothing special happened with the next kid either. Or the next.

The first of the kids I knew best to get her diploma was Nina (Draper). Maybe she'd look at me so I could figure out what was going on. She did. As she walked up the aisle, she looked for her friends, and she grinned at me. She grinned at me! She was still my friend. One down. Many more to go.

When Jared got his diploma, he waved it at me and grinned. I loved his grin. I loved that it was aimed at me. Still aimed at me.

Ardis got her diploma, and then BeeBee did, and then Suzanne. As she left the stage, Suzanne held it over her head, like an Olympic medal. And as she walked up the aisle, she smiled at all the most popular kids—including me!

Then it was my turn. Maybe the old lady was waiting for me to get my diploma. I made it to the stage. I was supposed to accept the diploma with my left hand and shake Mr. Winby's hand with my right. I did it backward. When I held the diploma, I couldn't tell if anything had happened. I felt like I was having a stroke, but that might have been from panic, not from something really happening.

I tripped on the first step down from the stage. I heard people gasp, but I caught myself and didn't fall. When I joined the kids waiting halfway up the aisle, Ovideo asked me if I was all right, and Ardis smiled sympathetically at me.

So it wasn't over yet. It was still going on. Maybe Daphne's speech had worked, after all.

Parents and students milled around in the lobby after the ceremony. I couldn't find Jared—but it was wonderful to know that I didn't
need
to find him. Mom and Maud and I headed for the door with Ardis and her family.

“We should do something when we leave the building,” I told Ardis. “Something to commemorate our final exit.” My heart was thudding again. This could be it. It could have waited till now to end.

“That sounds like we're dying.”

One of us might be.

“What if we step across the threshold facing each other,” I said. “So we can see each other take the step into the future.” So I could see Ardis's expression change, if
it
happened.

“So I can say at our fiftieth reunion . . .”

We were almost at the door. We were at the door.

“Now,” I said.

We faced each other and stepped across.

Chapter Twenty-four

N
othing happened.

“An eighth-grade Wilma and a one-second-old ex-eighth-grade Wilma look the same,” Ardis reported.

The spell was still on! I would stay popular! I would keep my friends!
Thank you, old lady!

“Maybe you do look different,” Ardis said.

My heart stopped.

“Happier,” she added.

It started again.

Ardis's father called her. So she left me, saying she'd be over at three.

“What a great graduation!” I said to Mom and Maud. “I wish Reggie could have seen it.” I hugged Mom. “Wasn't it a great graduation?” I hugged Maud. “Wasn't it?”

“I guess.” Maud straightened her blouse. “The valedictorian's speech wasn't bad.”

It was wonderful not to have a big secret. Not to have one to reveal, that is. Now I just had to think of a good reason for having invited everyone over.

Mom took us to my favorite restaurant for lunch. It's Middle Eastern, small and cozy. The food was better than ever before. The waiters were friendlier. Even Maud was all right, although she asked me twice why I was grinning like an idiot.

Mom and Maud didn't go home with me. Mom had to go to work, and Maud was going to her best friend Portia's house.

At home I changed into shorts and a T-shirt as I thought about what my fake big secret could be.

Nothing was new with Reggie. We weren't moving. Mom hadn't lost her job. Maud hadn't run away from home. What if I said I wanted to plan what we were going to do together at Elliot next year? That might work.

At ten to three, I dumped a package of chocolate-chip cookies into a bowl and took them into my room. At five to three, Daphne came, and the rest of them came about a minute later.

In the bedroom, Nina flopped across Maud's bed. “BeeBee thinks you're going to say that your mom's getting married ag—”

“I do not think that!”

She plowed on. “Ardis thinks Reggie's going to be a father, and I think you're skipping Elliot and going straight to veterinary school.”

I laughed. “Nope. None of the above. Have a cookie.” I handed the bowl to Ardis, who was sitting cross-legged on my bed. She took one and passed the bowl to BeeBee. Daphne was sitting at Maud's desk, not looking as comfortable as the rest of them. I stood next to her and looked at the four of them.

“If I could have tryouts for friends,” I said, “among everybody in the world, I would pick you guys.”

“Points off for senti—”

BeeBee choked on her cookie. “Water,” she gasped, coughing.

“CPR—” Ardis said.

I raced for the kitchen, calling over my shoulder, “CPR's only when you're not breathing.”

I ran water. I could hear BeeBee coughing over the sound of the tap. I filled a glass and turned away from the sink.

The old lady was sitting at the kitchen table.

I dropped the glass. It shattered.

“Reggie could cut his paw,” I said automatically. “I have to clean up.”

“He won't come in, Wilma,” she said in her rich voice.

He didn't. And I didn't hear BeeBee coughing anymore, either.

“Thanks for the wish. And thanks for not taking it away.”

“That's why I'm here. It must end now.”

“Why? Why does it have to end? I wished to be popular.”

“At Claverford. You graduated today.”

“But I didn't mean that part of it. You knew what I meant.”

“I did indeed.” She sighed. “People are rarely wise in their wishes.”

“Can't you give me what I want? Please?”

She shook her head. “I could only give you your wish exactly as you wished it.”

“Could you give me another—”

“Hush.” She closed her eyes. I tried to talk, tried to tell her what Daphne had said in her speech, but I couldn't. I couldn't move my lips. She opened her eyes. “It's over now, Wilma. You are as you were before.”

Reggie howled.

I turned at the sound. I turned back. On the kitchen table was the glass filled with water, unbroken. I heard BeeBee coughing in my room. And the old lady was gone.