The Wish (2 page)

Chapter Two

A
fter my strep
throat, I wanted to get the flu, mono, a broken leg—anything that wasn't terminal or disfiguring. But I stayed healthy.

When I went back to school, nothing changed. And nothing had changed three months later when I met the old lady on the subway. I didn't expect her to make any difference either, and she didn't. On the subway stairs I was surrounded by laughing, yelling kids, but I was alone. The usual.

Outside, it had just stopped raining, and the breeze was chilly. I was cold, even though it was May twenty-sixth.

The old lady must have guessed about my wanting to be popular, I reasoned. Most kids want that. Though how she knew my name was a mystery. Nobody names a kid Wilma. The last person before me to be named Wilma was prehistoric—a Flintstone.

Maybe I look like a Wilma. My neck is short, and my front teeth are long, like a beaver. Everything else about me is average, although my brown eyes add to the beaver look. A friendly beaver, that's me.

At the corner of West Twenty-fourth and Tenth, I saw Ardis half a block behind me with a few billion of her friends. Even though she had talked to me on the “beloved Wilma” day, she hardly knew me. Claverford is small enough for everybody to know everybody, but I knew her better than she knew me. It's like you know things about the President of the United States, but he—or she—doesn't know you from a lima bean.

Ordinarily, I would have kept on walking. But this morning, because I was cold, and tired of being invisible and alone, and because of the old lady, I decided to talk to Ardis. I waited at the curb for her.

One of the bunch with Ardis was Razor Mouth Suzanne. Suzanne had always clung by her fingernails to the popular clique. She lived in the same building as me, and I'd known her since we were five, when she decapitated a snowman I was making.

Suzanne was tiny and perfect and had a teeny voice that carried a million miles. She reminded me of a Pomeranian—fox face and needle-sharp bark, and nervous, darting brown eyes.

Ardis, on the other hand, was tall and big boned and regal. She was African American, with the shaggy hair of an Irish water spaniel. Her nose was hawkish, but her eyes were huge and an amazing blue-gray, and her mouth was made for lipstick ads.

The group was getting closer. What could I say to Ardis? I thought of possible topics of conversation. She was on the track team and in the debating club. In the fall, she'd been elected to SGO, but I'd once overheard Suzanne telling somebody that Ardis was failing half her subjects and might get kicked out.

“Hi, Ardis,” I said.

“Wilma—beloved!” Suzanne yelped.

Somebody giggled. I heard a low “woof.”

Suzanne went on. “Sniffed any yummy—”

Ardis interrupted her. “Hi, Wilma.” She smiled at me.

She was so nice.

“Hi,” I said.

“How're you doing?” It wasn't really a question, and she didn't wait for an answer. She started to cross the street with her friends.

But I pretended she did want to know. “I'm okay,” I said. So far, so good. Now what else could I say? I stood on the curb, thinking. If she was failing half her subjects, maybe I could say something to help. I called after her, “If you want, I could help you out in science and history.” My best subjects.

She turned and yelled at me while walking backward across the street. She wasn't smiling anymore. “Who says I need help? The last thing I need is—”

A truck drove between us and drowned her out. It was near my side of the street, and it plowed through a puddle, drenching me from my waist to my feet.

When the truck had passed, Ardis and her friends were way down the block. I was soaked and cold and dirty. That was so dumb of me, to remind Ardis of her bad grades. How could I possibly have thought it would make her like me?

And now I'd given Suzanne something new to laugh at me about.

Some help the old lady had been. If she hadn't tottered into my life, I wouldn't have waited for Ardis. And if I hadn't waited, I'd be dry and unpopular right now, which would be an improvement.

I stood there, hating to show up at school looking this way.

There's Wilma. She splashed through a puddle to chase a stick.

There's Wilma. Another dog peed on her.

There's Wilma. Gross.

I started squelching to school. At least I didn't have far to go. Claverford was straight ahead, on the northeast corner of Eleventh Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street. It stood out on a block of shoe-box factory buildings because of its zany architecture, which it was famous for. It looked like it had been assembled by a goofy giant playing with blocks. The small blocks were classrooms. The big ones were the auditorium, the cafeteria, and the library.

It was also famous for being the richest middle school in the country. If you went there, either you were smart and had a scholarship, or your parents were loaded. In spite of our ugly uniforms, which were supposed to make it impossible to tell, everybody knew who was a Brain and who was a Wallet.

Suzanne and I were Brains, although in her case I think they made a mistake. Ardis was a smart Wallet. You couldn't be a dope and survive in the debating club.

Some of the most popular kids were Brains and some were Wallets. Money didn't matter. Beauty didn't either. For example, everybody liked BeeBee, my debate opponent, even though she had no chin and almost no forehead. And her boyfriend was Carlos the Adorable, the same Carlos I'd had a crush on for the last two years.

The crowd of kids grew denser as I approached the school's tall wooden doors. Two girls jostled me, and neither one apologized. A four-hundred-pound hiking boot squashed my foot. We weren't supposed to wear hiking boots to school.

I limped under the overhang and took a few steps into the building.

Ardis and some of her friends stood under the clock in the lobby. “Hey, Wilma.” She waved and moved toward me, and her group moved with her.

“You're wet.” She smiled at me. “A bus splashed me last week. It was terrible. I was soaked and muddy for hours.”

“Wilma . . .” Suzanne began.

She was going to ask if a hydrant had opened on me. Or something nastier.

“. . . I never noticed your eyelashes before. They're gorgeous.” Suzanne looked around at everybody. “Aren't they?”

They all nodded and looked friendly.

Huh?

Chapter Three

“I
have to
dry off,” I said.

Ardis and Suzanne followed me into the bathroom. I pulled a wad of paper towels out of the dispenser and dabbed at my wet skirt. Suzanne took some paper towels too and tried to help me.

Ardis leaned against a sink. “Suzanne says you're her best friend.”

Was something wrong with my hearing?

“She is,” Suzanne said. “We live in the same building. We've been friends practically since we were born.”

“We're just neighbors.”

“Where do you live?” Ardis asked.

“On Sixty-sixth. The big building on—”

“You know where we live,” Suzanne said. “I invited you to my birthday party. Remember? The address was on the invitation. Only you couldn't make it.”

Her best friend—me—hadn't even known there was a party.

“Where do you live?” I asked Ardis.

“On Irving Place.” She paused. “Look, if you meant it before, I could use some help with history. Maybe you can come over sometime and we can study together.”

The truck had run me over instead of just splashing me. I was dead and this was Hell and Heaven rolled into one. Suzanne and Ardis for friends.

“How come you're talking to me? What's going on?” Since I was dead, it was safe to say whatever I wanted.

Ardis looked puzzled. “I like you.” Her face went blank for a second. “I don't know why.”

“Why shouldn't we talk to you?” Suzanne asked. “You're the most popular kid at Claverford.”

The old lady! The old lady?

 

The hallucination continued. I left Ardis to go to language arts, where my humiliation by Ms. Hannah had taken place.

When I got there, Erica was trying to yank Daphne out of the seat to the left of mine. I usually sat between Jared and Daphne, the other two loners. But today Carlos was in the chair to the right of mine. Timothy was in my chair. Everybody else was standing.

As soon as he saw me, Timothy patted his legs. “Special cushion, Wilma. Park it here.”

This wasn't happening.

BeeBee said, “You're too bony. She'll be disabled for life.”

Timothy didn't get up, so I sat near the back, next to the windows. As soon as I did, there was a scramble, like in musical chairs. Evadney Jones, president of SGO, wound up sprawled on the floor at my feet. Suzanne got the chair next to me. Trust her to get what she wanted. BeeBee was in front of me, and Jared was behind. Timothy hopped around, yowling, “Who stepped on me?”

Ms. Hannah arrived. “What on earth? I want all of you to go to your seats.”

Evadney stood and dusted herself off. Timothy limped away. “Offer stands, Wilma. Anytime.”

I went to my regular seat. Jared sat down next to me, grinning like he'd won the lottery.

“Now before you pass in your reports,” Ms. Hannah said, “I should like some of you to tell us about the marvelous books you read.”

No hands went up.

“Daphne, you may start.”

Daphne, Brain and class valedictorian, was Ms. Hannah's favorite.

“I enjoyed
The Joy Luck Club
because it has folk stories, which were new to me since they're Chinese—”

“And you're Martian.”

“That's sufficient, Timothy. You may take a turn, after Daphne, since you're in a talkative frame of mind.”

I didn't hear either of their reports. Camilla, who sat behind me, passed me a note. It had my name on the outside. Daphne passed me a note. Jared handed me two more. I looked around the room. Everybody was writing or folding pieces of paper.

If Ms. Hannah had seen the notes, she might have been happy, because a lot of creative writing was going on. But she had started talking about “
Hamlet
by the bard,” and she didn't notice anything.

Some of the notes were signed and some weren't. Daphne, Evadney, and Nina each asked me to sit with them at lunch. Daphne promised me her slice of chocolate mousse cake if I did. Evadney wrote that she'd tell me something she'd never told anyone else before. Nina offered to share food and tales of love and life at Claverford.

Somebody (unsigned note) asked if I wanted to go to the Central Park Zoo on Sunday. The zoo was my favorite place, but how was I supposed to answer if I didn't know who was asking me?

Two notes were poems. One said,

 

Wilma's sweet.

She's a treat.

Let's make a date.

We'll call it fate.

Boo hoo.

I love you.

 

Definitely a Wallet.

The other one was from a Brain.

 

My barking siren

My short-necked beauty

My long-toothed divine

Tie me to a tall mast

So I may not come at you

Stop my mouth with a silk bandanna

That I may not tell my hope

I think and dream and drink of you

 

If this was death, who needed life?

Chapter Four

B
y the end
of last period, I had collected over a hundred notes. Forty were from boys who wanted me to go to Grad Night with them—but only eighteen were signed. Grad Night was Claverford's version of a senior prom, except Grad Night happened the Friday before graduation, which was just three weeks away.

Forty boys! Half the boys in our grade wanted me—me!—for their Grad Night date. Four of the signed notes were from boys who already had girlfriends, including my secret love, Carlos, who was going with BeeBee.

Carlos kept trying to catch my eye during language arts. He'd never paid any attention to me before. This had been quite a feat for him one time last year, when we had been stuck alone together in the school elevator for ten minutes. I had talked to him, of course, since it was my big chance to make him know me, care for me. But he had managed not even to glance my way, and not to say more than, “Uhhh . . .”

I wondered if Carlos was the one who'd asked me to go to the zoo.

If my wish had really come true, it was almost worth the last nine months of misery. I wasn't ignored or teased once all day. The word “anus” wasn't ever mentioned. If I died, almost five hundred kids would go to my funeral, and the school would have to bring in extra grief counselors to comfort everybody.

But how could my wish have come true? It didn't seem reasonable that all my problems could be over simply because I had given an old lady my seat, especially since I'd done it partly so I wouldn't be late for school.

And if it had come true, if it was a spell, how was I different from before? I didn't feel different. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I didn't look different. I was acting like myself. But nobody was seeing the same Wilma they had seen yesterday.

So assuming it
was
a spell, how long would the old lady's gratitude last? Would I still be popular tomorrow, and if I was, for how long after that? Would it still be with me next year at Elliot, the high school most Claverford kids went to? Would it last me through college? For the rest of my life? Or would it end in the next five minutes?

And if it ended, how would I stand it?

 

Ardis and Suzanne were waiting for me in the lobby when school was over. Let me repeat that—
Ardis
was waiting for
me
. Suzanne saw me first. Her popularity radar was infallible.

“Wilma. Over here.”

I threaded my way through the crowd, smiling and saying “hi” to everybody. I reached Ardis. “Hi,” I said to her. I ignored Suzanne.

“What's happening, Wilma?” Ardis asked.

I don't think I'd ever grinned before the way I did then. Ardis got the full power of the day I'd had. “I don't know what's happening. But whatever it is, it's fabulous.”

She smiled back at me. “Way to go.”

She walked me to the subway, along with Suzanne and at least twenty other kids. Ardis didn't say anything, just walked next to me.

“Do you have any pets?” I asked. It was the first thing I wanted to know about anybody, though, given my reputation, maybe I shouldn't have brought up the subject.

She shook her head.

Oh. That was a disappointment.

“Me neither,” Suzanne said.

“I have Shanara, my little sister.” Ardis laughed. She had the best laugh—genuine and shoulder shaking. A whole body laugh, not a brain laugh, and nothing mean about it. “Shanara follows me around like a dog. She's eight, and she's sweet.”

Suzanne said, “I'm an only ch—”

“My sister Maud is four years older than me,” I said. “If she ever called me sweet, I'd faint.”

I didn't know what to say next, but Ardis asked which teachers I had. We compared while Suzanne kept interrupting with the teachers she had. Ardis had Mr. Pike for science, and I'd had him in seventh grade. He was good for months of conversation—how he picked his ears with a bent paper clip; how his Adam's apple was so big, it looked like he'd swallowed a golf ball; how he rocked back and forth till you almost got seasick.

I told her about the time last year when he gave us a test, and he started rocking, and he rocked so hard, he fell off his chair.

She laughed again. I had made Ardis Lundy laugh. Twice. Me.

Mr. Pike lasted us to the subway. Ardis didn't take the subway to get home, so we said good-bye, and I was left with Suzanne. I wished she had gone too.

“I always wanted a dog,” Suzanne told me while we waited for our train.

“So you could write a secret-life essay like I did?”

“Yeah. That was a super essay. So imaginative.”

I pinched myself. It hurt.

Our train came. “I thought I'd look cute walking a tiny poodle,” Suzanne continued as we got on, “but Daddy said I'd have to pick up after it, and that's disgusting.”

If you love an animal, you don't mind what goes along with it.

“Guess what.” Suzanne smiled. Smirked, really.

“What?”

“I have history with Ardis. I saw the last test Bluestein gave back to her. She got a fifty-seven.”

Suzanne being friendly was as mean as Suzanne being mean.

“So she failed one test,” I said.

The train stopped at our station, Sixty-sixth Street. Suzanne gossiped all the way home. She told me that Evadney Jones's friends had cheated when they had counted the votes for SGO president. She said that Erica couldn't afford to go to Elliot next year because her mother had lost her job.

We went into our building. My apartment was on the third floor, and Suzanne's was on eighteen. She rang for the elevator and I headed for the stairs. I just couldn't stand to spend another second with her.

“Want to come up and hang out?” she asked.

“No.” I knew I was being rude, but I didn't care.

“Okay.” She punched the elevator button again. “I ought to study too.”

Now I felt guilty. Guilty enough to say, “See you tomorrow.” But not guilty enough to change my mind.

The phone was ringing as I unlocked our door. While Reggie jumped all over me, Maud yelled, “It's for you, Wilma.”

How could she tell the phone was for me when it was still ringing? We didn't have caller ID. We didn't even have an answering machine.

It was BeeBee. I could hardly hear her over Reggie's enthusiastic barking.

“What?” I shouted.

I clamped the phone between my head and my shoulder and stroked Reggie with both hands, which got him quiet enough for me to hear that she was inviting me to her house for a sleepover Friday night. I thought of turning her down because of the way she had acted when we were working on the debate. But then she said Ardis and Nina Draper were coming too, and I decided to forgive her.

The three most popular kids at school.

And me.

Wow.