The Seventh Wish (3 page)

The ice flowers are still here, but they're flat and muffled today, like wildflowers someone pressed in a book. They
crunch under my feet as we head toward a point of land sticking out from shore.

I'm taking careful steps, one foot in front of the other, and managing to convince myself this is safe. But when we're halfway out to the point, the ice lets out a booming-loud, timpani-drum thump. I've heard muted ice sounds from shore before, but this is
loud
. I jump about a mile and look at Mrs. McNeill. “Is it breaking up?”

“I know how to survive being stranded on an iceberg,” Drew says.

“I'm
so
hoping we don't need that information right now,” I tell him.

Mrs. McNeill gives me a reassuring smile and shakes her head. “The ice is fine, my dear. You're simply hearing air bubbles working themselves up through the fissures now that the sun's up. Listen . . .” She pauses, and the ice booms again, like thunder out by the island a mile offshore. Then it makes a weird, video-game sound.
Gurgle-twang-zzzing!
“That's the ice talking, letting us know it's settling in for a good, long winter of fishing.”

I keep going. But my heart's still pumping fast, and my legs feel wobbly, even with the cleats. If this ice really means to be reassuring, it ought to talk in something other than loud, scary growls and space invader weapon sounds. Right now, I'm hearing less “We're going to have a good winter” and more “I'm going to swallow you whole.”

Not far from the point, Mrs. McNeill pulls the sled to a stop and looks around. “You think this is about where we were in the boat?” she asks Drew.

“Pretty close.” Drew turns to me. “There's a ledge around here where the perch like to feed. We were pulling 'em in like crazy back in August.”

They start unloading gear from the sled. I pick up an insulated bucket and can feel the bait sloshing around inside. “Are these minnows?”

“Yep. They're always better than lures when you can get 'em.” Mrs. McNeill pulls a power auger from the sled and turns to Drew. “Shall we let Charlie give this a try?”

“Sure, as long as I get to drill my own,” he says.

“I don't know how to use that,” I say. The auger has a pull cord like the outboard motor on the McNeills' boat, and I couldn't pull hard enough to get that started last summer.

But Mrs. McNeill leans over to show me. “Piece of cake,” she says. “Pull the rip cord.” I do that, and the motor starts humming. “Great!” She points to a trigger thing on the auger's handle. “Now give it some gas to make the blades turn, and we're in business.” She guides the auger to a spot on the ice and holds it with me, pressing down while the blades whirl into the ice. In a few seconds, there's a hole about six inches wide and a sparkling circle of ice shavings all around it. “Perfect!”

She hands the auger to Drew, who makes his own hole about ten feet farther out. Then he pulls three short fishing poles from the sled and hands one to me. It's only a couple feet long, way smaller than the poles we use in summer.

I take off my mittens, fish out a minnow, and bait the hook. My bare hands burn with the cold. Once they're mittened up again, Mrs. McNeill gives me a quick ice fishing lesson.

“You want to drop your bait maybe two or three feet down,” she says, “and be sure to give the pole a good tug when you feel a bite. They can get away quick.” She puts the lid on the bait bucket and slides it over so I can use it as a stool. “One more thing before you fish . . .” She reaches under her scarf, pulls out a four-leaf clover charm on a chain, and holds it up. “May the luck of the ice spirits be with you.”

“That doesn't sound like science,” I say.

She smiles and tucks the charm back under her layers of wool. “Drew's grandfather gave it to me when we got engaged years and years ago. He said it was a good luck charm, and I decided I'd believe that. It hasn't always worked for me, but I've learned that you take your magic where you can get it. Especially when you're waiting on fish to bite.” She heads farther out on the ice, a little past Drew, to drill another hole, and I drop my line down under the ice to wait.

There's a lot of waiting in ice fishing, and now that I'm not moving, it feels colder, even with the sunshine. The air is still biting, and my fingers never warmed up inside my mittens. I hold my pole with one hand and lift the other to my mouth to blow some heat onto them. Twenty minutes go by in silence, except for the ice groaning and thumping.

Finally, Mrs. McNeill stands up. “Got one!” she hollers, and reels in a perch.

Drew stands up to see. “Ain't big enough to bother with in the derby, but Billy'll take it.”

“
Isn't
,” Mrs. McNeill says. Drew totally knows better, but he loves the cowboys in old Western movies and knows it drives his nana crazy when he talks like them.

Mrs. McNeill pops the lid off her bucket, drops the fish inside, covers it, and sits down. Almost right away, she has another fish, and then Drew stands up. “I got one too!”

I keep waiting for a tug on my line. Drew pulls in three more fish, and Mrs. McNeill catches a bigger one. “This fella's got a chance, don't you think?” She holds it up, and Drew nods. She puts it in the bucket and calls to me. “Charlie, I bet you're in too shallow. Why don't you come out where it's a little deeper, and we'll set you up with a new hole?”

I shake my head. “I like this hole.” That's because I'm pretty sure the water underneath it isn't over my head.

Another half hour goes by. Drew and Mrs. McNeill have at least twenty fish between them. I haven't even had a bite yet, but the thought of going out any farther on this ice makes my knees wobble. My hands are freezing, and my nose is running, and I can't remember why this seemed like a good idea. There's not much use fishing when you're afraid to go where the fish are.

Apparently, ice flowers don't have enough magic to turn me into a fisherman.

Fisherwoman.

Whatever. It's not going to happen.

“Woo-hoo!” Drew starts reeling in another one, and I'm about to give up when I feel the tiniest pull.

“Oh!” I stand up and give a tug, and at first I think the fish got away because it feels like I'm reeling in a whole lot of nothing. But when the line comes up, there's a tiny perch flopping on the end. It's not much bigger than the minnow I used as bait, but at least it's something.

“She's got one!” Mrs. McNeill shouts from across the ice.

Drew turns and looks. “You call that a fish?” He snorts out a laugh.

I ease my miniscule catch off the hook. “Should I let it go?”

“Nah, Billy'll take it. Put it in the . . . whoa!” Drew's pole almost jumps out of his hand. He turns around and starts
reeling again. Mrs. McNeill's got another bite too. I stand up, holding the fish in one hand, and pull the lid off the bucket with the other.

“Please,” someone says.

And I freeze. Because it's not Mrs. McNeill and it's not Drew. And it's not the stupid growly ice talking this time either. This voice is quiet and low-pitched and raspy.

“Please,” it says again.

I look at the fish in my hand. It's a skinny thing, only about five inches long, black-and-green striped with orange on its fins. But instead of plain, glassy-black eyes like the other perch I've seen, this fish has bright-green eyes that almost glow. Like emeralds. Crystals. And this fish is looking right at me.

“Release me,” the raspy voice says, and I swear I see the fish's mouth moving a tiny bit, as if it's gasping for breath.

But it can't be. Fish breathe through gills. That was one of Mrs. McNeill's lakeside science lectures last summer. And the bigger issue here is not how a fish breathes but that this one is talking. To me.

I look up at Mrs. McNeill and Drew, rebaiting their hooks. “Did you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” Mrs. McNeill tips her head. The ice lets out a gurgle. “Oh, honey,” she says, “those sounds aren't going to hurt you. I wish you'd come out a bit. You'd have more luck.”

“I got another one!” Drew shouts. “Come on . . . be the big one!” He starts reeling again.

I stare down at the fish in my hand.

“Release me,” the raspy voice says again, “and I will grant you a wish.”

Chapter 3

The First Wish

“A wish?” I say.

“What?” Drew calls from his hole.

“Nothing.” I stare at the fish in my hand. It's not talking anymore. It's flopping. Struggling. Did I imagine it?

“You oughta come out here,” Drew hollers. “There's a ton of them, and they're bigger'n that minnow you just pulled in.”

“I'm fine where I am!” I yell, and turn back to the fish. The fish that could not possibly have said what I thought it said.

Maybe it was some weird wheezy kind of fish-stress I heard. Can fish wheeze through their gills?

But it was so clear.
Release me . . . and I will grant you a wish.

Maybe it's not a real fish. Maybe it's like that singing fish on the wall decoration—what song did it sing? Whatever.
Maybe this is like . . . a fake fish meant to advertise the tournament. It's for the Make-a-Wish foundation after all. I want so much to convince myself of this, but when I look down, the fish in my hand is still slimy and flopping, and there is nothing battery-operated about it.

But it's quiet now.

I must have imagined the voice. I have magic flowers and crystal dresses and wishes swirling around my brain, and that all added up to a fish talking. Which it couldn't have.

Even though Drew says Billy'll take the fish, it's definitely too small to keep—wish or no wish. I lean over the hole to drop it in. The sun catches its bright-green eye, and I hesitate.

I
could
make a wish just for fun, the way you wish on your birthday candles or shooting stars. In September, when I blew out the twelve candles on my cake, I wished for Roberto Sullivan to fall in love with me. It was silly, and of course, it didn't happen. Roberto has curly black hair, dark-brown eyes, and dimples. He's the cutest boy in our whole school. I blew out every single candle, and Roberto still doesn't even know my name. But there's no harm in wishing.

“Let Roberto Sullivan fall in love with me,” I whisper to the fish. Drew cheers, and I look up to see him reeling in another fish that's five times the size of this tiny thing in my mitten. I have to laugh. “And while you're at it, make me
not afraid of the ice. No offense, but I want to go out where the real fish are.”

I drop the fish back into the hole. It flicks its tail and disappears into the dark, and I feel a shiver that has nothing to do with the bite in the air. It rushes through me—prickly and electric—and rattles me from my ear-flapped hat to my almost-numb toes.

I look out at the ice where Drew and Mrs. McNeill are sitting, over the deeper water. It actually looks okay out there. Like a perfectly safe place to catch fish.

I gather up my bucket and my rod and start out toward them.

“Hey, chicken! You finally coming out to where the fish are?” Drew calls.

And I stop. Because it's weird. I
don't
feel like a chicken anymore. I'm not afraid.

I look down through the clear, dark ice. The water is deeper here, probably over my head. But it doesn't bother me at all.

I take a step and wait for the fear. It doesn't come.

It's impossible, but it's so.

I take another step. And another. I keep going, ready to feel the wobble in my knees, the flip in my stomach, the thin-ice, catch-in-my-breath fear. It doesn't come. When I stop beside Drew, I'm almost afraid of how not-afraid I am.

What happened? What did that fish
do
?

“Dude, you can't fish right on top of me.” Drew looks up, frowning, and points out past his nana. “Have her drill you a hole out there.”

I walk farther out. The ice crackles and thumps. And now I can hear it the way Mrs. McNeill does, like music. Otherworldly and peaceful and wild.

“Coming out where the action is?” Mrs. McNeill sets her rod in a holder and helps me drill a fresh fishing hole about ten feet from hers. Almost the second I drop my line, I feel a tug, and I pull in a perch.

“Woo-hoo! Now she's got it!” Mrs. McNeill cheers.

I lift the fish to take the hook out. It's bigger than the first little one I caught. The one that . . . I still can't quite figure what happened. Did it talk? It couldn't have. And the wish thing . . . I look around, half expecting to see Roberto Sullivan heading out onto the ice with a dozen roses, but he's not here. It must be that I'm just getting used to the ice.

This new fish is quiet. It has the same slimy stripes but regular beady fish eyes. I drop it in the keep bucket and rebait my hook.

By the time the sun is overhead, I've got half a bucket full of good, quiet fish who don't make promises—other than to help me raise money for my dress. I almost forget about the wish fish until we're walking back to shore.