The Seventh Wish (6 page)

The fish flops in my hand, and my heart speeds up. I'm not afraid of the ice anymore; I'm afraid of the wishing. Before, when I wished for confidence on the frozen lake, I never thought I'd get it. Since I did, the wishing is different. This time, I know I may get what I'm asking for—or something that sounds like it, anyway. I can't help worrying I'll ask for the wrong thing.

Is Mom's full-time nursing job a greedy wish? I'm wishing for someone else, but the truth is, I know that extra money will make my life better. Does that make it selfish?

I look at the fish in my hand. It's not flopping anymore, just staring up at me with its sparkly green eyes. I need to hurry up and wish or it's going to suffocate and die, and who knows what'll happen then? The people in the stories never killed their magical fish.

I take a deep breath. The fish was okay with me wishing
not to be afraid on the ice, after all, and that was a little selfish. It didn't exactly deliver Roberto with love notes, and Bobby O'Sullivan is kind of annoying, but the wish wasn't a total disaster. It's probably just wishing for piles of gold that makes the magic feel like it
really
needs to teach you a lesson.

“Please let my mom get a full-time job,” I whisper. I'm about to let the fish go when I realize there are all sorts of ways for that wish to go wrong. I could go home and find out she's been hired as a full-time garbage collector or lion tamer at the circus. “And when I say ‘full-time job,' I mean the exact nursing job she applied for on her computer this afternoon,” I add, and drop the fish into the hole.

For a second, it just floats there, and I'm afraid I killed it by waffling so long about my wish. But then it twitches, and with a flick of its tail, turns and darts into the darkness.

“Any luck over there?” Mrs. McNeill calls. She and Drew are pulling the sled, heading in toward shore.

“Just a little one,” I say, loading my bucket and rod onto the sled. “Not worth keeping.”

The sky's getting dark and it's starting to snow as we walk back. Lights are on in the houses. I can see Drew's parents in the kitchen, and I wonder what Mom's doing at our house right now. I wonder if the phone is ringing. And if my wish for her job will come true.

Chapter 5

A Fish and a Feis

When I get home, Dad's dumping pasta into a pot of boiling water, and Mom's making a salad. She doesn't look especially excited, but I ask anyway. “Any news on the job?”

“That application deadline was only an hour ago, Charlie.” She laughs and slices a cucumber into the bowl. A piece bounces off the edge, onto the floor, and Denver scarfs it up—the canine vacuum cleaner. “The committee would have to be magic to have gone through all those applications and made a decision already.”

I panic for a second when she says the word “magic.” Could she know about my fish somehow? But Mom doesn't look up from the salad. “I'll find out when I find out,” she says.

I look at her phone and feel impatient it's not ringing. My ice fear vanished the second I let the fish go. And even
though he's the wrong boy, Bobby O'Sullivan showed up pretty fast too. If nothing's happening with Mom's job yet, does that mean the fish-wish didn't work this time? Or do some wishes take longer than others?

“I'm thinking of a word,” Mom says.

“Peppermint?” I guess.

“Nope. Diminutive,” Dad says.

“You're both wrong. It was place setting.” She nods toward the cupboard. “Set the table, will you, Charlie?”

“I win,” I say, pulling silverware from the drawer. “You need a place setting to serve Peppermint Patties.”

“Not likely,” Dad says, throwing a piece of spaghetti against the cupboard to see if it's done. It sticks. “But you could have a diminutive place setting for a mouse or other small rodent.”

“A mouse eating a Peppermint Pattie.”

“I declare a tie.” Mom hands Dad the colander and peels the spaghetti off the cupboard.

“That's lame. And technically, place setting is two words anyway.” I check the refrigerator calendar on my way to the table. “Who's taking me to Montreal for the feis at the end of the month?” I ask.

“I am,” Mom says, handing me the salad dressing. “That's the weekend Dad's skiing with his old college roommate.”

Mom's phone rings then, and I try not to look too excited when she answers it. It's not the job, though—just Abby.

“But I put money in your account last week,” Mom says, motioning for us to start eating. She listens, then sighs. “No, if the professor says you need the book, get it. We'll take care of it. Okay . . . Love you. Bye.” She comes to the table shaking her head. “One chemistry textbook, two hundred dollars. Let's hope that new job comes through.”

It's a week and a half before Mom's phone rings with good news. She hangs up and dances around the kitchen with the pizza we brought home. “I got the job!”

“Congratulations! When do you start?” Dad leans in to kiss her on the cheek.

“Monday.” She turns to me. “Isn't that great, Charlie?”

“Yeah! Congrats, Mom.” I high-five her, but now I can't stop thinking about the fish. I was starting to wonder if it was out of magic when Mom's phone call didn't come right away.

I haven't caught the fish again since I wished for Mom's nursing job, but I haven't really tried either.

Every time I walk by that shallow spot by the point, I think about it. But for now, I don't need any more wishes. I've been out with Drew and Mrs. McNeill almost every day. We've been going out deeper and having plenty of luck with regular fish. Mrs. McNeill said one of my perch
might have a chance at the tournament prize, but when we took it in to be weighed, it was half a pound smaller than the current front-runner. We've been taking our fish to Billy's every day, though, so my dress fund is up to forty-seven dollars on top of the three hundred Mom and Dad said they'd pay.

“Hey, Mom, do you think we could go up to Montreal early on the day of the feis? That way I'll have plenty of time to choose my new solo dress before I dance.”

“I don't see why not,” she says, opening the pizza box and taking a piece of pepperoni.

“Can we give Dasha a ride? She's not sure her mom will be able to get time off work.”

“Sure.”

“Perfect!” I slide a piece of pizza onto my plate and do some math in my head.

The feis is a little over two weeks away. If I don't have too much homework and the weather's okay, that's fourteen more fishing days. One of those days, I might pull in a perch big enough to win the Make-a-Wish tournament. And even if I don't, if I can catch three or four pounds a day, that'll add up at Billy's.

Maybe if I find a nice used dress at a good price, I'll get one of the hair pieces to go with it. The advanced Irish dance girls wear fancy wigs, all piled up with bouncy curls that match the color of their hair. The long, full wigs cost hundreds of dollars, but they also make littler ones—ponytails
and buns that you clip onto your hair. Maybe I could afford one of those.

“Charlie, you still with us?” Dad waves a hand in front of my face. “You look like you're a million miles away.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking. I'm happy for Mom with the new job.” I polish off my slice of pizza and reach for a second. “Also, I'm thinking of a word.”

“Persnickety?” Dad says, making a face that matches his guess.

“Great word,” I say, “but no.”

“Let's see,” Mom says. “My guess is rutabaga.”

“Nope! It was sparkle,” I say. “Dad wins. Because persnickety is a more sparkly word than rutabaga.” Besides, I don't really know what a rutabaga looks like, and I'm too excited to think about vegetables when there are dresses and dances and medals to dream about.

Mom sighs. “Rutabagas never get the respect they deserve.”

On Friday, I stay after with Mrs. Racette to look up science project ideas, but I can't find anything interesting that doesn't also have bad-nickname potential. Then Bobby O'Sullivan shows up, all out of breath.

“I left coding club early so I could talk to you. Want to be science fair partners?” he asks.

“Um . . . I can't. Sorry. I'm already working with someone,” I say, even though I'm not exactly. I was
thinking
about talking to Dasha and Catherine. That must count.

Bobby looks crushed, but only for a second. “Well, if you need anything, any help or anything, just let me know. I'm good at posters and stuff. And I can program too.” He pulls out his phone and taps it to launch an app he must have made in coding club. It's a digital fireworks display, and at the end the sparkles all dance around and settle into letters that spell . . . oh no . . .

“I have to go, Mrs. Racette. I'll do more research at home.” I hurry down the hall and wonder how long it takes a wish to wear off.

Dasha had coding club after school too, but she's not in our hallway yet, so I wait at her locker. I'm excited to tell her about Mom's new job and let her know we're going up early to go dress shopping before the feis. I really need to get some advice on Bobby O'Sullivan too. But when Dasha shows up, her cheeks are shiny with tears. “What's wrong? Did something happen at coding club?”

She blinks fast a few times and shakes her head. “No. I went to check on my score for language test today. I study so hard, but . . .” She shakes her head again, and I know that she's failed another one of those exams they give students
studying English as a Second Language to see if they're ready to move into regular classes.

“Aw, Dasha, it'll be okay. You'll get it.” I put an arm around her. “You're really smart. You're a brainiac at coding, and you always get a hundred in math.”

She sighs. “But other classes . . .” She shakes her head. “Words go by too fast.” Dasha wipes her tears away and sniffs. “Sorry. We talk about something else now?”

“Okay.” I tell her about Mom's job and Bobby O'Sullivan's fireworks. I don't tell her about the fish that made those things happen, though. Some secrets are too weird even for best friends.