The Seventh Wish (8 page)

The kids in the Prizewinner class are coming in now. They're mostly high school dancers, but there's one girl who looks like she's about our age. Her mom is dressed in a fancy business suit with high heels. I turn back to Catherine. “Who's that?”

“Leah James,” Catherine says. “She's in eighth grade at our school—just moved here from New York City. She used to go to some magnet school there for performing arts. She's amazing. I heard she moved up to Prizewinner when she was like eight.”

I watch Leah stretching with one long, muscular leg propped up on a chair and wonder what it would be like to be that good at something.

“See you guys Saturday.” Catherine heads for the door.

“You are forgetting your flour!” Dasha calls.

“Shoot!” Catherine runs over, swoops up Meredith from her chair, and leaves. Dasha and I gather up our stuff and head for the door too.

As I walk past Leah, she picks up her dance bag, and
a laminated card falls out and drifts to the floor. It has an ocean scene and a poem or something on it. I bend over to pick it up for her, but she swoops down in front of me and almost knocks me over when she grabs it.

“Sorry,” I say.

“It's okay,” she says quietly. She doesn't smile; she turns and lines up with the other Prizewinner kids. The music starts, and their feet move so fast I can't even count the clicks. If those hard shoes were ruby slippers, they'd be racking up wishes like crazy.

It's dark by the time I get home, but dinner's not ready yet. I saw on the way home that Drew and Mrs. McNeill are still out fishing, so I pull my snow pants on over my leggings and tug on my boots.

“Where do you think you're going?” Dad asks when he looks up from the stove. “You're not going to miss my garlic-ginger stir-fry, are you?”

“I won't be long. But Drew has his basketball tryouts tomorrow, so I want to wish him luck and maybe fish a little while before dinner, okay? The moon's out, so there's plenty of light. And I'll be back in half an hour.”

He looks at the clock on the microwave. “No later, okay? Mom will be back from her book group then.”

“Thanks!” I hurry out the door and down to the lake. Mrs. McNeill and Drew are fishing closer to shore tonight, not far from the spot where my fish lives.

“How's the fishing?” I ask when I reach them.

“Meh,” Mrs. McNeill says. “We've caught a few.”

“Little things,” Drew says. “Probably don't even add up to a pound yet.” He pats the side of the bucket he's sitting on, and my heart jumps into my throat.

What if they caught the wish fish and didn't hear it talk? What if it doesn't always ask to be let go? What if it only talks to me? Or to people who are alone? What if my fish is in the bucket right now, about to be hauled off to fish-fry land?

“Can I see?” I point to the bucket under Drew's behind.

He looks up at me. “They're just perch.” He doesn't get up.

“I know, but . . .” I can't explain that I want to check for emerald eyes and make sure none of them are offering wishes in exchange for freedom. “Can I see, please? One of the fish I caught the other day had a . . . a weird marking. It was small, so I let it go. I'm wondering if you caught the same one.”

“Who cares?”

“For goodness' sake, Drew, get your frozen rump off that bucket and let her see,” his nana says.

Drew gets up and pries the lid off the bucket. “Happy now?”

I peer into the moonlit bucket of water at three small fish. They're all quiet, with regular beady black fish eyes. “Yeah. Thanks. I don't think it's the same fish.”

But a minute after I drop my line in the water, that fish is back on my hook. I'm sitting closer to Drew and Mrs. McNeill this time, so as soon as it asks to be let go and makes the wish offer, I turn away from them. “Let Drew be amazing at tryouts and make the basketball team,” I whisper.

“What?” Drew says.

“Nothing.” I drop the fish back into the lake and look at my watch. “I should actually go in for dinner. Good luck at tryouts tomorrow!”

“We should call it a night too,” Mrs. McNeill tells Drew. “Tomorrow's a big day.”

Drew lets out a heaving sigh that's practically long enough to melt the whole lake. “It doesn't matter what I do. I'm doomed.” He reels in his line and packs everything onto the sled.

“Maybe not as doomed as you think,” I say as we start back toward shore.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Drew says.

“Nothing,” I say. The sled scrapes along the frozen snow. Everything's sparkling in the moonlight. “Nothing at all.”

Chapter 7

Flying Colors

School drags by on Monday.

I walk by Roberto Sullivan in the hall. He's guarding his flour baby from his friend Josh, who keeps trying to poke it with a sharp number two pencil. Roberto still doesn't know I exist. I hope Drew's wish goes better than this one did.

We have a quiz in math. We work on our self-portraits in art class and play badminton in gym. All we do in Spanish is work on our town drawings. We had to label all the places in Spanish—escuela for school, biblioteca for the library, panadería for the bakery. That took about two minutes, so now everybody's shading in rivers and lawns.

Catherine comes up to my desk before science class starts. She's reclaimed her seat from Bobby O'Sullivan. He's over by the window now, too far away to pass notes, but he still stares at me from across the room. “Hey, are you
going to do science fair this year?” Catherine says, balancing her flour baby on her hip. “And do you want to work together?”

“Sure!” Then I think about Dasha. I hope she'll pass her test and be in our science class soon enough to do the fair. “How many can we have in a group?”

“Mrs. Racette said three or four. Maybe Dasha would want to be in our group too? You guys will be moving up to Novice soon, so we could meet at my house on Sunday afternoons before dance.”

“Perfect. Drew might be able to help too.” Even though Drew said he wasn't doing it, I'm hoping he'll change his mind. “Got any ideas for projects?”

“I've been looking online,” Catherine says. “Maybe something with bacteria?”

“Maybe.” That sounds cool, but bacteria have a pretty high yuck factor. If I'm not careful, I could end up being known as the “Germinator” or worse. “Let's keep thinking.”

When the bell rings, I look for Dasha in the halls, but then I remember she had that language testing today. It always takes a whole morning.

On the way to social studies, I see Leah in the hall with some other eighth graders. It's weird—I must have walked past her a hundred times in this hallway without noticing. Seventh and eighth graders don't mix much. But
Leah's more interesting now that I know what an incredible dancer she is. She sees me looking at her, and I'm afraid that's weird, but she smiles and gives a little wave. I wave back and hurry to class.

We're coloring Thirteen Colonies maps today—red for southern, green for middle, and blue for New England. When I drop my green pencil, Bobby O'Sullivan swoops in and grabs it for me before it even hits the ground.

Finally, class ends, and I find Dasha by our lockers. She gives me a thumbs-up.

“You passed?” I call, even though I knew the fish would take care of things.

“I pass with . . . how did she say it? Flying colors? But I did not use colored pencil. Just regular one.”

I laugh. Figures of speech are tough when you're learning English. “The phrase ‘flying colors' isn't really about colors,” I tell Dasha. “It means you did well, and that's awesome! Now you'll be in more classes with Catherine and me at school
and
at Irish dance!” Which reminds me, “We have to leave for the feis early Saturday morning, okay?”

Dasha nods and does a few jig steps down the hall. I fall into step next to her. Irish dancing in sneakers isn't the same, but it's better than not dancing at all.

When the school day ends, I spot Drew walking toward the gym as if each of his fancy new sneakers weighs about a thousand pounds. I can't wait to see him
after
tryouts.

I volunteer to help put up a “Getting Ready for Pi Day” bulletin board after school so I can hang around until Drew is finished.

At three thirty, I find him at the art club bake sale, counting pennies and trying to negotiate a lower price for his Rice Krispie treat.

“Hey! How'd you do at tryouts?” I ask.

He looks up, surprised. “Good.
Really
good. It was weird.” He looks down at the sneakers. “I guess maybe these helped.” He shrugs. “I don't think I'll find out if I made the team until tomorrow, though.”

“Are you buying that or not?” a girl with a tie-dye scarf asks him. “All prices are firm.”

Drew waves the treat at her. “I can't believe you're getting fifty cents for these. It's not even a full-size bar.” Then he turns to me. “Do you have a quarter? I'll split it with you.”

“That's okay.” I hand him a quarter, just as the basketball coach, Mr. Breyette, walks up.

“Got a minute, Drew? I'd like to speak with you in the gym.”

“Sure.” Drew looks at me. “You fishing later?”

“Yep. See you in a while.”

Drew walks off eating his Rice Krispie treat, and I go outside. Mom's car is parked in the pickup circle. She's talking on her cell phone, scowling at whoever's on the other end.

“Really?” she says as I get into the car. “You'd think that sending that tuition check every semester would give me the right to know if she's been to class.” Mom glances over at me, then lowers her voice. “All right, then please do that. Thank you.” She hangs up. “How was your day?”

“Good,” I say as we head for home. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Your sister's school. Abby hasn't been returning our calls—and I'm sure she's fine, but I wanted to double-check and make sure she's been going to her classes and . . .”

“Aw, Mom, leave her alone. She's not ten years old. She's fine.”

“Have you heard from her lately?” Mom asks.

“Well, not really.” I pull out my phone. My text from a couple of weeks ago is still sitting there unanswered. I guess we've both been busy. “She's probably just got stuff going on.”

“I know.” Mom sighs again. “Let's hear about your day.”

I tell her about the math test and coloring maps and Dasha's language test.

“Got homework?” she asks as we pull into the driveway.

“No. But I'm going out ice fishing with Drew and Mrs. McNeill for a while if that's okay.”

“That's fine. You sure conquered your fear of the ice this winter.”

“Kind of. Yeah. Anyway, I want to see if I can earn a
little more money before Friday. I can't wait to shop for my solo dress.”

I gather up my backpack and lunch box and water bottle and start to get out of the car, but Mom's just sitting there. She takes a deep breath. “I need to talk to you about this weekend.”

My heart sinks because I know that tone of voice. It's the I'm-letting-you-down-even-though-I-promised voice. The voice that's already asking me to be grown up about being disappointed, only I can't.

“Mom, no . . .”

“I'm sorry. I found out today that they're sending me to a school health conference in Albany from Friday to Sunday. I've been in this job a week, Charlie. I can't say no. Maybe you could ride with Catherine?”

Any other feis, that would work, but not this one. I shake my head. “They're going straight to Montreal from her sister's gymnastics meet in Vermont Friday night and staying over. What about Dad?”

“Dad has his ski trip.”

“Can't he stay home?” Tears are running down my cheeks now because I know the answer's no. Dad has airplane tickets, and his college friend will be there waiting for him, and they can't cancel the whole trip because I have a dance competition.