The Wish Read Free Page A

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,
    Â 
    Wilma’s sweet.
    She’s a treat.
    Let’s make a date.
    We’ll call it fate.
    Boo hoo.
    I love you.
    Â 
    Definitely a Wallet.
    The other one was from a Brain.
    Â 
    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
    Â 
    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?
    Â 
    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.
    â€œWilma. Over here.”
    I threaded my way through the crowd,