The Wish Read Free Page B

smiling and saying “hi” to everybody. I reached Ardis. “Hi,” I said to her. I ignored Suzanne.
    â€œWhat’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.
    â€œDo 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.
    â€œMe neither,” Suzanne said.
    â€œI 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—”
    â€œMy 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.
    â€œI always wanted a dog,” Suzanne told me while we waited for our train.
    â€œSo you could write a secret-life essay like I did?”
    â€œYeah. 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.
    â€œGuess what.” Suzanne smiled. Smirked, really.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œSo 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.
    â€œWant to come up and hang out?” she asked.
    â€œNo.” I knew I was being rude, but I didn’t care.
    â€œOkay.” 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