When You Wish upon a Rat Read Free

Mrs. Craze flipped the blind up with one plump brown hand. “So get a wriggle on!”
    Ruth could only blink furiously against the light blasting into her eyes and try to pretend she was somewhere else. In her ideal world no one would ever say
get a wriggle on,
much less yell it at someone who could well be still asleep.
    Mrs. Craze’s short, round body was encased in a figure-hugging purple tracksuit with a bright yellow turtleneck underneath, and she was wearing an old pair of Marcus’s gym shoes with gold stripes down the sides. Ruth had to wonder sometimes if her mother ever looked in the mirror, because if she did right at that moment, even she would have to admit that she looked like an oversized Violet Crumble.
    â€œRemember to bundle up,” Mrs. Craze ordered on her way out. “It’s freezing outside.” She stopped at the door. “Oh, by the way, I’m afraid old Flip had a go at your red sweater last night.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou left it on the veranda!”
    â€œI did not.”
    â€œOh, come on, sourpuss.” Mrs. Craze sashayed out of the room, her thick gray hair bouncing around her shoulders like tufts of steel wool. “It’s not a tragedy, you know!”
    The door slammed shut.
    â€œIt is to me!” Ruth yelled back.
    â€œWe’ll get you another one!”
    â€œWhen?”
    But her mother was out of earshot.
    Ruth swung her feet over onto the cold floor. Only last week her other halfway decent piece of clothing, a crisp white shirt that had belonged to Mary Ellen, had come out bright pink from the wash. Her mother hadn’t bothered to consider that it shouldn’t go in with the el cheapo Indian tablecloth she’d gotten at the two-dollar shop. Ruth walked to the chair where she had laid out her clothes—the way she did every night before going to bed—and started putting on her socks. Then she stopped for a moment.
    â€œRuth Craze,” she told herself firmly, “one day your life will improve.”
    She was pulling on her sweater when she remembered exactly
why
she’d been woken so early, and her whole mood plummeted another ten notches. Marcus was competing in a bike race in a country town three hours away and they all had to go. This was the
family rule.
It would mean standing all day with crowds of noisy, sports-mad people shouting and screaming and jumping up and down as they watched the races.
    Ruth ran to the bedroom door, her pajama bottoms flapping around the calves of her long legs, hoping against hope that there might be some way out of it.
    â€œDo I have to go today?” she called down the hallway.
    â€œOf course you have to come, Ruth!” her mother called back.
    â€œI could stay and clean the house.”
    â€œOh, don’t be silly!”
    â€œI could do your accounts.” Ruth was the only one in her family with a head for figures. “You and Dad are way behind with your taxes.”
    â€œWorrywart!”
    â€œI’m not!”
    â€œMarcus might get into the state team,” her mother called. “He needs us all to cheer him on!”
    â€œHey, Ruth, do you know where my long black socks are?” her father cut in. “You know, the ones that—”
    â€œIn the washing basket,” Ruth shouted back.
Where do you think they’d be … on the roof?
    Ruth was also the only one in the family who could ever find anything.
    â€œNot here!” her father called. “Hey, Ruthie, they’re not here.”
    Fully dressed now, in jeans and her least-favorite pale yellow sweater, Ruth turned off the light and went to the window. Outside, the day was breaking nicely.
    She sighed and wondered for the millionth time what terrible thing she might have done in a previous life to be left alone with this messy, absentminded family.
    Her father was a paint salesman who thought he was an inventor. He spent every spare moment experimenting with new