After Claire was in bed, Mom came up to see me. I knew she would, and I was ready. I didn’t want the talk, but there were things I wanted to know. What had happened to Claire’s mom? How had she died? That was a lot to handle. I steeled myself for the sadness.
Mom came in and sat on the side of my bed; she hesitated for a second before starting to talk. I looked down at my hands; it was easier than watching her face.
“Claire’s mom and I lost touch a long time ago,” said Mom, “but I’ve always felt close to her. She was . . .”
She tried to continue but couldn’t. I looked up; there were tears in her eyes, and then she was crying. I didn’t know what to do. I sat there not saying anything, hoping she would stop. It was a relief when Dad came in and took over. Dad and I don’t have big talks very often, so it was still a little strange, but it was better than tears.
Dad started by saying Claire’s mom wasn’t a bad person. But after what he told me next, I wasn’t so sure. One day six months ago, Claire’s mom had secretly packed up all her clothes. She was there at breakfast acting perfectly normal, but when Claire got home from school, she was gone. She left her family. How could a mom do that? Without a good-bye, a see you soon, or even an I’ll miss you? It was cruel. But that wasn’t the end. Three months later she was hit and killed by a train. Dad said it was a tragic accident. I nodded. Dad said the saddest part was that Claire didn’t have a mother anymore. I nodded again, but this time I didn’t agree. The going was sadder than the gone—especially because the going had been on purpose.
Poor Claire. How would that feel, to have your mom run away from you? Suddenly I was sad; it surprised me. I studied the pattern on my bed—black swirls with bursts of light pink. I forced my eyes to follow the lines, keeping my brain busy, so it couldn’t think of other things. So I wouldn’t cry. Dad was waiting, saying nothing. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him slowly tapping his three middle fingers against his leg. I counted, one, two, three—four, five, six—seven, eight, nine—how long would he wait? What number could I get to before he finally said something? Fifty? A hundred? He stopped. Had he caught me? I looked up but couldn’t tell; his face was blank. And it all came rushing forward, like a tidal wave of Claire, and all I could think of was Claire standing all alone, with no one to love her.
I wiped my eyes. “Claire’s dad, he’s coming back, isn’t he?”
Dad nodded. He patted my shoulder and picked up one of my stuffed toys. It stared back at him, wide-eyed. It was a present from Lucy, an owl—her favorite animal. He put it back on the bed, facedown, so it couldn’t watch him. I could tell he was stalling, trying to think of what to say next.
“He’s still sad; that’s why he called your mother. To see if we could watch Claire for a while. So he could have some time alone—to get better. Does that make sense?”
Dad looked me over to see if I had understood. I nodded. He looked relieved and stood up. The talk was over. He walked to the door. I thought he was leaving, but he turned and stood for a second, leaning on the doorjamb.
“Don’t worry, you and Claire will have fun.” He smiled and waited for me to agree.
I nodded again.
“So I want a full report when I get back. Promise?”
I looked up, but this time he didn’t wait for my nod; he just half waved and walked out.
Dad was leaving tomorrow on a huge business trip—sixteen days. I couldn’t believe he would be gone for so long. I was upset about it, but it was just one more thing I couldn’t control.
When I came down the next morning, Dad was all packed and ready to go. After we said good-bye and the taxi came to get him, Claire went and got her list. All of a sudden I was nervous. I hated that piece of paper. It was me versus the list, and so far I was always the loser.
Mom and I waited while Claire looked it over. She was taking longer than usual. Was she picking out something especially awful? I couldn’t even imagine. She folded up the list and put it away. She seemed nervous. Maybe this was something huge. I tried to get ready, but how do you get ready for a surprise? It’s kind of impossible.
Claire looked back and forth from Mom to me. Finally in a little voice just above a whisper she said, “Can we have a party for Steve?”
I looked at Mom. Who was Steve? Did she know? Claire reached into her backpack and pulled out a stuffed goldfish.
She waved him around. “It’s his birthday!” She hugged him tight.
I knew there had to be a twist to this. Something I wouldn’t like. A birthday party for a goldfish was too easy.
“Let me guess.” I pointed to the goldfish. “He wants to go to the pool.” It made sense—goldfish, water, pool. A pool was probably on her list, and I hated the pool, so that seemed about right, but Claire surprised me and shook her head.
She made a face. “I hate the pool, plus Steve can’t get wet, because he’s got stuffing.”
She held him up. I nodded.
I pointed to the backyard. “Can we do the party here?”
Claire nodded. It was unusual, but we weren’t going anywhere, and I liked that. Was it safe to relax? Maybe. I breathed out a sigh of relief.
I looked down at Claire. She was waiting, almost patiently, swinging Steve by his fins. I watched her for a second and then switched my brain into party-planner mode. I could do this. Birthday parties were easy—I’d been to a million of them, plus a stuffed goldfish wasn’t going to be very picky.
I smiled. “What should we do? Should we—”
But Claire held up her hand to stop me. Before I could ask why, she had taken Steve and was gone, running upstairs. I looked at Mom; she shrugged. Two minutes later Claire was back.
She bounced up and down in front of me. “I want it to be a surprise party. So Steve’s resting upstairs where he can’t hear us.”
A surprise party for a goldfish? Well, that was a first. Mom said we could use anything we wanted and then disappeared upstairs to make an “important” phone call. Mostly it seemed like an excuse to get out of helping.
The first thing I thought of was Goldfish crackers. They were perfect. Or were they? Was it weird to eat goldfish-shaped crackers when the guest of honor was a goldfish? I showed them to Claire and she nodded and smiled, so I was probably over-thinking it. We hung streamers, blew up balloons, drew a HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner, and made goldfish-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Those were my favorite—mostly for the shape, not the peanut butter part. I was putting on the raisin eyes when Claire surprised me again, this time with a question.
“Is your dad coming back?” she asked.
I answered without thinking. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he?” When I saw the look on Claire’s face, I realized my mistake. Now I felt guilty. I’d forgotten about her mom.
“How do you know?” asked Claire.
This time I was more careful; I took a second to think of my answer. Because he loves us; that was the right answer, but I couldn’t say that to Claire. If I did, she would be sad, so I finally just said, “Because he told me he was.” It was simple, nonemotional, and the only other thing I could think of.
Claire thought for a moment and then nodded. I guess her mom hadn’t said that.
“Should I blow up more balloons?” I held up the bag of balloons and shook it. I wanted to change the subject and get back to the party stuff—it was safer.
But Claire had more questions.
“Does he have a romance story with your mom?” she asked.
She was still talking about Dad. Mom and Dad and romance?
What did she mean? “You mean how they met?”
Claire nodded and picked a red balloon out of the bag. I stretched it out for her so it would be easy to blow up. Mom and Dad had met each other in high school, but I didn’t know much about it. Dad said it was love at first sight, but every time he said that, Mom just rolled her eyes and said he was exaggerating. Claire didn’t care about the truth—she just wanted a story—so I gave her Dad’s version.
“They were high school sweethearts, and they fell in love the moment they saw each other.”
I was right. Claire loved it, and now she wanted more.
“Where were they when they saw each other? Did they both fall in love? Did they talk to each other?”
This was too many questions. I shook my head.
“You should probably ask Mom. It’s her story.”
Mom wasn’t going to be happy about all the questions. Or with me for starting it. But I had a plan to save myself.
“You should only ask her about it in private. Only if it’s the two of you, because it’s personal, and kind of like a secret.”
I had no idea how this would turn out. There was no telling with Claire, but for now it worked. She didn’t ask any more questions.
After we finished setting up the decorations and food, Claire announced that we still had to make games and crafts. I was hoping that we could just eat and be done, but I guess that wasn’t happening. I was glad that Mom was back. She helped with the games and said she’d come up with the craft. We ended up with two games: a magnetic fishing game using the end of the broom and some magnets from the fridge, and a sock-throwing game. The sock game wasn’t very exciting. I just stacked up some plastic cups and got a few rolled-up socks to throw at them—it wasn’t even fish themed. But Claire was a good sport about it. She didn’t complain and even made it better by drawing sharks on all the cups.
She held one up and said, “It’s the enemy of the goldfish.” She didn’t have to convince me—sharks were pretty much the enemy of everything, and the number one reason why I was never going to swim in an ocean.
The craft thing was harder, but not for me, because mostly it was just me and Claire waiting for Mom to come up with an idea. Still, it’s not exciting to just sit and watch other people think. Mom’s big idea ended up being that we should decorate mugs with Sharpies. It seemed a lot like what Claire had already done with the cups, but I didn’t argue. I just wanted get on with the party. Of course, the mugs were somewhere in the basement and I was given the job of finding them.
“You’re looking for a box with six white mugs,” shouted Mom.
She was giving me directions from the top of the stairs. Mom had picked up the mugs on one of her Freecycle trips.
“It could take hours,” I complained.
“You can do it. We’ll wait for you.”
Mom’s words of encouragement weren’t a lot of help. Looking through all her junk was not going to be fun.
On the way down the stairs I made a plan. If I didn’t have one, I knew what could happen.
THE PLAN
1. Put on rubber gloves.
2. Do not go near the wish jar.
3. Find the box of mugs.
4. Take the mugs upstairs.
Before Mom closed the door, I heard Claire ask her about love at first sight; it was another good reason to take my time. I walked straight to the sink and pulled on the rubber gloves. I turned around and scanned the basement. It was filled with boxes—hundreds of them. This was going to take forever. Finally I just made myself walk into the middle of it and get started.
Going through the boxes was faster than I thought it would be. Each one took only a minute or so to examine. Really, the only hard part was moving the boxes around and remembering where I’d already looked. And then I miraculously found them, in box number nine—six white mugs. I couldn’t believe it.
I dragged the box over to the workbench and unloaded the mugs. When I was done, I sat in the chair—just for a second, but that was a mistake, because with the sitting came thinking.
I have extra time.
I found those mugs really fast.
Mom and Claire are probably still talking about romance.
I bet Mom won’t even be looking for me for another twenty minutes.
I could just do one wish.
I had no choice. I had to do it. I jumped up, grabbed the jar, and picked out a wish.
I Wish Anderson’s Was Always Good
Suddenly I was in a Dumpster. Shue and Ashley were rummaging around on the far side, picking through boxes and bags. Maybe they’d lost something. Even though I was only watching, and nothing could touch me, it still grossed me out, being in there with garbage. Floating powers would have been better. I flapped my arms and tried to stretch up, but nothing happened. I was stuck, standing in trash. I took a step forward; at least it wasn’t rotting food—most of it was boxes and papers. I was picking my way toward the girls when I suddenly remembered my test words. I hadn’t said them. This time I had good ones. I shouted them out.
“ORANGE WHALE!”
It was perfect for where we were—the Dumpster was orange and huge like a whale. I smiled and continued toward the girls. They’d cleared out a tiny corner of the Dumpster and were piling up stationery supplies—pads of paper, pencils, pens, erasers, that sort of stuff. It wasn’t what I was expecting. They weren’t looking for something. They were being like Mom—collecting junk!
“Look!” Ashley waved something in the air. “Three more pads of paper.”
Shue pointed to the ground. “And I found these little bags. We can use them as pencil cases.” She looked over the Dumpster, smiled, and spread her arms wide. “I can’t believe all this.”
Now Ashley was smiling too. “See, I told you. Isn’t it great?”
Shue nodded and put her hand over her heart. “From now on, I’m always going to look in Dumpsters.”
“And not run on them,” said Ashley.
Shue looked embarrassed. For a second I thought she wasn’t going to say anything more, but she did.
“Never again,” she said. “No running.”
I didn’t know what they were talking about, but it must have been something bad, because now they both seemed serious.
Ashley got out of the Dumpster, and Shue started handing her the things they’d collected. I ignored them for a few minutes and looked around. We were in the middle of a parking lot, and directly in front of us was the back of a building. I didn’t have to wonder what it was, because right on the side of it, in big red letters, were the words ANDERSON’S PRINTING. So this was Anderson’s. I’d been hoping for something more exciting. Never in a million years would I have guessed that Anderson’s was a Dumpster. There were hardly any cars in the parking lot, but the ones that were there were big and old-fashioned. What did that mean? Was it a clue? Was I going back in time? Suddenly Shue was talking again.
“There, that’s it.” She handed Ashley the last handful and grabbed the side of the Dumpster and started to climb out. I was glad we were leaving. I stepped forward to follow them, but then things got confusing.
“Ash! Do you hear me?”
Who was talking? Was it one of the girls? How did she know my name?
“Ash! I know what you’re doing, and I don’t like it!”
Suddenly I knew who it was, and it wasn’t one of the girls. It was Mom! I was back in the basement! I panicked and tried to figure out what was going on. She knew about the wish jar! How? Could she see it from the stairs? I shoved the wish I was holding into my pocket. Mom took a few steps down the stairs toward me.
“We’re upstairs waiting for you, and you’re down here feeling sorry for yourself. I sent you down here to look for something, not to sit and sulk!”
I relaxed back into the chair; she didn’t know what I was really doing. It was a relief, but only for a second, because she was still coming toward me, and if I didn’t stop her, she’d see the jar. It was right there, out in the open. I jumped up, stood in front of it, and grabbed a mug off the workbench.
“LOOK! I found them.” I waved the mug around.
Mom stopped moving. I scooped up the mugs and walked toward her. The jar wasn’t hidden, but if she didn’t look behind me, I would be safe. I needed her to look only at me. I clanged the mugs together and kept talking.
Mom leaned forward and held out her hands. “Don’t drop them.”
As soon as I got to her, she took three. I followed her up the stairs. Halfway up she stopped.
“Thank you for finding these. But this thing with Claire—it’s important to me. You have to try harder. Do you understand?”
I nodded and looked down. I knew she thought I was feeling sorry and sad, but she was wrong. I was smiling and relieved, but I kept my head down—she didn’t need to see that.