Hannie followed me into the kitchen. I boiled some noodles till they got soft, and drained out the water, dumped a can of mushroom soup and a can of tuna in the pot, and put the pot on the table for Hannie to stir.
“Now, don’t touch anything but the handle, Hannie,” I said, pushing the pot in front of her. “You stir it up good so it all gets mixed.”
Hannie stirred while I got out bowls and forks.
Mama kissed the tops of our heads and waved us all good-bye and rushed out the door to work. I held my breath as she drummed down the steps, afraid she’d notice the bag with the unicorn, but she didn’t.
Hannie dropped her fork and scraped her chair back as soon as Mama shut the door. I knew right where she was heading.
“Hannie, sit down,” I ordered.
“Hannie get unicorn,” she said.
“Not yet,” I said, holding on to her. “Sit back down, Hannie. You want Mama catching us with it? She’s not even out of the yard yet. After dinner we’ll bring it on in here and see if we can clean it up a little. Okay? But first we got to give Mama a chance to get to work.”
Hannie grinned with her mouth all white from a swallow of milk. “Hannie wait.”
I leaned back in my chair. The clothes still sat there on the sofa. I guess I’d just have to wait too.
After supper we brought the unicorn into the bathroom and dumped it out of the garbage bag. I didn’t think a year of scrubbing would make a difference, but Hannie was bent on getting it so Mama would let her keep it.
I was afraid it might just fall apart if we got it wet or scrubbed too hard, so we used a washrag to wet a spot and then went over it with an old toothbrush. Hannie stooped and stood and stooped and stood, fussing all around the unicorn.
“It’s pretty special, Hannie,” I said, scrubbing away. “Not everybody has a unicorn in their bathroom.”
“Hannie’s unicorn,” Hannie said, grinning.
“Boy, Mags, if I had my wish back again,” Mooch said, running his thumb over the wet toothbrush and spraying me, “I’d wish—”
“Moochie!” Hannie cried, tugging him away from the unicorn.
“I’m not taking your old wish,” Moochie said, shaking Hannie off.
“It’s okay, Hannie,” I said. “He already made his wish. He can’t take yours away.”
“If I could, I’d wish Brody Lawson would turn into a cockroach,” Mooch said. “Then I’d stomp him good.”
“And you’d leave the mess for me, I bet.”
“Bad wish, Moochie,” Hannie said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And bad wishes don’t count. Not on unicorns anyway, right, Hannie?”
Hannie nodded.
“If I had my wish again, I’d—” I stopped.
“What, Mags?” Mooch asked. “What would you wish? Would you wish bad things on Brody too?”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t waste a good wish on Brody. I don’t know. I just want things to be different … better. You know.” I used my finger and my thumb to flick some water at Hannie and then at Mooch. They both squealed and flicked water back. I didn’t mind if they got me wet. I was already soaked from working on the unicorn. “Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s Hannie’s wish.”
“Hannie’s wish,” Hannie said.
“Three wishes on a unicorn,” said Mooch. “It’s always three wishes in the stories, isn’t it, Mags?”
“I didn’t think you were paying attention when I read you those stories, Mooch,” I said.
“Sure I was paying attention, Mags. Hannie’s the one who don’t pay attention.”
“Doesn’t,” I said. “And she does, too. She knew all about this unicorn, didn’t you, Hannie?”
Hannie nodded, smiling.
“Anyway, just one wish left on this unicorn, and that wish belongs to Hannie,” I said.
“Hannie,” Mooch said, coming up beside her. “How about you wish for a whole truckful of Twinkies, and all the candy bars at Lessing’s store, and—”
“Hush up, Mooch,” I said. “It’s Hannie’s wish. She doesn’t care a fig about your stupid old Twinkies.”
“Hannie’s wish,” Hannie repeated, dripping wet from messing in the water.
“That’s right, Hannie,” I said. “Do you know what you want to wish for yet?”
“Hannie want unicorn.”
“Well, we’re working on that,” I said.
“Hannie keep unicorn,” she said.
“Holy,” groaned Mooch. “Does that count as her wish, Mags?”
I shrugged. What if it did? It wouldn’t be so bad. Something about having that unicorn around felt real good. I didn’t really believe this wishing business any more than I believed in the man in the moon. Moochie’s wish for something to eat was easy to explain. He always wanted something to eat, and I always had a leftover sandwich. And my wish for clothes … well, that wasn’t much more difficult. Aunt Lainie’s box would have come today whether we’d found this old unicorn or not. But I guess it was working some kind of magic, ’cause I hadn’t ever heard Hannie talk this much or look half so happy, not in a long, long time.
It took a while, but when we were done, that unicorn almost looked like something out of a store.
“Oooh,” said Mooch, standing back and admiring it in the crowded bathroom. “It looks good.”
Hannie grinned. “Hannie make good wish.”
“What you gonna wish for?” Mooch asked.
Hannie shrugged.
We shook the dust out of the plastic trash bag and stuck the unicorn back inside it before we slid it under the trailer steps. “We’ll leave it there, at least until we can talk to Mama about keeping it,” I explained to Hannie. “You know how grumpy she is when she comes home after working all night. We’ll ask her when she’s feeling good tomorrow, after we get back from school.”
“Okay, Mags,” Hannie said, wrapping her arms around me.
I got Hannie and Mooch cleaned up and ready for bed. I listened while they said their prayers. Hannie said a blessing for the unicorn.
“You better be careful what you dream tonight, Hannie,” Mooch said. “You might wish for something in your sleep and use the magic up before you know it.”
Hannie’s face wrinkled up.
“Don’t pay him no mind, Hannie,” I said. “Mooch and I, we were both touching the unicorn when we made our wishes, weren’t we Moochie?” I scowled at him. “You just make sure you don’t make a wish while you’re touching the unicorn, Hannie, unless you really want it. Now you two get in bed. I’ve got work to do.”
“I’m hungry,” said Mooch.
I could have sent him to bed without feeding him, but he wouldn’t have settled down till midnight. Walking slowly past the pile of clothes on the sofa and into the kitchen, my eye lit on that penguin sweater.
Hannie and Mooch pushed me past it, coming up behind me like a stubby little train.
I fixed Mooch a bowl of oatmeal with a teaspoon of sugar in it. Mooch dipped his spoon in the sugar bowl twice more before I could stop him.
Hannie’s head drooped sleepily at the table, watching Moochie eat. I walked her into bed and covered her up.
“I’ll be in in a little while, Hannie,” I said, kissing her. “You get some sleep now.”
“Hannie love Mags,” she said, yawning.
“Yeah,” I said, patting her head. “Me too, Hannie.”
Across the hall, stretched out on his belly, Moochie was hanging over the side of his bed.
I straightened him out and tucked him under the blankets.
“You finish your oatmeal?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“You soak the bowl?”
“Didn’t have to,” he said. “It’s all clean.”
I could just imagine. Knowing Moochie, he probably had licked the bowl clean.
“You really think the unicorn made our wishes come true?” Mooch asked.
“Sure,” I said, not believing it but liking the way it was feeling in the house tonight, with the clean white unicorn close by. “You got your wish for something to eat, right? And I got something to wear.”
“But those clothes were there before you made the wish,” Mooch said.
“So was the sandwich,” I said. “Maybe all wishes are like that, Moochie. Maybe everything we always wished for is waiting somewhere, waiting for us to catch up and make it come true.”
“Then I’m going to wish Brody Lawson drops dead.”
I sucked a piece of food from between my teeth. “Well, someday he will,” I said. “But you don’t need to take any credit for it.”
“You think Brody will call the police on me, Maggie?”
“If you keep stealing he will,” I said.
“I don’t steal anymore,” Mooch said. “Brody’s a liar. He can’t prove anything.”
“That’s good,” I said, staring hard at him. “You just keep it that way. You hear?”
“Night, Maggie,” Mooch said.
“Night, Mooch.” I pushed back his dark hair and kissed his forehead like Mama does.
Heading straight for those clothes, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I found Hannie out of bed again and staring out the window into the dark.
“Come on, Hannie,” I said, leading her back to bed. “Your unicorn’s just fine out there. Don’t you worry. You just get some sleep and dream about what you want to wish for, okay?”
“Hannie bring unicorn to school?”
Before we’d cleaned it up, I’d have said no right away. But it did look pretty good, and there was less chance of Mama finding it if we took it with us.
“We’ll see,” I said, but I couldn’t help thinking Patty Jo and Alice would get a kick out of seeing a unicorn, especially a magic unicorn that made wishes come true. And wouldn’t I just have the proof with that brand-new penguin sweater? I was already planning my whole outfit for tomorrow. Between new clothes and a stuffed unicorn, maybe tomorrow’d be just the kind of day I’d been wishing for.