MAX OPENED HIS EYES. IF this wish took as long as the other one to come true, he would have to put up with Ratty for a while yet. He saw that he’d left his backpack on the floor. He got up and hung it on a hook in his closet so Ratty couldn’t get at it and chew its straps again.
He could hear Mrs. Chang’s television program droning from the living room. Polly must have taken the dog to her room, Max thought. He hoped he could leave his room now without Ratty jumping on him and demanding that he play with her. He didn’t want to see Ratty again. He didn’t want to think about LaRosa’s and the big man with the meat cleaver. But he couldn’t help it. Even though Max didn’t know the words he had shouted, the man’s voice seemed to be stuck inside his mind. Maybe he could take money from his bank and pay for the sausage Ratty had stolen. He opened his door carefully and looked out into the hall.
Just then, Max heard the front door slam. “Max! Max! Help!” Polly hollered. “Come quick! Come now!” She came running down the hall toward him, Ratty’s leash dragging on the floor behind her. At the end of the leash was Ratty’s red collar with no Ratty. Polly’s face was streaked with tears. “Goldie’s gone! She’s gone! You gotta help me find her!”
That was fast, Max thought. Had the dog just vanished — poof! — the moment he’d wished her away? Polly grabbed his hand. She was crying and pulling at him. He wanted to shout and cheer for the magic of it all, but it didn’t seem right with Polly crying like that.
Mrs. Chang came hurrying from the living room. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Between sobs, Polly managed to tell them that Goldie had scratched and whined at the door till Polly went to get her leash. “You didn’t hardly walk her at all!” she told Max. “She still had to go!” She sniffled and snuffled and explained to Mrs. Chang that Max had told her to take care of the dog because he had something important to do. “So I took her out myself.”
“You should have called me,” Mrs. Chang told her. “I would walk her with you.”
“You were watching your program. And Max said I should take care of her!” Polly had clipped the leash to Goldie’s collar, she told them. Then she had gotten the poop bag and trowel. “I did everything just the way Max does,” she said. “And it was all okay. It was! Till Goldie saw a squirrel. She started barking and pulling and I could hardly hold her. Then all of a sudden she sort of ducked her head, and her collar came right off over her ears. She chased the squirrel under some bushes and I didn’t see her anymore. She was just gone. I yelled and yelled for her, but she didn’t come back! She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone, and it’s all my fault!” Polly wailed.
It made Max’s chest hurt to see Polly’s face all red and crumpled and sad. She’ll get over it, Max told himself. Ratty was the only dog Polly had ever known. She had no way of knowing what a terrible dog Ratty was. She didn’t understand how a dog was supposed to be. Ratty had been with them only a few weeks. It wasn’t as if she’d had the dog her whole life.
“We must go out,” Mrs. Chang said. “We must find the dog before something bad happens. We must find the dog before your mother comes home.”
Max thought about Wishworks, Inc. He thought about wishes that were guaranteed. Even with all three of them looking, they would not find Ratty, he thought. But he couldn’t very well tell them that.
So Max went outside with Polly and Mrs. Chang to look for the dog. Mrs. Chang took Polly with her across the street and told Max to go left on 8th Avenue. He would go past the Korean grocery and the antique shop and the deli, but he’d turn back before he got to LaRosa’s. “Goldie! Goldie!” Polly and Mrs. Chang called as they walked.
Max didn’t call for the dog. He asked a couple of people he passed if they had seen a scruffy little yellow dog with no collar. Nobody had. Of course not. I wish Ratty would go away is what he had said. And she’d gone.
Polly will feel better in a day or two, he thought. He was sure of it. It wasn’t bad like divorce. Or their father moving to another state and not even calling them a single time. Their lives would just go back to the way they were before he’d wished Ratty into them. He hadn’t thought their lives were very good then, but he knew better now.
