I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to sleep. I’d never have another night like tonight. Tomorrow would come, and then Sunday and then Monday morning, and it would almost certainly be finished. I would be finished. And there was nothing I could do about it.
I’d miss being popular. I’d miss being magically popular, so that every single kid liked me. I’d miss feeling safe to be myself, more myself than I’d ever been when I was worrying what people would think of me. But what I’d miss most were my friends—Jared, Ardis, Daphne, Nina, and BeeBee. They felt like real friends, not magic-spell friends.
I had to talk to them. But if I talked to them before graduation, it wouldn’t do any good. They’d say they liked me and they’d like me forever. They’d swear it. And after graduation, they wouldn’t talk to me.
Well, I’d make them. I couldn’t make them like me after graduation, but at least I should be able to get them to talk to me.
Monday afternoon would be my only chance, before everyone left for camp or vacation or relatives. I’d get them all together. Except Jared. I’d talk to him alone.
I called Ardis first.
“Could you come over to my house Monday afternoon?” I began. “Although you might not want to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know—you may have other things you need to do . . .” I trailed off.
“Will Reggie be there?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll come.”
“Great! It means a lot to me. Ardis . . .”
“What?”
“Do you promise? You’ll come, even if you don’t want to?”
“What’s going on, Wilma? I said I’d come.”
“I know. It’s just that there’s something important I have to tell you, only I can’t tell it yet. I’m inviting Ni—”
“Why can’t you tell now?”
“Because I can’t. You’ll see.” If the spell didn’t end, I’d make up something to say. “Do you promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“For sure?”
“Wilma! When have I ever broken a promise?”
“You never promised me anything before.”
“Oh. Well, I never break a promise. I’ll be there.”
After Ardis, I called everybody else, and they all promised to come, although Nina took points off for making her promise. Now I just had to cross my fingers and toes that the promises would hold.
I didn’t call Jared. I was going to catch him right after graduation. I had the most hope that he’d go on liking me, but if he didn’t, I wasn’t going to beg him. The others I was willing to beg, but not Jared.
Monday. Doomsday. I couldn’t eat breakfast. Mom asked if I was sick, but I said I was only nervous.
Maud said, “It’s just middle school, Wilma. It’s not the Nobel Prize for veterinary medicine.”
My face was blotchy. My Claverford uniform was rumpled. I tried to put my hair up the way BeeBee had done it, but it kept coming out lopsided. For three weeks it hadn’t mattered how I looked. Today it mattered, and today I looked lousy.
When the elevator door opened, Suzanne and her parents were inside.
“Wilma!” Suzanne squealed. “You look super!”
Outside, it was raining. Suzanne buzzed on and on. I looked at my watch—ten after eight.
It was almost impossible to do the ordinary stuff—walk, breathe, try not to listen to Suzanne. When we got to the subway, I looked for the old lady. The train came. No old lady. Fiftieth Street. Forty-second. Thirty-fourth. Twenty-eighth. Twenty-third. Our stop. No old lady.
By the time we got out of the station, the rain had stopped. It was the same weather as the day I got my wish.
And then we were there. We turned into the entrance. Could the transformation happen as soon as I stepped inside, ending exactly the way it had begun? I stopped outside the doorway so suddenly that the person behind me crashed into me.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Anytime.” It was Timothy.
“What’s the matter with you?” Maud said.
“Nothing.” I took a deep, shaky breath and stepped inside.