Nothing happened.
“An eighth-grade Wilma and a one-second-old ex-eighth-grade Wilma look the same,” Ardis reported.
The spell was still on! I would stay popular! I would keep my friends! Thank you, old lady!
“Maybe you do look different,” Ardis said.
My heart stopped.
“Happier,” she added.
It started again.
Ardis’s father called her. So she left me, saying she’d be over at three.
“What a great graduation!” I said to Mom and Maud. “I wish Reggie could have seen it.” I hugged Mom. “Wasn’t it a great graduation?” I hugged Maud. “Wasn’t it?”
“I guess.” Maud straightened her blouse. “The valedictorian’s speech wasn’t bad.”
It was wonderful not to have a big secret. Not to have one to reveal, that is. Now I just had to think of a good reason for having invited everyone over.
Mom took us to my favorite restaurant for lunch. It’s Middle Eastern, small and cozy. The food was better than ever before. The waiters were friendlier. Even Maud was all right, although she asked me twice why I was grinning like an idiot.
Mom and Maud didn’t go home with me. Mom had to go to work, and Maud was going to her best friend Portia’s house.
At home I changed into shorts and a T-shirt as I thought about what my fake big secret could be.
Nothing was new with Reggie. We weren’t moving. Mom hadn’t lost her job. Maud hadn’t run away from home. What if I said I wanted to plan what we were going to do together at Elliot next year? That might work.
At ten to three, I dumped a package of chocolate-chip cookies into a bowl and took them into my room. At five to three, Daphne came, and the rest of them came about a minute later.
In the bedroom, Nina flopped across Maud’s bed. “BeeBee thinks you’re going to say that your mom’s getting married ag—”
“I do not think that!”
She plowed on. “Ardis thinks Reggie’s going to be a father, and I think you’re skipping Elliot and going straight to veterinary school.”
I laughed. “Nope. None of the above. Have a cookie.” I handed the bowl to Ardis, who was sitting cross-legged on my bed. She took one and passed the bowl to BeeBee. Daphne was sitting at Maud’s desk, not looking as comfortable as the rest of them. I stood next to her and looked at the four of them.
“If I could have tryouts for friends,” I said, “among everybody in the world, I would pick you guys.”
“Points off for senti—”
BeeBee choked on her cookie. “Water,” she gasped, coughing.
“CPR—” Ardis said.
I raced for the kitchen, calling over my shoulder, “CPR’s only when you’re not breathing.”
I ran water. I could hear BeeBee coughing over the sound of the tap. I filled a glass and turned away from the sink.
The old lady was sitting at the kitchen table.
I dropped the glass. It shattered.
“Reggie could cut his paw,” I said automatically. “I have to clean up.”
“He won’t come in, Wilma,” she said in her rich voice.
He didn’t. And I didn’t hear BeeBee coughing anymore, either.
“Thanks for the wish. And thanks for not taking it away.”
“That’s why I’m here. It must end now.”
“Why? Why does it have to end? I wished to be popular.”
“At Claverford. You graduated today.”
“But I didn’t mean that part of it. You knew what I meant.”
“I did indeed.” She sighed. “People are rarely wise in their wishes.”
“Can’t you give me what I want? Please?”
She shook her head. “I could only give you your wish exactly as you wished it.”
“Could you give me another—”
“Hush.” She closed her eyes. I tried to talk, tried to tell her what Daphne had said in her speech, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move my lips. She opened her eyes. “It’s over now, Wilma. You are as you were before.”
Reggie howled.
I turned at the sound. I turned back. On the kitchen table was the glass filled with water, unbroken. I heard BeeBee coughing in my room. And the old lady was gone.