After I hung up, I went on petting Reggie. The sleepover would be incredible. I’d have fun. I’d be on the inside for a change. Anything could happen.
The phone rang again. It was Jared Fein. One-eyebrow Jared.
“I only have a minute,” I said. “I have to walk my dog.” A lie. Maud did the afternoon walk.
Silence on the line.
“Look, I have to go,” I said.
“Wait. Uh, I wrote the note about going to the zoo.”
Just my luck.
“Wilma? Are you there?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to go?”
Not with him. “I can’t.” Why not? I had to say a reason. “I have to study for the language arts final.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. Which was nice. “What are you working on?”
“Hamlet.” I imitated Ms. Hannah’s deep, overdramatic voice. “‘By the bard.’”
“I like Hamlet. ‘This above all—to thine own self be true. . . .’ What if we study together at the zoo?”
I was trapped. It was too late to say I was having brain surgery to make me think up better excuses.
“Okay,” I said. Anyway, it would be my first date. That was something. “I’ll come. I love the zoo.”
After I hung up, Maud came out of our room, holding a notebook.
We share a bedroom. She complains that it’s not fair for a person of her maturity, which she says is far beyond mine, to have to room with a child veterinarian. I point out that it’s not fair to me either. If I had my own room, I’d have more than just a dog. I’d have hamsters and a rabbit. For starters. Mom says life isn’t fair, and if she ever gets rich, she’ll buy a mansion with a wing for each of us.
“Are you okay? Did something bad happen today?” Maud actually sounded pleasant. Was I popular with her now too?
“I’m all right. Why?”
“You’re sure? The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I got back from walking the dog.” She always called Reggie “the dog.” “All these kids phoned.” She tore the back page out of her notebook. “There were more, but they didn’t leave their names.”
I took the page. Kids I’d never talked to had called me. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Oh. Good. Then I’m telling Mom that I’m not your answering service. I have a pa—”
The phone rang. I answered it, and Maud went back into our room and slammed the door.
It was Ardis. “BeeBee says you’re coming Friday. That’s great.”
“I can’t wait.”
Silence. If she had nothing to say, she said nothing.
But I wanted to keep the conversation going. “Um,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about my subway ride home with Suzanne, and going to the zoo with Jared was nothing to boast about. “Are you studying?”
“Yeah. I have a Russian test tomorrow.”
Suzanne had to be wrong. They didn’t let you take Russian unless your grades were good.
“Can you read the alphabet?”
“Cyrillic? Sure. It’s not as bad as Chinese.”
“Are you studying Chinese?” They didn’t give it at Claverford.
“No. Someday maybe.”
“Oh. I’m taking French.”
“Ooh la la.”
“Ms. Osnoe says that all the time. She says . . .”
We were talking about teachers again, but I couldn’t think of another topic.
After we hung up, there were six more calls before Mom got home. Except for a telemarketer, they were all for me. One was from Carlos.
“You looked good today,” he said.
“Thanks. You looked handsome.” Did I really say that?
“Uhhhh. Uhhh. Thanks. Uhhh. Do you want to hang out together after school tomorrow?”
“What about BeeBee?”
“What about her?”
I had just accepted an invitation to BeeBee’s sleepover. I couldn’t take her boyfriend away from her. Even though I could. But maybe that wasn’t what he had in mind.
“Will she be there?”
“I doubt it.”
“I can’t make it. I have to go home.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “Well, ’bye.”
Reggie rushed to the door, wagging his tail wildly. It had to be Mom. Then I heard her key in the lock.
We always ate right after Mom came home. She was the dietitian at a school for developmentally disabled children. Most nights she brought our dinner home with her, whatever the residents had eaten. It was a perk. We’d never starve, even though she didn’t make much money and Dad didn’t have much to send either.
As I was putting our plates on the table, the phone rang again. Maud, who was waiting for food to be dropped in front of her, told Mom it was for me.
“How do you know . . .” Mom answered it. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to call Wilma back. We’re having dinner.”
As soon as she hung up, the phone rang again. Mom looked at me. Before today, almost nobody had called me for nine long months.
“This has been going on all afternoon,” Maud said.
“What’s up, Wilma?” Mom asked after she turned off the phone without answering it.
I shrugged, but she just waited.
“Well . . .” What could I say? “Um . . . one of the most popular girls decided she likes me, and now everybody does. I guess I’m a fad.”
“Eighth grade!” Maud snorted. “I’d die if I had to do it over.”
The next morning everybody was glad to see me again. When I got on my train, two Claverford kids were already there, and they called me over. When we got out of the subway, more and more kids kept joining us, all of them maneuvering to be close to me.
If you did this, old lady, thank you. Thank you.
On the way to school, during school, and after school, kids kept asking me about Reggie. I guess the only thing they knew about me was that I had a dog. Camilla wanted to know his age. Erica asked if he could do tricks. Daphne showed me a picture of her sheepdog.
Evadney was the first to go beyond animals. She asked if I had any brothers or sisters. Soon they’d be asking about my choice of shampoo and whether my favorite snack was pretzels or popcorn.
After school on Friday I had to go home and walk Reggie, since Maud would do the morning walk for me on Saturday while I was at BeeBee’s.
All I could think about while I walked him was the sleepover. I would get to know Ardis and BeeBee and Nina better, especially Ardis. I’d try to figure out what made them popular. Then, if the spell ended, I’d know how to act to keep having my wish.
But what if it ended while I was there? What if we were all sitting around talking and it ended, and they went back to seeing me as the old me? But I was the old me; I hadn’t changed. They were the ones who were different.
I tried to remember my exact conversation with the old lady. I remembered that she had offered to make me part of the in crowd. And I had said I wanted to be the most popular kid at Claverford. Then she had said something else. What was it? She asked if it was wise. What could she have meant by that? Where else would I want to be popular but at school?
After Reggie’s walk, I checked myself in the mirror. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with an Airedale’s face printed on it. I got my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and went back to the mirror. I looked cool.
As I was leaving, Reggie bounded to the door, ready for another walk. I knelt and held his head in my hands. “I’ll miss you, Reggie-weggie.” I stroked his ears, and he licked my chin. “I have to go, boy.”
He caught on that I was going without him, and his tail went down to its position of absolute misery.
“Don’t you want me to have human friends too?” I went to the biscuit stash in the cabinet under the sink. A consolation prize for him.
He wouldn’t take it. His eyes said, “Biscuits are nothing compared to the pleasure of your company.”
“It’s just one night,” I pleaded.
Reggie’s eyes answered, “How do I know you will come back?”
I was getting exasperated. “I go to school every day.”
“I’m used to that,” his eyes said. “But this is desertion, abandonment.”
What if I took him with me? He’d be something to talk about. I knew I should check first, but then I decided to take a chance. As long as the spell held, they couldn’t hate me for it. Mom wasn’t home yet, so I yelled to Maud that I was leaving. She came out of her room.
“I’m not taking phone messages for you,” she said. “I’m not a secretary.”
“Just tell my fans that Reggie and I are on safari, and we—”
“You’re taking Reggie to a sleepover? Bad move.”
Not for me. I was popular!