Wish (6 page)

“What'd you wish for?” Howard asked.

“I can't tell you,” I said.

“Why not?”

I flopped back against the seat and rolled my eyes. “Jeez, Howard,” I said.

“What?”

I explained to him that if you tell your wish, then it won't come true. “Everybody knows that,” I added.

Howard wiped his glasses with the end of his T-shirt and put them back on.

“I've made a wish every single day since fourth grade,” I said.

Howard bugged his eyes out at me. “You must want a lot of stuff.”

I shook my head. “No, just one thing,” I said. “I always wish for the same thing. Every single time.”

The minute I said that, I regretted it. I knew what he was going to say next and sure enough, he did.

“Well, if you're making the same wish every time, it must not be coming true,” he said. “So what's the point? Seems kind of dumb to me.”

I felt my face turning red and that familiar feeling of anger starting to churn in my stomach. “Because some day it
will
come true!” I hollered, making a bunch of kids turn in their seats and stare at me.

Howard looked at me over the top of his glasses and said, “Pineapple.”

I kicked his backpack hard, sending it sliding out into the aisle of the bus. I confess to feeling a flicker of regret when some kids laughed at that. But Howard, he just picked it up, brushed the dirt off of it, and said, “Pineapple, Charlie. Remember?”

I held on to my mad feelings all morning, taking every opportunity I could to shoot razor-sharp glares at Howard or to bump into him real hard over by the pencil sharpener. I never should've told him about my wishing. I'd never told anybody and now that I had, it
did
sound dumb. Why
would
anyone make the same wish every day if it never came true? Maybe I should give up.

But then guess what happened? I looked at the clock and it was 11:11! I closed my eyes and made my wish.

By the time I got home from school, my mad feelings about Howard were gone and I was glad he had a plan to catch Wishbone. When I told Bertha I was going to his house the next day, she was tickled pink. She kept telling me how good I was to be friends with Howard 'cause other kids were so mean to him.

“Even in
church
,” she said. “Can you believe that?”

I didn't tell her I sure could believe that, with the likes of Audrey Mitchell in that so-called church family.

That afternoon, Howard dropped into the seat next to me and said, “You can borrow my brother Lenny's bike.”

“What for?”

“So you can get home. Better than walking.” He took a smashed bag of potato chips out of his backpack and emptied the crumbs into his mouth. “I got a real good plan,” he said. “You know. For catching Wishbone.”

And wasn't that just like Howard, to go right on wanting to help me after I'd kicked his backpack and been mean to him like I had yesterday?

So when the bus stopped at his house, I followed him and Dwight across the weed-filled yard, up the rickety steps, past the ratty couch, and into that sad-looking house. When I stepped inside, I didn't know where to look first. A hamster cage on the coffee table. A drum set in the corner. Stacks of books and magazines lining the walls. Some kind of tree planted in a rusty bucket by the window. The floor was littered with blankets and pillows and shoes and board games and plastic bowls with popcorn kernels and pretzel crumbs in the bottom.

The walls were covered with crayon artwork on construction paper and school papers with gold star stickers and “Nice job!” written at the top. I could see that Mrs. Odom's rutabaga trick with Howard's brother Cotton wasn't working too good because there were lots of drawings with colored markers along the bottom of the walls.

Howard stepped over the pillows and stuff and motioned for me to follow him into the kitchen.

“Mama,” he said, “Charlie's here.”

Mrs. Odom turned from the sink and smiled the nicest smile. “Well, hey!” She wiped her hands on her apron and put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a little squeeze. “Howard told me you're his Backpack Buddy at school,” she said. “And about that Wishbone dog.” Then she started going on about how Gus and Bertha were so happy to have me here in Colby with them and weren't the Blue Ridge Mountains heaven on earth? After that she put a cake with pink and purple flowers in a cardboard box from the grocery store on the kitchen table and told us to have some. The next thing I knew, that little kitchen was filled with boys pushing and poking and grabbing at that cake. They didn't even use plates or forks or anything. Just cut a slice and ate it right there, dropping crumbs on the floor and Mrs. Odom didn't seem to mind one bit.

The oldest boy was Burl, the only dark-haired one. Loud-talking and friendly-faced, with a shadow of a mustache over his lip. Next was Lenny, in a grease-stained T-shirt. His freckled arms were long and skinny and he kept punching Dwight and elbowing Burl. Next came Howard and Dwight, who were only a year or two apart and could have passed for twins except Howard wore glasses and had that up-down walk. And the youngest was Cotton, dirty-faced and sticky-fingered. Legs all covered in scrapes and bruises and Band-Aids.

Mrs. Odom gave us water in paper cups and made the rounds kissing and hugging each of those boys. It didn't take a genius to know that Bertha had been right about the Odoms and their good hearts. I don't know why, but I felt shy and out of place in there with the noise and energy bouncing around and sheer goodness clinging to the walls of that house.

Howard and I sat on the couch on the porch and he told me about his plan to catch Wishbone. He had it all written down in a notebook and even had pictures drawn with colored pencils.

“You think it'll work?” I asked.

“Sure.” Howard closed his notebook and hugged it to his chest. Then we sat in silence watching Lenny and Cotton filling a plastic bucket with rocks and dragging it to the side of the yard where they were building some kind of wall.

Dwight rode his bike round and round the yard, stirring up clouds of red dust while Burl hollered at him to stop 'cause he was trying to change the oil in his truck.

Then me and Howard decided to look for Wishbone some more, so we spent the rest of the afternoon tromping through the woods and wandering up and down the side of the road but finally gave up. By the time we got back to Howard's house, Mrs. Odom was telling everybody to wash up for supper.

“Stay and have supper with us, Charlie,” she said.

Before I could say anything, Mrs. Odom added, “I'll call Bertha and see if it's okay with her. Mr. Odom's driving a load of lumber over to Charlotte, so you can sit right there in his chair.”

So we sat at the table and before I knew what was happening, Howard grabbed my right hand and Dwight grabbed my left and they all bowed their heads while Burl said the blessing. He thanked the Lord for nearly everything under the sun, including the deviled eggs on the plate in front of him.

Then everybody said “Amen” and dove into that food like they hadn't eaten in a week.

Mrs. Odom kept jumping up to get more pork chops or pour more milk, and it seemed like she couldn't walk by one of those boys without patting their shoulders or kissing the tops of their heads.

I tried to imagine taking Howard to my house back in Raleigh. So quiet and dark. My school papers would not be taped on the wall and Mama would not kiss me on the top of my head. There wouldn't be any cake with pink and purple flowers. If Howard stayed for supper, he and I would eat pork and beans or potato chips or a bologna sandwich in front of the TV and nobody would say the blessing.

When it was time for me to leave, I thanked Mrs. Odom, climbed on Lenny's bike, and set off for home. As I pedaled up the road, I turned and glanced back at the Odoms' house. I remembered that first day on the school bus when I had seen it and thought it was so sad-looking. Then I pictured all those boys in that little kitchen getting loved on by their mama and that house didn't look one bit sad anymore.

 

Ten

When I got home, I told Gus and Bertha about Howard's plan to catch Wishbone.

“We're gonna build a great big trap,” I said, stretching my arms out to show how big. “With chicken wire from his daddy's workshop.”

Gus's eyebrows shot up. “A trap, huh?”

I nodded. “Well, kind of. More like one of those big dog crates. We're gonna put it out at the edge of the woods beside the garden shed and then we're gonna stick branches and leaves and stuff in the chicken wire so it blends in.”

I went on to explain how we were going to put something good to eat inside the crate and when Wishbone went in to eat it, we'd close the door.

“He likes meat loaf,” Bertha said. “And hot dogs. And bologna.” She tossed a couple of pieces of fish stick left over from supper onto the floor for two of the cats. “Now, I don't want to rain on your parade, Charlie, but what if that dog isn't friendly to people? What if he bites? What if he has some kind of dog disease?”

“He won't bite. He likes me,” I said, ignoring that question about dog disease.

“Gus,” Bertha said, “tell Charlie about that dog you had when you were a kid.” And then she went and told me about Gus's dog named Skeeter who used to catch rabbits and bring them home for Gus and his sisters to play with. “And one time he climbed in the back of a produce truck and ended up all the way down in Hendersonville and showed up on the front porch the next day full of porcupine quills. Right, Gus?”

Gus nodded. “Right.”

“And then one time he dug up a hornet's nest,” Bertha said. “That dog must've had nine lives, like a cat.”

“Must have,” Gus said.

“Tell her about how he waited for you outside school every day.” Bertha scooped one of the cats onto her lap. “Oh, and tell her about how he used to steal chicken livers right out of the frying pan.”

“We're gonna bore this poor child to death, Bertie,” he said, winking at me. “Right, Butterbean?”

Gus had started calling me Butterbean sometimes. That made me feel like a baby, but I didn't say anything.

Then Bertha told us about some woman in the grocery store who fainted in the cereal aisle but I wasn't really listening because I was thinking about Wishbone. I pictured him waiting at school for me every day. Then he'd run along beside the school bus like he'd done that day I saw him fighting. Maybe the bus driver would let him
on
the bus because he was so smart and would do tricks for all the kids.

He'd sleep in my bed every night and I'd sing “Good Old Noah” to him. He'd let me put Jackie's Raleigh High School T-shirt on him and maybe even paint his toenails red. I'd teach him to go up to the end of the driveway on Sunday mornings and get the newspaper before church. He'd chase rabbits out of the garden and sit out on the porch with us every night. I still had a little niggle about Mama having a hissy fit when I brought him back to Raleigh with me, but I pushed that aside.

By the time Bertha went inside to get a box of graham crackers for us, I was so in love with Wishbone I couldn't hardly stand it. I sure hoped Howard's plan worked.

“Let's go set up the sprinkler in the garden,” Gus said to me, tugging on his dirty baseball cap.

I followed him outside, with three cats sauntering along behind us. I helped him untangle the hose and drag it out to the garden. While he attached the sprinkler to it, I walked up and down the tidy rows of pole beans and squash and tomato plants growing bigger every day. The soft dirt was warm under my bare feet. Suddenly, a ladybug landed on my arm! I put my finger next to it and let it climb on. Then I held my finger up and whispered, “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.” As I watched that little ladybug fly off into the sky, I made my wish.

Jackie called again that night. She told me she had put those blue streaks in her hair and now everybody at school was copying her.

“I swear, Charlie,” she said. “Everybody in Raleigh's got blue streaks in their hair.”

Then she told me she met some boy who played guitar in a band and had his nose pierced. His name was Cockroach, and her sorta-kinda boyfriend, Arlo, didn't like him.

“Cockroach?” I said, because what else can you say to that?

But she just kept on talking. She couldn't wait to graduate and kiss that school goodbye. She and some girl named Shayla might move to Fort Lauderdale if Shayla's uncle could get them jobs in his Mexican restaurant. But if that didn't happen, she might go to school to be a dental assistant.

She sure had a lot of plans but it seemed like none of them included me.

“Are you gonna come visit me sometime?” I asked in a tiny voice that sounded like a baby.

“Of course I am, Charlie,” she said. “As soon as I get time.”

I guess she had lots of time for Cockroach but not much time for me.

Out on the porch that night, Bertha told Gus about her day while I sent my thoughts zipping through the trees to wherever Wishbone was. I wanted him to know he didn't have to be a stray like me. I wanted him to be mine.

Then my mind wandered to the Odoms. I wondered what they were doing right that very minute. I bet they were all piled on pillows on the floor eating popcorn and playing Crazy Eights. I bet Mrs. Odom was taping their school papers up on the wall and telling them how proud she was of them. Then she'd have to say “rutabaga” so Cotton would stop drawing on the wall with markers.

Gus interrupted my thoughts when he stood up and stretched and said, “Time to turn in.”

I hated the thought of another day at school. That awful bus with gum on the seats and kids snickering when I walked by. Mrs. Willibey frowning at me and tossing my marked-up papers onto my desk with a sigh. The cafeteria with kids flinging peas at each other and ignoring me. There were only a few more weeks of school left but it felt like a hundred years to me.