When You Wish upon a Rat

by Maureen McCarthy

  Eleven-year-old Ruth Craze is pretty sure she’s stuck in the wrong life. Her father is an absentminded inventor and her mother is a flighty artist, so it’s always reliable Ruth who ends up doing the dishes, paying the bills, and finding the lost socks. Her brothers relentlessly tease her, and her friends have just decided she’s not cool enough to be a part of their group anymore. When Rodney the Rat—a slightly sinister stuffed animal that was a gift from her favorite aunt—suggests a way out, Ruth is ready to risk everything. Three wishes. Three chances to create her perfect life … A million ways to get it wrong.

  In this heartwarming novel, beloved Australian author Maureen McCarthy offers a hilarious tale about the sweet rewards and eerie dangers of getting what you’ve wished for.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McCarthy, Maureen, 1953–

  When you wish upon a rat / by Maureen McCarthy.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Ready to swap her disappointing family and school life for something better, eleven-year-old Ruth Craze is granted three wishes from Rodney the Rat, a slightly sinister stuffed animal that was a gift from her favorite aunt.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-0161-0

  [1. Wishes—Fiction. 2. Family life—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M47841245Wh 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012015626

  Text copyright © 2010 Maureen McCarthy

  Book design by Robyn Ng

  Published in 2012 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  First published in 2010 in Australia by Allen & Unwin under the title Careful What You Wish For.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

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  New York, NY 10011

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  my two totally different but wonderful sisters, Michalea and Patrice.

  And in memory of Gabrielle, our beautiful sister who lived and died with such faith and optimism.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About the Author

  before they saw them. The rickety wooden footbridge would shudder a little, and there would be a clanking along the tracks getting louder and louder, building to a roar.

  Ruth and Mary Ellen considered it to be good luck when a train passed. They would grin in anticipation, hold hands, and shut their eyes.

  “Here it comes, Ruth! Here it comes!”

  “And it’s coming for us!”

  “For you and me, kiddo!”

  “Make a wish!”

  “You too. Make a wish!”

  Ruth had been scared witless the first time. She’d clung to her aunt and screamed as the long train hurtled by, hissing and shaking beneath her like a weird, angry animal. It still sent a shiver of fear down her spine. All those fast-moving tons of steel racing past, only a few meters from her body!

  When the train had gone, they would turn to each other.

  “What did you wish for, Ruthie?”

  “You first.”

  “An oak tree growing through my living room floor,” Mary Ellen might say.

  “Hmmm.” Ruth grinned and tried to imagine it.

  “What about you?”

  “Finding a million dollars in a hole in the backyard when I get home.”

  “Wouldn’t that be fantastic! Did you get another in?”

  The aim was to make three detailed wishes before the train had gone, but they usually only managed two. Somehow there was never enough time. It was against the rules to work them out in advance.

  “That red bathing suit.”

  “Oh yes, the red bathing suit. Want to know my second?”

  “What?”

  “To take you to China with me next year.”

  “Oh!” Just the idea of it made Ruth giddy. “Please!”

  “We’ll see. We’ll see.”

  Not long after that day, Ruth and her aunt were in luck. Two trains were coming from different directions, and they were going to pass each other not far from the bridge. Surely this would be a day for three wishes.

  “What did you wish for?” Ruth yelled over the clanking of the first train.

  “Let’s wait until the next one’s gone.”

  But by the time the next train had thundered by, Mary Ellen was bent over double and her face was white. She was holding her side and gasping a little, as though she couldn’t breathe.

  “What’s the matter?” Ruth said in alarm.

  “Just a pain,” her aunt whispered, leaning both elbows on the wooden railing.

  “Did you eat something weird?”

  “No, no … I’ll be all right in a minute. Let me have a little rest.” She squatted down and peered through the railings, and Ruth knelt beside her.

  “Did you make a wish?” Mary Ellen asked.

  But Ruth only shrugged; something about a big bedroom, painted in yellow with secret stairs leading up onto the roof, but it didn’t matter anymore. Mary Ellen’s face was so very white and there was a film of perspiration along her top lip, even though it was winter.

  “Let’s go home.”

  Mary Ellen lived alone in a big old apartment block near the city. Her flat was three floors up and overlooked a wonderful sprawling park that ran alongside the river. It was always immaculately neat, orderly, and interesting. There were things from all over the world dotted around the place. Most were from her many trips to China: painted stones and vases, figurines, paintings, and tapestries, and usually a story behind each one. Ruth loved nothing better than lying on the floor listening to stories of her aunt’s travels.

  “Couldn’t I live here with you?” Ruth asked as they walked up the steps to the front door. “It’s so loud and messy all the time at home. I love it here.”

  “Oh, Ruthie,” said Mary Ellen, squeezing her hand. “I have something for you.”

  “What is it?” Ruth asked. As far as she was concerned, it was enough just being there for the day instead of going to the football match with the rest of her family. She hadn’t been expecting a present.

  “Come and see.” Her aunt ushered her inside.

  Mary Ellen disappeared into her bedroom for a while, eventually emerging with a very old and battered package. It was wrapped in faded brown paper and tied with string and was about twice the size of an ordinary shoe box.

  “For you.” Ma
ry Ellen handed it to Ruth.

  “Thanks!” Ruth took the box and looked at her aunt shyly. “It’s old.”

  Her aunt nodded. “I was around your age when I got it,” she said. “You going to open it?”

  “Yes.” Opening parcels was Ruth’s favorite part of presents, so she took her time, while her aunt watched. She cut the string and carefully peeled off the heavy, sticky tape. As she unwrapped the box, she noticed a lot of faded Chinese lettering printed on the outside. A rush of excitement hit her.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, pointing at the Chinese letters. Her aunt spoke fluent Mandarin and taught it and Asian history to university students.

  “It says Attention: Precious goods.” Her aunt smiled, pointing to each word. “And this bit here says Be careful of these precious goods.”

  “Careful?” Ruth looked up at her aunt inquiringly. But Mary Ellen only laughed.

  Ruth’s hands trembled slightly as she tried to get the lid off. It seemed to be stuck, so she slid her thumbnail underneath. Heart in her mouth, she gingerly eased off both sides of the lid and … gave a sharp yelp of surprise and stepped back.

  Inside the box was a big gray rat. It had sharp claws and thin, spiky hair all over its body, and it was … wearing clothes! Baggy trousers made of faded sailcloth covered its hind legs, and the red striped shirt and serge jacket had the tiniest buttons imaginable.

  Ruth was fascinated. The worn leather boots on its back feet and the cuffs on the jacket made her smile. Was it real? She shuddered. Of course it couldn’t be. But the long nose with whiskers, the thin mouth, and sharp white teeth, only just visible, added up to something so lifelike that … it almost seemed it could be.

  Ruth forgot about her aunt and stared in complete wonder at the strange creature lying in the box. The rat’s slightly battered appearance pulled at her heartstrings in the oddest way. Was it a toy? Was it old or young? Sad or happy? The sly expression on the pointed face, the long black tail, sharp claws and patches of bristles, the little hole in the jacket and mud on the boots, even the grime around its neck and under the claws, made it look wise somehow, as if it had seen a lot. It was like a little gnome or a strange elf from a dream, ugly and yet weirdly beautiful too.

  Ruth suddenly laughed out loud. It was the queerest, most exceptional thing she had ever seen.

  “You like him?” her aunt asked.

  Ruth nodded, hot, suddenly, with the truth of what she was about to admit. “I love him.”

  “Oh, good!”

  “Where … did you find him?” Ruth asked.

  “He was a gift from a lady I used to know,” her aunt replied. “When your mum and I were growing up, she lived next door.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Everyone just called her Bee.”

  “Bee?” said Ruth. “As in bumblebee?”

  “Yes.” Mary Ellen smiled. “But I called her Mrs. Bee.”

  “Was she friends with Mum and Faye too?” Ruth asked, tentatively putting a finger inside one of the rough little paws, half expecting it to close on her.

  “Not so much. They were older. But Mrs. Bee and I became very close.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “No. She died not long after giving him to me.”

  “Did she tell you anything … else?”

  “Only that I should be careful of him.”

  “Careful of him?” Ruth repeated in a whisper. “But … he’s not real, is he?”

  Mary Ellen kissed the top of Ruth’s head and went into the kitchen to begin preparing their lunch. “Maybe just a little bit,” she said.

  Ruth put the rat back in the box as carefully as she could but didn’t put the lid on. She figured that after being cooped up in a box for a long time, more than anything he would appreciate some space and air. She put the box on the side table and went to help her aunt with lunch. But for the next couple of hours, as they ate and talked, she couldn’t stop thinking about the strange gift.

  When Mary Ellen was in her bedroom making a long phone call, Ruth took him out again and held him up to the large window. She loved this view, particularly in winter. The sun was going down over the park; the pink, streaky sky bled out over the surrounding gray clouds. There were joggers and cyclists and groups of fast walkers cutting their way along the paths under the leaf-bare trees. Feeling safe and cocooned in her aunt’s warm apartment, Ruth shivered with pleasure when she remembered that she was going to stay the night as a special treat. She would put the rat on her bedside table so that when she woke up he would be the first thing she saw.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered into the small hairy ear. “You’ve come to the right person.”

  Mary Ellen came back into the room and laughed when she saw Ruth holding the rat up to the window.

  “Will you promise me something, darling?” Mary Ellen said as they stood staring down at the wintry park. The seriousness of her tone alarmed Ruth a little, but she tried not to show it.

  “Don’t let him rule you.”

  “Who?”

  “The rat.”

  “The rat?” Ruth laughed. She looked down. With his bright eyes he actually did look as though he were listening to the conversation. “Nobody rules me,” she said.

  “Good,” Mary Ellen said matter-of-factly. “Just remember you are the boss and it will be fine.”

  “Okay.” Ruth was puzzled. She nodded, but she didn’t understand. In fact, she didn’t have the faintest idea what Mary Ellen was getting at, but somehow it didn’t seem the right time to ask a whole lot of questions.

  Her aunt squeezed her shoulders suddenly. “You’ll have great fun with him.”

  “Will I?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Did you?”

  “The best!” Mary Ellen laughed.

  Ruth Craze woke early to the sound of blaring news radio and the smell of burned toast. As she lay in bed, she heard her father’s deep voice asking the reigning king of all things cool—her fifteen-year-old brother, Marcus—if he’d fed the dog yet.

  “I’m looking for my spikes!”

  “Feed the dog!”

  “He’s way too fat.”

  “Feed the dog, Marcus.”

  “What about Miss Skinny-bum? She’s the one who loves him.”

  “Just do it,” Ruth’s father boomed again. “We have to be gone by seven!”

  “Sweet,” Marcus shot back cheerfully.

  Ruth pulled the blanket over her head. Sweet had to be the most overused word in her brother’s vocabulary. And it wasn’t true that she liked the dog. Flipper had worn out his welcome eons ago. He was slow and surly and he smelled bad, but someone had to be on his side. The rest of them were just waiting for him to die.

  In the background she could hear the Crown Prince of Dirt, Mess, and Getting-His-Own-Way—otherwise known as Paul, her six-year-old brother—whining about how there was no honey left for his toast.

  “Marcus took the last bit.”

  “Have jam!” their mother shouted from another room.

  “Don’t like jam!”

  “Then go hungry!”

  Ruth wished time would stand still for just a bit. Lying snug under the covers, watching the light creeping in through the holes in the blinds, she could imagine a completely different kind of family—a cool, polite, interesting family where everybody minded their own business and no one shouted.

  The following week she was going to turn twelve. Maybe she’d get something she actually wanted this year, instead of the usual last-minute-panic presents. Last year it had been a slightly damaged supermarket chocolate cake from the boys, a horrible pair of striped socks from her father, and a double pass to a weird movie with subtitles that Ruth knew for certain her mother had won in a raffle. Thanks, Mum! The film had turned out to be not so bad, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that on her birthday she went to a free film that she had never heard of, with her mother in some moldy little cinema that didn’t even sell popcorn.<
br />
  The next day her friends had been embarrassed for her rather than sympathetic.

  “So that was it?” Lou could hardly look Ruth in the eye. “That was all you got for your birthday?”

  “Well, I got a gift certificate to a clothing store,” Ruth had muttered defensively.

  “Who from?”

  “My aunt.”

  “How much?”

  “A grand.”

  Lou’s eyes became slits. “A thousand dollars?”

  Ruth could see that they were all impressed, but there was no way they were going to let her know it.

  “When’re you going to use it?”

  “Soon.”

  “From your sick aunt?” Bonnie had asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” Bonnie grimaced. “That’s a bit creepy.”

  Bonnie’s words made them all look a little uneasy until Katy remembered that she was due at her music lesson and the bell for the end of recess rang.

  At least Ruth had managed to avoid admitting that her only birthday card, which the whole family had signed, had been made by her little brother and that it was covered on all four sides with colorful drawings of dinosaurs with “Happy Birthday” bubbles coming from their bums.

  Ruth closed her eyes. Even a mat to hide the worn carpet would do, or a curtain to cover the holes in the old blinds, or … Her small, stuffy room stuck upstairs over the kitchen and the laundry, with its high, narrow window and sloping ceiling, was not a proper bedroom for a (soon-to-be) teenage girl. So when was someone going to do something about it? Dad said that he’d paint it, and Mum said she’d make fresh curtains, but Ruth couldn’t be bothered reminding them anymore. Even thinking about it made her remember how she’d loved sleeping in the big, beautiful, sparely furnished guest bedroom in her aunt’s apartment. But that was gone forever, along with her aunt.

  Everything here was worn and secondhand. She had to share an ancient computer with her older brother, which was such a pain. He was always playing violent games and chatting with his stupid friends. More than anything else, Ruth wanted one of those sleek little silver laptops of her own. With a laptop of her own she’d be able to make interesting friends all over the world and … and things would be totally different.