When You Wish upon a Rat

by Maureen McCarthy

  Someone is in there!

  Ruth’s heart beats quickly as she tries to summon her courage for another look. She wishes that it weren’t so gloomy under the trees. Maybe if it were still bright and hot, she wouldn’t feel so scared. And yet something is preventing her from turning back. She swallows and steps up to the window again. She stares in at two dark, blurry shapes; one short, the other much taller. Perhaps they are statues, but … of whom? Her eyes gradually adjust to the low light inside the shed, and the figures become clearer. The tall one is dressed in long shorts and a bright T-shirt; the shorter one has hair sticking out around his ears and that reminds her of … Oh no! A chill runs like an electric current up her spine. Here they are. Her brothers! Out in this gloomy little shed at the bottom of the garden. But what are they doing here?

  Ruth shivers. They are facing each other, but they don’t seem to be moving at all. A rush of terror overwhelms her. What has she done? She walks around the little shed, looking for the door—first one side and then around the corner to the other side—but finds none. She has never seen a building before with no doors. How did her brothers get inside?

  She walks all the way around the shed again and finally sees that there is a door, a small red one high up on the wall. Luckily, there is a wooden fruit box nearby. Ruth drags it over, climbs up, and, reaching as high as she can, just manages to push the door open. Scrambling up onto the ledge is difficult because there are no footholds. She tries three times and scratches one knee badly before she succeeds. At last she is sitting on the ledge. She looks down.

  With no dirty glass between them, she can see that Marcus is smiling, one arm extended toward Paul as though he’s about to ruffle his little brother’s hair. Paul is looking down at the little figurine he is holding in one hand. Ruth’s heart softens.

  “Hey, Paul!” she calls loudly. “What are you doing?” It’s a silly question. She can see that they are just standing there. She calls out again. “Hey, you guys. It’s me, Ruth.” Neither brother moves. Maybe they can’t hear her or—she shudders—what if they aren’t real? “Marcus!” she calls desperately. “Hello!”

  But neither of them gives any sign that they have heard.

  Just as she is about to drop down into the shed, a sharp, shrill sound pierces the air. Is it a siren? She turns around. There it goes again, and again. A siren or a bell? She peers back through the trees to the house, which is farther away than ever. Could the house be receding? Or is the backyard getting longer? The house is now only a little dot in the distance. Ruth looks down at her brothers again and gets ready to jump, but the shrill ringing sound wakes her up.

  • • •

  She was back in the reading room, and although her heart was still pounding, she felt a wave of relief. Here she was, back in her perfect house. Seeing the boys in the shed had only been a dream.

  “That will be the girls at the door, Ruthie,” her mother called. “Why don’t you go and welcome them?”

  “Okay,” Ruth called back. “Just be a minute.”

  It was only a dream! Wasn’t it? But it had felt so real.

  Another shrill ring of the doorbell jolted Ruth from her reverie.

  “Ruthie!” An irritated note had entered her mother’s voice. “Get the door, please.”

  “Okay. Coming!”

  Ruth’s mouth fell open in shock. They were all there—Lou and Bonnie, Katy and Susie—standing in a line on her doorstep, smiling and holding presents, looking for all the world as if they were her friends. Ruth hardly knew what to say. She’d told Rodney that she wanted friends, but she hadn’t meant the same ones! It was overwhelming. Not only that, but they all looked so happy to see her!

  “These are for you.”

  Her mother looked on with a huge smile as Ruth opened all their presents. Lou had given her a lovely pair of silver earrings in the shape of ballet slippers. Katy had given her a pack of eye shadows—every possible color. Bonnie’s gift was a gaudy pink-and-black fun cushion that said Just try sitting on me! That made them all laugh. And Susie had given her a gift certificate for horseback riding lessons.

  “Thanks so much,” Ruth said shyly. “It’s really great you could all come.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it!” said Lou.

  “What about getting this party started?” Mrs. Craze said gaily. “What would you girls like to drink? The DVD is all set up and ready to go.”

  Ruth stood back as Mrs. Craze fussed over the drink choices.

  “Now, you all just make yourselves at home,” she called on her way out of the room.

  Ruth looked after her mother wonderingly. In her wildest dreams she could never have imagined either of her parents behaving like this!

  It turned out that everyone except Lou and Ruth had seen the film already, but it didn’t matter. The rest of them didn’t mind seeing it again.

  “Could we go for a swim afterward?” Lou asked.

  “Sure.” Ruth grinned. She wasn’t used to having Lou deferring to her, and it felt pretty good.

  The front room had been specifically set up as a mini-theater. A screen covered half the wall. Heavy drapes hung across the windows. So where had the broken sports equipment, the battered piano, the table extensions, and all the rest of it gone? Ruth looked around in amazement.

  “This is sooo cool,” Lou muttered, plonking herself down in one of the deep leather chairs. “I wish we had a screening room at home!”

  The other girls sighed in agreement as they followed suit.

  • • •

  They spent the next couple of hours watching a DVD about a pack of stupid teenage girls in an American high school who snipe and whine and pinch one another’s boyfriends. Ruth’s friends giggled and yelled out comments and hooted with laughter in all the right places. Ruth played along, but she was using the time to settle herself into her new life. How good is this? she kept reminding herself. The tedious film didn’t matter in the least. What did matter was that she was sitting there with all her old mates. School was going to be different from now on. She had friends again. And the family had plenty of money now. And her mother looked normal. She tried not to think about her brothers. If they didn’t exist in this world, did they exist anywhere?

  “How about an ice cream, girls? Or another Coke?”

  Ruth’s mum was so attentive throughout the whole afternoon that Ruth had trouble believing it really was her mother. First she came in to check that the curtains were fully closed, then to see if the sound was up high enough, and then it was a procession of snacks and drinks. Ruth had never eaten so much junk food in her life.

  When the movie was over at last, they wandered out into the family room, where Mrs. Craze was sitting down in front of the television watching a show about football—something she would never have done in Ruth’s old life.

  “How was it, girls?”

  “Great!” everyone exclaimed.

  “Ruthie?” Mrs. Craze teased in her new, soft voice. “Did you like it?”

  “Yep, it was … good,” Ruth lied, because they were all looking at her. “Awesome.”

  “So, what about a swim?” Mrs. Craze asked, pointing to a pile of neatly stacked towels. “Just take one of those on your way out.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Craze!” Bonnie, Lou, Susie, and Katy chorused.

  Ruth breathed a secret sigh of relief as she slid open the back door and motioned her friends through.

  “What about bathing suits?” Bonnie asked.

  “I think I’ve got some old ones,” Ruth said. “You can wear them if you like.”

  “As if she’d fit into your swimsuit!” Lou sneered. “Bonnie is twice your size.”

  Bonnie’s cheeks flamed with humiliation.

  “You are putting on weight, Bon,” Katy said lightly.

  “I know,” Bonnie mumbled miserably.

  “You shouldn’t have been eating those chips before,” Katy added.

  “Or the soda. It’s so bad for you, Bonnie,” Susie said primly.

/>   So now it was Bonnie’s turn! The heat was off Ruth. Lou and she were best friends again. So why didn’t she feel more pleased?

  Dressed in her new red swimsuit, she looked out over the perfect back garden. The shimmering pool was still bright in the fading light. Her friends were splashing around, and there was a delicious smell of barbecued meat. Her father was flipping over the chicken breasts and sausages, and her mother was setting a little table with outdoor cutlery and bottles of soda.

  All around her there was the idle chatter and laughter of people having fun.

  Ruth looked down at her watch. Five minutes to six o’clock! She had to decide right that minute whether she wanted to stay in this new life forever.

  But what was there to decide? Of course she had to stay. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted, more or less. Everything had been so ordered and so nice. There were things to look forward to and nothing to worry about. Her father was now the boss at work, so there would be more than enough money, and just think about all the lovely clothes she’d be able to buy! If not today, then some other day. She was now the center of attention in a normal family, just as she had asked. No more boring sports matches and tedious concerts or loud, raucous arguments about whose turn it was in the bathroom.

  But her eyes were drawn past it all to the shadowy clump of trees screening most of the back fence, and the strange dream she’d had earlier in the afternoon came back to her.

  “Come on in, Ruth!” Lou was standing in the middle of the pool holding a big plastic ball. “Come in and be on my team!”

  All the unpleasantness of the past had been forgotten. Three of her friends were looking up at her from the water, smiling, waiting for her to join in. Bonnie was sitting on the side dabbling her feet in the water, still dressed in her shorts and top.

  Ruth stared into the sparkling water. This would be the first of many pool parties. From now on, life was going to be full of all kinds of fun things.

  “Come on!” Lou shouted from the water. “What are you waiting for?”

  Ruth tried to smile at her old adversary. But I don’t like them. The words flew into her head as though on the breeze. I don’t like them at all.

  Just then, Mrs. Craze came out the back door holding an enormous pink cake with twelve lighted candles and began to sing “Happy Birthday.”

  The other girls pulled themselves out of the pool squealing with delight and joined in loudly.

  “… Happy birthday, dear Ruth! Happy birthday to you!” They walked around the pool toward her, smiling as they sang.

  Ruth stood transfixed. Why did they all look so strange? And wrong. Maybe it was that bland, sugary smile on her mother’s face or her father’s dyed hair. Maybe it was poor, silly Bonnie’s fake good cheer or the glint of jealousy in Lou’s eyes. Nothing was clear to Ruth except that suddenly she didn’t want to be there.

  Something lying dormant inside her had come alive. No. She didn’t want to stay. No, no, no … Not in a million years! Why? And why had it taken her all day to realize it?

  She looked at her watch and saw with dismay that she had less than a minute to make her escape. Rodney had promised that it would be easy … provided she found the red door as soon as she arrived. What a fool not to have found it earlier! What if she missed her chance to get back?

  The dream was the only thing she had to go on. If she snuck up there through the trees, would she find that shed with the little red door? Would she be able to look in the window?

  Ruth began to run.

  She ran past the pool, along the paving stones, and onto the lawn toward the clump of trees along the back fence. Imagine living every day with parents who insist on knowing everything about you! Who treat you like their little pet poodle! Imagine summer after summer of pool parties with Lou and the rest of them picking on Bonnie! She would rather be back with the mess and the chaos of her brothers, with her fat, messy, loud mother and eccentric father, than stay another five minutes with all those dead eyes …

  Ruth had the strange feeling that she was running for her life, and that gave her an edge she never knew she had. It felt almost as though someone had given her wings. She wasn’t thinking or feeling anything; she was flying. And yet it seemed like such a long way. Perhaps some terrible trick was being played on her? Or … perhaps she was still in the dream and would never get out.

  Her chest was hurting badly and she was almost out of breath. On she ran. What if the dream had only been a dream? What if that funny door was just a figment of her unconscious? What if the door was there but the fruit box was gone …

  “Ruth, where are you going?” Faraway voices crowded into her head. “Come back, Ruth!”

  “Ruth, come and cut your beautiful birthday cake.”

  “We’re about to eat.”

  Her friends had dropped their towels and started running after her.

  Ruth reached the trees, and when she saw the little shed she cried out with relief. She ran around to the far side. The fruit box was exactly where she’d left it in the dream. She clambered up the wall and this time she got up on the first go, just as her friends crashed through the trees behind her.

  Ruth looked at her watch. Fifteen seconds to go!

  “Ruth!”

  “Where has she gone?”

  Bonnie was the first to catch sight of her. “There she is!” she yelled, pointing up excitedly.

  “What are you doing up there?” Lou called. “We’re about to have the cake!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Craze appeared and pushed their way impatiently to the front of the little group standing below Ruth.

  “You have guests!” her father shouted. “Come back down this instant!”

  “We’ve given you everything,” her mother wailed, “and you repay us with this!”

  “Don’t go through that door!” her father commanded, and reached for her leg.

  Ruth only just managed to jerk away.

  She took a last look down into his blank eyes, at the perfect backyard through the trees, at the swimming pool and the rosebushes and the manicured lawn. She looked at her perfect parents and her perfect friends and put her hand on the doorknob and pushed it with all her might.

  The door opened easily, and without even looking to see where she was headed, Ruth used every last bit of energy to throw herself through that doorway. Way behind her she heard the ripping sound of the new swimsuit tearing and then some loud yells and curses, but, terrified and exhilarated, she knew that she had escaped.

  Down she went at breakneck speed through dark, sticky, damp air. She could see nothing and hear nothing, but prayed that Rodney had thought to remember some kind of parachute, or at least something to soften her fall at the end. Down, down, down she went through murky blackness.

  heavily on a muddy patch of earth right alongside the river. Heart racing from her close escape, she picked herself up and looked around. Never had she been so pleased to see such ordinary things! There was the bridge and the road, cows were in the paddock opposite, and, although it was cool, the sun was out.

  She smiled in astonishment. Everything was just as she’d left it. Even Howard was still asleep near the tree. It was as though no time had passed at all. But where was Rodney? Boy, didn’t he get it wrong! Well, they both did, actually.

  There was no sign of the rat. No sign of him at all.

  “I wonder if all normal families are like that,” Ruth said aloud as she sat down on a rock to wait for him. A noise behind her made her turn around. Howard was sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

  “Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.” He grinned across at Ruth.

  She smiled back.

  Howard stood up and stretched. He wandered over and took a swig from his juice box.

  Ruth watched him, wondering how to go about telling him what had happened while he’d been asleep.

  “I like this place,” he mumbled, looking around. “I’m going to come back here.”

  “Yeah,” Ruth agreed. “It’s
cool.”

  “I think I’ll go up the river a bit,” he said suddenly. “You want to come?”

  But Ruth was thinking of Rodney. She still had two wishes left to get it right.

  “I’ll stay here.”

  He gave her a hard look. “How come?”

  “I’m waiting for … something.”

  “Rodney?”

  Ruth nodded and laughed at herself. It had probably all been some kind of dream, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Rodney would be back. Howard took a roll of fishing line out of his pocket.

  “I’m going to see if I can catch a fish.”

  “You haven’t got a hook.”

  Howard dug around in the other pocket and pulled out a rusty, bent nail.

  “You’ll need bait,” Ruth said awkwardly. She really didn’t want him to go, in case something happened to her.

  “I’ll dig up some worms.”

  Ruth must have looked skeptical because he added proudly, “I’ve done it before.”

  “Really?”

  “When I lived with my mum, we used to go fishing all the time.”

  “Fishing?” Ruth stared at him. “With your mum?”

  “Yep,” Howard said with a smile. “She was really good at it.”

  Ruth watched him walking toward the bridge, feeling a little bereft. Maybe she should forget all about Rodney’s promises and go with him.

  But as soon as Howard had disappeared under the bridge, she heard the telltale scratching followed by a couple of polite coughs that told her Rodney was nearby. She turned, and there he was, standing on a rock some distance away, scratching his armpit and eyeing her carefully.

  “Hello,” Ruth said.

  “I thought that friend of yours would never leave!” He sniffed.

  “Where were you hiding?” she asked.

  “Never mind.” Rodney sighed, and then looked at her slyly from under his lashes before jumping down off the rock and leaning back against it. “Well, now,” he said. “The last placement didn’t quite work out, I take it?”