The Wish Master

by Betty R. Wright

  “How about that?” Buck demanded. He sounded proud but a little scared, too. “That’s the Wish Master. He’s been here about a thousand years, and he can do anything. If you make a wish at exactly midnight, it’ll come true every time!”

  Corby wanted to say Buck was crazy, but he couldn’t. All he could do was stare. The monster stared back, its smile seeming to grow wider and nastier every second.

  “Okay, get ready!” Buck ordered. “It’s almost—”

  A shrill clang interrupted him. Corby yelped in terror and jumped backward. He teetered on the edge of the cliff.

  “Midnight!” Buck exclaimed. “I brought my alarm clock so we wouldn’t miss it.” He faced the stone monster and started talking fast.

  “I wish for a mountain bike. Silver and blue.” He paused. “Your turn, city boy.”

  His head spinning, Corby said the first thing he thought of. “VAROOM!” VAROOM! was the name of a video game he’d wanted for months. Then he turned his back on the monster. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Right,” Buck agreed cheerfully. He ducked around Corby and started back down the path. “All we have to do now is go home and wait.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Second Wish

  Corby had reached the top of the stairs when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. Grandpa was up. He sank back against the wall and held his breath until the steps stopped and the bathroom light clicked on. Then he scooted into his bedroom.

  It had been a narrow escape. Quickly, he kicked off his sneakers and slid under the covers. He pulled the sheet up to his chin to hide his clothes, but even then he didn’t feel safe. Grandpa’s sharp gaze could probably see through anything.

  When he opened his eyes again, the bedroom was full of sunshine. Downstairs, the doorbell was ringing. He jumped out of bed, changed into clean jeans and his Santa Barbara T-shirt, and hurried to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.

  At the foot of the stairs he stopped for a minute to listen to Grandpa’s deep voice and his mother’s gentle one in the kitchen.

  “—I locked that door last night, same as always,” Grandpa said. “Are you sure you didn’t go out early this morning?”

  “I’m sure,” Corby’s mother said. “Maybe you forgot this one time. You have a lot on your mind.”

  “I didn’t forget.”

  Corby groaned. Forget breakfast! he thought, even though his stomach was growling. He couldn’t lie to Grandpa about the door, but telling the truth was impossible, too.

  He was about to sneak back upstairs when he saw a package lying on the hall table. It was addressed in big black letters: CORBY HILL.

  His mother came out of the kitchen. “I was just going to call you, sleepyhead,” she said. “Guess what—a present came for you a few minutes ago. Why don’t you open it while I take Grandma’s breakfast upstairs?”

  Corby stopped worrying about Grandpa and the unlocked door. His heart gave a little lurch as he picked up the package. It was the size of a video game. He tore off the brown paper. It was a video game—not VAROOM!, but another racing game that looked as if it might be pretty good. And that meant—he could hardly believe it—that meant the Wish Master was real!

  “What did Dad send you?” his mother asked as she came back down the stairs. “You look about to pop!”

  Corby showed her the game. Then he picked up the wrapping paper. Sure enough, their home address in Santa Barbara was printed in the left-hand corner. And the package had been mailed a couple of days ago, long before he’d made his wish. Still …

  “Why so serious?” His mother patted his shoulder. “Dad said he was afraid you wouldn’t have enough to do here, so he decided to surprise you. Want to call him this evening and say thanks?”

  “Sure.” Corby started toward the den and the television set, then changed his mind. There was something else he had to do before he tried the new game.

  Fifteen minutes dragged by before he could call Buck. With Grandpa out in the garden and his mother back upstairs taking care of Grandma, he finally had the kitchen to himself.

  “It worked!” he exclaimed into the phone as soon as Buck said hello. “I got a video game in the mail this morning!”

  Buck whistled. “Are you kidding? You really got it?”

  “Not the one I asked for,” Corby admitted. “But it’s sort of like it. Did you get the bike?”

  “Not yet,” Buck said, but he sounded hopeful. “Maybe it’ll still happen. Or maybe—maybe I didn’t ask the right way. How did you say it?”

  Corby tried to remember the exact words he’d used. He was usually polite when he was asking for something, but last night had been different. He’d been too scared to think. “Don’t remember,” he said at last.

  “Well, I’m going to try again,” Buck said excitedly. “Let’s go back tonight—if I don’t get the bike today, that is.”

  “I can’t—” Corby began, but that was as far as he got.

  “Somebody’s coming,” Buck interrupted. “See you at eleven.” The receiver clicked at the other end of the line.

  Corby picked up the video game and headed toward the den. He didn’t want to take another long hike in the dark, but Buck hadn’t given him a chance to say no. And maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He would have a chance to make a different wish. Now that he knew the Wish Master really did have magic powers, he would wish for something bigger than a video game. He would ask for a dog.

  He’d been playing the new game for just a few minutes when he realized Grandpa was watching him from the doorway.

  “I can’t see any sense to that business,” he said. “Just a lot of racket. Probably disturbing your grandma, too.”

  Corby turned down the sound. “It’s a race,” he explained. “You pick a car and try—”

  “Never mind,” Grandpa said gruffly. “I’m not interested. You shouldn’t be hunched in front of the tube when you could be outside getting some exercise. Or even doing a little work. I’m going to replace a few stones in the front walk, and I could use some help.”

  “Okay.” Corby switched off the VCR and followed Grandpa through the house, out the back door, and across the lawn to the toolshed. He felt the same way he felt at school before a big test.

  Grandpa lifted one shovel, then another, and handed the lighter one to Corby. “Your pa and I put in this walk when he was only a year or so older than you,” he said as they marched around the side of the house to the front yard. “He worked harder than I did—wanted to surprise his ma when she came home from town.”

  Corby stared at the curving path of stepping-stones, lined on either side with rosebushes. The stones looked as if they’d been there forever.

  “You start digging around that one.” Grandpa pointed to a stone that had a deep crack across the middle. “I’ll get a new one from behind the shed.”

  Corby waited until Grandpa disappeared around the side of the house. Then he lifted the shovel and jabbed downward with all his strength. The blade skittered across the hard ground and struck the stone. He tried again with the same result. The third time, the earth crumbled a little. By then, drops of sweat were running down his face and he was panting. At this rate it was going to take all day to dig up one stone.

  Dozens of tiny ants began running across the stone in all directions. Corby crouched to watch and catch his breath. He liked ants. They were small, but you could see they believed whatever they were doing was really important. His pounding shovel must have seemed like an earthquake to them. Right now they were probably yelling to one another to run away before the earthquake started again.

  “I’m glad I’m not paying you by the hour!”

  Corby rocked back on his heels. Grandpa had come around the corner of the house with a stepping-stone under one arm. He looked down at the narrow groove Corby had managed to dig on one side of the stone.

  “The ground’s really hard,” Corby mumbled. He wished he hadn’t stopped to look at the ants.

&
nbsp; Grandpa laid the stone in the grass and picked up a shovel. “Needs some muscle, that’s all,” he said without looking at Corby. “Nothing gets done if you give up.”

  Corby’s face burned. He watched the shovel move up and down, sinking deeper into the earth with every stroke.

  “Go get the wheelbarrow,” Grandpa ordered. “Back of the toolshed.”

  Corby was glad to escape. He found the wheelbarrow, next to a whole pile of new stepping-stones, and pushed it around to the front of the house just as Grandpa pried the cracked stone loose and lifted it out of its bed. Then he slid the new stone into place and began smoothing the earth around it.

  “Where do you want the old stone to go?” Corby asked timidly. “I can move it.”

  Grandpa grunted. “Can you?” he asked. He stood up and watched Corby struggle to lift the stone. It was too heavy. He could tip it on edge, but he couldn’t get it off the ground. When he’d tried three or four times, Grandpa picked up the stone and dropped it into the wheelbarrow with a thump.

  “You push this around to the back and dump the rock under the kitchen windows,” he said. “I might put a rock garden in there, if your grandma wants it. After that you can—do whatever you want. This is no job for you.”

  “Fine,” Corby said. It was his “who cares?” voice, the one he used when he didn’t get picked for a team at school. Grandpa looked up at him sharply and then went back to his digging. “But if you’re going to sit in front of the tube all morning, you keep the sound down low,” he ordered. “Way low.”

  Corby pushed the wheelbarrow around the house and dumped the rock under the kitchen windows. It broke into two pieces when it landed. He stomped one of them, then the other, hoping to break them again, but they didn’t crack. Then he pushed the wheelbarrow back behind the toolshed, ramming it hard against the pile of new stones.

  He hated stupid stone walks. He hated Berry Hill. It wasn’t even a town, just a jumble of farms and summer cottages, with a couple of stores and a church at a crossroads. And he especially hated people who expected him to do things he couldn’t possibly do.

  It’s a good thing we’re going back to the Wish Master tonight, he thought furiously. It’s a really good thing. Because now he had something important to wish for, and it wasn’t a dog. Oh, he still wanted the dog, but there was something else he wanted more.

  He wanted to go home tomorrow. Day after tomorrow, at the latest. Not at the end of the summer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I’ll Never Get My Bike!”

  “It’s a good thing you came to Berry Hill this summer,” Buck said. “Otherwise I still wouldn’t know for sure how great the Wish Master is.” He’d been talking, in a loud whisper, almost every step of the way down the dark road and across the meadow. When he wasn’t talking, he whistled softly through his teeth.

  “I thought you did know,” Corby whispered back. “You said all we had to do was make a wish at midnight, remember?”

  “Right,” Buck agreed cheerfully. “And it turned out to be true! What are you going to wish for this time? You ought to ask for something bigger than a video game.”

  Corby hesitated. Buck had just said he was glad Corby had come to Wisconsin. It would be sort of mean to say, I’m going to wish I can go home tomorrow.

  “I was going to ask for a dog,” he said finally. “But I’m still thinking.”

  He had brought his own flashlight this time, borrowed from a kitchen drawer earlier in the day. The extra light made this hike a little less scary. Even so, he shivered when they reached the edge of the woods. Just about anything might be waiting in there. A bear could walk right up behind them, and they wouldn’t know it until it was too late.

  “All right!” Buck pointed his flashlight at the three sticks that marked the beginning of the path. “Here we go!”

  Together they stepped into the deeper darkness under the trees.

  “I’m getting really good at this!” Buck exclaimed. He sounded so pleased with himself, and so glad to be where they were, that Corby wanted to punch him. Didn’t he know how dangerous this was?

  Buck moved quickly, and they soon began to climb. “Watch your step,” he called over his shoulder. “It’s a long way down to the water.”

  “Big joke!” Corby muttered. Sweat soaked his T-shirt, and he itched. Mosquitoes tickled his ears. He had to keep reminding himself this would all be worth it, if the Wish Master helped him go home.

  “Okay, we made it!” Buck laughed out loud as he pushed aside some branches and stepped out into the clearing that marked the top of the cliff. “Come on! It’s nearly time.”

  Stars glittered overhead, and the air up here was cool. Corby swung his flashlight toward the back of the clearing.

  The Wish Master was even bigger than Corby remembered. Uglier, too. His smile was mean, as if he knew how scary he was and liked it that way.

  “Did you bring the alarm clock?” Corby whispered.

  Buck reached into the pocket of his shorts and shone his flashlight on the face of the little clock.

  “Two minutes,” he said hoarsely.

  They moved closer to the Wish Master and waited. Corby wasn’t sure whether the sound he heard was the ticking of the clock or the pounding of his own heart. Even though he was expecting it, the squawk of the alarm made him jump.

  “Please, I’d like a mountain bike,” Buck said loudly, almost stuttering in his eagerness. “If it isn’t too much trouble. Thank you very much.”

  He stepped back and Corby took his place. “I’d like a dog,” he said. Then he lowered his voice and spoke very fast. “And I want to go home. I don’t want to stay at my grandpa’s house all summer. Please!”

  “What did you say?” Buck demanded. “After you asked for the dog?”

  Corby didn’t answer. He swung his flashlight around till he found the path.

  Buck pushed past him. “If you wished for two things, that’s not fair,” he said angrily. “Maybe you made the Wish Master mad, being greedy like that. I’ll never get my bike!”

  “I’m not greedy,” Corby said. But Buck’s anger had taken him by surprise. Silently, they made their way down the hill, moving so fast that there was no time to worry about what might be lurking in the dark.

  When they reached the meadow, Buck whirled around and leveled his flashlight beam at Corby’s face.

  “You tell me what you wished for up there,” he ordered. “I need to know.”

  Corby ducked away from the light and kept walking. What was the use of talking? He hoped Buck would get a bike. He hoped he would get a dog himself. But most of all he hoped he’d soon be on his way home to Santa Barbara. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but he was glad he’d made that second wish.

  The next few days were long ones. Each time the phone rang, Corby expected it to be his dad. I’m lonesome, he might say. Come on home, Corby. Usually, though, the caller was an old friend who wanted to know how Grandma Hill was feeling. Grandpa’s voice was heavy as he answered their questions.

  “Poor man, he’s so sad,” Corby’s mother murmured. “He used to enjoy talking with neighbors, but not anymore. I think Grandma’s illness has changed him more than it has her.”

  Corby couldn’t remember Grandpa any other way than he was now. “Why does he have to be so crabby all the time?” he muttered. “He doesn’t like anybody—especially me.”

  His mother looked shocked. “Of course he likes you, Corby!” she exclaimed. “He loves you! He’s just very worried right now. And besides that, he hasn’t seen you since you were in kindergarten—give him time to get to know you again.”

  Corby knew she wanted to make him feel better. Still, she must have noticed how Grandpa was always finding fault with him. Turn down that television—you’ll disturb your grandma.… Stop running up and down the stairs like a herd of elephants.… Go outside and do something.…

  He didn’t want Corby around. Anyone could see that.

  “Call Buck and see if he’d like to go for a hi
ke,” his mother suggested. “That would be fun.”

  “Maybe,” Corby said. But he knew he wouldn’t do it. Grandpa didn’t like him, and Buck didn’t either. If only the Wish Master would work his magic, he could forget them both.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “The Ugliest Animal I’ve Ever Seen!”

  Corby crouched at the end of the pier and stared across the river. The field on the other side was lined with row after perfect row of cabbages. Beyond the field stood a barn, and beyond that was the gray farmhouse where a family of Labrador puppies were waiting for someone who needed a dog. At least, that’s what Buck had said. He wondered if Buck had made that up to get Corby into the leaky old boat.

  Four days had passed since the second visit to the Wish Master. Neither of Corby’s wishes had come true, and with each passing hour, he was more sure they never would. Something had gone wrong. Maybe Buck was right; maybe the Wish Master didn’t like people who asked for too much.

  Most of the time Corby had stayed in his bedroom, reading, but once in a while he came out here to skip stones and splash around close to shore. He’d had to promise his mom he wouldn’t swim by himself, but she hadn’t mentioned wading. Anything was better than watching Grandpa tramp back and forth, pushing wheelbarrow loads of dirt and stones for the new rock garden.

  “Working on the rock garden helps him feel close to Grandma,” Corby’s mother said, “even when she’s too tired or weak to talk with him. It’s going to be his surprise for her when she’s well enough to go outside again.”

  Today Grandpa had carried the invalid downstairs for lunch. He moved slowly, his face red with effort, and Corby’s mother walked in front of them. When Grandma saw Corby, she smiled.

  “It’s too bad you couldn’t bring your computer with you, Corby,” she said. “Your mother says you’re a real expert on that machine. If you had it with you, you could give Grandpa and me some lessons. Wouldn’t that be nice, Henry?”