by Jon Scieszka
Benny put his ear to the wall and listened.
He couldn’t hear much, but he could imagine in his head. His grandma’s eyes all bugged as she lay in bed trying to process Benny’s latest wish. Which was really her wish.
The next morning Benny’s stool was empty. But he was hip to his grandma’s game now. A special wish like a silver necklace would need more time.
He showered and fixed his grandma’s green tea and set her pills on a plate and put everything on the table in front of her. Then he ate his cereal at the kitchen table, watching her on the couch. She was coughing even more than usual. And she wasn’t watching The Today Show or reading one of her mystery books. She was just sitting there, staring at nothing.
“You all right, Grams?” he said.
She waved him off and coughed some more.
“Need me to stay home?” he said. “I could take you to the doctor or something.”
“You’re going to school!” she barked. “Won’t be no ignorant kid running around under my roof!”
He finished the rest of his cereal trying to decide if he should stay home to make sure she didn’t go searching for the necklace. Because this was the sickest he’d ever seen her. She couldn’t even sit up straight. There was no way she’d survive outside alone.
When he went over to her, though, all she did was shoo him out the door.
Benny couldn’t concentrate at school.
He listened to his teachers lecture, but nothing stuck. He kept imagining his wheezing grandma walkering herself down Seventh Avenue, coughing nonstop, barely looking before crossing streets.
“You all right?” Ray asked him after history.
“Yeah,” Benny said.
“You seem out of it.” Ray unwrapped a piece of gum and popped it into his mouth. He offered one to Benny, but Benny shook him off. “Anyways,” Ray said. “You know your wish from last night?”
Benny stared at Ray, hoping the next thing he said would clear everything up.
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but it’s gonna come true.”
“What are you talking about?” Benny said.
“Your wish, B.”
Benny was about to press further, but right then Sylvia came up to them and pulled Ray away. They were both giggling like they knew something he didn’t.
“What’s going on?” Benny called after Ray.
Sylvia was the one who looked back. She made a zipper motion across her lips like neither of them would say a thing.
Benny was sure it was Sylvia and Ray granting his wishes, until Julie caught up with him after school.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said back, hoping she was about to tell him everything.
“Why you in such a hurry?”
“Nah,” Benny said. “I just gotta take my grandma to this appointment.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then I’ll just say this real quick. Me and Sylvia were talking last night. And we wanted to know. Or, more like I wanted to know.” Julie seemed suddenly nervous as she searched for the right words.
“It’s about my wish machine, right?” Benny said, trying to help out.
Julie got a confused look on her face. “What wish machine?”
Benny scanned her face for a grin. “You really don’t know?”
“Um, should I?”
Benny stopped walking. “Your initials are JB, right?”
Julie stopped, too. “Yeah. So?”
“Did you put your initials on a pair of Sony headphones?”
“What?” Julie scoffed. “Who puts their initials on headphones? Besides, I only have the earbuds that came with my iPod.”
Benny looked at the ground, more confused than ever.
“Why are you so weird?” Julie said.
“What were you gonna say then?”
Julie shook her head and told him. “I was just gonna see if you wanted to go to the movies on Sunday. With Ray and Sylvia.”
“Oh,” Benny said. He felt like the biggest idiot in Brooklyn.
“So, do you?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Totally. I just thought you were saying something else.”
She shook her head, told him, “You’re really weird, you know that?”
Benny didn’t say anything. He knew it was all awkward now, but he was too confused to try and smooth things over.
“Anyways,” Julie said. “Sylvia will tell Ray what time, and he can tell you. Now go take care of your grandma. Weirdo.”
***
As Benny walked home he realized Ray had been talking about Julie earlier. The guy knew nothing about the replacement necklace. Which left his grandma again. Who was too sick to go outside. What if his stupid wish had backfired and put his grandma in danger? He picked up his pace a bit, a terrible feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.
When he got to Second Street he saw two cop cars halfway down his block and his entire body went numb. Then he saw the ambulance. And the fire truck. Lights flashing without sound. The street was blocked off near his apartment.
Benny threw off his book bag and started sprinting.
He tried to run right through the wall of cops standing in front of his gate, but two of them wrapped him up, saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
“What happened to my grandma?” Benny shouted.
“Slow down, son,” one of the cops said.
“What’s your name?” another said.
But right then Benny saw the stretcher being wheeled out of his building. He crumbled to his knees, shouting, “No! Please!”
He covered his face with his hands. Looked up at the stretcher again and shouted, “Grandma!”
One of the cops put a hand on Benny’s shoulder and said, “It’s gonna be okay, son.”
Benny looked up at the man but couldn’t see his face. That’s when he realized he was crying. And he was on the ground.
“What’s your name, son?” another cop said.
“That’s my grandma,” was all Benny could say back. “That’s my grandma.”
He wanted to tell them it was all his fault, too. She was too old to have to watch some stupid kid like him. But the words wouldn’t form.
The paramedics carried the stretcher carefully down the stairs and then flipped down the wheels and began rolling it out of the gate, toward the waiting ambulance.
Benny wiped his eyes and stood, preparing himself to see his grandma. He prayed she was just sick. Or hurt. Not dead. Not gone forever. Then the stretcher was in front of him and it was his grandma and there was an oxygen mask strapped over her face.
His chest felt like a bottle of shook-up soda. Like any second it would explode right there on the sidewalk. And they’d have to put him on a stretcher, too.
“I’m sorry, Grams!” he shouted.
His grandma moved her eyes to look at him but that was it.
Then she was past him.
“Is she gonna live?” Benny said, turning to the cop.
“Yes, she is,” the cop said. “Thanks to that man.” He pointed up to the stoop, where a man was being led out of Benny’s building in handcuffs. After a few seconds Benny realized who it was. The homeless guy who always sat on a bucket outside the bodega and begged for change.
What was happening? Why was he coming out of Benny’s place? And in handcuffs?
The homeless man looked right in Benny’s eyes as a female cop moved him toward one of the squad cars. “I only wanted you to believe,” he said, and then he lowered his eyes, like he was ashamed.
When they got to the squad car, the female cop guided the homeless man into the backseat and slammed shut the door.
“Did he hurt her?” Benny said, making a move toward the squad car with clenched fists.
But the cop held him back. “You got it wrong, son. That man saved your grandmother’s life.”
Benny looked at the cop, confused.
The cop motioned toward the condemned building next door, where thre
e firemen were sawing through the padlock on the front grate. “Yes, he broke into your apartment, Benny. But when he found your grandmother passed out on the couch he called nine-one-one on your phone. And paramedics got here immediately.”
Benny’s eyes went wide as he processed what he was being told. “So why’s he being arrested?”
Static sounded over the cop’s radio. He held it to his mouth and gave the address of Benny’s apartment building and then turned back to Benny and said, “What’s your name, son?”
“Benny.”
“Okay, Benny. We need to take him in for questioning. We found a gold chain in his possession that we believe was your grandmother’s.”
That’s when it hit Benny.
The wish machine.
The hollow fireplace.
Gold instead of silver, ’cause it was never exactly what he said.
“What’s the man’s name?” Benny asked.
“Mr. James Burrell. He’s already admitted to squatting in the building next door for the past few weeks. We believe he broke into your apartment through a connecting fireplace in one of the bedrooms.”
Benny couldn’t believe it. He wiped his face on his shirtsleeve and told the officer, “He wasn’t stealing the chain, mister. I think he was bringing it to us.”
Now it was the cop’s turn to look confused.
“My grandma lost her necklace,” Benny explained. “Awhile ago. And then last night I wished for it. And he was making my wish come true. Even though it was supposed to be silver like the one she lost. But that’s exactly how it was with the earplugs and the pizza, too.”
“Pizza?” the cop said. “You’re losing me, Benny.”
The cop jotted something down in his notebook and then looked at Benny, waiting for more.
But Benny was thinking about something else now. Because he’d made those wishes on Ray’s stupid wish machine drawing, the homeless man had come into the apartment and found his grandma and saved her life. All because he had believed. He never would have thought of that.
“Benny?” the cop said.
The firemen were now entering the condemned building, pointing their high-powered flashlights.
The ambulance with his grandma sped away.
Benny took a deep breath, and prepared himself to explain it all, starting with Ray’s drawing.
The Double Eagle Has Landed
by Anthony Horowitz
There was just one question I had to ask myself. How could I have ended up dangling from a flagpole, twelve stories above a street in North London, with an armed maniac walking toward me, a rabid dog snapping at my fingertips, and the world’s worst detective clinging to my ankles? Actually, a second question also came to mind. What was I going to do next?
It had all started earlier that same day . . . a damp, wet Tuesday in January, the sort of day that made you forget that Christmas had ever happened or that spring would ever come. Looking out the window, all I could see was rain. In fact, looking into the window, I could see quite a bit of rain too. The roof was leaking. My big brother, Tim, was sitting behind his desk with water dripping into a bucket beside him. The bucket looked happier than him.
You may have heard of Tim Diamond. He called himself a private detective. That was what it said on his business card . . . at least, it did if you ignored the spelling mistakes. He was twenty-five years old, dark-haired, and good-looking provided you didn’t look too closely. Tim had spent three years as a policeman. In all that time he’d never prevented a single crime or arrested a single criminal. The truth was, he wasn’t too bright. He once put together an Identikit picture of someone suspected of robbing a bank and the police spent the next six months looking for a bald Nigerian with no nose and three eyes. He did once rescue a woman from drowning but she wasn’t too grateful. He’d just pushed her in.
After that he set up his own business with an office in Camden Town. He got the place at a knockdown price, which was hardly surprising as knocking down was all it was good for. There was a reception room and a kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. The pipes gurgled, the floorboards creaked, the windows rattled and the radiators groaned. On a bad day, you had to shout to make yourself heard. He got a sign painted on the front door. It read, TIM DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE, and it looked great, although in my view it might have been more effective on the outside. Still, at least it reminded him who he was every time he left.
To be fair, Tim did get a few cases and you may have read about them in a series of bestselling adventures such as The Falcon’s Malteser, Public Enemy Number Two, and South by South East. Okay—that’s an advertisement, but Tim gets 5 percent from the publishers and frankly he needs it. The last time I looked he was down to his last fifty dollars—and we’re not even talking American. I’m still not sure what he was doing with a Zimbabwe banknote in his wallet. It wasn’t as if he’d ever been there. But that was all he had, and fifty Zimbabwe dollars wouldn’t be enough to buy us breakfast . . . unless we went halves on the egg.
And how did I end up living with him? It was a question I’d asked myself a hundred times and I still hadn’t got a sensible answer. I’d moved in when I was thirteen, just after my parents immigrated to Australia. I’ve got nothing against the Australians and their dollars are actually worth the paper they’re printed on—but I didn’t want to leave London and so I slipped off the plane just before it taxied onto the runway. After that it was a choice between living rough and homeless on the streets—begging off passersby and trying to avoid being arrested and sent to an orphanage—or moving in with Tim. I’m still not sure I made the right choice.
Anyway, it was my first week back at school and I hadn’t had a lot of fun. Either I was growing or my uniform had shrunk in the wash . . . if this went on much longer I’d soon be back in shorts. And of course, I was the only person in the school who hadn’t got a new Xbox or a new iPhone or any other expensive gadget with a letter in front of it. Tim wouldn’t even have been able to afford a new Tcup, and although Mum and Dad had sent me a card from Sydney (Santa surfing at Bondi Beach), they’d forgotten to enclose the book token or, better still, the check. On the other hand, I knew that things were tight out there. My dad had started a new business selling heated toilet seats but apparently the bottom had fallen out of the market.
So I was in a bad mood when I trudged home that Tuesday afternoon. However, as I climbed the stairs, I heard voices and realized that the miracle of Christmas had finally happened, even if it was a few weeks late. Tim had a client!
I let myself in and sure enough, there was my big brother, leaning across his desk with the wobbly half-smile he used when he was trying to look professional. The man sitting opposite him was big and fat. He must have weighed three hundred pounds and my first thought was that I hoped he’d chosen the right chair. He had ginger hair, a round face, and a big smile, although with that hair and that face I wouldn’t have thought he had a lot to smile about. He was wearing a crumpled suit and a tie that had only just made it all the way round his neck. There was a scarf draped across his shoulders and leather gloves on his hands. It seemed strange that he hadn’t bothered to take them off, even though it was a cold day outside. I guessed he was in his late thirties and if he didn’t give up the crisps and the sugary drinks, forty was going to be a stretch. He was smoking a cigarette, which wouldn’t help, either. He needed to see a doctor or an undertaker . . . it was just a question of which one would get to him first.
Tim saw me come in. He was obviously in a good mood because he didn’t try to throw me out. “This is Mr. Hollywood,” he said.
“Underwood,” the man corrected him. “My name is Charles Underwood. And who are you?”
“I’m Nick Diamond,” I said. I jerked a thumb at Tim. “I’m his brother.”
“Mr. Thunderwood needs a private detective,” Tim explained. “He was just saying that he needs someone reliable and responsible . . . someone who isn’t afraid of danger.”
“Then what’s he do
ing here?” I asked.
“I got your brother’s name out of the telephone book,” Underwood replied. He looked for an ashtray. There wasn’t one so he stubbed the cigarette out on the desk. “I have an office in Clerkenwell,” he went on. “It’s on the twelfth floor of the House of Gold.” He waved a hand in the air. “That’s what I do for a living, Mr. Diamond.”
“What? You’re a conductor?”
“No. I buy and sell gold. Mainly old coins. Right now I have a Double Eagle in my safe worth five million pounds.”
Tim’s mouth dropped. “Your safe is worth five million pounds?”
“No. The Double Eagle is worth five million pounds.”
“What? And it’s guarding the coins?”
“The Double Eagle is the gold coin, Mr. Diamond. It was made in America in 1933 and it’s incredibly rare.” Underwood leaned forward—as far as his stomach would let him. “It landed in London yesterday . . . it was flown in from Chicago. And now I’ve had a tip-off that someone is planning to steal it. That’s why I need a private detective.”
“Why don’t you just move the coin?” I asked.
“That was my first thought. But it’s too risky. If I walked out of the office with the coin in my pocket, someone could shoot me or stab me or run me over. . . .”
“They could do all three!” Tim exclaimed.
“That’s right. It would be easy to steal it off me. The coin is safer where it is. . . .”
“In the safe,” Tim muttered. “But it is a safe safe?”
“It’s six inches thick,” Underwood replied. “It has a thirty-digit code. The office is locked with a sophisticated alarm system and the building is patrolled day and night. But here’s the problem. The man in charge of security—his name is Harry King—he’s the man who’s planning to rob me. He’s going to break in at midnight tonight.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you.” Underwood took out another cigarette and rolled it between his fingers. It wasn’t easy because he was still wearing the gloves. “First of all, King is a bad sort. I’ve checked him out. He spent three years in prison.”