The Wishbreaker

by Tyler Whitesides

  The tree above Jathon, however, promptly dropped all its leaves on us.

  “It’s golfing time!” I announced through a mouthful of feathers as I sized up the first hole. It didn’t look too complex. Just a jelly bean–shaped stretch of green with the hole at the other end. End-to-end bricks made a convenient border to prevent golf balls from going out-of-bounds.

  I tried to decide where to tee off. According to the rules that Shane had explained, once the balls were set down, we wouldn’t be able to touch them with anything but our clubs.

  By the time I decided where to place my brown ball, Jathon and Vale had already beaten the first hole and were moving on to the second. The redheaded genie had to guide her Wishmaker as he traversed the terrain backward.

  I took aim and swung my club. My ball clacked off the brick border, popping into the air and landing in some bark outside the course.

  “Seriously?!” I shouted, feathers coming out of my mouth and smoke out of my ears. I ran after my errant shot as Ridge took a swing.

  “Seriously?!” he echoed.

  “Did yours go out-of-bounds, too?” I asked.

  “I got a hole-in-one!” he shouted. “It went right in! One hit!”

  “I know what a hole-in-one is, Ridge.” I spit some feathers. “But you still have to wait for me!”

  I took a few more swings, bark flying everywhere. At last, I managed to get some air under the ball, clearing the brick border and landing it on the turf.

  With just two more strokes, my brown ball found its way into the hole. I peered in after it, but there was some sort of underground pipe meant to deliver the ball to the next part of the course.

  Ridge and I sprinted along the path to find our golf balls waiting for us at the top of Hole Two.

  “This looks a little more complicated,” Ridge said.

  There was a stream running through the middle, with the hole on the opposite side. The only way across was a narrow bridge with no bumpers or guardrails along the water’s edge. One wrong swing and the ball would land with a splash, carried away by the current.

  I was pondering my strategy when Ridge’s red ball went whizzing past. It lined up perfectly, crossing the thin bridge and rolling down a slight slope. It looped around the hole once and then dropped in.

  “Woo-hoo!” cried the genie in his old man voice. “Another hole-in-one! Apparently, I’m pretty good at this.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” I muttered.

  “Small hits, Ace,” said Ridge. “You can hit it as many times as you want, remember?”

  Helpful advice. Too much power behind my swing would end the game. I tapped it ever so gently. The brown ball rolled less than a foot. I tapped it again.

  “That’s a good technique,” Ridge said. “We might be eighty years old by the time you get to the hole, but at least it won’t land in the water.”

  “You look like you’re pushing eighty already,” I commented through feathers.

  Seven more taps and I was across the bridge. My brown ball rolled down the slope. A few more gentle hits, and it finally went in.

  “Slow and steady wins the game,” I said. Jathon and Vale were way ahead of us by now, and I couldn’t see anyone else on the course.

  Holes Three and Four went about like the first two. I was a dozen swings in when Ridge’s ball would shoot past and sink into the hole. I eventually got mine to follow, but it took several minutes and a lot of patience.

  We had just stepped up to Hole Five when Ridge suddenly turned back into the boy I knew. I, too, transformed, my plump woman’s body replaced with the real me. I patted myself just to make sure everything had changed back properly.

  “Oh, man,” Ridge moaned, slapping his back pocket. “My wallet’s gone!”

  “So are my feathers!” I cried happily, running my tongue around my mouth to make sure none of them had lingered.

  The music on the course ended midsong, and an announcement sounded through the mounted speakers.

  “May I have your attention please . . .” I recognized Shane’s voice. “This is a Code Red situation. There are children on the course. I repeat, children on the course.”

  “I don’t see any security,” Ridge said, hitting his red golf ball. It zoomed across the fifth hole, bouncing off the brick trim and scoring yet another perfect hole-in-one.

  “Not fair,” I muttered.

  “I don’t know.” Ridge shrugged. “Beginner’s luck, I guess.”

  “I am putting the course into magical defense mode,” Shane said. “This is not a drill.”

  An alarm blared through the speakers. Suddenly, geysers of fire erupted at random across the green course. This was going to make things interesting. . . .

  Chapter 19

  “I’m guessing the fire isn’t part of the regular course,” Ridge said. A huge ribbon of flame shot right in front of us, leaving a little scorched mark in the artificial turf.

  “Magical defense mode,” I said, repeating what Shane had announced over the intercom. “Shane didn’t activate it until we turned into kids. Something tells me these bonus dangers were designed specifically to keep Wishmakers away.”

  “I’m surprised Chasm hasn’t shown up,” Ridge said.

  “I don’t think he will. The whole point of having a magical defense system is so he doesn’t have to deal with us himself. If we fail the course, we’ll never be able to get to him.”

  “Yeah,” Ridge said. “A single blast from one of those fire geysers could melt your golf ball.”

  “Or your face,” I pointed out.

  I hit my ball. It raced up the slope, fire exploding on both sides. Apparently, my swing hadn’t packed quite enough power, because it came rolling right back, barely missing a spurt of fire on the descent.

  “You need to hit it a little harder,” Ridge said as my ball came to a stop at my feet.

  “Obviously.”

  I hit again. This one actually did what I wanted. Sort of. At least it made it to the top of the slope and stayed there.

  Ridge and I set off across the turf. It was terrifying to run through the streamers of fire. One came so close in front of me that it nearly singed off my eyebrows.

  “You’d better finish this quick!” Ridge said. “Every second we stand here increases our odds of becoming a charcoal briquette.”

  My club came down and the ball rolled forward. There was a flash of fire and my golf ball went careening sideways. It bounced off the brick border and dropped into the hole.

  “That was close!” Ridge said as the two of us sprinted to the next hole. We arrived just as my ball came rolling out of the connecting pipe.

  “Hey!” I cried. “It got scorched!” One side of my golf ball was smudged black and melted. “Now it’s got a flat spot!”

  “At least Hole Six doesn’t look too bad,” Ridge said. “Just don’t land in either of those ponds.”

  There was a pool of water on either side of the course. The turf sloped down toward them, so it was obvious that I’d lose my ball unless I hit it right down the middle.

  I went first. I was pleased with the direction my ball was going. It might have even been a hole-in-one if a giant alligator hadn’t suddenly sprung from the pond on the right.

  The golf ball hit the animal’s front teeth and popped up, landing right inside that massive mouth. The alligator’s jaw snapped shut. It swallowed.

  My golf ball was gone!

  Meanwhile, Ridge took a swing, his red ball zipping expertly down the middle of the course. Two more alligators lunged from the ponds, but his ball barely got past, sinking right into the hole at the end.

  “How do you . . . ?” I started. “Ugh!” I pointed at the alligator that had eaten my golf ball. With his magical defensive duty done, he was just turning to slink back into the pond.

  “I wish that alligator would throw up!”

  I hadn’t seen him chew my golf ball. If he barfed out the contents of his stomach, I might have a chance to keep playing.

&
nbsp; “If you want that alligator to throw up,” said Ridge, “then you’ll have to stick out your tongue until you leave the golf course.”

  “Can I talk with my tongue sticking out?” I wondered aloud. So I tried it. “This is a test.” I sounded like a cartoon character, but it was doable.

  “Bazang.”

  I stuck out my tongue and the alligator threw up. At the center of the disgusting mess, I saw my golf ball, covered in slime. But the other alligators were moving in. Apparently, they had a real appetite for golf balls . . . or throw-up.

  Sprinting forward, I swung my club, sending the yucky ball safely to the other side. Amazingly, it actually went into the hole. That was my best yet! Only two strokes. Unless you count the alligator’s contribution.

  But my celebration was short-lived, as one of the alligators clamped its powerful jaws around the metal shaft of my club.

  “Ridge!” I shouted, trying to wrestle it away from the animal as smoke came out my ears. “Give me a hand!”

  I thought about transforming him into a polar bear and letting him thump the gator on the head, but that would leave me with my hands on the ground and my head down low. Not a good position to be in with chomping alligators on the loose.

  Ridge joined me, and with our combined strength, we managed to work the club out of the alligator’s jaws. Both of us fell on our backsides as it came free. But we were on our feet running in less than a second.

  It wasn’t until we reached the seventh hole that I realized what the alligator had done.

  “Look at my club!” I cried, tongue dangling out of my mouth. It was bent in the middle, the bottom half sticking out at a clumsy angle.

  “Maybe that’ll help you hit around corners,” Ridge said.

  I sighed, staring down at my half-melted, gator-slimed golf ball. “This really isn’t my game,” I muttered.

  “I think it’s going great!” said Ridge. “Only three more holes.”

  “I can’t hit with this.” I grunted. “I wish my club would get un-bent.” As it turned out, the word wish was very hard to say with my tongue out. Go ahead, try it.

  “If you want your club to straighten out,” said Ridge, “then every time someone claps their hands, your head will spin around once.”

  “Spin around?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’ll twist all the way around on your neck, and back to its normal position.”

  “Um,” I said, “necks aren’t really designed to do that.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll be painless,” he said. “And it’ll only last for a day.”

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. How many times a day did I really hear someone clap? I glanced at my hourglass and then at my bent golf club. This game was hard enough with proper equipment. What chance would I have with a mangled club?

  “Bazang,” I sighed.

  The club in my hand instantly straightened out, just the way it had been before the alligator chomped on it.

  My attention turned to the hole ahead. Here, the turf sloped inward to a low spot in the middle, filled with some harmless-looking sand. The only way to avoid landing in it would be to hit the ball along the edge with enough momentum that it would reach the flat area on the other side where the hole was located.

  This looked simple as Ridge did it, his red ball arcing around the sand trap and slowly dropping into the hole.

  “At this point, I think I’d be more surprised if you didn’t get a hole-in-one,” I said.

  “Don’t hate the player, Ace,” Ridge said. “Hate the game.”

  I lined up my club and gave a nice swing.

  My ball plopped right into the sand . . . and started sinking.

  “Quicksand!” I yelled, smoke in my ears as I sprinted down to it. I shouldn’t have jumped into the sand, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I needed to knock that ball out before it disappeared!

  I swung hard, like I was a pro golfer on a full-sized course. Sand sprayed everywhere and my ball popped into the air. It rolled up the slope and I thought it was going to go in, but it came to a stop less than one inch away from the hole. A delicate tap would finish it off.

  But I couldn’t move.

  “Ridge!” I called. “I’m up to my knees!”

  He scrambled down to the low-lying sand pit. “Is it just me,” Ridge said, “or have we had our fair share of sand this week?” He reached out, offering me the handle of his club as a tool to pull me out.

  I grabbed on to the red leather wrapping. “Ooh,” I said. “This feels nice. Your club’s way better than mine! No wonder you’re golfing a perfect game.”

  “I need the extra padding,” Ridge justified. “You know I get blisters.”

  I was up to my thighs now, despite the fact that Ridge was pulling as hard as he could. While we were in this position, a small group of adults walked through Hole Seven. I couldn’t see their faces, but they were each carrying a mini golf club.

  “That ninth hole was killer,” one of them was saying. “Can’t believe Brian got it in.”

  “Hey, where is Brian?”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I bet he ran back to the shack,” said another. “Couldn’t wait to see what his prize was.”

  “Prize?” Ridge whispered, eyes locking with mine.

  “Chasm got his twelfth winner,” I said. “We have to hurry!”

  “Hey,” one of the adults said when she saw us. “I didn’t think they let kids into this park.”

  “Why’s he just sitting there?” asked a man’s voice. “Kid, this is a mini golf course, not a sandbox.”

  “I’m not sitting!” I yelled, speech slurred with my tongue out, smoke streaming from my head. “I’m sinking. What did you think happened to my legs?”

  “Give us a hand!” Ridge begged them.

  In response, one of them gave a round of applause. At the sound of hands clapping, my head spun all the way around. It gave me an interesting view of the golf course, but it sort of made me dizzy, too. The group moved away from us, laughing (which caused me to hiccup).

  I knew they weren’t trying to be jerks. The Universe’s shield prevented them from seeing the truth. To them, there was no magical defense mode. This was just an ordinary mini golf park, with chances to earn some serious prizes.

  And by the sound of it, Chasm had his final winner.

  “I wish you were strong enough to pull me out of this sand,” I said to Ridge. Ahh! So many wishes in such a short time! I was mad at myself for not wishing smarter, but I had to keep going.

  “All right!” Ridge replied. “I’m going to be ripped!”

  “Consequence?”

  “If I get strong,” he said, “then instead of running, you’ll only be able to skip.”

  “For how long?” I followed up.

  “Until the end of the week.”

  “Hmmm.” Running was very helpful at times, especially when going up against the Wishbreaker. Still, I was a pretty fast skipper, so I could probably manage to get away from danger. I’d just look kind of merry while doing it.

  “Bazang,” I said.

  Ridge planted his feet against the sloped turf, our clubs stretched out between us like a lifeline. Ridge heaved with his newfound strength and I wriggled. I felt like the quicksand was going to suck my pants off and eat my shoes, but I managed to come out fully clothed.

  “Come on,” I said, skipping up the slope to where my ball was waiting. With a single nudge from my club, I was able to knock it into the hole. Then we were quickly moving to the next part of the course. I was surprised that we hadn’t caught up to the others by now. Jathon and Vale must have been doing a pretty good job against the course’s magical defense mode.

  Hole Eight did not smell pretty. It might have once been an easy, spacious green. Fairly level with only a few rock obstacles. But in magical defense mode, this hole was flooding . . . with acid!

  The purplish liquid gurgled and hissed, releasing a foul vapor. It was
encroaching from all sides, dissolving rock and turf as it spread inward.

  Ridge’s ball sped forward, and I thought his aim looked slightly off. Then it pinged against a rock and popped into the air, skipping over a little inlet of acid, as it rolled into the hole.

  “That was dumb luck!” I said.

  “Luck is never dumb, Ace.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “Maybe it’s that club you stole.”

  “It has nothing to do with the club,” Ridge answered defensively. “It’s all raw, natural talent.”

  I began making my way down the remaining green with small controlled strokes, careful to wait until my mangled ball rolled to a complete stop before hitting it again. I had just made the swing that sent the ball into the hole when I tripped over a small rock.

  Flailing to keep my balance, I put my club down to brace myself like a walking cane. There was a loud sizzle, and I realized too late that I had plunged the end of my club directly into the potent acid.

  I leaped away, yanking it free. But the damage had already been done. All that was left of my club was the black handle and a short length of the metal shaft. The important end had completely dissolved like sugar in water.

  Chapter 20

  “Let’s get to the last hole!” Ridge shouted. “Come on!”

  I skipped after him, holding on to my stumpy club and trying to decide if I could still make a hit without wishing to repair it . . . again.

  We came around a high hedge and stumbled onto the ninth hole. Everyone was there—Jathon and Vale (who had changed back into kids), Ms. Gomez, and Thackary.

  The final hole on Chasm’s mini golf course was the classic dreaded windmill. In order to win, we’d need to shoot the golf ball into the small front door of the windmill hut. It sounded simple, but it would require careful timing, passing the ball between the turning paddles of the propeller.

  Except, magical defense mode had turned the thing into a deadly windmill of doom. The propeller was now whirring at an impossible speed. And to raise the stakes, each paddle of the propeller was studded with spikes and lined with a grinding chainsaw blade.