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Wishworks, Inc.

Page 4

by Stephanie S. Tolan


  Wine bottles rolled in every direction. The woman screamed, the man shouted something in a language Max didn’t understand, and Max lost his hold on the leash. Bounding over the rolling bottles, Ratty leaped into the window, grabbed a sausage between her teeth, jumped back down, and ran for the door. Max scrambled after her.

  “You should do something about that dog!” the woman said. Max managed to get hold of the end of the leash as the man was still stumbling among the bottles. Max shoved open the door and he and Ratty, sausage firmly between her jaws, burst out onto the sidewalk. The sound of the man’s voice, shouting more words he didn’t understand, followed him out.

  He would do something about Ratty, Max thought as he ran down the sidewalk toward home. And he knew what that something would be! When they’d turned the corner, he slowed down. Ratty had somehow managed to run and gulp down the sausage at the same time. She must have swallowed it whole, he thought. He half expected to hear pounding footsteps behind him, to have Jerome Fisher’s father chase him down and arrest him for theft.

  “We’re going home right now,” he told Ratty. “And you’d better do your business before we get there. Because I’m not taking you out again! “

  When he let himself and Ratty into their house, Mrs. Chang was watching her talk show. Polly was at the table pretending to feed broccoli to her doll. Max put away the trowel and the poop bag. He hadn’t had to use them. As soon as he took off her leash, Ratty chased Ali Baba under the couch.

  “Take care of the dog,” Max told Polly. “I have something important to do.”

  “Okay,” Polly said. “You want a broccoli?” she asked Ratty.

  “Dogs don’t eat broccoli,” Max said.

  Ratty, her tail wagging, came and put her front paws on Polly’s leg. Polly held out a piece of broccoli. Ratty took it. “This dog does,” Polly said. Ratty crunched the broccoli, swallowed it down, and wagged for another.

  King wouldn’t eat broccoli, Max thought as he went to his room. And he wouldn’t steal sausages! He closed his door to keep Ratty out. Then he settled himself on his bed. He took a deep breath and got quiet.

  He didn’t bother imagining the sidewalk or the door. He just imagined himself standing in front of the counter at Wishworks, Inc. The old man looked startled at Max’s sudden appearance. Then he smiled. “Welcome back,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need customer service,” Max said. “I need refunds and exchanges.”

  The old man frowned. “Am I to understand you are dissatisfied?”

  “Yes, I’m dissatisfied!” Max said. He explained that when he made his wish, he had wanted King, not Ratty.

  “Ah,” the old man said, pressing the fingertips of one hand to his chin. “But I understood that you wanted a real dog.”

  “I did. But I wanted King to be real!”

  The old man sighed. “That’s different, you know. It isn’t what you wished. I warned you to think very carefully before you made your wish. I’m afraid we don’t do refunds or exchanges. Once a wish becomes real, you can’t return it. You can’t trade it in for something else. Real is real.”

  “But that dog is messing up my whole life! Can’t you do anything?”

  The old man ran a hand through his curly white hair. “What could I do? You’re just imagining me, remember.”

  This wasn’t going at all the way Max had expected.

  “You can do something, though,” the man said. “You can buy another wish.”

  Max grinned. Of course! He should have thought of that himself. He reached into his pocket. He found another twenty-dollar bill and handed it over.

  The old man took it and put it in the cash register drawer. “Make your wish. But this time, think very, very carefully.”

  Max had no need to think at all. “I wish Ratty would go away!” he said.

  There was a deep chiming sound, and the shop went dark momentarily.

  “Done,” the old man said.

  10

  MAX OPENED HIS EYES. IF this wish took as long as the other one to come true, he would have to put up with Ratty for a while yet. He saw that he’d left his backpack on the floor. He got up and hung it on a hook in his closet so Ratty couldn’t get at it and chew its straps again.

  He could hear Mrs. Chang’s television program droning from the living room. Polly must have taken the dog to her room, Max thought. He hoped he could leave his room now without Ratty jumping on him and demanding that he play with her. He didn’t want to see Ratty again. He didn’t want to think about LaRosa’s and the big man with the meat cleaver. But he couldn’t help it. Even though Max didn’t know the words he had shouted, the man’s voice seemed to be stuck inside his mind. Maybe he could take money from his bank and pay for the sausage Ratty had stolen. He opened his door carefully and looked out into the hall.

  Just then, Max heard the front door slam. “Max! Max! Help!” Polly hollered. “Come quick! Come now!” She came running down the hall toward him, Ratty’s leash dragging on the floor behind her. At the end of the leash was Ratty’s red collar with no Ratty. Polly’s face was streaked with tears. “Goldie’s gone! She’s gone! You gotta help me find her!”

  That was fast, Max thought. Had the dog just vanished — poof! — the moment he’d wished her away? Polly grabbed his hand. She was crying and pulling at him. He wanted to shout and cheer for the magic of it all, but it didn’t seem right with Polly crying like that.

  Mrs. Chang came hurrying from the living room. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Between sobs, Polly managed to tell them that Goldie had scratched and whined at the door till Polly went to get her leash. “You didn’t hardly walk her at all!” she told Max. “She still had to go!” She sniffled and snuffled and explained to Mrs. Chang that Max had told her to take care of the dog because he had something important to do. “So I took her out myself.”

  “You should have called me,” Mrs. Chang told her. “I would walk her with you.”

  “You were watching your program. And Max said I should take care of her!” Polly had clipped the leash to Goldie’s collar, she told them. Then she had gotten the poop bag and trowel. “I did everything just the way Max does,” she said. “And it was all okay. It was! Till Goldie saw a squirrel. She started barking and pulling and I could hardly hold her. Then all of a sudden she sort of ducked her head, and her collar came right off over her ears. She chased the squirrel under some bushes and I didn’t see her anymore. She was just gone. I yelled and yelled for her, but she didn’t come back! She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone, and it’s all my fault!” Polly wailed.

  It made Max’s chest hurt to see Polly’s face all red and crumpled and sad. She’ll get over it, Max told himself. Ratty was the only dog Polly had ever known. She had no way of knowing what a terrible dog Ratty was. She didn’t understand how a dog was supposed to be. Ratty had been with them only a few weeks. It wasn’t as if she’d had the dog her whole life.

  “We must go out,” Mrs. Chang said. “We must find the dog before something bad happens. We must find the dog before your mother comes home.”

  Max thought about Wishworks, Inc. He thought about wishes that were guaranteed. Even with all three of them looking, they would not find Ratty, he thought. But he couldn’t very well tell them that.

  So Max went outside with Polly and Mrs. Chang to look for the dog. Mrs. Chang took Polly with her across the street and told Max to go left on 8th Avenue. He would go past the Korean grocery and the antique shop and the deli, but he’d turn back before he got to LaRosa’s. “Goldie! Goldie!” Polly and Mrs. Chang called as they walked.

  Max didn’t call for the dog. He asked a couple of people he passed if they had seen a scruffy little yellow dog with no collar. Nobody had. Of course not. I wish Ratty would go away is what he had said. And she’d gone.

  Polly will feel better in a day or two, he thought. He was sure of it. It wasn’t bad like divorce. Or their father moving to another state and not even cal
ling them a single time. Their lives would just go back to the way they were before he’d wished Ratty into them. He hadn’t thought their lives were very good then, but he knew better now.

  11

  WHEN MOTHER CAME HOME, Polly was in her room, crying. Mrs. Chang explained what had happened. Mother took the collar and leash and went out to search for the dog. When she came back, there were frown lines between her eyes, and her mouth was turned down. Her eyes looked red as if she might have been crying too. She looked the way she used to look a lot of the time in the bad old days before the divorce. Max realized that he hadn’t seen her like that a single time since they moved. That thought also made his chest hurt. He reminded himself what a good thing it was that Ratty wasn’t here anymore. It didn’t help very much.

  “I’m afraid she’s really gone,” Mother said. “We’ll put up signs. And we can run an ad.”

  Max helped make signs that said LOST DOG. Mother put their phone number and address on the signs. But Max knew nobody would call. And nobody would bring Ratty back. His wish was guaranteed. Mrs. Chang took the signs and a big roll of tape so she could put them up around the neighborhood on her way home. “I miss that little dog already,” she said as she left.

  Mother made macaroni and cheese for supper. She said they all needed comfort food. Even though it was her favorite meal in the whole world, Polly hardly ate any. It was Max’s favorite too. Like always, he asked for a second helping. Every night while they ate supper, Polly talked about her friends and her day at school. Not tonight. And Mother didn’t ask any questions either. The whole meal was very quiet except for Polly’s sniffling. She had to keep wiping her nose with her napkin.

  Polly shouldn’t be such a baby, Max thought. She wasn’t a kindergartner anymore. And besides, Ratty was only a horrible little dog. But sitting there between his sniffling sister and his quiet mother, Max didn’t feel like finishing his macaroni and cheese.

  Later, when he was helping to clear the table, Max noticed Ratty’s food and water bowls on the floor. He picked them up and put them in the dishwasher. Ratty didn’t need them anymore. Where did a dog go when it got wished away? he wondered. She was a real dog when she was with them. Was she still real now? If she was still real, he supposed she still needed to eat. Probably she had found somebody else to feed her, somebody else to jump on and scratch when they tried to put her food on the floor. Max hoped she had found somebody. But he felt sorry for whoever she had found.

  He did his homework at the table without being reminded. He had to copy ten spelling words and do five easy borrowing and carrying problems. When he was finished, he went to his room. Ratty’s ball was on his pillow. He pushed it off onto the floor and settled himself on his bed. The ball bounced a couple of times and rolled under his desk. There was no Ratty to go under there and get it. There was no Ratty to drop it in his lap and then bark and yap at him till he threw it. Good. Ratty wouldn’t be there ever again to jump up and snatch balls out of the air. Very good!

  There was nothing at all to keep him from Adventure Time now, he thought. That was the best thing of all. It would be the first big adventure he and King had had since Ratty invaded his life.

  He closed his eyes and got quiet. Then he imagined himself at the edge of a forest, a big, grassy meadow stretching away toward a very high mountain with snow on the top. King was there, standing in front of him, wagging his tail. “Let’s go,” Max said, and set off across the meadow. King trotted next to him. Sometimes King would run ahead a little and make a big circle around him as if checking for danger, and then come panting back, his tongue hanging out.

  Suddenly a cloud seemed to pass over the sun. It made a big shadow on the grass. Max looked up. It was no cloud. A huge dark shape with wings like a bat was swooping down at him. It was too big to be a bat or a bird and too nearly round to be a dragon. It was hard to see clearly against the brightness of the sky. Whatever it was, it wasn’t friendly. King had gone running ahead. Max pulled his heavy nightstick out of his belt. “To me, King!” he shouted, and King came hurrying back.

  The shape swooped closer and Max saw that it was a bat after all — a huge, gigantic, monstrous hairy bat with sharp yellow teeth and glowing red eyes. It was coming directly at him. Max raised the nightstick above his head. As the bat swerved to avoid it, King leaped into the air and sank his teeth into one of its wings.

  The bat screamed a horrible scream and began falling out of the sky. Falling with the bat, King growled deep in his throat and bravely kept his jaws clamped tightly onto the wing. The bat flailed hard with his other wing but could not get loose. It could not get back into the air. When it flopped onto the ground, King, still holding on to its wing, landed gracefully on all four feet. Max hit the bat as hard as he could with the nightstick. The bat began to shrink, melting into the grass until there was nothing left of it but a sticky, dark puddle.

  “Thanks, King,” Max said. “Together we have freed this world from a terrible scourge.” Max liked the word scourge. He used it as often in his adventures as he could. He patted King on the head and King wagged his tail and licked his hand. He didn’t jump up on Max and slather Max’s face with slimy, smelly spit. He just licked his hand in a friendly, loyal way. Now this is the way a dog ought to behave! Max thought. He opened his eyes and imagined King lying quietly next to him on his bed. “We’ll have another adventure tomorrow,” Max promised. Maybe tomorrow, he thought, they’d run into a troll. A huge, gigantic mountain troll.

  When he had put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth, Max went out into the living room to tell his mother good night. She was sitting in her favorite chair with a book in her lap. But she wasn’t reading. She was staring out the window at the streetlight. “I don’t have Goldie to walk tonight,” she said, not even turning to look at him. Her voice had a weird sort of trembly sound. “I hope someone has found her. I hope whoever it is will see our signs and bring her back to us.”

  “Maybe,” Max said.

  Mother turned to him now. “I’m really sorry Polly lost your dog,” she said.

  “It wasn’t Polly’s fault,” he answered. Mother didn’t understand how completely true that was.

  Back in his bed, Max pulled his quilt up to his chin. Didn’t Mother and Polly see that they were all better off without Ratty? It might take a few days, he thought, but they’d get over this. Ali Baba probably already had. Ali Baba was probably as happy as Max was that Ratty was gone. He didn’t have to run and hide under the couch anymore.

  Max had left his bedroom door open a little so Ali Baba could come back and sleep on his bed again. He would very much like having Ali

  Baba on his bed again, he thought. Even if sometimes he stuck a claw in Max’s foot.

  I’m going to stay nice and cozy and warm all night, Max told himself as he closed his eyes and snuggled into his pillow. No rat dog would pull his quilt off and leave him shivering. He could sleep later in the morning because he didn’t have to walk Ratty before breakfast. He wouldn’t have to apologize for her barking or jumping. Or worry about her stealing sausages. These were very, very good things. They were exactly what he had wanted — exactly!

  12

  SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT, Max thought when he woke up. It took him a moment to figure out what it was. Then he knew. There was no warm body in his bed with him. There was no Ratty, of course. But there was no Ali Baba either. Max couldn’t remember a morning when he had wakened to find himself completely alone in his bed. It felt very strange.

  He looked at his clock. He hadn’t slept late after all. It was the same time he had been waking up ever since Ratty came. He thought of the people who wouldn’t be waving papers at him this morning or crossing the street to avoid Ratty. Then he thought of the little old lady. Would she wonder where he was? Would she throw dog biscuits to somebody else’s dog? And would that other dog be able to catch them in midair?

  He fluffed his pillow, turned over, and snuggled down under his quilt. He would go back to sleep. Ma
ybe he would have a really good dream.

  But he didn’t go back to sleep. His bed felt big and cold and empty. After a few minutes of keeping his eyes tightly closed and trying very hard to be asleep, he gave up and got out of bed.

  On his way back from the bathroom, Max stepped on something hard and sharp. It was Ratty’s rawhide chew toy. The sharp part was where Ratty had chewed the end off. We won’t be needing this anymore, Max thought. I can throw it away. He put it in his sock drawer instead. He got Ratty’s ball from under his desk and put it there too.

  When he was dressed, Max started for the kitchen to fix himself a bowl of cereal. Polly’s door was open. She was still asleep, making little wuffly sounds through her nose. Ali Baba was curled up in the crook of her legs. The cat opened one green eye and looked at Max. “Ali,” Max called to him softly so he wouldn’t wake Polly. “Ali! Come with me. I’ll give you a treat.” Ali Baba closed his eye and curled his paw around the end of his nose. Max went on to the kitchen alone.

  When he had eaten his cereal and drunk a glass of orange juice, Max heard Mother’s alarm go off. She would take her shower and then wake Polly, he knew. Then they would have their breakfast. It was still ages before he and Polly had to go out to the corner to meet the school bus. His homework was packed in his backpack already. There was nothing he had to do. He had never had Adventure Time in the morning. But today he could.

  He went back to his room and settled himself on his bed. He closed his eyes, got quiet, and imagined himself on a narrow trail in a deep forest. King was sitting on the trail in front of him, his ears cocked, his eyes focused on Max’s face. King’s big plume of a tail wagged back and forth, clearing leaves from the trail as it went.

 

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