When You Wish upon a Rat

by Maureen McCarthy

  Finally, they came to the store that Mary Ellen had picked out. Lou threw an arm around Ruth’s neck and pointed at the big bright letters. Ruth stared in at the shining black-and-gray counters and strategically placed spotlights illuminating the racks of clothes. No way in the world would she have ever dared to enter this place on her own, but with her willing bevy of friends, why not?

  “Cool, huh?” Lou shouted over the loud, pumping music.

  “Yeah.” Ruth smiled tentatively. “Cool.”

  Once inside, Lou, Bonnie, Susie, and Katy split up and prowled about like experts, leaving Ruth floundering, not knowing where to start. Her friends called out loudly to one another, giggling and picking stuff out for praise or ridicule.

  “Can I help you girls?” The young sales assistant was watching them warily.

  “Not yet, thanks,” Lou called back breezily.

  “Hey, Ruth, you like this? What size are you? Is this the kind of thing you’re after?”

  Ruth nodded uneasily. She felt foolish that she had no clear idea what she was looking for or how to find it.

  Within minutes, they were all heading toward her with armfuls of clothes and shoes and pointing her toward the dressing room.

  “Here you go.”

  “This goes with that,” Katy said, holding out a pair of bright red cutoffs and a tiny striped, frilly top. “And here are the shoes.”

  Ruth could see immediately that the things they were choosing were all wrong. Nice things, but not her style. They were trying to make her look like them! But she took the first pile of clothes and disappeared behind the curtain. Relax, she told herself. Her friends were helping her choose her new wardrobe, that was all. Maybe she did need to loosen up a bit about what she thought was right for her.

  Ruth looked at herself in the mirror and tried to get the glum expression off her face.

  The first outfit she tried on was a long black T-shirt dress with a red belt. The other girls insisted that it went with shiny, flecked tights that Ruth didn’t much like, but she hardly dared to say so because when she came out of the dressing room they were all so admiring. Bonnie brought over a little pink jacket, to go over the top, and Lou started pinning Ruth’s hair back with some iridescent clips she’d found. Bonnie ran back for a different pair of shoes.

  “You like it?” Katy wanted to know.

  “I guess so,” Ruth said uncomfortably. She looked fashionable, she supposed, and that was the point …

  … wasn’t it? The trouble was that she could hear Mary Ellen’s voice in her head. She tried to push it away, but it kept butting in. You have a natural inclination toward an interesting, arty look, so go with that, Ruthie. You have taste, so use it.

  “It’s great,” Lou declared. “You’re so lucky to be tall. You look at least fifteen!”

  And so it went on. By the time Ruth was on to her tenth outfit, the changing cubicle was beginning to feel like a prison, cramped and claustrophobic and hot. She hated seeing all sides of herself under such harsh light. Her thighs were too white and her undies were worn and grubby. Her face stared back at her, so serious and dour. I’m ugly, she thought. I’m too skinny and my ears are too big. “Thanks, but I’ve tried on enough,” she shouted when Katy pushed yet more clothes through to her.

  “Please, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  The excited chatter subsided into a sudden hushed silence.

  “Are you okay in there?” Lou’s voice was sharp.

  “Yeah.” But Ruth didn’t feel okay at all. She felt as if she was going to be sick. “But I think I might have drunk too much Coke or something,” she mumbled feebly.

  “One last top!” Bonnie pleaded. “You gotta try this!”

  A weird kind of anger surfaced inside Ruth, and before she could caution herself, the words jumped from her mouth.

  “No!” she snapped. “I’ve had enough.”

  “Oh, come on, you’ll love it.”

  “No!”

  “But why?”

  “I’ve had enough!” Ruth shouted.

  Trembling slightly, she climbed back into her own clothes and opened the door. The four of them were standing there waiting. They stared at her in unforgiving silence.

  “What is up?”

  “Nothing.” Ruth was wretched with confusion.

  Lou rolled her eyes and sighed. “We’re only trying to help!”

  “I know.”

  “You have all this money and—”

  “I know!” Ruth hardly dared speak. “But I …”

  “Do you want to shop on your own?”

  “No.”

  “We thought you wanted to do this!”

  “We thought it would be fun!” Bonnie wailed.

  “I know …”

  “Do you want to do this with your mother?” Lou asked.

  “No!”

  “So what’s the problem?” she demanded.

  “No problem.”

  The clothes were wrapped and bagged in heavy silence. Ruth picked up her bags and followed the others out of the shop. None of them looked at her. Something had gone badly awry and it was her fault. No one spoke as they all made their way out through the busy shopping mall. Panic began to gnaw away in her chest. Had she wrecked it all? Undone all the good stuff? She knew the rules. Of course she did. Rule number one was that she must join in even when it was something she didn’t like. And rule number two was that Lou decided what was cool and what wasn’t. Why couldn’t she learn? Why did she always mess things up?

  Lou was walking on ahead in a huff, eyes forward, shoulders back, and head held high. Katy, Susie, and Bonnie tried to keep up with her on either side and Ruth was left trundling along behind, carrying all her bags. She could see that the other girls were waiting for Lou to give them a clue about what would happen next. Were they to stay mad at Ruth or not? But Lou continued the haughty silence and gave nothing away.

  At last they were outside in the fresh air again.

  “Why do you talk to that weirdo?” Bonnie suddenly asked Ruth.

  The question caught Ruth off guard. In spite of the hot day a shiver of cold slid down her spine. She knew whom Bonnie meant, but more importantly she knew why she was being asked the question. Bringing up Howard was Bonnie’s way of making things worse. Making sure Ruth stayed on the outs with Lou would give Bonnie the best chance of sliding back into the position of Lou’s best friend.

  “What weirdo?” Ruth asked, to give herself time.

  “Howard Pope,” Bonnie replied sharply.

  They were all waiting for Ruth to speak. She knew in her bones she was meant to say something mean about Howard and deny their tentative friendship. Of course the girls had noticed when she hadn’t bothered to find them at lunchtime and instead had hung out with Howard under his tree. The place he always went to at break times. The weirdo! This was her chance to get herself off the hook and back into their good books. But something in her couldn’t say it.

  She was filled with a fleeting but strong memory of standing with Howard under that tree away from all the other kids. She could almost see his coarse hair and the bright sunlight flickering into his clear eyes. Only the week before she’d noticed fresh bruises on his bare legs and had wanted to ask how they got there, but it had seemed too personal.

  “What exactly is up with you two?” Bonnie said, feigning concern.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you talk to him.”

  Ruth was suddenly desperate. She felt like she was drowning, struggling to get to the surface to breathe. What had possessed her mother to organize this terrible afternoon? Why not chuck the bags and make a run for it? Anything to get away!

  “We’ve seen you near the water fountain.” Katy giggled.

  “And the tree.” Bonnie flashed a glance at Lou to see how she was taking this turn in the conversation. “It looked like you were discussing something really important,” she added in her sweet, innocent voice. “Do you like him or something?”

&
nbsp; “Why do you even bother to talk to him?” Lou asked.

  They’d stopped at the light, waiting to cross the main road. Heavy traffic thundered past only a meter away. Ruth found herself wondering what it would be like to just step out into it and see what happened. She imagined the screeching brakes and burned rubber, the mayhem, the chaos, and the drama of the ambulance ride to the hospital. At least she’d be away from this.

  “Since when is it wrong to talk to someone?” she snapped.

  They all stiffened. Nobody but nobody ever spoke to Lou like that!

  “He stole my things, Ruth,” Lou said. “Did he ever say why?”

  Ruth almost wilted under that cool, appraising stare, but then the same picture of Howard standing under the tree slid behind her eyes and it seemed to hold her together.

  “No,” she said calmly, hoping none of them could see how tense she was.

  “Did you ever ask?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Bonnie cut in excitedly.

  “I just didn’t.”

  “But Lou is your best friend!”

  “Why don’t you shut up, Bonnie,” Ruth said furiously.

  “What?” Bonnie’s face turned bright pink.

  “You heard me. Just shut up!” Ruth repeated loudly. “You’re so boring.” She turned back to Lou, who was staring at her. “At least Howard isn’t boring!”

  Bonnie burst into a sudden flood of loud, dramatic tears.

  All part of the strategy, Ruth thought, watching her coldly. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

  Katy and Susie moved in protectively on either side of Bonnie. All three of them stared accusingly at Ruth, as though she’d turned into some kind of monster. But Lou didn’t move.

  “What’s with you?” she said.

  Ruth said nothing. Bonnie’s sniffs and sobs filled the silence.

  “So it’s okay to hurt people?” Lou said, her eyes boring into Ruth’s.

  Ruth felt something almost like laughter rising in her chest. As if you care about hurting people, she thought.

  “We’re all here helping you.” Lou’s tone was savage now.

  “You think she’s boring too!” Ruth said recklessly, and then immediately regretted it.

  But the damage was done. A gasp of horror went through the whole group. Bonnie looked up from where she was hiding her wet face in her hands and glanced at Lou, who colored up with embarrassment because it was true. Lou’s eyes flicked away to the side for a moment.

  “Liar.”

  “No, Lou,” Ruth came back hotly before she could think, “you’re the liar. You don’t even like her. You just need a crowd around you and … she does what you say.”

  Lou’s mouth fell open. The air prickled with tension.

  Katy and Susie exchanged nervous looks.

  Lou finally took things in hand. “Come on,” she said, turning on her heel. “Let’s go.”

  Ruth watched as the girls marched off after Lou.

  She wanted to run after them and apologize, say it was all a misunderstanding, that of course she was grateful for their help with the shopping. But she didn’t move. She stood as still as a post, hanging on to her bags.

  Lou turned when they reached the corner. “Have an interesting life with your freaky boyfriend, loser!”

  I go and look under the bridge?”

  “Sure.” Ruth was touched that Howard would bother. “I’ll walk over to the other side.”

  The bridge was just up ahead of the sign. Howard quickened his pace and Ruth followed along behind, trying to shake off the memory of the shopping day. The sun had come out and the faint breeze was making the leaves on the trees rustle in a way that was both friendly and encouraging.

  Ruth walked out into the middle of the bridge, rested her elbows on the railing, and looked down at the brown water swirling below. Of course there was no sign of Rodney. But she hadn’t expected there would be. So why had she come? She picked up a few little sticks and tossed them one by one over the edge, watching them spin down to the water.

  “Howard,” she called, and there was a faint, muffled reply, but she couldn’t see him. She scrambled down the embankment and poked about under the bridge itself, searching among the twigs, old beer cans, and faded potato chip bags. The remnants of a fire were scattered about, along with a woman’s sneaker and an old newspaper. It was too faded to see the date. Ruth tried to imagine who might have last been down there. She went in deeper, right under the bridge, and shouted.

  “Howard,” she called. “Hello! It’s cold down here.” But this time there was only her voice echoing back like an eerie dream. Ruth closed her eyes tightly, reliving the moment when her brother threw Rodney off the bridge. Maybe if she concentrated really hard, Rodney, wherever he was, would receive her message and send one back telling her that he was okay. That was all she needed to know, really.

  But nothing happened. Same as when she had gone to visit Mary Ellen’s grave with flowers. Nothing had happened. When someone was gone, they were gone, and when they were dead, they were dead. A car passed overhead. Ruth opened her eyes and walked back out into the sunshine.

  There was Howard, wandering around on the other side of the river, a long stick in one hand, ferociously beating the nearby bushes as though they had wronged him in some serious way. Ruth was about to yell for him to calm down and stop bashing everything when he stopped under a big gum tree and stood very still with his head thrown back. Something had caught his attention. He stood there for ages, looking up into the branches of the tree as though under a spell.

  Amused, Ruth waited for him to come out of his reverie. What was he thinking about?

  At last he lowered his head and turned around.

  “Found anything?” Ruth called.

  Her presence seemed to startle him. He must have been so engrossed in his own thoughts that he’d forgotten all about her.

  “Not yet.” He threw the stick into the water and wandered across the bridge toward her.

  “You still think we’ll find him?” Ruth asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” Howard said.

  They settled down easily together on the bank near a tree and ate some of the biscuits and cheese that Ruth had brought.

  “So what now?” Ruth mused as she picked up a small stick and threw it as far as she could into the river.

  But Howard was already rolling up his jacket. He curled up on the ground and put it under his head for a pillow.

  “Sleep,” he said.

  “Didn’t you get any last night?” Ruth was thinking of the way he’d slept on the bus.

  But Howard only grunted.

  Ruth took a few swigs from her juice box, then walked over to a big boulder and lay back against it. She closed her eyes.

  • • •

  “Took you long enough.”

  Ruth heard the words as though in a dream. She sat up quickly and looked around, squinting a little. The sun was now bright. Had she fallen asleep?

  “Check this out.”

  Ruth looked around, startled. Who was speaking to her? She stood up. Howard was still fast asleep.

  It was a familiar voice, but she couldn’t see anyone. She turned to the water and … her heart did a double backflip.

  There he was! Rodney! He was sliding down the bare patch of wet slope leading to the water.

  She watched in stunned surprise as he ran up to the top and then, holding out both arms to steady himself just as though he were surfing or riding a skateboard, slid down the slope again, stopping himself just before the water.

  “Rodney!” Ruth’s voice was croaky with surprise. “Is that you?”

  He turned and eyed her up and down.

  “No, it’s Julius Caesar.”

  “Oh.” Ruth gulped. She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. He’d survived. She wanted to run up and hug Rodney to make sure that she wasn’t imagining him, but she held herself back. He might disappear into thin air if she moved.

  “Do you
have any idea what it was like being thrown into the water?”

  “I’m so sorry, Rodney.”

  “I nearly drowned.”

  “How did you get out?”

  He didn’t answer but ran to the top of the bank again.

  “This is the first time I could get back,” Ruth called.

  “Don’t make excuses,” he shouted.

  Ruth bit her lip and watched anxiously as he started sliding down the slope. Any minute he might misjudge the distance and … What if he ended up in the river again? That current was strong.

  “So, what’s up, Rodney?” Ruth asked.

  “Call me Rodin!” Rodney said as he slid past.

  “But it’s not your name!”

  “I’ve changed my name.”

  “But …” Ruth didn’t know why she found this so disconcerting. “Mary Ellen called you Rodney!”

  He slid to a stop, walked up the bank, and stared at her.

  “You can’t just change it,” Ruth persisted.

  “Why not?”

  “It might hurt her feelings.”

  “So?”

  “Well …” She felt foolish.

  “Do you know of a law that says you can’t change your name?”

  Ruth tried to think. “No, I don’t. Sorry I mentioned it.”

  “Oh, call me Rodney, then,” the rat grumbled. “Everyone else does!”

  “I’ve missed you,” Ruth began.

  The rat looked up at her. “I can’t say I’ve missed you much,” he said.

  Ruth gulped and tried to look as if she didn’t care; but, in fact, knowing he hadn’t missed her was almost as bad as never having found him again.

  “Well. Maybe I did a little. From time to time.”

  “Oh.”

  “But after the horror of nearly drowning”—his whiskers trembled—“I had to try to forget and build a whole new life.”

  “A whole new life?”

  Ignoring her curiosity, Rodney got up, took off his boots, and started cleaning them with a stick. “You probably got sick of me sitting up there in your room anyway,” he said.

  Ruth would have liked to tell him that she had absolutely loved having him in her room, and that he was far more interesting than any human being she’d ever known, apart from her aunt, but she didn’t know how to say any of that without sounding like she was sucking up.