Fishy Wishes

by Judy Delton

  Molly dialed her friend’s number.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry about the salt and pepper shakers.”

  The way Molly felt right now, she wouldn’t mind having a collection of them for her own.

  “It’s okay,” said Mary Beth. “But don’t make fun of my bleach bottles again either.”

  “I won’t,” said Molly. “Can you help me find a new hobby? My fish wouldn’t breed and I got piles of snails.”

  “You could knit,” said Mary Beth. “The lady next door to us knits lots of these really pretty sweaters. She could show you how.”

  Molly had lots of sweaters in her drawer. But she didn’t want to find fault with another hobby that Mary Beth suggested. That was what had gotten her in trouble to start with.

  “Okay,” said Molly. “My mom has some yarn in her sewing basket.”

  “Really?” said Mary Beth, glad to have Molly accept her suggestion. “I’ll call Mrs. Beal and tell her.”

  All night Molly thought about the pretty sweaters she would knit. And then she had an extra-clever idea: She could knit sweaters for her grandma and grandpa! They would like that better than fish, and it would combine her hobby and Grandparents Day! Her grandma loved blue. She would make hers blue, and her grandpa’s red! She couldn’t wait to begin. If she made extra sweaters, she could sell them!

  At Mrs. Beal’s house the next day, Molly saw rows and rows of bright sweaters hanging in a row. Sweaters with reindeer on them. Sweaters with trees and cats and snowflakes.

  “I’d like to do the reindeer,” she said to Mrs. Beal.

  Mrs. Beal laughed and said, “Someday, someday.”

  What did she mean, someday? Someday was now.

  She’d brought yarn from her mother, and needles from Mary Beth’s aunt, and now she sat and watched Mrs. Beal cast on.

  “We’ll start with just ten stitches,” she said, smiling.

  “Is that enough for a sweater?” asked Molly.

  “Oh my, we can’t begin with a sweater!” She laughed. “We have to begin with a straight little scarf. For a baby.”

  Molly did not want to make something for a baby. It wasn’t Babies Day she needed to prepare for, it was Grandparents Day.

  “We’ll knit a row and purl a row, knit a row and purl a row,” sang Mrs. Beal as Molly watched.

  Pretty soon Molly could do it. But not as fast as Mrs. Beal. And not as neatly. Some of her stitches were too tight, and some were too loose. And some she lost altogether when they slid off the needles and disappeared.

  “That’s fine!” said Mrs. Beal. “It will even up as you go along. Knit a row, purl a row, knit a row, purl a row.”

  “I think I can do it alone now!” said Molly. She thanked Mrs. Beal and left to show Mary Beth what she’d learned.

  “Practice, practice, practice,” called Mrs. Beal. “Practice makes perfect, you know. Come again tomorrow afternoon for lesson two.”

  But Molly didn’t need two lessons. She already knew how to knit. She’d just keep knitting till she finished.

  When she got to Mary Beth’s house, she said, “She taught me how to knit a baby scarf. But I want a sweater.”

  “Well, that doesn’t look like a baby scarf to me,” said her friend. “It could be a sleeve of a sweater, couldn’t it, if you made it longer and then sewed it up the side?”

  Mary Beth was a genius! Molly was making a sweater, and she didn’t even know it!

  All afternoon Mary Beth painted pretty pictures on her vase.

  All afternoon Molly sat beside her and knit a sleeve. Sometimes she forgot if she was knitting or purling. And sometimes she dropped a stitch. But one thing was for sure: The sleeve was getting longer! This was a wonderful hobby, and she owed it all to Mary Beth! She wanted to reach over and hug her.

  All week Molly knit. Before school and after school. Before supper and after supper.

  “How is your hobby coming?” asked her mother one evening.

  “Fine,” she said. She didn’t want to show her mother yet. She wanted it to be a surprise. Think how proud her mother would be that Molly had a successful hobby! Think how surprised Mrs. Peters would be! And her grandma and grandpa! Molly got the shivers just thinking about it!

  The day before the Pee Wee Scout meeting, Molly finished both sleeves. She sewed them up with a needle and thread. She would have to quickly knit the back of the sweater and the front. She wanted to show it at the meeting. She got knitting and purling mixed up, but she kept going.

  She knit at night and in the morning and during recess at school. The back of the sweater was still very small. But she had to sew the sleeves onto it, or no one would know it was a sweater. She pulled it to make it bigger. Then she sewed the sleeves on quickly. She stuffed it into her book bag and joined the other Pee Wees on the way to Mrs. Peters’s house.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Wheelchair Whoopee

  When they got there, Jody’s father was carrying Jody down the steps into Mrs. Peters’s basement. He set him on a regular chair at the table and went back to get the folded-up wheelchair.

  He set the wheelchair up in the basement in case Jody needed it, and waved good-bye.

  “Be good!” he called, smiling.

  “Hey, look at me!” shouted Roger, sitting in Jody’s wheelchair and pushing off from a wall with his arms. He went sailing around the basement.

  Before anyone could stop them, the rest of the boys clamored for a turn.

  “Wheeee!” shouted Sonny, going around in circles in the chair.

  Mrs. Peters clapped her hands. She looked cross. Very cross.

  “That is not your property, is it?” she said sternly. “And it is rude as well.”

  The boys stopped riding in the chair. Mrs. Peters stared at Roger until he apologized to Jody.

  “It’s all right,” said Jody. “Lots of people like to ride in my wheelchair.”

  “It is not all right,” said Mrs. Peters. “They did not ask your permission.”

  Jody didn’t seem hurt. He was smiling. Everyone went up to him and asked him questions about his wheelchair. And about having to be in it.

  “I wish I had a wheelchair,” said Molly. “Handicapped kids get all the attention. Everyone wants to be their friend.”

  “My cousin gets to be in the Special Olympics,” said Rachel.

  “And they get to go to parties and picnics and get on TV, and everybody helps them do everything,” said Lisa.

  “But some handicapped people can’t walk,” Kevin pointed out. “Some can’t play ball and swim and stuff.”

  “My cousin can swim and play ball,” said Rachel. “There are special teams for people with different abilities.”

  Molly thought about all the good things you got when you were handicapped. Jody even had a real job. But then she thought about having to be carried upstairs. She wouldn’t like that. If she wanted to get upstairs in a hurry, or downstairs to Pee Wee Scouts, and there was no one to carry her, she’d have to wait!

  “I’m glad I’m not in a wheelchair,” whispered Mary Beth to Molly. “It wouldn’t fit in my snow fort in winter.”

  “Yes, it would,” said Jody, who had overheard Mary Beth. Mary Beth’s face turned red. She hadn’t meant for Jody to hear her.

  “I build great big snow forts in winter, and I can get my chair in if I want to. But usually I don’t use my wheelchair when I build snow forts.”

  Was there anything Jody couldn’t do? thought Molly. Handicapped people must have a lot of extra pep, or take more vitamins. Maybe if you had a disability, you got something extra like a snow fort gene, or a job gene, or a guitar gene.

  Mrs. Peters was holding up someone’s leaf collection. “Has anyone else brought their hobby along to show us?” she asked.

  Roger had brought another board with holes drilled in it.

  Mary Beth brought her vase.

  There were lots of stamp collections and salt and pepper shakers.

  Rach
el brought her skis.

  And Jody brought some of his new compact discs.

  Molly was not the only one whose hobby was new. Many of the Pee Wees had found new hobbies too.

  Molly reached down into her book bag and took out her sweater. She raised her hand to show it.

  “Yes, Molly,” said Mrs. Peters.

  “One of my fish died,” she said. “And they didn’t have any babies.”

  Some of the Pee Wees snickered. Fish having babies made them laugh.

  “So I decided to knit,” said Molly. “I am making my grandma and grandpa sweaters for Grandparents Day. And then I’m going to make some more to sell.”

  “Good for you,” said Mrs. Peters. “Making a sweater must be very hard to do.”

  “It isn’t,” said Molly.

  “Let’s see, let’s see!” shouted the Pee Wees.

  Molly held up the sweater she had knitted. It did not look as good to her as she remembered.

  “That’s a sweater?” shouted Roger. “A sweater for an ant, maybe!”

  “Or a squirrel.” Sonny laughed.

  All the Pee Wees were laughing now. Even her best friend, Mary Beth, had a red face from trying not to laugh. Mary Beth, who was the one who had suggested this hobby!

  Molly looked at the sweater in front of her.

  One sleeve was long and skinny.

  One was short and fat.

  The back was tiny. There was no front.

  And there were holes all over that Molly had not noticed before.

  It looked so funny to her now that she burst out in laughter along with all the others.

  Then she realized that this was her second hobby that had failed. And her laughter changed to tears. Was she going to be the only one without a hobby badge?

  “I think you knit very well, Molly, for a beginner,” said Mrs. Peters. “You just need more practice. And perhaps you should start with something easier than a sweater. Sweaters are not easy to knit.”

  Molly did not want to do something easy. She wanted to do something hard. Hard and clever.

  “I’d suggest a scarf,” said Mrs. Peters. “A baby scarf.”

  That scarf again! Why in the world would Molly want to knit a baby scarf? Rat’s knees! She began to wish she’d never heard the word hobby.

  Molly stuffed the sweater back into her bag.

  “It’s all right,” said Mary Beth kindly. “You can start over again. It just needs to be bigger. And more even,” she added.

  Molly wanted to throw the sweater into the rubbish. She didn’t want to see it again.

  “My mom is bringing my hobby,” said Sonny. “I got a new hobby too. It was too big to carry.”

  All of a sudden there was a lot of racket on the stairs.

  “Hey, what’s that?” shouted Roger, looking up from drilling imaginary holes in Patty’s arm with a soda straw. “It sounds like a dinosaur coming down here.”

  There was a dragging noise and a scraping noise. There there was a bump, bump, bump noise.

  “It’s a burglar!” shouted Tim.

  But it wasn’t. It was Mrs. Stone bringing in Sonny’s new hobby.

  CHAPTER

  7

  The Extra-Clever Hobby at Last

  Mrs. Stone came down the steps. In her arms was a big box. Behind her was another big box. Clump, clump, clump they came. Sonny’s mother did not look happy. She looked tired. Her hair was falling in her face. Her sweater had orange powder all over it.

  “It’s my new hobby,” boasted Sonny. He did not go to help his mother. Mrs. Peters pushed Roger and Kevin toward Mrs. Stone.

  “Help her lift those onto the table,” she said.

  “Scouts are supposed to be helpers,” whispered Molly. “Like in our song. And Sonny isn’t even helping with his own hobby!”

  Mrs. Stone brushed herself off and got a drink of water.

  “What’s in these things, Stone? Bricks?” yelled Roger.

  “How did you know what my hobby is?” asked Sonny, pouting.

  He opened one box. It was full of bricks.

  “I collect them,” said Sonny.

  “Who’d collect bricks?” said Rachel.

  “What can you do with them?” asked Patty.

  “You can collect them, that’s what,” said Sonny.

  “Sonny saw a brick in the alley by our house and decided he had to collect them,” said his mother.

  “All bricks look the same!” said Mary Beth.

  “They do not!” shouted Sonny. “I’ve got red bricks here, and orange, and concrete bricks with holes in them. And here’s a white one!”

  “Big deal!” snorted Roger.

  “It is a fine collection,” said Mrs. Peters. “But a rather … heavy one.”

  “I like them,” said Sonny, putting his arms around the boxes.

  Molly rolled her eyes in disgust. At least now she knew what she didn’t want to collect. And this proved that Sonny was not extra clever. There was no way his grandparents wanted a brick on their special day.

  “I’m giving some of them to my grandpa at our program. He’s building a barbecue in the backyard, and now he won’t have to buy them,” said Sonny proudly.

  Maybe Sonny was more clever than Molly thought. And he surely was clever to get someone else to do all his work: to lug his hobby all the way to Scouts and down a flight of steps and up again.

  “You’ll have to wait for your father to come and get these,” Mrs. Stone was saying. “I’m not lugging them all the way back up those steps.”

  “I want to take them with us,” Sonny said, pouting.

  “If Sonny gets a badge for picking up bricks in the alley, I should get one for half a sweater,” muttered Molly.

  “Your sweater is better than bricks,” said Mary Beth loyally.

  But Mrs. Peters had sounded as if Molly should have another hobby, or else knit a baby scarf instead of a sweater. She would not knit a baby scarf. But what in the world would her new hobby be?

  After everyone had looked at Sonny’s bricks, Mrs. Peters asked if there were any other collections. She looked as if she hoped that there weren’t.

  Tim rattled a grocery bag. He raised his hand.

  “I’ve got my collection in here,” he said.

  The Pee Wees gathered around Tim to look in his bag.

  “Light bulbs!” said Rachel. “Glass light bulbs!”

  “They’re burned out!” said Tim proudly. “My dad just throws them away when they burn out, so I’m going to collect them.”

  “Hey, how many Scouts does it take to collect a light bulb, Noon?”

  Before anyone could reply, Roger said, “One dumb one. Tim Noon.”

  Tim stuck his tongue out at Roger. Then Mrs. Peters took Roger aside and talked to him. Molly couldn’t hear the words, but their leader was angry. She shook her finger at him. Then Roger sat down. His face was red, and he was quiet. Molly was glad he got in trouble. “It’s about time,” said Tracy.

  “You could paint light bulbs,” said Mary Beth. “You could paint faces on them and use them for Christmas tree ornaments.”

  “That is a very creative idea,” said Mrs. Peters. “I’m glad to see you are thinking recycling!”

  Rat’s knees! Why didn’t Molly think of that? Mrs. Peters loved to hear about things that could be used over and over again for something else.

  The Scouts told their good deeds. (Roger’s was helping Mrs. Stone carry the bricks. Talk about waiting till the last minute, thought Molly.) Then they sang their song. All the way home, Molly wondered about her hobby.

  “Why don’t you just collect something easy, like matchboxes or postcards?” said Mary Beth.

  “My dad won’t let me have matches,” said Molly. “And no one ever writes to me.”

  When Molly got home, she told her parents about her knitting.

  “A new hobby will be my third hobby!” Molly complained.

  “It seems like there’s too much hullabaloo over a hobby,” said Mr. Duff. “It
shouldn’t be this hard. When I was a boy, I played baseball in the empty lot and it was fun and it was a hobby, but I never worried about it.”

  “You weren’t a Pee Wee Scout,” said Molly. “And there aren’t any empty lots around here. I couldn’t hit a ball even if there were.”

  Mrs. Duff gave Molly a hug.

  “Don’t worry so much about it. You’ll think of something good and natural soon.”

  But when? thought Molly. Grandparents Day and the program were coming fast.

  That night, Molly tried and tried to think of a new hobby.

  The next day she tried too.

  The more she thought, the more confused she got.

  “It seems like my hobby is trying to find a hobby!” she confided to Mary Beth after school one day.

  “You should start a club for kids with no hobby!” Her friend laughed.

  Molly was tired of thinking about it. She stopped at the store where she got her fish and looked in the window. She saw some greeting cards for Grandparents Day. I might as well get them a card, she said to herself.

  Molly looked at all the cards. The ones with the good pictures on them did not have good verses. The ones with good verses had bad pictures.

  “Rat’s knees!” she said, stamping her foot. “I’ll have to make one of my own.”

  Molly went home and sat down at her desk. She took a big piece of paper and cut it in half. She folded the halves. Then she drew a picture of her grandma and grandpa sitting on their front porch. She drew a picture of herself with them. She colored it.

  Inside she wrote, “Roses are red, violets are blue, Nobody’s got a grandma and grandpa as nice as you.”

  She drew a rose in one corner. And a violet in another.

  Then she cut and pasted an envelope to fit the card out of another piece of paper.

  “Well, that’s done,” she said out loud. “But I still don’t have a hobby.”

  Molly showed it to her parents. They said the same thing they did whenever she made them a card.

  “Our Molly is very creative,” said her father. “And a good poet.”