A Drop of Hope

by Keith Calabrese

  When you looked at it like that, a sixty-year-old art set hiding inside the hollow cavity of an old building wasn’t such a stretch. Stranger things had happened.

  And, besides, he’d always wanted an art set.

  WHAT RYAN OVERLOOKED

  Ryan couldn’t concentrate on football. His head just wasn’t in the game.

  Yesterday, for reasons he still couldn’t fathom, he had stood up to Tommy Bricks and Tommy had let it slide. For the rest of that evening and all this morning, Ryan had basked in the sunny glow, the exuberant thrill of being alive that only those who have just escaped certain death can fully appreciate. Colors looked brighter, food tasted better, and even a passing, pungent whiff from one of Declan’s dirty diapers smelled oddly wonderful.

  But Ryan was starting to realize that he had overlooked one tiny little detail. Just because Tommy wasn’t holding a grudge against Ryan, that didn’t mean he was done with Ernest Wilmette or Winston Patil.

  This business was not necessarily over.

  Ryan tried to focus on the game. Still, his gaze kept drifting back toward the picnic tables.

  Where Tommy was now walking purposefully toward Winston with a fierce scowl on his face and a thick wooden box in his hands.

  A LUNCHTIME SURPRISE

  Ernest had no earthly clue what to do. He’d planned to use the art set to break the ice with Winston, but he didn’t have the art set anymore, a realization he’d only just come to, on his way to lunch.

  Winston sat at his usual table, alone, his head buried in his sketchbook. Ernest considered going up and talking to him anyway. But then he saw Tommy marching up to Winston’s table with the wooden box under the crook of his arm. Ernest was confused. He had no idea how Tommy had got his hands on the art set or what he, Ernest, could do about it now.

  Tommy reached Winston’s table with an unreadable purpose. He looked kind of mad, but then he always looked that way. Winston glanced up warily as Tommy slowly and deliberately lowered his arm, the art set gripped tightly in his fist.

  At this point Ernest felt his stomach drop. That case was made of thick, heavy wood. Despite his best intentions, Ernest had given the most dangerous kid in school a big, box-shaped club.

  “You see this?” It was Ryan, standing beside Ernest now.

  Ernest nodded dumbly. Tommy’s free hand rested on the table as he talked to Winston in a voice too low for them to hear.

  “It’s like I tried to tell you,” Ryan said, leaving the but-you-wouldn’t-listen part as understood. “You can’t fix other people’s problems. It just makes things worse. A kid like Tommy, he isn’t going to stop—”

  “Wait,” Ernest said. “Look.”

  The boys watched, their jaws dropping in unison as Tommy rested the art set gently on the table, came around the side, and sat down next to Winston. Together, they opened the art set and began laying out the supplies on the table.

  Ernest turned to Ryan.

  “You were saying?”

  HELP FROM THE WEIRD RICH KID

  It had been a very strange morning, that was for sure. After lunch Tommy considered bringing the art set back to his locker, but he didn’t want to part with it. Something about having it nearby made him feel … good.

  “Wow,” Mr. Earle said as he passed Tommy in the hallway between classes. “Now that is one serious set of art supplies.” Tommy handed it over. Mr. Earle admired it. “Where’d you find one like this?”

  It was an innocent question, but Tommy wasn’t used to those. The questions Tommy was usually asked never presumed innocence. What Tommy heard was “Prove to me you didn’t steal this.”

  “Um, I, uh—” Tommy stammered.

  “He got it from me,” a voice piped in from behind them. It was that Wilmette kid. “My aunt Tilly, she keeps sending me stuff like that, trying to make me an artist.”

  Tommy stared at the kid, unsure whether his luck had just improved or worsened.

  “She’s a bit off. Eighty-seven next January.”

  Worsened, Tommy decided quickly. The Wilmette kid was clearly new to lying, and like most amateurs, he was overdoing it.

  “Still, I’m better off than my cousin Dudley. She thinks he’s a …” The kid trailed off. He’d hit that wall, the moment when bad liars realize they’ve taken it all too far.

  “We traded,” Tommy cut in.

  “Right,” the Wilmette kid said, relieved. “I gave him the art set for a …”

  “Baseball mitt.”

  “Yeah. A baseball mitt. Says David Ortega—”

  “Ortiz.”

  “Ortiz. Right in the palm.”

  Mr. Earle said nothing through this muddled outpouring of information. He blinked for a moment, started to speak but then thought better of it, gave Tommy back his art set, and went on to his next class.

  “Thanks,” Tommy said to the Wilmette kid.

  “No problem,” the kid said, then went on his way as well.

  “I didn’t steal it,” Tommy blurted out after him.

  “I know,” the kid called back, without turning around.

  Tommy watched the kid walk down the hall. Something in the way the kid said that.

  I know.

  Like he really did know. For a fact.

  Weird.

  THE ODD FRIENDSHIP OF WINSTON PATIL AND TOMMY BRICKS

  For the next week, Winston and Tommy spent lunch period together, sitting at the picnic table, eating and drawing. No one could believe it, not the kids, not the teachers—even Truman the Custodian took notice, and he routinely ignored the fire alarm.

  At first the pairing was viewed with skepticism. But it was soon clear to everyone that these kids were, inexplicably but genuinely, becoming friends. Winston was undeniably happier at school, coming out of his shell little by little, both inside class and out. As for Tommy, he wasn’t friendlier exactly, but the cold menace in his eyes did seem a tad less homicidal.

  Under normal circumstances, the unlikely friendship of Winston Patil and Tommy Bricks would have been nothing more than a fleeting topic of conversation at Rod Serling Middle School. But on that fateful day when Winston went to Thompkins Well and humbly wished for a friend, two of his classmates, Aaron Robinette and Jamie Dahl, had spotted him from the nearby woods. Aaron was there looking for Bigfoot. Jamie was there to mock Aaron. Mr. Earle’s discussion that day concerning the legend of the well was still fresh in the minds of the two boys, as was the barely averted lunchtime carnage when Tommy had harassed Winston over his drawings.

  Aaron and Jamie naturally assumed that Winston had wished for Tommy to stop bullying him. So the fact that the very next day Tommy had not only stopped but had become his new best friend? That got kids talking.

  Maybe Thompkins Well was more than a legend. Maybe it really was magic.

  WHAT LIZZY WANTS

  Lizzy MacComber did not believe in wishing wells. But you don’t have to believe in wishes to make one. So after school, instead of going home, Lizzy went in the other direction, to North Side Park.

  And Thompkins Well.

  Her first thought was to wish for her dad to come back, but she discarded it almost as soon as she thought it. She could wish for him to come see her, maybe on the weekends sometimes. Lizzy’s dad had moved to Columbus over the summer, and since then, Lizzy had only seen him once. They had talked on the phone a couple of times, and he always promised to stop by. But he never did.

  Lizzy remembered reading a story about a monkey paw that granted wishes, but the wishes never worked out like they were supposed to. There was always a catch. At the end of the story, someone wishes for a dead person to come back to life, and the person comes back as a zombie. Somehow, Lizzie knew that’s how it would be if she wished for her dad back. Unnatural and disappointing.

  Now Lizzy was feeling silly for even thinking about any of this. Magic wells? Wishes? Zombies? It was all so absurd!

  But that’s not what was really eating at her. When a person considers what they would wish for,
it can teach them a little something about themselves. Something a person may not want to learn.

  Because when you hear people say something unkind about you enough times, even though you know it’s not true, you still have a hard time not believing it.

  Lizzy had a wish. She wasn’t proud of it, but it was what she wanted.

  MORE BABYSITTING FOR RYAN

  Ryan was the only kid who didn’t take any interest in the unlikely friendship between Winston and Tommy. He didn’t buy into any of this magic well business. Sure, he’d heard the talk, how Aaron Robinette and Jamie Dahl had seen Winston at Thompkins Well the day before Winston and Tommy had become best buddies.

  But Aaron believed in Bigfoot.

  And Jamie was a meathead.

  If anything, all it proved was that he and Ernest never should’ve butted in that day in the first place.

  Ernest, however, had other ideas.

  “No way,” Ryan said. “We’re not going back.”

  This was on a Wednesday, a week or so after their first visit to the well. They were outside the school, and Ryan was trying to walk home. Ernest was following.

  “We have to,” Ernest insisted.

  “I am not taking you back to Thompkins Well.”

  Ryan started to walk away, but Ernest chased after him. “How can you say that? After everything that happened?”

  “Everything that happened?” Ryan stopped and looked Ernest dead in the eye, to make sure he had his attention. “Ernest, what happened was that last week three kids—you, me, and Winston—all somehow escaped getting our butts kicked by the scariest guy in school. End of story. You do not press that kind of luck.”

  “C’mon, Ryan. You have to take me. I’ll never find it by myself.”

  “Well, I guess that’s that.” Ryan brushed past, picking up his pace to signal he was done with the conversation.

  “It wasn’t luck,” Ernest called after him. “At least, not entirely.”

  Ryan stopped. He didn’t want to, he just … Man, why couldn’t he get free of this kid?

  Ernest scurried up to him and started talking a mile a minute. At first none of it made any sense. Something about a dirty attic and a dying grandfather and then this glowing old art set. It was like trying to listen to a four-year-old describe his dream to you. Then all this stuff about a feeling Ernest had. A feeling in his gut telling him to grab the art set and bring it to school and …

  “Okay, slow down,” Ryan said. “You’re telling me this art set was calling to you in your dead grandfather’s attic?”

  “I wouldn’t say calling,” Ernest corrected with a thoughtful air of clarification. “More like it was very ready to be noticed.”

  “So you brought it to school and slipped it into Tommy’s locker?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I brought it to school, but I didn’t put it in Tommy’s locker.”

  “Then how did he get his hands on it?”

  “That’s just it: I have no idea!” Ernest exclaimed, a slightly crazed, did-I-just-blow-your-mind-or-what gleam in his eyes.

  “You know what? I don’t care.”

  “What?” Ernest squealed in disbelief. “You cannot be serious!”

  Ryan tried to walk past Ernest, but the smaller boy rushed awkwardly to block his path.

  “Look, you were right,” Ernest said quickly. “At the well. When I thought I could become Winston’s friend and you said it doesn’t work like that. You were right. I couldn’t just will myself to be his friend. And I could never have given Tommy that art set. But that’s why Tommy was picking on Winston in the first place. Winston’s the best artist in the school, and Tommy—”

  He didn’t want to, but Ryan was starting to follow. “Tommy likes drawing, too.”

  “He wanted to learn.”

  It made sense. Still …

  “Ryan, whatever happened, however that art set found its way to Tommy, it worked. Winston wished for a friend.”

  “And he got Tommy Bricks?”

  “Well, I guess it does sound strange when you put it like that,” Ernest conceded, but was quickly back at it again. “There’s something going on here. Something special. Don’t you think we should honor that? Help it along if we can?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m not taking you back to Thompkins Well, Ernest.”

  Ernest looked surprised at first, but then set his jaw and nodded. “Fine,” he said with determination. “I’ll go on my own.”

  Ernest turned and marched back toward the Nature Preserve.

  Ryan watched as Ernest reached the tree line. He knew that Ernest would never find that cave by himself. At best he’d get lost for several hours, wandering around in circles and inching his way toward dehydration until the fire department found him. At worst he’d stumble upon some drunk high school kids who would smack him around and make him smoke menthol cigarettes until he threw up.

  Ryan recalled a line from an old kung fu movie he saw with his dad once, about how when you save a person’s life, you then become responsible for that life. Ryan had never been sure what it meant, until now.

  It meant that once you help someone out, they remain a pain in your butt forever.

  DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN

  They had been sitting in the bottom of the well for almost half an hour. Ernest had taken off his windbreaker and was sitting on it to keep from getting his jeans wet.

  So far it had been a bust. Shortly after they got there, a boy did come to make a wish. He even threw two quarters through the break in the slats for good measure.

  But the kid was Aaron Robinette and he wished for Bigfoot, so Ernest figured that one didn’t really count.

  “I have to pee,” Ernest announced, then felt foolish for sharing.

  “Okay,” Ryan said. “Go pee, then.”

  “Where?”

  Ryan motioned down the cavern with his head. “What do you mean, where? Out.”

  “In the woods?”

  “Well, you can’t do it in here.”

  Ernest fidgeted. “Yeah, but … it just seems weird.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Out there in the woods, in the open. What if someone sees me?”

  “That’s stupid. If you stayed in here, someone would definitely see you.”

  “Well,” Ernest considered. “Not if you left, and I stayed to—”

  “Out, Ernest.”

  “Fine.” He sulked out of the cavern to pee in the woods.

  ALONE IN THE WELL

  It was quiet for a few moments. Then Ryan heard someone up above.

  “Okay, first off,” came a girl’s voice from the top of the well, “I don’t believe in miracles or magic or fairy tales and I especially don’t believe in Prince Charming, because even in the best circumstances, being a princess stinks. You can’t do anything you want. Living life in a castle, you might as well be a prisoner. And being subjugated is no way to live. So we’re clear.”

  Subjugated? Ryan only knew two people who talked like that. Mr. Earle and …

  “And I’m sure there’s a logical, reasonable explanation for why Tommy and Winston became friends.”

  Lizzy MacComber. The penny dropped then, literally, as Lizzy threw down a coin, pegging Ryan on the forehead.

  “Ouch,” he muttered, rubbing his head.

  “Anyway, if there really is anything to all this wishing and magic stuff, and I still don’t think there is, to be perfectly honest, then I’d want …”

  Ryan could hear the frustration in her voice. Whatever she wanted, she didn’t want to say it.

  “Sometimes I feel like this dorky weirdo who reads too much and thinks too much and can’t carry on a simple conversation,” Lizzy blurted out. Then she added quietly, “I just … I wish I knew how to be pretty.”

  Ryan heard some faint rustling and shifting of feet, like she had walked away and then changed her mind.

  “That’s what I would wish for,” Lizzy said, with a li
ttle punch behind her voice. “If I believed in these kinds of things. Which, again, I don’t. Just so we’re clear.”

  There was silence after that. She had left.

  Ryan heard Ernest coming back through the cavern. He ducked into the tunnel and hurried to catch Ernest before he reached the well.

  “Come on,” Ryan said, ushering Ernest to the entrance. “We’re done with this.”

  “Okay,” Ernest said amiably as Ryan led them out of the narrow cavern. “Probably ought to call it a day, yeah?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ryan said, looking back at the cavern entrance.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Ernest said as they stared at the trail. “Last time I went to my grandfather’s attic first, and then I came here. Maybe that’s what I should have done.”

  “Sure,” Ryan said. “’Cause who knows? Maybe your grandpa’s had Bigfoot in his attic all this time.”

  “You’re making fun of me,” Ernest said, but he was smiling, like he knew something Ryan didn’t.

  “Let’s just get moving.” They started down the trail, then Ernest stopped.

  “Hold up,” he said.

  “What now?”

  “I left my windbreaker.”

  Ernest shrugged sheepishly, then ran back into the cavern while Ryan waited, impatiently, outside.

  PAIGE BARNETT

  Ernest found his windbreaker right where he’d left it. But as he grabbed it, he heard a girl’s voice overhead.

  “Hello?” It sounded familiar. “Um, my name is Paige. Paige Barnett.”

  Paige Barnett? Ernest stood frozen in the center of the well, clutching his damp windbreaker in his fist, afraid to make the slightest sound.

  “I’m not … I’m not here for me,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “It’s my little brother, Seth. He’s in first grade and he’s having a hard time reading. A really hard time. And it doesn’t make any sense. He’s a smart kid, he really is, but he just can’t seem to …”

  Her voice got shakier and trailed off. Ernest was surprised. Paige was pretty and popular, the kind of kid who seemed to have it easy. But this was clearly something that had been weighing on her mind.