Chapter Seventeen
It was the most boring day of Brandon’s life. You couldn’t even sharpen your pencil without permission. Whenever a kid needed a bathroom break, Ms. Gritts timed him. And the worksheets—spelling, vocabulary, grammar, math, history—went on and on and on. Ms. Gritts kept herself busy taking down the name of any kid who so much as sneezed.
Brandon worked doggedly at the endless papers, every so often taking little peeks at the muscles in his arms. At first, he could talk himself into believing that he was seeing an encouraging change. But after a while, he had to admit to himself that his arms were still just as middle-sized as they ever had been.
He began to worry about this wish. Obviously, the Giant Test wish had not worked out exactly as he’d planned. But then, he hadn’t planned it out exactly.
Sylvia was still glaring at him. In fact, now, she was even writing him little notes: “Murderer” and “Teacher poisoner.”
He could have told her to get lost if her accusations hadn’t been partially true. Obviously, it was Brandon’s fault that Mr. Sumoski was in the hospital. And so it was undeniably Brandon’s fault that everybody had to do these stupid worksheets.
If the wish wasn’t going to give him big muscles, Brandon couldn’t figure out how it was going to let him win the Fake Tournament. And that was what was worrying him.
At lunch, Sylvia and Brandon unfortunately ended up sitting at the same long table.
“How’d you do it?” she asked him, leaning across the girl next to her. “What’d you poison him with?”
Brandon tried to ignore her. But her question was so interesting, everybody stopped talking and looked at him.
“What are you talking about?” Brandon asked her.
“You knew we weren’t going to have the test,” Sylvia said. “You knew it before Ms. Gritts even came in.”
“So?” Brandon said. He put his fork down. The cafeteria creamed corn wasn’t edible even on a good day.
“So how’d you know?”
He could have made up a lie, but the truth kept getting in the way of his imagination.
“And I saw how you were when she started telling us about his attack,” Sylvia said. “You looked ashamed. You looked guilty. You were the most guilty looking person I’ve ever seen.”
Brandon turned his face away. And that was when he realized that Courtney was sitting at the other end of the table, listening, like everybody else. Great. Now she’d think he tried to murder a teacher. Why did she have to pick today to sit at his table? It was then he understood: more than anything, he wished Courtney would like him. But there was stupid Sylvia, saying all this stupid stuff.
“Look,” he shouted angrily, turning back to Sylvia, “are you nuts? Mr. Sumoski’s the best teacher I’ve ever had. I like Mr. Sumoski. Why would I want to murder somebody I like?”
Sylvia looked very pleased with herself. “To get out of taking that test,” she said prissily. “I should think that was obvious. I think we ought to call the police.”
“I wish you’d just go stuff yourself,” Brandon said to her—without thinking.
Sylvia narrowed her eyes at him, picked up her spoon, dipped it into her creamed corn and stuffed it into her mouth. At first, it looked like she was doing it in his face. But as the spoon kept dipping up corn and dumping it into her mouth, over and over, she started looking scared.
Brandon was horrified. If Mr. Sumoski had ended up in the hospital just because of the test, what was going to happen to somebody who actually tried to stuff herself?
“Man, Sylvia,” one of the boys said. “Way to shovel it in.”
After that, nobody paid any attention to Sylvia, who had now eaten all her corn and all the corn off the next plate over besides.
Brandon couldn’t eat another molecule. He picked up his tray and headed for the plate dump. He started whispering under his breath, “I wish Sylvia would stop eating her lunch. I wish she’d stop eating her lunch.” But he didn’t dare look back.
As he put his plate onto the conveyer belt, somebody bumped him gently from behind. He turned around. It was Courtney. Courtney with the beautiful smile—smiling at him. Just your imagination, he thought sadly. He dropped his tray onto the stack and started out of the cafeteria. He saw a teacher ran by, and somebody was saying, “Sylvia—what are you doing?”
“Hey, Brandon,” Courtney said. “Wait up.”
Brandon dug one finger into his ear, sure he hadn’t heard her right. He couldn’t stand it; he turned around, just in case, and there she was, still smiling – straight at him. So he waited as she put her tray down and wiped her hands on her napkin. She dropped it daintily into the garbage can. Brandon sighed. And then, the absolute miracle—she came right up to him. On purpose.
“May I walk with you to your class?” she asked him. Her smile was dazzling. He felt dizzy just looking at it.
“Sure,” he said. And so they started walking. He had no idea what to say to her. But then, she didn’t say anything to him, either. She just kept smiling at him.
“You never walked with me to class before,” he stammered.
“I know,” she said, now both smiling and gazing.
“But here you are, doing it,” he pointed out.
“I know,” she said, still gazing.
“Well,” he said—”why?”
“Because,” she said, shyly, “I just really like you.”
Brandon’s mouth fell open.
“You never liked me before,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t really like boys that much generally.”
“You don’t?” he asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re just so stupid, you know. Always hitting and running and being rude. And they don’t think very much.”
He was staring at her, nodding.
“But you like me?” he asked, very conscious of the fact that he was always hitting and running and being rude, himself. And he knew darn well he hardly ever did much thinking.
She had a dimple when she smiled. She raised one shoulder and looked at him through her eyelashes, kind of like Glory used to do. “I do,” she said. “I really do.”
A terrible feeling came over him. He stopped walking. Then she stopped walking.
“Why?” he asked her. “Why do you like me?”
She blinked at him. She frowned. She shook her head and shrugged. “I can’t think of a reason,” she said. But then she was smiling again. “I just do.”
“When did you start?” he asked desperately.
She wrinkled her forehead. “I think I always must have liked you,” she said. “But I guess I never realized it till we were eating lunch today. When Sylvia was yelling at you.”
“Oh,” Brandon said. They stood there in the hall, staring at each other. Then Brandon started walking again. He was thinking furiously, trying to remember every word he’d said at the lunch table. He was pretty sure—absolutely sure that he had not made any wishes at all about Courtney. In fact, the only time he’d said the word “wish” was when he’d started stuffing Sylvia.
He stopped dead in the middle of the hall.
“Something wrong?” Courtney asked.
“I didn’t even say it out loud,” Brandon said, staring into nothing.
“Say what?” Courtney asked.
He looked at her. “Do you think that a wish you make in your head could be just as real as a wish you say out loud?” he asked.
She looked a little puzzled. “Since neither one of them is real,” she said, slowly, “then I guess they’re just as real as each other.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” he said. He shook his head. “You don’t really like me,” he informed her. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, I do too like you,” she said.
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.
He stared at her. “I think I need to get to class,” he said. He practically ran down the hall, but she kept up with him all the way.
He jerked open the classroom door and dived through it. He didn’t even look back until he’d thrown himself into his seat. There she was, peering though that little slit of a window in the door, smiling at him and waving. Brandon dropped his head into his hands.
So it wasn’t just spoken wishes. Maybe he didn’t even have to make a formal wish. Maybe all he had to do was want something. “I wish she didn’t like me,” he whispered. “I wish she didn’t like me at all.” But that wish wasn’t going to come true, any more than any of the other unwishes. “Okay, then,” he said. “I wish she liked me because she likes who I really am.” But that wouldn’t work, either. She’d already said she didn’t like rude boys. “Okay,” he said doggedly. “Then I wish she’d just go to her own class.” But when he looked up, she was still at the door, smiling and waving.
“This,” Brandon thought, “is not working out the way I thought it would.”