The Wish Stealers (10 page)

R
ight here,” said Garrett as the Penshines’ car pulled up in front of a small, dark house without a single light on.

“Good night, Garrett. It was nice to meet you,” said Dr. Penshine. “Quite an evening, a real dinner theater experience with those actors!”

“Bye,” said Griffin, her eyes scanning the darkness around his house.
Why did the witch say that to me?
she thought.

“Yeah, thanks for dinner,” said Garrett, shutting the car door.

They waved through the window and watched as Garrett
traipsed down the broken cement path to his house, netted in shadows.

“You know, Griff, when I was at the counter paying for dinner, the clerk gave me back a bunch of pennies.”

“Yeah?” Griffin said. She couldn’t stop thinking about the witches. What did they mean “when the battle’s lost and won”?
What will I lose if I fail?

“Are you okay?” asked her mom, studying her in the passing streetlights.

“What were you saying about pennies?” Griffin asked, eyes darting.
Did my mom find Mariah’s note under my bed?

“They reminded me of something that might help your alchemy project. There’s a charity called Pennies for the Planet.” Dr. Penshine rounded the corner, and a streetlight flickered on. “This charity helps protect the environment. Every year the projects change, but this year I think kids are collecting pennies to buy an acre of the rain forest. This saves it from being destroyed.

“All those ordinary pennies turn into something extra-ordinary when they’re added together, like the alchemists turning lead into gold.”

“That’s a really cool idea, Mom. I’ll text Garrett about it,” said Griffin.

The car hovered at a red light.

When the hurlyburly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won
screeched in Griffin’s head.
Can I return all these wishes?

Courage is … mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

—Mark Twain

T
he art store on Saturday morning glowed with sunlight streaming in its windows. Neat rows of paints in silver tubes waited like dignified soldiers to be purchased. Brushes in every shape and size tickled the shelves above them. Griffin and Libby loved to come here to buy a few new supplies before heading to Grandma Penshine’s house for their art lesson. In the afternoon, when the weatherman predicted the temperature would hit eighty-five degrees, they’d meet Audree, Maggie, and Madison to swim in Maggie’s grandpa’s pool.

“My grandma says today she’s teaching us about the Venetian painters, so we should pick out our favorite blues
and yellows to paint an amazing sky,” said Griffin as they looked through the rack of paint colors.

“Cobalt blue, azure mist, lapis lazuli, Caspian Sea blue, aquamarine, cerulean swirl,” read Libby as she carefully examined each tube. “How many blues can there be in the world?”

Just then a breeze blew through the store, and five girls, babbling loudly, some on their cell phones, others laughing, burst through the art store’s doors.

“Grab every color. My father said he’d pay for everything. We want my birthday party banner to be huge! We’ll drape it across my house so everyone will know which house to come to!” said a familiar voice.

Griffin turned as Samantha and her followers surged around the paint rack, trying to bump her and Libby out of the way.

“Excuse you,” said Griffin, refusing to be pushed.

“What are you two doing here?” Samantha snickered.

“We’re buying paints for our art lesson,” said Libby.

“Do you guys think you’re going to be famous artists one day? Now, that’s hilarious!”

“They are so not invited to Samantha’s party,” Martha whispered loudly as she ripped paint tubes from the metal shelves and put them into a basket.

“Totally,” said Sasha. “They’re probably here because they heard we were coming to the art store and they’re hoping to be invited. Desperate!”

“We only have three hours before my party. Come on. We want my sign to be gigantic!” Like a writhing octopus with groping arms on all sides of the paint display, the girls grabbed at the lapis, cobalt, and aquamarine. Soon the Caspian Sea blue, cerulean swirl, and azure mist were all snatched away too.

“Hey, you guys can’t take them all!” said Griffin, reaching to protect some paints.

A windmill of arms slapped the space in front of her. Griffin’s eyes narrowed in disgust. The entire rack of paint was stripped, except for one fallen soldier of
triste bleu
, and that was only because no one in Samantha’s clique could read French.

“Hurry, girls! My older sister is going to take us to drop off some extra chocolate chip cookie invitations at the boys’ houses. Boys always need to be reminded.”

Then, looking right at Griffin, Samantha said, “First stop, Garrett Forester’s house.”

A tube of paint fell onto the floor. As Samantha’s followers stampeded to the checkout, they trampled on the abandoned tube, squirting paint all over Griffin’s sneakers that had taken her all summer to design.

“I wish your party is a total bomb!” blurted Griffin aloud. But Samantha had already sashayed to the cash register.
Oh, my gosh! What have I just wished!
thought Griffin, eyes bulging. Then she looked down at her favorite sneakers, totally ruined. “Come on, Libbs. Let’s go. My grandma has some awesome paints we can use.”

Griffin could hardly contain her anger as they walked the seven blocks to her grandma’s house. She clenched her teeth the entire way there.

“Griff, who cares? Who’d want to go to their stupid party anyway?” said Libby.

“It’s not that. It’s the way Samantha tries to make people feel bad and rubs it in their faces about her party.”

“Did you see Samantha’s skin, Griff? It’s really looking lizardlike. I think her friends are afraid to tell her, but it’s getting worse.”

“Really?” Griffin smiled. Then she gulped. The witches’ chant rang in her head,
In the cauldron boil and bake … Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing
… She wondered,
Did I cast a wish of powerful trouble?

That wish had been an accident. But what had she wished now—that Samantha’s party would be a total bomb? What did that even mean? Griffin felt sick to her stomach.

Libby pressed the doorbell. Classical music trilled. Libby smiled. “I even love your grandma’s doorbell!”

“Yeah,” said Griffin, still in a terrible mood, though she knew it was hard to stay angry when at her grandma’s house. Crystal candy jars jammed with jelly beans rested on tables for visitors. Fresh flowers, including blooming orchids, stretched in every room in every color all year round. Grandma called her flowers “A sunrise in a vase!” It was impossible to sit in a chair without sinking into feather cushions. On the couch Grandma’s needlepoint pillows were handcrafted with quotes from her favorite artists, like Matisse: “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

Grandma Penshine, neat and trim in her gray slacks, black ballet flat shoes, and a hand-knit shawl, greeted them at the door. “If it isn’t two of my favorite people in the whole world!” Her soft white hair framed her still-pretty face, and her warm brown eyes twinkled like a mischievous teenager’s. Besides laugh lines, she had very few wrinkles. At eighty-five years old, Grandma Penshine looked like most sixty-five-year-olds.

“Hi, Grandma,” said Griffin.

“Hi, GP,” said Libby, calling Grandma Penshine by her nickname.

Grandma Penshine moved to hug them. “You two seem upset. What’s the matter? Did something happen?”

“Nothing, Grandma,” said Griffin, still furious, clutching the triste bleu paint.

“We only got one tube of paint,” said Libby sadly.

“That’s okay. I just thought you two might want a dab of a new special color.”

“I wished Samantha’s birthday would be a total disaster!” said Griffin.

“Griffin, what’s the matter?” asked her grandma.

“The most awful girl in the entire school bought all the paint in the store just as Libby and I were picking ours out.”

“How insensitive of her,” said Grandma Penshine.

“I wished horrible things on her,” said Griffin.

“That’s not right either, Griff,” she said. “Don’t stoop to her level. You’re better than that.”

“I don’t care,” said Griffin, with an odd feeling in her stomach. “I hate her,” she said, and her eyes glowed yellow.

“Griffin! Your eyes!” said Libby.

“They look a bit yellow,” said her grandma.

Griffin ran into the bathroom and stared in the mirror. A yellowish glint reflected in her eyes. Slowly she walked back to Libby and her grandma. “I think I’m tired.”

“Libby, why don’t you start practicing before our lesson?
Your easels are set up on the back porch. It’s such a lovely day! Griffin, can you please help me reach some paintbrushes in my guest room closet?”

“Okay,” said Griffin, following her grandma down the hall.

“Griffin, whenever I’ve seen yellow eyes before it’s because a person wasn’t eating enough fruit or getting enough sweetness in life. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Griffin. She and her grandma stared at each other. Then Griffin asked, “Have you ever wished horrible things on people?”

“Well,” she started, and then paused. “I can’t say that I haven’t wanted to when I got boiling mad, but no, I never did. Wishing horrible things, doing horrible things, saying horrible things—it all twists into your face, making it droop with cruel words and then pinching it up tight. Treat yourself with respect and ignore people who don’t treat you with dignity,” said her grandma.

Griffin’s hands shot up to her face, and her cheeks felt warm. Her eyes grew huge.

“What’s the matter?” asked her grandma.

Griffin plopped onto the guest bed. Mariah’s face came jutting into her mind, wearing a wicked sneer, each wrinkle pulling tighter and tighter into an evil circus clown smile.
“I just remembered a ninety-two-year-old lady with the most creased face I’ve ever seen,” said Griffin. “Do you think people can
steal
wishes?”

Grandma Penshine quieted. Griffin heard the clock tick and the cotton curtains rustle, and she shivered from a cold breeze that shot straight through the bedroom. Both Griffin and her grandma caught the chills.

“Yes, I believe people can steal wishes. Those people—Wish Stealers is what we used to call them back when I was a girl in Topeka—are the worst kind of people in the world.”

Griffin’s heart beat out of control.

“Wish Stealers are filled with fear. They are the first people to spit on a dream.” Grandma Penshine sneezed and moved to grab a tissue. “Wish Stealers make people ashamed for trying, eat up people’s courage, and stomp on their enthusiasm. Do you know why? Because they’re afraid. Jealous they can’t do it themselves. Wish Stealers are afraid to dream.”

Flashes of Mariah’s face seared into Griffin’s head.

“Wishes are a bit like snowflakes: powerful and fragile at the same time,” said Grandma Penshine. “They can melt at any minute but are magnificent just the same. They are filled with nature’s
most fierce and wild power
. That’s what’s in a wish,
a fierce and wild power
.”