Read The Wish Stealers Online

Authors: Tracy Trivas

The Wish Stealers (2 page)

“Just promise you’ll keep it shiny, and it will be … worth it to me. You will accept my gift, won’t you?”

Every cell in Griffin’s body fought to say, “No. No, thank you!” But the Indian Head penny shined so hypnotically
that Griffin could hardly speak. Her pupils dilated from the beams shooting off the penny. She tried to shake her head, stop the odd breeze that whirled around her body.
No,
she mouthed, but no sound came out. Instead “Yes” exhaled from her lips.

Mariah froze. Then very deliberately she said, “It is done. Let me get a box of polishing cloths from the back for you. Give me a few moments to find it.”

Griffin tucked the penny into her pocket, and it burned against her skin.

Penny, penny bring me luck,
’cause I’m the one who picked you up.

Chapter
2

H
ow neat to have a lucky penny for the first day of school, Griff,” said her mom, carrying her own prized antique back to their car.

“Yeah, but why do you think Mariah said ‘It is done’?” asked Griffin. Goose bumps sprouted on her arms when she repeated the words.

“Probably just an old-fashioned saying. She
really
is ancient,” said her mom.

Suddenly a cloud above them smothered the light in the sky. Both Griffin and her mom looked up and at the exact same time said, “It looks like it’s going to rain!”

“WISH!” Griffin said, smiling. She believed that
whenever two people said the exact same thing at the exact same time, a wish would be granted. Griffin counted quickly on her fingers. “It looks like it’s going to rain” had seven words in it. “Seven wishes!” she said to her mom.

“You already know what I wish for seven times,” said Dr. Penshine with a dreamy smile on her face. Griffin knew she wished for a healthy baby. Griffin climbed into the car as raindrops started falling in giant plops. Her mom carefully set the antique in the backseat.

Griffin looked at the darkening sky outside the car window. Silently she thought of her wishes …

I wish to become an amazing bass guitarist.

Griffin had been studying bass for the last four years with her guitar teacher, Mr. Castanara.

I wish my new school smells like warm chocolate chip cookies!

She smiled. Her old school smelled like erasers, floor cleaner, and sharpened number two pencils. Maybe her new school would be different.

I wish for a baby sister.

She loved the girl names Janis, D’Arcy, and Michelle, after her favorite female rock stars.

I wish for Grandma Penshine to get well soon.

For the last year her grandma had been having unexplainable dizzy spells and horrible headaches.

I wish the dentist will not have to pull my two back molars for braces.

I wish no kid in the world has nasty green food caught in his teeth and no one tells him.

I wish when it stops raining that no soggy worms will fry on the sidewalk the next sunny day.

Just as she made her last wish, the sky turned a greenish hue, the air hung still and deadly, and heavy moisture weighed upon her skin. Suddenly thunder roared and needles of rain unleashed from the sky.

“Summer storm!” said her mom, starting the engine.

Thunder clapped as javelins of lightning flew through the sky and bounded over the rooftops. Rain, wind, and leaves swooshed violently all around the car.

“This is unbelievable!” said her mom, fiddling with the
radio. “It’s like a warm and cold air mass just collided in front of us.”

“Attention, Dadesville citizens. This is from the National Weather Service.” A series of high-pitched beeps blasted through the speakers. “A tornado warning has been issued for Dadesville. Please take immediate shelter in your basements. A tornado is headed directly toward Dadesville.”

Tornado sirens posted on poles throughout town suddenly screeched out a steady alarm, which vibrated the car’s windows.

“We’ve got five minutes to get home!” said her mom, swerving the car around in a fierce crazy eight.

Griffin shuddered. An ominous emerald sky now cloaked the town. When a tornado circled its prey, the sky turned green. Outside the car window, the wind raged.

“Hang on, Griff!” said her mom, speeding the car through the street toward their home. Trees swayed like toothpicks, and the roofs of houses cringed from the heavy rain attacking them.

Finally they made it to their garage. Dr. Penshine took a deep breath and rubbed her big belly. “I’m going to go get our portable radio and a flashlight. Run down to the base
ment and wait for me. I’ll call Dad on my cell phone and see how far away he is from home.”

Griffin ran through the door. With her bass guitar swinging on her shoulder, she grabbed Charlemagne from his kitchen terrarium and leapt down a flight of creaky stairs to their basement. The single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling hardly lit up the dank room. Her family never used their basement except to store potatoes, onions, and sports equipment. Griffin shivered and sat on the cold cement floor. She realized she was still clutching in her left hand the small box of polishing cloths Mariah had given her.

“Dad is stuck at Grandma’s house,” called her mom from the top of the stairs. “He can’t drive home now. He’s going to stay in Grandma’s basement with her. I need to grab some blankets for cover.”

“Can I help?” called Griffin.

“No! Stay downstairs! The tornado is moving closer!” yelled her mom.

The penny that Mariah had given her felt hot in her pocket.

Does copper attract heat?
Griffin wondered. She hoped her best friend, Libby, was safe in her basement with her family. She tried to call to see if she was okay, but her cell phone was dead.

“Mom, can I run upstairs and use the kitchen phone to call Libby?” Griffin yelled.

“No! Stay off the phone! With all this lightning, that’s how you get electrocuted!”

Right when her mom said the word “electrocuted,” thunder crashed so deafeningly that the entire house shook, and the clasp on the box of polishing cloths sprang open. A few soft cotton rags toppled out. Griffin scooped up the cloths, and a burst of light exploded out of the box. A massive glow lit up her face. Concealed beneath the polishing cloths rested ten radiant pennies in a thick black velvet pad. One slot was empty. “WOW!” gasped Griffin.

After pulling the penny from her pocket, Griffin placed it in the unfilled slot. It fit perfectly. A box of eleven perfect pennies! Gently she pulled the first penny out of its slot. Attached to it was a narrow faded yellow label stuck across the width of the coin. One word was written on the label with a black pen. In the most precise handwriting, the letters spelled “puppy.”

She pulled out the next penny. The narrow label attached to it read “no homework.” The next one read “STOP” in all uppercase letters. Another one read in tiny, tiny letters “change the world.” The next penny: “popular.”

Griffin pulled out the second row of pennies. This one read “a baby.” The next read “a dad,” another one “success.”
Another one read “most beautiful.” Griffin held the dullest penny. It read “world peace.”

“Huh?” said Griffin aloud.

Are these people’s wishes?
she thought. A powerful thunder blast pounded the sky and jolted her house to its foundation.

Copper light zigzagged on the ceiling from the pennies’ glow. Griffin slipped her fingers around the inside edge of the box and discovered the slotted velvet lining was loose. Peeling back the velvet, she felt the bottom of the box and found an old, yellowed envelope. Across the front, in that same strange handwriting, it read:

To: Griffin Penshine, the girl who accepted my “lucky penny”
From: Mariah Weatherby Schmidt

When I saw you, a memory sprang into my head. Only once before in my life have I seen hair the color red like yours, like a gussied-up copper penny. I am very, very old. Some people might call me ancient. Right, my dear? But the curse must live on. All that work for nothing would be such a waste. You are the one. Inside the envelope is my story.

A horrible feeling tossed in Griffin’s stomach. Gingerly she opened the envelope and spread the fragile typed letter on the floor.

Long ago, when I was hardly done being a girl, I accepted my first job as a secretary at an inn. The inn stood at the crossroads of Topeka, Kansas, and a bubbling fountain graced the center courtyard.

The first time it happened, it was an accident. On a hot Kansas day I heard a plunk-splash in the water. I pushed away the white lace curtain to see a little boy and his mom standing before the fountain. The boy said, “I wish for a boat.” From high up in my office I saw exactly where his penny landed. That’s how it began.

At night, after working late, I would dip my hand into the fountain, scoop up the wet pennies, and toss people’s wishes around in my palm. A person’s penny could be a wish for a pony, but it bought me a pretty silk ribbon instead. For years I swept up the change,
buying myself sweets, eating people’s wishes. I loved to twist their dreams in my hair with the fancy ribbons I bought for myself. I heard a lot of wishes in those years, as people stood alone before the fountain, not thinking.

I could hear the plunks and pings of the coins diving through the water. And the things they wished for! Silly things, sad things, important things.

Sometimes people were really desperate and would throw dimes into the fountain. Dimes could buy you something really nice back then. Dimes didn’t plunk in the water like a penny. A dime was like a little ping. Ping. Ping. Like a silver raindrop. It was a beautiful sound. I’d wait a few minutes till the people were inside fiddling with their bags and I’d rush out, pretend I was cooling my fingers, trailing them in the water. But when I pulled my hand out, a wish was captured in my palm.

I am 92 years old. After all these years, these eleven pennies never lost their glow. Sometimes they even felt hot in my hand. They are all Indian Head pennies, much more potent and valuable than regular pennies. I saw exactly where they landed, heard the secret wishes aloud. I labeled them so I wouldn’t forget. I never felt a drop of guilt either. Like my father told me when I was a young girl, I wasn’t going to amount to much so I should just stop dreaming and wishing and filling my head with silly thoughts.

You are the new guardian of the eleven stolen wishes. You are the new Wish Stealer.

There are three rules to wish stealing:

1) A Wish Stealer’s good wishes will not come true.

2) A Wish Stealer’s evil wishes will come true.

3) If a Wish Stealer tells anyone about the
curse, he or she will be cursed for life, and the person he or she tells will never have any of his or her wishes come true.

P.S. Once you’ve accepted the wishes, they are yours. It is done. You can’t dump them into the garbage, or toss the whole box into a fountain and forget about them.

In that same strange handwriting as on the envelope, she had written in pen at the bottom:

P.P.S. You could trick someone into accepting the box, but you don’t seem like that kind of girl—yet. The penny I gave you at the shop flew like a leaping ballerina vaulting into the water. That person didn’t say her wish out loud, but her penny was as dazzling as her long red hair.

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