The Wish by Gail Carson Levine Read Free Book Online Page B

should have realized. I knew I wasn’t the most popular kid in the world. Only at Claverford, just like I asked for.
    Only at Claverford! I tripped and almost fell again. If that was it, if that was really why Stephanie didn’t like me, then—then—the spell was almost over, because I wasn’t going to be at Claverford much longer. In two weeks we went to Grad Night, and the Monday after that we graduated. And next year I’d be at Elliot. I had sixteen more days of popularity. Then the wish would evaporate, and everything would go back to the way it used to be. Forever.

Chapter Eleven
    I gave Nina and BeeBee Stephanie’s message and said I had to go home. At the subway station I took the first train that came, even though it wasn’t my train. I walked from car to car, looking for the old lady. I had to find her and fix my awful mistake.
    I had been so stupid. She had offered to make me one of the in crowd, which exists at any school. Instead, I got my dream come true—for three weeks!
    As soon as we graduated, the kids who liked me now wouldn’t anymore. BeeBee and Nina would care that I had been mean to Stephanie, their real friend, and Ardis would remember how I had terrified her with Reggie. I’d go back to being ignored. And the dog jokes would start up again.
    The old lady wasn’t on the train, and she didn’t get on at any of the stops. She didn’t seem to, anyway. But she might not always look like an old lady. She might be able to take whatever form she chose. She could be the toddler in the stroller across from me. Or she could be the conductor who was coming into our car right now.
    I got off at the last stop and waited for a train going the other way. On the ride back, I calmed down a little. Maybe I’d misinterpreted everything. Maybe there was another reason Stephanie didn’t like me. Maybe she was immune to spells. Maybe I wasn’t under a spell at all. Maybe the old lady was only a coincidence, and I had just naturally become popular that day. I had waited long enough.
    Yeah, right. Outside Claverford that morning I was unpopular. One step inside and I was popular. Very natural.
    It was a spell. And it was going to end.
    Being left back would solve the problem. If my theory was right, the sixth and seventh graders would go on loving me. I could be popular all my life; I’d just have to stay in middle school. I’d be twenty-five and still going on sleepovers. I’d be married and still in eighth grade. I’d be in the same class with my own children. And then my grandchildren.
    Â 
    Sunday. Fifteen more days of popularity.
    When I got to the Central Park Zoo, Jared was waiting for me at the ticket kiosk. I had never seen him in anything but the Claverford uniform for boys—blue blazer, gray slacks, white shirt, and maroon-and-blue-striped tie. Today he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Except for his one eyebrow, he looked okay. I was wearing jeans too, and my red zipper-neck T-shirt that I love, except Mom made me put a cardigan over it because it was cool out, and the only one I had that wasn’t too heavy was an ugly bright green.
    â€œHi,” Jared said, smiling at me. “You look good.”
    I smiled back, thinking he should never smile. The eyebrow above and the smile below made an almost complete circle.
    â€œI look like a lollipop,” I said.
    His smile widened. “They’re feeding the sea lions in two minutes,” he said.
    I love the sea lions. They have so much fun, you don’t feel sad that they’re in captivity. But I didn’t like the announcer for their performance. After he made the sea lions hold their fish in their teeth till he gave the command to eat them, he told us this was proof they were smarter than dogs. He said you could never get a dog to hold its food like that.
    â€œI could,” I said. “I could train Reggie to hold on to a treat for as long as I told him