Wishworks, Inc. Read online

  Wishworks, Inc.

  BY STEPHANIE S. TOLAN

  Illustrated by Amy June Bates

  For Maxwell Raymond Tolan,

  who can visit Wishworks

  any time he wants!

  — S.T.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Praise

  Copyright

  1

  IT WAS MAX’S SECOND DAY AT his new school. It was also the second day the tall kid with the red buzz cut stood in front of him in the hall and blocked the way to his classroom. Two other boys stood a little behind the buzz-cut kid so Max couldn’t get around him.

  Yesterday, Max had tried to push his way past. It hadn’t worked. They had shoved him into the wall. The rest of the day, his shoulder hurt. Right now this minute if he touched the place, it would still be sore. It wasn’t fair. He wanted to take them on, but there were three against one. If only they would look away for a minute, maybe he could dodge around them. “Look out!” he shouted, pointing over their heads. “He’s going to get you!” Two of them turned to look where he was pointing, but the buzz-cut kid wasn’t fooled.

  He snatched Max’s lunch box and ran for the boys’ room. When Max started after him, the two others jumped in front of him. Max dodged sideways and they dodged with him. He dodged the other way and they did too. He pretended to dodge back, and when they moved to block him again, he got around them. But by that time, the buzz-cut kid was coming out of the boys’ room with an evil grin on his face. His hands were empty.

  Max found his lunch box in one of the toilets. He pulled it out and carried it, dripping, to the sink. He ran water over his lunch box and then washed his hands.

  He wouldn’t be able to eat his apple. His sandwich was in a ziplock bag. Ziplocks were supposed to keep water out. Even so, he knew he couldn’t make himself eat the sandwich now. What made him maddest, though, was the butterscotch brownie his mother had let him take. It was the last one. Max had almost eaten it on the school bus. He wished now that he had. He opened his lunch box and emptied everything, even the brownie, into the trash.

  Max looked into the mirror over the sink. His unhappy face looked back at him. “Only losers and wimps give in to bullies and their henchmen,” his dad used to tell him. There had been bullies in his old school too. “You need to stand up for yourself. You need to give as good as you get.”

  Max made a ferocious face in the mirror. I am not a loser, he thought. I am not a wimp. He imagined a big, reddish-brown dog standing right behind him. The dog wagged his big plume of a tail. “Get him, King!” Max whispered. King bounded out into the hall and grabbed the buzz-cut kid’s pants leg. The buzz-cut kid fell to the floor. In Max’s mind, King jumped on the kid and stood with his front feet on his chest. King growled a deep, loud, scary growl. The buzz-cut kid howled. The kid’s henchmen ran away.

  Max saw himself walking calmly out of the boys’ room and standing over the buzz-cut kid. “That’s enough,” he said to the dog. King came to sit beside him, a bit of blue denim between his teeth. The buzz-cut kid ran, crying, down the hall to the third-grade classroom. Max wiped his wet hands on his jacket. He patted King’s head. No wimps or losers here.

  The bell rang. Max left the boys’ room and carried his still-dripping lunch box toward his classroom. He imagined King walking at his side, ears up, tail waving. “Good dog!” he whispered. Tomorrow he would not open his lunch box on the bus to see what was inside. He would keep it safely in his backpack. Inside the classroom, he put his jacket, his backpack, and the wet lunch box into his cubby and went to his seat. He imagined King lying down next to his feet, head and ears up, keeping watch.

  When Mr. Malone, the third-grade teacher, took the roll, Max listened carefully. The buzz-cut kid’s name was Nick Berger. He sat in the first row right in front of the teacher’s desk. That was probably because Mr. Malone wanted to keep an eye on him. Nick’s henchmen’s names were Luis and Rocco. One sat in the middle of the room on the right. The other sat in the middle on the left. Mr. Malone must know about them. He was keeping them apart. Max was glad that the only seat left when he came to this school had been at the back of the room. He and King could keep an eye on all three of them.

  All morning, Max stared at the back of Nick Berger’s neck and imagined terrible things happening to him. First there was a red-and-purple dragon with fiery eyes that swooped down and picked Nick up with his huge claws. The dragon flew over a glowing volcano and dropped Nick in. Then there was a big, squinty-eyed man dressed all in black who shoved Nick into a cage made of iron bars. He put a heavy chain around the cage and a padlock on the chain. But best of all, Max thought, was when Nick opened his desk and scorpions swarmed out and ran up his arms.

  “Do you know the answer, Max?” Mr. Malone asked at one point. Max had been so busy imagining a snake crawling up Nick’s leg that he hadn’t heard the question. He shook his head.

  “No daydreaming,” Mr. Malone said. Max hated the word daydreaming. His father used to use it a lot. “Daydreaming will never get you anywhere,” he would say.

  “You need to pay attention,” Mr. Malone said.

  Max nodded. He tried to pay attention after that. But it was hard to care about the farm products of Mexico. Pretty soon he was imagining Luis and Rocco turning on Nick on the playground. They pulled his pants down. Under his pants, Nick was wearing pull-up diapers like the ones Max’s sister, Polly, used to wear, with pink flowers. All the other third graders stood around Nick and laughed until he got loose from his henchmen and ran away. As he ran, Nick’s face was redder than his buzz cut.

  At lunchtime, Max sat by himself, keeping an eye on Nick and his henchmen. Thanks to them, he had nothing to eat. But that didn’t mean they’d won. He imagined himself eating his favorite pizza. It had pepperoni and sausage, with mushrooms and extra cheese. When he took a bite, the cheese made long yellow strings that Max had to catch with his fingers. He shared the pizza with King, who wagged his tail with appreciation and licked Max’s hand. Afterward, he imagined himself eating a huge butterscotch brownie and drinking a glass of ice-cold milk. He didn’t share these with King. Brownies and milk weren’t good for dogs.

  When his stomach rumbled that afternoon, he ignored it. He told himself that he and King were spies in a school full of space aliens. It was a school that was teaching the aliens how to conquer Earth. He had to find out what they were learning so the governments of Earth could stop them. He was disguised to look just like the aliens, but their food was poisonous to humans. He dared not put a single bite of it into his mouth. A good spy didn’t let hunger bother him.

  The future of Earth depended on him.

  2

  “SO!” MOTHER SAID THAT EVENING, while Max was helping himself to more hamburger casserole. “How was the second day in the new school?” Her forehead was crinkled with concern. He’d heard her talking to Grandma on the phone and he knew she was worried about them.

  “Great!” his sister, Polly, said. “I made another friend.”

  How did Polly do it? Max wondered gloomily. Here they were in a whole different part of the city, having to start a new school more than halfway through the year, and already she had two friends. Girls were probably easier to make friends with than boys. Besides, Polly didn’t have to worry about bullies. If there was a kid like Nick Berger in Polly’s first-grade class, he probably wouldn’t pick on a girl
.

  Polly had cried the night they moved into this new house, which was really only the first floor of a house that was attached to other houses on both sides. It didn’t even have a yard to play in, so she didn’t have her swing or her sandbox anymore. Mother had held her in her lap and told her that she would get used to their new life. “There are good things here we didn’t have in the old neighborhood.” She reminded Polly that the park was only two blocks away and it had even more playground equipment than their old school’s playground. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

  And sure enough, by the end of the first day of school, Polly had been talking about her nice new teacher and a friend named Sophia.

  Max told himself he didn’t need friends. Other kids never wanted to do the things he liked to do. Besides, Adventure Time, his most favorite thing of all, he could do all by himself. He could have Adventure Time anywhere. Even here, in a house jammed right up against other houses.

  “Max?” Mother asked. “How was your day?”

  He hadn’t mentioned Nick Berger and his henchmen yesterday. He didn’t mention them now. He didn’t want Mom worrying about him. “It was okay,” he said. That wasn’t even a lie. Not really. It had been fun imagining all those things happening to Nick Berger.

  After dinner, Max helped with the dishes and sat at the table to write out the ten spelling words he had for homework. Then he went to his room. It didn’t feel like his room. It was way smaller and not blue. It didn’t have windows on two sides that looked out into a yard with trees that were just starting to get their new leaves. The only window in this room looked out at the apartment house behind them. There was a draft that came in around the window even when it was closed. This room was chilly all the time.

  Lots of his things were still in boxes. The boxes were stacked against the wall and on his bookshelves. He didn’t even know what was in most of them. He should unpack them, his mother said, because having his belongings all around him would make the room feel more familiar, more like home. Max was afraid it would seem even less like home to see his old things in this new place.

  The one thing that felt the same was his bed. His wizard sheets were on it, and the patchwork quilt of suns and moons and stars that Grandma had made. Now Ali Baba, the cat who had been a member of the family before Max and Polly, was curled up in the middle of his midnight-blue pillow, one paw over his nose. The fat gray cat was snoring gently. Ali Baba was one of the reasons Max could only have an imaginary dog. Ali Baba didn’t like real ones.

  If King were real, Max thought, Ali Baba could go sleep on Polly’s bed instead of Max’s. King would sleep with Max. He would stretch out right up against Max’s back and keep him warm, even in this chilly room. And even if Max moved in the night and disturbed him, King would never put a claw into Max’s foot the way Ali Baba did sometimes. Best of all, if King were real, he wouldn’t be there only when Max was imagining him. He would be there all the time, always ready for adventure.

  Max pushed Ali Baba off his pillow. The cat moved down the bed a little. In no time, he was snoring again.

  Max pulled down his blind so he couldn’t see the apartment building anymore. Then he fluffed his pillow and settled himself against it. Polly had gone to bed and his mother was watching television. It was Adventure Time, the best time of the whole day.

  Actually, Max thought, Adventure Time would be better in this new life than in the old one. Because here, Dad would never come barging in to ask what he was doing. He would never ever lecture Max about what he ought to do to be a regular kid.

  Max didn’t want to be a regular kid. He could tell from what they talked about at school that regular kids watched television before they went to bed. Or played video games. Some of them read books. All the stories on television or video games or in books were stories somebody else had made up. None of those stories could be his very own.

  What Max did was much, much better. Here by himself on his bed, with nobody to interrupt him and nothing he was supposed to be doing instead, he could create whole worlds. He could go anywhere and do anything. There was nobody to tell him that imagination was childish and useless and a waste of time and to stop daydreaming. There was nobody to tell him he needed to grow up and get real.

  Max wasn’t crazy about real. Real was a father who wanted him to be somebody he wasn’t. Real was arguing and fighting and crying and divorce. And having to move. Right this minute, real was this room that didn’t feel like his and a new school with kids he didn’t know. Worse, real was Nick and his henchmen. And it was Mrs. Chang, who stayed with him and Polly after school and gave them only carrots or broccoli for snacks. And here, just like in the old house, real was boring old Ali Baba, who never did anything anymore except eat and sleep.

  Max put his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. He remembered the last adventure he and King had had together. They had started on the sidewalk outside the new house. There were lots of other people on the sidewalk, just like always, near the shops on 8th Avenue. All the people passing by had looked at Max and King with admiring glances. They were impressed by how beautiful King was and how well he behaved. Some of the people were walking dogs. There was a big black ferocious-looking dog that growled at King. King ignored it. His attention was focused on Max. There was a little white fluffy dog at the end of a jeweled leash, being walked by a woman in a frilly dress.

  Suddenly, there had been a loud, rumbling sound and the sidewalk right in front of them cracked apart. Dust and smoke poured through the crack, and a huge green hairy monster climbed up and over the broken cement. The woman in the frilly dress screamed. People began to run. The monster reached out and snatched up the white fluffy dog in its claws. The little dog howled as the monster opened its jaws, showing long, sharp, jagged teeth. “Help, help!” yelled the woman. “It’s going to eat Pookie!”

  “Get him, King!” Max had shouted over the howls of the little dog. King jumped in front of the monster and began biting its toes. The monster hopped from foot to foot, yelping as it juggled the little dog in its claws. Max grabbed the end of the dog’s jeweled leash and pulled. The little dog popped out of the monster’s claws, and Max caught him as he fell. King kept biting the monster’s toes as it backed toward the crack it had climbed out of. Max took the dog back to its grateful owner, who thanked him through her tears. “No problem,” Max said. “My dog can do anything!”

  It had been a very satisfying adventure. Now Max closed his eyes and felt himself getting very, very still. It was almost like disappearing. Sometimes he thought if Mom or Polly came into his room while he was off adventuring, they wouldn’t be able to see him. It wasn’t true, he knew. His father could always see him even if Max was adventuring clear off on another planet. But that’s how it felt. It was as if he really, really went away into the story he was telling himself.

  Sometimes Max planned ahead of time where he would go and the kind of adventure he would have. Other times he let the story create itself. Tonight he would just call King to go with him and see what happened. Whatever it was, it would be more fun than real life. Max thought about King and there King was, ears up, tail wagging. King was always ready for anything.

  3

  MAX IMAGINED HIMSELF ON THE sidewalk like the last time, heading toward the end of the block. Everything looked just the way it did in real life. Max didn’t mind. It was Adventure Time. The sidewalk probably wouldn’t crack open this time, but something would happen. He felt a little chill along the back of his neck, wondering what it would be. When they got to the corner, they turned left on 8th Avenue, and he saw something new. Right there on the corner where the Korean grocery store should have been, with its yellow awning and bins of vegetables and fruits on the sidewalk, there was a different shop entirely. It had a big window and a carved wooden door. Max smiled. The adventure was about to begin.

  Above the window of the shop, in elegant gold letters, were the words WISHWORKS, INC. There were candies in the window. And kal
eidoscopes. There were books and toy trains and rockets and stuffed animals. A hand-lettered sign leaned against a castle with turrets and pennants. WISHES, the sign said. GUARANTEED.

  “Sit,” Max told King. King sat. “Stay.” King stayed on the sidewalk as Max pushed open the door to the shop.

  A bell tinkled merrily. An old man with curly white hair and crinkly eyes was leaning against a wooden counter carved with trees and flowers and strange-looking animals unlike anything Max had ever seen before. The man was wearing a red-and-white checked apron. On the counter next to him was an old-fashioned cash register. “Have you come to buy a wish?” the old man asked.

  “What does the sign mean, ‘guaranteed’?” Max asked.

  “Just what it says. You buy a wish, it comes true. Guaranteed.”

  “You mean I imagine it comes true.”

  The old man shook his head. “I mean it comes true. For real.”

  Max looked around the shop. It was dim and shadowy. There were shelves from floor to ceiling, but there was nothing on them. The shop itself was empty except for the old man, the counter, and the cash register. It smelled old and dusty, as if it should be draped in cobwebs. As he thought that, cobwebs appeared in the dark corners.

  Max thought about stuffed animals, and the shelves filled with stuffed animals. He thought about butterscotch brownies, and the shelves filled with trays of butterscotch brownies. The smell of them made Max’s mouth water.

  “But none of this is real,” he said. “It’s just a story I’m making up. I’m imagining this shop and what’s on those shelves. I’m even imagining you.”

  The old man nodded, smiling. “Of course you are. Nevertheless — this is Wishworks, Inc. If you buy one of my wishes, it will come true. For real. Guaranteed.”

  “Real real?”