The Big Rock, Chapter 3
three wishes
Chapter 3
At five minutes to midnight on a moonless night, wearing her pajamas, Lily slipped out of her house. Her mom was sound asleep in her bedroom. The door was ajar, so she peeked in to be sure. Wearing flipflops, Lily walked quickly down the sidewalk to the new school, walked along the new sidewalk, through pools of light cast by the streetlights, to the Big Rock, to the patch of it the size of a dinner platter, the bit of it that revealed it was slowly rising from its tomb.
No cars drove by. The entire town seemed to have fallen asleep. She took off her flipflops so she could feel the Big Rock with her bare toes. It felt cold and hard. She felt afraid suddenly, as if she was standing on top of something enormous and alive, a living thing much too ancient and inhuman to care about little girls. For a moment, she nearly panicked and ran, leaving her flipflops behind, but then she hardened something inside herself.
“Do it, you big chicken.”
Lily squatted down, arranged her hands in the proper positions, and wished for three things.
“Number One, a phone of my own.” Despite the fact that all the girls in Lily’s grade already had a phone, Lily’s mom had decreed that she would not buy one for Lily, not until she was a teenager, and maybe not even then if Lily kept pestering her for one.
“Number Two, a girl my age to move into the house where the professor used to live, a nice girl, not a mean one like June Mae, a smart funny kind-hearted girl who will like me and be my best friend.”
Lily breathed in and out through her nose and thought about her third wish. It seemed darker than her first two wishes. Maybe she should wish for something else. Then, she decided to do it. Probably it would not even come true.
“Number Three, that Mom never ever marry Larry.”
Having done all this, having achieved her mission without anyone noticing, at the hour of midnight when magic is most real, Lily slipped her feet back into her flipflops and ran home. She ran all the way as if pursued by wolves.
Very carefully, she opened the door to her house, slipped inside, closed the door as quietly as possible, walked slowly and carefully through the living room and up the stairs to her room, first passing by her mother’s room and peeking in to be sure her mom was still sound asleep. She was. Back inside her room, Lily slipped her feet out of her flipflops and lay down on her bed, on top of the sheet, closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep. Her heart was beating so wildly, she thought she could hear it. She feared she might have a heart attack. She might vomit.
Kids said that if you wished for three things during the daylight while sitting on top of the Big Rock and holding your hands in the appropriate position, you would definitely get one of your wishes. Only one. They said it was best to wish for two things that you would never get in million years if you wanted to maximize your chances that you got your third wish, the one thing you most wanted. They said that if you were brave and wanted to get all of your three wishes, then you should go to the Big Rock at midnight on a moonless night, when no one else was around, when it was just you and the Big Rock and the darkness and the silence. That was when the Big Rock was most likely to grant all three of your wishes. Not just one. All three.
In the morning, Lily woke up and got dressed. She sat at the kitchen table and consumed a bowl of Cheerios.
Her mom looked at her for a moment. “You slept kind of late this morning. I’ve been up for an hour.”
Lily shrugged.
“Did you look out the window?”
“Why would I?”
“The new neighbors are moving in.”
“Who cares?”
Lily was not the sort of girl who got into a happy mood before she had finished her bowl of Cheerios.
“It’s a man. Kind of cute. I went over and said hi to him. His name is Steve.”
Lily spooned out the final Cheerio and then tilted the bowl so she could drink all the remaining milk.
“He has a daughter. You ought to go over there and introduce yourself.”
Lily was staring down into the damp interior of her empty bowl as if she saw something surprisingly interesting in there.
Lily’s a brave, smart girl with carefully constructed wishes. I hope she’s not going to have to deal with any nasty loopholes, but I suspect you think the book’ll be more interesting if she does.