The Wish by Gail Carson Levine Page A

after Christmas, your friend Suzanne Russo—”
    â€œShe’s not my friend.”
    â€œI see you together some—”
    â€œWe live in the same building.”
    â€œOh. Anyway, she wanted to copy from me on a French test. I said yes, if she’d tell you I liked you.”
    â€œShe never said anything.”
    â€œShe’s a creep. In college she’s going to major in Creepology.”
    I laughed. “She’ll get straight As.”
    We watched two bears play with a red rubber ball. Had Jared really liked me before the wish? He might lie, the way Suzanne had, thinking I’d like him better for it.
    I looked at him, wearing my stupid sweater. Here was someone who wouldn’t lie. Here was someone who liked me , the real me, the before-the-spell me. And when the spell ended, maybe he’d go right on liking me.
    He continued, “So after nothing happened from Suzanne, I was scared to do anything else. But then, last week, when everybody was writing you notes and trying to sit next to you, I thought, if they can do it, so can I. So I wrote the note about the zoo.” He paused. “And a couple more notes.”
    â€œThat you didn’t sign. Which ones?”
    â€œI’m not telling. This was the important one. So far.”
    Did he write one of the anonymous invitations to Grad Night? I hoped not. Even more, I hoped he wouldn’t ask me in person. I didn’t want to go with him. He was growing on me, and maybe we could be friends. But this was my only chance to go with somebody cute, somebody popular. And I didn’t want to make him feel bad by saying “no” to his face.
    The bears had stopped playing and were snoozing on the rocks.
    â€œJared?” He was the one to ask about popularity. He could probably quote some article that would explain everything. “Why do you think some girls are popular and some aren’t?”
    He was quiet for a minute. “I don’t know, but the popular girls are usually locked together in bunches and you can’t separate them. Want to go to the bird and monkey house?”
    â€œSure.”
    As we walked over, he added, “I once read that the most most popular kid—somebody like Ardis—hardly ever grows up to be anything special. Like she wouldn’t invent time travel or paint an important picture.” He blushed again. “I don’t mean you. You just became popular. You haven’t been that way all along.”
    Yeah. It wouldn’t apply to someone who was only popular for a month, either.
    Jared pushed open the door to the Tropics building. Birds don’t interest me much, but the monkey room was fun. We watched two monkeys groom a third.
    â€œThat one”—Jared pointed at the one who was being groomed—“looks like he’s at the dentist.”
    He was right. The monkey looked patient, unhappy, numb. “Yeah, and that one”—I pointed at the one doing the heavy grooming—“is the dentist, and the other one is his helper. They should be wearing white gowns and rubber gloves.”
    We watched the whole operation. I had never had such a good time at the zoo before. I fought back a giggle. If I told Jared, he’d say he once read that boys with one eyebrow were the best companions at zoos.
    When we were sure the patient was resting comfortably, we left the zoo and walked into the park. The path through Central Park leaving the zoo is lined with benches, and the benches were filled with portrait artists and caricaturists. We watched them work for a while. I wandered around, but Jared stayed near a caricaturist—Antoinette, according to the flamboyant signature on her samples.
    â€œI’ve always wanted to see what one of them would do to me,” he said.
    Antoinette was drawing a man with a long face. Only in the caricature his face was so long and narrow that his eyes and mouth could barely fit inside it.
    Jared laughed.