Wish by Barbara O'Connor Page B

seemed like the clock had stopped and the day was stuck in a never-ending torture of math and social studies and gym. Even lunch and recess were in slow motion. Finally the dismissal bell rang and I hightailed it to the bus. I plopped down in my usual spot and waited for Howard. He must’ve been taking his own sweet time because the seats were starting to fill up. The next thing I knew, Audrey Mitchell was making her way up the aisle, cutting her eyes from side to side searching for a seat. I couldn’t believe it when she sat next to me, propping her backpack between us so she wouldn’t catch any of my cooties.
    â€œYou can’t sit here,” I said.
    She made an ugly face at me and said, “Yes, I can.”
    â€œNo, you can’t!” I sort of hollered.
    She flinched a little and gaped at me. “You can’t save seats,” she said. “That’s the rule.”
    Pineapple.
    Pineapple.
    Pineapple.
    But Howard’s dumb trick didn’t work because the next thing I knew, I had shoved her right off the seat and into the aisle. The minute I did it, I regretted it. Everybody liked Audrey. I ought to be bringing her candy bars and telling her how nice her hair looked instead of shoving her onto the dirty bus floor. Luckily, Audrey didn’t have a temper like me and Scrappy. All she did was yelp a little bit, dust herself off, call me crazy, and move to another seat.
    By the time Howard finally got there, my temper had settled down from a boil to a simmer.
    He dropped into the seat next to me. “What you fired up about now?” he asked.
    I looked out the window so he couldn’t see my still-red face.
    â€œI’m not fired up,” I said.
    He pushed his glasses up on his nose and went, “Huh.” Then he dug around in his backpack and pulled out half a cheese sandwich. He took the cheese out, rolled it into a ball and popped it into his mouth. Then he did the same with the bread, rolling it into doughy balls.
    As the bus made its way through the streets of Colby, I thought about that trap we were gonna make to catch Wishbone, and my simmering anger disappeared. In its place was a swirl of excitement.
    When we got to Howard’s, Mrs. Odom was on the porch with Cotton, smiling and waving to the bus driver. Howard, Dwight, and me sat on the porch steps while she asked about our day. Did Mrs. Willibey finally get that window fan fixed? Was Dwight’s math test hard? Did the PTA sell cupcakes in the cafeteria again?
    Then Howard whipped some papers out of his backpack and thrust them at her, grinning. “Ta-da!” he said.
    She made such a fuss over those papers you’d’ve thought they were made of pure gold. I could practically feel my marked-up papers jammed into the bottom of my backpack, weighing heavy on my lap. I wished I had a good one so I could say “ta-da” too.
    Howard didn’t really need to be my Backpack Buddy anymore since I knew my way around school and I definitely knew the rules. Instead, he kept offering to help me with some of my schoolwork. I always said no, ’cause what was the use? I wasn’t even going to be at that school much longer, I reminded him. His face would droop and he’d say, “You never know. You might be.”
    I ignored that and stuffed my sorry-looking papers into my backpack like I didn’t even care one bit. But sitting on that porch with Mrs. Odom, I sort of wished I had let him help me some.
    After we had banana pudding for a snack, me and Howard went straight back to the ramshackle garage behind his house. I swear, that garage looked like it was going to fall right over, tilting sideways with the door hanging off one hinge. We stepped inside and Howard’s daddy looked up from his workbench in the corner. When he stood up, I thought his head was going to go right through the ceiling, he was so tall. He had great big freckled hands and fiery red hair and twinkly blue eyes. He