Wish Club by Kim Strickland Page A

yet. It had been three days.
    “Ms. Dubois?” Claudia recognized the voice at her door instantly. Her shoulders fell, the eraser coming to rest at her side.
    “Hello, April.”
    Claudia turned to see April Sibley flipping her long hair over her shoulder with one hand. “I was wondering if you had a chance to grade my test yet.”
    “I, uh…”
    “I really need to know, because, as you know, I’m going for valedictorian and I really would like to,” she flipped her hair back over her shoulder again, even though it hadn’t budged, “see if I’m still on target for it, or if, on the off chance that I’m not,” April gave an
as if
laugh, “then maybe there’s some extra credit I could do to make up the grade.” She looked imploringly at Claudia, flipped her hair over her shoulder again, sniffed, and waited for an answer.
    Perhaps on a different day, Claudia would have told April that she’d graded her test the previous night and that she’d gotten an A, but today Claudia wasn’t feeling generous. April always approached Claudia with a conspiratorial, us-against-them attitude, as if it were the two of them versus all the rest of the students, the ones April dubbed “slackers and wanna-bes,” those who failed to achieve April’s level of shining brilliance. Part of that might be because she was the headmaster’s niece, which made her feel she was more on the side of the teachers than the rest of the student body. Part of it was because April was a chatterbox and a suck-up.
    Claudia wondered how much of what came out of April’s mouth was attributable to April, and how much of what she said was really the opinion of Headmaster Peterson. “I know you have to put up with it too, Ms. Dubois,” April had once confided. “Believe you me. I know what it’s like to have to deal with lazy slackers and their little jealousies.”
    “The essay tests…” Claudia said it as if she were really thinking about them and not about how much she wanted to be rid of April. She turned to put the eraser on the ledge, and then back around to face April, who had already started talking again, as if her words could chase away any possibility of hearing she’d gotten a grade as mortifying as a B.
    Claudia collected the papers on her desk, stacked them, and put them into her shoulder bag. April started saying something disparaging about her classmates’ ability to competently complete essay exams, and Claudia looked at April with astonishment.
How is it possible to have such an unwaveringly high opinion of oneself?
“I just don’t know where they think they’re going to get in life,” April said with a flip of her hair. “They won’t get very far, believe you me.” Claudia wanted to tell April she should be grateful for the lackadaisical tendencies of her peers, for without them she wouldn’t be
in the running for valedictorian.
    April droned on, something about the importance of being valedictorian and her ability to become an Ivy Leaguer, which, to Claudia, made it sound as if April thought the whole process was like joining a country club.
    Claudia tuned out. She hung her head down and then, because it felt so good, stretched her neck down farther, rolling it gently from side to side while staring down at her desk. Quite possibly, this desk had been in this classroom more years than the tree used to build it had been alive. Initials and dates had been carved into it by kids trying to make their mark, preserve a memento of themselves for posterity. Maybe even a few teachers had caved to the temptation. “Aldo was here” was Claudia’s favorite, written in the upper right-hand corner of the desk, angled in such a way as to fill the corner. “Aldo.” Claudia wondered at the poor child named Aldo, or was he really so deserving of her pity, being a child prone to arrogantly pronouncing his presence on other people’s furniture? Whatever. Aldo
was
here. April
was still
here and that was something she needed to