Read Online The Wish by Gail Carson Levine - Free Book Online Page A

“Then we can have one of each of us.”
    â€œLet’s look.”
    We had to walk at least a mile, but we found one. Although I was nervous about showing my caricature to the clerk, I was brave and handed it over first.
    â€œCool,” he said. “You want poster size?”
    I nodded, and he took the drawing to the back of the store. A minute later, my face with the clerk’s legs sticking out from under it advanced toward us. Being enormous intensified the drawing. It came at you. My teeth gobbled you up. I laughed.
    â€œWe should get as many copies as we can afford,” Jared said. He giggled. “For posterity.”
    We emptied our wallets. Between us, we had enough for subway fare plus two poster-size copies, two regular-size ones, and one half-size reduction for each of us.
    Jared gave me his original drawing plus one poster and his half-size copy. I did the same, and the clerk rolled them into cardboard tubes. Then we headed for the subway. I’d get on the uptown train, and he’d ride downtown to Brooklyn. We walked, holding hands and clutching our tubes.
    I shouldn’t have made him promise not to tell anybody about the caricature. It was too good to keep secret.
    â€œI don’t care if you tell people about the caricature of me,” I said. “I changed my mind.”
    â€œYou can hang mine from a blimp. You can hang it on a banner outside Claverford.” He paused. “You could hang the small one in your locker at school. I could do the same thing with yours. Um, can I?”
    That would mean he was my boyfriend. People would see the drawings, and that’s what it would mean. In three weeks the spell was going to end and I’d have Jared Fein for a boyfriend, which wouldn’t help me at all.
    And I’d never even had a crush on him. I had a crush on Carlos, and before him, I had a crush on Terence. I liked Jared, but did I like him?
    I thought about the time I was stuck in the elevator with Carlos. He’d been rude, refusing to talk to me. But then, the instant I became popular, he wrote me a note asking me to Grad Night, even though he had a girlfriend.
    It would be fun to be stuck in an elevator with Jared. He’d tell me how people stuck in elevators behaved, or how fast they were rescued, or something else I’d never thought of.
    The subway was a block away.
    â€œHey, Wilma,” Jared said. “I asked you something. Did you hear me?”
    I nodded and then I said, “Do you want to go to Grad Night with me?”

Chapter Fourteen
    H e grinned hugely . “Is that instead of putting my picture in your locker or in addition to?”
    I grinned back. “In addition.” In for a penny, in for a pound, as Mom would say. “I’ll tape it up under Reggie’s.”
    We went down the subway stairs and through the turnstile. Then we stood there. A homeless woman was sleeping on a piece of cardboard a few yards away. On the uptown local platform someone was playing a steel drum and singing.
    He was my boyfriend. I had a boyfriend.
    â€œI have to go,” he said. “I was supposed to be home fifteen minutes ago.” But he didn’t move. “I had a girlfriend in the fifth grade. We used to play knock hockey for hours at her house. She’d get mad if I won, and I’d get mad if she won.” He laughed. “Do you play knock hockey?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œThen we’ll have to think of something else.” He put the caricature tube on the floor between his legs. “Come here.” He held out his hands.
    He was going to kiss me in the middle of the Thirty-fourth Street station. All my big moments were happening underground. I put my tube down too, took a step toward him, and gave him my hands.
    We were the same height. He extended his head, like a turtle poking out of its shell. His head came toward me, chin first. Our teeth clanked from my beaver teeth sticking out. Our lips met