The Wishing Game

by Meg Shaffer

Some people like to talk about how resilient kids are, but these were people who’d forgotten how hard everything hit you when you were a kid.

‘The only wishes ever granted—’” “‘—are the wishes of brave children who keep on wishing even when it seems no one’s listening because someone somewhere always is,’”

Being alive is…well, not my first choice, but because I’m here, might as well stick around.

he’s Albus Dumbledore, Willy Wonka, and Jesus Christ all rolled into one.” If Dumbledore, Wonka, and Christ had depression and drank too much.

Dangerous things, wishes. Sometimes they come to you when you call. Sometimes they fly away after biting you.”

“God—or whoever is in charge of this planet—got drunk on the job one day and decided to give me the gift of writing. The way I see it, I have two choices. I can set that gift on a high shelf so it won’t get dinged up and nobody can make fun of me for playing with it.” He smiled until the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep enough to hide state secrets. “Or I can have fun with it and play with the gift I was given until the engine burns out and the wheels come off. I decided to play.

always be quiet when a heart is breaking.”

The stories write us, you see. We read something that moves us, touches us, speaks to us and it…it changes us.”

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’

“How do you take your coffee?” “Injected directly into my bloodstream,”

“Hate is a knife without a handle. You can’t cut something with it without cutting yourself.”

“Because only brave children know that wishing is never enough. You have to try to make your own wishes come true.

I was going to keep the red scarf anyway.”