The Wishing Game

by Meg Shaffer

Places were times. Times were places. Confusing at first. Then charming. Hugo found it neither confusing nor charming

SOS. Save Our Sanity.

His fifth summer on Clock Island.

he’d spent almost 15 percent of his life on an island playing bloody nanny to a grown man.

making plans or at least making plans to make plans.

“write something. Anything. Wasting talent like yours is like burning a pile of money in front of a poorhouse. It’s cruel and it stinks.”

words Jack had thrown into his face years ago back when Hugo was the one drinking his talent to death.

Millions of children out there, and former children, too, would weep with joy if Jack Masterson ever published a new book about Clock Island and the mysterious Master Mastermind who lived i...

boxes of fan mail to the house, thousands of children urging ...

SOS, those letters begged. Save ...

Now he knew the ocean was as dangerous as a sleeping volcano. At peace, it was magnificent, but when it wanted to, it could bring down kingdoms. Five years ago, it had brought low the small, strange kingdom of Clock Island.

wished and wished hard that something would shake Jack from his apathy, break the spell, give him a reason to write again. Any reason. Love? Money? Spite? Something to do besides slowly drowning himself in overpriced Cabernet?

He couldn’t sit and watch his old friend fade like ink on old paper until no one could read the writing anymore.

Astrid woke from a deep and dreamless sleep. What had woken her?

told Rosa she couldn’t mop the kitchen because that was for grown-ups, and she literally pouted until I let her do it.”

A seven-year-old child shouldn’t have eyes like a world-weary detective working a particularly grisly murder case.

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.

bruises on her own heart from the knocks she’d gotten in childhood.

shoulders were thin and delicate as moth wings.

“That’s okay. Maybe I can find an old tape recorder and record myself reading you a story, and you can play it next time you have trouble sleeping.”

Nothing made a kid happier than proving a grown-up wrong.

wish fund?”

This was Lucy and Christopher’s favorite game—the wishing game. They wished for money so Lucy could buy a car. They wished for a two-bedroom apartment where they both had their own rooms. “A new Clock Island book,”

‘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,’”

“Nobody chucked you out. You chose to continue hiding on that island with Jack over moving back to the real world and starting a life with me.”

“And you still picked that island and Jack over me. Don’t pretend you hate it there. You love it there. You love it and you love Jack, and you don’t want to leave.”

“I don’t feel guilty about being alive. Being alive is…well, not my first choice, but because I’m here, might as well stick around. What I have is thriver’s guilt. It’s not just that I’m alive. I’m alive and…God, look at my life—my career, my house, my…everything.

“Jack’s writing again,” Hugo said. “I am happy. Well, happier. Now I can leave Clock Island with a clean conscience. I can be miserable in Manhattan or bitter in Brooklyn.”

bring me a Clock Island cover painting or two or fifty, please.”

“This could work. A Hugo Reese retrospective. I like it. Deal.”

“I wasn’t the original illustrator. After forty books, they wanted to repackage and re-release the series with new artwork. I got the job when I was twenty-one.” Fourteen years ago. Felt like a million years ago. Felt like yesterday.

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

“It’s on Jack Masterson’s website today. It’s all over Facebook too.”

have written a new book—A Wish for Clock Island. There is but one copy in existence, and I plan to give it away to someone very brave, very clever, and who knows how to make wishes.

“You don’t know Sherlock? You should. You kinda talk like him.” “What do you mean by—” And then Hugo got it. What’s a foot but not part of the body? Afoot, not a foot. As Sherlock Holmes once said, “The game is afoot.”

nowhere. Had he lost his mind? Jack had barely left the house in years and now he was playing a game? With the world? With the entire bloody world?

the-devil’s-at-the-back-door-and-nobody-remembered-to-lock-it laugh.

be careful what you wish for.”

The largest poster on the wall said in big black letters, You don’t have to be perfect to be a foster parent. Great. Fabulous news considering how not perfect she was.

You will never pass the home study. Not with things as they are right now. You’re in a lot of credit-card debt, Lucy. You don’t have access to reliable transportation. You live with three roommates in a house that’s one grease fire away from going up in smoke. Oh, and one of those roommates has a recent DUI conviction. Even if we got you enrolled in all the public assistance available to you, you still wouldn’t be able to afford appropriate housing and a car.

kids in foster care are seven times more likely to suffer from depression and five times more likely to have anxiety than other kids. And four times more likely to go to jail.

your life is currently not stable enough for a child. He has school. He has therapy sessions twice a week. And what happens when he wakes up sick and needs medicine in the middle of the night, and the only pharmacy open is ten miles away?

“One week. Even one day, okay? Just not today. Don’t ever break a heart on a Friday. Ruins the whole weekend.”

Some of my most courageous readers from long ago will be receiving a very special invitation today. You know who you are if you know my answer to this riddle: Why is a raven like a writing desk? Check your mailbox. With Love from Clock Island, The Mastermind

You know who you are if you know my answer to this riddle.

A smile spread across her face so wide it made her ears wiggle. “What?” he whispered back. “I know the answer.”

Don’t give up, Lucy. Always remember that the only wishes ever granted are the wishes of brave children who keep on wishing even when it seems no one is listening because someone always is. Someone like me. Keep wishing.

if they wanted me, I would never have run away. And because I did run away, I know the answer to the riddle.” “What is it?” Christopher whispered. “I’m getting there.”

said I couldn’t get off at Clock Island. It only stopped there for mail delivery, but I could take pictures. But when the ferry got to the dock, and the mailman got off, as soon as his back was turned, I got off too. Just like that.”

You wrote me back. You said you needed a sidekick. So…here I am.” He must have been the wisest man in the world. Any other man, any other writer, who had a fan with a backpack show up on their doorstep asking to be their sidekick would likely call the police, a psychiatric hospital, and the fire department just for backup. And if that had happened, Lucy would have been a broken girl. Broken so badly she would have never gotten unbroken, no matter how many Christophers she’d meet.