The Wishing Game

by Meg Shaffer

He said, “Ah, Lucy, I’ve been expecting you. Come in. There’s tea brewing up in my writing factory. Do you take it American or English style?”

Hope is the thing with feathers,’ the lovely Miss Emily Dickinson once wrote. Well, if that’s the case, then a wish is a thing with black feathers.”

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

Then he picked up a little wooden lap desk, not much bigger than a cafeteria tray. With a flourish, he tossed it out the window.

The desk didn’t fall to the ground. It hovered in the air. Mr. Masterson held some kind of remote control in his hand.

toy helicopter rotors under the bottom of the desk,” he explained as he pushed buttons on the controller. “Flies just like those little hovering thingos you see in the shopping malls.”

What can’t be touched or tasted or held but can be broken?

You promised

“A promise!”

We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams;— World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.

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.

But she never forgot what Jack Masterson said in reply. “Hugo, always be quiet when a heart is breaking.”

No. First rule of Clock Island—Don’t break the spell. Kids need to believe in the Mastermind. They don’t need to know who’s behind the curtain.”

“Jack told me years ago how he invented Clock Island on those nights his father turned into a werewolf. He’d hide under the covers staring at the face of his glow-in-the-dark watch, waiting for the hours to pass. Clocks were magic to him—ten and eleven at night were dangerous hours, werewolf hours, but six and seven and eight in the morning were human times. If he were king of the clock, he could keep those werewolf hours from coming. Somehow the clock became an island, a place where scared kids could go to find their courage.”

every now and then that people are not characters in his stories and he can’t do whatever he wants with them. And trust me, love, he’s taken much worse abuse from me.”

“You are the keeper of Clock Island, Hugo,” she said. “If he loves that cover, it’s because he loves you.”

if you leave without seeing it through to the end, you’ll wonder the rest of your life what could have been. And trust me, it could be something very beautiful.”

“I thought you were miserable,” she said. “I thought I was too.” He raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands. “A wise woman recently told me I’m full of shit.”

“I’m a modern artist.” He put his hands behind his head. “My muse is the fear of poverty and obscurity.”

He was the first person who made me feel wanted in my entire life. Really wanted. And when you feel wanted for the first time in your life, you realize how much you’ve been starving for it.”

‘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’—”

Jack had promised to make them face their fears. But inviting her ex-boyfriend to the island? She couldn’t believe he would do this to her, but maybe he understood something she didn’t. All she had to do was talk to him, tell him what had happened after she left him. Then it would be over.

When she saw Lucy, the woman stood up. At first Lucy didn’t recognize her. Then the woman smiled a million-watt smile. Bright white perfect teeth. Just like in her picture on the real estate agency web page.

“Reading all about people facing their fears. Not so much fun to do it yourself.”

“I know fear when I see it,” he said. “Trust me. I see it in the mirror every morning.”

“What are you afraid of? You’re rich. You can buy anything you need or want.” “I can’t buy time. No one in the world can buy time. All those wasted years of my life…I can’t buy them back. And if there was one thing I would buy if I could, it would be the time I wasted running from what I was afraid of instead of facing it.”

“I wanted to be a father,” he said. He pointed at her. “Bet you didn’t know that about me.”

And if you think I’m being paranoid, let me remind you that a cute little book about two male penguins raising a chick is still one of the most banned books in America, Land of the Free.”

“Don’t wish Clock Island away,” she said. “Too many of us need it. I started reading the books to Christopher the first night he came to stay with me. He’d found his parents dead that morning, and he was…lost. In shock. A zombie. Then I got out the books and started reading. Got to the end of chapter one, and I asked him if he wanted me to stop. He shook his head, and I kept reading. The next day, he asked me to read him another Clock Island book. The stories brought him out of the bad place he was stuck in. And me. And Andre. And Melanie. And Dustin. And Hugo.”

“People think I put myself into my own books, that I’m the Mastermind. I’m not. Not really. I’m always the child, forever the child, scared but hopeful, dreaming someone will be able to grant my wish someday.” He met her eyes. “Sometimes the thing we want most in the world is the thing we’re most afraid of. And the thing we’re most afraid of is often the thing we most want. What do you want most in the world?”

‘Mom and Dad only had you because they thought I needed a bone marrow transplant. They didn’t want you and neither do I.’ You said that, right?

And in front of literally

twenty people at your sixteenth birthday party. Your birthday party I was so excited I was allowed to attend? You were like a celebrity to me, Angie....

“Did you know that the kids who grow up as the ‘favorites’ in families are usually more screwed up than the kids who aren’t the favorites? The first lesson we learn is that our parents’ love is conditional and that failure to perform means that they can take all that love away.

we do everything we can to make sure that never happens to us. Fun, right? I learned that in therapy.”

“I’ve been in therapy since I was seventeen,”

act out and rebel are the ones who are the healthiest mentally. They’re the ones who see that something’s wrong. That’s why they act out—because they see the house is burning down, and they’re screaming for help. That was you.

“Mom and Dad lost their shit when you ran away to live here. They thought you would get them arrested for child neglect or something. That’s all they cared about. Not you, just their reputations. But I thought you were amazing.

One cat. I have two now,” she said and smiled. “Vince Purraldi and Billie Pawliday.” “You stole those names from Jack’s books.” “He said he approves of that sort of theft.” She

You know kids deserve to be loved. You knew you deserved to be loved, and you tried to tell us all that, and we just didn’t listen.”

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

“Why do only brave kids get their wishes granted?” she asked. “Because only brave children know that wishing is never enough. You have to try to make your own wishes come true.

Someday, when she got her wish and returned to Clock Island, she would ask him again.

She had been loved. Not by her parents, no, but her grandparents had loved her even if they hadn’t understood her loneliness. They would call her out to their porch on warm evenings, wanting her with them as they relived the day in soft conversation. No TV. No radio. Just them and the crickets.

had been loved. Her grandparents, so different from the aloof and hard-hearted son they raised, must have wanted to travel and be free of toys on the floor and bake sales and parent-teacher conferences, but they had sacrificed for her, had taken her in—happily,

She knew what it was like to love a child well. She knew what love looked like, and she knew what sacrifice looked like. Her grandparents proved that you didn’t have to be the parent to be a good parent.

“time’s running out on the Clock.” He smiled. “Before we begin, let me say how wonderful it’s been for me to have you all here. You kids, I mean. Not the lawyer.”

you have to choose whether you’ll finish what you started or if you’ll leave the world with…”

“Years ago, I promised that when you were older, you could come back here someday. I’m glad I was able to keep that promise. Andre, Melanie, Lucy…I couldn’t be prouder of you all than if you were my own kids. And I will confess there were times I wished you were my own kids.”

And as you all know, in my Clock Island books, the story isn’t over until the Mastermind asks one last little question. And now it’s time for me to ask that last little question. And if you get it right, you’ll be awarded five points. And since five points will take all of you up to or past ten to win, the game is up for grabs.”