The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain

Author:Bill Brittain
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1983-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

“All right, Henry. But then I have to go to school. I’ll come back, soon as I can.”

“You’d better,” said Henry sternly. “I’m stuck on your property, so you have to look after me until I get loose.”

Rowena walked out of the grove of trees. Suddenly she turned and stuck out her tongue at the spot where Henry was standing.

The school day passed almost like a dream—or a nightmare. Afterward Rowena ran all the way home, hoping to slip in the back door without anybody seeing her. But Mama was in the kitchen.

“Sit down, Rowena,” said Mrs. Jervis. “I want to talk to you.”

Rowena put a hand to her lips. Had Mama discovered…?

“Did you pass the grade school on your way home?” Mama asked.

Rowena shook her head. “I took the short cut. Why?”

“Clara Fessengill came by today, and she said Polly Kemp was croaking like a frog in school. I thought you might have heard—”

“Oh, Mama, you know Polly. She’d do anything to get attention.”

“No, Clara said it was like Polly couldn’t help herself. As if croaking had taken the place of talking.”

“Clara Fessengill’s an old gossip…” Rowena began. Then she suddenly closed her mouth, and a little shiver ran up her spine.

“Excuse me, Mama.” Rowena darted through the back door and out of her mother’s sight. Polly Kemp, acting strangely—Polly who’d sat right next to her in Thaddeus Blinn’s tent. What was going on?…

In the midst of the circle of trees she found Henry just as she’d left him. No, not quite the same. “I seem to be losing my voice, too,” he told her in a harsh whisper. “You’ve got to get me loose.”

“But how, Henry?”

“Maybe you can pry me free. Get that long branch there.”

Rowena got the branch.

“Now bring it over here.”

Rowena did as she was told.

“Can’t you move any faster, Rowena?” Henry wheezed. “Now slide the end of it under my foot. No, you ninny, not that end! The other one. Goldurn you, Rowena, stop being so infernally dumb!”

Could this be the same Henry Piper she’d thought was so marvelous only yesterday? “I’m doing the best I can,” she said.

“Well, your best isn’t all that good. Now get a piece of wood—not that one, dad-blast it, that one! Stick it underneath the pole. Take it easy there. It feels like you’re tickling my foot.”

Rowena was too upset by all the orders Henry was spouting at her to wonder how he could feel tickling right through the sole of his shoe. “Now push down on the pole,” Henry went on. “Push harder, you silly…oww! What are you trying to do, cripple me?”

“You told me to pry, Henry. I’m prying. I can’t keep things straight when you’re giving me all those orders at the same time.”

“You’re just like all the rest. Not enough sense to boil water.”

All the rest? All what rest? Rowena wondered. But before she could ask Henry, she heard another voice behind her.

“Rowena, I thought I seen you in here, and…what the dickens!”

Sam! With a guilty start Rowena turned to face him.

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