Curse of the Wish Eater by Mike Ford

Author:Mike Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

The first thing Max did the next morning was check the Wish Eater’s mouth. When he saw that it was empty, his heart leaped with joy.

He looked over at Charlie’s bed. It was still made up, and it didn’t look slept in. But maybe, he thought, the Wish Eater had answered his wish only moments ago, and Charlie hadn’t slept there. Maybe his brothers and sisters were somewhere else in the house. His heart pounding, he jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway. He dashed to the door of the twins’ room and looked inside. It was still an office. Then he checked Arthur’s room, but it was also unchanged.

He tried not to worry as he went downstairs, telling himself that maybe everyone was gathered in the kitchen. But the house was too quiet, and when he got to the kitchen, all he saw was his parents sitting at the table, quietly looking at the newspaper and eating bowls of oatmeal.

“Good morning,” his mother said. “Do you want scrambled eggs or cereal today?”

“Um, is anyone else here?” Max asked, still hopeful.

“Just us,” said his father. “Why? You expecting company?”

“I, uh, thought I heard someone,” Max said. “Never mind. I’ll go get dressed.”

“Eggs or cereal?” his mother called after him.

“Cereal,” Max grumbled as he went upstairs.

Back in his room, he pulled on his clothes, wondering what had gone wrong this time. The Wish Eater sat on his bedside table, grinning in a way that made him feel like it was laughing at him.

“I know you answered my wish,” Max said to it. “But how? What did you do now?”

The Wish Eater remained annoyingly silent. Max finished getting dressed, then picked the toy up and stuffed it into his backpack. He carried the backpack downstairs with him and set it by the door before rejoining his parents. As he was eating his Oatey Bits, his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen and saw a text from Tamyra: We have a problem.

He texted her back: ???

She replied instantly: Meet me on the corner in 5.

Max set his phone down and spooned cereal into his mouth as quickly as he could.

“What’s the hurry?” his father asked.

“I’ve got to get to school a little early,” Max said, which was kind of true and therefore not a lie.

“Big test?” asked his mother.

“Something like that,” said Max, picking up his bowl and tipping the last of the milk into his mouth. He took the bowl to the sink. “Bye,” he said to his parents.

“Have a good day!” they called out as he went to the front door, picked up his backpack, and left the house.

Tamyra lived three streets over. As Max walked down the sidewalk toward her street, he could see her standing on the corner. But there were three other kids standing with her whom he didn’t recognize. As he got closer, he saw that one of them was a boy and the other two were girls.

“Hey,” he said, waving. Tamyra didn’t look happy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.