The Wish Giver Read Online Free PDF Page A

around Polly, hoping she’d make frog sounds again. But as soon as they heard her speaking normally, they lost interest and went to play on the swings and slides. The morning lessons went by quickly, with Miss Morasco calling on Polly three times and Polly knowing each of the answers.
    Then came noon recess. All the boys and girls went out on the playground after lunch, and Polly wanted to swing. But when she got there, both swings were taken, with Charlie Peabody on one and Alfred Dawes on the other. So Polly sat to one side to wait her turn.
    But Charlie and Alfred stayed on those swings. And stayed and stayed. Every once in a while they’d glance over to where Polly was sitting, and they’d kind of laugh behind their hands. They knew they were getting her riled.
    Charlie called to her. “Bet you’d like to swing, wouldn’t you, Polly? But you ain’t gonna do it today. Maybe not tomorrow, either. Us boys needthe swings, and you’re nothing but a dumb girl.”
    Polly wasn’t about to listen to that kind of talk. “Charlie Peabody!” she shouted, angry as anything. “You are a big hunk of nothing. And you too, Alfred. You two big gobs of mud ain’t got even the leftover brains that was given to boys after the girls got the good ones. And if you two dunderheads don’t—
    “ JUG-A-RUM! ”
    Polly clapped her hands over her mouth. Too late! Everybody on the playground looked over at her, and suddenly there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Miss Morasco rushed to Polly’s side.
    “Are you all right?” the teacher asked.
    Polly didn’t know whether to try and speak or just shake her head. Suddenly Lenora Wickstaff was standing there and talking to Miss Morasco in a whisper.
    “Polly ain’t feeling quite up to snuff,” Lenora said. “But she’ll be all right if the others’ll leave her alone for a while.”
    “Well, I…” Miss Morasco began doubtfully. Then she nodded. “Very well, Lenora.”
    Leland walked up and led Polly to a bench in the corner of the yard. “We’ll care for her, ma’am,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
    While the rest of the students were herded to the other side of the playground, the twins got Polly calmed down to a point where she’d listen to what they wanted to tell her.
    “Lenora thinks she knows what’s making you start in croaking,” said Leland. “It don’t sound likely to me, but…well, you tell it, Lenora.”
    “Polly,” she said, “you told me that when it happened the first time—yesterday morning at breakfast—you were complaining to your mother about some burned toast.”
    Polly nodded, trying to hold back her tears.
    “When you get to complaining, you can say some pretty mean things, Polly Kemp.”
    Polly remembered how annoyed she’d been by the burned toast. She’d told her mother…Again she nodded, completely ashamed of herself.
    “And the second time,” Lenora went on, “you’d just said to Agatha Benthorn that she was…”
    Dumb …Polly clearly recalled saying the spiteful word.
    “Don’t you see, Polly? Just now you were in the middle of telling Charlie and Alfred what you thought of ’em, and it happened again. It appears like every time you start giving somebody what for, some kind of power pulls you up short and makes you begin croaking instead of talking.”
    “It seems that after a while, though,” Leland said, “the thing wears off, and you can speak human words again.”
    Polly stared from Lenora to Leland and back again. It was impossible! Yet what other explanation could there be?
    “Trouble is,” said Lenora, “there’s no telling what brought this thing on you now. You’ve been speaking your mind to people and snapping and snarling for years, but this is the first time…”
    But Polly knew why it was different now. She thought back to Sunday evening when she’d made the wish on the red spot. What had she said?
    I’m wishing that people will pay attention to me. And smile when they see me .
    That part had come true,