The Wish Stealers Read Online Free PDF Page A

and knocked three times. “Mr. Schmidt!” Griffin shouted, and knocked even harder. “Mr. Schmidt!”
    “Griffin?” called a neighbor from next door.
    “Hi, Mrs. Jasper,” she answered.
    “I heard all the commotion out here. I thought someone was knocking on my door,” she said.
    “I’m looking for Mr. Schmidt and his great-aunt. Do you know when they’ll be back?” asked Griffin.
    “Your family hasn’t heard?”
    Griffin shook her head.
    “It happened around ten this morning,” said Mrs. Jasper. “I’m sure it was pneumonia. The evening the tornado passed by I saw Mariah out on the front porch in the rain! Imagine sitting in a rocking chair in weather like that! I was about to call Mr. Schmidt to get his aunt out from that awful weather, I thought maybe she wasn’t quite right in the head. She was very old, you know. Anyway, when I looked out again, she was gone. Mr. Schmidt said she lay down to take a nap this morning and died in her sleep. He said there was the strangest smile on her face. He’s gone back to Topeka to arrange the funeral.”
    Griffin gasped.
    “I know, dear,” said Mrs. Jasper, coming closer to her. “These things can be very sad, but what a long life! Did you know his aunt?”
    “Not really,” she whispered.
    “Nice lady, very old. Only been here a week. Imagine that,” said Mrs. Jasper. “Mr. Schmidt asked me to get the mail. Was it something important you needed?”
    “No, I … did his great-aunt have any children?”
    “As far as I know she never married, and Mr. Schmidt was her only relative. But she wanted to be buried back in Topeka.”
    Griffin trudged home, now feeling the horrible heaviness of the box of stolen wishes in her hands.

    The best way out is always through.
    —Robert Frost

Chapter
9

    S amantha’s long hair swayed like a sheet of perfectly smooth silk. In English class the next day not one strand dared disobey her. She wore a designer dress with horseshoe logos all over it, bead bangle bracelets all up her right arm, leather riding boots, and a scarf knotted into a headband. Instead of a backpack she carried an Italian handbag her mom had handed down to her when she’d gotten bored with it. Some of the boys feared her, others had crushes on her, and the rest had a little bit of both. Girls chimed throughout the hall, “Hi, Samantha. You look amazing!” or “Oh, my gosh, Samantha. I love your dress!”
    “What a wonderful start we had with Macbeth ! A stormto set our stage!” said Mrs. Gideon. “Now we will dive into the play, which opens with three witches telling Macbeth his fortune. Not what will happen, but what could happen as painted in the stars.”
    Griffin sat in the back row, stuck in that lonesome seat from the first day of class. Scanning the heads in front of her, she saw Samantha surrounded by new girls who wanted to be friends with her.
    Her grandma always said, To have a friend you must be a friend . Griffin thought Samantha didn’t seem like she’d be a kind friend, but it didn’t seem to matter. Everything felt upside down, and Griffin hated not telling her parents, Libby, or any of her old friends at her lunch table about the way Mariah had tricked her. But what if something bad did happen, and everybody’s wishes started unraveling if she told? She would never trick someone like Mariah had tricked her into accepting the box of wishes. If only there were a way to return the wishes. She sunk her head onto her folded hands and looked out the window at the shifting clouds.
    “Macbeth and Banquo ask the witches to tell them their fortune,” said Mrs. Gideon. She read from the play, “‘If you can look into the seeds of time, / And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me …’
    “It is only the second day of school, but I already have a surprise for you. The Shakespeare Is Not Dead Traveling Globe Theatre Company. They just arrived in town! Please welcome the three witches from Macbeth !” Mrs.