The Wish Stealers Read Online Free PDF Page B

then Garrett Forester walked by. His dirty blond hair flopped over his bright blue eyes, and his jeans hung loose and baggy. “Whoa,” he said, smiling at Griffin, who was now standing in a pool of toilet paper. “Cool photos,” he added. “Is that you playing bass?”
    “Yeah,” she said.
    “Awesome,” he said, smiling again.
    Griffin blushed as red as a fire engine.

    Genuine gold fears no fire.
    —Chinese proverb

Chapter
10

    E arly the next morning Griffin opened the box of pennies and scooped up one for each pocket, and then tucked the box into her backpack. All night she had debated about what she should do. Mariah Weatherby Schmidt was dead. There was no returning the stolen wishes to her. Even if she gave the box back to Mr. Schmidt, he would probably stick it on a sagging shelf in his overstuffed garage or just dump it into the garbage. Then she might still be stuck with bad luck. She decided she would try to return some of the wishes to “a person who is on the same journey as the original wisher,” whatever that meant. Maybe that would help stop these “coincidences.”
    X I wish the dentist will not have to pull my two back molars for braces.
    X I wish my new school smells like warm chocolate chip cookies.
    X I wish when it stops raining that no soggy worms will fry on the sidewalk the next sunny day.
    ? I wish to become an amazing bass guitarist.
    ? I wish for a baby sister.
    ? I wish for Grandma Penshine to get well soon.
    ? I wish no kid in the world has nasty green food caught in his teeth and no one tells him.
    In her left pocket was the “no homework” penny, and in her right pocket was the “world peace” penny.
    Griffin couldn’t stop touching the pennies. The natural oil from her palms was making them glow. No homework and world peace seemed nearly impossible, so she decided to start with them. Even on math tests Griffin always attacked the hardest problems first.
    “See you after science. We’ll save a seat for you at lunch,” said Libby, with Maggie Hart and Madison James, friends from elementary school, heading toward their social studies class. Griffin continued walking alone down the long science wing, past bulletin boards of colored paper, past the stingywater fountain that doled out a droplet at a time, and into the huge science room with cardboard planets dangling from the ceiling.
    A few kids sat in their seats, staring at the planets slowly swaying back and forth as if they were on a hypnotist’s chain. Griffin took her seat.
    “Good morning, my bright and amazing students, the future scientists of the universe! We are here to understand THE WORLD! THE ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM! THE UNIVERSE!” said Mr. Luckner, the sixth-grade science teacher. He wore yellow pants and a black shirt with puffy planets dancing all over it. “Can you all believe at this very minute that at the equator our planet is spinning one thousand thirty-eight miles per hour ? The average speed for a car on the highway is fifty-five miles per hour! Think about how fast the earth is moving right now! Dizzy, anyone?”
    The boys in the back row kept staring at the cardboard planets, heads swaying.
    “We all should be dizzy just thinking about it!”
    A few kids yawned as some others quickly tried to finish their homework while Mr. Luckner wasn’t looking.
    “All-righty! How many minutes would it take a rocket to travel from Earth into space?”
    Griffin’s hand shot up. “Nine minutes!” she blurted out.
    “Very good, Griffin, very good,” said Mr. Luckner. Griffin knew this because her mom always said, when stuck in holiday traffic, “I can’t believe this! In a rocket we could reach outer space in nine minutes and we’re stuck in Dadesville County traffic for thirty minutes!”
    Griffin smiled, thinking about her mom. A boy she didn’t know, Zeke, at the desk next to her smiled back. Giant chunks of green spinach snarled in his braces. A girl sitting to her left, Ashley, smiled. Green goop