The Wishing Trees
Mattie might knock, he willed himself to stand up straight, his legs trembling, his fingers reaching for the soap. He started to hum, pretending to sing, bubbles forming on his skin. He scrubbed harder, as if soap might purge him of memories, of failings, of weakness.
    Thinking more about Mattie, about what she needed from him, he continued to scrub and hum, formulating a plan. Today he would make her laugh. That was a start.

    AFTER A LATE BREAKFAST AND AN HOUR of studying Mattie’s math workbook, adding fractions, Ian and Mattie left the hotel. They were dressed the same, in colorful T-shirts, jeans, and tennis shoes. He wore a green and black baseball cap that she and her mother had bought for him during a trip to the Statue of Liberty. He had braided Mattie’s long hair, and secured the ends with purple bands.
    Stepping out of the lobby was like moving into a flooded river. The wide sidewalk appeared incapable of holding any more people. Businessmen and businesswomen wearing dark suits walked briskly, inches from one another. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, most carrying umbrellas even though the sky was only partly cloudy. Many of the pedestrians headed toward a discreetly marked subway entrance, vanishing into it like water being sucked down a drain. The water was without end.
    “Ready, First Mate, for our walkabout?” Ian asked, holding Mattie’s hand, determined to put a smile on her face and keep it there.
    “Aye, aye, Captain.”
    “Then let’s have a go at it.”
    He led her forward, noticing that she practically disappeared into the people around her. Mattie wasn’t used to walking alongside hundreds of others. If Ian moved too quickly, she bumped into the people in front of her. If he slowed down a little, her heels were stepped on. She looked up at him, her face flushed, and without a word he bent down, lifted her up, and set her on his shoulders. “There you go, luv,” he said, heading toward the subway entrance. “It’s time you had a proper view.”
    The stairway, perhaps twenty feet wide, seemed ready to burst from the presence of so many people. Ian had to stoop with Mattie atop him, which caused his back to ache. But he wasn’t about to put her down. “How’s my lookout?” he asked, wondering how far down they would descend.
    “It’s a lot better up here.”
    “I reckon you’ll be ready to trade places in a tick. Just let me know when.”
    “No way, Captain.”
    They finally reached the bottom of the stairs, emerging into an underground world. Mattie gasped, having never seen anything like it. She might as well have been Alice falling into the rabbit’s hole, for she found herself in the middle of a subterranean city. Though the ceiling was only about twelve feet high, this city stretched as far as she could see. There were restaurants, banks, shops, movie theaters, and what she thought was a supermarket. And the people—she spied tens of thousands of them: schoolchildren in blue-and-white uniforms, college students wearing fashionable attire, and legions of businesspeople.
    “I feel like an ant in an anthill,” Mattie said, as Ian walked steadily.
    “You reckon? I don’t think even ants are jammed together like this. See those numbers ahead?”
    She looked into the distance and noticed a row of numbers that ran from one to forty. “What are they for?”
    “Well, each of those stairways leads to a train platform. And each of those trains is going somewhere different in the city. I want you to pick a number. We’ll get on that train and see where it takes us.”
    “Any number? Are you sure?”
    “Ever met an Aussie who wasn’t sure about everything?”
    Mattie smiled. “Mommy would have liked this.”
    “She did like it. She invented the game.”
    “Twenty-three. Let’s take number twenty-three.”
    “Twenty-three it is,” Ian replied, walking toward the number. He descended a flight of stairs, emerging into another level, this one full of platforms and trains.
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