“Promise.”
“Good,” said one of the girls. “Then you can tell us all about your skin-care regimen. Your cheeks are practically glowing.”
The girls split off, heading in the direction of Kimber’s house and leaving Max and Tamyra by themselves.
“Tay?” Max said.
Tamyra rolled her eyes. “It’s their nickname for me,” she said. “So, you wanted to ask me about the science assignment?”
“Actually, no,” Max replied. “I wanted to ask you about the thing you bought at Frightville yesterday.”
Tamyra got a weird look on her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you sure?” said Max. “A set of teeth? With a key that opens them?”
Tamyra shrugged. “Who says I bought something like that?”
Max wasn’t sure how much to tell her about his own experience with the Wish Eater. “I was thinking about buying it. But when I went in yesterday it was gone. The man in the store told me a girl named Tamyra bought it.”
Tamyra sighed. “Okay, I did,” she said. “My cousin Lulu and I stopped in there, and I thought it was cool.” Something in her voice sounded like she regretted what she’d done. “Anyway, I kind of wish you’d bought it before I did,” she said.
“That’s the thing,” Max said. “I did.”
Tamyra looked surprised. “So, you bought it and returned it?”
Max shook his head. Now that he’d begun the conversation, he wasn’t sure how to tell Tamyra what had happened. He knew it would sound crazy. “Did you make a wish?” he asked.
“Did you?” Tamyra countered.
“Yeah,” Max admitted. “I did.”
“What did you wish for?”
Max took a deep breath. “I wished I was an only child. And when I woke up, I was.”
Tamyra gasped.
“I don’t have any brothers or sisters anymore,” Max continued. “It’s like they never existed.”
“That’s impossible,” Tamyra said. “People don’t just disappear. And I’ve never even heard you mention brothers or sisters.”
“You’ve met them,” Max said. “My sisters, Elfie and Elsie, are twins. Your softball team played against theirs last year. Elsie struck you out.”
Tamyra shook her head again. “I don’t remember them at all. Sorry.”
“It’s the Wish Eater,” Max said. “It made it so they never existed. My brothers too. I’m the only one who remembers them.”
“That’s—”
“Impossible,” Max said before she could. “You mentioned that already.”
“Well, it is,” Tamyra said.
Max knew arguing with her wasn’t going to help. “What did you wish for?” he asked instead. “Did it have anything to do with how all those girls are suddenly your best friends?”
Tamyra was silent. She obviously didn’t want to talk about it, but Max needed to know. He stood with his arms crossed, waiting for her to tell him everything.
“This is ridiculous,” Tamyra said. “That thing isn’t magic. You’re just sorry you returned it. Now you want me to give it to you, so you made up that crazy story about your sisters and brothers disappearing to make me feel sorry for you.”
She turned and walked away. Max wondered if he should chase after her. He decided not to. Tamyra wasn’t ready to talk yet. He hoped she would be soon, though. He didn’t know how he was going to get the Wish Eater to reverse his wish, but he couldn’t even try if he didn’t have it to work with.
For now, all he could do was go home and wait.
When Max got home, the house was empty.
He went upstairs, trying not to think about Elfie, Elsie, Charlie, and Arthur. But they were all he could think about. As he sat at his desk, trying to focus on the book report he was supposed to be writing for Mrs. Heneka’s class, he pictured his brothers and sisters in his mind. He tried to remember exactly what they looked like and how their voices sounded.
He thought Charlie had a scar on his chin, from the time they were playing tag at the beach and he’d slipped in the sand and cut himself on a shell. But maybe the scar was on his forehead and had been caused by running into an open cupboard door. Now Max wasn’t positive.
It was like even his memories of them were disappearing. Max took out his phone and opened the photo app. He knew he’d taken a couple shots of his brothers and sisters at Aunt Maxine’s birthday party. But when he scrolled through the images on his phone, none of those pictures were there. Only ones with his parents remained.
He set the phone down and pulled open his desk drawer, looking for the school yearbook. When he found it, he flipped it open and turned to the section with photos of the sports teams. The one of the softball team showed a lot of faces he recognized, but Elfie and Elsie weren’t among them. In the group photos, he looked up his fifth-grade class. There he was, standing in between Dax Luftig and Karice Simpson. But the photo of the second-grade class was missing Charlie.
He shoved the yearbook back into the drawer, slamming it closed. Getting up, he ran to Elfie and Elsie’s bedroom and went inside. Everything that made the room theirs was gone: the sports equipment that was always piled in the corner, the clothes that littered the floor, the posters of Serena Williams and Lindsey Vonn. The boring office furniture that had replaced it looked lifeless and cold.
On the desk was a framed photo of Max with his parents. He was in the middle, and they were all smiling. Max turned it facedown on the desk and left the room. Being alone in the house was reminding him how much he missed the noise and chaos his siblings caused, even though it sometimes made him crazy. Right now, he would even be happy to be giving Arthur a bath.
He stood in the hallway and closed his eyes, trying again to picture the faces of his brothers and sisters. This time, he could see only ghostly images of them. Even those started to fade after a few seconds.
Max ran into his room and found a pad of paper. He wrote Elfie at the top, then stopped. He knew he had another sister. What was her name?
“Elsie,” he said finally, scribbling it down before he could forget again. Then he added Charlie and Archie beneath that. He looked at the list. Were all the names right? He didn’t think they were.
He went over to his bookshelf and pulled out his well-loved copy of Green Eggs and Ham. Turning to the inside, he looked for the names he knew should be written there. The book had been given to Elfie and Elsie by Aunt Maxine. Then it had been handed down to Max, then Charlie. Only recently, Charlie had decided that it was time for their baby brother to have it, even though he couldn’t read it himself yet. Charlie had written the new name in just like Max had written Charlie’s name in it when he’d given it to him.
Max expected the page to be blank, or to show only his name, and was almost afraid to look at it. But there on the paper was the list of names. It was as if the Wish Eater’s magic had overlooked this one little bit of proof that he hadn’t made up his brothers and sisters. And even as Max read the list of names, they began to fade.
“Arthur,” he said as the letters, written in Charlie’s crooked printing, melted into nothing. “Not Archie. Arthur.”