He had to wait until lunch period to see Tamyra again, and he spent the whole time thinking about how he was going to word his own wish later that night. He was still thinking about it on the way to the lunchroom when his train of thought was interrupted by a loud “Psst.”
He stopped and looked around.
“Over here,” a voice whispered.
He turned and saw Tamyra waving to him from the same closet they’d hidden in earlier. He went inside.
“Are they still looking for me?” Tamyra asked.
“Who?” said Max.
“The angry mob,” said Tamyra.
“What angry mob? I thought you were everybody’s favorite president-vice-president-treasurer-secretary.”
“I was,” said Tamyra. “Until this thing decided to grant my wish.” She held up the Wish Eater and opened its mouth. Her wish was gone. “Now I’m not the most popular girl in school anymore. I’m the most unpopular.”
Max thought about what Tamyra had written as her wish. “ ‘I wish I wasn’t the most popular girl in school anymore,’ ” he said.
“Exactly,” said Tamyra. “I thought that would do it. And it did. Only it did it too well. Now everybody is saying I cheated to win the election. But I didn’t even run!”
A moment later, the sound of people coming down the hall filled the closet.
“I can’t believe we thought she was nice!” a girl’s voice said indignantly.
“I always knew she was a phony,” said another. “I hear they caught her cheating on her math test too.”
Tamyra shut her eyes and groaned. “See?” she muttered.
“We can fix this,” Max said. “You just have to wish again. Only this time we’ll write it really carefully.”
Tamyra shook her head. “I’ll just make it worse,” she said.
“Down with Hinkle!” a voice shouted. It was joined by many others. “Down with Hinkle! Down with Hinkle!”
“I’m not sure it could get worse,” Max said. “Sorry,” he added when Tamyra covered her eyes with her hand.
“Okay,” Tamyra said. “One more wish. But you take this thing home with you. I don’t want it anywhere near me.”
She thrust the Wish Eater at Max, who took it. Despite everything, he felt a little thrill holding it in his hands again.
“What do you want to wish this time?” he asked.
Tamyra took out some paper and a pen. She wrote something down, then folded the paper up and handed it to Max. “Here,” she said. “Put it in that thing tonight.”
“You’re not going to tell me what it says?” Max asked.
Tamyra shook her head. “Nope. Just do it. I’ll text you if it works. Assuming it eats it, that is.”
Max shoved the wish into his pocket. “Now what?” he said. “You can’t let those girls find you.”
Tamyra clutched her stomach and groaned. “I think I’ve come down with the flu,” she said, obviously faking it. “I’m going to see if I can go home.”
Max grinned. “Is that any way for the student body president-vice-president-treasurer-secretary to act?”
“Hopefully, tomorrow that won’t be a problem,” Tamyra said. “You just make sure you put that wish in, okay?”
“Like I could forget,” said Max as Tamyra opened the door.
As Tamyra snuck off down the hall in the direction of the nurse’s office, Max went back to his homeroom and stowed the Wish Eater in his backpack. He thought about it for the rest of the day, and when he got home that afternoon he took it out and set it on his bedside table.
He retrieved Tamyra’s note from his pocket. He was tempted to open it and read it, but he thought that might be cheating, so he opened the Wish Eater’s mouth and put the wish on its extended tongue. Then he sat staring at it for a while longer. He really wanted to make a wish of his own. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered why he couldn’t.
“Nobody said you only had to make one wish at a time,” he said to himself.
He fetched a piece of paper and a pen, then wrote out his new wish. He read it over, decided it was exactly right, and folded it up. Then he opened the Wish Eater’s mouth again. The red tongue stuck out. Tamyra’s wish was still sitting on it. Max placed his on top of hers, then closed the mouth.
“Let’s hope we both get what we wished for,” he said as he placed the Wish Eater back on his bedside table.
The first thing Max did the next morning was check the Wish Eater’s mouth. When he saw that it was empty, his heart leaped with joy.
He looked over at Charlie’s bed. It was still made up, and it didn’t look slept in. But maybe, he thought, the Wish Eater had answered his wish only moments ago, and Charlie hadn’t slept there. Maybe his brothers and sisters were somewhere else in the house. His heart pounding, he jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway. He dashed to the door of the twins’ room and looked inside. It was still an office. Then he checked Arthur’s room, but it was also unchanged.
He tried not to worry as he went downstairs, telling himself that maybe everyone was gathered in the kitchen. But the house was too quiet, and when he got to the kitchen, all he saw was his parents sitting at the table, quietly looking at the newspaper and eating bowls of oatmeal.
“Good morning,” his mother said. “Do you want scrambled eggs or cereal today?”
“Um, is anyone else here?” Max asked, still hopeful.
“Just us,” said his father. “Why? You expecting company?”
“I, uh, thought I heard someone,” Max said. “Never mind. I’ll go get dressed.”
“Eggs or cereal?” his mother called after him.
“Cereal,” Max grumbled as he went upstairs.
Back in his room, he pulled on his clothes, wondering what had gone wrong this time. The Wish Eater sat on his bedside table, grinning in a way that made him feel like it was laughing at him.
“I know you answered my wish,” Max said to it. “But how? What did you do now?”
The Wish Eater remained annoyingly silent. Max finished getting dressed, then picked the toy up and stuffed it into his backpack. He carried the backpack downstairs with him and set it by the door before rejoining his parents. As he was eating his Oatey Bits, his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen and saw a text from Tamyra: We have a problem.
He texted her back: ???
She replied instantly: Meet me on the corner in 5.
Max set his phone down and spooned cereal into his mouth as quickly as he could.
“What’s the hurry?” his father asked.
“I’ve got to get to school a little early,” Max said, which was kind of true and therefore not a lie.
“Big test?” asked his mother.
“Something like that,” said Max, picking up his bowl and tipping the last of the milk into his mouth. He took the bowl to the sink. “Bye,” he said to his parents.
“Have a good day!” they called out as he went to the front door, picked up his backpack, and left the house.
Tamyra lived three streets over. As Max walked down the sidewalk toward her street, he could see her standing on the corner. But there were three other kids standing with her whom he didn’t recognize. As he got closer, he saw that one of them was a boy and the other two were girls.