Max didn’t say anything. He hoped nobody would ever see him doing this. If he finally wished correctly, and the Wish Eater granted it, it would be Tamyra on the squad and he would have his brothers and sisters back. But given how things had worked out so far, those were two big ifs. The Wish Eater seemed to play by its own rules, and the rules kept changing. He and Tamyra had arranged to meet at her house after school and sort their wishes out once and for all.
First, though, he had to make it through cheer squad practice. Coach Digmore came back, carrying a big cardboard box, which she set on the gym floor. All the girls who were new to the squad rushed over, reaching in and grabbing pairs of pom-poms.
“Come on, Max,” the coach called. “Get your poms.”
Max walked reluctantly over to the box and pulled out two of the fluffy bundles of plastic strips.
“Now shake ’em!” Coach Digmore ordered.
Max lifted the pom-poms up and rustled them. Strings of plastic got in his mouth.
“They’re not a snack, Max,” Ji-woo joked as the others laughed.
“Okay, squad,” Coach Digmore said. “Back in line. Our first game is Friday night, and we’ve got to be ready.”
For the next hour, Max and the rest of the squad ran through their moves. By the end of practice, Max was exhausted. When the coach blew her whistle, he gratefully stuffed his pom-poms into his backpack and headed for the doors.
“Good work today, Max,” the coach called after him. “We’ll have you doing cupies in no time.”
“Can’t wait!” Max called back.
Fifteen minutes later, he was in Tamyra’s bedroom.
“What’s a cupie?” he asked, as he opened his backpack and took out the Wish Eater. The pom-poms came with it, landing on the floor.
Tamyra picked the pom-poms up and waved them sadly. “It’s a cheer stunt where you toss a flyer into the air.”
“I am not getting tossed,” Max said firmly.
“Don’t worry,” said Tamyra. “The flyer is always the smallest person. You’ll be a base.”
Max raised an eyebrow.
“One of the people who tosses the flyer,” Tamyra explained. She set the pom-poms on the bed and sighed. “I’d love to be a flyer.”
Max held up the Wish Eater. “If we wish right, you might be,” he reminded her.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Tamyra said. “First, I think we need to do one wish at a time. Making two wishes backfired big-time.”
Max nodded in agreement. “So, which thing do we undo first?” he asked. “The extra and missing brothers and sisters, or this cheer squad business?”
Before Tamyra could answer, Charlie appeared in the doorway. He was carrying Arthur. “What are you guys doing?” he asked.
“Just something for school,” Tamyra said.
“Can we play too?” Charlie asked.
“We’re not playing,” said Tamyra. “Why don’t you go watch a video?”
“Catterbox!” Arthur exclaimed. He pointed his little hand at the Wish Eater and waved it excitedly.
“What?” Tamyra said.
“Catterbox!” Arthur said again.
“I think he means Chatterbox,” said Max. “He’s a dragon in a TV show. The Enchanted Castle. Arthur—my Arthur—loves it. Chatterbox has teeth that look like the Wish Eater’s. They chatter when he’s nervous, which he always is.”
Arthur wriggled in Charlie’s arms. Charlie set him down, and the little boy ran into the room, holding out his hands. “Catterbox!”
“This isn’t a toy,” Tamyra said, holding the Wish Eater out of his reach.
Arthur screwed up his face. A moment later, he began to wail. Tamyra looked at Max. “I’ve never had a little brother,” she said. “What do we do?”
Max looked around the room. Spying the pom-poms on Tamyra’s bed, he picked them up. He held them to his chest, then thrust them out and wiggled them around. “Huffle-puffle,” he chanted. “Huffle-puffle. Badgers stomp and badgers snuffle.”
It was one of the cheer squad’s chants. Coach Digmore had handed out a sheet of them at practice, and Max had glanced over the words. Now he tried to recall them as he moved his hands into a high touchdown formation and grunted like he imagined a badger might.
Arthur stopped crying and sat down on the floor. He clapped his hands happily and laughed. Max lowered the pom-poms, and the little boy frowned.
“Do it again!” Tamyra said.
Max repeated the chant, stomping and snuffling as he waved the pom-poms in the air. Arthur laughed so hard that he fell over. Even Charlie and Tamyra were giggling wildly by the time Max was done.
“That’s so great,” Tamyra said. “I can’t wait to see you do that in front of the whole school.”
“Well, you won’t get the chance,” Max said. “Unless you want to make a wish about You Know What,” he added, looking meaningfully at Charlie and Arthur.
“We can do your wish first,” Tamyra said. She went to her desk and took out some paper and crayons. Sitting on the floor, she gave a sheet of paper and some of the crayons to Arthur. He took a purple crayon and started scribbling on the paper. Charlie, having lost interest in what Max and Tamyra were doing, wandered off.
Max watched Arthur draw.
“This must be really weird for you,” Tamyra said.
Max nodded. “For you too,” he said.
Tamyra shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I’m kind of getting used to them.”
“Even Elfie and Elsie?” Max asked.
Tamyra laughed. “Even them,” she said.
Max took one of the sheets of paper. “What should I wish?” he asked.
“What if you say something like ‘I wish my life was the way it was before I bought the Wish Eater and made my first wish’?” Tamyra suggested.
“That seems too easy,” said Max.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No,” Max admitted. He wrote the wish down on the paper, then tore off the piece with the words on it and folded it up. He took the Wish Eater and placed the paper in its mouth, then set it on the floor. “Do you mind keeping this here tonight?” he asked Tamyra. “I don’t want to be tempted to change my wish, or keep checking on it. Besides, if everything works out, you’ll need it next anyway.”
“Sure,” Tamyra said. “And I have a feeling that this time it will work out.”
“I hope so,” Max said. “The first assembly is Friday, and I do not want the entire school to see my herkie.”
The first thing Max noticed when he woke up was that it was pitch-dark. He thought it must still be nighttime. But he wasn’t tired, and something about the darkness seemed artificial, as if the windows in his room had been covered up. Then he reached out his hand to turn on the bedside light and touched something soft. He felt around some more and realized that his bed was surrounded by velvet curtains.
He pushed the curtain closest to him aside and discovered that it was indeed morning. And although he was in a bedroom, it wasn’t his bedroom. For one thing, this bedroom was round. Also, it was made of stone. The floor. The walls. The ceiling. All of it was made out of stone blocks. The windows were just holes in the stone walls, with no glass covering them, and a warm breeze wafted in.