Free Wishes by Molly Cochran

mustache on it,” Verity added with some satisfaction. “Cheswick told me.”
    “Okay, okay,” I said.
    “How’d that happen, anyway?” Becca asked. “The Prom Princess thing.”
    “Magic,” I muttered.
    “I knew it,” Verity said.
    “I found the fairy on Walpurgisnacht .”
    “You’re kidding!” Bryce exclaimed.
    “Well, not the fairy. Not just then. But the treasure. It was a wish. I could make any wish I wanted.”
    “Geez,” Cheswick said, impressed.
    Peter frowned. “Any wish?” he asked. “You could ask for anything you wanted, and you’d get it?”
    I nodded.
    “And you asked to be Prom Princess?”
    “I told you it was stupid. All the wishes were stupid.”
    “All?” Bryce asked. “You got more than one wish?”
    I sighed. “I also wished for a new stove.”
    “Are you insane?” Becca shouted.
    “And . . .” I was in full confession mode now, so I had to say it. “I wished for Peter to love me too.”
    I saw Peter’s cheeks redden. “So that’s why I was acting like an idiot.”
    “Cheswick doesn’t need magic to love me ,” Verity said loftily.
    “Neither do I,” Peter said. “Maybe someday you’ll realize that, Katy. Or will I never be enough for you?”
    I looked into his scowling face. “That’s not it,” I explained. “Of course—”
    “Why can’t you just accept me for what I am?” he said hotly. Becca put her hand on his arm, but he brushed her away. “I’ll never be some romantic poet who spends all day thinking of ways to make you happy. That’s not who I am. But I’ve always been there for you when it mattered.” His voice broke. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
    “Peter—”
    “Forget it,” he said. “We’ve got to get to class.”
    He was the first to leave. The others followed. Becca squeezed my hand before she left.
    I felt myself shaking. I knew why Peter had been so hurt when I’d told him about my wish to make him show me that he loved me. By always wanting more, I was saying that what I already had wasn’t enough. That Peter wasn’t a good enough boyfriend. That my friends weren’t good enough for me to be proud of them.
    That was what Gram had been trying to tell me when she got rid of the new stove and put the Creature back in its sooty corner: that something doesn’t have to be perfect for you to love it. Maybe the people who cared about you didn’t have to be perfect either, I thought. Maybe they didn’t have to love you in exactly the “right” way. Maybe it was okay to show love in whatever way you could.
    And wasn’t that what I’d been looking for, anyway, what all my misbegotten wishes had been about? Being loved, having love? Something I’d had all along?
    No wonder my wishes hadn’t worked. I didn’t need them. I already had everything I wanted.
    I closed my eyes and felt the spring breeze, green and pure on my face, and I finally knew what I really wanted. My last wish.
    “Artemesia,” I whispered.

12.
    “What now?” she demanded, prickling with hostility.
    “I don’t need any more wishes,” I said.
    “Hah! I wondered how long it would take you to realize that.”
    “Does everyone who finds the treasure want to give it back?”
    She shrugged. “Everyone with any brains. Too bad you can’t do it.”
    “I can’t? Why not?”
    “Rules.”
    “What rules?”
    “ Fairy rules, pinhead. Now just take your stupid wishes and quit bothering me.”
    “No! I mean, there must be some way.”
    “There isn’t, get it? No way. No—” Suddenly she doubled over in pain.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked.
    “Nothing. Just . . . go away.”
    She was winking in and out, evidently trying to disappear, but I think the pain she was feeling was too strong to allow any magic to work. I wished I were an empath like Mrs. Bean and Gram—they’d know what was wrong just by touching her—but still, I thought maybe there might be something I could do. So I knelt down beside her and, hesitantly, put my