Free Dodger and Me by Jordan Sonnenblick

explode!”
    â€œYou wanted to make wishes, dude. Maybe you should start wishing for a raincoat.”
    â€œA raincoat?” I asked shakily. The bag was getting so heavy that I could barely speak.
    â€œYeah,” he said, “for when it—”
    He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because just then, the bag popped. I shook my head to get the gooky mixture of milk and chocolate doughnut bits out of my eyes, and looked
around in horror. Every surface of the entire room was coated in milk, chocolate, and shreds of paper.
    â€œMy room!” I shouted.
    â€œDude, my doughnut bag!” Dodger replied.
    We glared at each other. Then I thought of something: My mom would be home by five. I looked at my wall clock, but couldn’t see the hands through the mess. I wiped the face with my sleeve and saw that it was 4:30. I only had half an hour!
    â€œBet you wish you could get this cleaned up in thirty minutes, huh?” Dodger said.
    Oh, jeepers! “ Yes, I wish I could get this cleaned up in thirty minutes!”
    Dodger winked at me and loped out of the room, heading down the hall toward our bathroom. He was gone for maybe a minute, while I debated running away from home before my mom saw the mess I had made because of Dodger. Then he came back balancing a bucket, a mop, and my mom’s big box of cleaning supplies. He handed me the mop and said, “Your wish just came true, buddy. You can get this cleaned up in thirty minutes.”
    â€œBut that’s not what I meant! I meant, like, you should make the mess go POOF !”

    Dodger settled himself back on my bed, which had miraculously been missed by all of the flying goop. As he began picking his toes, he sighed contentedly Then he said, “Dude, I’m tired. Wishes are never as fun as you think they’re gonna be!”
    I pulled on my mom’s hot-pink rubber gloves, and Dodger started humming to himself. The tune sounded a lot like “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Of Fish and Fire
    WHEN MY MOM GOT HOME that night, I had cleaned up every square inch of my room. The walls were shiny, the floor was sparkling, and every flat surface was dust-free. The place had a strange odor of chocolate, milk, and lemony freshness, but thankfully, Mom just focused on the cleanliness. She took one look around, sniffed the air, and said, “Good job cleaning your room, William. Is your homework all done? If it is, I might even consider ungrounding you for your baseball game this weekend. Do you think you can avoid destroying anything until then?”
    I nodded. Meanwhile, behind her, Dodger was
picking little specks of chocolate out of his chest fur and eating them. He looked up at me and winked, then snapped his fingers and disappeared. I had a feeling that avoiding destruction would be harder than she thought.
    In the morning, Mom told me that she had a meeting after school, so I should stay at the school after-care room until she picked me up at 5:30. But at lunch, Lizzie told me that I had to sneak out before after-care and go home right at three. She wouldn’t tell me why. I explained the grounding situation yet AGAIN, and even told her that if I got busted for anything before Saturday, my mom wouldn’t let me play my last ball game. I had to play that game. The whole team would think I was a total chicken-weasel if I missed it.
    Plus, I never sneak out of anything. I’m not a “breaks the rules” kind of kid—I’m a “terrified of breaking Mom’s rules” kind of kid. I guess I just take after my dad.
    But Lizzie didn’t back down. She insisted that she had a plan for getting me more freedom for years to come. I said that she should just go ahead and work on her plan alone if it was so important.
Then she replied with the scariest eleven words in the English language: “I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Dodger—in your house!”
    So