Free The Wish by Gail Carson Levine Page A

said I was nervous about the first day of school, and isn’t this cafeteria food crummy, and who are your teachers? And then, that first day, I’ll never forget it, I was trying to figure out the combination on my locker, and I heard BeeBee whisper to Stephanie to look at me, I was beautiful. I couldn’t believe it. I was extra friendly to BeeBee after that. I would have given her a million dollars if I had it.” She giggled. “If she needed it.”
    â€œIt’s that simple?” I said. I could do it, be extra friendly at Elliot next year, except that most of the kids came from Claverford, so they’d already know me.
    Ardis nodded and laughed. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “Although that was the hardest day of my life. And now sometimes I’m nice to people I don’t like or when I really feel like screaming. But it’s better than being The Mountain. And . . .” She shrugged again. “Anyway, my parents raised me to be polite.”
    Reggie began to drag on the leash. We were almost home, and he didn’t want the walk to end. “Come on, boy. Why do you think Nina and BeeBee are popular, then?”
    â€œWhy are you worried, Wilma? There isn’t a single person at Claverford who doesn’t think you’re . . . I can’t think of a word that’s good enough. Extremely . . . uh . . . ultra ultra . . . Super likable.”
    â€œWhat do they like so much about me?”
    â€œI don’t know. For me it’s nothing specific. It’s just that it’s more fun to be with you, doing anything, than to be with anyone else. Like at BeeBee’s sleepover. Like now.”
    So it didn’t matter what I said or did. If the old lady was going to end the spell, couldn’t she have helped me some more? Couldn’t she have made them all fall in love with my real good points?
    â€œForget about me. What do you think makes Nina and BeeBee popular?”
    â€œYou’re completely nuts. Reggie, you should straighten out your friend here. Okay. BeeBee doesn’t care about being popular. She ignores it, and that works. And Nina’s popular because kids are afraid not to like her—they’re scared she’ll turn her point system against them, even though she wouldn’t.”
    We turned into my building. I rang for the elevator.
    â€œDo you think I’ll get over being scared of Reggie eventually?”
    â€œSure. Once you got used to him. He’d train you.”
    â€œI’ll visit you regularly for the next decade.”
    I wish.

Chapter Fifteen
    A rdis looked around . “I like your apartment.”
    I was surprised. It wasn’t fabulous like BeeBee’s. Inside the door, next to where we were standing, was a table where we dumped whatever we had when we came in. Right now it was covered with my backpack, a week’s worth of junk mail, and today’s New York Times . From here you could see into the kitchen and the living room. In the living room, the coffee table was piled high with more newspapers and a few books. A quilt was draped across the couch and trailed onto the floor.
    It wasn’t dirty, just messy. The rug was vacuumed, for example, and Mom didn’t let us leave dirty dishes in the sink.
    â€œIn our house,” Ardis said, “we have to take our shoes off before we come in, and I feel guilty about my smelly feet touching the floor.”
    We went into the living room. Maud was in our bedroom studying. Mom was at the soup kitchen where she volunteers.
    â€œShow me the caricature.”
    â€œClose your eyes.”
    The caricatures were in the coat closet. I pulled out the poster-size one of me. I really wanted Ardis to like it, to see it the way Jared and I did.
    I held it up against my chest. “Ready.”
    Ardis opened her eyes. Silence.
    â€œIt’s interesting?” I giggled nervously.
    â€œIt’s funny,” Ardis finally