Ann Martin - Jessi's Wish

"It flew right past me," Karen started to say indignantly. Then she stopped talking and stared at the clay that had come to rest on the floor. "A snake! Oh, that's a good idea!" she cried. "Jungles need snakes." Karen forgot about Jackie and returned to her sculpture.

Claud glanced at Mr. Renfrew, who was busy across the room, and then at Jackie, who was holding out his hands helplessly.

"This stuff's slimy," he complained. "Hey, just like snakes!"

"Snakes are not slimy," Karen informed him. "They have scales."

"So do fish, and fish are slimy," replied Jackie.

"Okay, you two," said Claud. "Karen, work on your jungle, please. Jackie, help me clean up your clay, please."

"Why does clay have to be so goopy?" asked Jackie. He was on his hands and knees, retrieving the clay. He looked like someone trying to pick up a wet bar of soap. (Claud hid a smile.)

"The clay is wet," she said to Jackie, "so you can mold it more easily."

"Oh." Jackie settled down.

"Now guess what I'm making!" cried Margo.

Claudia winced. Then she took another look at Margo's clay — which had changed from a blob to ...

"A person!" said Claudia. "It's a statue of a person."

"Yup." Margo nodded. "A whole person. Head, body, arms, legs."

The boy next to Margo glanced at her work. "It looks like a hamburger," he said.

"Reid!" cried Karen. "That is not nice. You made Margo feel bad. Now she's going to cry, aren't you, Margo?"

"Yes," Margo answered, even though she had looked fine. Her lower lip began to tremble, followed by her chin.

"But it does look like a hamburger," said Reid.

"It's a Hamburger Man!" added Jackie.

Margo bit her lip. Then she started to smile. "Yeah! It's a Hamburger Man!" she exclaimed. "I'll give him lettuce and tomato for a hat, and . . ."

"How's your jungle?" Claud asked Karen.

"Well, elephants are hard to make. Did I do his ears right?"

The ears, in fact, looked awful, but Claudia answered the question by saying, "I could tell right away that it was an elephant."

"You could? Goody. And this is going to be a purple tree — "

"A purple tree?" interrupted Reid.

"Yes, a purple tree," Karen answered defensively. "And now, right here, sliming along on the floor of the jungle is," (Karen paused dramatically) "a blue snake."

"I thought you said snakes aren't slimy," said Jackie. He had finished cleaning up his mess and was energetically rolling his clay into a lengthy snake.

"I did," Karen replied. "And I did not say my snake was slimy. I said he was sliming along. I can say that if I want."

"Why's your snake going to be blue?" Reid asked Karen. "Snakes are green."

"Not all of them. Besides, if I made my snake green and my tree green, then almost my whole jungle would be — " Karen stopped speaking suddenly. She stared, entranced, at her creation.

Margo glanced up. "Karen?" she said questioningly.

Karen didn't answer. But her eyes slowly grew wide and round. She looked like an owl. Or like a cat about to pounce.

"What's going on?" Claudia asked warily.

Karen spoke in a whisper. "Look at the elephant. His trunk is moving."

Six kids jumped up and crowded around Karen.

"Ahem," said Mr. Renfrew.

The kids took their seats again.

But Karen continued to stare at her nearly completed sculpture. And the children continued to stare at Karen.

"Don't you see it?" said Karen hoarsely, not taking her eyes off the elephant.

Claudia said it was at this point that Karen began to give her the chills.

Jackie Rodowsky remained seated, but leaned over to peer at the elephant. Suddenly he cried, "Oh! The elephant's trunk is moving! I think."

"The whole jungle is alive!" Karen exclaimed softly. "The branches of the tree are swaying, the snake is sliming, and now . . . yes, now the elephant is walking. He's walking toward the snake."

"Aughhh! He's going to step on the snake!" cried Reid. "Then you'll really have slime. Stop the elephant, Karen!"

Well, of course, nothing was moving on Karen's sculpture. The kids were suffering from a mass case of overactive imaginations. Still, Claudia knew she had to get everyone under control. She didn't want Mr. Renfrew to think she wasn't doing her job. "Karen?" she said.

"What?" (Karen's eyes were glued to her jungle.)

"Ifs a shame about your sculpture. I'm really sorry."

Karen finally moved. She raised her eyes to meet Claud's. "What do you mean?"

"We've got to glaze the sculptures and get ready to fire them in the kiln. But we can't do either thing to your jungle." Claudia looked terribly sad and apologetic.

"Why can't we?" Karen wanted to know.

"Are you kidding? Put a live tree and a live elephant and a live snake in an oven and fire them?"

"Oh. I guess we can't do that." Karen regarded the sculpture again. Then she leaned over and stared at it intently. Finally she said, "You know, I think everything has stopped moving. . . .Yup. I just see a clay elephant and a clay tree and a clay snake. How could clay move?"

"But Karen," began Margo, "I thought you — "

"Okay, my jungle is all finished," Karen interrupted. "Time to glaze it and burn it. I mean, cook it. I mean, um — "

"Fire it," supplied Claudia.

"Yeah, fire it."

Claud breathed a sigh of relief. Around her, the kids were returning to rolling and molding and flattening and poking their lumps of clay.

The Hamburger Man now wore a lettuce-and-tomato hat. Margo was busily making bacon strips (which looked a lot like flattened snakes).

What would happen during the glazing and firing of the sculptures, Claud could only imagine. But she figured she could handle anything.

Chapter 10.

"She isn't really weird," Becca said.

"I never said she was, did I?" I replied.

"No. But some of the other kids think so."

Becca was talking about Danielle. She was sitting cross-legged at the end of my bed, dangerously close to the edge. She looked so serious that I didn't even bother to tell her to watch out. I didn't want to interrupt her thoughts.

"How do you know?" I asked.

Becca gazed past me, out the window into the nighttime. "They talk about her," she said after awhile. "They talk behind her back. Sometimes they forget and talk to me. Or to Charlotte."

Which was pretty thoughtless, considering that Becca and Charlotte had become friends with Danielle. The three of them didn't see much of each other during school, since Danielle is in fourth grade, and Charlotte and my

sister are in third, but they had become nearly inseparable during meetings of the Kids Club. They had cooked up several good ideas together. And the three of them were champion gigglers.

"I don't understand it," Becca said to me that night. "It's like, after you get to know Danielle, you don't even think about her bald head or her medicine. You forget she has cancer. You don't think about diabetes every time you see Stacey, do you?" (I shook my head. No.) "But the other kids won't even try to get to know Danielle — and most of them knew her last year! They act like she's from another planet. Well, not all of them. But a lot of them." Becca paused thoughtfully. Then she went on, "At least they don't say mean things to her. That would be awful."

"Why do you think the kids protect her that way?" I asked. "I mean, why do they go to the trouble of talking behind her back?"

"I don't know. I guess they don't want to hurt her feelings."

"That's a start, isn't it?" I said.

"I guess so." Becca smiled at me.

The next day, Becca asked Mama if Danielle could come over to play on Saturday. "Charlotte, too," added Becca.

"I don't see why not," said Mama, "if it's okay with Danielle's parents."

It was.

So at eleven o'clock on Saturday morning, Mrs. Roberts dropped off Danielle at our house. She and Mama talked for a few minutes. Then Mrs. Roberts kissed Danielle, said, "Remember your medicine," and, "I'll be back around four," and drove off.