“Changed your mind about being friends, I guess.” He started to walk away.
I wasn’t feeling coordinated enough to chase him, so I let out a pitiful, “Tra-vis!”
“Yeah?”
“Look at me.”
He looked.
“Do I seem healthy to you? Well rested?”
He stepped up to me and got a little closer than I might normally have allowed.
“I guess you don’t.” He set a hand on my shoulder. “You all right, Genuine?”
“No! I been up for two nights in a row baking wish biscuits. And I’ll be baking till dawn again tonight, because I can’t even start collecting starlight till the sun goes down. I am tireder than a three-legged dog in a roomful of rocking chairs.” Wait. Did that make sense? “No bowling. Saturday and Sunday, I have one thing on my calendar, Travis. Sleep!”
“Genuine!” Jura appeared. “It’s almost one o’clock!”
Dangit! If we didn’t get the new batch of biscuits to the post office before lunchtime was over, we’d miss the daily pickup.
“I don’t suppose it could wait till tomorrow,” I said. But of course it couldn’t. People could starve.
I could see Jura considering the dark smears under my eyes. “Never mind. I’ll take care of all the shipping. That’ll be my job from now on. You just bake the biscuits and whisper the wishes into them.” She paused. “And, uh, speaking of biscuits . . .”
She held up a few printed pages.
“No!” I protested.
She sighed. “There can’t be many more anti-hunger groups in the world. I bet if we make it through the weekend, things will slow down.”
“I’m so tired, Jura.”
“You’re fetching wishes to feed hungry people?” Travis asked.
“Yes.” My chin dropped to my chest.
We three stood there, quiet for a time. Then the lunchroom door swung open and Tray Daynor saw me standing there.
“Here she is!” he shouted.
A dozen students poured through the cafeteria doors, every one of them calling my name.
“All right.” Travis gave a purposeful nod. “Jura, you and me, let’s get those biscuits to the post office. Genuine, you tell Strickland you’re going home sick, get a little rest if you can. I’ll see you at eight.”
“Eight,” I agreed.
He could have said, “Go get a little rest and the chicken dance is at eight.” It would have held as much meaning for me right then. I didn’t even remember to tell the teacher I was leaving. I just ducked into a classroom, climbed out the window, and, like a tired balloon, drifted sideways home.
12
A Glint of Silver
NIGHT FELL, AND I HADN’T GOTTEN NEARLY enough rest.
Bucket of starlight in my arms, I plodded my way through pure mud. Twice I stumbled over tree roots. My hair tangled in some low-hanging branches. When I finally got back to the house, I found Pa passed out drunk on the sofa.
No!
Even if I could get all the biscuits done before three or so, I’d still have to chase him into his own bed. I was too tired to rouse him. Too tired for his flailing arms and mean-spirited, muttered complaints.
I flumped to the floor and began to cry.
“Genuine?” a voice came from the open doorway.
I turned around. “Hey, Travis.” With a big sniffle, I added, “I ain’t cryin’.”
“I can see that.” He helped me up.
“Gram’s the one who can always get him to move, but she’s asleep already,” I told him.
Travis glanced at Dangerous Dale. “You want him in there?” he asked, hitching a thumb toward Pa’s room.
I nodded.
“Tell you what,” he said. “You get started on those biscuits. But tell me what you’re doing as you go, all right? I’ll move your pa.”
I was too bone-weary to fathom it at the time, but Travis took all of Pa’s grumblings and thrashings upon himself and got my father into his own bed in record time.
I was still mixing dough when Travis came into the kitchen.
“What are you doing now?”
“Stirrin’,” I said.
Fortunately, he was a better observer than I was an explainer.
“So, about one cup of wish juice to every two cups of flour?” he asked.
“Guess so.” By now, I was mostly doing it by instinct.
“And how long you bake ’em for?”
“Until they look right,” I replied.
He waited for me to pull the first batch from the oven and gave them a real careful looking over.
“And that’s all?”
“That’s all till I whisper to ’em,” I said.
“But you don’t have to do that right away? That can wait until morning?”
I yawned. “Yup.”
“Good.” He set his hands on my shoulders and walked me to the sofa. “Lie down. Sleep.”
“I can’t,” I whined. “Starving people. Biscuits.”
“I’ll make the biscuits. You sleep.”
“You can’t—”
“I can, too. My ma’s a chef. Don’t worry.” He gently set his foot behind my heels and gave me a karate sweep right back onto the sofa.
“Hey!”
“Good night, Genuine.”
The fight went out of me as soon as I hit the pillow.
“Night, Trav’s.”
Just after dawn, I woke to find these things: Pa quietly shut up in his room. Gram humming over a skillet of scrambled eggs. Seventy-two wish biscuits wrapped in a towel and set in a laundry basket. And the stack of yesterday’s wish requests, each one with the particular wish highlighted in yellow.
There was also a note:
Your oven’s real small. Come to my house and we’ll use my ma’s big one. Bet we can make it so you’re asleep by ten. —T
The following day, Jura and I used our every free moment to try to sort through our wish lists. I say “try” because, each time we started to get down to it, some other-grader would come in to tell us something else they needed.
Ham was waiting for us outside of school after the last bell.