1
Sally Wilcox saw the Wishing Stone first. For that reason she felt it belonged mainly to her. That was probably the same reason she suffered more than the others from the stone. The more that was asked of it, the more it demanded in return. Of course no one knew that at first. But even if Sally had known, she probably would have made the same wishes anyway. She was a strong-willed girl, and rather impulsive.
She and her three friends—Cindy Makey, Adam Freeman, and Watch—were not far outside of Spooksville, their hometown, when they first spotted the stone. Since dealing with Pan’s leprechauns and fairies in the thick forest high in the hills overlooking the town, they had been staying closer to Spooksville, not wandering too deep into dangerous places that were hard to leave. However, no place in or around Spooksville was really safe. The gang was only hiking in the foothills of the foothills when Sally stopped and pointed toward a sparkle in the trees, maybe a quarter of a mile off the path they were taking through a gully.
“What’s that?” she asked, brushing aside her dark bangs.
“I don’t see anything,” Adam, who was shorter than the others, said.
“Neither do I,” Watch said, removing his thick glasses and cleaning them on his shirtsleeve. “Did you see an animal?”
“No,” Sally said thoughtfully. “It was a flash of light.”
“It could have just been a reflection,” Cindy said, standing behind them.
“Obviously,” Sally said, leading the group. “But a reflection of what?” She paused. “I think we should look.”
“I don’t know,” Cindy said, fingering her long blond hair. “If we go off the path, we’ll get all dirty.”
“And we might run into a strange animal and have our internal organs ripped from our bodies,” Watch added.
Sally frowned at Watch. “And you used to be so adventurous,” she said.
“I was younger then,” Watch said.
“You’re only twelve now,” Adam observed. He nodded to Sally. “I’ll go with you to check it out. It shouldn’t take long to hike over there.” Sally had pointed to the far side of the gully they were presently hiking through.
“We should probably all go together,” Cindy said. “It’s not safe to separate out here.”
“It’s not safe to be alive out here,” Sally said.
“But it’s better than being dead,” Watch said.
They hiked in the direction of the supposed flash Sally had seen. When they reached the spot, they searched the area without seeing anything unusual.
“It was probably just a trick of light,” Adam said.
“Perhaps some debris from a crashed flying saucer,” Watch added.
But Sally was unconvinced. “It was a bright flash. There must be something strange out here.”
“But strange is not necessarily good,” Cindy said.
Sally looked at her. “Are you getting scared again?”
“Yes,” Cindy said and added sarcastically, “Just being out in the wilderness with you makes me tremble in my shoes.”
“Let’s continue our hike,” Adam said. “Then we can go get ice cream.”
But Sally was unconvinced. “I want to search the area one more time. I can do it myself. You guys rest here if you’re tired.”
In fact, they were all tired. The summer was almost over but obviously the sun didn’t know. It was another hot, cloudless day. Adam, Cindy, and Watch plopped down on some boulders in the shade while Sally went off on her own. Cindy had brought a bottle of apple raspberry juice and passed it around.
“Another ten days and school starts,” Watch said, taking a deep gulp of the juice and letting out a satisfied sigh. “We won’t have many more days like this.”
“We’ll have the weekends free,” Adam, who was new in town, said. “We’ll have plenty of time to hang out and have fun.”
Watch shook his head as he passed the juice to Adam. “You don’t know the teachers in this town. They give you so much homework, you have to work all weekend.”
“Why do they do that?” Cindy, who was also new, asked. “We don’t all want to grow up to be rocket scientists.”
“They just want to give us a chance to finish our studies,” Watch said.
“But what’s the hurry?” Adam asked.
Watch shrugged. “You’ve been here long enough to know the answer to that. Not that many kids live long enough to graduate. Last year only about a dozen people graduated from junior high, and half of them were missing body parts.”
“What about the other half?” Adam asked reluctantly.
“Most of them were insane,” Watch said.
Cindy grimaced. “That’s horrible!”
“I don’t know,” Watch said. “They had a great all-night graduation party.”
“I hope we get to be in a lot of classes together,” Adam said.
Watch shook his head. “It might be better to separate. Then, if there is an explosion or something, at least one of us will survive.”
“You have explosions at school?” Cindy asked. “I don’t believe it.”
“We had a half-dozen explosions last year. Most of them were in chemistry class. The teacher used to work for the CIA.” Watch added, “But I think they got rid of him.”
Suddenly they heard Sally shouting.
“I’ve found something! I’ve found something!”
2
Sally had indeed found something, an extraordinary something. Sitting atop a granite boulder nestled between two thick trees was a perfectly sculpted black hand. It rose right out of the rock, its palm pointed toward the sky. The fingers were not completely open, but were clenched around a cube-shaped crystal stone. The stone was as large as a normal man’s hand could comfortably hold, at most two inches on a side. Although the nearby trees were close together, sunlight occasionally pierced through the branches to land on the stone. When this happened there was a bright flash. The stone was clear but it also acted like a mirror, which puzzled Adam.
Now they knew what had caught Sally’s eye.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sally asked, excited.
“Yes,” Cindy said. “But what is it?”
Adam nodded seriously. “Good question. And where did it come from I wonder.” He paused. “Have you touched it, Sally?”
“No. I was waiting for you guys.”
“We might want to leave it alone,” Watch suggested. “We don’t know who it belongs to.”
“It belongs to me,” Sally said. “I found it.”
“And does every bike you pass on the street belong to you?” Cindy asked. “Every skateboard? Just because you find something doesn’t mean it’s yours.”
“It does if you find it in the middle of nowhere,” Sally said, reaching out to pick up the crystal. Adam stopped her.
“Watch is right,” he said. “We have to be careful.”
Sally was impatient. “All right, say we take the safe course and talk about this for the next hour. In the end we all know none of us is going to leave this stone here for someone else to find. It’s too pretty. I say we take it now and be done with it.”
“Hold on.” Adam peered at the black hand, trying to figure out what it was made of. It seemed to be some type of shiny metal, yet when he touched it the hand felt warm. He told the others as much.
“Could it be alive?” Cindy whispered.
“It’s black,” Watch said. “If the sun was shining on it that might have made it hot.”
Adam studied the thick overhead trees. “I don’t think the sun made it warm.”
“I don’t care about the hand,” Sally said. “I’m only interested in the crystal.” Again she reached out to take it. “Don’t stop me, Adam.”
None of them stopped her this ti
me, and a second later she was holding the clear cube, rubbing it with her fingers, savoring it as if it were a diamond.
“Maybe it’s a diamond,” Sally said. “Maybe I can sell it for ten million dollars.”
“Naturally you would share the profits with us, your best friends,” Cindy said.
Sally snorted. “You guys wanted to leave it here. And now that I’m holding it and you can see it’s safe, you want to make money from it.”
“We reserve judgment as to how safe it is,” Watch said.
“I’m more concerned with who it belongs to,” Adam said. “I really wish you wouldn’t take it, Sally.”
She remained stubborn. “If anyone reports it missing I’ll return it immediately.” She held it up to the sunlight and the crystal sparkled, sending out tiny shafts of light through all the trees. “Until then it is mine.”
“Look!” Cindy cried. “The black hand closed!”
Cindy was right. The hand that had once held the crystal was now entirely shut. Apparently the fingers had closed while they were talking.
“It is alive,” Cindy gasped. “Quick, Sally, put the crystal back.”
Sally hesitated. “Just because it moved doesn’t mean it’s alive.”
“I don’t see many of these rocks getting up and doing a dance,” Watch said.
Adam spoke seriously. “It doesn’t belong to you, Sally. Taking it is stealing.”
Sally considered. “All right, I’ll put it back.” She held it close to the black hand, thinking the hand would grab it. When that didn’t happen Sally tried to push it in between the bent fingers. But the hand was clenched tight. Finally she gave up. “It doesn’t want it.”
“Then just leave it beside the hand,” Adam suggested. “It can reach over and grab the stone later, if it wants.”
“No,” Sally said. “I don’t think that’s fair. If the hand wants it, it should take it now.”
“I doubt that a disembodied black hand understands our concept of fairness,” Watch said.
“I’m not just going to leave it here,” Sally said.
“Thief,” Cindy muttered.
“Coward!” Sally snapped at her.
Adam held up his hands. “Hold on, let’s not have another fight. Maybe we can work out a compromise.”
“There’s no compromise,” Sally said. “I either take it or I don’t.”
“You could leave a note with your home address on it,” Cindy said. “That way if the black hand wants the stone back it can crawl to your house in the middle of the night, choke you to death, and take it home.”
“A novel suggestion,” Watch said.
“We can argue about this all day,” Adam said, resigned to Sally’s ways. “If you’re going to take it, then take it, and let’s get out of here.”
“But please walk at least fifty feet behind us,” Cindy said.
“I always walk a hundred feet in front of you.” Sally clasped the crystal to her chest. “I’m not afraid to go where no woman has gone before.”
They hiked back toward the path. Along the way Sally stubbed her toe and let out a groan. “I wish I had a new pair of shoes,” she said, letting them pass her on the path. “These are getting so short and worn out—they hurt my feet.”
Without warning, Sally let out a scream.
They turned anxiously. Sally was so stunned she couldn’t speak. She could only point. It took them a moment to register what her scream was all about. Then it struck them and they let out their own individual sounds of amazement.
There were brand-new shoes on Sally’s feet.
3
It must be a Wishing Stone,” Watch said after they had all had a chance to catch their breath. “Bum has spoken about them before.”
“He has?” Sally asked, amazed once again by how much Bum knew. Bum was just that—the town bum. A bum who had once been the town mayor.
Watch continued, “Bum said they could be found on Earth during the Atlantis and Lemuria ages, tens of thousands of years ago. You remember, he said that Spooksville was actually once a part of Lemuria. In fact, he says that Spooksville is all that is left of Lemuria.”
“Did the people at that time make these Wishing Stones?” Adam asked.
Watch was thoughtful. “Bum didn’t go into too much detail. But I got the impression the stones were put here by extraterrestrial visitors.”
“You mean aliens?” Cindy asked.
“Not necessarily,” Watch said. “Bum believes this planet was originally colonized by humans from other planets.”
“He mentioned the Pleiades star cluster before,” Adam said. “Did the Wishing Stones come from there?”
Watch was uncertain. “He never said one way or the other. But I got the impression they were from someplace even farther away.”
“Did he say the stones were dangerous?” Cindy asked.
“He laughed when he talked about them, as he usually does when he talks about anything really mysterious,” Watch said. “I was never sure if they were dangerous or not. But I do know that whoever holds one can ask for whatever he or she wants, and it will instantly appear.” He nodded to Sally’s new sneakers. “But we know that already.”
“Can I get as many wishes as I want?” Sally asked.
“I don’t think the stones ever run out of power,” Watch said.
Sally squealed with delight. “Wow! This is absolutely awesome. I’m going to have everything I ever wanted before I turn thirteen.”
“You can get us some things, too,” Cindy said.
Sally laughed at her. “Now you change your mind. Now you think I did the right thing.”
Cindy was indignant. “I just don’t think you should be greedy, that’s all.”
Sally patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, girl, you can have what you want. All I ask is that you act nice to me.”
Watch turned to Adam. “I think the three of us had better not expect anything.”
Sally smiled. “That’s not true, I can grant you guys some wishes. But first I want to get a few things for myself.” She gestured for them to stand back. “I don’t want you crowding my presents.”
“Wait!” Adam said. “We don’t know what these wishes might cost.”
Sally stared at him as if he were nuts. “Why should they cost me anything? This is a Wishing Stone. It’s not a bill collector.”
“But you don’t get anything for free in this world,” Adam said.
“But,” Sally countered, “this stone, Watch says, did not come from this world.”
“She has a point there,” Watch said.
Adam was still worried. “I think you should be happy with your new shoes and leave it at that.”
Sally laughed again. “You have to start thinking big, Mr. Adam Freeman. You don’t accept getting a lousy pair of shoes when you have the whole world available. Now quiet down and let me think what I want.”
“You should get some new clothes,” Cindy suggested.
“Maybe a new watch,” Watch, who always wore four watches, said.
“Shh,” Sally said, closing her eyes and letting her smile grow larger. “I have something. Yes, this is what I want.” She paused and then blurted out the next words. “I wish I had a million dollars!”
A million dollars suddenly appeared.
Hundreds of stacks of one-dollar bills, which literally stood in piles above their heads. Adam could hardly believe his eyes. Reaching out he grabbed one of the stacks and studied it. The bills appeared genuine. Sally squealed again with joy.
“I’m rich!” she said.
“You should have asked for hundred-dollar denominations,” Watch said. “You’re never going to be able to get all this stuff back to your house.”
“Even if you could,” Cindy said, “you couldn’t fit it in your house.”
Sally snickered. “You guys are just jealous! I’m a millionaire and you’re not.”
“Well, maybe you could give us all loans,” Watch said.
“I w
ant some new clothes,” Cindy said suddenly.
“Wait a second,” Adam said. But no one was listening.
“What do you want?” Sally asked Cindy.
Cindy rubbed her hands together. “I’d love a black leather jacket and some black leather boots. Then I need some clothes for school. How about a Gap sweater and skirt? Light yellow to match my hair.”
“You need this to go to school in Spooksville?” Watch asked.
Sally waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter. If she wants it she wants it.” Sally closed her eyes, then spoke out loud and wished for what Cindy had just requested.
The clothes did not appear.
Sally opened her eyes and studied the stone. “It can’t be worn out already. Watch?”
“It’s possible Cindy has to make her own wishes,” he said. “You don’t really want these clothes, not the way you wanted the million dollars. Give Cindy the stone and we’ll see.”
“I’m not giving her the stone,” Sally said quickly.
“I’ll give it back,” Cindy said.
“How do I know you will?” Sally asked suspiciously.
Cindy was insulted. “When have I ever stolen anything of yours?”
“When have I ever had a Wishing Stone before?” Sally asked.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Adam interrupted. “The stone is already causing problems. Let’s put it back.”
“There are a couple of things I would like,” Watch said.
Adam was stunned. “But I thought you agreed with me?”
Watch smiled. “I did until I saw the million dollars.”
“I’ll give Watch the stone first,” Sally said. “As an experiment.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Cindy complained.
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Sally said impatiently. “But I’ve known Watch longer than you. I know for a fact he’ll give the stone back when I ask for it.” She went to hand the stone to Watch and then stopped. “You will give it back to me, won’t you?”
Watch shrugged. “Sure.”
“Swear on your life,” Sally ordered.
“It’s not good to swear,” Cindy said.
“I swear to whatever you want me to swear to,” Watch said.
“All right.” Sally reluctantly handed over the stone. “Don’t break it.”