Page 8 of Wishtree


  Like the fact that a cheetah can run seventy miles per hour.

  Or the fact that a headless cockroach can survive for more than two weeks.

  Or the fact that when a horned toad gets mad it shoots blood from its eyes.

  I want to be an animal scientist. I’m not sure what kind. Right now I really like bats. I also like cheetahs and cats and dogs and snakes and rats and manatees. So those are some options.

  I like dinosaurs, too, except for them all being dead. For a while, my friend Marisol and I both wanted to be paleontologists and search for dinosaur fossils. She used to bury chicken bone leftovers in her sandbox for digging practice.

  Marisol and I started a dog-walking service this summer. It’s called See Spot Walk. Sometimes when we’re walking dogs, we’ll trade nature facts. Yesterday she told me that a bat can eat 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour.

  Facts are so much better than stories. You can’t see a story. You can’t hold it in your hand and measure it.

  You can’t hold a manatee in your hand either. But still. Stories are lies, when you get right down to it. And I don’t like being lied to.

  I’ve never been much into make-believe stuff. When I was a kid, I didn’t dress up like Batman or talk to stuffed animals or worry about monsters under my bed.

  My parents say, when I was in pre-K, I marched around telling everybody I was the mayor of Earth. But that was just for a couple of days.

  Sure, I had my Crenshaw phase. But lots of kids have an imaginary friend.

  Once my parents took me to see the Easter Bunny at the mall. We stood on fake grass next to a giant fake egg in a giant fake basket. When it was my turn to pose with the bunny, I took one look at his paw and yanked it right off.

  A man’s hand was inside. It had a gold wedding ring and tufts of blondish hair.

  “This man is not a rabbit!” I shouted. A little girl started bawling.

  The mall manager made us leave. I did not get the free basket with candy eggs or a photo with the fake rabbit.

  That was the first time I realized people don’t always like to hear the truth.

  3

  After the Easter Bunny incident, my parents started to worry.

  Except for my two days as mayor of Earth, I didn’t seem to have much of an imagination. They thought maybe I was too grown-up. Too serious.

  My dad wondered if he should have read me more fairy tales.

  My mom wondered if she should have let me watch so many nature shows where animals eat each other.

  They asked my grandma for advice. They wanted to know if I was acting too adult for my age.

  She said not to worry.

  No matter how adult I seemed, she told them, I would definitely grow out of it when I became a teenager.

  4

  A few hours after my Crenshaw sighting at the beach, he appeared again.

  No surfboard this time. No umbrella.

  No body, either.

  Still. I knew he was there.

  It was about six in the evening. My sister, Robin, and I were playing cerealball in the living room of our apartment. Cerealball is a good trick for when you’re hungry and there’s nothing much to eat till morning. We invented it when our stomachs were grumbling to each other. Wow, I would love a piece of pepperoni pizza, my stomach would growl. And then hers would grumble, Yeah, or maybe a Ritz cracker with peanut butter.

  Robin loves Ritzes.

  Cerealball is easy to play. All you need are a few Cheerios or even a little piece of bread all torn up. M&M’s would be good too, if your mom isn’t around to say no sugar. But unless it’s right after Halloween you probably don’t have any.

  In my family those guys go really fast.

  First you pick a target to throw at. A bowl or cup works fine. Don’t use a wastebasket, because that might have germs. Sometimes I use Robin’s T-ball cap. Although that’s probably pretty gross, too.

  For a five-year-old, that girl can really sweat.

  What you do is throw your one piece of cereal and try to make a basket. The rule is you can’t eat that piece until you score. Make sure your target’s far away or you’ll finish your food too fast.

  The trick is that you take so long to hit the target, you forget about being hungry. For a while, anyway.

  I like to use Cheerios and Robin likes Frosted Flakes. But you can’t be picky when the cupboard is bare. My mom says that sometimes.

  If you run out of cereal and your stomach’s still growling, you can always try chewing a piece of gum to distract yourself. Stuck behind your ear is a good hiding place if you want to use your gum again. Even if the flavor is gone your teeth get a workout.

  Crenshaw showed up—at least he seemed to show up—while we were busy throwing my dad’s bran cereal into Robin’s cap. It was my turn to throw, and I got a direct hit. When I went to take out the cereal piece, I found four purple jelly beans instead.

  I love purple jelly beans.

  I stared a long time at those things. “Where did the jelly beans come from?” I finally asked.

  Robin grabbed the cap. I started to pull it away, but then I changed my mind. Robin is small, but you don’t want to mess with her.

  She bites.

  “It’s magic!” she said. She started dividing up the jelly beans. “One for me, one for you, two for me—”

  “Seriously, Robin. Stop kidding around. Where?”

  Robin gobbled down two jelly beans. “Shlp tchzzzn muh,” she said, which I figured meant “stop teasing me” in candy-mouth.

  Aretha, our big Labrador mutt, rushed over to check things out. “No candy for you,” Robin said. “You are a dog so you eat dog food, young lady.”

  But Aretha didn’t seem interested in the candy. She was sniffing the air, ears cocked toward the front door, as if we had a guest approaching.

  “Mom,” I yelled, “did you buy some jelly beans?”

  “Sure,” she called back from the kitchen. “They’re to go with the caviar.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, picking up my two pieces.

  “Just eat Dad’s cereal, Jackson. You’ll poop for a week,” she answered.

  A second later she appeared in the doorway, a dish towel in her hands. “Are you guys still hungry?” She sighed. “I’ve got a little mac and cheese left over from dinner. And there’s half an apple you could share.”

  “I’m fine,” I said quickly. Back in the old days, when we always had food in the house, I would whine if we were out of my favorite stuff. But lately we’d been running out of everything, and I had the feeling my parents felt lousy about it.

  “We have jelly beans, Mom,” Robin said.

  “Well, okay, then. As long as you’re eating something nutritious,” said my mom. “I get my paycheck at Rite Aid tomorrow, and I’ll stop by the grocery store and pick up some food after work.”

  She gave a little nod, like she’d checked something off a list, and went back to the kitchen.

  “Aren’t you gonna eat your jelly beans?” Robin asked me, twirling her yellow ponytail around her finger. “Because if you want me to do you a big favor I guess I could eat them for you.”

  “I’m going to eat them,” I said. “Just not … yet.”

  “Why not? They’re purple. Your favorite.”

  “I need to think about them first.”

  “You are a weirdo brother,” said Robin. “I’m going to my room. Aretha wants to play dress-up.”

  “I doubt that,” I said. I held a jelly bean up to the light. It looked harmless enough.

  “She especially likes hats and also socks,” Robin said as she left with the dog. “Don’t you, baby?”

  Aretha’s tail wagged. She was always up for anything. But as she left with Robin, she glanced over her shoulder at the front window and whined.

  I went to the window and peered outside. I checked behind the couch. I flung open the hall closet.

  Nothing. Nobody.

  No surfing cats. No Crenshaw.

  I hadn??
?t told anybody about what I’d seen at the beach. Robin would just think I was messing with her. My mom and dad would do one of two things. Either they’d freak out and worry I was going crazy. Or they’d think it was adorable that I was pretending to hang out with my old invisible friend.

  I sniffed the jelly beans. They smelled not-quite-grapey, in a good way. They looked real. They felt real. And my real little sister had just eaten some.

  Rule number one for scientists is this: There is always a logical explanation for things. I just had to figure out what it was.

  Maybe the jelly beans weren’t real, and I was just tired or sick. Delirious, even.

  I checked my forehead. Unfortunately, I did not seem to have a fever.

  Maybe I’d gotten sunstroke at the beach. I wasn’t exactly sure what sunstroke was, but it sounded like something that might make you see flying cats and magic jelly beans.

  Maybe I was asleep, stuck in the middle of a long, weird, totally annoying dream.

  Still. Didn’t the jelly beans in my hand seem extremely real?

  Maybe I was just hungry. Hunger can make you feel pretty weird. Even pretty crazy.

  I ate my first jelly bean slowly and carefully. If you take tiny bites, your food lasts longer.

  A voice in my head said, Never take candy from strangers. But Robin had survived. And if there was a stranger involved, he was an invisible one.

  There had to be a logical explanation. But for now, the only thing I knew for sure was that purple jelly beans tasted way better than bran cereal.

  Thank you for reading this Feiwel and Friends book.

  The Friends who made

  wishtree

  possible are:

  jean feiwel, Publisher

  liz szabla, Associate Publisher

  rich deas, Senior Creative Director

  holly west, Editor

  anna roberto, Editor

  christine barcellona, Editor

  kat brzozowski, Editor

  alexei esikoff, Senior Managing Editor

  kim waymer, Senior Production Manager

  anna poon, Assistant Editor

  emily settle, Administrative Assistant

  liz dresner, Senior Designer

  starr baer, Production Editor

  Follow us on Facebook or visit us online at mackids.com

  Our books are friends for life.

  about the author

  Katherine Applegate is the author of The One and Only Ivan, winner of the Newbery Medal. Her most recent novel for Feiwel and Friends, Crenshaw, spent over twenty weeks on the New York Times children’s bestseller list. She is also the author of Home of the Brave. Katherine Applegate lives in Tiburon, California, with her family. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Thank you for buying this

  Feiwel and Friends ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt: Crenshaw

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Text copyright © 2017 by Katherine Applegate. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Charles Santoso.

  A Feiwel and Friends Book

  An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC

  175 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10010

  mackids.com

  All rights reserved.

  Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected]

  First hardcover edition 2017

  eBook edition September 2017

  eISBN 9781250143037

 


 

  Katherine Applegate, Wishtree

 


 

 
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net

Share this book with friends