“I reckon she will.”
“Nuh-uh!” I didn’t say it because I didn’t believe her, exactly. But you know, it was just such a crazy, incredible claim, and I guess a body feels obligated to protest in moments like that.
“Yuh-huh.” She grinned. “Tomorrow morning, you go see.”
“All right, I will.”
“And collect yourself a wish or two,” said Gram. “People don’t have to know you’re doing it. Truth to tell, it’s probably best that they don’t. Just give an ear to folks’ hopes and needs. Then, tomorrow night, whistle you down some magic. Mm?”
The next day, I did just as Gram had told me. I snuck out past Pa, who was still snoring on the porch, and left for Missus Fuller’s.
I think I like Sass best in the mornings while Main Street’s still empty and the stores are all dark. This place has been around since before the Civil War—some of the buildings are just that old—and when there’s no cars or folks around, I imagine Gram’s gram walking along, doing her errands, wearing one of those fancy, old-time dresses and maybe a pair of dainty gloves with ruffles at the wrists.
The trees are even older than the buildings, so they would have seen Gram’s gram directly, and she would have seen them, too. It comforts me somehow—even though I’ll never get to look her in the eye, precisely, I can lay my hand on the very same tree she might have taken shade under on a summer day.
I greeted the trees with a nod, and the squirrels, too, who chittered as I passed by. I’m a little crazy like that, talking to things that can’t talk back, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Besides, truth is, maybe they do talk back and we’re just not smart enough to understand them.
Missus Fuller’s home was just a block past Main, a big old place that used to be a popular boarding house, run by her ma and pa. My own gram had lived there for a number of years, until she moved in with Pa and me. It was mostly empty now, except for the occasional drifter who rented a room passing through on their way to someplace else.
I found Missus Fuller sitting on her porch, a mug in hand, watching the steam rise from her coffee. I thought she looked a little lonesome.
“Morning, Missus Fuller,” I called from her gate.
“Gen-u-wine Sweet!” She waved a beckoning hand. “Come in! Come in!”
Missus Fuller felt beside her chair for her cane and gingerly pushed herself upright. Not much older than Gram, she colored her hair a soft pinkish-red color, which I always thought gave her a bright appearance.
“You’re just in time!” She opened her front door, stepped in, and said over her shoulder, “Fresh blueberry muffins cooling on the stove!”
“Don’t trouble yourself, ma’am,” I called, but secretly I was delighted at the thought of something other than mush for breakfast.
“Trouble!” She laughed as I stepped into her kitchen. I don’t think there was a single spoon, plate, or butter dish without a picture of a chicken on it. “A muffin’s for eating. There’s no trouble in that. Sit.”
Missus Fuller beamed as I devoured two muffins and a tall glass of orange juice. The berries were so fat and juicy, the blue-tinged cake so sweet, I nearly forgot why I’d come.
Eventually, though, it did come back to me, and as I set my empty glass on the table, I said, “I was wondering, Missus Fuller, if you could do something for me.”
She blinked placidly at me. “Sure, honey.”
“I don’t know how to say this, exactly, but my gram and I were talking last night and your situation came up—about how you wished for a tank of gas so you could visit your grandkids.”
Missus Fuller nodded.
“And, well, we thought there might be something we could do about that, and so we . . . wished on a star, I guess, that you might have your tank of gas, seeing as how it would make you so happy to see your kin.”
Missus Fuller got a funny look then—well, two funny looks. The first one was the kind of face a person might make when someone asks them to donate money and they don’t want to. But the second look was something else, as if she was secretly not an old lady at all, but a little girl in an old body. The second look won out.
Her eyes shone and she gave a mischievous sort of grin. “Let’s look.”
The two of us got up from the table, the legs of our chairs scraping the floor loudly. We hustled out to her garage, where her long white Cadillac, older than me, sat quietly.
Missus Fuller opened the car door and handed me her cane. “The best way’s to start it up, so we can see for real how much gas is in it.”
She eased herself into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition. The car grumbled before it roared, and—just a quick tick later—that little girl inside Missus Fuller was hooting and clapping her hands and bouncing around.
“Hooo!” was all she could say for a time, but eventually she did manage the words, “Full tank! Full tank! Baby girls, here I come!”
What do you do with something like this, I ask you? What do you do when you wake up one day and realize pigs just might fly, for real? As for me, I did the strangest thing. I broke down and cried.
I guess it was because I remembered right then that my ma was dead, my daddy was a drunk, and this morning’s blueberry muffins were the first time I’d felt full up in a season. Why hadn’t someone fetched a wish for me? For my ma? It hurt my heart to think about how easy it had been to wish up that tank of gas, especially when I considered everything that went into drilling oil and refining it, shipping it ’cross the country in trucks—all the people and all the effort: so gigantic! Somehow, the magic in the stars had swept aside all those details in some special way to fill up Missus Fuller’s car. Couldn’t somebody get out their broom on my behalf?
“Genuine, are you all right?” Missus Fuller asked. “Honey, what is it?”