"Make a wish?" Jo's voice cracked with a cold. The kid hopped down off the counter and stepped over to the Wishing Ball. The rainbow metallic ball in its stylized dragon stand seemed to glow with a light of its own.
"Not
there." Angela gestured at the tree. "Here. Hold an ornament in both
your hands and make a wish."
"That's
easy." Jo wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans and reached for an
ornament. "I wish I had a job. Better than my paper route." He
grinned over his shoulder at Angela. "Better hours, and indoors,
please."
Ken could have sworn
he saw the Christmas tree angel lean down and shake glitter on the boy's
baseball cap.
Shaking his head, he
wondered if he had been working too hard. Now he was hallucinating, from fatigue
and the shifting lights in the shop. Maybe instead of worrying about his date
for the company Christmas party, he should just ask for the entire month off
and go to some place quiet and restful.
"Oh, no you
don't," Angela said, when Jo made a move to put the ornament back on the
tree. "How can your wish come true if you don't take it home with
you?"
"I don't have a
tree."
"It's still
three weeks until Christmas." She closed the boy's hands around the
ornament again. "Something might happen between now and then." She
met Jo's eyes until the boy gave in and tucked the ornament into the front
pocket of his sweatshirt. Angela nodded, and looked around the room.
"Ken?" She winked at him when he startled. "Your turn
next."
"But --"
"You don't have to say your wish out loud. It won't negate what you wish for." She glanced at Jo.
The boy stuck his tongue out. Under the smears of dust and strands of cobweb hanging from the brim of his ball cap, his face looked delicate. Ken couldn't remember seeing him in the shop before. Maybe he was new to town? Sickly?
No comments:
Post a Comment