Wishes, Gems, and Disasters by Martha Wickham (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

you bring my clothes?”
Her mother held up a small blue suitcase that was filled with Anita’s clothes.

When Anita went to Tony’s room that morning she saw him awake and looking fine. She smiled at the sight and said, “Hi, how are you feeling?”
He looked so much better. He sat up completely alert and he had eaten. There were cleaned off plates sitting on a counter. “Great,” Tony shook his head. “I can do that and it doesn’t hurt. Of course I’ve taken a lot of pain killers, but still I’m better. I think I’m going to live but I’ll never drive down that road we were hit on again.”
“Neither will I.” Anita hugged him. “I’m staying near by in a motel the next two days and when I go home with my mother you can come with us.”
“Sounds good to me. Just give me another hug and I know I’ll feel good enough to go home in a couple days.”
“Okay,” Anita replied relieved and she hugged him.


Wishing


Crystal lived in an apartment on the Southside of Chicago, Illinois. She was six years old in 1940 and all of her friends had bikes. She wanted a bike like her friends.
“Mother, can I have a bike?” Crystal asked one afternoon.
“No, we can’t afford it,” her mother told her.
Every Sunday that she went to church she would pray for a bike. She slept on the couch because she lived in a one bedroom apartment and didn’t have her own bedroom either. Every night before going to sleep she would get on her knees and pray for God to bring her a bike. She hoped that when she woke in the morning it would be right there in the living room. When she awoke in the morning she would jump up to look for her bike in hope God would bring her one like Santa Claus on Christmas.
She was praying for a miracle because the bike was never there. She continued to pray for a bike for six more years.
When she was twelve she heard her local movie theatre was giving away a new bike every Monday. When she went to the movies the usher would tear her ticket and give her the other half to put in a glass bowl for the drawing. After the movie they would pull a ticket and the person with the winning number won it. Her friends were all nice enough to give her their tickets because they already had bikes.
She went to the movies every Monday night and kept praying to win. Eventually she had so many tickets she had to list them on a piece of paper. Her Aunt took her to the movies on a Monday night. They went to see an Abbott and Costello movie. This was going to be the last bike giveaway.
After the movie the manager pulled a ticket from the glass bowl and called the number out. Crystal frantically looked at her paper that listed all of the numbers. The winning number wasn’t there. Then she remembered the one ticket she had bought that night. It was in her pocket. She checked it. It was the winning ticket! She stepped up on the stage and claimed her prize. It was a red, white, and blue bicycle.

Thankful Crystal got up every morning at 6 a.m. and took her bike out and rode around the block until she had to get ready for school. Her prayers had been answered.

Although she had many tickets from her friends it was the one she purchased the night of the last giveaway that won the bike. The Lord wanted her to know he had saved that last bike especially for her. That’s what Crystal believed and as years went by she always thought of that bike and how beautiful it was.


Unknown Engagement


That hot afternoon I felt hard rocks scratch my feet as I walked home. It was hot and I couldn’t wait to get inside my house. Excited nerves turned in my stomach as I worried about graduating high school in two months then going to college at the end of the summer. I had to skip the rest of the way home because I was barefoot and the rocks hurt my feet. I finally got inside to the air conditioning.
“Mom! Where should I go to college later?” I asked because I didn’t know yet.
“Why don’t you just stay here in Arizona?” She looked at her daughter she named Charity Fears. She always said that the first time she looked at her daughter she knew that was the perfect name.
“That’s the perfect idea. I’ll do that.”
I ran upstairs to my room, shut the door and laid on my bed. I shut my eyes and when I opened them again the room had darkened. I thought night had fallen but I noticed my dark purple velvet curtains had fallen closed and blocked off light. It was only late afternoon.
Our house looked beautiful. Well sometimes anyway. Except for when my mother messed it up. Sometimes the house would be a mess and she would be found staring at the TV, smoking, and drinking in the living room.
Melanie, that’s her name. She has so much money she can sit around and do what she wants. She doesn’t cook. Our maid Alicia does that. She divorced my father and sued him for 10 million dollars. He lives in New Jersey and calls us sometimes. His name’s Gerald. I like his name. It made me laugh.
So that’s the way it goes. My mother messes up the house and Alicia cleans it up. I walked into the kitchen and Alicia was cooking macaroni and cheese. It smelled so good I couldn’t wait to have left overs for a week. “Where’s my mother?” I said like a smart ass that treats her mother as a child trying not to laugh.
“She went out shopping.” Alicia continued fixing dinner. “Why don’t you go out? Don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“No, I don’t want one until I’m old.” So that’s my life. I’m an only child and sometimes it’s lonely. Though school made me lots of friends and we were planning to go out graduation night and celebrate at dinner.
By the time Alicia had finished dinner my mother wasn’t home. We sat down together at the table eating. “We’ll save her some,” I said.
“What are you going to major in college?”
“Art and law.” Alicia just nodded like she understood. She knew what I was talking about because I have a passion for art. I took the class in high school and did some really good painting she had already seen. If I continued to take art classes I would start selling my work soon and by the time I was dead I wanted my paintings to be worth thousands of dollars.
“Any other goals?” Alicia looked down at her plate.
“To get a million dollars like my mother and move to some beautiful southern state like Louisiana. Buy a mansion there. Maybe I can borrow it from my mother and pay her back later. She intends on giving me a lot of money.” In that way I am a lot like my mother, wanting to have money and power. Peace and love is also important to me.
It all was so boring. I wanted excitement but all that would matter soon would be school and I would be in it full-time for two years. The thought stayed on my mind until I finished eating. I looked out the window and saw a full moon. I ran across the house to my mother’s bedroom and she wasn’t in it. Everyone was gone. I got on the phone to call Alicia and thank God she answered.
“Are you sure she went shopping? It’s late and I would think she should be home by now.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” So much for that conversation. I went to bed.
In the morning when I woke I didn’t find mom. In fact I never found Mom again. She had vanished and when she was found the police told me where they found her, lying down in water on the beach. She was alive though. How did it happen? She was drunk and passed out in the water then left the area when she woke. Witnesses say they saw her staggering because she couldn’t walk straight and didn’t want to drive home so she sat down by the beach but only for a while. I don’t think she is dead but we all act like she is.
So now the next ordeal is to worry and wait to hear the checking of her will. I wanted her millions I have to admit after I called Dad and gave him the news. To my surprise he wasn’t happy. Before that happened with Mom my Dad was the kind of person that always seemed happy. He was mad and made it clear he wanted to make plans to come down and be at the funeral if she is found dead. At this point I think we are going to have a funeral anyways but we won’t have her body for it. And everyone spoke like I had the worst job of all, having to plan her burial down to the last detail if she did die. I loved it and sometimes I hated it. Not to be bad or anything I just like picking out pies, flowers, and head stones.
I spent my nights crossing my fingers that I would have some money and thought about something to say about my mother on her gravestone when she did die some day. I stayed up nights trying to think of something like Worlds Greatest Mom, rest in peace, and please be in the heavens. Also please don’t haunt me on Halloween. It all seemed to interest my decision to work at the local morgue. Getting to work with the place appealed to me. My first day of work couldn’t come quick enough.
I figured Worlds Greatest Mom might be too sarcastic and I would be called a smart ass. My dad didn’t say anything more to me but just left. I felt very unwanted and afraid I would never see him again. Tears filled my eyes as I knew what was next, miss Mom and go to the reading of the will to see how much money I would be left. Time