16
The sharp, piercing sound of an off-key harmonica cut through the air. Muddy winced, then tapped the heel of his hand against his ear. He looked up.
A hundred or so feet away, Theodore skipped across the sand. He was wearing Hank’s cap backward and playing the harmonica loudly.
Hank scowled at Theodore and muttered to Margaret, “I think my ears are bleeding.”
She plopped down next to him on a rock and rubbed her eyes as if they were tired. She gave a defeated sigh. “At least with the harmonica in his mouth, he can’t say ‘I wish’.”
Theodore hit a high and off-pitch note.
Everyone flinched.
“God... ” Hank groaned.
Squinting, Margaret looked at the boy. “His talents must lie elsewhere.”
“Yeah. In poker.” Hank ran a hand through his hair.
“I can’t believe he wasted a wish on a card game.” Margaret stared at the ground. As if talking to herself, she added, “I should have realized that was a possibility.”
Hank absently shuffled the deck of cards in his hand a few times and frowned at them. “It was a masterpiece.”
Margaret looked up. “What was a masterpiece?” “The rotten hand I slipped the kid. The worst set of cards I’ve ever dealt anyone.”
Her face creased with disbelief. She looked at Muddy. He shrugged, feeling his policy of noninvolvement was still safest.
She turned back to Hank. “You were cheating with a five-year-old boy?”
Hank looked at her like she had rocks in her head. Here comes another argument, Muddy thought. “Hell, yes, I was cheating!”
“Oh. Excuse me. I foolishly thought an adult could beat a child, especially at a ‘man’s game.’ “
The blast of the harmonica blared through the air and drowned out Hank’s response. Muddy figured it was best that none of them heard it. He could read lips.
Theodore blasted the mouth organ again three more times. Muddy could feel the notes in his teeth. He looked up just as Margaret’s mouth fell open, and Hank muttered, “Sounds like a thousand dying geese.”
“Hey, Hank!” Theodore came running up to him, waving the harmonica.
“Yeah, kid.”
“Listen?” Theodore blasted five bad notes. “How was that?”
Hank blinked, then looked at Margaret, who gave him a shrug that said he was on his own.
“Am I getting any better?” Theodore looked at Hank as if he’d hung the stars.
Hank was silent as stone. He just looked at Theodore the same fatalistic, yet perplexed way that Mrs. O’Leary had watched Chicago burn.
Theodore gave the harmonica a look of youthful longing. “I wish—”
Hank and Margaret shot off the rock at the same instant. Each reached for Theodore. “Don’t wish!” they shouted together.
Hank’s hand clamped over the boy’s mouth first. Theodore looked at them from eyes that were wide and white above Hank’s tanned hand. The boy blinked a couple of times.
“Understand, kid?”
Theodore nodded.
