‘Wait a minute, though,’ Evan said. ‘I’ll take some for my dad, I bet he’ll have his appetite back!’

I wished for a speciality box of biscuits with chocolate and icing on, and thrust it into Evan’s arms.

‘Want me to wish you were there?’ I asked.

‘No, I . . . think I’ll walk.’

‘Sure.’

I watched him through the window as he left with the box of biscuits under his arm. He didn’t walk, though. He ran.

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

I’d done a good thing for Evan, even though I’d taken my time about it, and I felt kind of pleased with myself. I imagined him going home, seeing his dad, flying into his arms. I waited for a while, thinking Evan would text or phone about it, but he didn’t, so I s’pose he was too busy getting used to having his dad back in full health again, and I couldn’t blame him.

I sat in my room and wondered what to do next. No one else was around. Ben and Maeve were at school and college, dad was at work, and mum was in the shed getting her paintings ready for Bernard Souter. He was coming round tonight.

It was getting on for lunchtime, and I was feeling a bit peckish. There’s this dish Mum sometimes makes, Chicken Supreme, which is pieces of chicken breast in a white, creamy sauce with rice, and I really like it. I don’t know what made me think of it just then, but I wished for a big plate of it. I was about to eat it on a tray on my knees sitting on my bed, and then I thought, Come on, you can do better than that, so I wished I was sitting up in the director’s box at White Hart Lane, watching Tottenham Hotspur play Arsenal. I had the box all to myself, and I wished Spurs would win seven-nil, and I scoffed the Chicken Supreme listening to the roar of the crowd as the goals flew in. Which was kind of fun. But not as much fun as it would have been if I hadn’t wished for it. Of course if I hadn’t wished for it, it wouldn’t have happened. The trouble was it wasn’t a surprise. Once I’d made the wish, it was, you know, inevitable, just like Wednesday following Tuesday.

And I realized that surprises were a thing of the past for me, now that I had my wishes. No surprises, no suspense, no uncertainty. No feeling of joy at an unexpected piece of good luck. No sense of relief when something that looked like it was going to turn out badly turned out OK. Reality wasn’t something I could bump into any more. It was something that did what I told it.

Was that even a proper life at all?