‘Wish-Answerer? I wish you’d come and see me.’

There was a sudden fierce heat.

This time he was his proper size: a rugged chunk of rock, about as big as a washing machine, standing there on skinny legs in the middle of my bedroom.

‘I need some explanations, Wish-Answerer,’ I said. ‘What are you exactly?’

There is no word for the kind of being I am in your language.

‘But you’re alive, right? You’re some sort of life form?’

I’m still not sure how it did it, since it was one big chunk of rock, but the Meteor nodded.

‘So you’re not really a meteor?’

No. I merely resemble one.

‘Why?’

You would not understand.

‘And why – I mean, I wish you’d tell me why you gave me all those wishes.’

You would not understand.

‘Well, tell me anyway.’

To renticufilicate the sparsunstrang of the universe.

‘Oh. Yeah. Right. I thought it might be that.’

I said you would not understand.

‘OK, look – whatever reason you did it for, you’re on my side, right? You’re here to help me?’

I do not take sides. But I am here to answer your wishes.

‘I’m not sure I want the wishes any more,’ I said, and as soon as I said it I realized it was true. Having all those wishes made life pointless. Even down to little things, like playing Top Trumps with Evan. It was no fun beating him when I knew what all his cards were. And the same went for football, or chess, or any game at all – there was no fun if you could just win without effort. Suppose I decided to run a marathon? As soon as I got tired I’d wish it was over, and I’d be at the finish line.

But it wasn’t just sports and games. The whole of life made no sense. Life means struggling, learning, improving, practising – achieving things. But you can’t achieve anything when you only have to wish for it. All those things I’d wished to be brilliant at – French and football and chess and Physics – I couldn’t actually enjoy them.

I opened my mouth. ‘I wish I wasn’t brilliant at French and football and chess and Physics any more – only just as good as I used to be.’

To test myself I tried to think what the French for ‘grapefruit’ was, and realized I didn’t know. So that was good. If I wanted to find out, I’d have to – well, find out.

But I hadn’t solved anything in the long term. If you’ve got the wishes, you can’t help using them. Nobody could resist it.

I took a deep breath, gulped and said, ‘I wish I didn’t have any more wishes.’

I cannot grant that wish.

‘What? Why can’t you?’