It is in direct contradiction to your first wish. You cannot both have a million wishes and not have them. You wished for a million wishes. You must therefore have a million wishes.

‘Then I wish I could go back in time to just before I wished for them and not wish for them!’ I said. This seemed pretty cunning to me.

The Wish-Answerer gave a snuffling noise, as if it was laughing. That’s impossible, it said. A logical paradox.

‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘I wished to go back in time before and that was OK!’

But you did not wish not to have your wishes. That cannot be. If you did not wish for the million wishes, then the wish to return to an earlier time and not have them could not be granted – because you would not be able, now, to wish!

‘What?’ A sick feeling began to steal over me. ‘But I thought I could wish for anything. I can break the laws of physics!’

But not the laws of logic, the Wish-Answerer said. You have the wishes now, and there is only one logically consistent way to get rid of them.

‘Use them all up?’

That is correct.

‘And how many have I had so far?’

One hundred and sixty-four.

Oh, well, wasn’t that just terrific. That meant I had . . . actually I couldn’t be bothered to do the calculation so I just wished I knew the answer: nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.

Well, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, now I’d used one up on the calculation. But that was still a shedload of wishes.

By the time I’d worked my way through them I’d be a gibbering wreck. And what sort of mess would the world be in?

‘Oh, all right,’ I said, a bit moodily. ‘You might as well go then.’

And the next instant, the Meteor was gone. No goodbye or catch you later or anything. Just . . . pfft. No more meteor, except for a slight aftersmell of smoke.

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The sun was glowing above the trees, casting long, slanting shadows. I looked behind me and I seemed to be twenty metres tall again. Evan too. And Billiam’s shadow looked more like a giraffe’s than a dog’s.

It was a mild evening, about eight o’clock. Soon it would be dusk. I had that sort of sweet/sad feeling you sometimes get on fine, quiet autumn evenings. The trees were turning from green to yellow, and a few leaves were already falling. It was Friday, so no school the next day. Me and Evan had taken the dog out for a walk, to discuss the Wish Problem. I’d just explained to him all about what had happened – ’cause of course he didn’t remember any of that stuff about everyone being nice and nobody dying. As far as he was concerned it hadn’t happened.