One lonely day, Gwen found the wishing cup. Of course, she did not know at the time what the wishing cup was for, or even that it was a wishing cup. But she found it even without knowing those very important things. Life is like that sometimes.
It wasn't a very interesting cup, it wasn't a very interesting day, and Gwen wasn't having a very interesting life. She tried to liven things up by using her purple pen on every document she had to write on, and that had gotten her minuses where she should have had pluses on her homework. But, thought Gwen, why not use purple pen? She thought everyone should have a color they liked best to write in, and forget all of this black, and navy blue, and gray pencil.
But the purple pen didn't help Gwen feeling bored and lonely most of the time. It didn't get her many friends, who thought she was just a show-off for using it. Gwen just shrugged them off as imagination-impaired. That, she thought, was a way to insult them and still be politically correct.
She was thinking these things as she walked down Rockville Avenue on her way home from school. A rock bumped up against her sneaker, and she booted it away, watching it skitter along the white pavement, stopping short just as she caught up with it, and she dribbled the pebble like this until it got bored and rolled away into the grass.
Then Gwen was alone once more, her satchel bumping up and down against her leg, and she stepped with the rhythm, saddened again by people who did not understand purple pens.
They had taken them all from her today at school. Not her teachers, because they seemed to have given up trying to stop the use of the pen. No, it was Tod and Susan and Bethany who had made off with her pens. She was sure of it, though she hadn't really seen them do it.
There had been the fire drill, expected but still a thrill to think of fire ravaging the school, and they had all stood in Ms Sheehan's fourth grade class, proceeding to the door in an orderly fashion. Gwen grabbed the book she was reading, The Emperor of Ice Cream, because you never knew when a book would come in handy, from her open-sided drawer under the desk. Everyone had assigned desks, and so kept their books and notebooks and pens right in easy reach, suspended above their laps. Gwen knew the contents of many desks. Katie had a box filled with eraser shavings near the edge of hers, a box of soft pink fillings useful for nothing but touch sensation. Katie had the best collection in class, sometimes sitting there during lessons and erasing, erasing, erasing her desk until there was a small pile of shavings, then scooping them into the little box. Gwen could see the shiny box from where she stood, waiting in line.
Julie, on the other hand, treasured tinfoil, smoothed out with a fingernail, soft and shiny and like real silver. Julie's bologna and mayonnaise sandwich came wrapped in tinfoil every day, and she would rip the tinfoil into quarters, then share it among her friends for the day, and they would sit for the rest of lunch smoothing out the tinfoil into a hair-thin sheet of silver. Gwen could not see the tinfoil collection from here, since Julie kept it in her notebook, but she did notice a small gaggle of classmates suddenly swoop around her own desk. Then Tod, Susan, and Bethany scrambled into the fire drill line, and they had filed out into the hallway.
When Gwen had come back to her desk, the pens she had kept near the edge of the drawer were all gone.
And so, she walked morosely home, bereft of purple and impotently angry at Tod, Susan, and Bethany. Bethany especially, because next week was Bethany's ninth birthday and Gwen had been invited.
We'll see, thought Gwen, if she gets any present now.
But Gwen knew Bethany's present had already been bought. Gwen's mother was still under the impression that she and Bethany were best friends, like they had been all through third grade, but the fact was that Gwen hardly talked to Bethany any more, and believed Bethany's mother had insisted on the invitation.
In fourth grade, for the first time, Gwen had been seated by last name. Before that, she and Bethany had always found two desks together, and had written on each other's paper, sent notes, giggled, and dawdled through elementary school. But when set apart by a teacher who insisted on order and neatness, Gwen Carberry had been far away indeed from Bethany Sullivan. Bethany, as it turned out, had been placed next to the very popular Susan Taylor and the very cute Tod Rogers, and somehow, along the way, forgot all about Gwen, her friend in the 'C' section.
It was as if some spell had been cast over Bethany, Gwen had decided, a spell that ran the alphabet and by a spellmaker who had set his finger on their friendship.
Bethany was getting Where the Sidewalk Ends for her birthday.
Gwen kicked another rock without much authority, and heard it click off the path into the grass, where it made a plastic hollow sound.
Since rocks hitting turf rarely made a plastic hollow sound, Gwen turned to investigate, and had to push away some weeds to get to the object the rock had hit.
She picked it up with two fingers, and brushed off some of the wet grime that coated it. Once uncovered, Gwen realized she had found something special: a clear, thick plastic cup tinted with purple. Gwen smiled as if her pens had been reincarnated somehow.
This is what she would do: take the cup home, wash it out, put it in her room and use it to hold her pennies.
Or this: she would wash it and clean it and use it to drink out of -- the only cup she would drink out of.
Or this: She would not wash it out, but leave it in Bethany's drawer at school, like a mark or sign that Gwen had been there, but a signal no one could prove. It would ooze gunk into her drawer and spoil her books. Gwen liked that idea, but then she wouldn't have the cup for herself.
Instead, this is what Gwen did with the cup:
Taking it home, she washed it out with soap and water, scrubbing hard to make the deep purple shine, and noticed when she held it up to the light the sun seemed to burst through it, a yellow-purple soft eruption Gwen thought was the prettiest thing she had ever seen. Gwen went downstairs to her basement and rooted through her mother's collection of bows and ribbons, and found a pretty yellow bow to tie around the base of the cup, then wrapped it in some leftover paper.
On the day of Bethany's party, Gwen took the cup with her, and left the Shel Silverstein book at home. Gwen hid her present until after the party was all over, and the goodie bags had been distributed, and nearly everyone had gone home except Susan and Tod. Sitting on Bethany's mother's ottoman, her legs crossed at the ankles like she had been taught, Gwen waited until Bethany finally acknowledged her.
"Gwen," said Bethany. "How come you're still here?"
It was the first thing Bethany had directly said to Gwen since the third day of fourth grade, six weeks ago.
"I wanted to give you this," said Gwen, and handed over the wishing cup. As Bethany took the gift, Gwen held on to it for just a second too long, and Bethany looked at her, surprised.
Gwen hoped the cup knew what it was doing.
Bethany ripped open the paper -- without her mother in the room there was no reason to pretend to care about saving the wrapping -- and cradled the purple cup in her lap, without saying a word.
"How stupid!" cried Susan. "A cup! She got you a cup!"
"That's lame," said Tod.
But Bethany did not say anything, just looked at Tod and Susan for a moment, then at Gwen.
Gwen went over to where Bethany sat and held the cup up to the afternoon sun that streamed into the living room. "Look," said Gwen, and the sun burst into the wishing cup in a soft, glorious purple haze. The two girls stared through the light at the other two children in the room, seeing them distort and refract as the light played on the plastic.
After a long moment, Bethany stood, looking into the cup, and smiled a little. Then she left the room and came back in a moment with a handful of purple pens, which she gave to Gwen. "I'm sorry, Gwen," she said.
"It's okay," said Gwen, and did not even notice the grimaces on Susan and Tod's faces.
"Where did you get it?" asked Bethany, again holding the cup to the sun, delight suffusing her cheeks.
"I had to search," said Gwen. "You don't find a cup like that unless you really need it, you know."
Life is like that, sometimes.

Copyright 1994