Wishes by Molly Cochran

boy?”
    “Woof,” Dingo said.
    “Er . . . Mr. Haversall here will tell you that Dingo’s the reincarnation of a great wizard.”
    Artie rolled her eyes. Fortunately, the old man didn’t see her. “Ayuh,” he agreed. “The last time Dingo passed away from life, he’d had enough of being human. Too many worries, isn’t that right?”
    “Woof,” Dingo affirmed.
    “So he made it so’s he’d come back this time as a dog.” The old man winked at Dingo. “No problems, no complications. Just three squares a day, long walks in the park, and a soft bed at night. Right, boy?”
    “Woof,” Dingo said. It was all he ever said. He raised his paw.
    “Dingo wants to shake hands,” Mr. Haversall said with a chuckle.
    Artie was sighing and crossing her arms, so to keep from hurting Mr. Haversall’s feelings, I knelt down and held out my hand to the dog. “Hi, Dingo,” I said. “Shake?”
    He put his paw in my hand. Esmeralda Ludovica Angelique Brittany von Schlaffen , spoke a voice in my head.
    “Huh?”
    Remember the name.
    I looked in Dingo’s soft doggy eyes. “Er, okay,” I said uncertainly.
    “What’s that?” Mr. Haversall asked in a loud voice, cupping his hand to his ear.
    “Nothing,” I said.
    I swear, Dingo’s eyes blinked once, slowly, as if he were saying, Good girl. Then he lifted his leg on a tree trunk and went on his way. Mr. Haversall tipped his hat to us again and followed him.

13.
    Artie led me to a bank of caves cut into a hillside near where I’d found the fairy treasure.
    “The Fairy Queen lives in a cave?” I asked as we walked toward them.
    “Don’t ask stupid questions,” Artie said.
    Some of the entrances were small, no more than crawl spaces obscured by rocks and tall grass. Others were as tall as men. “She knows we’re coming,” Artie said, putting a hand on my arm.
    “Okay.”
    “So what are we going to do?”
    “We’re going to ask her to take my wishes away,” I said. “And to release you from any power she has over you.”
    “And what if she doesn’t do what we want her to?” she asked.
    I thought about it for a moment. “Well, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m not going to live out my life as a fairy,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”
    I looked at the cave entrance before me. It was the biggest of the lot, wide and vaulted like the ceiling of a cathedral. I didn’t know if that was a natural phenomenon or an optical illusion, but I could tell from a hundred subtle things—a weird, moving coolness in the air, a slight shift of light—that we were about to enter a place of powerful magic.
    “Still with me?” I asked.
    Artie nodded. “I guess.”
    “Let’s go.”
    As soon as I spoke those words, a thousand bats flew out of the cave toward us. There were so many of them that they obliterated my whole field of vision. I ducked, covering my head and closing my eyes as their leather wings flapped around my face.
    Artie screamed.
    “Take it easy,” I said. “Bats aren’t my favorite pets, either, but we can handle them.”
    “Maybe you can handle them,” she corrected.
    “You can too,” I said. “Better than me. Artie, you’re a shape shifter. Turn into a mouse or something. Bats won’t bother you if you’re low to the ground.”
    She didn’t shift, but that didn’t matter because by that time, the bats had all flown away. “I told you, I can’t do magic anymore,” she said. “The queen took it from me.”
    “So take it back. Now’s your chance.”
    “That’s not so easy.”
    I held her hands and faced her. “You’re wrong. Magic is easy. It’s believing you have the power to make magic that’s hard.”
    “Whatever,” she said. Then she saw my face, and I think she realized that this was no time to cop an attitude. “Okay, I’ll try,” she said.
    We walked farther into the cave. Artie pointed to a stream of water that was pooling around our feet. “I think she sent this,” she said.
    “This?” It was hardly