Goosebumps #12: Be Careful What You Wish For…

Samantha Byrd gets picked on by her classmates, especially this annoying girl Judith. Judith always tells her to fly away because her last name is Byrd, get it? Judith treats her badly when practicing basketball and at school, even spilling tapioca pudding over her brand new shoes in home ec class.

After a particularly bad practice, she starts riding her bike home and comes across a mysterious woman. The woman, Clarissa, asks her for help because she got lost. Sam tells her how to get to where she needs to go and offers to show her the way. The woman is so grateful that she offers her three free wishes. Even though she doesn’t believe her, she asks to be the best player on the team and the woman grants her wish.

Later that night, she plays a pickup game with her brother and sucks worse than usual. When he starts picking on her, she wishes that he was one foot tall. Suddenly she doesn’t see her brother and something small comes walking across the lawn. No worries though because it’s just her little dog and her brother was hiding.

When it comes time for their game, she wonders if she will be any good. All of the other players start moving really slow and clumsily. Judith’s best friend Anna even lays down in the middle of the court. Sam becomes the best player on the team just because everyone else sucks. They lose by 24 points, but she manages to score a few baskets.

Sam starts feeling bad about what happened and calls Judith. Judith asks if she put a curse on them but in a joking way. When Judith and Anna aren’t in class the next day, she talks to the nurse who tells her that they both have a bad case of the flu and will be out of school for a week. She goes to Judith’s house that night, and the girl flips out, calling her a witch and screaming at her.

She talks to her best friend Cory about the mysterious woman, but he doesn’t believe a word that she says. She heads off to find her again, and tells her that she wishes Judith would disappear. Clarissa agrees to take back her first wish and grant her second. When she wakes up the next day, there is no one in her house. She wanders through town and discovers that everyone disappeared along with Judith.

Sam starts crying and runs home. Clarissa shows up at her house and gives her the chance to make one last wish. She wishes that everything would go back to the way it was before except that Judith would think she was great. She gets her wish, but things go a little overboard. Judith starts following her around all the time, cuts her hair like hers, asks to borrow her notes, and even follows her to the water fountain in the middle of class.

At their next game, Judith screws up because she keeps mimicking Sam. No matter how badly Sam screws up, Judith does the exact same thing. After Judith sneaks into her house and won’t leave her alone, she runs off into the woods and starts screaming at her to leave her alone. Clarissa shows up and gives her the chance to make another wish. Sam wishes that Judith was the one who met Clarissa.

She suddenly sees Judith and Clarissa standing at the edge of the woods and talking. Sam sneaks closer and hears Judith say something about “fly away.” She starts feeling a little lighter and starts eying a worm before eating it. She notices that she has a view of them from the sky, and she decides that Judith must like her first wish because she has a big smile on her face.

*It’s kind of cute because Sam worries about what will happen to her with no one to take care of her since she’s only 12. Unlike the Wakefield twins who think they rule the world at 12.

*She also thinks that it’s wrong to take food from the grocery store to survive even if she is the last person on earth LOL.

*I really liked this one! It has a very Twilight Zone kind of ending.

*Cory’s dad makes him a grilled cheese sandwich every day, and the thought of eating one that sat in a locker for 3 hours kind of grosses me out. Why wouldn’t his dad just save some time in the morning and make him a plain cheese sandwich?