Spooksville #9: The Wishing Stone (Christopher Pike)

Sally sees a flash of light in the woods while out walking with Watch, Cindy, and Adam. They look around for a bit and don't find anything, but them she literally stumbles across a glowing stone on the ground. Sally wants to take it, they all think she should leave it, and they eventually agree to walk a few feet behind her in case anything happens. When she wishes that she had new shoes, new shoes suddenly appear on her feet, and Watch decides it must be a Wishing Stone.

Sally wishes for a few more things, including a million dollars, and she gets everything she wants. When she wishes for things for Cindy, nothing happens. Watch thinks that they all need to make their own wishes. Cindy wishes for new clothes, Watch wishes for a laser gun and a force field, and Adam wishes for intergalactic world peace because he doesn't want anything for himself, though he does seem hurt when Cindy tells him he needs new clothes because he dresses like a nerd.

A dude in a dark red robe appears in front of them and announces that he's a collector. They owe him thousands of gratoms for their wishes, and if they can't pay, he'll send them to a slave planet to work off their debts. Sally speaks up and disappears, followed by Cindy. Adam hides in the bushes, and Watch shoots the guy with his laser pistol, which kills him.

Sally and Cindy find themselves on a weird planet. They end up in a barracks type room with an alien girl. She tells them that she's the only other one there that speaks English and that she learned it from a earth being who died while trying to escape. In four years, she only earn four gratoms. The system is set up so that you can never work off your debt.

Adam and Watch make a wish that takes them to what turns out to be an astroid. A robot tells them that they have food from earth and that they should order. They do, eat, and then meet a guy named Fur who is completely hairless. After what seems like eternity but is really only a few pages, they work out an agreement. Fur will take them to their friends, but they have to let him use their force field.

Cindy and Sally start work and have no idea what they're doing, but their new friend comes over and helps them. They basically weld parts on these giant lamps with some weird laser tool. One of the leaders come over and snaps at the girl for helping them before yelling at the other two to shut up and do their jobs. She then warns them to watch themselves and never talk back.

Fur takes the other two out on his ship, but he has to make an emergency stop. This gives him the chance to hack a computer and find their records. He plans on deleting all their debts, but the Kasters (aka the bad peeps) feed him a bunch of bad information and then attack. Luckily, he had the force field on him, which caused their lasers to bounce off him and kill them.

Sally tricks the leader of the Kasters into helping her disable the force field around the planet, which lets the guys get through. They arrive at the same time as another ship does. Sally and the other gals somehow managed to bring down hundreds of robots controlling the planet. The captain on the ship wants to put them all back into slavery and take Fur into custody.

Turns out that intergalactic law says that all wishes on the same order must be fulfilled before the Kasters can collect. Since they never fulfilled Adam's wish for world peace, the order isn't done. The captain begs him to wish for anything else but he refuses. They then offer to give back all the things they wished for in exchange for their friends' freedom. Fur and the girls' friend get to roam free, and the rest will go back to Earth.

*When Adam tells her to be careful with her wishes because she doesn't know the cost, Sally says it's a stone and not a bill collector. I totally giggled.

*Cindy actually first tells Adam that he looks like his mom dresses him, and they all laugh when he says his mom buys all his clothes. Is that really so hard to believe of a 12 year old? I probably still let my mom pick out my stuff until junior high for the most part.

*Watch depresses me. There's always a little more to his backstory in each book. In this one, even the collector can't find a last name for him.