The Wishing Stone by Christopher Pike Page A

town, said. “We’ll have plenty of time to hang out and have fun.”
    Watch shook his head as he passed the juice to Adam. “You don’t know the teachers in this town. They give you so much homework, you have to work all weekend.”
    â€œWhy do they do that?” Cindy, who was also new, asked. “We don’t all want to grow up to be rocket scientists.”
    â€œThey just want to give us a chance to finish our studies,” Watch said.
    â€œBut what’s the hurry?” Adam asked.
    Watch shrugged. “You’ve been here long enough to know the answer to that. Not that many kids live long enough to graduate. Last year only about a dozen people graduated from junior high, and half of them were missing body parts.”
    â€œWhat about the other half?” Adam asked reluctantly.
    â€œMost of them were insane,” Watch said.
    Cindy grimaced. “That’s horrible!”
    â€œI don’t know,” Watch said. “They had a great all-night graduation party.”
    â€œI hope we get to be in a lot of classes together,” Adam said.
    Watch shook his head. “It might be better toseparate. Then, if there is an explosion or something, at least one of us will survive.”
    â€œYou have explosions at school?” Cindy asked. “I don’t believe it.”
    â€œWe had a half-dozen explosions last year. Most of them were in chemistry class. The teacher used to work for the CIA.” Watch added, “But I think they got rid of him.”
    Suddenly they heard Sally shouting.
    â€œI’ve found something! I’ve found something!”

2
    S ally had indeed found something, an extraordinary something. Sitting atop a granite boulder nestled between two thick trees was a perfectly sculpted black hand. It rose right out of the rock, its palm pointed toward the sky. The fingers were not completely open, but were clenched around a cube-shaped crystal stone. The stone was as large as a normal man’s hand could comfortably hold, at most two inches on a side. Although the nearby trees were close together, sunlight occasionally pierced through the branches to land on the stone.When this happened there was a bright flash. The stone was clear but it also acted like a mirror, which puzzled Adam.
    Now they knew what had caught Sally’s eye.
    â€œIsn’t it beautiful?” Sally asked, excited.
    â€œYes,” Cindy said. “But what is it?”
    Adam nodded seriously. “Good question. And where did it come from I wonder.” He paused. “Have you touched it, Sally?”
    â€œNo. I was waiting for you guys.”
    â€œWe might want to leave it alone,” Watch suggested. “We don’t know who it belongs to.”
    â€œIt belongs to me,” Sally said. “I found it.”
    â€œAnd does every bike you pass on the street belong to you?” Cindy asked. “Every skateboard? Just because you find something doesn’t mean it’s yours.”
    â€œIt does if you find it in the middle of nowhere,” Sally said, reaching out to pick up the crystal. Adam stopped her.
    â€œWatch is right,” he said. “We have to be careful.”
    Sally was impatient. “All right, say we take the safe course and talk about this for the next hour. In the end we all know none of us is going to leavethis stone here for someone else to find. It’s too pretty. I say we take it now and be done with it.”
    â€œHold on.” Adam peered at the black hand, trying to figure out what it was made of. It seemed to be some type of shiny metal, yet when he touched it the hand felt warm. He told the others as much.
    â€œCould it be alive?” Cindy whispered.
    â€œIt’s black,” Watch said. “If the sun was shining on it that might have made it hot.”
    Adam studied the thick overhead trees. “I don’t think the sun made it warm.”
    â€œI don’t care about the