When Sarah got home from school on Tuesday, her mother said, "I got you something at the thrift shop today."

Sarah groaned. "Mom! I told you I don't want any more junk from the thrift shop! Everyone will laugh at me if I wear used stuff to school."

"How would they know? It's economical to go to the thrift shop. Ecological. It's recycling. Aren't you always preaching to me about that?"

"It's not the same."

"Yes it is. Anyway, just look. They're a cute pair of shoes and they're just your size."

"Eeeeuuuw! Shoes that have been on someone else's feet?"

"Come on, honey" her mother said. "At least look at them. When I saw them I thought of you."

"All right." Sarah took the bag and reached inside. She pulled out a pair of red high-top sneakers. "Wow, these are cool."

"That's what I thought," her mother said.

"They're practically new."

"I know! Try them on."

Sarah pulled on the right shoe and laced it up, then the left one. She stopped before lacing it up. Something was in the toe.

"Doesn't it fit?" her mother asked.

"That's not it" Sarah said, reaching inside the shoe. She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. She smoothed it out. "To Whoever! If you are reading this note it means you have my red shoes. Do not wear them until you have read this entire message."

"It's probably a joke," her mother said.

Sarah continued. "These shoes are possessed with strange and magical powers."

"Now I know it's a joke!" her mother said.

"Your wishes will come true."

"Cool!" Sarah said. "I wish for chocolate peanut butter ice cream."

"I bought some of that this morning."

"Really?" said Sarah. "Magic!"

Her mother rolled her eyes. "Keep reading."

"Warning: be very careful what you wish for. Proceed with caution. Consequences may be serious."

"There's no signature," Sarah said.

"Of course not," said her mother. "That's because it's baloney."

"I guess," Sarah said. She took the right shoe off.

"You're not going to wear them?"

"Maybe tomorrow." She felt silly, but the warning in the note had made her nervous.

Sarah picked up the shoes and went to her room to start her homework. She couldn't concentrate. She looked at the shoes where she'd tossed them on the floor. They were a different red than the usual faded tomato of most tennis shoes. They were bright. They glowed.

"Oh brother!" Sarah said, and got up. She grabbed the shoes and pulled them on.

Once they were on her feet she felt no different than she had the moment before. What had she been thinking? That she'd tingle? Levitate? She laughed. Magic shoes? There was no such thing as magic.

But what if the note was telling the truth? She had to find out.

"I wish -- ," she said, but stopped. She needed to pick something that wouldn't happen by coincidence, like her mom buying the ice cream she liked, but also something small, so that there wouldn't be bad consequences. She looked around her room. Paper and books were spread across her bed.

"I wish for my homework to be done!"

Nothing happened. What had she expected? For the papers and pens to fly up in the air and dance together, like in an animated movie? She crept towards the bed. Her vocabulary worksheet was still blank. She flipped open her notebook, where she'd started writing an essay for history. The same sentence she'd written earlier in the day was still the only thing on the page.

She felt stupid. For a second she had actually believed that her mom had bought magic shoes at the thrift shop. Too bad whoever wrote that note wasn't here to see the joke. She took off the shoes and threw them in the corner of her room.

"Time to eat!" her mom called up the stairs.

At supper Sarah didn't mention her experiment with the shoes. She felt foolish about it. Instead, she and her mom talked about the basketball tryouts the next day after school. "I think I have a chance," Sarah said. "I know I'm only in seventh grade but I've been practicing all summer."

"All you can do is give it your best shot." Her mother winked. "Get it, best shot?"

"Ha Ha."

"Maybe you should wear your new sneakers to tryouts. Since they're magic they might help you out."

"They're not magic," Sarah said. "Trust me. Besides, even if they are magic, I want to make the team because of my hard work, not because of some special shoes."

"That's a good attitude, honey."

"Thanks."

"I, for one, am glad I bought the magic shoes," her mother said. "Because without them we wouldn't have this!" She pulled the ice cream out of the freezer. "Want a bowl?"

After dinner Sarah went back to her room to finish her homework. Her notebooks and vocabulary textbook were stacked neatly on her bed. That's strange, she thought. She hadn't picked them up before going to dinner.

She grabbed her vocabulary book and flipped to her homework assignment. Every line of the vocabulary lesson was filled in. The hairs on her arms rose into goose bumps. The handwriting in the lesson was her own.

She dropped the workbook and opened her notebook. The essay was done, again, in her own handwriting.

She sat on the edge of her bed, stunned. Was there such a thing as magic? Obviously, now that a pair of shoes had done her homework. The thought made her giggle, but just for a second. It was too creepy to be funny. The bright pinky-red of the shoes caught her eye. She shuddered. She got up and threw the shoes in the closet.

That night she had trouble sleeping. She'd fall asleep, only to dream about the shoes, and when her dreams woke her the shoes - and basketball practice - were all that she could think about.

"You look awful," her mother said at breakfast the next morning. "Should I get the thermometer?"

"I'm all right," Sarah said. "Just tired."

"I hope you perk up before tryouts."

"I'll be fine," Sarah said, but she doubted it. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper and her arms and legs were heavy and achy.

Sarah went back to her room to get her books. She glanced at the closet door. "Stupid shoes," she muttered. How could a simple pair of shoes have power?

Maybe she'd imagined the shoes did her homework. Maybe she had done it at school and she hadn't remembered. That must have been it, she thought, because there's no such thing as magic. And if there's no such thing as magic, she told herself, then it won't hurt to put on the shoes. And it won't hurt to make a wish, since it won't come true. Especially if the wish was something she was going to wish for anyway.

She put them on.

"I wish to play amazing in tryouts."

There. She'd done it. As quickly as she had pulled them on, she pulled them off and tossed them back into the closet.

First period Sarah had history. "Would anyone like to share their essay with the class?" asked Mr. Williamson. No one volunteered. "Sarah, how about you?" Mr. Williamson asked.

"Okay," said Sarah, reluctantly. She hadn't thought about it last night, but now she realized that having someone - or something - else do her homework was cheating. She'd never cheated before. Her stomach felt wobbly. She flipped open her notebook and started to read.

"December 7, 1941, is the day that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

"Do you want me to keep reading?" she asked. She had written the first sentence herself. Maybe if Mr. Williamson told her she could stop she wouldn't feel so guilty.

"Read the whole thing," he said.

She continued, with a heavy feeling in her chest. "The Japanese did a lot of damage when they bombed this Hawaiian military base. Masses of Americans were killed in the attack. I don't know why so many people died," she read, "because the Japanese didn't drop explosives on the people at Pearl Harbor, instead they dropped loads of sushi. I guess even raw fish and sticky rice can get enough speed from thousands of feet in the air to kill."

Sarah stopped reading and looked up into Mr. Williamson's face in horror. Her classmates were laughing. He wasn't.

"Is this some kind of joke, Sarah?" he asked

"No," she squeaked.

"This is the essay you were going to turn in?"

"Yes," she said, "I mean, no! I mean, I think I need to redo the assignment."

"I'll say."

As soon as the bell rang Sarah was out the door and at her locker. She pulled her vocabulary notebook out from under a pile of books and flipped to the day's assignment. Just like the history paper, the words written on the page were nonsense. Sarah groaned. "I wasn't careful enough with what I wished for," she said to herself. "I only said I wanted the homework done, not done right!"

She spent study hall frantically erasing the wrong answers in her vocabulary book and writing in the correct ones. Her head felt as if a bowling ball were being rolled around inside. She couldn't wait until after tryouts and she could go home, throw the shoes out the window, and crawl into bed.

Finally, the bell rang for the end of school. She felt frantic about the wish she'd made that morning and she still had a headache, but she pulled herself to her feet and stumbled to the locker room. By the time she got there all the other girls had already gone into the gym.

"Come on, Stimkowski!" The Coach yelled when she saw Sarah. "Get out to the court or you'll miss tryouts!"

She tugged off her school clothes, her arms and legs clumsy. As she pulled on her shorts, her headache evaporated. Energy surged through her body as she put on her t-shirt. By the time she'd pulled on her basketball sneakers she felt recharged and ready to play.

On the court she was a whirling, bounding, dribbling, basketball-playing dynamo. She nailed three-point shots, blocked the other girls right and left, and was always open for a pass. When it was time for the Coach to give her verdict it was obvious that Sarah'd made the team. She'd be starting for varsity. The Coach said she'd be the first seventh grader ever to have the honor.

The moment she stepped out of the gym, energy drained from her body like helium from a leaky balloon. She barely made it to her mother's waiting car. At home she stumbled up to bed and fell asleep, exhausted.

The next day at school she rewrote her essay in study hall and apologized to Mr. Williamson. She was starting to feel better about what had happened, but then she went to basketball practice. She felt good, but her playing was humdrum. She was back to normal. Gone was the energy surge of tryouts. She couldn't duplicate the performance she'd put on the day before.

"What's wrong with you today?" the Coach asked. "Yesterday you were amazing, and today? Today, you're ordinary."

"Today I'm myself," Sarah grumbled. "Plain old average me."

"I'll have to rethink my decision to make you a starter. Maybe even take you off varsity," the Coach said. "I'm sorry, Sarah, but I have to be sure you'll play consistently."

When Sarah got home that night she ran upstairs and pulled the shoes out from her closet. "Stupid things! It's impossible to make the right wish!" She threw them in her trashcan then sat down on her bed to fume.

After a few minutes she got up and retrieved the shoes. She put them on her feet. She'd wish for one last thing. This time it would be right.

"I wish I had a chance to do this all over again."

* * *

When Sarah got home from school on Tuesday, her mother said, "I got you something at the thrift shop today."

Sarah groaned. "Mom! I told you I don't want any more junk from the thrift shop! Everyone will laugh at me if I wear used stuff to school."

"How would they know? It's economical to go to the thrift shop. Ecological. It's recycling. Aren't you always preaching to me about that?"

"It's not the same."

"Yes it is. Anyway, just look. They're a cute pair of shoes and they're just your size."

The End

Adrienne Ehlert-Bashista is a school librarian, a freelance writer, and a mother to two small children. She lives in North Carolina.

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