A story about... A Wish c. 1999/2000 Mark Frey, Tymme Laun, Christine Schwab, and Sally Treanor	MARK	TYMME	CHRISTINE & SALLY
				SALLY & CHRISTINE
			CHRISTINE	TYMME & SALLY
			SALLY
				CHRISTINE

Jane Miller sat on a generic chair in a chain restaurant, pretending to enjoy the company of her coworkers and friends on an unremarkable Friday evening. Listening to Sylvia's latest beau drivel on about his car and the Xerox and football, Jane was for some reason reminded of the exact moment she stopped believing in miracles, magic, and such related myths as the Easter Bunny and Trickle-Down Economics.

It was the summer after fourth grade, when she and her family had traveled north to her grandparents' cottage to escape the summer city heat and the summer city residents. Sitting on the rocks by the water, her brother and she would skip small stones for hours, until their mother called them in to eat dinner or to see their father's latest drawings-he was an artist who did little work he considered creative at his advertising firm and who relished the summer days by the lake when he could take time to indulge himself in "studies" of whatever happened to catch his interest. "Much better than cartoons about cat food," he always said, and the members of Jane's little family were very proud to be among the privileged few who ever saw Mr. Miller's "real work."

Jane's birthday was in the summer, and that year she was ten. Cutting the cake at her party, she wished the same thing she had wished for the last four years-that Daddy could stop having to draw for the angry men at the office, and instead the Millers could stay at Nana's cottage so Daddy could enjoy his private drawings, Mommy could read all the books she always said she wanted to read but didn't have time, and Jane and her brother could skip rocks as much as they wanted. Ten seemed like a magic number for Jane, as it does for most people when they are ten, and somehow she was sure her wish would be granted that year.