Read Bigger than a Bread Box for Free Online

books. Or if they do, they wish for too much and get buried or ruined by it.
    When I opened the box this time, there
was
a bill inside it, as crisp as if it had just dropped from an ATMmachine, and still slightly warm. I couldn’t help grinning at the sight, because wands and unicorns aside, a girl can do a lot with an unlimited supply of money!
    I snatched the bill out. Then I stood there with my hand on the box, and I couldn’t help it. Just
one
more wish! Really. Just one more. I meant it this time.
Then
I’d go to bed.
    “I wish I had … a thousand dollars,” I said with my eyes shut and my fingers crossed. I opened my eyes, uncrossed my fingers, and opened the box very slowly.
    Inside the box was dark, but whatever was in it was pushing against the door. I could feel the tension in my fingers, my wrist. I opened it a little farther and peered inside. I gasped. The box was stuffed with money! Not in neat stacks like you see in the movies, but crumpled and piled and squashed—a bread box full of loose bills! Old bills and new bills, singles and fives. All jammed together and spilling out of the box. Kind of the way wads of crumpled paper overflow a trash can after you finish an art project and then squash the mess down with your foot. It was the craziest thing I’d ever seen. So much money! What would I do with it all? My head swam from everything all at once.
    I stuffed the twenty back into the box with the rest of the money, and then I took the whole bread box and tried to shove it into my suitcase. It didn’t fit beside my clothes and shoes, so I dumped everything else onto thefloor. Then I put the bread box in and pushed the suitcase under the bed. After that, I yawned again, the kind of yawn that makes your jaw ache. I climbed back into bed.
    I needed to think this over. The possibilities were endless! I’d never be able to show anyone, because I’d never be able to explain it. But then, I didn’t have to. Not here, not in Atlanta. This could be my secret. Because who did I have to tell? There wasn’t anyone.

C HAPTER 5
    I woke up to find Gran standing over me, swaying back and forth in a maroon jogging suit and singing, “Good morning to you! Good morning to you!” She was wearing earrings and lipstick, so I knew she was dressed up.
    I looked at her and realized that I felt horrible—achy and tired and sick, like after a really late slumber party or three days with the flu.
    Gran stopped singing. “Nice to see you’ve made yourself at home,” she said, kicking at the pile of clothes on the floor.
    When I saw all the things I’d dumped out of the suitcase—and the crappy plastic wand poking out of the pile—I remembered. I sat up right away, even though my bones hurt. “I’m up!” I shouted. “I’m up!”
    “My, you certainly are,” laughed Gran. “Looks like a good night’s sleep did wonders for you. Something sure seems different about you today.”
    Something
was
different, though it wasn’t a good night’s sleep. It was the bread box—and the
thousand
dollars! Knowing that the day ahead was full of magic and money changed everything. I could almost
feel
the bread box in the room, waiting for me.
    I was so distracted that I forgot to be mean to my mom at breakfast. When she asked me how I was feeling about registering for my new school, I didn’t ignore her. I said I didn’t know and ate my cereal, thinking about how, if I had to start at a new school, I’d at least be starting as a kid who could have anything she wanted. When Mom poured me a glass of grapefruit juice, I accidentally said thank you. Then I rushed to my room, but Gran knocked on the door and told me to get ready. I jumped into fresh clothes, but she was waiting for me, so that was all I managed to do before it was time to go. I barely had time to give Lew a squeeze on my way out the door. He was still in his pajamas, playing with some race cars in the hallway.
    “Bye, Babecka,” he said. Then he held up a car