Wish

Summer approaches, and Jackie calls daily to update Charlie on her life in Raleigh. Although she glimpses Wishbone a few times, he hasn’t yet taken the bait in the trap. Feeling dejected, she tells Howard that she wants to quit. When he calls her a “quitter” (96) Charlie’s temper flares and she explodes in front of his mother, calling him “a squirrel-eating hillbilly” (97), and takes off towards home on Lenny’s bike. When she rides up, she sees Wishbone in the trap eating the bait. Charlie slams the trap shut and runs inside to get more food. Bertha is excited that her meatloaf successfully trapped the dog. Wishbone tries to dig out of the trap, but they feed him the meatloaf and he wags his tail happily. They tie him up using a rope and the leather collar that Gus made.

Wishbone doesn’t like being on the leash, but Charlie manages to get him into the house, where she and Bertha enjoy watching him explore with his snout. Charlie is worried that Wishbone won’t get along with Bertha’s cats, but they just scoot away when Wishbone sniffs them. Wishbone sleeps on the floor next to Charlie, and the next day she bathes him and takes him to Howard’s house.