The Wishing Game

“No. No more. Time’s up. Time to go. By this time next spring, he’d be gone. He couldn’t sit and watch his old friend fade like ink on old paper until no one could read the writing anymore.”

Jack’s melancholy is such that even those closest to him see little hope for him without a significant change in his demeanor. This passage depicting Hugo’s thoughts underscores how dire Jack’s situation is and how much he’s at risk of losing the companionship of the person he loves like a son.

“Poor thing, he looked so tired. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his shoulders drooped with exhaustion. A seven-year-old child shouldn’t have eyes like a world-weary detective working a particularly grisly murder case.”

This passage highlights the cost of childhood trauma and the need for good parenting. While Lucy can’t necessarily fix all of Christopher’s problems, her inability to adopt him only prolongs his lack of a stable home environment, without which Christopher can’t overcome his past.

“Christopher was only seven, so she wasn’t in any hurry to tell him that the characters he loved in books and movies weren’t real. He didn’t have a lot to believe in right now, so why not let him think that the Mastermind from their Clock Island books was a real guy out there granting real kids’ wishes.”

Here, the novel foreshadows later events. In many respects, Jack is, in fact, the Mastermind and acts like his character in the way that he devises the contest to emulate the events his characters face in one of his novels.

“And you still picked that island and Jack over me. Don’t pretend you hate it there. You love it there. You love it and you love Jack, and you don’t want to leave.”

What Piper tells Hugo defines the dilemma that has often plagued him during the last seven years. Although multiple opportunities wait for him beyond Jack and Clock Island, including a new career direction and a prospective marriage to Piper, he can’t live without his fundamental love for his surrogate father and the island itself. Hugo is too loyal to abandon either one.

“Women with crying babies. Women with screaming toddlers. Women—and a few men—sitting next to quiet, distant teenagers who had likely experienced the sort of horrors most people only read about in books and newspapers.”

This passage describes the harsh realities of the adoption process and child services in general. Lucy’s situation is arduous and represents the widespread pain and stress that most people experience during the adoption process.

“‘He needs a real mom. He’s better off with me than with someone just going through the motions.’ ‘The motions are pretty darn important too. I know you think kids need nothing but love, but a strong dose of stability doesn’t hurt either. I hate to say it, but your life is currently not stable enough for a child.’”

This excerpt discusses and supports the theme of The Requirements of Being a Good Parent. Bare minimum requirements of a stable home environment are just as important as an abundance of love for a child to thrive—not one or the other.

“But let’s just say, they found me at the right time. Eight was a tough year for me. When I started reading those books, it got a lot better.”

This passage reveals how literature—Jack’s books, specifically—can heal through escapism. The text hints that stories help both children and adults, either by giving them something to hope for or by providing a reprieve from their situation while they read.

“Oh, I guess you could make excuses for them. Your sister is chronically ill, and while being a parent is a full-time job, being a parent to a chronically ill child makes you a prisoner to the illness. Nobody wants to be a prisoner. No one asks for that. I wish that hadn’t happened to your sister or anyone’s sister or brother or mother or dad. That being said, it’s a terrible thing your parents have done to you.”

Jack’s words comfort Lucy, letting her know that he recognizes how Lucy’s parents applied double standards to their children. Although caring for a child afflicted with an illness is arduous, it doesn’t justify neglecting other children within the family. Caring for one child shouldn’t trump caring for another.

“God—or whoever is in charge of this planet—got drunk on the job one day and decided to give me the gift of writing. The way I see it, I have two choices. I can set that gift on a high shelf so it won’t get dinged up and nobody can make fun of me for playing with it […] Or I can have fun with it and play with the gift I was given until the engine burns out and the wheels come off. I decided to play. I suggest you do the same. Go paint or draw or collage or whatever you want to do. Come back when there’s smoke coming off the canvas. And for God’s sake, go have some fun. Please?”

Jack’s advice to Hugo about letting the creative process flow illustrates the value that Jack places on his writing and on art in general. One shouldn’t squander one’s talents, in his opinion. This offers a counterpoint to his six-year hiatus and a reason to explain why he’s able to push himself to write once again, despite his long period of depression.

“She tucked Christopher into bed with her, and he rested his head on her arm while she read page after page of the book, waiting for his to say something. When they got to the middle, it was bedtime. When he asked if she would read one more chapter to him, those were the first words he’d said since she’d brought him to her house.”

Here, the text shows how stories can overcome the boundaries that trauma presents. Stories incite a child’s pure curiosity. Although Christopher witnessed and endured the pain of the traumatic loss of his parents, reading stories and knowing their end pushes him to overcome his silence.

“Even if they had known what time her flight landed, they still wouldn’t have come. This was just an old fantasy of hers that refused to die. Would she ever stop waiting for her family to show up and take her home?”

Although Lucy is now an adult and is envisioning herself as Christopher’s parent, the harm her own parents caused still lives within her, even after all these years. In this case, the novel emphasizes that neglect, though not considered physical abuse, is a form of harm that also leaves scars.

“When talking to the children—and the former children—who read his books, Jack’s number one rule was Don’t break the spell. Lucy was under the spell of Jack Masterson and Clock Island. Hugo wasn’t about to tell her that it wasn’t as wonderful as it looked, that the mysterious, mystical, magical Mastermind from the stories who could solve everyone’s problems and grant every child’s wish had been drinking himself into an early grave for the past six years.”

This passage reveals the nuances of Jack’s character. His genuine and deep interest in helping children through his work and persona emerges from a soul that dances with its own demons.

“Writing that book changed my life. Reading it changed yours. And all of us, I think, are hoping one of my books will change our lives again. The stories write us, you see. We read something that moves us, touches us, speaks to us and it…it changes us.”

Jack’s statement foreshadows the extent of his masterminding. Although “one of my books” implies his unpublished manuscript, it also refers to the real-life book he has constructed through his Clock Island contest.

“The first time you came here, you carried in your hearts a wish. A wish to be like the children in my books. Well, now you’re going to get it. While you are here this week, you will become, as you once wished, like a character in one of my books.”

In this instance, Jack fully adopts the Mastermind persona. By making the contestants out to be characters in Clock Island books, the text announces that the events that follow will emulate the narrative structure of the book series.

“That’s what this place reminded her of, that puzzle left behind, never finished. Lucy knew something bad had happened here. Jack Masterson hadn’t retired from writing because he was so rich he never had to work again. No, for some reason, he’d lost heart.”

If, as the novel indicates, places are times and times are places, the text conveys that the unfinished condition of the City of Second Hand represents Jack’s mental health. Decrepit and abandoned, Jack is still often caught in the events of seven years ago, when his love of children and desire to help them caused the death of Autumn Hillard.

“For once in my life, I would love to spend fifteen dollars on a toy for Christopher without getting sick to my stomach. Sorry you disapprove of me daydreaming about the money a little bit, but that’s all Christopher and I have right now—wishes and dream. But it’s better than have nothing.”

The text underscores how money—or the lack thereof—often complicates one’s moral standing. The deprivation of necessities or an occasional luxury creates such constant stress for Lucy that the idea of more easily alleviating it by quickly selling Jack’s book to Richard Markham, who would keep it for himself, is a great temptation, even if it meant that others wouldn’t get to enjoy Jack’s book. In the end, of course, her sense of morality proves stronger, and she gives Markham’s card to Hugo.

“He sat me down and told me people with my kind of talent weren’t allowed to squander it. He said I was like a man burning money in front of a poorhouse, that not only was that cruel, but it stank. That got to me.”

This passage implies that part of the reason that Jack is so opposed to wasting talent is how strongly many people wish to have it and often work endlessly for it. Although Hugo admits that his own fortune is due to both work and luck, wasting his potential and the ability he has gained, when others aren’t allowed the same circumstances to achieve success, is insulting for Jack.

“How did you make adults face their fears when being an adult was nothing but waking up every morning with their fears already in their faces?”

The idea of fear in the novel often underscores a particular situation that a person is actively trying to avoid confronting. This line implies that confronting uncomfortable situations is part of daily life for an adult. Adult fears, after all, are of a different caliber than those of children or those depicted in Jack’s books.

“He wants you now. He needs you forever. You can give what he wants by leaving, or you can give him what he needs by staying and winning this stupid game.”

Here, Hugo emphasizes how immediate gratification can sometimes be detrimental to one’s goal—something Lucy will eventually apply to her desire to adopt Christopher. Hugo argues that though the impulse to help a child is strong, the need to give him a loving home environment must be stronger because long-term goals should outweigh short-term comfort.

“Jack told me years ago how he invented Clock Island on those nights his father turned into a werewolf. He’d hide under the covers starting at the face of his glow-in-the-dark watch, waiting for the hours to pass. Clocks were magic to him—ten and eleven at night were dangerous hours, werewolf hours, but six and seven and eight in the morning were human times. If he were king of the clock, he could keep those werewolf hours from coming. Somehow the clock became an island, a place where scared kids could go to find their courage.”

Hugo describes the silver lining of Jack’s traumatic childhood. Although the abuse he received at his father’s hands was awful, Jack recontextualized their dynamic within his imagined story regarding Clocks. Doing so allowed him to make sense of the situation and gave him a sense of control over his father’s violence.

“We tell people […] to follow their dreams. We tell them that they won’t be complete until they do, that they’ll be miserable until they start reaching for that brass ring. They never tell you how good it feels to give up on a dream.”

Jack explains the pressures and stress that often come from following dreams and wishes. Although achieving one’s goals is ideal, the journey to those goals (whatever they may be) is often challenging and requires substantial sacrifices.

“Because they weren’t happy unless I was sick. […] They liked me when I was sick. They liked sending me to doctors and getting me treatment. Once I got better physically, I had to have other things wrong with me for Mom and Dad to fix. So, they said I had a learning disability, then an eating disorder, then they decided I was depressed and possibly bipolar. You name it, they tried to find a doctor to say I had it.”

Lucy outlines the toxicity of her parents’ treatment of her as a child. Although Lucy and Angie’s parents seemed committed to Angie’s health, their commitment was selfish because its purpose was to validate themselves in the process. In making themselves the priority, they robbed their daughter of her sister and a healthy home life.

“Because only brave children know that wishing is never enough. You have to try to make your own wishes come true.”

This quote is the basis of Jack’s belief in wishes. While he understands the cost of wishes, he also understands that wishing with the expectation that one’s wish will be magically fulfilled, without any effort, makes the wish essentially worthless.