Wishful Thinking

Donna Barclay has had it with her little brother. Jimmy wakes her with corny riddles, doodles in her notebook, hogs the television, and gets her stuck walking him to the dentist instead of shopping at the mall. So Donna says the thing she can't take back: she wishes Jimmy had never been born... and the next morning, he hasn't been. His room is gone, every chore is hers, her best friend Lucy has never heard of him, and the quiet house feels less peaceful than plain lonely. It takes exactly one day without noise, dumb jokes, and homework questions for Donna to make a brand-new wish - for a little brother. When Jimmy turns up safely down the hall the next morning, she apologizes and asks if he's heard any good riddles lately. Be careful what you wish for - it just might come true.

Found on Just In Time Album 09 · 14 episodes

The run See every episode

0120 Pranks for the Memories Odyssey's self-proclaimed prank master is so sure no one can fool him that a simple act of kindness sends him spiraling into an elaborate counterattack of his own making.

0121 Missing Person When the town bully vanishes on the morning of the state fair, the search for him uncovers more than one secret - and puts his least likely rescuer on the trail.

1 of 2 0122 Castles and Cauldrons A summer visit from Jimmy's cousin Len turns unsettling when the "game" packed in his suitcase demands secrecy, incantations, and total trust.

2 of 2 0123 Castles and Cauldrons When Jimmy's out-of-town cousin introduces him to a fantasy role-playing game that demands ever-deeper commitment, the line between make-believe and something far darker begins to blur.

0124 The Winning Edge When a win-at-all-costs new coach takes over a girls' softball team, his hunger for a championship pushes two young friends on rival teams toward a collision neither of them wants.

0125 All's Well with Boswell Robyn's first babysitting job takes an unexpected turn when her charge turns out to be a giant, spoiled cat with a talent for chaos.

0126 Wishful Thinking When her little brother's constant pestering pushes her past her limit, a teenage girl makes a careless wish that shows her exactly what life would be like without him.

0127 Have You No Selpurcs? When a quiz at Whit's End exposes very different ideas about honesty, Mr. Whittaker invents a mysterious game called Selpurcs to teach two kids a lesson neither of them sees coming.

0128 One Bad Apple When several Odyssey children fall ill after eating at Whit's End, Whit and Tom Riley trace the trouble upstream to a source no one in town would ever have suspected.

0129 Not One of Us A young reporter's assignment on bigotry takes an unexpected turn when her search for people who've experienced discrimination leads her to a strange little town off the interstate.

1 of 2 0130 Bernard and Joseph While washing windows at Whit's End, Bernard Walton helps a boy fed up with his six siblings by recounting the story of Joseph, whose troubles with his own brothers make any family squabble look small.

2 of 2 0131 Bernard and Joseph While washing windows, Bernard is roped into finishing the story of Joseph for young Artie Powell - picking up in an Egyptian prison, where a pair of troubling dreams sets Joseph's fate, and his family's, on an extraordinary new course.

0132 Thanksgiving at Home When the flu strikes on Thanksgiving morning, two kids decide they can cook the family feast themselves - how hard can one turkey be?

Featured characters

Minor characters & crew 2 more roles

2 supporting roles

Weatherman Dave Arnold Narrator (c) Phil Lollar

Made by

Chris Anthony Host Paul McCusker Writer · Director Dave Arnold Sound Designer · Producer Chuck Bolte Executive Producer

The story

Read the full synopsis 4 min

Morning at the Barclay house begins the way it always does. The clock radio is still promising rain and reminding listeners to take a raincoat when Jimmy Barclay comes bouncing onto his sister's bed to wake her up, refusing to leave until she hears his newest riddle. When was baseball first mentioned in the Bible? Genesis chapter one, in the big inning. Donna Barclay does not laugh, or at least she will not admit to it, and she chases him out so she can get ready for school.

Breakfast does not improve her mood. George and Mary Barclay have a meeting at church that afternoon, so chores come before television: vacuuming the whole house for Donna, furniture polish for Jimmy. Then comes the part Donna has not planned for. Jimmy has a dentist appointment after school, and her father wants her to collect him from his school and walk him there. That means no trip to the mall for the new purse she has been eyeing, and her request for an advance on her allowance goes nowhere. Her muttered complaints earn a warning from her father that the two of them will be having a talk about her attitude that evening.

At school Donna pours it all out to her friend Lucy Cunningham-Schultz. Jimmy tells corny jokes, teases her, gets her into trouble, borrows her things without asking. He even doodled across her math notebook, which is why she had no clean paper for class. Her life, Donna decides, would be easier without him: more peace and quiet, a bigger bedroom, and parents who could afford more for an only child. Lucy is not convinced. She reminds Donna of something Mr. Whittaker likes to say, that sometimes people do not appreciate what they have until it is gone.

The rest of the day only builds the case for the prosecution. Donna walks home in the rain with no raincoat, since she never heard the forecast over the noise of her brother, and Jimmy refuses to put up his own hood. A tug of war ends with mud on her clothes and a chase down the sidewalk. At home he claims the television for his detective show instead of hers. At dinner he tries out another riddle. Later, when Donna has finally settled in front of the set, he needs help with a math problem and their parents have told him to ask her, so she misses the end of her program.

That night her father comes in for their talk, and Donna says the thing she cannot take back. Sometimes she wishes Jimmy had never been born. George gently tells her she should not say that, and passes along his grandmother's warning: never make wishes, because they might come true. Her life would not be what she imagines without her brother, he says. Alone in the dark, Donna answers that she wishes she had the chance to find out.

She gets it. The next morning her mother wakes her in a bedroom that is smaller than it should be, with the nightstand on the wrong side. There is no Jimmy in the house, no clothes of his, no room of his, no trace at all. The house itself has shrunk, because as her mother says, there are only the three of them. Every chore is Donna's now. At school Lucy has never heard of a brother named Jimmy and starts to wonder whether Donna has hit her head.

The wish turns out to be a poor bargain. Donna walks home alone in the rain to a house so quiet it echoes, does all the chores herself, and finds she has been watching her brother's detective show out of habit. She tries his baseball riddle at dinner, and her parents smile politely at a joke that no longer belongs to anyone. There is still no money for the shoes she wants, because an only child gets a budget too. Going to bed early out of sheer boredom, she tries to explain herself: it is not just quiet in the house, it is lonely. She misses somebody who makes noise and tells dumb jokes and asks for help with homework. Sometimes, Donna tells her startled parents, she wishes she had a little brother. Her mother warns her to be careful what she wishes for.

When morning comes again, Donna wakes to a familiar voice hollering back at her from down the hall. Jimmy is there, puzzled about why his sister is shouting his name all over the house and why she suddenly minds that he did not jump on her bed. Donna apologizes for how mean she has been, and then asks her brother the one question she never thought she would ask. Has he heard any good riddles lately?