We've all wished on a star...

Sometimes we wish too hard.

Sometimes, we don't wish at all.

But what if you wished on the right star? At the right time?

Would it be a blessing?

Or would it be something much, much more....?

For as long as he could remember, he had been in and out of foster care. For some reason, people said that his mother wasn't fit to look after him. He never really understood why. To him, she was perfect. She wasn't like everyone else. She was fun and exciting, taking him places and buying him things that all the other kids wished their mums would do. His best memory was when his mum picked him up from school halfway through a sleepy Tuesday morning and took him to a carnival, just for the fun of it. It wasn't just the fact that she was a live wire that made her the best mum in the world, but she also understood Brady.

"Don't worry, sugar, it's just you and me against the world," she'd always say.

Though that was wrong. It wasn't just them against the world. This time when he got taken away from her, she said that they probably wouldn't be able to see each other much. She had to go away, where she was going he didn't know, but it made the other mums at the school pat him reassuringly and force their children to be nice when they were around. When their parents weren't around, however, they turned nasty.

"You're mum's legged it!"

"She's nothing but a druggie!"

"My mum said that your mum was a disgrace!"

"You're just as weird as that hippie mother of yours!"

Brady's foster home was just as bad. He usually got put to a foster home with an alternative couple named Julie and Phil. Even when he was back with his mum they would still keep in contact. They were great, and Brady adored them. Though they had a baby of their own, something they never thought they would get, so there wasn't room for Brady too. Instead, he was put into a farm house with five other children of different ages, most with behavioural problems. The couple raising them weren't young and fun like his mother or Julie and Phil. They were old and bitter, believing that boys will be boys and play army or ride bikes and girls would be girls and bake or play with dolls. Brady would rather bake than ride a bike, but that just wasn't an option here.

"You're a growing boy and should be outside getting dirty," his foster mother, Anne, would say loudly ushering him out of the kitchen.

Brady had taken to tree climbing in his short time here. It was a nice escape for him, he could watch the world roll by away from the scathing eyes of those he lived with. He had a small notebook with him that he could doodle in and note down any new birds that he saw, and sometimes he even had a snack. It seemed perfect.

After one particularly explosive row involving Anne, Brady and the youngest child in the house, Melody, Brady decided that he would run away. Well, not really run away, just scare everyone. If they thought he was missing they would have to phone his social worker, who would then declare Anne and her husband unfit parents and take Brady somewhere he belonged. He climbed into his tree and waited for the panic to ensue.

Though after a couple of hours, it was apparent that it was not going the way he hoped. No-one called for him, no-one ran around to look for him, no-one cared. Brady was deeply saddened by this, so just decided to stay where he was rather than admit defeat. The only person that cared was his mum, and he didn't know when he would see her again. Julie and Phil have a new baby and they didn't care about him any more, he would never be theirs or mean anything to them. Anne and Pat didn't care, they had hundreds of kids in and out through the years, to them, he was just another pay cheque. The other kids didn't care, to them he was just the weird boy who liked bird watching and had a strange obsession with historical facts.

Somehow, with all the dark thoughts in his head, he fell asleep. It wasn't an overly solid sleep, but it was long. He awoke with a crick in his neck long after the sun had set. He cast an eye over to the house and saw that the lights downstairs were still on. He reasoned that it wasn't overly late, rather than the fact they may have waited up for his return. Brady looked up to the sky and saw stars dotted all over. His mother had always told him that the stars in the sky were the souls of angels sent from heaven to look down lovingly upon him and keep him out of trouble. It was a comforting thought.

"If you are angels," he said softly. "Please don't make me stay here. Please let me go somewhere where someone wants me. I don't like it here. I want to go home. I want my mum back. I want Julie and Phil. I want someone, anyone, who'll treat me the way I treat others...please?"

Sighing, Brady shook his head. He wasn't a baby. He was the ripe old age of ten, after all. He knew that there was no point in talking to himself, no-one would hear him.

"I wish," he added. "That I had a real friend."

Slowly, Brady climbed out of the tree. He gave the sky one last look before he turned on his heel and sloped back to the house to get the spanking from Anne that he was most likely due.

Lola adored flitting through the cosmos. Moving faster than anything within the universe ever could, her shining white light passed through even massive galaxies in mere seconds, leaving billions of stars behind her and finding a billion more. She didn’t dare get too close to the stars, though. They would pull her right in like so many unfortunate planets and meteorites before her. Though she was hardly a planet, and not large enough to be a meteor. Her soft white light could be considered a shooting star when close enough. Lola’s guise of a star’s flying through the universe was well-received, though, as so often she was asked for a wish to be granted. Sometimes it was the wish of fortune, which she couldn’t grant. She had nothing but herself, after all, and no items of value. Other times they wished for good luck. Though she could be useful in that. Sometimes she made it to them in time to grant them their wish, to watch out for them and keep them out of bad situations. Every now and then, they wished for love. Lola’s fragile little heart couldn’t ignore that. She assisted the wishers in finding true love, though it took a long time sometimes. There were instances where they were a bit reluctant to believe their wish could come true so easily.

And sometimes, not often, someone wished for a friend. She didn’t like that. It meant they couldn’t find anyone that loved them enough to be called a friend. Or they were just terribly unlucky. It saddened her so much more than those wishing for love. Because at least those men and women actually had friends. When someone was so desperate they turned to the sky, and threw up a wish to the wind and hoped someone would catch on or find them, or sometimes even hear them, brought tears to Lola’s eyes. And it was a child, no less! A little boy, a voice pleading. He called the stars angels. Perhaps Lola was an angel, happening along the right place at the right time. She had entered the galaxy called the Milky Way not a moment ago, and was greeted with this pleading, wishing question. ”I wish that I had a real friend...”

Lola couldn’t cry in her ethereal form. But in her head, a sob echoed as she slowed a bit. From the ground, one would only see a streak of light, and if they were in the right place, they would notice the streak of light was getting closer. Lola had directed herself to the place the wish came from, give or take a few degrees. The streak whistled when it breached the atmosphere, gaining speed but never growing smaller. She slammed into the ground and burrowed a deep hole in the bottom of a ravine about a foot in diameter. It was silent for a moment, the world hushed in its nighttime darkness. Lola lifted up on the air, but lacked wings, raising her arms to direct her up and out of the hole, the ravine, and onto the soft, dewy grass. Her feet were bare, skin pale, almost silvery-white in the moonlight. A thin silken slip of a dress adorned her body, oddly, paler than she was. Her hair gleamed like strands of moonlight for a moment, then faded to pale silver, matching her eyes.

As she lowered her arms, she looked around. For a moment, Lola seemed a bit desperate, until she glanced back into the ravine. “Oh!” her voice was light, child-like, and a bit airy. “Sweetie, come now!” She put her arms out, and from the hole she’d made when she fell, a white rabbit with a pink ribbon around its neck drifted up and into her arms. It was half her size, the size of a five year old. When her rabbit was safe in her embrace, Lola spun on her toes, breathing in the cool, clear air before catching sight of a house not too far away. The lights just turned off when she saw it. A strong, obvious pull came from the house. No doubt it held the owner of the wish.

“Sweetie, we have the right place.” Lola smiled, petting her rabbit’s head. She ran across the field, light feet not disturbing the grass. Come morning, the little voice would no longer want for a friend. She’d be there for him.