Half Magic (3 page)

"Well, no, not exactly."

"Just taking a walk?"

"Well, no."

The rather small gentleman had opened the door of the car now.

"Get in," he said.

To her surprise, the children's mother got in. They rode along for a bit in silence. The children's mother tried to study the gentleman's face out of the corner of her eye, and was displeased to see that he wore a beard. Beards always seemed to her rather sinister. Why would anyone wear one, unless he had something to hide?

But this beard was only a small, pointed one, and the rest of the gentleman's face, or as much of it as she could see in the dark car, seemed pleasant. She found herself wanting to tell him of her strange adventure. Of course she couldn't. It would sound too silly.

The gentleman broke the silence.

"Lonely out this way after dark," he said. "Rather dangerous for walking, I should say."

"I should say so, too," said the children's mother. "I can't think what can have happened. There I was, talking to Aunt Grace, and suddenly
there
I was, by the side of the road!"

And, in spite of having decided not to, she began telling the small gentleman all about it.

"There's only one explanation," she said, at the end of it. "I must have lost my memory, just for a minute."

"Oh, there's never only
one
explanation," said the rather small gentleman. "It depends on which one you want to believe! I believe in believing six impossible things before breakfast, myself. Not that I usually get the chance. The trouble with life is that not enough impossible things happen for us to believe in, don't you agree? Where did you say you live?"

"I didn't," said the children's mother. Really, this night was growing odder and odder. She wasn't used to meeting people who talked exactly like the White Queen, or to giving her address to perfect strangers, either—still, if she wanted to get home there didn't seem to be anything else to do.

She gave him her address, and a moment later they were driving up before the house.

She thanked the small gentleman for his trouble. He bowed, hesitated as though he meant to say something further, then seemed to think better of it, and drove away.

It wasn't until he was gone that the children's mother realized that she didn't even know his name, nor he hers. Still, they would probably never see each other again.

She turned and started up the walk, then stopped in horror.

All the lights in the living room were ablaze!

Thinking of every terrible thing that could possibly have happened, she ran up the walk, turned her key in the lock, and hurried inside.

Huddled on a corner of the sofa sat Jane, wrapped in a blanket and looking small and white and forlorn.

Her mother was by her side and had her arms round her in a second. All thoughts of her own strange evening, and of the rather small gentleman, vanished from her head.

"What is it, tummy-ache or bad dreams?" she cried. "You should have telephoned me!"

"It isn't either one," Jane said. "Mother, did you borrow a nickel that was on my dresser?"

"
What?
" cried her mother. "Did you wait up all this time to ask me
that?
"

And immediately she began to scold, as is the habit of parents when they've been worried about their children and find that they needn't have been.

"Really, Jane, you must
not
be so money-grubbing!" she said. "Yes, I borrowed a nickel for carfare. I only had one nickel and a five-dollar bill, and they're always so mean about making change..."

"Did you
spend
it?" Jane interrupted, her voice horrified.

"I spent a nickel, going. What does it matter? I'll pay you back tomorrow."

"Did you spend the other nickel, coming home?"

Her mother looked confused, for a moment.

"Well, no, as a matter of fact I didn't. Someone gave me a lift."

"Do you know which one you spent, the one you had or the one you borrowed?"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake! No, I don't!"

"Could I have the one you didn't spend? Now, please?"

"Jane, what
is
all this? Anyone would think you were a starving Little Match Girl, or something!" Then her mother relented. "Oh well, if it'll make you happy!"

She dug in her purse.

"Here. Now go to bed."

Jane took one quick look at the thing her mother had given her, then folded her hand tightly around it. She had guessed right. It wasn't a nickel.

She lingered in the doorway.

"Mother."

"What is it now?"

"Well, did you ... did anything ... anything sort of
unusual
happen tonight?"

"What do you mean? Of course not! Why?"

"Oh, nothing!"

Jane searched in her mind for an excuse. She couldn't tell her mother the truth; she'd never believe it. It would only upset her.

"It's just that I ... I had this
dream
about you, and I got worried. I dreamed you
wished
for something!"

"You did? That's strange." Her mother looked interested suddenly. She went on, almost to herself, as though she were remembering. "As a matter of fact, I
did
wish something. I wished I were at home. And it was just then that..."

"That
what?
" Jane was excited.

Her mother put on her "drop the subject" expression.

"Nothing. I came home. Someone gave me a ride. A ... a friend of Uncle Edwin's."

She didn't look at Jane. It was awful to be lying like this, to her own child. But she couldn't tell Jane the truth; she'd never believe it. It would only upset her.

"I see." But Jane didn't leave. She stood tracing a pattern in the hall carpet with one foot. She went on carefully, not looking at her mother.

"In my dream, when you wished you were home, I'm not sure what came next. I don't think you
were
home, exactly..."

"Ha! I certainly wasn't!"

"But you were
somewhere!
"

"Somewhere in a weed patch, halfway out Bancroft Street, most likely!"

Now Jane looked up, and straight at her.

"We're just talking about my dream, aren't we? It didn't really happen?"

"Of course not."

It was her mother who was looking away now. But now Jane knew.

Clutching the thing in her hand tighter, she ran up the stairs and into her room.

Her mother stood thinking. How strange that Jane should have guessed! No stranger, though, than everything else about this strange evening. Probably none of it had really happened at all. Probably she was ill and imagining things—coming down with flu or something. She had better get some rest. She turned out the living room lights and went upstairs.

Jane stood in her own room, looking at the thing in her hand. It was the size of a nickel and the shape of a nickel and the color of a nickel, but it wasn't a nickel.

It was worn thin—probably by centuries of time, Jane told herself. And instead of a buffalo or a Liberty head, it bore strange signs. Jane held it closer to the light to study the signs.

There was a rap at the door.

"Lights out!" called her mother's voice.

Jane put out the light.

But she knew that she held in her hand the talisman that was going to turn this summer into a time of wild adventure and delight for all of them.

She must hide it in a safe place till morning.

Feeling her way across the room in the dark, she opened the closet door. There was a shoebag on the inside of the door, one of those flowered cotton affairs with many compartments for shoes, though Jane seldom remembered to put hers away in it.

She dropped the magic thing into one of the compartments in the shoebag. No one would disturb it there.

Then she got into bed.

Her last thought was that she must wake up early in the morning, by dawn at
least
, and call the others.

They must hold a Conference, and decide just how they were going to use this wonderful gift that had descended upon them out of the blue.

It was going to be an Enchanted Summer!

And Jane fell asleep.

Of course it didn't work out that way at all.

In the morning Jane was so tired from her midnight vigil that she slept right through breakfast. Their mother (who was tired, too) thought Jane needed the rest, and told Miss Bick not to call her.

Miss Bick looked disapproving as usual, but did as she was told. The children's mother went off to work, and Katharine and Martha (under protest) washed and dried the breakfast dishes without the usual charming companionship of their elder sister. Katharine was the washer and Martha the drier.

"I'd like to know what's going on around here," Katharine complained, over the cereal bowls. "Lights on at all hours and Mother and Jane holding secret midnight conspiracies in the living room. I heard them! And now Mother letting Jane stay in bed half the morning—I don't know what this house is coming to!"

"It's that magic. It's mysterious. I don't like it," Martha said.

Katharine had reached the awful pans that needed scouring now, and Martha went away and left her with them, as is the traitorous habit of all dish-driers.

She went into Jane's room. Drawn shades and a huddled form in the bed greeted her.

"Wake up," she said to the form, in a halfhearted way.

"Go away," said Jane, from under a sheet and blanket.

Martha felt depressed.

Carrie the cat had followed her into the room. Carrie's full name was Carrie Chapman Cat. Katharine had named her after a famous lady whose name she had seen in the newspaper. Carrie was a fat, not very interesting cat, kept mainly for mousing purposes, and the children ordinarily paid very little attention to her, or she to them.

But this morning everything was so gloomy and strange that Martha felt the need of comfort. She sat down on the floor, leaned her head back against the open door of Jane's closet, took Carrie in her lap, and stroked her.

There was a silence, except for the heavy breathing of Jane.

Martha felt a wish for companionship.

"Oh dear, if you could only talk," she said to Carrie.

"Purrxx," said Carrie the cat. "Wah oo merglitz. Fitzahhh!"

"What?" said Martha, startled.

"Wah oo merglitz," said Carrie. "Widl. Wifi uzz.

"Oh!" said Martha. "Oh!"

She got up, dropping Carrie rather heavily to the floor, and backed away, white with horror.

"Foo!" said Carrie resentfully. "Idgwit! At urt!"

Mark appeared in the doorway.

"Are my roller skates in here?" he demanded. "Jane borrowed them last week when her strap broke."

Martha ran to him and clutched him.

"It's that magic!
I've
got it now!" she cried. "I wished Carrie could talk, and now listen to her!"

Carrie chose this moment to put on an offended silence.

"Bushwah," Mark said gruffly. He had found his roller skates in Jane's shoebag and was putting them on. "That old cat. She always was crazy, anyway!"

"Azy ooselfitz!" said Carrie suddenly.

Mark looked surprised. Then he shook his head in disbelief.

"That's not talking," he said. "Probably just having a fit or something."

"But I wished she could talk, and then it began. Like Jane yesterday!"

"Just a coincidence," said Mark. "Yesterday, too. I don't believe in that old magic. Just Jane being smart. Just a lot of crazy girls."

He banged away through the house and out the front door, on his skates. Miss Bick could be heard, following in his wake and lamenting the fate of the floor polish.

Martha gave up. There was no sense in appealing to Mark in this mood. Sometimes he got tired of being the only boy in a family of girls, and when that happened there was no comfort in him. But she refused to be left here alone with the sleeping Jane and the gibbering Carrie.

Or could Mark have been right? Was it just a coincidence? She looked at Carrie doubtfully.

"Did you say something?" she inquired politely.

"Idlwidl baxbix!" said Carrie. "Wah. Oom. Powitzer grompaw."