Half Magic (15 page)

Their mother looked at Mr. Smith reproachfully.

"You told them!" she said. "And now they're making all this up to make me feel better. How could you?"

"No, that isn't it at all," said Jane. "There really
is
a charm! Look." And she put the charm in their mother's hands.

"That's a nickel," said their mother.

"That's what I thought at first, too," said Jane, "but it isn't. See, it's got old ancient signs on it! Wish, why don't you? That'll prove it. For whatever your heart desires! Or wait, I'll show you how." And she touched the charm, where it lay in their mother's hand.

"I wish," she began, trying to think of something simple and harmless, yet unusual. "I wish two birds would fly in the window and speak to us."

Immediately a chickadee flew in through the window and stood on the desk.

"Hello," it said. It flew out again.

Their mother had her eyes shut tight. "Tell it to go away!" she said.

"It just did," said Martha.

Their mother opened her eyes again. "That proves it," she said. "It's just as I was afraid it was! Everything's been too much for me and my mind's given way."

"Now, now," said Mr. Smith. "You mustn't get excited." But Mark interrupted him.

"Honestly!" he said to Jane in disgust. "Making birds come in and talk to her! No wonder she thinks she's crazy! Whose heart's desire would that be? No, don't you remember how she always used to say she wanted to be City Editor of the paper some day? Let me have that." And he took the charm from Jane.

"Careful!" said Mr. Smith.

"It's all right. I know what to say," Mark reassured him. And he wished.

The owner of the newspaper walked into the office.

"Ah, dear lady," he said. "How happy you look with your little family around you!"

Their mother turned a woebegone face upon him and said nothing.

"What part of Mother's little family is Mr. Smith?" whispered Katharine to Mark, giggling.

"Shush," said Mark.

"We are making some changes in the organization," the owner of the paper went on, "and I am glad to tell you that from this moment on you may consider yourself City Editor, at a sizeable increase in salary."

"No," said the children's mother, shaking her head stubbornly. "It isn't true. It's just some horrible crazy dream! You aren't even real. You're just a ... a figment of my imagination!"

"Well, really!" said the owner of the paper, looking displeased. Apparently he did not like being called a figment.

"Aw, Mother," said Mark. "Don't worry; just take it. Don't you remember how you've always said you could run the paper singlehanded better than the rest of this whole dopey crowd down here does?"

"You don't say!" said the owner of the paper, coldly. "In that case, perhaps I had better withdraw my offer. Perhaps you had better look for a job somewhere else!" And he made a dignified exit.

"This is worse and worse!" moaned the children's mother. "Now I'm unemployed! And he'll tell everybody it's because I've gone raving, tearing mad, and he'll be right, because I
have
!"

"There, there," Katharine soothed her. "Mark just didn't know. He couldn't, because I'm the only one who knows what your heart's desire really is!" She turned to the others. "Mother told me once that when she was our age she always wanted to be a bareback rider." And Katharine took the charm in her hand.

"Dear me, I hardly think—" began Mr. Smith.

But before he could finish his sentence Katharine had wished, and he and the four children found themselves sitting in the front row of the grandstand inside an immense circus tent, and the ringmaster was just cracking his whip and announcing that La Gloria, the Best Bareback Rider in the World, would now perform her death-defying act.

There was a crash of cymbals, and La Gloria rode into the ring on a white horse. La Gloria was the children's mother. Only she didn't look at all like herself in pink tights and a frilly skirt. And she didn't act like herself, either.

She rode round the ring with grace and speed, and jumped her horse through hoops with spirit and style. And, what was most alarming of all to the four children, she seemed to be
enjoying
it!

"Hoop-la!" she cried. "Allez-oop! Whee!"

"Stop her!" wailed Martha. "She'll hurt herself! She'll fall!" And she jumped over the rail and ran into the middle of the ring, with Jane and Mark and Mr. Smith behind her. Forgetting the charm in her hand, Katharine ran with them. La Gloria had to rein in her horse to keep from running them down.

"Get out of the way! You're spoiling the act!" she said haughtily.

"This is awful! She doesn't know us!" cried Martha.

"Of course she does. Don't you?" said Jane.

"No, and I don't wish to!" said La Gloria. "Out of the way! The show must go on!"

"Why?" said Mark, ever willing to argue a point.

Behind them in the grandstand the audience was beginning to be restless.

"In my opinion people who interrupt other peopie's entertainment should be ejected!" said a lady in the front row.

"You're right!" said the lady sitting next to her. "They should be ejected first and then put out!"

An angry murmur began to grow.

"Down in front!" yelled somebody.

"Get the hook!" yelled somebody else.

The ringmaster approached, cracking his whip.

Then, just as it looked as though there might be unpleasantness, Katharine unwished, and they found themselves back in the newspaper office.

Their mother sat at her desk, a dreamy, faraway smile on her face. Katharine turned to her anxiously.

"There!" she said. "
Now
do you believe?"

Their mother's smile vanished. She looked stubborn. "That didn't happen," she said. "It was a dream."

"How do we all know about it, then?" said Katharine.

"You don't," said their mother. "You couldn't." And nothing any of the children could say would make her believe anything else. After five minutes of trying, they were all breathing hard and beginning to feel a bit desperate.

"May I point out," said Mr. Smith, at last, "that if you would only listen to me—"

But Martha interrupted him.

"Of course if you ask
me
," she said, "the trouble is, none of those wishes were any good because we didn't make her
believe
first."

The others looked at her.

"Of course," said Mark.

"Out of the mouths of babes," said Jane.

"Why didn't
we
think of that?" said Katharine. "Naturally you have to believe in magic—otherwise if it starts happening to you all sanity is despaired of!"

"Exactly," said Mr. Smith. "Now I suggest—"

But Martha had the charm in her hand.

"Oh, Mother," she said earnestly. "Mother
dear,
if you just wouldn't be so stubborn about it! I
wish
you'd believe what we keep telling you! I wish it twice!"

"I do, dear. I believe you," said their mother.

"You believe there's a magic charm?"

"Naturally, dear. If you say so, dear."

"And everything's all right and you're going to get married and live happily ever after?"

"Whatever you say, dear."

"There!" Martha turned in triumph to the others.

But Mark was looking at their mother suspiciously.

"Something's wrong here," he said. "That doesn't sound like Mother at all!"

"No, it doesn't, does it, dear?" said their mother.

"We don't want a mother that just
agrees
with everything all the time!"

"No, you don't, do you, dear?" said their mother. "I wouldn't either."

"You see what I mean?" said Mark. "Why, I bet if I said the
moon
was made of green cheese she'd just say, 'Yes, dear. I know, dear.'"

"Isn't it true?" said their mother. "I couldn't agree with you more, dear."

The other three were just as alarmed as Mark by now.

"This is awful!" Jane cried, turning on Martha. "You've taken Mother and turned her into some awful sappy blah character without any gumption at all! Why, Mr. Smith won't even want to marry her in this condition!"

"No, he won't, will he?" said their mother, contentedly. "I wouldn't, either."

There was a stunned silence.

"And
now,
" said Mr. Smith, in a grim voice, "perhaps you will permit me to make a suggestion?"

No one had the heart to reply.

Mr. Smith took the charm from Martha's hand firmly.

"I suggest that we start over," he said, "and I suggest that we take it more slowly. And that
somebody
thinks before acting!" And he held the charm out before him solemnly, almost as if he were in church.

"I wish first that Alison may be restored to her own natural, stubborn, lovable self, and I wish this twice. But I further wish that her mind, without losing any of its natural, stubborn, lovable character, may be made open to receiving the secret of this charm, and this I also wish twice. And I thirdly wish that she may be twice relieved of the fear that has come to her through the magic of this charm, and may be twice ready to receive any boon it may grant her."

There was another silence. Then the children's mother looked round at them all, and smiled. And it was plain that these last wild minutes, ever since they had arrived in the office, had vanished from her mind.

"Hello," she said. "How nice of you all to come and surprise me."

"We came," said Mr. Smith, "to bring you a gift." And he put the charm on her desk. "This is a magic charm, and it works by halves. Ask twice for whatever you wish, and you will receive it once. It is from all of us, with our love. Now. What is your heart's desire?"

"But you know what it is," said the children's mother, not picking up the charm. "My heart's desire is to marry you and have the children love you as much as I do. And not to have to work on the paper anymore, but stay home and take care of the children instead of having to have Miss Bick. And to have the children be able to go to the country in the summers the way they've always wanted to. And to have you shave off that beard."

"Really? Don't you like it?" said Mr. Smith, in surprise. "I've grown rather attached to it, through the years. I'll hate to see it go. But for the rest of your desire, if you marry me I'll do my best to give it to you. Without the help of any charm. We won't be rich, because people who run bookshops seldom are, but summers in the country I think I can manage."

He took their mother's hand, and the two of them stood looking at each other.

"Aren't you going to wish?" said Katharine, after a bit.

"Why should we?" said their mother. "We
have
our happiness."

"Oh," said Katharine, disappointed.

The faces of the four children fell. They had never felt so let-down in all their lives. Then after a moment Katharine's face brightened.

"But it was a wish that brought you together in the first place," she said, "and it was another wish that made you meet again. It was really the charm that caused everything, in a way!"

"Maybe that's the one big, important thing it came into our lives to do," said Mark.

"You mean maybe now it's used up and won't work anymore?" said Martha, alarmed.

"Oh, and today's the seventh day, too!" cried Jane. "Maybe the magic's over!" She picked up the charm and turned to Mr. Smith. "I don't want to butt in, and I'm sure you could give Mother her heart's desire by the sweat of your manly brow alone," she said, "but just to make sure, I wish all her wishes would come true twice!"

Mr. Smith gave a cry, and clapped his hand to the place where his beard used to be. The four children agreed later that he looked very handsome without it.

Only right now they didn't notice, because right now other things were happening.

For it seemed as though the room suddenly began to shine, and there seemed to be a sound of far-off singing and a faint chiming of bells all about them. And a fragrance hung in the air that was not quite cinnamon and not quite vanilla and not quite the perfume of all the gardens in the world, but a little like all these things and something else, too. It was the scent of magic.