It isn’t easy to memorize angles and distances, but Harry gave it his full attention until he was sure he could zero in on the roof no matter how foggy it might be. On the next foggy night, he wasn’t going to have to trust to guesses or dumb luck. When he finally took off on the next part of his flight plan, he was feeling proud of himself for thinking so far ahead.
Earlier in the day when Harry was making plans for the evening, he had decided on a visit to the zoo. Fleishhacker Zoo had always been one of his favorite places, and it occurred to him that it would be fun to find out what it was like at night. He’d have the whole place to himself, with no crowds in front of his favorite animals; and all the nocturnal animals that were usually asleep when you saw them, would be up and prowling around. It ought to be great.
Harry was feeling fine and flying strongly as he headed southwest towards Twin Peaks. Once he passed the peaks he ought to be able to see all the way to the beach and Fleishhacker Zoo. The wind was clean and sharp against his face, but his drapery robe was thick and warm. He liked the sound the drape fringe made whipping madly against the legs of his Levis. It was a keen high-speed sound, something like a playing card makes on the spokes of a bike wheel. The beat of his wings was strong and sure against the lifting wind, and up here in the open sky flying seemed to have become almost automatic.
As he approached Twin Peaks, he had to climb again in order to clear their tops; and the view from that height was so tremendous that he decided to go even higher to find out just how much he could see, all at one time. He began to spiral up and up until he was almost out of breath. At last he leveled out and drifted in a great circle high above Twin Peaks. Below him the whole bay area lay spread out in patterns of golden haze, midnight blue, and velvety black. Glittering streams of light bordered the darker patches, or laced in and out among them, like velvet embroidered with diamonds. To the west, the Pacific Ocean framed the white beach with an even whiter border of surf.
As Harry’s slowly circling flight turned his face eastward, he could see the entire bay, stretching its dark arms far to the north and south, crossed only by the bridges in three thin bracelets of light. Directly across the bay, crowds of tiny lights climbed the lower slopes of the Berkeley hills, whose dark crests made a black border for the eastern sky.
It was just about the most beautiful sight Harry had ever seen. Below him lay San Francisco, the city that people said was the most beautiful place in the world, spread out like a gigantic living map. As he circled slowly he kept picking out familiar places. Some of them he recognized immediately, even though he generally saw them from a very different angle. Others were puzzling at first, and didn’t seem to be quite where they belonged.
The Embarcadero with its fringe of piers was unmistakable, and so was the Ferry Building, Market Street and the huge glowing dome of City Hall. But Coit Tower seemed a lot nearer the bay than he would have expected, and the Golden Gate Bridge seemed farther to the west.
If he hadn’t already made other plans, Harry could have stayed up there for hours. But the zoo ought to be great, too, so he finally turned toward the south and west and slanted into a long downward glide. As he passed over the dark treetops of Stern Grove, he was flying fairly low again, and it was only a few minutes later that he skimmed silently above the empty parking strip and the high fence that surrounded the zoo.
It had been quite a long flight for a beginner, and his wings were feeling a little tired. He was just thinking about finding a nice safe landing spot—it wouldn’t do to land in the lions’ grotto, for instance—when, just ahead of him, he saw a familiar sight. Monkey Island.
Monkey Island had always been one of Harry’s favorite places at Fleishhacker Zoo. There are no bars at all around the island, only a small moat. There is a big hill of artificial boulders, with a waterfall coming down one side, and lots of nooks and crannies for sleeping and shelter. At one end of the island there is a good sandy beach where the monkey families sit around and sun themselves on nice days and the little babies play tag and scoot around on their stomachs in the sand, just like real kids. Near the beach, at the edge of the moat, there is a dead tree. It isn’t much more than a slender trunk going straight up like a telephone pole; but the monkeys like to play on it.
Anyway, the island was one of the places that Harry liked most, and that was probably the reason he did what he did. If there had been time to stop and think it over, he might have had better sense, but there wasn’t any time at all. He was on the island almost before he knew what was happening.
It was one of his best landings. His scooping wings caught the ocean breeze, and he came down beautifully, feet first, right on top of the little hill. There he was, standing right at the top of Monkey Island’s hill, with the little waterfall trickling down from just below his feet. Everything was very quiet and peaceful, and although it was darker than up in the open sky, there was plenty of light for him to see his way around. Harry was just thinking that the monkeys were probably asleep in the little caves and crannies and wondering if he’d get to see them at all when, suddenly, the little hill erupted like a monkey volcano.
In a split second the whole island was jumping with shrieking monkeys, and more seemed to be oozing out of every crack in the hill. The screeching and chattering was so unnerving that Harry couldn’t think what to do. It seems like anybody would know that there’s not much point in arguing with a bunch of hysterical monkeys, but for a minute all Harry could think to do was say, “Shhh! Be quiet! I’m not going to hurt anything. Hush up, won’t you? Oh, for Pete Squeaks shut up!”
It was just about then that a particularly loud noise from right behind him made Harry look back over his shoulder. A great big monkey was dashing up the hill yelling like crazy, in an especially nasty tone of voice. He was heading right for Harry’s ankles. Instantly Harry decided not to wait to see if a monkey could bite clear through Levis, gym socks and drapery fringe. He took off straight ahead, without even fanning his wings first to warm up.
Everything might have been fine if Harry’s mind had been on his flying, but it’s pretty hard to concentrate with a screaming monkey hanging on to the tail of your drapery. And that’s exactly what the monkey was doing. The crazy monkey had gotten himself so worked up over being a hero for all the lady monkeys, by chasing off the intruder, that when Harry took off, the monkey jumped after him and grabbed him by the robe. He was still hanging there and yelling when Harry ran into the dead tree.
In the excitement and semi-darkness, Harry didn’t even see the tree until he was almost on it. He just had time to throw out his hands to ward off a head-on collision. As his hands grabbed hold of the narrow trunk, worn smooth by many monkey hands, his momentum carried the rest of him on around the tree, like—well, like a monkey on a string. Only, in this case, it was more like two monkeys—Harry and the real one, who was still hanging on to the other end of Harry.
Whatever happened next was so quick and confused that Harry never did remember it very clearly. He did recall a couple of jarring thumps, and a sudden coldness, and the next thing he knew he was sitting in the middle of the moat and a wet monkey was sitting right beside him.
The monkey wasn’t yelling any more. The cold water must have shocked all the hero business right out of him, because he scrambled for the island side of the moat almost as fast as Harry scrambled for the other. Harry was just trailing his wet wing-tips over the railing, when through the yelling of the monkeys, he heard something else. It was the sound of running feet and a human voice shouting something. Harry glanced around frantically and scurried for the nearest bushes. There wasn’t time to take off and even if there had been, he was sure he couldn’t get two feet off the ground, with his wings all wet and his drapes heavy with water.
He had barely crouched down under the bushes, when a man appeared, running down the walk with a flashlight in his hand. When the watchman reached the moat, he stood at the railing for a long time, shining his light around on the island, where the monke
ys were beginning to quiet down. Meanwhile Harry crouched under the bushes, dripping and shivering. He had just about decided that he really was going to freeze clear to death, when he saw something that scared him so much he forgot all about the cold.
The watchman had started to walk slowly around the island shining his flashlight from side to side as he went. And it was just at that moment that Harry noticed the trail of water that led from the edge of the moat directly to his hiding place. As a matter of fact, there were three trails, a big wide one in the middle and a little narrow one on each side where the water had run off the tips of his wings. In just a minute, the watchman would reach those trails, and when that happened, Harry knew he had better be somewhere else.
As quickly and quietly as he could, he began to move away from his hiding place. By making use of a tree, a trash can, and a bench, he had scurried and ducked part way around the island by the time the watchman came to the place where the trail of water left the moat.
Peeking out from behind the bench, Harry saw the watchman stop as his flashlight beam hit the trail of dribbled water, and saw him follow the trail backward to the edge of the moat. Near the railing he stopped and seemed to be picking something up off the ground. As the watchman held his find under the beam of the flashlight to examine it, Harry was able to see it, too. He wasn’t positive, but it looked a lot like a feather, a great big white feather.
The watchman turned and followed the trail of water to the bushes, where Harry had just been hiding. He tramped around in the underbrush for a moment, and then came out carrying another feather. For a while, he just stood there, looking at the feathers, and then he began to shine his light up into the branches of the nearby trees.
As the watchman moved slowly back the way he had come, this time searching the treetops, Harry scooted away from the bench and down the path that led to the flamingo pond. On the hill above the pond he found a hidden place where there was enough room to flutter his wings hard, to shake the water out of them. At first they felt heavy and awkward, and water flew in every direction; but after a few minutes of fluttering they seemed to be back to normal. Just before he took off, Harry wrung out the tail ends of his drapes and emptied out his gym shoes.
There was still enough water in his drapes and wings to make the take-off more difficult than usual. He just barely managed to clear the treetops, but then he was off and away, on the long cold flight home. And was it ever cold! The cold ocean wind flapped his soggy drapes, and plastered his wet Levis against his legs. Harry didn’t do any sight-seeing or fancy flying on that trip. All he could think about was flying hard and fast toward a warm dry bed.
It wasn’t until he was home and had been in bed long enough to stop shivering, that he realized what had saved him from being caught. The watchman must have stopped searching the bushes and started in on the treetops because he thought Harry was a bird. He’d found the feather by the moat, and maybe he figured that some big white bird had landed in the water and scared the monkeys. Then he’d found the place where Harry had sat under the bushes. There must have been a puddle of water there and some more feathers. The watchman probably thought that the bird had rested there for a while before it flew off.
It occurred to Harry that there had been a lot of leaves under the bushes, so it wasn’t likely that he’d left any footprints. Lucky for him that it hadn’t been soft mud or sand. Lucky for Harry; and come to think of it, lucky for the watchman, too. After all, the zoo directors might be a little suspicious of a night watchman who reported a big white bird wearing gym shoes.
A Little More Believing
Harry didn’t go flying again for five whole nights. The dunking in the monkey’s moat and the long cold flight home hadn’t been at all good for his cold. Or to put it more accurately, it had been fine for the cold, but it hadn’t done Harry any good. He’d even had a fever for a day or two and that was really unusual, for him.
The whole thing was pretty boring. Mom made him stay in bed for two days, and even after he was feeling fine, he didn’t dare go flying for fear Mom would come up to check on him at night. Whenever he was the least bit sick, Mom always came up to his room in the middle of the night to be sure he was all right. So he had to wait until he was sure Mom had finished worrying about the cold before he dared go on another flight.
On the fifth day Harry was pretty sure that Mom had stopped worrying, because she mentioned that it would be a good time for him to get caught up on his chores. So he mowed the lawn and swept the driveway, and went to the store for groceries. He even went further than usual and helped Mom with the washing.
Doing the washing wasn’t one of Harry’s regular chores, but he wasn’t just doing a boy scout bit, when he offered to help. There was a special reason on that particular Monday. He just about had to get his flying-drapes washed before he used them again.
Five nights before, when he got back from falling in the moat, he had hung the wet drapes on a hook, way at the back of his closet. They had dried out finally, but they were all dingy and the fringe around the bottom was caked with mud. Besides, there was a strange sort of smell about them. Harry had never really minded the way monkeys smelled—at least, not as much as some people seemed to—but just the same, he thought, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get his drapes washed before he wore them again.
He managed to get the drapes in and out of the washing machine without Mom seeing them. Then he sneaked them up to the attic and hung them out on the line Mom kept up there for wet days. He was hanging the rest of the wash in the back yard, when Lee Furdell called to him from across the fence.
Lee wanted to know how things were, and if there had been any progress on the Plan. Harry felt a little ashamed when he realized that he hadn’t thought much about it lately. After all, it was a good Plan and pretty important. Even though being able to fly was great, as far as Harry was concerned, it didn’t do a thing for Mom. And it didn’t change the fact that Mom had too much work and worry trying to make a living for them all by herself. Harry had to admit to Lee that things were pretty much the same and that he hadn’t had any bright ideas for changing them.
“Well, I’m afraid I haven’t either,” Lee said. “But I do think that the first step is to get Miss Clyde to move out. From what you tell me, Hal won’t have a chance to notice your mother as long as she’s around. There ought to be something you could do, something harmless, of course, that would convince her that she wants to move.” Then Lee laughed. You could always tell by his eyes when he was laughing, even though it never showed much anywhere else. “You don’t suppose Miss Clyde is the type who believes in ghosts,” he said. “Maybe you could make her think that Marco’s is haunted.”
“Hey,” Harry said. “That’s an idea. It looks kind of haunted, all right. I mean it’s so dark and big and gloomy and everything.” But on second thought he had to add, “I don’t know, though. Miss Clyde looks to me like the kind of person who doesn’t believe in ghosts or anything, much. You know what I mean?”
“I’m afraid I do,” Lee said. “There are a great many people who are that way nowadays, more’s the pity. A little more believing in things would do—”
At that point Lee broke off. Olive Furdell had come out on the back porch and was looking at them. There wasn’t any time for Harry and Lee to pretend that Lee hadn’t been “wasting his time on the neighbors” again. That’s what Olive always accused Lee of doing. At least, that was one of the things. There were a lot of other things, and you couldn’t help knowing what they were, because of the kind of voice Olive Furdell had. Every time Olive started accusing Lee of something, half the block knew about it right away.
But this time Olive didn’t start yelling immediately. Instead she just came over to the fence where they were standing. She had a piece of white candy in her hand. “Leland,” she said, “this is some of the divinity from that new recipe. I wanted to see what you thought of it before I made up a big batch.” She broke the piece of candy in two and handed some o
ver the fence to Harry. “Hello, Harry,” she said, “I see you’ve been helping your mother with her washing.”
Harry was so astounded that it took him a minute to remember to say thanks, even. Then, just as he popped the piece of divinity into his mouth, it occurred to him that maybe Olive had gone off her rocker, or something. She wasn’t acting normal, that was for sure! So maybe the candy wasn’t normal, either. What if she’d put something really different in it? Like rat poison, for Pete Squeaks!
He only worried for a second, though, because the candy tasted just great, and besides, Lee wasn’t acting too surprised. He was just nibbling at his piece of candy thoughtfully with a tasting expression on his face. “It seems fine to me,” he said at last. “Every bit as good as the old way, I’d say, and quite a bit easier to make. It seems to me that we ought to try it, at least for a while.”
“Well, that’s what I thought,” Olive said. “But I wanted to see if you agreed. What do you think of it, Harry?”
“Think?” Harry stammered. “What do I th—Oh, I think it’s fine. That’s really great divinity, Mrs. Furdell.”
“Thank you, Harry,” Olive said. Then she just turned around and went back into the house. She didn’t even say anything to Lee about “when was he going to get back to work?” and that was just about her favorite question, where Lee was concerned.
After Olive Furdell disappeared into the house, Harry and Lee just stood there staring after her. Nobody said anything; Harry was dying to ask some questions, but he didn’t quite know how to do it. That is, he couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t sound sort of disrespectful.
Black and Blue Magic Page 9
