Children of Magic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  “Maybe it’s Japanese geometry,” Scotty speculated after a fashion.

  “Scott-my-man, I don’t think Mr. Lawlor knows Japanese, or geometry. He teaches basic math.”

  “But Mr. Lawlor didn’t write it, Drew. So it really might be Japanese.” Scotty drummed his fingers against his chin, then brightened and tipped his head up and raised an eyebrow in his best brainy expression. “I got it! Maybe it’s German geometry.”

  “Or German hire-o . . . hire-o. . . .”

  “Hieroglyphics.” Scotty put on his best serious look. “I got books about hieroglyphics and mummies and stuff. I told you it ain’t hieroglyphics.”

  “Then maybe it’s magic, Scott-my-man.”

  Scotty made a “pfffting” sound through his closed lips. He didn’t believe in magic. Magic was the stuff of fairy tales and comic books and movies and wasn’t at all real or practical. And Scotty was nothing if not very practical. He’d never believed in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, though he played along with the notions until he was seven or eight, as the free food and toys were too good to take a pass on. Still . . . he sucked in his lower lip as a stubby piece of chalk floated silently behind Mr. Lawlor, who was seated at his desk at the front of the room. The teacher was mumbling to himself and busily grading papers, apparently oblivious to the strange marks appearing on the blackboard behind him.

  There had to be some logical explanation for what was going on behind Mr. Lawlor’s back, Drew decided. There just had to be.

  The chalk drew an egg-shaped object this time, the narrow part of which almost touched the crooked rectangle.

  Drew leaned over farther. “Scott-my-man, yesterday Mary Johnson said weird things were happenin’ in her class. Books floatin’ around and stuff. The principal checked it out.”

  “Principal Singleton?”

  “Yeah, Simple Single. Mary Johnson said he did a real Law and Order routine on ’em.”

  Another pfffting noise. “Mary Johnson is a third grader.”

  Drew mouthed “So?”

  “So third graders make stuff up.”

  Then both boys returned to studying the board.

  Next the chalk made a lopsided figure eight in the middle of the egg and more of the marks that looked like foreign numbers. The chalk squeaked softly when it drew something resembling a monkey’s tail.

  Cindy Baker giggled.

  She and the other girls who occupied the first row in Mr. Lawlor’s classroom had been watching the blackboard and passing notes back and forth—all oh-so-quietly until this point. Count on freckle-faced Cindy to ruin the moment by opening her mouth.

  Mr. Lawlor looked up from the stack of papers and frowned. Giggling wasn’t acceptable during what he declared study time. He met Cindy’s gaze, she covered her mouth to stifle another silly outburst, and then she pointed at the board in her defense. The piece of chalk glided down to nest in the tray.

  Mr. Lawlor wheeled and stood, knocking over his chair when he spotted the strange drawings and earning a few horselike chortles from the Ferguson twins who sat in the dead middle of the classroom. He spun back to face the students.

  “Who did this?”

  There were a few more giggles. The Ferguson twins rolled their eyes and pretended to be interested in something on their desks. Everyone else had their eyes riveted on the blackboard.

  “Speak up. Who did this?” Mr. Lawlor scoldingly waggled his finger and gave Cindy a more intense look, the kind of expression that said “you’d better tell me right now, young lady.”

  Cindy held her hands out to her sides and made an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, then her eyes grew wide and she giggled again when the eraser floated up to wipe out one side of the large tilted rectangle.

  Mr. Lawlor turned back to the board, but not before the eraser had nested itself. Hands on his hips, he stamped with one foot and then the other. It was a practiced gesture that told his students he was more than a little perturbed with at least some of them.

  “Gary Newton?”

  “I didn’t do nothin’ Mr. Lawlor. I’ve been sittin’ way back here the whole time.”

  “Anything. You didn’t do anything, Gary.” Mr. Lawlor was always correcting Gary’s grammar. “And I find that hard to believe.”

  Scotty considered rising to Gary’s defense, but Gary dumped milk on him a month back, and before that put a wad of gum on his seat. Let Gary hang. The eraser rose again, this time in full view of Mr. Lawlor. It wiped out some of the foreign numbers inside the figure eight. Mr. Lawlor made a swiping motion above the eraser, not trying to catch it, but in an attempt to see if there was something attached to it, like a thread that might also be attached to a prankster student’s hand.

  No thread. Nothing but air.

  He made another swipe at it while the chalk rose to about the height of his nose and scribbled a few more undecipherable symbols before returning to the tray.

  Mr. Lawlor sputtered and spun back to face the class, eyes narrowing menacingly and cheeks puffing when he spotted the papers on his desk that he’d been oh-so-carefully grading. They were busily rearranging themselves and one sheet was folding itself into a high-tech looking airplane. His desk drawer opened, a few pencils rolled around, the lid popped off his Tic Tacs and the candy jiggled out. Then the stapler opened, spewing staples everywhere.

  “Wh-wh-who is doing this?” he stammered. “Some one’s in for a serious amount of after-school time. And plenty of extra homework assignments!”

  Cindy and her friends giggled louder. The Ferguson twins horse-chortled. Even Gary was smiling broadly.

  “So it’s not geometry or hieroglyphics,” Scotty whispered to Drew. “But I still don’t think it’s magic. No such thing as magic. There’s a rational explanation for everything. Maybe errant electricity.”

  “Maybe faeries,” Drew pronounced after only a moment’s consideration. “I think the rational explanation is faeries. Our classroom must be filled with the fey. Maybe even the whole school.”

  “Pfffey? What’s that?”

  “Faeries, Scott-my-man, little magic people. Wizards can summon them to do their bidding.”

  Mr. Lawlor, red-faced and huffing, slammed his desk drawer closed, the motion sending the papers he was oh-so-carefully grading flying. Pivoting on his heels like a drill sergeant, he marched out of the classroom and straight to the principal’s office, mumbling that someone was going to pay for disrupting study time.

  The eraser floated across the blackboard, obliterating every mark. The high-tech paper airplane flattened itself. The papers that were scattered on the floor picked themselves up before the disbelieving students’ eyes and arranged themselves in a reasonably neat stack on the desk.

  “I don’t believe in little magic people,” Scotty said—after he was certain Mr. Lawlor was long gone and nothing else was floating about.

  “You don’t believe in anything,” Drew returned.

  “Drew summoned us, Elspeth. But to a place with no trees.” The voice was thin and soft, sounding a bit like a flute.

  “Yes, most definitely he summoned us. But we should have waited.” This voice was feminine and insistent. “We should have most definitely waited until the adult was gone. Adults are too serious. They make my head hurt. They don’t believe in magic, they drive us away, slay the weakest of us unknowingly.”

  “Yes, we should have waited,” the first voice repeated. “We should have, Elspeth. Should have.”

  The voices continued to twitter in the hall just outside Mr. Lawlor’s fifth grade class. There were no bodies to accompany them, and no microphone or loudspeaker to hint that they were being broadcast from somewhere else in the building. There was just an almost imperceptible swirling of chalk dust in the air, and a scent—that had there been someone present to smell it—they would have thought it perhaps cinnamon.

  “Should have waited, I told you. We should have waited.”

  “Yes, definitely, I agree, Elspeth. We should have waited. But there is
just no telling him. He does not listen to a soul. He summons us on a whim and tells us to do frivolous things.”

  There was a sigh, musical and pleasing. “Ah, but I love doing frivolous things. And there’s a purpose to it.”

  “Getting children in trouble?”

  “No, helping the summoner keep magic alive, and thereby us alive. Spreading the arcane to young people with strong minds. The fates know adults can’t embrace magic.”

  “And this place he called us to, what is it, Elspeth?”

  “This place,” Elspeth returned, “is called a school. According to the sign out front it is called the Green Hill Elementary School.”

  “But we did not see a hill when we arrived yesterday, a green one or otherwise. The ground looked pretty flat to me. And there were not enough trees.”

  “A hill or lack thereof is inconsequential. The voice called Elspeth made a chirping sound. “This is better than the last place he called us to . . . in the last town he visited.”

  “That place . . .” The second voice produced a nervous hissing noise, like a tin kettle on a high flame. “A moving theater it was.”

  “Movie theater,” Elspeth corrected.

  “I had never seen so many buildings blow up.”

  “It was not real.”

  “Pity. And, Elspeth dear, we will not be real much longer else we successfully do our summoner’s bidding. We must help him spread the belief!”

  The voices quieted as Mr. Lawlor returned, still red-faced and huffing, his shoes clicking rhythmically against the tile floor. He was followed by a skinny older man—the same one who showed up in the third grade classroom yesterday.

  “Someone is going to get in trouble for what you did, Elspeth, making runes on the black wall. Some nice young boy or girl.”

  “The summoner is right. Better that someone get in trouble than us and he cease to exist. Trouble is a temporary bother, death is a permanent inconvenience.”

  That instant the school bell rang, loud and long, clanging so insufferably that the disembodied voices drifted down the hall toward the gym, where it wasn’t quite so noisy. Doors were opening out onto the hall and children were pouring out, heading for the exits and their homes. A few drifted toward the cafeteria, mumbling about play practice.

  Scotty Wiggapolan stood in front of the tall, narrow mirror that was propped up against the far wall of the cafeteria.

  He didn’t think he looked much like Robin Hood. Oh, he was dressed in green, all right, practically every inch of him. Green tights, that he was certain were purchased at some girls’ dance store, ballet leotards, no doubt. Girls’ clothes! A dark green tunic that hung to just below his hips was embroidered around the collar with leaves and vines. It was made of something shiny, satin, he guessed, something that the real Robin Hood would never have worn. Of course, Scotty knew with absolute certainty that there had never been a Robin Hood, or a band of Merry Men for that matter. It was all a story, a figment of a long-ago writer’s dyed-green imagination. Richard the Lion Heart? Now, he had likely lived. But no one was portraying him in the play. He was only alluded to in a couple of lines.

  Scotty’s shoes were green, brighter than the tights. They were a pair of old Nikes that had been dyed personally by the director—right down to the shoestrings. Before they’d been dyed, when they were an off-white shade because of the playground dust embedded in them, they fit him oh-so-comfortably. But in dyeing the shoes, they’d shrunk a size or two. And now they pinched his toes together terribly and the backs were birthing twin blisters on his heels. He vowed to pitch them in the garbage the minute after the final performance was over. He wouldn’t be caught dead on the basketball court—or anywhere else for that matter—in these garish, ruined, painfully-too-small shoes.

  On his head was a hat, a funny-looking pointed thing made of thick felt, lovingly sewn by his mother, who told him with each stitch how proud she was that he had managed to get the lead in the play. She added a feather, a long pheasant feather she plucked from one of her own hats—one that she had inherited from her grandmother and wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. The feather was the only thing not green about Scotty’s outfit, and the director had more than once threatened to dye it, too.

  Drew hadn’t planned on snaring the Robin Hood part. He was more interested in being the Sheriff of Notting ham, who he thought might possibly have been a real person, or at least loosely based on a real person. The sheriff had more interesting lines, and not as many of them to memorize. Besides, the sheriff got to wear black.

  It was his friend Drew who should have been Robin Hood. Drew talked him into trying out for this play. And Drew claimed that there was a real Robin Hood, and he’d been blond—said he’d seen a faithful recreation of him in an old Showtime series that a cousin had on video tape. Unfortunately, Drew—who was very blond and who was currently fidgeting several feet away from Scotty—was having a pillow tied to his waist and a wig with a big bald spot in the middle stuck on top of his head. Drew was grudgingly Friar Tuck. A brown robe that was a few inches too long was dropped over his head to complete the look.

  Scotty stifled a smile. At least Drew looked nearly as uncomfortable as himself. But Drew didn’t have as many lines. “This is all taking entirely too much of my time, Scotty whispered, as he pushed an unruly curl up under his funny-looking hat. Tonight was the dress rehearsal, which meant they would be here until well past what normally would be dinner time. So dinner would be late. Homework would follow, as always. And he probably would miss the Discovery Channel special on pyramids that he’d been wanting so desperately to see. No chance his folks would record it.

  Scotty intended to be an archaeologist—after he made his way through the rest of this year and the next at Green Hill Elementary School, then through junior high school, high school, and at least four years of college, eight if he went for a doctorate, which he intended to do. He had his life all pleasantly mapped out for himself. And the only reason it included this play and him portraying Robin Hood was because he had read somewhere that high schools and colleges—the latter with all their attractive full-ride academic scholarships—looked kindly on students who were “well-rounded,” participating in lots of extra-curricular activities. So be it. He adjusted the funny-looking hat and grinned sheepishly.

  “Gather ’round me, ye Merry Men,” he said flatly, rehearsing one of his many lines. “Let us be off to Sherwood Forest!”

  One last look in the mirror.

  He tightened his dyed-green rope belt and gave himself a final appraising view. “Wonderful,” he whispered. Along one edge of the mirror he saw Cindy Baker’s reflection. Decked out in her pastel pink Maid Marian dress, she was intently watching him. She smiled sweetly and began walking his way. “Wonderful,” he repeated glumly.

  “Places!” the director hollered, saving Scotty from a certain-to-be-boring conversation with air-headed Cindy. She was cute, but he wasn’t interested in girls yet, and she wasn’t interested in him . . . other than to set him up for a prank orchestrated by the Ferguson twins. “Ev eryone on the stage! Now!”

  The Green Hill Elementary School stage opened onto the cafeteria. And when there was no great theatrical production in the works, the curtains were pulled and it stored extra desks and playground equipment.

  Scotty wondered where all that stuff was being stored now.

  “Apparently you didn’t hear me the first time. Places!” the director repeated louder. He clapped his hands and nodded to Scotty, who leapt up on the stage. Cindy Baker extended a hand, expecting him to help her up.

  Wonderful, he thought. “C’mon, Cindy.” She was almost too quick to take his hand, giggling coquettishly when she took her place near the meager footlights.

  The director gathered his face into a point, scowling at Scotty. “Do go backstage for me, Robin Hood, and see if you can find a stiffer sword. The one you’re parading around with looks like a wet noodle. This is England—not an Italian restaurant.”

  Scotty
complied, shuffling backstage, which was actually the school’s kitchen.

  The countertops were lined with props—some of which were moving on their own. Scotty blinked.

  “Faeries,” he said finally. “Yeah, right.” For the briefest moment Scotty considered retreating. The director could come and pick out whatever sword he wanted Robin Hood to have. But curiosity got the better of him, and he edged closer to the moving props.

  He stopped in his tracks halfway to the array of spray-painted Styrofoam weapons. He could have sworn he heard something. A buzzing? Like insects? No. Not insects.

  Yes, he definitely heard words, he just couldn’t make them out. And he smelled something now. He sniffed the air intently, trying desperately to put a label to the scent.

  “Cinnamon?” he said. “I think I smell cinnamon.”

  There was more of the buzzing sound. And now it was coming from the countertop filled with extra scripts and gloves. All of the Merry Men, Robin Hood included, would have to wear green gloves tomorrow night. They weren’t wearing them now because the gloves had been dyed this afternoon and were still a little damp.

  “Who’s there?” Scotty risked. He figured the twins were pulling a prank on him.

  The buzzing stopped, but the smell of the cinnamon—or whatever spice it was—seemed a little stronger. He squinted. The air was shimmering. At least he thought it was. It was shimmering right above the recently-dyed gloves.

  “Who?” he repeated nervously. He narrowed his eyes until they were needle-thin slits, until he could barely see. There was something there. He was sure of it. A couple of somethings. They were small and indistinct, looking a bit like tiny clouds come to ground and waiting to rain on the gloves. As he stared, they came more into focus.

  “Ghosts!” he blurted, instantly covering his mouth.

  There were two of them, each a little bigger than his fist. They were white, as he expected ghosts to be. But he had expected ghosts to be bigger—people size. Though after a moment, he decided that ghosts could probably be whatever size they wanted to be.