To Henry and Emma and Susan and Roy.
And to Chris, Mose, and Lew.
I love you guys.
CONTENTS
A Brief Note on the Existence and True Nature of Magic
IN QUIET FALLS
IF THE KEY FITS
WORKING THE WALL
MAGIC IN THE NIGHT
GREETINGS AND GLIMPSES
EMMA ON HER OWN
THE WORST PIRATE IN THE WORLD
MANY WAYS TO BUCCANEER
GOING NOWHERE, REALLY
SOAP AND SCISSORS
SUSAN’S WISH
BROOKLYN BOUND
A Brief Note on the True Nature of (Fun and) Disaster
THE END (OR SOMETHING LIKE IT)
GREAT THANKS
A BRIEF NOTE ON THE EXISTENCE
AND TRUE NATURE OF MAGIC
Have you ever stumbled onto magic? Maybe while you were trudging to school one drizzly day, or in the middle of a furious game of freeze tag? Has anything odd ever happened to you?
If you’re shaking your head right now, if you think that nothing out of the ordinary ever happens, you might be mistaken. Because it’s possible that you stumbled onto magic and missed it—that you were teetering on the edge of a strange and wonderful adventure but then turned the other way. This happens all the time.
I know a boy (we’ll call him Horbert, though that isn’t his name, thank goodness), and for years he lived in a house where the bathtub had a magical drainpipe that led straight to the lost city of Atlantis! But Horbert was always in such a hurry to get where he was going that he never lingered in the bath. Whenever he got really filthy, and his mother nagged him to wash, he just jumped in and briefly splashed at himself. Then he’d spring right from the tub, and out the door he’d fly, afraid that his older brother Noah was beating his high score on Super-Space-Zombie-4000, his very favorite video game. Though mermaids sang in the plumbing, he never heard their call.
This is sad but not uncommon, so maybe you need to ask yourself whether you’re in danger of becoming a little like Horbert. These days, most people are. Most people are just too busy for magic—watching TV and checking their e-mail—so it stands to reason that when something unusual happens, folks are often looking the other way.
You might think that magic would be too extraordinary to miss. You might be saying, “Oh, trust me, if I stumbled onto magic, I’d know it!” But that’s not necessarily true. Because there are many kinds of magic in the world, and not all of it starts with a sound track of thunderous music to alert unsuspecting explorers to fabulous adventures ahead.
Some magic (the kind you hear about most often) is loud and full of dragons. But that magic is rare, generally reserved for scrappy orphans and misplaced princes. Some magic is mysterious, beginning with the somber tolling of a clock at midnight in the darkest corner of a graveyard. However, that magic is unlikely to include you if you don’t visit cemeteries late at night (which I don’t think you’re supposed to do). There is also magic especially for very tiny children, full of kindly rabbits and friendly old ladies with comfortable laps. It smells like sugar cookies and takes place mostly in gardens or bedrooms the pale colors of spring. But you outgrow it about the time you learn to read.
So perhaps the very best magic is the kind of magic that happens to kids just like you (and maybe even the occasional grown-up) when they’re paying careful attention. It’s the most common magic there is, which is why (sensibly) it’s called Common Magic. Common Magic exists in the very unmagical world you yourself inhabit. It’s full of regular-looking people, stop signs, and seemingly boring buildings. Common Magic happens to kids who have curious friends, busy parents, and vivid imaginations, and it frequently takes place during summer vacations or on rainy weekends when you aren’t allowed to leave the house. Most important, it always starts with something that seems ordinary.
This magic, the magic in this particular book, was Common Magic. It happened last July, to Henry and Emma, and Susan and Roy, and it started with a wall….
BUT FIRST everybody had to find the wall … and that might never have even happened if Emma O’Dell hadn’t learned to ride her bike. So if you think about it, the magic really started with a bicycle.
It was summer in Iowa, and for the first two weeks of vacation, Emma and her older brother, Henry, just hung around the house because their parents were too busy with work, and silly things like mowing the lawn, to take Henry and Emma to the beach or the mountains, or even to the park for a picnic. Henry and Emma were free from school but stuck at home.
Often the two of them played halfhearted games of Parcheesi, and that was fine but nothing special. Sometimes they started a game of Don’t Touch the Floor, but it wasn’t much fun without their mom around to yell at them for thumping and knocking things over.
Then, at the beginning of the third week, Emma learned to ride the shiny green bike she’d gotten for her sixth birthday only the month before, and that’s when the summer opened up like a giant map unfolding—full of mud puddles and climbing trees and trips to the library. That’s when vacation really began, since Henry and Emma were allowed to ride anywhere they wanted in Quiet Falls, as long as Henry kept a careful eye on his sister and called to check in occasionally. Quiet Falls was a friendly town, and the O’Dells knew everyone in it, so nobody worried too much.
“Why don’t Mom and Dad ever ride their bikes?” Emma asked Henry one early afternoon of bicycle freedom, over gooey pizza at Pagliano’s. “Maybe they’d like to come with us sometime?” As a rule, Emma asked a lot of questions. There was something in her upturned nose and big blue eyes that made her look as though she were always about to ask a question.
Henry shook his head. “Nah. Parents are kind of lazy when it comes to doing fun stuff outdoors.”
“Then why do they have bikes?” asked Emma.
“That’s just how parents are,” Henry explained wisely as he ate the cheese off the top of his slice and wiped his greasy hand on his jeans. “They like to talk about how they used to do things or about how they plan to do things someday, but parents aren’t very good at right now.”
Henry thought about this for a bit and sighed in a mildly disappointed way. He often wished his parents were more exciting. Both of them were pharmacists, and he couldn’t think of anything more boring than that. It would be so cool to be the son of a mad scientist and a famous explorer!
“Oh.” Emma nodded and went back to sprinkling too much garlic salt on her pizza. It was nice to sit like this, alone with Henry. Often Henry’s friend Roy was with them, and though the boys were nice enough to Emma, they sometimes forgot to include her.
Roy Levy was Henry’s best friend and next-door neighbor since forever. They’d been born in the same hospital, just fourteen days apart. They’d been in the same fourth-grade class last year, and they were on the same soccer team. Roy and Henry even looked a little alike. They were the same height, with the same mousy shade of brown hair, and the same brown eyes. However, that was where the resemblance stopped, because while Henry was “trouble, and a mess to boot” (his grandma said so), Roy was the kind of boy that grown-ups like—quiet and curious. But don’t get the wrong idea about Roy—even though he kept his shirts clean, Roy was a lot of fun, so Henry and Emma were generally happy to have him on their jaunts, and they all enjoyed themselves in a summery kind of way.
This might have continued indefinitely if at the end of the fourth week of vacation Roy hadn’t gotten stung seven times by what he called Apis mellifera (though they looked a lot like plain old bees to Henry and Emma) during a raspberry raid in a thicket at the park. This caused Mrs. Levy to have a talk with Mr. O’Dell, which resulted in a decision—that Roy’s older sister, Susan, should follow along to kee
p an eye on everyone at all times.
Susan was only two years older than Roy, and until the previous summer, she and her best friend, Tish, had been happy to join in most of Henry and Roy and Emma’s games. The big girls had liked being in charge—dressing Emma in costumes, bossing the boys around in games of make-believe—but then Tish had moved to New York, and Susan had … changed. The problem wasn’t that she’d gotten taller so that her legs suddenly appeared too long. It wasn’t that she’d cut her long, dark braids into a bob that ended at a sharp point near her chin. It wasn’t even that she’d started wearing nail polish and carrying a pink cell phone. It was simply that she didn’t play with Roy and Henry and Emma anymore, that she didn’t play at all, preferring instead to “hang out” with other middle schoolers.
At first, when her mother announced that she’d be spending the summer watching Henry, Emma, and Roy, Susan complained loudly and bitterly, but when she realized that her new best friend, Alexandria, was going to be spending July and August with her father in Chicago, Susan became instantly less miserable at the prospect of babysitting. She didn’t have much else to do, so she dug her bike out from under a pile of garden hose in the garage and dusted it off.
Then, together, the four of them rode aimlessly to the lake and to the store for provisions (candy and soda). They rode to the library and to the swimming pool, and it was fun, but just regular old fun, common fun. Henry hopped a lot of curbs and fell down more than a few times, and Roy found a praying mantis, which he kept in a jar.
And if lakes and libraries don’t sound exciting to you, if they don’t sound magical to you, you need to remember that this adventure is one of Common Magic. Henry and Emma and Roy and Susan had yet to find the wall, but they were on their way, heading slowly toward it.
The wall was waiting for them, just like it’s waiting for you now.
Still, it must be admitted that none of the kids had any inkling of what lay ahead, until Tuesday, when it was too hot to do anything. It was too hot for board games and it was even too hot to ride to the pool, so they were all doing nothing at Henry and Emma’s house. They did nothing in the living room, and they did nothing in the kitchen, where they ate a nothing kind of lunch—tuna fish sandwiches and carrot sticks. Blah.
After that, they sat on the front porch doing a little more nothing. Susan wiped imaginary specks of dust from her silver sneakers and tried tying her laces in a cool new way. Roy made a sundial out of a sheet of paper and a paper clip. And Henry perched at the bottom of the steps, where he attempted to pull a wad of gum out of his sweaty, messy brown hair.
“That’s revolting,” Susan offered helpfully, looking up from her shoes.
“Well, what do you want me to do about it? I’m trying to get it out,” said Henry.
“You should just cut it out,” said Susan, “so we don’t have to watch you play with it anymore.”
“I’m not playing with it, and I’m not cutting my hair. I did that last time, and it looked stupid. Remember?” Henry stopped fiddling for a minute and the shock of hair in question stood straight up in the air so that thin strands of gum were laced across his entire head.
Susan laughed.
“What?” asked Henry indignantly. “What’s so funny?”
“Just you,” Susan snickered.
“Leave me alone,” Henry grumbled. “I guess I’m just not magically clean like you.”
“It’s not magic,” said Susan, shaking her hair from side to side slowly so that it swished around her chin, “and I don’t pretend to be perfect. It’s just that I’m”—she thought for a second before continuing—“more mature.”
Henry groaned. “Jeez. You don’t have to tell me you aren’t perfect, and I know it isn’t magic either, since there’s no such thing as magic, but what do you want to go and get mature for?”
Susan, despite her newfound maturity, stuck out her tongue before she said, “I have to act like this, you know. I’m in charge. Of you! Remember?”
Henry groaned. “I know you have to babysit us, but there’s a big difference between being in charge for a few hours and acting like a grown-up. Don’t you remember all the cool stuff you used to do? You used to be fun.”
Henry paused, waiting for Susan to snap back, but she just looked down the street in the direction of Tish’s old house.
Henry quit tugging at his hair and sighed.
Roy, who had been listening and thinking, looked up from his sundial and said, “You know, I’m not so sure—”
“About what?” asked Henry.
“About magic, that there’s no such thing,” said Roy.
“Are you kidding?!” Henry exclaimed with a hoot. “Just because Susan’s acting all old doesn’t mean you have to suddenly turn into a baby! Come on, you don’t actually believe in magic?”
“Well,” said Roy, “I don’t know if I believe in magic, but I’m not ready to rule it out completely.”
Susan looked up. “Really, Roy? Have you ever seen any magic?”
“No,” said Roy simply. “But wouldn’t it be nice if magic did exist?”
“Sure,” said Henry. “But that’s not proof. How can you believe in something you’ve never seen?”
Roy answered logically. “I’ve never seen atoms and electrons either, but I believe in them.”
Henry thought about this. “So, you’re really saying you think there might be dragons and unicorns running around?”
Susan waited to see what her brother would say.
“No, not dragons or unicorns,” Roy explained thoughtfully. “They seem highly unlikely, since people would have hunted them down and put them in zoos centuries ago.”
“Then what do you mean?” asked Susan, thinking of her old unicorn figurine collection and wondering vaguely if her mother had ever actually taken it to the Salvation Army, or if the little statues were somewhere in the basement. “What other kind of magic is there?” she asked her brother. “If there is magic, I mean—which there isn’t.”
“I don’t know what I think exactly,” Roy answered. “I haven’t given it much thought. I’m just saying there’s a lot of stuff out there that I don’t understand, and people have been believing in magic for thousands of years, so it just seems … not impossible.” He returned to his sundial, having finished making his point.
While all this was going on, Emma had been playing in the front yard with an oversized rag doll named Green Bean Jean. Green Bean Jean was almost as big as Emma and the color of a lime lollipop, with wild orange yarn hair.
Emma clutched Green Bean Jean’s cloth hands in her own, and swayed back and forth, singing softly to herself. Nobody could make out the words, but halfway through the song, Emma dropped to the ground and brought Green Bean Jean down with her in a tumble onto the grass. Then she got up and began again.
Susan watched Emma’s solitary game for a moment. Then she stood up, and it almost looked like she was going to walk down the steps and offer to play too. Emma, accustomed to playing alone, looked up hopefully, but Susan stared off into the distance absently, and the moment passed, so Emma dropped Green Bean Jean, climbed on her bike, and began to coast up and down the front walk.
After a minute, she called out, “Let’s go somewhere!”
“Let’s not,” replied Henry grumpily, reconciling himself to the idea that he would indeed have to cut the gum out of his hair. He sighed. “Hey, Susan, I give up. You want to cut my hair for me?”
Susan nodded, and though she still looked distracted, she walked over and picked up the scissors from where Roy had been working on his sundial. Susan liked to fix things.
“But I want to ride my bike!” protested Emma.
“So? You’re doing that right now,” said Henry.
“Nooooo. I want to ride it to someplace,” explained Emma. “Pleeeeeeeease? You know I’m not allowed to leave the street on my own.”
“No way. It’s too hot,” said her brother. “Wait until it cools off.”
“Yeah, it’s su
pposed to be ninety-nine degrees today,” seconded Roy, “in the shade.”
But Susan looked over at Emma, astride the small bike, and then at Green Bean Jean sprawled forlornly on the lawn. She smiled, then set down the scissors and said, “Oh, come on, everyone.”
“Huh?” Henry said.
“Really?” Emma asked.
“It won’t be too bad,” Susan said. “At least it’ll be breezy.”
Fifteen minutes later, they all agreed that it did feel breezy riding along the blacktop with the wind in their faces. They pedaled hard and then coasted with their legs stuck straight out (except Emma, who couldn’t yet).
They rode east, past shops their mothers described as “adorable,” stores that sold things like hand-knitted sweaters for cats. They passed a small park and then a bigger park. Beyond the two parks, they passed houses that got farther and farther apart and smaller and smaller, until finally there were no buildings left to look at, just green grass and gently rustling cornfields, and sky for miles.
Only a few minutes into the wonderful green of the fields, the asphalt beneath their bike tires turned to gravel. It made it hard to pedal, but that was fun in its own way too. The kids bumped along with gravel flying and clouds of dust puffing up at their knees. Emma sang a song, and even though it was a little-kid song about a farmer who had a dog (you probably know it), the others joined in.
Here, in the big open fields, as they pedaled and sang at the top of their lungs, the heat was somehow okay. It fit. The kids were sweating and red-faced, but it felt far better to be hot from doing something than hot from doing nothing.
When the gravel road ended at a tiny path, everyone stopped pedaling and peered down the narrow dirt path. It was more than a little overgrown, with weeds snarled everywhere and the short cornstalks bent down into the path.
“Knee-high by the Fourth of July,” chortled Emma.
“Except that it isn’t,” pointed out Henry. The corn came almost to Emma’s waist. “Whatever old farmer invented that saying was a lot taller than you.”
Any Which Wall Page 1
