Magical Monty

by Johanna Hurwitz

  “Fresh Flowers for the Family,” said the voice on the other end. “Sarah speaking. How may I help you?”

  “Hello, Sarah,” said Monty, a little shyly. “I want to buy some fresh flowers for my mom for Mother’s Day.”

  “How lovely,” said the voice. “What sort of display would you like?”

  “No, I don’t want a display. Just some nice flowers,” Monty explained.

  “Well, we have roses, or lilies, or tulips, or a combination of spring flowers.”

  A combination sounded good to Monty. “That’s what I want,” he responded. “A combination of spring flowers.”

  “Excellent. That’s a great choice,” Sarah complimented him. “Please tell me your name,” she requested.

  “Montgomery Gerald Morris,” he replied. “But you can call me Monty, like everyone else.”

  “All right. And the address to which you wish these flowers to be shipped?”

  Monty answered. Then the voice asked a strange question. “What sort of card do you wish to use to pay for the flowers?”

  The only card that Monty had was the Mother’s Day card he’d made at school. He sat silently, wondering what to answer.

  “You can use American Express or MasterCard or Visa or Discover,” Sarah told him. “Any of those cards is fine.”

  “I don’t have one of those cards,” said Monty.

  “Mr. Morris. Can I ask you how old you are?” Sarah inquired.

  “I’m six. But I’m going to be seven in August,” he told her. “And I have four dollars and seventy-three cents saved in my bank. Isn’t that enough? I could put it in an envelope and mail it to you right away.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

  “Mr. Morris,” the voice said. “I’m afraid that none of our bouquets are that inexpensive. Our most economical arrangement sells for just under twenty dollars, and that doesn’t include the delivery fee.”

  “Oh,” said Monty. “They didn’t say that on TV. They just said you would send flowers all over the United States and that they would be cheap and guaranteed to arrive in time for Mother’s Day.”

  “Mr. Morris. Monty,” the voice said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make another plan for the holiday. But I bet your mother will be happy with whatever you give her. You sound like a remarkable young man.”

  Monty sniffed back some tears. They were caused by both disappointment and embarrassment. How was he supposed to guess from the television commercial how much flowers cost, and that you needed a special card to get them?

  “I’ve got a picture that we did at school,” he told Sarah. “I guess that’s all I can give her.”

  “A picture! Did you draw it? Did you use paint or markers?” asked the voice, sounding interested.

  “No,” Monty explained. “It’s not that kind of a picture. It’s a photograph picture, and it’s of me. And we made a frame out of ice-cream-pop sticks.”

  “Oh, Monty. That sounds lovely. I know your mom is going to be so pleased.”

  “Do you really think so? She loves flowers, and I thought it would be extra special if I could give her some.”

  “Monty, there is no flower your mom could love more than you.”

  “And Mandy too,” Monty pointed out.

  “Who’s Mandy?” asked the voice.

  “She’s my new baby sister. She’s only three weeks old.”

  “Well,” said the voice. “Your mom is certainly a lucky woman. She has a great son like you and a new baby daughter as well. I know she’s going to have a wonderful Mother’s Day, and don’t you worry about giving her flowers.”

  “Okay,” said Monty. He thought a moment. “Well, good-bye, Sarah,” he said.

  “Good-bye, Monty,” Sarah said, and there was a click on the phone.

  Mrs. Morris walked into the kitchen, holding Mandy against her shoulder. “Were you just on the telephone?” she asked her son.

  “Yes,” Monty said. “I was talking to someone named Sarah.”

  “Is that a new girl in your class?” his mother asked.

  “Ummm. No,” said Monty. He grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl and took a big bite. That way he couldn’t talk anymore. He didn’t know what he’d say if his mother asked more questions.

  Luckily, Mandy was a good distraction. Monty reached up and put his finger into Mandy’s hand, which was hanging over their mother’s shoulder. The baby moved her head and smiled at him. Monty smiled back. Sarah was right — his mother was lucky to have such a nice new baby for Mother’s Day. Still, Monty wished for something else to give his mother. If only he could wave the wand in his magic set and abracadabra! there would be a wonderful surprise for his mom.

  On Mother’s Day, Monty and all the first-graders from his school gave their mothers four painted ice-cream sticks without ice cream but holding a picture of their child. (Mrs. Kelly down the street got eight sticks and two pictures that looked exactly the same because she had identical twins!) All the mothers said they were delighted with their gifts.

  An hour later, a truck pulled up in front of the Morris house with a long box addressed to Monty’s mother. Mrs. Morris looked at her husband. “Oh, this is so sweet of you,” she said to him as she began to open the package.

  Monty’s dad shook his head. “There must be a mistake,” he said, rechecking the address on the box. “I didn’t order anything.”

  The address was correct.

  Inside the box was a tremendous bouquet of assorted spring flowers. There was also a small card that said, Enjoy a wonderful Mother’s Day. The card was signed with two names: Monty and Sarah.

  “Who’s Sarah?” asked Monty’s father, looking puzzled.

  “She’s sort of a new friend of mine,” he explained. He hadn’t realized what a very good and special friend she would turn out to be. Sometimes you had magic without even chanting abracadabra, thought Monty.

  Everyone at school was talking about it. Mr. Harris, the school librarian, was putting together an exhibit of students and teachers reading.

  “Have someone take a picture of you,” he told the students. “Let me see where you read. It can be in bed, sitting on the sofa, lying on the floor. Wherever. I’m going to mount the pictures and line the walls of the library.”

  It sounded like fun, Monty thought. “When do you want the picture?” he asked the librarian.

  “As soon as you can bring it in,” Mr. Harris said. “But if you are going away for the weekend and you think there will be a special place where you could be photographed, then wait.”

  Monty wasn’t going anywhere that weekend. Now that they had baby Mandy, the family didn’t seem to go anywhere special. But maybe he could get his father to take his picture sitting on a swing at the playground.

  He mentioned that to Joey as they were walking home from school.

  “Swing? No way,” said Joey. “Why don’t you sit on the top of the monkey bars?”

  Monty wasn’t very comfortable climbing high on the monkey bars. The couple of times he had made it to the top, he had held on tightly with both hands. He certainly couldn’t read or even pretend to read a book while he was on top.

  When they reached their street, Joey had an idea. “I have to walk my dogs,” he said. “But after that, I’ll ask my mom if I can take our camera outside. I’ll take your picture and you can take mine for the library project.”

  “Good,” said Monty. It would be fun doing his homework with Joey.

  Monty stopped inside his house to drop off his backpack. His mom was holding Mandy against her shoulder and patting her on the back.

  “Are you still burping her?” asked Monty. When he had left for school that morning, his mother had been doing the same thing.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Morris. “Babies need to do a lot of burping.”

  He made a funny face at Mandy. She smiled at him and made a small burp.

  “Good girl,” said Monty’s mom.

  “I’ll be going outside,” Monty told he
r. “Joey and I are going to take pictures for a school project.”

  “Okay,” said his mom. “Why don’t you take an apple for yourself and one for Joey?”

  Monty grabbed two apples and went outside. Joey waved to him.

  “I’ll be ready in a minute,” he called to Monty. He went back into his house with the dogs, and a moment later he returned. He was holding his family’s digital camera. Monty handed Joey one of the apples, and the boys sat down on the steps outside Monty’s house to eat and to plan their photos.

  “Sometimes I read sitting right here,” Monty said.

  “Boring,” said Joey. “We should try and think of more interesting places.”

  “Like where?” asked Monty. Reading was what was interesting to him, not where he sat to read.

  “Like, like, like up a tree,” said Joey. He jumped up. “That’s it. I’ll climb up a tree, and you can take a picture of me reading up there.”

  Monty followed Joey across the street, toward his backyard. There was a medium-size tree with a few branches that were low enough to climb on. The boys dropped their apple cores in the trash can, and Joey handed Monty the camera. “Okay,” Joey said. “I’ve climbed this tree lots of times. It’s a cinch for me.”

  Monty watched as Joey climbed up. His friend was almost like a monkey going up, up, up. “Hold tight,” Monty called. It would be terrible if Joey fell down while doing the school project.

  “I think this is high enough,” said Joey. “Take my picture.”

  “But you aren’t reading a book,” said Monty. “The picture is supposed to show you reading.”

  “Boy. That was dumb of me,” said Joey. He began climbing down the tree. “Wait a minute. I’ll go and get a book,” he told Monty.

  Monty waited as Joey rubbed dirt off his hands, onto his pants, and went into the house. He wondered which book Joey would bring out. As he waited, he tried to whistle. Joey had told him it was easy to do, but somehow he still hadn’t mastered the skill.

  A minute later, Joey reappeared. He had a large book about dinosaurs.

  “I think it would be better if you were reading a book about trees,” said Monty.

  “I don’t have a book about trees,” said Joey. “Besides, I like dinosaurs more than trees.”

  “Okay,” said Monty.

  Joey climbed the tree again. He didn’t go up as quickly this second time. Monty could see that it was more difficult for his friend to climb a tree when he was holding a big book.

  Joey reached the spot where he was before. “Okay. Take my picture,” he instructed Monty.

  Monty held the camera and pointed it at Joey. “I don’t know how to make it work,” he said.

  “You just look through that little space and push the button,” Joey shouted down.

  “Is it okay if I don’t see anything when I look through the space?” asked Monty.

  “How can you look through the space and not see anything?” Joey asked. He began climbing down the tree. “Wait a minute,” he told Monty. “I’ll give you a lesson. It’s very easy.”

  Joey jumped from the bottom branch and put the book down on the ground. He took the camera from Monty. “See? You look through this part,” he said. “Then you push this button here.”

  Monty took the camera back and looked through the space where Joey had pointed. “Okay,” he said. “I think I can do it now.”

  Joey quickly climbed up the tree again. “All right!” he shouted. “Take my picture now.”

  Monty aimed the camera at Joey. Then he lowered it and called up to his friend, “You don’t have the book. You left it down here on the ground.”

  “Oh, nuts,” groaned Joey. “This is the hardest homework we ever had. It’s worse than math or spelling.”

  Joey climbed down the tree and picked up the dinosaur book. Then he climbed up the tree again.

  “Are you ready?” Monty shouted.

  “Yes,” Joey replied.

  “Then you should open the book. You can’t read it when it’s closed, like you have it now.”

  Joey let go with one hand and opened the book. He looked down as if he was reading. Suddenly, Monty heard a crash. Joey had dropped the book, and it had landed on the ground.

  “You’ll have to come down and get the book again,” Monty called up to Joey.

  “I’m coming down,” Joey said. “But I’m not going up again. I’ve had it. There’s got to be another place to take my picture.”

  “You can sit on my steps,” suggested Monty.

  “I’ll sit on your steps to rest,” said Joey. “But I don’t want my picture taken there.”

  The two boys crossed the street again and sat down on the steps. “I’m tired,” Joey complained.

  “We don’t have to take the pictures today,” said Monty. “Mr. Harris said we could bring them whenever we had them.”

  The boys sat together, and Monty tried whistling again. Still no luck.

  The twins Ilene and Arlene walked by. “Are you taking pictures for Mr. Harris?” Ilene asked.

  “Yes,” said Monty.

  “No,” said Joey.

  “We’re going to have our picture taken on the weekend,” said Arlene. “My father said he was going to take us to the amusement park, and we’re going to sit on the Ferris wheel reading a book together. That will make a great picture.”

  “Yes, it will,” Monty agreed. He personally didn’t like Ferris wheels, but the twins were right. It would make a good picture. He could imagine it already.

  Joey frowned. “A roller coaster is better than a Ferris wheel,” he said.

  Monty didn’t like roller coasters either. “I like the merry-go-round the best,” he said.

  “What kind of picture are you going to take?” asked Arlene.

  “It will be a surprise,” said Joey.

  “No fair. We told you what our picture is going to be,” said Ilene.

  “We can’t tell you,” Monty said, “because we don’t —” He was going to add “because we don’t know,” but Joey interrupted.

  “Because it’s a secret. You just have to wait till the picture is up in the library.”

  “No fair,” said Arlene as the two girls walked home.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Joey. “This is such a secret that even we don’t know the answer.”

  “I guess I’ll go in and play with Mandy,” said Monty. “She can’t really do anything yet except eat and burp and sleep and cry. But she likes to look at me. She even smiles whenever she sees me,” he added proudly. “My mom said that she’ll probably learn to speak very early because I talk to her so much.”

  “What do you talk about?” asked Joey.

  “I tell her about school and about my karate class, and sometimes I even . . . Joey. I just got a great idea for my picture. Come inside with your camera.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Joey.

  “You’ll see,” said Monty, jumping up with excitement.

  Inside the house, Monty rushed to Mandy’s room and got one of her baby books. Mandy was sitting in her infant seat, in the kitchen. Monty sat down next to her and opened the book. “Are you ready?” he called to Joey.

  Joey aimed the camera and took a photograph of Monty reading to his baby sister.

  Mandy might not know how to speak or talk or read, but her face looked very interested. It was as if she really understood the words “In the great green room . . .”

  “Lucky you. You’ve done it,” said Joey. “I still have to think of something, but I don’t want to climb the tree anymore. I wish I had a baby in my house. Then I’d make you take a picture of me reading to her.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Monty. “I can’t go into your house because of your dogs and my asthma. But you could have someone in your family take a picture of you reading to Jupiter and Pluto.”

  “Hey, that’s a great idea,” said Joey.

  “Wait a minute!” shouted Monty. He just had another idea. From his room he got a boo
k to lend to Joey. The book was called The Planets. It would be a good joke to read about the planets to Jupiter and Pluto, even if no one looking at the picture knew about the dogs’ names. And even if Pluto was no longer considered a planet.

  The last Monday of May was Memorial Day. Schools were closed, and every year there was a parade down the main street of town in memory of the men and women who had served in the armed forces.

  Monty always went with one or both of his parents to watch the parade. The mayor rode in a convertible car with the top down. The car was decorated with small American flags. Everyone cheered, even if they hadn’t voted for him.

  Then there came people carrying flags, several bands with people playing trumpets and drums and funny xylophones called glockenspiels. There were high-school girls in matching short skirts, twirling batons, men wearing kilts who played bagpipes, firemen driving old-fashioned fire trucks, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in their uniforms. Even the local nursery schools marched in the parade, with parents pushing their youngsters in strollers along the parade route.

  “They never had little kids when I was in preschool,” Monty commented last year. It didn’t seem fair that when he was younger, he hadn’t been included in the parade.

  But then something wonderful happened. A few days before the holiday, Sensei Jack made an announcement to Monty’s karate class. “This year, we’ve been invited to participate in the Memorial Day parade. Any students who wish to march can do so. Just show up at eight-thirty in the morning at the corner of Dubby Street and Bogdan Avenue, and be sure to wear your karate uniform. We can show the people attending the parade how many colored belts we represent.”

  Monty was very proud that he had achieved an orange belt. If he marched in the parade, he could show it off to everyone on the sidewalk watching the parade.

  “What if it’s raining?” Arlene asked the karate teacher.

  “If it’s raining, I’m staying home,” said Ilene.