Wizard of Washington Square

by Jane Yolen

  “That’s what I mean,” said David.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Leilah. “Scared?”

  “Of course not!” David said hotly. “It’s just—it’s just that I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “Well, neither have I,” said Leilah. “But in the Village, a lot of things happen that never happened before and no one who lives here pays any attention. It’s just tourists who get all shook.” The way she said tourists made David promise himself that he would never be one, much less act like one.

  “Like what happens?” asked David, standing up.

  “Like—like happenings,” said Leilah.

  “Oh fine, that says a lot. Happenings that never happened before happen to happen here.”

  Leilah shook her head. “No, really. Happenings are things that people plan. Nutty things. Wild things. Like people dressing up as babies and drinking bottles of milk. Or dancing with camels. Or shoving whipped-cream pies in someone’s face and then licking it off. And people pay admission to see them. It’s like a show, only you never know ahead of time what is going to happen. So, it’s called a happening.”

  “Sounds stupid,” said David.

  “It is, a bit,” Leilah admitted.

  “Say, maybe somebody will think that we’re a happening,” said David. He began to laugh.

  “Maybe,” said Leilah.

  Just then the door in the archway opened inward. The cave, dark as doom, appeared. And from far away, stars began to appear, flickering on and off like erratic fireflies. As the stars got closer, David realized they were on the Wizard’s hat. They kept appearing and disappearing as the Wizard turned his head.

  “Now why is he looking backward all the time?” thought David. And then he understood. The Wizard was holding the wooden ball and coaxing the table. Reluctantly it trotted behind him, like a stubborn donkey led by a carrot.

  David ran to the Arch and blocked the doorway. D. Dog growled at his heels. “Oh, please,” he said, “you can’t bring that out. If someone saw, we might be arrested….”

  “My dear boy,” said the Wizard, “I’ve never been arrested here before. And I always take the table out for its Sunday constitutional. We usually do it at midnight, when there aren’t many children about. It will go after any bouncing ball it sees.”

  “Its constitutional?” exclaimed David.

  “Why, this table needs exercise as much as any dog. After all, it has more legs, hasn’t it?” said the Wizard.

  And that was that.

  With some misgivings David and D. Dog followed Leilah behind the Wizard as he paraded the table around the park. Just as Leilah had predicted, none of the old men or the children or the young men with beards or the young women with long hair noticed. And the policemen were too busy buying ice-cream cones from the vendor at the corner of the Square. One fat lady fainted when she saw them, but then it was her first time in New York. And since she fainted in front of four native New Yorkers who were arguing about city politics, no one noticed her or bothered to pick her up. Finally she found some smelling salts in her pocketbook, dusted herself off, and went home to Iowa where she told everyone about the sights of New York and no one believed her.

  Eventually the table must have had enough exercise, because the Wizard led them out of the park, through the Arch, and onto a block where the art show was in progress.

  “This is fine,” said Leilah approvingly. “We ought to get a lot of signatures here.”

  The Wizard signaled the table and it settled on the corner of the block. Then Leilah spread the papers on the table, putting pencils within easy reach of any interested signers.

  “If we’re lucky,” Leilah said, “someone who is running for office will be down shaking hands. We can get them to sign, too. It’s always best to have some of them—stop it!”

  Leilah ended in a shriek as the table stepped on her foot.

  The Wizard smiled apologetically and kicked at the table leg. He missed, but the table settled down. “Sometimes it gets in its own way,” he said. “Too many legs, you know. Thank you,” he added, as two bearded young men with guitars stopped to sign the petition before they entered the park.

  “See?” said Leilah smugly.

  David shrugged.

  A half-dozen well-dressed people passed the table without signing. They stared at the Wizard’s clothes and one lady giggled.

  “See?” said David smugly.

  “Tourists,” said Leilah. “They don’t know any better.”

  A skinny man with eyeglasses that pinched his nose and a long, well-waxed moustache bent over the table. He looked at its legs. He knocked on its top. He examined its underside. This so irritated the table that it kicked the man in the shins. “Ow!” screamed the man and hopped up and down on one foot for a while, which made his glasses pop off his nose and his Adam’s apple wobble about. Then he bent down to see who had kicked him. There was nothing within reach but two table legs, so he stood up and looked around. Then he turned to the Wizard.

  “You,” he thundered.

  “Me?” squeaked the Wizard, who was not used to being thundered at.

  “You,” said the skinny man, putting his glasses back on his nose. “You must sell me this table. It’s a rare piece. Name your price.”

  “Oh, I can’t. It’s been in my family for generations. Ever since the Good Old Days,” said the Wizard.

  “What is your price?” shouted the man. “I know you Villagers. You’ll do anything for a price. So name your price.”

  “I’m not selling,” said the Wizard.

  “We’ll see,” said the skinny man. “Here’s my card. Call me when you are ready to sell.” He laid his card on the table and started to walk off. As he did, the table leg on the corner reached out and tripped him.

  The man turned around and his glasses popped off again. But the only one close to him was D. Dog. Furiously the man poked D. Dog with his umbrella, which made the terrier scream and run under the table.

  “Hey, you can’t do that to my dog!” shouted David, but the man walked off without a word.

  David started to run after him, but Leilah caught his arm. “We always know where to find him if we want him,” Leilah said, and held up the man’s card. It said Joseph Pickwell, Decorator. VIP Interiors, 190 East 58th Street. “The petition is more important.”

  The Wizard nodded.

  David settled back. He looked at the papers spread out on the table. “And he didn’t even sign,” David said in disgust.

  Swinging Statues

  “FIFTY-SEVEN,” SAID LEILAH, after a slow hour had gone by. She counted the names on the petition again. “Fifty-seven signatures. That’s including you and me and D. Dog’s paw-print.”

  “Is that good or bad?” asked David.

  “Good, I think,” said Leilah.

  “Then let’s stop for a while and get an ice cream or something,” suggested David.

  They packed up the pencils and petition and the Wizard put them under his pointed hat. Then they sent the table back to the warren. “It doesn’t care for ice cream,” the Wizard explained. “So we certainly won’t hurt its feelings.”

  “How can you hurt a table’s feelings?” asked David.

  “It’s easy. I do it all the time. They’re extremely sensitive,” said the Wizard. And though David wanted to pursue the matter, the Wizard would say no more.

  After they got their ice cream, with the Wizard treating, the three walked over to the maples and sat down. The Wizard leaned his back against the keep off the grass sign.

  David had barely gotten to his third lick of cherry vanilla when a very large policeman started yelling at them from the sidewalk. “Hey, can’t you kids read?”

  “Read what?” asked the Wizard, turning around.

  “The sign, wise guy,” said the policeman, who was tired of being in the hot sun. Besides, he didn’t like being stationed in Washington Square where, as he had told his wife that morning at breakfast, “It’s no
t only hard to tell the girls from the boys, it’s hard to tell the people from the animals.”

  “This sign?” asked the Wizard, pointing to the one he was leaning against.

  “That sign!” said the policeman, wiping his forehead. His normally rosy cheeks were even pinker in the heat.

  “Oh, yes,” said the Wizard, squinting at the sign and taking a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from an enormous pocket in his robe. “It says ‘Enjoy the grass, that’s what it’s here for.’”

  “Okay, wise guy,” shouted the policeman. Shouting was his normal tone of voice. It was loud enough to have interested three bearded young men, a teen-aged girl with long beads and dark glasses, and an old man who carried his possessions everywhere in a paper bag. They all came over to see what was happening. “Okay, wise guy,” shouted the policeman again, “I’m going to—” He stopped and stared. The Wizard had moved away from the sign. And it was true. The sign, somehow, did say ENJOY THE GRASS, THAT’S WHAT IT’S HERE FOR.

  “Wow, dig!” said the three boys, and they threw themselves on the grass and rolled in it, kicking up their heels. The girl pushed up her dark glasses onto her head and smiled a very slow smile. The old man bent down and plucked a few blades of grass and put them in his paper bag. And the policeman wandered off mumbling to himself, “I know that sign did say ‘Keep off the grass.’”

  “How did you do that?” asked David.

  “Do what?” asked the Wizard, who was puzzled by all the fuss.

  “Change the sign,” David said. “It did say ‘Keep off the grass’ when we sat down.”

  “I don’t know,” said the Wizard.

  “If you could only figure out how you do things like that—and the handkerchief—you could be a first-class wizard,” said Leilah.

  The Wizard looked thoughtful. “I suppose so,” he said. “But the more I think about the magic, the less able I am to do it.”

  “Then it’s easy!” said David. “Just don’t think about it at all.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” said the Wizard. “It’s just like the story old Greywether used to tell his apprentices. For years, he said, the alchemists had been pestering him to tell them the secret of turning lead into gold. Finally he was so annoyed with them, he jokingly told them that all they had to do was to put the lead into a huge vat over a roaring fire and stir it, all the while not thinking of a pink hippocampus. Well, of course, from that moment on, not a single alchemist could stir a lead-filled cauldron without thinking of a pink hippocampus, so none of them ever were able to turn lead into gold.”

  “What’s a hippocampus?” David whispered to Leilah.

  “You’ve missed the whole point of the story,” said Leilah, who didn’t want to admit she didn’t know what a hippocampus was.

  “So,” continued the Wizard, “I’m afraid that not thinking of magic is as impossible for me as remembering correctly. I guess I was just born to be a second-class wizard.” He sighed. “Never to make magic properly. Never to have fun….”

  “Oh well, you needn’t count on magic for having fun,” said Leilah brightly. “All you have to do is play games.”

  “But I don’t know how,” said the Wizard.

  David said helpfully, “But it wouldn’t be hard to remember how to play the games you played when you were little—er, littler.”

  “I never did,” said the Wizard. “Play games, that is. Wizards don’t. Too busy learning magic.”

  “Well, from the amount of magic you learned,” said David, “you might just as well have been playing games and having fun.”

  “David, what a mean thing to say,” Leilah whispered.

  “He’s right, I’m afraid,” said the Wizard. “And I guess it’s too late to learn now.”

  “Nonsense,” said Leilah. “It’s never too late to learn how to play.” And she reached out to take the Wizard by the hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Oh, don’t touch, don’t touch, child,” said the Wizard. “The magic. Remember the magic.”

  “Oh pooh on the magic. If you can’t remember it, why should we?” said David, and he and Leilah grabbed the Wizard and hauled him quickly to his feet.

  They dragged him, his beard wagging from side to side, to the sidewalk near the Arch. There Leilah drew a hopscotch pattern on the pavement with yellow chalk. And after one time through for practice and one time through for real, the Wizard was beating them both by four squares.

  “I’m not so sure that teaching him to play was such a good idea after all,” said David, who was sometimes a sore loser. “Let’s play something else.”

  “All right,” said Leilah, who was a bit put out herself. “Let’s play swinging statues.”

  “How does that go?” asked the Wizard. His face was flushed with pleasure and the heat. He liked winning at hopscotch and hated to stop.

  “You take turns being It,” David began.

  “And,” interrupted Leilah, “It swings everyone in the game around and around. When It lets go, you have to fall in a funny position and hold it, still as a statue, while It swings the next person and looks everyone over. Whoever It chooses as being the best, becomes It in turn.”

  “Does anyone win?” asked the Wizard eagerly.

  “No,” said David. “It’s not like hopscotch.”

  “I’m not so sure…” said the Wizard. But before he could protest further, Leilah announced, “I’ll be It first.”

  She grabbed David’s hand and started to swing him, singing tunelessly, “Swinging here, swinging there, swinging statues everywhere.” At the last syllable, she let him go and he spun around and landed on his knees like a giant praying mantis. Next Leilah grabbed D. Dog and swung him, too. The terrier landed on his back and lay there, playing dead. Then she grabbed the Wizard, who started to protest about the magic. But when nothing happened, he closed his eyes, enjoyed the spinning, and wound up with his arms spread wide like airplane wings.

  “I think the Wizard is best,” said Leilah quickly.

  “What’s so good about him?” grumbled David.

  “Shut up,” Leilah hissed at him. “He’s never played before. So let him think he’s doing a good job.”

  “He already beat us both at hopscotch,” said David grudgingly. “I don’t think he deserves any special consideration at all.”

  “Well, I’m It, and I say the Wizard is best.” She called out to the Wizard, who was beginning to twirl his beard like a propeller. “Come on. You’re It.”

  “I was just getting ready for the takeoff,” said the Wizard. “Oh well, guess I’ll just have to cut the motor.” His beard stopped twirling, his arms lowered, and the Wizard stepped over to take his turn at being It.

  Tentatively he took David’s hand and swung David around. “Swinging here, swinging there, swinging statues everywhere,” he chanted. And then he let go.

  Next he took D. Dog by the paw. He had abandoned himself to the game and forgotten all about magic. The terrier had been chewing on the grass and a small dandelion was stuck to the corner of his mouth. The Wizard’s eyes glowed. The stars on his hat seemed to wink in and out. He closed his eyes and started to sing the tuneless “Swinging here, swinging there, swinging statues every—Oh dear!”

  “What is it?” asked David from a crouched position, his head between his knees.

  “I knew it would happen. I knew the magic would come when we least expected it.” The Wizard’s voice cracked in midsentence.

  David straightened up. Leilah came over.

  There, on the sidewalk before them, was a marble statue of a Scotty.

  “Why, what is that?” asked Leilah.

  “I’m afraid it’s David’s dog,” said the Wizard. “And he’s a real statue now.”

  What the Tapestry Saw

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” SAID LEILAH. “You mean a real statue?” She bent over to look at D. Dog more closely. It was true. Each detail of his nose and tail and whiskers and every single hair was visible. Even the dandelion in his mouth. Bu
t it was all in polished white marble.

  “But how could you?” asked David with a wail. “How could you do such a thing! He’s my dog. My only dog.”

  “I wish I knew how I did it,” said the Wizard. “I mean, if I knew, I could undo it easily. But I warned you about touching. Really I did. It’s the touching that does it.”

  “Well, you didn’t warn us enough,” said David belligerently. “How were we to know just how magic the touching could be? I thought it was just—you know, handkerchiefs in the air and signs. I didn’t know you meant to change my dog into… into…” and embarrassingly enough, David started to cry. Right there in the park in front of a girl.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” the Wizard said. He started to pat David comfortingly on the back and caught himself in time. Looking at his own hand, he mumbled, “I must try to remember.”

  So Leilah did the patting instead. But David was not to be comforted. He picked up the marble dog and started slowly out of the park. He trudged past hopscotch games and children playing tag, past an old man with a chess set under his arm and a mother wheeling twins in an oversized carriage.

  “Wait,” called the Wizard, “maybe I could do something to help. At least I could try.”

  But David did not even turn back to look.

  “Perhaps you’ve done too much already,” said Leilah. She meant it to be consoling, but somehow it came out wrong.

  They watched as David came to the street, the statue cradled in his arms. Just as he started to cross, a taxi pulled up beside him and a man leaned out. He grabbed the statue from David’s hands and thrust something in its place. Then he closed the door and drove off uptown in the taxi. Stunned, David just stood there. And when he finally started yelling, it was too late. The taxi was lost in the stream of Sunday traffic that was heading up Fifth Avenue.

  Leilah and the Wizard raced over.

  “Come back, thief! Come back with my dog! Stop! Please. Oh, please,” David was shouting.

  “It’s no use,” said Leilah. “He can’t possibly hear you. But who was it? And why did he take the statue?”