Magic Nation Thing

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  They were almost home when Abby leaned across to Paige and whispered, “We’ll probably see them again next year, and by then we’ll be teenagers too.”

  But Paige only gave her a blank stare and said, “What are you talking about? I don’t care what those dudes do. I’ve got more important things on my mind.”

  And Abby said, “Oh. Well, that’s good then. I’m… I’m glad.”

  And she was glad, at least for the moment. It wasn’t until later that she began to wonder just what important things Paige was referring to. But that night on the window seat, when she came right out and asked, Paige would only say she wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

  On the trip home to San Francisco, things went a little bit better than they had on the way up. Woody tried the rubber spider thing again. But a rubber spider only works once, and when Abby started treating it like an old friend, he quickly lost interest. Woody and Sky still quarreled about the dividing line between their private spaces, but their arguments weren’t as loud and ferocious, as if they were just doing it for old times’ sake.

  For once the roads were clear all the way down the mountain, they had lunch at Paige’s favorite restaurant, and they arrived in the Bay Area a little earlier than usual. And then Abby was running up the front steps of the O’Malley Detective Agency, where, as she was about to discover, there had been another change. A big one.

  20

  RIGHT AT FIRST EVERYTHING at the agency seemed the same as always. The same cluttered office overflowed from the ex-parlor into the ex-dining room, where, at about five-thirty on a Sunday afternoon, no one was there to welcome her home. No big surprise. Private eyes worked when they found a clue—weekend or not. It wasn’t until she’d dumped her duffel bag in the hall and gone into the kitchen that she found Dorcas was at home after all. Sitting at the kitchen table, Dorcas and Abby’s dad were drinking coffee and listening to old-fashioned music on the radio.

  “Abby. You’re early.” Dorcas jumped up and ran to hug Abby and kiss her on both cheeks. “We didn’t hear you come in. Are the Bordens still here?”

  “No, they went on home,” Abby told her. “Sher was in a hurry to get some stuff ready for the office tomorrow. Daphne said she’ll call you in a little while.”

  Abby’s dad hugged her too and pulled her down to sit beside him. “Well, how did it go, kid?” he asked. “Heard you had quite a snowstorm up there.”

  So Abby began to tell them about Squaw, and even included an only slightly censored version of what had happened to Sky—of how he had run off because he’d felt he was being ignored and wound up sleeping in someone else’s car while they drove all the way to Truckee. To her surprise, her dad and Dorcas seemed to think it was an awfully funny story. And after watching them look at each other and laugh some more, she found it was easier to forget the bad parts, such as the long hours of wondering if Sky was still alive, and how awful it felt to think it was mostly her own fault.

  While they were all laughing about Sky asking the Bakers if he was kidnapped, it occurred to Abby that both of them were in an especially good mood, and when she asked, “Hey, what’s up? Is something special going on?” the truth about the big change began to come out.

  “See?” her mom said to her dad. “What did I tell you about Abby’s psychic powers? I told you she’d know immediately.”

  And before Abby had time to start being resentful about the “powers” thing, her dad put his hand over Dorcas’s and said, “I’m sure you’re right. But I don’t think it would take much psychic power to tell that we’re feeling pretty good at the moment.” And then to Abby he said, “We were planning to wait until tomorrow to tell you, but since you seem to have guessed—your mom and I are thinking about giving it another try.”

  And before he had time to go on, without needing to use a bit of psychic power, Abby knew exactly what he would say. They were going to get married again—to each other. Without meaning or planning to, Abby let out a delighted shriek and hugged them both, one at a time and then both at once. The questions came later, but not a lot of them. Nothing like “What made you change your minds?” in case remembering the things they used to fight about might not be a good idea right at the moment.

  One answer that came up without any asking was that they had come to an important agreement. A two-way agreement in which Abby’s dad had said that Dorcas should go on running the O’Malley Agency, as long as she stopped living in it. “So as soon as we find a house that suits all three of us,” Abby’s dad said, “we’ll buy it and the three of us will move in.”

  “And Tree will take over here,” Dorcas said. “She’s delighted. Delighted for us and for herself too. Her new commute—from the kitchen to the parlor—is going to be a bit easier than having to cross the Bay Bridge at rush hour.”

  There were even plans for the wedding, and Abby would be part of it. “As a witness,” Dorcas said, “or it might be fun for you to be my bridesmaid, if you’d rather.”

  Abby was thrilled and she knew Paige would be too. She couldn’t wait to tell her and invite her and all the Bordens to the wedding.

  Of course Paige thought the whole thing was “totally insane.” In fact she was the one who decided that she would be a bridesmaid too and then came up with lots of important details, such as the pattern for the dresses she and Abby would wear, and the kinds of flowers they would carry in their bouquets.

  Dorcas was a little concerned about the cost of all that satin and lace, but Daphne insisted on paying for some of the material. And then, when Tree offered to do the sewing, the expense problem was pretty much solved. It turned out that along with being an excellent secretary and detective (not to mention being insanely gorgeous, which you didn’t if she was in earshot), Tree was also an expert seamstress. The way Tree explained it, her parents had insisted she learn to sew as part of her preparation to be a perfect wife for the rich husband she was supposed to marry. And even though she hadn’t appreciated the rest of their plan, Tree had discovered that she really liked to sew.

  So it wasn’t long before Paige and Abby were going directly from school to the agency every day to help by posing for pattern adjustments and doing a little carefully supervised pinning and basting. At least that’s what Abby thought they were doing. It wasn’t until several days had passed that she discovered what else Paige had been up to.

  Abby hadn’t suspected a thing until the day the three of them (Dorcas was away on a case) were using the kitchen table to cut out two pairs of satin sleeves. Abby realized that Paige was missing and had been for some time. When she went to investigate, she once again found Paige going through a file in the office, this time in the cabinet where Dorcas kept her new cases.

  Instead of answering Abby’s “What do you think you’re doing?” in a guilty way, Paige slowly put the file she’d been reading back in the drawer, took hold of Abby’s arm, and led her to the row of client chairs.

  When they were both sitting, Paige said, “Do you know if your mother is working on any murder cases?”

  “No, I don’t.” Abby was shocked. “I told you. She doesn’t tell me about her cases, at least not any important ones.” Abby had no sooner said the word important than she began to get the picture—to guess that Paige had been going through the files looking for crimes that were “important” enough for Abby’s Magic Nation thing to play a part in solving them.

  “Paige,” Abby said uneasily. “When people talk to a detective, they expect the things they say to be private. There’s probably a law that says so, and you were breaking it. Do you really want to get us sent to jail?”

  But Paige only shrugged and said, “Look, Abby. Nobody’s going to put us in jail. For one thing we’re too young. And that’s one reason we’re going to be such great detectives. The criminals are going to think that we couldn’t possibly know anything, so when we’re around they’ll just go on saying and doing things that will give them away. And then you’ll do one of your Magic Nation things—”

&
nbsp; “No. No, I won’t.” Abby took a deep breath and began to say something that she knew had to be said, even if it meant another quarrel—a quarrel that, this time, probably would be the end of being Paige Borden’s best friend. “It’s my Magic Nation and from now on I’m going to be the only one to decide how to use it. And I don’t want you to ever mention it again unless I bring it up first. Okay?”

  For a long moment she stared into Paige’s blue eyes, and as Paige stared back, her eyes widened with astonishment, narrowed with anger, and then, along with her smiling lips, gradually tipped upward. Putting her arm over Abby’s shoulder, she said, “Okay, okay! Come on, let’s go look at our sleeves.”

  As soon as the bridesmaid dresses were finished, the two of them went back to spending most of their after-school hours at the Bordens, and Abby discovered that there had been some changes there too. The most important one was that Ludmilla had run away to Beverly Hills to cook for some movie stars. Sky was delighted of course, but Daphne was desperately looking for a new cook. In the meantime meals at the Bordens’ were a lot like the ones at Squaw, when it was Every Man for Himself. Abby loaned them some of the quick-’n’-easy recipes she’d collected for Dorcas, and most of the time the Bordens seemed to be enjoying the kitchen experience, even though the results usually weren’t all that great.

  So as January ended, there were things to look forward to. There would be the wedding, and helping to choose the new house, and in February there would be at least one three-day weekend at Squaw. And even more fabulous—most fabulous of all—there would be living with her mom and dad too in the kind of “normal” family she’d been hoping for, for a long time.

  Concerning Paige’s promise to forget about looking for an important enough case to make the Magic Nation thing work, who knew? Abby wasn’t sure she believed it. And as for what she herself believed, such as whether she’d outgrown the Magic Nation thing, and even whether it had ever been much more than her imagination, she still wasn’t entirely sure. But what she did believe was that if something as important as finding Sky ever happened again, she’d probably give it a try.

  A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is the three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of classic children’s novels such as The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid, and The Witches of Worm. Her adventure and fantasy stories are beloved by many generations.

  Snyder was born in Lemoore, California, in 1927. Her father, William Keatley, worked for Shell Oil, but as a would-be rancher he and his family always lived on a small farm. Snyder’s parents were both storytellers, and their tales often kept their children entertained during quiet evenings at home.

  Snyder began reading and telling stories of her own at an early age. By the time she was four years old she was able to read novels and newspapers intended for adults. When she wasn’t reading, she was making up and embellishing stories. When she was eight, Snyder decided that she would be a writer—a profession in which embellishment and imagination were accepted and rewarded.

  Snyder’s adolescent years were made more difficult by her studious country upbringing and by the fact that she had been advanced a grade when she started school. As other girls were going to dances and discovering boys, Snyder retreated into books. The stories transported her from her small room to a larger, remarkable universe.

  At Whittier College, Zilpha Keatley Snyder met her future husband, Larry Snyder. After graduation, she began teaching upper-level elementary classes. Snyder taught for nine years, including three years as a master teacher for the University of California, Berkeley. The classroom experience gave Snyder a fresh appreciation of the interests and capabilities of preteens.

  As she continued her teaching career, Snyder gained more free time. She began writing at night, after teaching during the day; her husband helped by typing out her manuscripts. After finishing her first novel, she sent it to a publisher. It was accepted on her first try. That book, Season of Ponies, was published in 1964.

  In 1967, her fourth novel, The Egypt Game, won the Newbery Honor for excellence in children’s literature. Snyder went on to win that honor two more times, for her novels The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm. The Headless Cupid introduced the Stanley family, a clan she revisited three more times over her career.

  Snyder’s The Changeling (1970), in which two young girls invent a fantasy world dominated by trees, became the inspiration for her 1974 fantasy series, the Green Sky Trilogy. Snyder completed that series by writing a computer game sequel called Below the Root. The game went on to earn cult classic status.

  Over the almost fifty years of her career, Snyder has written about topics as diverse as time-traveling ghosts, serenading gargoyles, and adoption at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, she lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. When not writing, Snyder enjoys reading and traveling.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Cover design by Barbara Brown

  978-1-4804-7158-0

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  EBOOKS BY ZILPHA KEATLEY SNYDER

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