Secrets of the Magic Ring

by Karen McQuestion

  Paul looked more carefully at the ring. Around the stone was a scrolled design, and inside the ring was some kind of etched writing. He squinted and peered intently but couldn’t make it out. The letters were too small. He’d need to borrow his father’s magnifying glass if he wanted to read it.

  Paul put the ring and the paper in his pocket and wrapped the box back up in the tarp. He’d leave it there for the time being. Later, when he was sure his mother was busy, he’d hide it. He had discovered the perfect hiding spot a few months earlier when Clem was nosing around in his room. There was a floor vent in his closet that had never worked; it wasn’t even hooked up to the furnace, according to his dad. When Paul pried the vent grate out, he stuck his arm down and discovered it ended in a flat surface. He’d decided then that it was the perfect place to stash things he didn’t want anyone else to know about. Which was good because there was absolutely no privacy for a kid in his house.

  Paul moved his bike and the pump back to where they belonged, and he gathered up the rags and bucket of water. Later his mother commented on how well he’d cleaned everything up. “You’re getting to be the perfect son,” she said with a grin. But he barely remembered much of anything he’d done after opening the box and putting the ring in his pocket because he was just too excited.

  Later after he’d gotten his father’s magnifier, he went to his room, took out the rolled-up paper, and pressed it flat. He reread it and tried to make sense of the words. He never was one to look up definitions, usually skipping words if he didn’t know them, but this time was different. He looked up each unfamiliar word and then checked the sentence again, but it still wasn’t completely clear to him. Wearer would be the person who wore the ring. That one was easy, but the rest of it was confusing. Bestow meant “to give,” and fervently meant “with great intensity of spirit.” Paul had an idea what a wished-for ability was, but the part about “beyond normal capabilities” was confusing. Still, it sounded like magic.

  He stuck the ring on his finger and tried to think of a cool ability. He blurted out, “I wish I was invisible.” He concentrated hard and closed his eyes for a minute, but when he opened them nothing had changed. What a rip-off. It wasn’t magic at all.

  He took out the ring and looked at the inscription through the magnifying glass. Enlarged it was much better. Now he could see the letters clearly, although they looked a little wavy, like reading them through water. He leaned in to look closer and saw that the letters spelled out two words. He read them aloud: “Be selfless.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  That night when Paul was in bed, he slid his hand under his pillow to check on the ring. He’d put the note in the bottom of his desk drawer in between some loose-leaf paper. Even if his mom went on one of her cleaning frenzies, she’d never find it there. Later on, he’d put everything in his floor vent, but for now he wanted to keep the ring close at hand.

  He pulled it out, slid it onto his finger, and imagined he was a king who could bestow favors upon disadvantaged visitors. Things would be different if he were a king. He imagined that sniveling idiot Brody kneeling before him begging for mercy because he’d committed some horrible crime. Normally he’d be sentenced to death, but if Paul was in a good mood that day he’d let him off with a lifetime of servitude. “Kiss my ring,” he’d tell Brody, and gratefully Brody would. Ha, that would be the day. If only life were fair, things like that would happen. He slipped the ring off and tucked it into his pillowcase. Paul couldn’t remember the last time he was this happy. In a week or so the pool would be finished, and he’d found this awesome ring in the meantime. This was going to be the best summer ever.

  Outside in the woods, Henry paced. If it weren’t for that stupid dog, he’d have the box by now and the ring would be his. It had been so close, he could almost feel it. He wanted the box; he needed it to finish this thing off. That boy Paul had no idea how powerful the ring was and all the trouble it could cause. Sure, it seemed like fun and games at first, but eventually it all went sour. His life was proof of that. Once upon a time, Henry had made a wish on the ring, one he regretted. Now he was all alone, not a friend in the world. If only he could fix this mess. He missed his family. He wanted to return to his old life.

  The ring had once been his, and he wanted it back. Henry sat on a stump and plotted how to get it from Paul. The biggest risk was being found out before he had the ring in his hand, so he’d have to proceed with caution. For so many years, he’d waited for his chance. Soon, very soon, it would all be over.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next day, Paul took the box, the ring, and the rolled-up paper, and he put them into his hiding place in the vent. The next two days were filled with the excitement of the pool, so the ring stayed safely tucked away in his room. When the pool was completed, a truck came and filled the pool with water. Paul had thought they could fill it from the hose in the back of the house, but his parents had laughed at the idea. “Do you know how long that would take?” his father asked.

  And his mother added, “That much water would empty the well, and then what would we do?”

  The truck that delivered the water was a tanker. Once the pool was full and the truck had pulled away, Paul asked his mother, “Can I invite Celia over to swim?”

  His mom said, “Oh I’m sorry, Paul. I thought you understood. We need to wait for the filter to work and the heater to warm up the water, and then tomorrow the guys from the pool service will come. They add things to the water to keep it sanitary.”

  It all seemed unnecessary to Paul. It was a hot day, and he was willing to swim in unheated water. “I don’t mind if it’s cold and not so clean,” he said. “I can always take a shower after I swim.”

  But his mother held her ground. “We’re having a pool party next Saturday,” she said. “That’s the first official day we can use the pool. We invited Aunt Vicky, and Celia and her family, and a few other relatives. If you want to invite a friend or two, you can.”

  Paul hated waiting. He was terrible at it, in fact. Normally he’d try to get her to change her mind. Sometimes if he followed her around the house and begged, she’d throw up her hands, give in, and say, “Have it your way!” He opened his mouth to say something contrary, but then thought better of it. “Okay, Mom,” he said. “I guess I can wait a few more days. Maybe I’ll invite Alex.”

  For some reason, it helped that he had the ring. At night, when his parents weren’t around, he took it out of its box and put it on his finger. Before he went to bed he tucked it into his pillowcase so it would be close by when he slept. It made him feel better about life in general. Sometimes, just as he was falling asleep, he thought about the boy, Henry, who had demanded he give him the box. The memory of Henry standing over him was fading, and he was not afraid of him anymore. Paul was proud of how he’d told Henry to step aside and that he should leave. Paul had been bold, bolder than he usually was anyway. Maybe next year he’d stand up to Brody. He was tired of being picked on. Enough was enough.

  Meanwhile, Henry spent his days in the woods trying to figure out a way to get into Paul’s house. He knew the floor plan perfectly. Years before, he’d spent a lot of time there playing with his friend Silas McClutchy. That was sixty-some years ago, when it was Silas’s house. He was certain he could still squeeze through the doggie door, a little swinging door built into the main door. The doggie door had been there almost as long as the house. Before Paul and his parents lived there, it was Paul’s grandfather’s house, and his great-grandfather before him. And all of them had dogs. The dogs had names like Rex and Laddie and Tipper. And now there was Clem, probably the dumbest of the bunch, but very loyal to the family. When he growled, Henry had been afraid.

  Henry watched the house, hoping that at some point the family would leave for the day and take the dog with them. But someone was always home. And when he got too close to the house, Clem appeared out of nowhere and started barking like a crazy thing. The dog always seemed to know when he was around. How co
uld that be?

  “I need that ring,” Henry said to himself. “I want that ring.” He sat on a stump and put his head in his hands and cried.

  Jasmine, the fairy girl, had been keeping an eye on Henry, always sending Clem out when he got too close to the house. Henry had been spying on the family, she understood that, and now she was spying on him. Her tiny size and speed worked in her favor. She flew so silently that he never even sensed he was being followed. She might as well have been a butterfly for all the notice he took.

  She’d been worried about Henry at first. He’d spoken menacingly to Paul, but lately she was getting the idea that he wasn’t a real threat. If anything, she sensed a sadness in this boy. She couldn’t quite figure out where he came from or what he was all about, though. He didn’t look much older than Paul, so it was puzzling that he was on his own. Didn’t he have parents? Why was he dressed in rags and scrounging for food? He stole the stale bread that Paul’s mother put out for the birds. Other times she saw him come back from outings with bags of junk food that he’d purchased from the gas station over on the highway. She’d wondered where he got the money until she saw him picking up cans to sell to the metal recycling company.

  What a sad life for a child his age. She wasn’t assigned to Henry. Paul and his family were her responsibility, and she’d been warned about getting sidetracked helping other people. “Worry about your own assignment. Concentrate on your family only,” her boss, Mira, always said. “Other people aren’t your problem.” She knew Mira was right, but something about Henry made her want to break the rules. Someone needed to help him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The night before the pool party, Paul was so excited he had trouble falling asleep. Jittery and jumpy, he got up out of bed and pulled the grate off the vent to get the ring. Wearing it calmed him down; it had a soothing energy. He got back into bed and thought about the party. His mother was making all kinds of great food—fruit salad and pasta salad and lots of other salads—none of which had lettuce, now that he thought about it. Hey! That was kind of funny. He’d have to point that out to Alex and Celia when they came. He hoped Alex wouldn’t think it was weird that Celia had been invited. He remembered how Brody had made fun of him and said she was his girlfriend. “I’ll just tell Alex that Celia’s my neighbor,” he whispered to himself in the dark.

  As his eyes felt heavier, he tucked the ring into the underside of his pillowcase. He liked having it near, but if his mom checked on him after he fell asleep he didn’t want to risk her seeing it.

  The party wouldn’t start until late afternoon, which gave his mother plenty of time to do the frantic cleaning she always did before company came. “It’s a pool party—aren’t they all going to be outside?” his father asked, a big mistake on his part. She hated when they objected to her cleaning. Seeing her face, his father added, “I mean, I think the house looks fine already.”

  She handed him a dust rag and told Paul to empty the wastebaskets. Clem was banished to the basement where he would be out of the way and couldn’t shed any more hair on the furniture.

  Paul’s mother was a whirlwind when she was expecting company, especially if it was Aunt Vicky, because she believed her sister judged her housekeeping and cooking. All morning Mom stayed busy, making salads, baking brownies, and arranging the paper plates and plastic silverware. Paul’s dad was going to be grilling the hamburgers and hot dogs, which was a relief. If his mom was the one cooking, she’d probably have a meltdown. As it was, after she’d finished the obvious cleaning, she moved on to organizing closets and doing laundry, of all things.

  “Leah, I don’t think our guests will notice if we have dirty laundry,” Dad said. “It’s not like they’ll be snooping around looking in our hamper.” He pantomimed opening the hamper and pinched his nose at the smell. Paul thought it was funny, but his mom only smiled.

  “I just feel better knowing everything is shipshape,” she said.

  An hour before the guests arrived, Paul’s mom came out to the pool area where Paul and his dad were getting the grill ready. She walked toward them with her hand cupped and an excited look on her face. “Look what I found when I was pulling the sheets out of the washer.”

  “What is it?” Dad stopped to look.

  She unfolded her fingers to show him. “It’s a man’s ring. I’ve never seen it before. Do you know where it came from?”

  It was his ring! Oh no. How did she get it?

  Dad took it from her, held it up, and examined it. “No, I’ve never seen it before. So odd. It was in with the wash, you said?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “I decided to quickly wash all the sheets in the house before our company arrived. The wash cycle had just finished, and I was going to put them in the dryer when I heard the clunk of something hitting the floor. When I looked down, there it was.”

  Paul had a sudden sick realization. He’d accidentally left the ring in his pillowcase. When his mother stripped his bedding, the ring must have come along with the sheets into the wash. Oh why hadn’t he remembered to put it back in his hiding place?

  “Huh.” His dad’s face scrunched up. “It looks kind of valuable. Where do you suppose it came from?”

  Paul held his breath, thinking they’d ask him. He would have to tell the truth. It was one thing to avoid telling his parents things, but it was another to lie. He wasn’t above avoiding the truth, but he wasn’t a liar.

  “I have a theory,” his mother said. “You know that wicker basket I bought at the flea market?”

  “Sure.” Dad nodded.

  “I was using it for the laundry. I wonder if it was already in the basket before I bought it and I never noticed. Then when I put the sheets in, it got mixed in. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “Sounds like a reasonable assumption.”

  “What a find,” his mother said joyfully. “I’m never lucky this way.”

  “We should have it assessed by a jeweler,” Dad said. “I bet it’s worth a lot.”

  Mom slid the ring on her finger. “I’m not so sure I want to sell it,” she said. “I kind of like it, and it fits me perfectly.”

  Paul felt a little bit like throwing up. The ring was his discovery. He’d gone through so much to get it, and now his mother was going to wear it around the house? Part of him wanted credit. He opened his mouth to tell them the truth about the ring, but his tongue was lodged in his mouth. He stammered, “I, I, I…”

  His parents looked at him in amazement.

  “Are you okay, Paul?” Mom asked.

  His father patted him on the back. “Do you need a drink of water?”

  “No, it’s just that—” And here his words were stopped and he couldn’t say any more. What was stopping him? “The ring, I mean…”

  “What about the ring?” his mother asked.

  He couldn’t seem to spit out the words to tell them how he’d found the ring. He knew his parents would be disappointed that he’d been so sneaky. They were watching him intently now. He’d have to come up with something. “Could I take it to school sometime, to show the kids?”

  “Certainly not,” Mom said. “It’s far too valuable. I’d worry about it getting lost or ruined.”

  “We’ll find something else for you to take for show-and-tell,” his dad said. Paul was annoyed. He was going into fourth grade and hadn’t done show-and-tell for years.

  His dad leaned over to examine the ring on his mother’s finger. “Leah, you might want to put that somewhere safe before everyone gets here.”

  “Oh no, I’m wearing it,” Mom said. “It fits like a glove, and there’s something about wearing it that makes me feel confident. It’s very regal, don’t you think?”

  “Very regal,” his father agreed.

  Paul had a bad feeling about this.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Paul was momentarily distracted when the guests arrived, but the thought of the ring was never far from his mind. His friend Alex arrived carrying a tray of cookies, whi
ch he handed to Paul’s mom.

  “Well, isn’t this nice,” she said.

  “My mom says it’s good manners to bring something,” Alex said.

  “Your mother sounds like a wonderful person,” Mom said.

  Alex just shrugged. “She’s a pretty good mom. The cookies are really good too.”

  “Please tell her thank you for me,” Mom said. “And now you boys can go in the pool if you want.” And that was all they needed to hear. Paul and Alex tore off and cannon-balled into the water. Within a few minutes they’d tested the slide and jumped off the diving board. Paul’s dad took pictures as if it were a historic event. “Boys, over here. Smile!” he said.

  By the time the rest of the guests had arrived, Paul’s fingers were like raisins, but he didn’t care because he was having so much fun. When Celia got there with her parents and grandmother, Paul waved from the pool to get her attention. “I brought water toys,” Celia said, emptying out a mesh bag onto the deck of the pool.

  “Cool,” Alex said. The boys looked over the assortment of balls and toys and decided to play with a small basketball hoop that fastened to the side of the pool. It turned out that Alex was fine with Celia being there. The three of them had the pool to themselves since none of the adults wanted to swim.