The Magic Nation Thing

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  There was another scene that a much less active imagination could come up with quite easily: a scene that involved Paige and Abby too, way up on a ladder peeking in a window and being caught in the act by a perfectly healthy Mrs. McFarland, and probably a couple of policemen as well. A situation that, coming so soon after their going downtown without permission and messing up Tree's arson investigation, just might result in their parents deciding that they really shouldn't see much of each other for a while. Which would be totally unbearable, particularly since it might mean that Abby would have to give up going with the Bordens to Squaw Valley during winter vacation.

  But when Abby came up with the suggestion that they just go down and knock on Mrs. McFarland's door and ask her if she was all right, Paige's response was not encouraging.

  “As if,” she said. “What if she's not dead?” Abby thought that was a sensible question. “Well, okay. What if she isn't?” “Well, that would really be scary,” Paige said. “I mean, that woman really hates our whole family, especially Woody and Sky. Actually, she hates everybody. That's one reason I'm positive somebody bumped her off.”

  Abby thought that was a good point, but she still had her doubts, and her lack of enthusiasm for the window-peeking expedition did manage to put the whole thing on hold, at least for the rest of that day. As it turned out, that was all it took. When Abby called Paige that evening about a math assignment, Paige answered her question and then said, “Oh, by the way, I guess Mrs. McFarland isn't dead after all. Woody and Sky were fooling around in her garden a little while ago, and she came out and whacked them with her cane.”

  Paige's sigh sounded disappointed. But after a moment she lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “But I'm on the track of something even worse. I'll tell you about it at school tomorrow.” She hung up abruptly then, leaving Abby to wonder if what Paige was on the track of was worse than Mrs. McFarland being dead, or worse than her not being dead after all.

  THE NEXT DAY Paige was waiting in the hall just outside their fourth-period class. The moment she saw Abby, she pulled her across the hall by the sleeve of her jacket and started whispering so fast that Abby couldn't make any sense of what she was hearing.

  “Wait a minute.” Abby was grinning as she finally managed to interrupt. “What are you raving about? What about a dead horse?”

  Paige took a deep breath, looked around to be sure no one was within earshot, and started over. Speaking distinctly, she said, “Not a dead horse. A dead corpse. A body. There's a dead body out behind the goalpost.”

  Abby's smile froze.“A dead body! Where? What goalpost?” “

  Right here. On our soccer field.” Paige pointed toward the long strip of lawn that was used as the academy's sports arena. “See that big hedge between the goalposts and the fence? That's where. I noticed something kind of strange yesterday when I was chasing a ball that rolled back there. So right after the bell rang, I went back to investigate. And there's this big rectangle”—Paige made a shape with both arms—“where the ground is all loose like it was dug up not long ago. And there're some flowers scattered around on top of it. Petunias and irises, and like that.”

  Abby's breath came a little more normally. “Oh, I get it. You saw something that looks like a grave. But not an actual body.”

  Paige put her hands on her hips. “So, that makes it okay? I don't think so. Guess what gets put in a big grave. A big body. Right?”

  “Like six feet long?” Abby asked. “Like a whole adult person?” “Well, maybe not quite that long,” Paige said. “But maybe long enough for a pretty big kid.”

  Abby nodded thoughtfully. “But it could be the body of an animal. I buried a blackbird once when our neighbor's cat killed it.”

  “What's that got to do with anything? You're talking about a little old bird. And you buried it in your own backyard, not on the school grounds. Do you think Mr. Cruz would let anyone on the grounds who was carrying a big dead animal? Not!”

  Paige had a point. Mr. Cruz was the head custodian and he was always around in the mornings to check out the people who were arriving on the school grounds. “Well, how do you think it got there?” Abby asked. “Do you really think someone could climb over the fence carrying a big dead body?”

  The fence around the school property was very high and sturdy. “Maybe not,” Paige said. “At least a kid probably couldn't. But maybe an adult could. A big muscle-bound-type adult.”

  Abby moved down the hall to where she could see through the glass doors onto the playing field. Beyond the smooth green lawn, a really high fence was topped by a fringe of sharp pointed wires. “Well, it wouldn't be easy,” she said. “But maybe a strong man with a tall ladder …”

  The bell rang then and they had to hurry to get to Ms. Eldridge's fourth-period English class. But not to do much thinking about what the teacher was saying—at least Abby couldn't. Instead she sat with her eyes focused on Ms. Eldridge's face but with half of her mind out behind the soccer goal. When Ms. Eldridge asked everyone to write a sentence that contained a gerund, Abby wrote, A murderer putting flowers on his victim's grave isn't too believable. Fortunately she didn't get called on to read her sentence out loud, but later, when Paige saw it, she nodded and said, “I know. I thought of that. Except he might, if after he'd strangled her he looked at her beautiful face …” Paige acted it out, staring down tragically and then bringing her hands up slowly to cover what was obviously meant to be a guilty face. “In that case he might repent enough to put flowers on her grave, don't you think?”

  Abby said, “Well, maybe.” But it still didn't seem too likely.

  Later that day, during her PE class, Abby got to inspect the scene of the crime. While her team was warming up, she managed to kick a ball through the hedge and then run after it. Shielding her face with both hands, she pushed her way through a thick stand of prickly bushes until she looked up and there it was, just the way Paige had described it: a slightly mounded rectangle of freshly turned earth and, scattered over it, a few faded flowers. Clutching the soccer ball to her chest, Abby stared down at what definitely resembled a grave and for a moment let herself wonder if she could count on her ancestors, or whomever, to give her a clue as to who was buried there, and who had done the burying. Closing her eyes, she concentrated, but nothing happened. Not even the passing shadow of a hunch.

  People had begun to wail, “Hey, Abby. Where are you? Where's the ball?” before she gave up and pushed her way back through the hedge. A little later, when she and Paige happened to cross paths briefly, she managed to whisper that she'd seen the grave.

  “See!” Paige said. “What did I tell you? What are we going to do about it?”

  “I don't know. I'll think about it,” Abby said, and let the crowd move her down the hall.

  “Okay,” Paige yelled after her. “Meet me out in front right after school. Okay?”

  On their way home on the bus that afternoon, and a little later in Paige's room, they talked in whispers about what they were going to do next. In whispers on the bus because two fifth-grade girls were sitting right in front of them, and in Paige's room because Sky had come in and refused to leave.

  So Paige and Abby sat on Paige's ankle-deep throw rug and argued in whispers about whether they ought to tell the police, while Sky sat by the door and pretended to play a SpongeBob game on his Game Boy, but actually spent most of the time staring at Abby. The goofy googly-eyed staring thing was a behavior he'd developed right after Abby had saved him from being skinned alive. Abby didn't mind. Having an adoring six-year-old fan was a little bit embarrassing, but a definite improvement over having eggs dropped on her head.

  At first Paige didn't want to tell the police. “I think we ought to solve it ourselves,” she kept saying. “I mean, what could they do that you couldn't do better? All we—I mean, all you have to do is start using some of your supernatural powers.”

  “But I already tried,” Abby said, “and nothing happened.”

  “Well, you did
n't try hard enough,” Paige said. Suddenly her eyes got that neon gleam, the way they always did when she was having an inspiration. It was a look that always made Abby feel excited, but at the same time, a little bit nervous. “I know,” Paige was saying. “You need something to hold in your hand, like the Magic Nation thing. I'll bet that would do it. You need to go back out there to the grave and find something to pick up and hold, like …”

  “Something to pick up?” Abby said sarcastically. “Like the dead person's arm? Or would just a finger be okay? No thanks, either way.”

  Paige shook her head. “No, not like that. At least not yet. But I think maybe if you got one of those flowers. One of those dead flowers. Whoever put it there must have held it in his hand for a while. So that ought to make it work. Right?”

  Abby wasn't too enthusiastic but she finally agreed to try it as soon as she could get out to the grave site and get a flower. “But it probably won't be today,” she said. “My gym class will be in the multipurpose room today. We're having badminton.”

  “All right, I'll do it,” Paige said. “I'll get one of the flowers and slip it to you on the way home from school. Okay?” Giving Abby a squinty-eyed glance, Paige pantomimed sneaking something out from under her jacket and stealthily handing it over.

  Abby sighed. She was reluctant to get involved for several reasons. If Paige got the flower to her without getting them both arrested on suspicion of something or other, and if the Magic Nation thing really worked, then what? If they really did solve a murder mystery, everyone would find out about it. First off they'd have to tell Dorcas, and then she would be sure she'd been right all along about Abby having inherited all that supernatural stuff. And the police would have to know and the newspapers and all the kids at school. And then the whole world would start thinking that Abby O'Malley, instead of being just a normal kid, was really some kind of weird supernatural monster. But if Abby tried and failed, Paige would probably think the whole Magic Nation thing had been a big lie from start to finish.

  But reluctant or not, she knew that Paige would probably show up that afternoon with a flower, and sure enough, she did. The minute they were seated on the bus, Paige looked around carefully before she took a paper towel out of her backpack and unwrapped the faded, withered, and slightly muddy remains of a purple iris. “Here,” she said. “I kicked the ball out through the hedge on purpose so I could go get this.” She pressed the limp flower into Abby's hands. “Go for it.” Then she sat there absolutely quivering with anticipation while Abby held the dead flower between her hands, closed her eyes, and waited.

  It took a while. Nothing at all at first, but then the warmth began. It was only a faint echo of the warmth that had surrounded the pink locket, but a definite change in temperature. But when the spinning bits of light and shadow began to form a pattern, the results were much less clear. Mixed in among the flowing, flickering patterns of light, there did, at times, seem to be a face. Fleeting glimpses of a round-cheeked babyish face with wide tear-wet eyes were framed in what looked like a whole lot of stiff straw-colored hair. The face faded and came back and faded again. And then it was gone. Completely and irretrievably gone, and Paige was poking Abby and saying, “What is it? What did you see?”

  Abby blinked and shook her head. “I'm not sure. It was sort of like a face, but I didn't see it very well.”

  “Whose face? Who'd it look like?”

  “Not like anyone. I mean, not like anyone I know. But it mostly seemed to be a really young kid.”

  “A little kid.” Paige sounded triumphant. “It must be the little dead kid who's buried out there. That's who it is, I'll bet.”

  Abby shrugged. “Well, maybe,” she said, “but …”

  The bus pulled to a stop and the conversation had to be postponed until later. A lot later, as it turned out, because Mrs. Borden was waiting to take Paige and the boys shopping for new ski boots. When Paige seemed reluctant, Mrs. Borden said, “It's now or never, dear. The season is already under way and you know your boots were already a bit too small last March. Jump in the car, girls. We can drop Abby off at her house.” And then to Abby, “I just called and your mother is at home.”

  So that was as far as they got that day. Of course Paige called as soon as her shopping trip was over, but there were three phones at Abby's house and at least six at Paige's. And the dead body of a little kid wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to discuss when people might be listening in. People like Woody, for instance, whose favorite hobbies included listening to private phone calls.

  That evening Abby went through the Chronicle looking for any stories about kids who had recently disappeared. Nothing there. And even though Abby and Paige were able to have a few short meetings at school, nothing was decided. Nothing except that they might have to tell somebody pretty soon. The question was, would it be Mrs. Greenwood, the principal, or Dorcas and Tree—or even the police? Paige had decided they ought to tell Tree first, but Abby didn't really want to tell anybody.

  “At least not right away,” she told Paige.

  “But why not?” Paige demanded. “Why wait? The longer we wait, the less chance they have of catching the murderer. I mean, before he heads for the border or something. And if we tell the police, they might have pictures of all the little kids who are missing and one of them might be”—she rolled her eyes dramatically—“you know who.”

  Abby was reluctantly saying, “Well, I've been checking the papers and I didn't see anything,” when the bell rang and the conversation ended before any decision had been reached.

  That afternoon the rain, which had been threatening all day, finally started to come down hard, so when sixth period was over, the main hall was packed with kids trying to stay dry while they waited for their rides home. Abby was milling around in the crowd, waiting for Paige to show up before they headed for the bus stop and entertaining herself by looking at the kindergarten's bulletin board. Every class had a space in the main hall where they could post their artwork, and Abby had always liked to check out the kindergartners' work because it tended to be pretty original. Such as the self-portraits they'd done right after school started, when most of them were still drawing humans who were just one big circle filled with eyes, a nose, and a mouth, with stick-like arms and legs coming out of their heads.

  She was noticing that now, a few months later, most of the people drawings had two circles, one for a face and a lower one to represent the body. She was grinning, thinking, Big improvement, when she almost fell over a very small girl who was staring at one of the portraits. Another one-circle effort but one where the face seemed to have long whiskers, and what looked at first like an extra pair of arms. Or else two very large ears.

  “Oh, sorry. Did I step on you?” Abby asked.

  The little girl shook her head, sniffed, and turned around to stare up at Abby from under a bunch of stiff blondish hair. Wiping her eyes, she sniffed again and said, “You didn't hurt me.”

  “Then why are you crying?” Abby started to say when she suddenly realized exactly when and where she had seen that round-cheeked, tear-wet face before.

  “BUT WHEN I asked her why she was crying,” Abby told Paige, “she just shook her head and went, ‘Because he's dead.’ And when I went, ‘Who's dead?’ she kind of whispered, ‘Bugsy. Bugsy's dead.’ ”

  “Oh yeah?” Paige said. “I know about Bugsy. He's that big black rabbit they have in the kindergarten room. I guess he died, huh?”

  Paige and Abby had reached Paige's room and were sitting in their favorite place on the fluffy rug. Back at school, when Paige had finally shown up and the two of them had pushed their way through the crowd to the bus stop, Abby didn't say anything at all. And when they were finally on the bus, breathless and a little bit damp from the rain, all she said was “I have something important to tell you.”

  “Well, tell me then,” Paige had said, but Abby had just shaken her head and rolled her eyes toward the two fifth-grade girls who, this time, had been sitting righ
t behind them. “Wait till we get to your house,” she said.

  So they waited, but when they got to Paige's, they had another postponement while they dealt with Sky, who was waiting for them in the front hall. Running to stand in front of Abby, blocking her way, Sky said, “I have something for you.”

  “For me?” Abby said. “Okay. Where is it?”

  Sky's hands were behind his back. “It's right here. Behind me,” he said, but when Abby held out her hand, he giggled and jumped back out of reach. So she shrugged and started around him, only to have him jump in front of her again. That might have gone on for the rest of the afternoon if Paige hadn't snuck up behind Sky and snatched the wrinkled envelope out of his hands. Then she gave it to Abby while Sky jumped up and down shrieking and trying to get it back. When Abby opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of wide-lined paper, Sky wailed, “Oh no,” and disappeared down the hall at a dead run.

  Inside the envelope was a wrinkled piece of notebook paper covered with hearts and Xs, and in big uppercase printing it was signed Skyler Borden.

  “Well, what is it?” Paige asked, but when Abby said she thought it was a love letter, Paige snorted and said,“Holy cow.” Then she grabbed Abby's arm and pulled her up the stairs.

  It wasn't until they were safely hidden away in Paige's room that Abby finally got a chance to tell her about the little kindergarten kid who'd said she was crying because Bugsy was dead.

  “Yeah, I remember Bugsy,” Paige repeated.

  Abby paused and then nodded slowly as she said, “And it wasn't until then, when the little kid started talking to me, that I realized where I'd seen her before.”

  “Where?” Paige asked, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes. “You mean like in the hall, maybe, or in the cafeteria?”