The Magic Nation Thing

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Under Good News she wrote:

  It happened. Dad really did get transferred back to San Francisco.

  We'll probably get to see him a lot more often. At least I will.

  He's going to be here for Christmas dinner.

  But under Bad News she reminded herself of all the times her dad had visited before that hadn't changed anything. One more thing she did was look up some new recipes of the quick-‘n’-easy type and see to it that Dorcas followed them carefully on Christmas morning.

  That night at the dinner table, the conversation started out about San Francisco and what a wonderful city it was. “Absolutely the greatest,” her dad said, and then added, “I can't wait to get back home.”

  Abby looked up quickly, wondering if “back home” just meant back to the city where he grew up—or maybe something more. But when she caught his eye, he only did his lopsided pirate's grin and shrugged in an offhand way. A moment later he did it again at Dorcas and she smiled back.

  When they were through eating, Abby's dad said a lot of complimentary things about the food, and then he and Dorcas started teasing each other about some awful cooking disasters they'd had when they were first married. Like the time they'd tried to make a spaghetti dinner for a bunch of friends by pouring some canned sauce over raw spaghetti and putting it in the microwave. “Well, I didn't lie to you.” Dorcas was still laughing. “I told you I couldn't cook. And I also remember that you promised we'd watch some cooking programs on TV and learn how together.”

  Abby's dad grinned again and said, “Guilty as charged. Dropped the ball on that one too, didn't I?”

  Abby was intrigued. But then, just as she was sure she was going to learn some important family secrets, they switched over to talking about boring stuff like politics, which was one thing they absolutely agreed on.

  But on the whole the evening went pretty well; at least there weren't any of the usual arguments. Not even the one about how Dorcas could do just as well financially and have a lot less stress if she'd sell the agency and go back to being a legal secretary. That was an argument that Abby had always had mixed feelings about. She could understand why Dorcas wanted to prove she could be a success in a career she had chosen for herself. One at which she had been doing pretty well, at least recently. But Abby's dad's argument that there were careers that would leave her more time for other things—and other people—was probably true too.

  After dinner they opened their presents. Abby got a lot of great stuff, including some new goggles and mittens from Tree and a great Obermeyer ski outfit from her mom. And from her dad, a digital camera no bigger than a wallet. So it was a good Christmas, even though how Dorcas and Abby's dad felt about each other didn't seem to have changed all that much. Not for sure, anyway.

  Then school started again, and almost immediately Abby began to feel that Paige was still up to something. Part of it was just a vague feeling that Abby couldn't quite put her finger on, but the other part was that Paige had again started insisting on visiting Abby instead of the other way around. One time it was because she wanted to go through Abby's bookshelves again to see if there was anything else she wanted to borrow, but as usual she spent most of the time in the office just watching Dorcas and Tree while she only pretended to be reading one of Abby's books. And then the very next day, when the only person in the office was a woman from the steno pool, Paige showed up again.

  That time she did stay in Abby's room for a while, talking about favorite books and authors, but then she went down to the kitchen to get a drink of water. At least she said that was where she was going, but when she didn't come back, Abby found her in the agency office. The steno had gone home, and there Paige was, going through the cabinet in which Tree kept files of the cases she'd been working on. When Abby opened the door, Paige jumped, pushed the file cabinet shut, and gave Abby a guilty smile.

  “Okay,” Abby said. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, I was just …I was…I…” Paige stuttered ner vously for a minute before she suddenly stuck out her chin and said, “All right. I was looking for Tree's file on that biting dog–kicking kid case. All I wanted to do was find out where those people lived, and then I was going to call a cab so we could go there and find something you could use to do your Magic Nation thing on. You know, something like a ball that belonged to the kid, or one of the dog's bones.”

  “Look, Paige,” Abby said, “besides being pretty sneaky, you're not making much sense. The Magic Nation thing wouldn't help. What it might do, if it does anything, is show me what the person who owns the ball, or bone or whatever, is doing right now, or at least not very long ago. Not what he might have done several months ago, or whenever it was that he got bitten. I heard Mom tell Tree that this case had been going back and forth for ages.”

  But Paige didn't give up. “What's wrong with seeing what he's doing right now?” she asked. “Who knows? If we find something that belongs to the kid maybe you'll see him kicking someone else's dog. That would prove he's probably guilty, wouldn't it?”

  “Holy cow,” Abby said. She could just picture herself and Paige being caught snooping around in some strangers' backyard looking for who knows what. “I think I'm getting a Magic Nation picture right now,” she told Paige. “A picture of both of us in the back of a police car on our way to juvenile hall.”

  Paige stared wide-eyed, but then she grinned and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you're right. My bad. Let's talk about something else. Like getting ready for Squaw. I've been meaning to ask you if you'd like to have my last year's ski boots. They don't fit me anymore, but I think they'd be just the right size for you.”

  Abby remembered the great Lange boots, which, when the season ended, had still looked as good as new. So she grinned and said thanks and forgot about being mad, and they started talking about skiing and about maybe starting to snowboard, something they might do if Paige could get her dad to change his mind about wanting them to become expert skiers first because that was the way he'd done it.

  “That's my dad for you,” Paige said. “My way or no way. Don't you wish he'd let us start snowboarding right away?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Abby said, “but I still think skiing's a lot of fun.”

  “Well, sure,” Paige said, “but I think snowboarding would be a lot more exciting. I mean …” She paused, waggling her eyebrows. “Remember those snowboarders who kept scaring people off the runs last year?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Abby was puzzled. “So is that why you want to snowboard? You want to scare people off the runs?”

  Paige shrugged. “No. Of course not. I'd just like to meet some of the guys who do it.” She waggled her eyebrows again. “Know what I mean?”

  Abby knew what Paige meant. The year before, a lot of the snowboarders seemed to be teenage boys. The kind of teenage boys Paige called hunks, which of course meant good-looking—but when Paige said it, it seemed to have something to do with the way they acted too. The way they went around being totally cool. Too cool to notice things such as where they were going or who might be in the way. Abby grinned. “Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean.”

  The last day of school finally came and went, and on a bright sunny Saturday morning, the Bordens' newest SUV pulled in front of the agency, and Mr. Borden got out to help Abby add her skis to the five pairs that were already on the roof. Abby hugged Dorcas and Tree good-bye and climbed into one of the mid-row seats. Dorcas and Tree were waving from the front steps of the agency, and everyone inside the SUV was waving back, except maybe Woody, who was pretending to be too busy with his Game Boy to notice. The SUV pulled away from the curb, heading for the Bay Bridge and, before the day was over, Squaw Valley.

  THE TRIP FROM San Francisco to Squaw Valley only took a few hours, but they were hours that always seemed to crawl by because it was just so hard to wait for the days out on the slopes, schussing straight down favorite runs so fast it was almost like flying, and doing bigger jumps and smoother slaloms every day. And f
or the nights in an attic room way at the top of the Bordens' cabin, where Abby and Paige would look out into the snowy forest and talk and laugh while the rest of the house grew dark and silent. So, as always was the case when you were waiting for something wonderful to happen, the hours really dragged. Daydreaming helped to pass the time, along with keeping her notebook handy so that she could follow their progress on a map of California.

  On this trip the long hours in the car seemed to bother Paige even more than they did Abby; at least she certainly griped about them more. Along with minor complaints about things such as not being allowed to choose where they would stop for lunch, her biggest gripe on this trip was about the way the seats were arranged in the new SUV. In her opinion Woody and Sky's backseat was way too close to the ones she and Abby sat in. This meant that it was impossible for Abby and Paige to talk about anything private without being overheard, and that they were forced to overhear every word of the frequent arguments about which one of Paige's brothers had trespassed one fingertip into the other one's private space. In addition to the arguments about trespassing, there was a lot of other stuff Abby and Paige had to try not to hear. Stuff such as Woody's constant telling and retelling of favorite little-boy dirty jokes, most of which were about things like barfing or going to the bathroom.

  That year's trip was turning out to be a little better than others in some respects. Particularly in the way Sky had stopped helping with any attack against Abby and even tried to come to her rescue in some situations. For instance the time he whispered, “It's okay. It's only a rubber one,” just before a huge black spider appeared on her shoulder. It was a warning that didn't register quite soon enough to keep her from almost jumping out of her skin. And another time, when they stopped to have chains put on the tires and everyone got out in the snow to stretch. As they were getting back into the car, Sky whispered, “Keep your hood up,” another warning Abby didn't really understand until Woody put a handful of snow down Paige's sweater.

  The hours did pass, however, the snow beside the road got deeper and whiter, and the SUV finally turned up the driveway that led to the Bordens' cabin. Then all the good memories came flooding back, making rubber spiders and dirty jokes seem unimportant. Good memories of the unbelievable beauty of snowy hillsides, and of the thrill of discovering that she, who had never even seen snow until she was eight years old, was a “natural” who had been “born to ski.”

  Abby thought the Bordens' cabin at Squaw was fantastic, even though she could guess what Dorcas might say about it. She could imagine comments about how somebody had worked awfully hard, and spent tons of money, to make the whole thing look kind of old and handmade, with its fireplaces built out of rough stones, and ceilings supported by tree trunks still covered by bark. But none of that had anything to do with why Abby always felt so great when they finally pulled up the long driveway and she and Paige jumped out and began to move all their stuff into their private room up at the top of the house.

  That night all the Bordens and Abby had dinner at Plump Jack's in a dining room crowded with dozens of other skiers and snowboarders of all ages. Including, at the next table, a couple of teenage boys. Actually Abby was sitting with her back to the boys' table, and she might not even have noticed them if Paige hadn't kept poking her and, with wildly waggling eyebrows, pointing over Abby's shoulder. Abby's first thought was that Woody's spider had reappeared, but she finally got the message and managed to turn around and take a quick look.

  “Did you see them?” Paige's eyes certainly had their super-focused gleam.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Abby whispered back. “Who are they?”

  “You mean you don't recognize them?” Paige was amazed. “They're the ones I was talking about. The snowboarders, from last year. You know, the ones who—”

  Just then Paige's mother asked what all the whispering was about, and Paige made her eyes go round and blank as she said, “Whispering? We weren't whispering. Were we, Abby?” While Abby was trying to decide whether to nod or shake her head, Paige was going on. “What do you want us to do, Mom? Shout? You want us to shout at each other?”

  The people at the next table, including the two interesting snowboarders, left just before the Bordens did, and Paige poked Abby even harder to be sure she didn't miss getting a better look at them as they went out. But even then Abby didn't get to see them very well. Just well enough to notice that the taller one had blond hair and the other guy had so much dark hair that it curled down over his ears. Both of them were fairly tall and probably pretty old. Maybe fifteen, or even sixteen. She might have seen them better, except that just as Abby was turning to look, Paige suddenly fell out of her chair.

  “Oh, sorry,” Paige said, getting to her feet. “I dropped my napkin.”

  It wasn't until later, when they were all back in the cabin and Paige and Abby were finally alone in their room, that Abby found out what really had been going on. In their bedroom at the top of the house, with its wide padded seat that ran all along one wall under windows that looked out into deepest forest, they turned off the lights, wrapped themselves in blankets, and talked for hours, just as they had so many times before.

  They talked first about how all the waiters and busboys at the restaurant had said their winter vacation had come at just the right time because the snow was perfect, deep and fresh and neither too wet nor too dry. Just thinking about all that beautiful new snow caught Abby up in wonderful memories of thrilling downhill runs. She could hardly wait for it to begin. Shivering excitedly, she asked, “So where will we start tomorrow? Which lift should we take first?”

  And Paige's answer was “Well, that's something I want to talk to you about.”

  Abby was pleased. Usually Paige was the one who made decisions such as that. Abby began, “Okay. After we leave the boys off at the Children's Center I guess we might as well start with the Belmont just to get warmed up, and then in the afternoon—”

  Paige interrupted. “Yeah, you're right about having to leave the boys off. Dad and Mom will want to get an early start so they can get to KT before it crowds up. But as soon as we get rid of the brats I know what we should do.” The way Paige's eyebrows were behaving was beginning to give Abby an idea, or at least the beginning of an idea, of what was coming. Sure enough, what Paige said next was “I think we ought to go to whatever run those snowboard guys are going to be on. You know, the ones whose table was right near ours.”

  “Well, okay.” Abby couldn't help grinning. “But how are we going to know …” But before she could finish the sentence, she began to get a premonition about what the answer was going to be.

  Sure enough, she'd hardly started her question when Paige answered it. “Here, I'll show you how.” She jumped off the window seat and ran to the closet, dug into her jacket pocket, and came back carrying a big white piece of cloth by the tips of her fingers. “Here,” she said, pushing it into Abby's hands. “What do you think that is?”

  “Looks like a napkin,” Abby said.

  “Yeah. You got it. A napkin from Plump Jack's.” Paige looked triumphant.

  Having been brought up by a mother who was so much into law and order, Abby couldn't help feeling a little shocked. “You stole a napkin from Plump Jack's?”

  Paige shrugged. “No, I didn't. I just borrowed it. I'll take it back when you're through with it.”

  Now Abby was pretty sure she knew what was coming next. Not the whole thing, maybe, but at least a general idea. It was an uneasy feeling.

  Paige went on to say, “One of those snowboarders used this napkin. The blond one. You remember when I said I dropped my napkin last night? Well, what actually happened was that I noticed that he dropped his napkin when he got up to leave, so I dropped mine and when I went to pick it up I kind of fell out of my seat so I could reach across and pick up his. Get it?”

  “Yeah,” Abby said. “I get it. But what I don't get is what I'm going to do with it.”

  Paige sighed impatiently. “You don't? Well, did
n't you say that when you do your Magic Nation thing, you usually see where”—Paige paused dramatically and then went on—“where the person the object belonged to is right at that moment? Like, how about, which run the person happens to be snowboarding on.”

  For a long moment Abby stared at Paige, and Paige stared back, making her face say a series of things, starting with “Isn't that a great idea?” and then after a while, “Well, what's wrong with it?” At last she growled, “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing I don't think it will work. Like I told you, it doesn't always, especially if I'm, like, expecting it to.”

  Paige looked suspicious. “I don't get it. Why wouldn't it work when you're expecting it to?”

  “I don't know. I can't explain it. But it's not something I can turn on like the Weather Channel to see if it's going to rain. It's just something that happens sometimes when it's …” She faltered to a stop and then went on, “I guess when it's important enough.”

  Paige put her hands on her hips and said sarcastically, “And, like, who gets to decide whether it's important or not?”

  “I don't know,” Abby said. “But I know it's not me.”

  As Paige got off the window seat and headed for her bed, she turned back long enough to say, “Well, I guess we'll find out what's really important tomorrow. Okay?”

  FINALLY CUDDLED INTO her built-in bunk bed in a cozy nest of blankets and comforters, Abby had trouble going to sleep. She didn't know why. She told herself it was probably just excitement about where she was and what would be happening the next day. But after a while she knew there was more to it than that. Part of it was made up of stuff she'd worried about before when Paige wanted her to do the Magic Nation thing. Stuff such as, what would happen if the napkin didn't bring up anything at all?