Magic or Not?

by Edward Eager

  "I think most of you know," she began in her loud voice before which clubwomen quailed, "my feelings on the subject of this new school. I still feel that some other location would have been preferable. Somewhere in a less desirable residential district. And I certainly think the utmost care should be exercised in choosing its design; so that our beautiful countryside will not be marred by the intrusion of an eyesore! However"—and here her voice took on an aggrieved note—"my own son has recently struck up an acquaintance with certain public school children." Her eyes rested for a moment on James and Lydia and Kip and Laura, not benevolently. "And he insists ..." She broke off, as if she did not like the sound of this last word.

  "Go on, Mom. You're doing fine," prompted Gordy, grinning at her toothily from the front row.

  Mrs. Witherspoon chose another word. "He has decided," she went on, "that he wishes to enroll in the public school this coming fall. Naturally where Gordy leads, others may follow. And if the trend is to be toward public education, certainly we want all the best advantages to be available. So, under the circumstances, I am forced to withdraw my objections."

  "Go on," prompted Gordy again.

  "And I hope all my friends will do likewise and all pull together to make our new school the best school in the country," said Mrs. Witherspoon in a rapid gabble, as though repeating a lesson. And she blushed hotly and sank into the right-hand front aisle seat.

  There was a buzz in the hall that grew to a roar. Laura had an idea. She began to clap her hands. Everybody joined in the applause until Mr. Hiram Bundy had to rap for order.

  James was feeling small. He had been ashamed to speak to Gordy, and all along Gordy was being a benefactor. He looked at Gordy now. Gordy typically seemed to bear no resentment. He was grinning more toothily than ever and shaking hands over his head at James, like a champion prize fighter.

  Of course after Mrs. Witherspoon's speech there was hardly need to take a vote. Some of her former supporters on the right side of the aisle got up and left the building. Other die-hards remained to vote "no" as loudly as they could. It was said afterwards that Mrs. Witherspoon's friend Adele didn't speak to her for a year. But most of the people who had followed her like sheep before, just because she was Mrs. Gordon T. Witherspoon, went right on following her now that she was behaving more like a human being. The motion to build the new school on Silvermine Road was passed with an overwhelming majority.

  After the meeting Mrs. Witherspoon seemed to be in a trancelike state and even allowed herself to be led to the drugstore for a soda with Gordy and the others. She answered politely when Kip's mother spoke to her and suffered in silence through a harangue by Lydia's grandmother on the subject of free education.

  Just about everyone in town had crowded into the drugstore (the best one tonight, not the fairly good one nor the kidnapers' den). Miss King was there, being treated to a strawberry sundae by Mr. Bundy. She seemed to be enjoying it, though she pointed out that the ice cream was not hand-frozen nor flavored with real vanilla beans, as it would have been in her day.

  Even the long-lost heir's father looked in for a minute with his friends to buy more cigarettes. On his way out, he stopped by the big table where Laura and Lydia and James and Kip and the others were sitting. "Congratulations," he said. "I guess you kids didn't need any help after all. Looks as if you've got your magic working again fine!"

  "Say!" said Gordy, when he had gone. "Next year's going to be keen, isn't it? Whaddaya say we have magic adventures every day? Whaddaya say?"

  "Whaddaya say?" echoed James weakly.

  And then the drugstore began to indicate that it wanted to close.

  But of course everyone was still too excited to go straight home to bed; so James and Laura's family and Lydia and her grandmother stopped off at Kip's house to talk for a while.

  "I still don't understand it," said Kip's father to the four children. "You managed to fix the whole thing when none of us could think how. What did you do?"

  "Oh, nothing," said Kip, shifting uncomfortably. He noticed that their parents were looking at them in that same peculiar way again, as if they wondered what they'd do next.

  "What was all that about magic?" said the mother of James and Laura. "Who was that man who came up to the table? Isn't he the same one who gave you those watches? Who is he?"

  "And that wonderful old lady with Mr. Bundy," chimed in Kip's mother, "in that black dress that came out of the Ark. How did you get to know all these people?"

  "It's a sort of game we've been playing," began Laura carefully, knowing that no parent could truly understand. "We call it magic because it almost seems as if it is, sometimes." And she told a little of what had been happening, but not much.

  "Well, magic or not," said her father, "it certainly worked. Congratulations."

  "Oh, that's all right," said James.

  A little later, when the grown-ups had gone to raid the icebox and the four children were alone, he turned to the others. "You know," he said, "we've got a problem. What are we going to do about Gordy from now on?"

  "Don't you sort of like him now?" said Laura. "I thought it was wonderful the way the magic's started improving him already."

  "Sure, I guess it has," said James. "Sure, I guess I do. Only he seems to think now he's our best friend or something. Do we have to take him along with us on everything we do after this? Would the magic expect us to be that noble?"

  After some discussion it was agreed by all that it would probably be all right with the magic if in future they let Gordy be their almost best friend and come on magic adventures with them some of the time, but not always.

  "That's if there're any more adventures to come on," said Lydia. "This one felt kind of final, somehow. It was the big important wish we wanted, and the whole town sort of got in on it, and it came true. Maybe that's the end."

  Laura shook her head decisively. "There's still the house in the woods," she said, "and that desk without any key. The magic wouldn't leave loose ends lying around like that. It never does. Everything's put there to add up and come out right, like the problems in arithmetic books. We just haven't figured it out yet."

  "What we have to do is find the unknown quantity. Call it X," said James, who was of a mathematical turn of mind.

  "No, don't," said Lydia, who wasn't.

  "Anyway," said Kip, "it'll prob'ly all come out in the wish."

  "Yes," said Laura. "It will. Wait and see."

  There didn't seem to be anything else for them to do. But it was a long wait.

  7. The Secret Drawer

  Of course they had good times in the meantime. Who could help it in a fine country summer? But good times without magic do not make chapters in books, at least not in this kind of book; of course there are other kinds.

  Suffice it to say that the hours did pass in one way or another, until one day it was only mid-August and the next it was suddenly almost September and Labor Day loomed ahead, and after that there would be school, only not in the new schoolhouse yet, because work on it was just barely starting. The four children often stopped by to see how it was coming, but so far all there was to see was a hole in the ground.

  As for the wishing well, Laura called a wish or two down once in a while to stimulate it and let it know they hadn't lost interest, but she didn't like to make a habit of it. She had heard of wells running dry, and wasn't there a proverb about not going to the well too often?

  August twenty-eighth was the day the magic finally did begin again, because Laura wrote it down in her diary later on to be remembered forever.

  How they all happened to be there that day, no one could afterwards decide. It wasn't like them to go on family rides.

  Yet there they were, Laura and Lydia and James and Kip squashed together in the back seat, and James and Laura's mother and father in the front with Deborah.

  It was their mother who saw the sign. As their father said, she could spot them a mile off.

  The sign said, "Auction Today." It was
posted in front of a building called the High Ridge Community House.

  James and Laura's mother clutched their father's arm. "Couldn't we?" she pleaded.

  "Honestly, Margaret!" said that long-suffering man. "I thought we finally had the house all fixed up!"

  "There might be bargains," murmured their mother. At that magic word, of course all resistance crumbled, and their father parked the car and they all scrambled out.

  The auction was being held on the back lawn of the Community House, and the various things for sale were scattered in an abandoned-looking fashion about the grass. At one end of the lawn the auctioneer was about to deal with a bundle of sage-green plush curtains, and the mother of James and Laura hurried to get a closer look. She hated plush and had been heard to say that sage-green was an abomination unto the Lord, but to your true auction lover, the voices of good taste and common sense are as the tinkle of sounding brass.

  The four children were not true auction lovers and could not have despised the sage-green curtains more; so they wandered about the lawn looking at the other things on display, in the hope of finding something more interesting.

  There were the usual cut glass and hand-painted china, the usual walnut beds and scrollwork whatnots, the usual dusty books that look intriguing but turn out to be sets of John L. Stoddard's lectures and the Elsie series. There was a high chair and some battered toys and an old croquet set with a broken mallet.

  Laura felt depressed, as though everyone in a family had died and his life were being laid open for the general public to peer at. Deciding she'd had enough of the auction, she let the others wander on without her and turned to go back to the car.

  It was then that she saw the desk, sitting all by itself in a corner of the lawn.

  She stopped short and cried out, with a note in her voice that made Lydia and James and Kip come running. Then they, too, stopped.

  The four children stood in a circle, looking down at the desk. So far as they could tell, it was an exact copy of the one they'd seen in the house in the woods.

  "Is it the same one, do you think?" said Lydia.

  "No," said Laura. "This one's got a crack in the lid. The other one didn't."

  "It's got the same initials," said James. "M.A. or A.M."

  "No it hasn't," said Lydia, always observant. "This one has the M on top. The other one had the A."

  "It could be a coincidence," said Kip. "They probably made hundreds of desks like these."

  "Not in those days," said James. "That was before mass production. Craftsmen turned them out one by one. No two alike."

  "This one's got a key in the lock," said Lydia. "Could we borrow it and see if it unlocks the other one, and then bring it back?"

  "Maybe we're meant to," said James. "Maybe we were led here by unseen hands for that very purpose."

  "Maybe we're meant to look inside first," said Laura. "Anyway, I'm going to."

  Four hands reached out. It was Laura who turned the key and opened the desk. Inside were what seemed to be dozens of little drawers and pigeonholes, all empty, because Laura looked and so did James and Kip and Lydia.

  But in the looking, there was crowding and jostling and people's hands got in the way of other people's fingers; so that the four children couldn't tell afterwards whether someone had knocked against something or someone else had pushed something else.

  However it happened, and whoever touched what, suddenly a partition that had looked solid before gave way and the secret drawer appeared.

  It was probably meant to pop open when somebody touched a spring, but perhaps the wood of the desk was warped; in any event it slid only a little way out and then stuck. Nobody could be sure whether or not there was anything in it, but James afterwards swore he saw a corner of white paper.

  Before anyone could pull the drawer farther open and make certain, there was an interruption.

  "Really!" said a lofty voice. "This item is sold!"

  The children turned. A tall willowy lady with long earrings was regarding them with a steely and glittering eye.

  "We were just looking to see whether it's antique or not," said Laura, which was the first thing that came into her mind.

  "Really!" said the lady again, more loftily than ever. "I wouldn't have a modern piece in my shop!"

  "Oh, are you an antique dealer? Whereabouts?" said James, his mind racing.

  "My card," said the lady, handing him a bit of pasteboard. "And now stand aside, please. Don't handle. This way, boys." And the lady bossily supervised while two workmen appeared and carted the desk away from the children's hungry gaze and into the back of the lady's station wagon.

  James handed the card around for all to see. "At the Green Lantern," it read. "Luella Chippenhepple, Proprietor."

  "The Green Lantern?" said Lydia. "I know where that is. Over on Route Seven."

  "Mother says their prices are exorbitant!" said Laura.

  "Do we have to buy it?" said Kip. "I've only got $1.13."

  "I thought," said James, "we could just go over there and sort of browse. Maybe we could get a look inside the drawer."

  "Or we could take a wax impression of the lock," said Kip, "like detectives in books."

  "How do they do that?" said Lydia. "What kind of wax do they use?"

  "I don't know," said James, "but we could study up."

  "One thing we can do right now," said Laura, "is find out where that desk came from. The auctioneer'd know."

  But the auctioneer was busy right now. He continued to be busy for nearly two hours. The four children went and sat by James and Laura's mother in the front row, and didn't fidget or beg to leave the way they usually did, but waited patiently till the end.

  Deborah and her father were not so patient and kept appearing from the direction of the parking lot and giving imploring looks, but the majority ruled.

  When the auction was over, and James and Laura's mother was the proud possessor of a copper sauce pan that needed retinning and a clock with only one hand that had stopped long ago at five minutes past some unknown hour, the four children tackled the auctioneer.

  The auctioneer was old, and right now he was weary. "All this lot came from a house up in Ridge-field," he told them. "Where it was before that, I couldn't say." But when he learned which item they were interested in, his face changed. "That there desk?" he said. "That's different. I know that there desk well. It's been under my hammer time and time again. First time was back when I was a boy, learning the trade. That's how I remember. Came from Silvermine it did, when the red house was first sold up."

  "The red house with the wishing well?" said Laura, breathless.

  "That's right," said the auctioneer.

  Everyone looked at everyone else.

  "You see?" said James.

  "It all connects," said Kip.

  "Didn't you know it would?" said Lydia.

  Next morning all was gobble and splash till breakfasts were eaten and chores done and the four children could escape and set out for Route Seven and the Green Lantern and Miss Chippenhepple and the desk. But as they issued from the gate of the red house (on bikes and Lydia's horse), another cycling figure was seen far down the road. From the way the bicycle wobbled, it could only be Gordy.

  "Help!" said James.

  Gordy had been coming over to see them nearly every day since the night of the town meeting. The four children usually received him with good grace and most days found themselves actually glad to see him. But today, somehow, the thought of him was too much.

  "We said he didn't have to be in on everything, didn't we?" said Lydia.

  "Let's hide," said Kip. And all, even tenderhearted Laura, agreed. Bikes were propped against the fence, the horse hastily tied to a tree, and the four children dashed for the woods.

  They were hardly in time. Gordy biked into the yard just as Laura, the slowest runner, flopped down behind a spicebush.

  He looked around at horse and bikes and called their names a few times. In the woods, nobody s
aid anything. Nobody looked at anybody else, either. Gordy hesitated, puzzled, seemed about to wait, got off his bike, then finally got on it again and slowly pedaled away.

  The four children came out of hiding. By now everyone was feeling sorry, the way you always do, but still no one talked about it. The long ride to Route Seven was accomplished almost in silence.

  The Green Lantern, when they arrived, looked every bit as fussy and expensive as they had known it would. As they hesitated before its entrance, the door opened and two workmen issued forth. They were carrying the desk. Miss Chippenhepple followed, bossing them fussily.

  James found his tongue. "That desk," he said.

  "Sold," said Miss Chippenhepple.

  "Who to?" said Lydia ungrammatically.

  Miss Chippenhepple's voice took on a note of pride. "As a matter of fact," she said, "I picked it up for Mrs. Gordon T. Witherspoon. And now, was there anything special? Because I am about to close the shop and deliver it personally."

  Four silent heads shook. Once again the desk was loaded in Miss Chippenhepple's station wagon and she drove away.

  "Mrs. Witherspoon," said Laura. "It all keeps connecting."

  "Of course that settles it," said Lydia. "We'll have to let Gordy in on it now."

  "Sure," said James. "That's why the magic did it this way. It's paying us back and we deserve it."

  "Yes," said Kip. "We're supposed to do good turns, and hiding from Gordy was the opposite."

  Everyone grew weary on the long uphill-and-down-dale ride home, but none complained. And hardly had they reached Silvermine Road when they met Gordy himself, biking down to see them again. He beamed at them in utter friendliness, as usual. If he suspected their base behavior, he did not mention it.

  But he seemed less excited than they had been when he heard what had happened, maybe because he hadn't had so much experience of the magic as they had.

  "Your old desk's prob'ly at the house now," he told them. "That Miss Chippenhepple was just driving up when I came away."