by Edward Eager
"What turtle?" said the girl called Ann. So that couldn't be it.
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" fumed Jane. "What is this, a social tea? What does it matter how they got here? The point is, can they get us down?"
"Our magic only works for time," said the boy called Roger.
"Really?" said Jane, feeling superior. "Ours works for everything]" Then she remembered. "Only right now it isn't working at all," she admitted. "That is, it's working, but it's all gone wrong."
"That happens to us sometimes, too," said Roger.
"Pooh!" said the dashing one called Eliza. "We don't need any old magic to get them off those spears. We have our two hands, don't we? And our crude childish strength?" And digging in the sand suddenly, she uprooted Jane's spear, and Jane fell heavily to the ground, knocking all the wind out of her. She always maintained afterwards that Eliza had done it on purpose. But whether or not this was true, it was also true that once she had brought Jane to earth, Eliza worked just as hard as anyone else at undoing her bonds.
The boy called Roger let Mark down more gently and went to work on the ropes that held him. As soon as he and Jane were untied, they and Roger and Eliza attended to Katharine and Martha.
"Free at last," said Katharine, rubbing her chafed wrists.
"And with no help of turtle," said Jane. "Stuck-up thing. We'll show him."
Martha said nothing. So far, so good. Maybe they were going to get home unscathed, after all.
"How did you get here in the first place?" asked the little girl called Ann.
"We were after buried treasure, and the cannibals caught us," said Katharine.
"That's right, the cannibals," said Mark, looking round at the slumberous natives. "I was almost forgetting. We'd better talk softly."
"Do you get captured by cannibals often? I never have, so far," said the Eliza one in rather an envious voice. "What about the treasure? Can we help you find it? Where's it buried?"
An unworthy thought troubled the mind of Mark, and from looking at Jane he could see that she was thinking the same thing. If these nice strange children helped them find the treasure, maybe they would have to share it with them, and that would mean so much less for Mr. Smith and the bookshop. Still, seven heads (and fourteen hands) were better than four (or eight). And besides, it would be only fair.
"Shall we tell them?" Jane's eyes spoke to Mark.
"Yes," Mark signaled back. "Follow me," he said aloud. "Better be careful. Walk tiptoe."
Quite a lengthy procession crossed the sand. Mark heaved away the flat stone, and then paused on the brink of the hole Martha had dug.
"We'd better figure out first how we're going to get away afterwards," he said.
"And if we can," agreed Jane. "Those natives might wake up any minute." She turned to the three strange children. "How does your magic work? Do you say spells? Or do you have something with you? Some magic coin or something?"
"We have something," admitted the boy called Roger. And he took something carefully from his pocket. Mark and Jane and Katharine and Martha couldn't see clearly what it was, though Jane stood on her tiptoes and peered. She said afterwards that it looked just like some old pieces of grass to her, but of course it must have been more than that. Anyway, as they all afterwards agreed, it certainly was something!
"We have this," the boy Roger went on, "but it only works for time, the way I told you."
"It gets us back to our own time when we're finished," said Ann.
"Maybe it'd get you back to yours, at the same time," said Eliza. "Only it wouldn't be the same time, if you see what I mean."
"Clear as mud," said Jane.
"I get it," said Mark. "You mean maybe it'd take us back to your time with you, instead."
"That's what I'm worried about," said Roger.
"What if it does?" said Jane. "We could rest up, and then go on from there."
The boy Roger shook his head doubtfully. "You wouldn't like it," he said. "It wouldn't work out. You wouldn't fit in."
"Why?" said Katharine. "What time is it?"
"It's later than we think," said Mark, studying the sky anxiously. "It's getting to be afternoon. We'd better hurry. Those cannibals'll wake up any minute. If they do, we'll just have to take a chance."
Seven heads turned to the treasure hole, and fourteen hands set to work. All dug hard, but none dug harder than Jane and Eliza. In next to no time at all, the same corner of chest appeared at the bottom of the hole, just as it had for Martha.
Now there was a difference of opinion. Mark, ever cautious, and Roger, who seemed to be of the same temperament, wanted to keep digging till the chest was all uncovered and get it out whole. Jane and Eliza wanted to scrape the sand away from the rest of the lid and open it and look inside first.
"How do we know? Maybe it's all a hoax," said Jane. "It'd be just like that Chauncey Cutlass."
"Who's he?" said Ann.
"Never mind. Let's be digging," said Eliza. She and Jane won by sheer dint of getting in the way of any who tried to dig in a different direction.
The four corners of the chest-lid appeared. Jane laid hold of them and pulled.
"Maybe it's locked," said Katharine.
But it wasn't. The lid flew back on its hinges. Everybody took one look and gasped.
Pieces of eight were inside, and jewels, just as Mark had predicted. Diamonds glittered in necklace-y coils, and emeralds and rubies and sapphires and other stones nobody knew the names of but that were just as pretty and probably just as precious. There was enough to divide and still have plenty to save more than one faltering bookshop.
"We'll go halves," said Jane nobly to Eliza. "There's probably somebody you could help, too."
"Let's start," said Eliza. "You take a diamond necklace and I'll take a diamond necklace; you take a ruby ring and I'll take a ruby ring...."
Two eager hands reached out and down.
And at that moment the cannibal chief woke up.
He took a look around, rubbed his eyes, and took another. He saw the seven children, and his eyes flashed fire. "Wah!" he cried. "Samoa! Goona goona!"
All the cannibals immediately woke up, reached for their weapons, and scrambled to their feet. Their teeth gleamed hungrily as they saw three extra children for dinner, and their faces lighted with avarice as they beheld the pirate's treasure, for gold is gold no matter where you find it. They rushed forward, spears in hand.
"Quick!" cried Mark to Roger. "Make the wish! Any time's better than this one!"
Roger clutched whatever it was he had in his hand tight, and muttered something. Jane and Mark and Katharine and Martha were never sure afterwards what he said. But whatever it was, it did the trick.
The next thing they knew, the four children were standing on their own beach by their own lake. There was no sign of the cannibals and no sign of the treasure, and there was no sign of the strange children called Roger and Ann and Eliza, either.
But their mother was there, sitting in a deck chair, on the sand, and because all rules were broken, she saw them appear out of the everywhere into the here perfectly plainly, and the four children had a terrible time explaining to her how they had done it so that she wouldn't think her mind was giving way, the way she had one time before.
"We were in the maple tree on the bank, and we all jumped down," said Mark, crossing his fingers behind his back.
"You couldn't. It's too high," said their mother, looking at the tree.
"We did, though," said Jane, crossing her fingers.
"Then you shouldn't have," said their mother. "How many times do I have to tell you..."
The speech that began with these familiar words went on for quite some time. The four children listened patiently. At the end of it, their mother went into the cottage, still looking from the tree to the beach and shaking her head despairingly. The four children were alone and could discuss really serious matters.
"Why didn't you grab some of that treasure before he wished?" said Martha to Jane. "Even one necklace
would have helped Uncle Huge."
"I couldn't," said Jane. "It happened too fast."
"At least we know it's there now," said Katharine, ever the peacemaker. "We can go back for it next time."
"If there is any next time, after what you did," said Jane to Martha accusingly. "You'll have a lot of explaining to do to that turtle. It probably won't ever speak to us again. You've probably just ruined the whole thing utterly and completely."
"Except if all rules are broken and the lake's full of magic," Mark reminded them, "we could probably wish for anything any old time."
"Only not right now," said Katharine hastily.
"And we'd better clear it with the turtle anyway, just in case," Mark decided.
"Still," said Martha after a pause, "I'm sort of glad I did it, in a way. If I hadn't, we probably wouldn't ever have met those other children. I liked them."
"I liked the Eliza one," said Katharine. "She was fun."
"I wonder where they are now," said Jane.
"I wonder if we'll ever see them again," said Martha.
"Children," said their mother from the porch. "Come help get supper."
So they did.
7. The Treasure
The next morning after breakfast (and after bed-making, dishwashing, and other dull details, but I prefer not to mention them, as who wouldn't?), the four children went down to the shore. Martha didn't want to go, but the others made her.
The turtle was waiting on the beach with wrath in its eye.
"Well?" it said.
"I know," said Martha. "I'm sorry. At least,"
The Treasure she went on, feeling that she ought to be truthful, "I'm sorry for what I did, but I'm glad I met those children. Will we ever see them again?"
"That," said the turtle, "would be telling. And now is not the time. What did I tell you about considering that lake's feelings?"
"You told us to wish wet wishes," said Martha with a hint of rebellion, "and I did."
"Humph!" said the turtle. "A wish out of season's just as bad as a lake out of water. You've heard about disturbing the balance of nature. Well, magic has a balance, too, and when you break the rules, you upset it. I told you once that lake's stronger than I am now. And now you've got it all upset, there's no telling what it might do next!"
"You mean the magic might dry up?" said Jane.
"Either that," said the turtle darkly, "or the other extreme."
What the other extreme from drying up might be, no one liked to think. Explode, probably, or come running up the bank and overflow. The four children had heard of flood disasters, and a magic flood disaster would probably be even worse. Martha thought of the big snake thing they had seen and trembled.
"You mean it's all over?" said Mark. "We can't wish anymore?"
"I think," said the turtle, "that it would be much safer not to."
"Who cares about safe?" said Jane recklessly. "We've got to! We've got to find that treasure. Now we know it's there."
"Why?" said the turtle.
They told it. They told it all about Mr. Smith, and the bookshop, and about business being bad, and all Mr. Smith had done for them, and how much they wanted to help him in return.
The turtle (so far as could be seen, what with the shell) relaxed a little, as it heard their story. "Hmmmm," it said, when they had finished. "Good intentions again. Sometimes I think they're worse than the other kind. Still," it added thoughtfully, "you never can tell with magic. It might take that into consideration if I went and explained to it. It might think the end justified the means. Though that," the turtle went on, with a severe look at them all, "is a highly dangerous doctrine and one I shouldn't think of recommending to you mere mortals. Why, you could justify anything that way!"
"I know!" said Katharine wisely. "Wars and conquest!"
"Exactly!" said the turtle. "Look at Napoleon! But that's another story." It broke off and studied them with its cold, hooded gaze. "I wonder," it said, "exactly how much you want to help this friend of yours. Would you do it if it meant your last wish?"
"Our last wish on the lake," said Mark, "or our last wish ever?"
"It might even come to that," said the turtle.
All eyes met, and all hearts sank for a moment. But all spirits were steadfast.
"Yes," said Mark. The three others nodded.
"Then I'll see what I can do," said the turtle. "I'll go speak to that magic. I'll put it up to it man to man, as you might say."
"What do we do in the meantime?" said Jane.
The turtle looked at her. "I haven't the least idea," it said coldly. "What do you usually do?" And it turned to go.
"Wait!" said Mark. "At least tell us when to expect it! If it happens at all, I mean. Because if we aren't prepared, we might make a mistake again, and it would be awful to waste our one chance!"
The turtle's gaze softened. "The only way I know to straighten out a mess like this," it said, "is to go back to the beginning and start over."
"With the same old rules?" said Katharine.
"Every third day?" said Martha.
The turtle eyed her. "I always thought that a very sensible arrangement myself," it said. "It was good enough for me and my father before me. Not to mention sundry enchanters of eld."
"Then it'll happen day after tomorrow," said Jane.
"Don't count on it," said the turtle. And it walked into the water and swam away.
The rest of that day and all the next one passed uneventfully. A few good things happened, like driving in to Angola to see chapter seven of Ruth Roland in Ruth of the Rockies, and the time Mark saw a bird that wasn't in his small bird book, and Mr. Smith brought a big important one home from the bookshop and Mark looked it up and it turned out to be a blue-gray gnatcatcher, which is very rare, at least at an Indiana lake. This wasn't very interesting to anyone but Mark, but then there is nothing so boring as bird-watching, except to those people to whom it isn't boring at all.
And otherwise little happened that was worth recording, and little was said that needs repetition. The third day dawned neither very good nor very bad. It wasn't the kind of sunny singing morning when miracles seem made to happen, but it wasn't the kind of dun-gray day that discourages all hope, either. Clouds ringed the sky, but there were bright intervals.
The four children assembled on the beach rather late, wanting to give the magic every opportunity and not rush it. No one breathed a word of the question that was in all hearts. No one had to ask what the wish was going to be. No one but Mark even spoke. He marched straight to the water's edge, and Jane took one of his hands and Katharine took the other, and Martha joined on at one end.
"I wish," said Mark, "that we would find the buried treasure."
Immediately everyone gasped for breath, and a great wind seemed to blow away the world, as it so often does when you wish to be taken somewhere by magic and it happens.
"It worked!" said Martha, when the wind stopped and she could catch her breath.
"You didn't say what buried treasure!" said Jane to Mark. "You didn't wish we could keep it, either!"
"What does that matter?" said Katharine. "We're here."
"Yes, but where?" said Mark, looking around. "This isn't our island."
And it wasn't. Instead of the well-known sand and sparse palm trees, lush vegetation met the four children's gaze. The trees hung with ripe fruits, rare flowers laid their scent upon the breeze, and pure, clear streams coursed everywhere. A sky of a peculiarly bright blue canopied the scene. Beyond some rocks, a sea of a deeper blue lay dreamily becalmed. It was an island all right, but it wasn't theirs.
"I knew it!" said Jane, glaring at Martha. "The magic couldn't do it. It tried, but it wasn't up to it. It's been through too much. And it's all your fault."
"I know," said Martha, hanging her head.
"Wait," said Mark. "It may not be so bad. There may be buried treasure here, too. There must be, or it wouldn't have brought us here."
"Unless it's getting even!" said
Jane.
Everyone felt a clutch of fear at these dark words—everyone but Katharine, who didn't hear them. She had wandered away and was busily exploring.
"Anyway, it's a wet wish," said Mark, pointing at the sea around them. "That's a good sign. You'd think."
Katharine came running back. "I've been here before!" she said. "At least it feels as if. It's all sort of familiar. Like a book I read or something!"
"Maybe it's Treasure Island," said Mark. "Maybe we'll see Jim Hawkins!"
"And Long John Silver, and match wits with him!" said Jane, who had always wanted to try.
"No," said Katharine. "It's not that exactly. But it's on that order." She broke off, and looked around again. "I know," she said. "It's like a picture in a book. The way those rocks are, and that blue sky. It's like a picture by the man that did the one in my room. The amfalula tree picture!"
"Maxfield Parrish," said Mark, who always knew the facts.
"I guess so," said Katharine. "What book of his do we have? Something kind of oriental."
Light dawned on Jane. "The Arabian Nights!" she cried. "We're in Arabian Night country!"
And all the others agreed, as they studied the landscape, that an Arabian Night was exactly what it looked like, except that right now it was daytime.
"What island is there in that?" said Katharine.
"Don't you remember?" said Mark. "Sinbad the Sailor! And the roc's egg!"
Everyone took another look around. Sure enough, there, poised on a cliff not far away, was an enormous round white object.
"Well? What do we do now?" said Martha.
"Wait for the roc to come down, of course," said Jane, "and then fly away with it. If Sinbad could do it, we can!"
Even as she spoke, an immense cloud darkened the sun.
"Here it comes now!" Jane went on. "Hurry up! We tie ourselves to its claws and then it carries us away!
"There's no treasure in that story," objected Katharine, hurrying along with Jane and the others just the same.
"There is, too. There's the ground all covered with diamonds and serpents," said Jane.
"Ugh!" said Martha, stopping in her tracks and refusing to go another inch.
