Three Wishing Tales Read online

  Alice held up the tie-backs.

  “I guess I ought to tell you the laundry looks awful,” Tom said. “What did you put in it that ran blue all over everything?”

  Alice thought for a moment. “My blue jeans,” she said. “They’ve never been washed before.” Alice dropped the tie-backs on the floor and ran to look at the laundry.

  The first thing she pulled out of the dryer was the bedspread. It had been dyed a beautiful pale blue.

  Mrs. Nelson came home early. “My boss gave everybody in the office the afternoon off,” she told the children. “The air-conditioner broke down, and it was too hot to work.”

  Tom and Alice were getting ready to go back to the park. Their mother had other plans for them. “Tom,” she said, “run to the hardware store. I need a new sponge mop.”

  When Mrs. Nelson saw the laundry she filled the washing machine and poured a cup of bleach into the water. “Take the white things out of the dryer, Alice, and let them soak in the washing machine for a while. And next time remember to wash the colored clothes separately.”

  Alice waited until her mother had gone upstairs. Then she took all the white things except the bedspread out of the dryer and put them back into the washing machine.

  Tom came back from the hardware store. Mrs. Nelson asked him to move the chairs and table out of the kitchen. She was going to wash the floor. Alice tried to sneak through the kitchen, but her mother saw her. “Here’s a duster, Alice. See if you can dust the books in the living room bookcase.” When Mrs. Nelson cleaned house everybody had to help.

  Alice began to take each book out of the bookcase and dust it before putting it back. She got almost all the way through the top shelf when she came to a big red book with gold letters on it. KING ARTHUR, Alice read. The book fell open on the floor. Alice was about to close it when she saw a picture of an old man in a long robe. Under the picture was printed the one word MERLIN.

  When Mrs. Nelson finished washing and waxing the kitchen floor she came into the living room. Alice was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the bookcase reading the big red book.

  Her mother was tired and cross. She took the book away from Alice. “This is not the time to read,” she said. “Finish your dusting.”

  Alice picked up the dust cloth and went back to work, but she kept thinking of what she had read. Merlin had been a very wise man long ago. He had been the friend of kings. It was sad that now he was just a funny old man with a long beard. Mr. Nelson came home before Alice finished dusting. There was no time to go back to the park before supper.

  After the dishes were washed and put away, Alice went down into the basement and took the bedspread out of the dryer. She hurried upstairs with it.

  Alice searched all through her desk but she couldn’t find what she wanted. She went to look for Tom. He was in his room trying to teach Freckles to fetch a ball.

  “Have you seen my box of gold paper stars?” Alice asked Tom.

  “It’s over there on the windowsill,” Tom said. “I was going to stick some of them on my ceiling, but I have to get the ladder first. Freckles, give me that ball.”

  “You know Mother won’t like you sticking stars on your ceiling,” Alice said. “Besides, they’re my stars, and I have something better to do with them.” Alice took the box off the windowsill. She went back to her own room.

  Tom was curious. He left Freckles hiding under his bed with the ball and went to see what Alice was up to.

  Alice had put the spread back on her bed. Now she started licking the gold paper stars and sticking them here and there on the spread.

  “What makes you think Mom will approve of that?” Tom asked.

  Alice jumped. Tom had been so quiet that she didn’t know he was standing in her doorway. She pulled Tom into the room and shut the door. “What matters is,” she whispered, “will Merlin approve?”

  Tom stared at her. “You’re going to use your bedspread for a robe for that nutty old guy?”

  “He’s not a nutty old guy.” Alice told Tom what she had read in King Arthur. “I can’t give him just anything for a robe,” she finished.

  Tom looked worried. “I wonder if he’s hungry. If he really spent all that time in the tree he ought to be starving.”

  Alice looked out of her window. A full moon was coming up over the row of houses behind theirs. “Tom,” she said, “suppose we went to see him tonight?”

  Mr. Nelson banged on Alice’s door. “Is Tom in there? It’s his bedtime.”

  “Go to bed, Tom,” Alice whispered.

  “We’ll sneak out later.”

  The moon was high over the trees in the park. Old lamp posts stood here and there along the paths. Long ago people often walked in Prospect Park at night. Now Alice and Tom were the only ones there.

  They hurried across the meadow toward the stream. Here it was very dark. The lamp posts were far apart. “We should have brought Freckles,” Alice said.

  Tom stared hard at the shadows under the trees. He began to remember the stories he had heard of terrible things that happened in the park at night. “I wish we’d brought a flashlight.”

  Alice fished in her pants pocket and pulled out the thick stump of a candle. “I found this in the kitchen drawer,” she said.

  “Did you bring matches?” Tom asked.

  Alice took a handful of wooden kitchen matches out of her pocket.

  Tom was carrying a paper bag with bread and cheese and bananas in it. Alice had folded her bedspread around the curtain tie-backs. She carried it under one arm.

  The ground was still soggy from the rainstorm. It squelched beneath their sneakers. They followed a walk that led under an old stone bridge. It was so black there that Alice lit the candle. The flickering light made the shadows look even more scary.

  On the other side of the bridge they climbed a bank and went along a path that overlooked the stream. The moonlight glinted on the water. Alice blew out the candle.

  “We ought to be coming to the cave soon,” Tom said.

  Alice pointed. “There’s the big tree.”

  The huge split trunk seemed even blacker and more twisted in the moonlight. As the children came closer they saw that the hollow inside the tree gleamed faintly.

  Tom stared at it. “Maybe the old guy was telling the truth. It sure is a strange tree.”

  Alice led the way down the slippery bank and across the stream. She climbed the bank on the other side until she reached the curtain of vines. Then she lit the candle again.

  “Who’s there?” a voice called from the cave.

  “It’s Tom and Alice.” Tom’s voice sounded loud in the stillness. “We brought you something to eat.”

  The vine leaves moved. A thin white form slid out from under them. Merlin stood up. He was taller than the children remembered. With his white hair and beard streaming down, he looked like a ghost in the moonlight.

  “My thanks,” he said. “You have noble hearts.” He sat on a rock to eat. The bread and cheese, he said, was different from what he was used to. He didn’t seem to like it, but he was charmed by the wrappings on the food. He held the clear plastic up to gaze through it at the moon.

  And the bananas were new to him. The children had to show him how to peel them.

  When the meal was over Alice put the folded bedspread on a rock and handed Merlin a comb. He began to comb his hair and beard.

  It took a long time to get out all the tangles. Alice had to help him. Tom held the candle. At last the long white hair was combed. It stretched down the bank and coiled in a shining silver heap at the edge of the stream.

  Alice took a small pair of scissors out of her pocket. “It’s so beautiful,” she said, looking at the streaming white hair. “Why don’t we braid it before we cut it off? Then you could keep it.”

  Merlin nodded. “Do you think you could do it?”

  “If Tom helps me,” Alice said.

  Merlin held the candle. The two children started to work. Braiding the old man�
�s beard and hair was like doing a maypole dance up and down the hill above the stream.

  When they were finished, Alice cut Merlin’s hair at shoulder length and his beard at his waist. She knotted the ends of the braids.

  Alice found the bedspread where she had left it on the rock. She unrolled it and took out the curtain tie-backs. Then she draped the bedspread over the magician’s bare shoulders. Merlin wrapped it around himself as if he were an Indian in a blanket.

  Alice tied the curtain tie-backs together to make a belt and cut two slits in the bedspread for armholes.

  Merlin admired his robe. The paper stars shone in the candlelight, and the fringe brushed softly against the old man’s ankles. “You have done well, my friend,” he said.

  Alice felt very proud.

  It was long after midnight when Alice and Tom opened their front door and crept upstairs to bed. Alice was so excited that she couldn’t get to sleep for a while. It seemed as if she had just closed her eyes when she heard her mother calling. “Good morning, Alice. Time to get up.”

  Alice rolled out of bed.

  “It’s going to be another scorcher,” Mrs. Nelson was saying. “Why don’t you and Tom set up the wading pool in the backyard?”

  Alice blinked at the bright sunlight coming through her open window. Everything that had happened last night seemed faraway and unreal. Had she dreamed it?

  During breakfast Mr. Nelson noticed that Tom was much more quiet than usual. “Don’t you feel well, Tom?”

  Tom looked up from his bowl of cereal. “I feel fine, Dad.” Then he asked, “Did you know about bananas when you were a boy?”

  “What do you mean, ‘know about bananas’?” his father demanded.

  “Did you know how to peel them?” Tom asked.

  “Of course. Are you sure you feel well, Tom?”

  When Mr. and Mrs. Nelson had gone off to work, Alice and Tom washed the breakfast dishes and made the beds. “I wonder what Merlin would like for breakfast,” Alice said.

  She looked in the kitchen cabinet and took out a little box of cornflakes. “He could eat right out of this box.” Alice poured some milk into an empty peanut butter jar and shoved a spoon into her pocket.

  Then she put the leash on Freckles. “Come on, Tom.” The two children went out of the house and headed for the park. Freckles bounded along beside them.

  After they had crossed the road that wound through the park and were at the edge of the meadow, Alice took off Freckles’ leash. The dog dashed around and around Alice and Tom. Then he streaked across the meadow toward the stream. The children followed.

  They found Merlin sitting in a swing. He had tied the ropes made from his hair and his beard to the branch of a tall sycamore tree. The seat of the swing was a piece from the old oak tree. The fringes of the blue robe fluttered as the old man swung back and forth. When he saw the children he let the swing come to a stop.

  “Good morning, Merlin,” Tom called. “Are you ready for breakfast?”

  Merlin thought the cornflakes were little dry leaves. Tom and Alice had a hard time getting him to try them. Alice poured milk into the cornflakes box and handed the spoon to the magician.

  After two bites Merlin decided that he could eat the little brown leaves after all. And when he had finished the box he wiped the milk from his snowy moustache with the back of his hand. “Truly,” he said, “that was a good meal.”

  Alice and Tom took turns swinging. The ropes were so long that they could swing right across the stream.

  While Tom was pumping to make the swing go higher, Alice stood near the cave and talked to the magician. “Why did you make the swing?”

  The old man smiled. “Ah, you think only children love swings. I find them good for the mind. When my body soars up from the ground I can think more clearly.”

  Alice remembered the stories in King Arthur of all the wonderful things Merlin used to do: “Has it helped you remember your magic?” she asked.

  “It has made me want to know more about this place where I find myself. What is at the end of the tunnel?” Merlin pointed to the cave.

  Alice told him how she and Tom had tried to explore the cave. The magician listened until she had finished. “We need a torch.” He picked up a twisted pine branch from the ground. “This would do if only we had a fire.”

  Alice took a match out of her pocket and struck it on a rock. Merlin held the match to the pine branch. It smoked for a few moments and then burst into flame.

  Tom jumped off the swing. He scrambled up the rocky bank. “What’s going on, Al?”

  “We’re going to explore the tunnel again.” Alice lifted the vines from the mouth of the cave.

  Merlin gave Alice the torch. He crawled into the drainpipe. Then he reached through the bars for the torch.

  Alice and Tom went after the magician into the cave. The dog followed them.

  The water from yesterday’s rain was gone from the pipe. Merlin wrapped the bedspread around himself and crawled down the tunnel. He held the torch in one hand and moved forward on his elbows. Alice and Tom were surprised at how fast he went. They had a hard time keeping up with him.

  The torch gave more light than the matches they had used yesterday. But it was much smokier. Alice’s eyes began to sting. Merlin was still crawling ahead of her through the tunnel. “Next time we’d better bring a flashlight,” she told Tom. “What happened to the one Daddy gave you last Christmas?”

  “The batteries leaked all over it.” Tom coughed. “This smoke is awful.”

  They crawled on and on through the smoky pipe. Suddenly Merlin stopped. “There’s light up ahead,” he said. The magician blew out the torch.

  Merlin left the torch behind and they all crawled out of the pipe.

  They found themselves on a stairway inside a building. Merlin looked around. “There is magic here. I can smell it.”

  Alice looked behind her. “Tom,” she whispered, “he’s right. There is magic here. The pipe is gone!”

  A door banged, and a man came down the stairs. “Hey, you kids,” he said, “what makes you think you can bring a dog into the public library?”

  Tom ran up the stairs and opened the door at the top. He looked in and then came back down. “It’s the library all right, Al,” he said. “I’d better take Freckles outside. Give me the leash. I’ll wait for you in front of the building.”

  Merlin’s blue eyes shone. “A library!” he said. “In books I can find the magic I have forgotten.”

  Alice took the magician to the reference room. She wondered what people would say when they saw him.

  The woman at the information desk was talking to a young man. His hair was shaved on top, but in back it was gathered into a pigtail. There was a white streak painted down his nose. He wore an orange-colored garment that was looped between his legs.

  Nearby two tall young men with curly beards and bare feet were looking at the books on the shelves. No one seemed to notice the old man with the white beard and the starry robe.

  Alice asked the woman at the desk if there were any books on magic in the library. To her surprise the woman pointed to a set of shelves near the windows. “You’ll find books on the occult and the supernatural over there.”

  Merlin took a look at the books. One on the second shelf caught his eye. It was old and dog-eared. The magician sat down at a long table and opened the book. He leafed quickly through it. Near the end he started to read a chapter. Alice peeked over his shoulder. She couldn’t understand the words Merlin was reading. They weren’t like anything she’d ever seen before.

  The magician finished reading the chapter. Then he read it again. He did this three times. At last he shut the book. “I’m beginning to remember how it’s done,” he said to Alice.

  Alice put the book back on the shelf where it belonged. She and Merlin went downstairs and out of the main door of the library. Tom and Freckles were waiting for them.

  Outside the library Merlin stared at the cars and trucks rushing
by. When the traffic light changed, Alice and Tom started to cross the street. “Hurry, Merlin,” Tom said.

  Alice held the old man’s hand and pulled him across the street to the park on the other side.

  “Hey, Al,” Tom said. “The zoo is just down the street. Maybe Merlin would like to see the animals. There’s a shortcut back to the stream from the rear gate of the zoo.”

  The magician and the children walked down Flatbush Avenue toward the zoo. Merlin kept looking at the traffic. “There’s a strange dragon,” he said, pointing to a bus that was roaring by. “The smoke comes out of the back.”

  At the big front gate of the zoo Alice saw the sign NO DOGS. Tom saw it too. He handed Alice the leash. “It’s your turn to stay with Freckles, Al. Walk around to the back gate of the zoo. We’ll meet you there.”

  Alice didn’t think this was fair at all. Tom didn’t like the library nearly as much as she liked the zoo. He hadn’t really minded having to take the dog out of the library. But Alice wanted very much to go into the zoo.

  Tom and Merlin walked down the wide steps toward the pool where the sea lions were being fed.

  Alice and Freckles went down the street. Near the merry-go-round Alice sat on a bench to listen to the music. Her head began to buzz with questions.

  Why did the pipe lead to the library?

  Why did it disappear?

  Would Merlin really be able to do magic after reading that old book?

  Alice couldn’t think of any answers. She got up from the bench and led Freckles into the park. The sunlight was flickering down through the leaves. Alice walked until she came to the back gate of the zoo. She looked at the statue of a mother lion playing with her cubs. It was at the top of a flight of steps.

  Suddenly Alice heard the sound of running feet. Tom came rushing up the steps. He stopped when he saw his sister. “Al,” he said. “I’ll mind Freckles. Go down there and get Merlin. He’s in the lion house, and he won’t listen to me. Maybe you can do something with him.”