Black and Blue Magic (12 page)

As the watchman moved slowly back the way he had come, this time searching the treetops, Harry scooted away from the bench and down the path that led to the flamingo pond. On the hill above the pond he found a hidden place where there was enough room to flutter his wings hard, to shake the water out of them. At first they felt heavy and awkward, and water flew in every direction; but after a few minutes of fluttering they seemed to be back to normal. Just before he took off, Harry wrung out the tail ends of his drapes and emptied out his gym shoes.

There was still enough water in his drapes and wings to make the take-off more difficult than usual. He just barely managed to clear the treetops, but then he was off and away, on the long cold flight home. And was it ever cold! The cold ocean wind flapped his soggy drapes, and plastered his wet Levis against his legs. Harry didn’t do any sight-seeing or fancy flying on that trip. All he could think about was flying hard and fast toward a warm dry bed.

It wasn’t until he was home and had been in bed long enough to stop shivering, that he realized what had saved him from being caught. The watchman must have stopped searching the bushes and started in on the treetops because he thought Harry was a bird. He’d found the feather by the moat, and maybe he figured that some big white bird had landed in the water and scared the monkeys. Then he’d found the place where Harry had sat under the bushes. There must have been a puddle of water there and some more feathers. The watchman probably thought that the bird had rested there for a while before it flew off.

It occurred to Harry that there had been a lot of leaves under the bushes, so it wasn’t likely that he’d left any footprints. Lucky for him that it hadn’t been soft mud or sand. Lucky for Harry; and come to think of it, lucky for the watchman, too. After all, the zoo directors might be a little suspicious of a night watchman who reported a big white bird wearing gym shoes.

H
ARRY DIDN’T GO FLYING
again for five whole nights. The dunking in the monkey’s moat and the long cold flight home hadn’t been at all good for his cold. Or to put it more accurately, it had been fine for the cold, but it hadn’t done Harry any good. He’d even had a fever for a day or two and that was really unusual, for him.

The whole thing was pretty boring. Mom made him stay in bed for two days, and even after he was feeling fine, he didn’t dare go flying for fear Mom would come up to check on him at night. Whenever he was the least bit sick, Mom always came up to his room in the middle of the night to be sure he was all right. So he had to wait until he was sure Mom had finished worrying about the cold before he dared go on another flight.

On the fifth day Harry was pretty sure that Mom had stopped worrying, because she mentioned that it would be a good time for him to get caught up on his chores. So he mowed the lawn and swept the driveway, and went to the store for groceries. He even went further than usual and helped Mom with the washing.

Doing the washing wasn’t one of Harry’s regular chores, but he wasn’t just doing a boy scout bit, when he offered to help. There was a special reason on that particular Monday. He just about had to get his flying-drapes washed before he used them again.

Five nights before, when he got back from falling in the moat, he had hung the wet drapes on a hook, way at the back of his closet. They had dried out finally, but they were all dingy and the fringe around the bottom was caked with mud. Besides, there was a strange sort of smell about them. Harry had never really minded the way monkeys smelled—at least, not as much as some people seemed to—but just the same, he thought, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get his drapes washed before he wore them again.

He managed to get the drapes in and out of the washing machine without Mom seeing them. Then he sneaked them up to the attic and hung them out on the line Mom kept up there for wet days. He was hanging the rest of the wash in the back yard, when Lee Furdell called to him from across the fence.

Lee wanted to know how things were, and if there had been any progress on the Plan. Harry felt a little ashamed when he realized that he hadn’t thought much about it lately. After all, it was a good Plan and pretty important. Even though being able to fly was great, as far as Harry was concerned, it didn’t do a thing for Mom. And it didn’t change the fact that Mom had too much work and worry trying to make a living for them all by herself. Harry had to admit to Lee that things were pretty much the same and that he hadn’t had any bright ideas for changing them.

“Well, I’m afraid I haven’t either,” Lee said. “But I do think that the first step is to get Miss Clyde to move out. From what you tell me, Hal won’t have a chance to notice your mother as long as she’s around. There ought to be something you could do, something harmless, of course, that would convince her that she wants to move.” Then Lee laughed. You could always tell by his eyes when he was laughing, even though it never showed much anywhere else. “You don’t suppose Miss Clyde is the type who believes in ghosts,” he said. “Maybe you could make her think that Marco’s is haunted.”

“Hey,” Harry said. “That’s an idea. It looks kind of haunted, all right. I mean it’s so dark and big and gloomy and everything.” But on second thought he had to add, “I don’t know, though. Miss Clyde looks to me like the kind of person who doesn’t believe in ghosts or anything, much. You know what I mean?”

“I’m afraid I do,” Lee said. “There are a great many people who are that way nowadays, more’s the pity. A little more believing in things would do—”

At that point Lee broke off. Olive Furdell had come out on the back porch and was looking at them. There wasn’t any time for Harry and Lee to pretend that Lee hadn’t been “wasting his time on the neighbors” again. That’s what Olive always accused Lee of doing. At least, that was one of the things. There were a lot of other things, and you couldn’t help knowing what they were, because of the kind of voice Olive Furdell had. Every time Olive started accusing Lee of something, half the block knew about it right away.

But this time Olive didn’t start yelling immediately. Instead she just came over to the fence where they were standing. She had a piece of white candy in her hand. “Leland,” she said, “this is some of the divinity from that new recipe. I wanted to see what you thought of it before I made up a big batch.” She broke the piece of candy in two and handed some over the fence to Harry. “Hello, Harry,” she said, “I see you’ve been helping your mother with her washing.”

Harry was so astounded that it took him a minute to remember to say thanks, even. Then, just as he popped the piece of divinity into his mouth, it occurred to him that maybe Olive had gone off her rocker, or something. She wasn’t acting normal, that was for sure! So maybe the candy wasn’t normal, either. What if she’d put something
really
different in it? Like rat poison, for Pete Squeaks!

He only worried for a second, though, because the candy tasted just great, and besides, Lee wasn’t acting too surprised. He was just nibbling at his piece of candy thoughtfully with a tasting expression on his face. “It seems fine to me,” he said at last. “Every bit as good as the old way, I’d say, and quite a bit easier to make. It seems to me that we ought to try it, at least for a while.”

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Olive said. “But I wanted to see if you agreed. What do you think of it, Harry?”

“Think?” Harry stammered. “What do I th-Oh, I think it’s fine. That’s really great divinity, Mrs. Furdell.”

“Thank you, Harry,” Olive said. Then she just turned around and went back into the house. She didn’t even say anything to Lee about “when was he going to get back to work?” and that was just about her favorite question, where Lee was concerned.

After Olive Furdell disappeared into the house, Harry and Lee just stood there staring after her. Nobody said anything Harry was dying to ask some questions, but he didn’t quite know how to do it. That is, he couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t sound sort of disrespectful.

At last, Lee turned back to Harry with a little sigh. He smiled his small quiet smile. “You look rather puzzled, Harry,” he said. “I wish I could satisfy your curiosity, but I’m afraid I can’t. I’ve been a bit bewildered myself lately.”

“Oh, I wasn’t curious or anything like that,” Harry said. “I just—well—it sure was nice of Mrs. Furdell to bring us out that candy.”

“Yes indeed. It certainly was.” Lee looked back toward the house again and scratched his head. Then he shook it back and forth, slowly and thoughtfully. Finally he gave a little shrug. “Well, Harry,” he said at last, “It’s time I was getting back to the shop. But as I was starting to say, a little more believing in things would do this world a lot of good. You take all the believing out of life, and it doesn’t leave much room to grow in.” He started away toward the house, but then he stopped and turned back. “And take it from me, Harry, the unbelievable can happen almost anywhere.”

W
HEN DARKNESS FINALLY CAME
that night, Harry knew exactly where he was going and what he was going to do when he got there. He’d done a lot of thinking during those five days that he’d been cooped up, and he’d come to an important decision. He was going to have to go somewhere where it would be safe to do some serious practicing. It would have to be a place where he could land and take off as much as he wanted and fly low where there were things to maneuver around.

He’d found out that flying low was the riskiest part about having wings, and it was the only part that he’d never really had a good chance to practice. Up in the open sky, things were much simpler, and besides, way up there you had a little time to correct a mistake if you made one. Down near the earth, there often wasn’t any time at all. Like when that dead tree had appeared suddenly right ahead of him. If he’d only had a little more practice at such things, he might have been able to dodge it. And if he had been able to avoid the tree, he would also have avoided a real wowzer of a cold and a couple of king-sized bruises, besides.

Of course, bruises were old stuff to Harry; but with those two new big black and blue places, plus the ones he already had, it was beginning to look as if he were on his way to setting some kind of a record. Harry Marco—holder of the gold medal in bruise collecting!

There wasn’t any doubt about it, the curse had really been working when Mr. Mazzeeck picked out wings as the right kind of magic for Harry. Mr. Mazzeeck had been so proud of the fact that his company didn’t have anything to do with Black Magic, that it didn’t seem likely they intended to hand out Black and Blue Magic, either. But mistake or no mistake, Harry knew he wouldn’t have missed having wings for anything.

So when Harry took off from the carriage house roof that night he headed directly for Golden Gate Park. He knew of a nice lonely spot, not too far from the stadium, where there were lots of trees and bushes to maneuver around; and nice soft grass, in case he had an accident.

It was amazing how quickly he reached the eastern end of the park. Wings were really great when it came to getting some place in a hurry. Harry couldn’t help thinking about the time he’d walked most of the way home from the park, on the day he’d first met Mr. Mazzeeck. He remembered how long it took and how tired he’d been. And tonight he’d covered the same distance in only a few minutes.

Steinhart Aquarium and the museums rushed past below him and only a minute or two later he came to the place he had in mind. He was pretty sure that no one would be in such a lonely part of the park after dark, but just the same, he didn’t take any chances. He circled down slowly, lower and lower, looking carefully for any sign of life. Nothing was there but trees and bushes and dark stretches of smooth lawn.

So he began to practice. He did landings and take-offs at various speeds and from different angles. He flew close to the ground, gliding around trunks of trees and bushes. He swooped up into tall trees and came to a stop on sturdy branches. He even mastered a particularly exciting maneuver that allowed him to fly through a space that was too narrow for the full width of his outstretched wings.

He found that if he saw a narrow space coming up ahead, a sudden spurt of speed would give him power enough to glide through with his wings partly folded, like the backswept wings of a supersonic plane. It was really terrific to shoot between two tree trunks almost on momentum alone, and then just as he burst out into the open, spread his wings and glide upward.

Of course, it wasn’t really all that simple. That is, he didn’t just do all those things perfectly the first time he tried them. As a matter of fact, his bruise collection, which had begun to fade a bit during his illness, acquired new and spectacular additions before the night was over. Not to mention, several twig scratches on his face and arms, and a big green streak down the front of his nice clean drapes.

He got the green streak when he was seeing just how low he could fly. He was skimming along over the lawn just a foot or two up, when a little rise took him by surprise. What happened next was a little like body surfing without any water. The grass was wet with dew and slippery, and Harry tobogganed along over it for quite a way on his stomach before he ran out of momentum. After he got his breath back he found that he wasn’t hurt at all, except for a few tender ribs and the big grass stain down his front.

All in all, things went pretty well, and Harry discovered that by concentration and determination, he could do all sorts of things he hadn’t thought possible. When he finally began to feel tired, he decided to head for home right away before he got careless and had an accident. But then, after being so sensible for once, he did something very stupid. Instead of climbing immediately to a safe flying altitude, he started off down through the park at low level. He was just telling himself that nobody in his right mind would be out in the park at that hour when, suddenly, somebody was.

Harry had just swooped out from between two trees, using his new supersonic plane technique. As he cleared the trunks and shot out into the open, he saw before him, and only a few feet below, something that made his heart pop up into his throat like a cork in a bottle. There was a sidewalk, with a bench beside it. Behind the bench was a glowing street lamp, and on the bench, staring straight at Harry, was a man. As Harry swept past the bench, he was so close he could see quite clearly the man’s astonished, open-mouthed face. He’d seen Harry all right, there wasn’t the shadow of a doubt about that.