Magic in the Mix (13 page)

“You're identical!” giggled Molly. “You both look like butts!”

In answer, Ray blew out his cheeks and pushed them inward, a maneuver that made him look, in fact, like a butt.

They all began to laugh, and then they couldn't stop. Miri and Molly rolled on the floor, while Robbie snorted in a manly style until Ray did it again, and he dissolved into hoots.

Laughing, Miri glanced around the old kitchen and thanked the magic for bringing her home. Home, home, wonderful, beautiful home. I love
everything, she thought. She loved Molly, she loved her brothers, she loved Cookie. She loved the floor, she loved the sink, she loved the refrigerator, she loved every chipped plate and dirty dish stacked on the counter. “I love everything,” she sighed.

Ray gave a long, wet sniffle. “That's so beautiful I could cry.”

Robbie grinned. “I feel all different inside now. Let's sing.”

Miri smiled. They could make fun of her. She didn't mind. Safe and happy, she reached out and wrapped her hands around Ray's ankles. It was an old game, years old, but Ray remembered and started to walk backward, pulling her across the floor.

“God, we haven't done that in forever,” said Robbie. Molly caught hold of his ankles, and he smiled down at her. “Ready?”

Cleaned, brushed, ready for bed, Miri drifted slowly down the hallway, smoothing her fingertips along the dark wood of the wall. For some reason, doing this helped her think. And at the moment, she needed to think about Maudie. Maudie and 1918. “What do we already know?” she murmured to herself. They knew that magic was a way of setting things right. They knew that it didn't waste itself unless there was a reason.

That afternoon's trip had had a reason, an obvious one. They had been sent through time to save Jamie, anyone could see that. Miri paused to imagine Jamie grown up, maybe president of the United States: “And let me say that I owe my greatest
thanks to two unknown girls who saved my life one long-ago day …”

It was a satisfying image. Miri proceeded to the even more satisfying image of Carter explaining his lack of prisoners to the Colonel. She hoped the Colonel
would
shoot him. Now stop that, she told herself sternly, and concentrate: Why 1918? Why had they been sent there? If Molly was actually supposed to interrupt the meeting between Maudie and Pat Gardner, why had the magic barred her way back? Why had it sent them smack into the Civil War and Carter instead?

Because they were supposed to save Jamie. Fine. Good. But then, why send them to 1918 to meet Maudie in the first place?

Miri sighed. She couldn't figure it out.

Her brothers' bedroom door opened, flooding the hallway with light. Miri blinked. “Mir!” called Robbie in a harassed whisper.

“Yeah?”

“What's, like, the point of
Julius Caesar
?”

“Got me,” she said. “I never read it.”

Hoarse, despairing curses filled the hallway. Miri didn't take them personally. Her parents had laid
down the law at the dinner table that night: If Robbie didn't finish his essay on
Julius Caesar
by tomorrow morning, there would be no reenactment for him.

“But, Dad!” Robbie had protested. “It's not due until Monday! I'm going to write it on Sunday!”

“Okay,” said Dad, poking his salad in search of croutons, “that's your choice, but you won't be doing any extracurricular activities until you finish your curricular ones. In other words”—he found a crouton and waved it—“no reenacting unless the essay is done.”

“We promised we'd be there!” Ray protested. “Mr. Emory will kill us if we don't show. He'll flunk us.”

“That's terrible,” said Dad calmly. “I guess there's only one solution: write the essay before eleven tomorrow morning.”

One little fact Robbie had omitted from this conversation was that he had not yet finished—or begun—reading
Julius Caesar
.

Ray was perched on the edge of the bed, reading furiously. “Okay,” he called, “it's set in Rome.”

“Duh!” moaned Robbie.

“Why don't you look it up on the Internet?” suggested Miri.

“Dad turned it off!” he yelped. “Can you believe that?”

Dad was pretty smart, Miri thought. “I don't know why you want to fight in a war anyway,” she said. “They're awful.”

“Like you know anything,” Ray said scornfully.

Miri leaned against the doorframe, thinking, again, about the mysterious purposes of magic. Had she and Molly, perhaps, performed some service in 1918 without knowing it? Was it possible, for instance, that their presence had kept some tragic event from happening? Each tiny thing that touched them was changed a little, she supposed. She allowed her imagination to run free, picturing her foot as it stepped on a loose tree root, pressing it a fraction of an inch farther into the ground, so that the tree leaned by some microscopic amount in a new direction. Then, later—years later—when a great storm ripped the tree from the ground, that same microscopic slant would ensure that it fell away from, not onto, the innocent bystander sheltering under its branches, thus saving a life destined for—what?—something noble. Hmm. Maybe. Vague, but better than nothing. “Molly?” She leaned out of
her brothers' doorway and yodeled up toward her own. “I have an idea!”

That night, she dreamed of Carter. He wasn't chasing her, he wasn't even touching her. He was simply walking toward her. She could see him, far away but getting closer, closer, closer. She strained and struggled, but she couldn't move, couldn't get free, and he was coming. “I have gold!” she cried suddenly, hoping to escape.

He shook his head, laughing. “Loser.” And he kept coming.

A small hand shook Miri's shoulder. “Shh,” Molly murmured. “It's okay. Carter's not here.”

“Was I yelling?” Miri mumbled.

“More like groaning. Move over.” Miri heaved herself to one side and Molly slid in beside her. “Don't worry,” she whispered. “It's all over. Over and done. Over and done.” She repeated the comforting words until Miri stopped shivering. “Over and …”

Side by side, they returned to sleep.

“Jeez!” squawked Molly, lurching up. “What was that?”

Miri fumbled for her glasses. “A door slamming, I think.”

“Jeez,” repeated Molly, flopping down again.

But there was no help for it. They were awake and it was morning. Sunlight bobbled through the curtains.

They tiptoed past Ray and Robbie's room, which was ominously silent, and found Nell and Nora in the kitchen, consuming syrup.

Nora looked up. “Daddy said Robbie's paper wasn't good and he couldn't go to the actment, and then Ray said who said it had to be good and Robbie'd been up till the middle of the night, but Daddy said he couldn't just say all the people's names, he had to say something else, and then Robbie was really, really mad and he said it wasn't fair and then he said a bad word, and then Mom said that did it, and then Robbie slammed the door.”

Nell summarized. “Everyone's mad.”

Her sisters looked worried, so Miri said cheerfully, “I'm not mad!” and boinged one of Nell's curls.

“Me neither!” said Molly. “What's for breakfast around here?”

But she and Miri raised anxious eyebrows at each other. Unfairness made Robbie crazy. Ray got mad loudly and often, but Robbie was different. He was more patient than his brother, more even-tempered and easy-going. The only time Robbie lost it was when he decided something wasn't fair, but when he lost it, he lost it big. He was the only Gill child ever to have been suspended, and that was for clobbering an eighth grader who wouldn't let a new kid sit down in the school lunchroom.

Miri and Molly tried to radiate jolly confidence as they made toast and poured juice. “So,” said Molly, settling beside Nell with a plateful of jammy toast, “what are you guys doing today?”

Nell and Nora looked at each other and smiled. “Helping Fritz.”

Fritz was in charge of trimming the Gill trees and mowing their enormous circle of lawn. He was tall, red-haired, and so shy he could barely speak. Nell and Nora loved him. On the days he came to work at their house, the two little girls followed him from one spot to another, talking, both at once, the
whole time. “Maybe he doesn't mind,” their mother said worriedly. “Maybe it's good for his social skills.”

So, despite its thunderous beginning, the morning proceeded quietly. Fritz's lawn mower hummed, and occasionally the buzz of a drill was heard in the backyard, where Dad was attempting to make progress on the porch without Ollie.

“Where's Mom?” called Molly out the window.

Dad looked up, shading his eyes. “Grocery store.”

Oh.

Miri sat down in front of her math homework, feeling flat. Yesterday had been awful, the scariest of her life; it had made her wish with all her heart that she would never experience magic again; it had made her love her simple, quiet, normal life.

And here it was. Her life. Simple. Quiet. Normal.

Restlessly, she got to her feet.

Molly looked up. “Where are you going?”

“I don't know,” said Miri. “I feel—I don't know—not bored, exactly, but—something.”

Molly nodded. “Let down?”

“Yeah! That's it! Let down!”

“Me too,” said Molly. She kicked the table leg gently. “We don't know the end of the story. It feels unfinished.”

That was it: unfinished. Miri wanted to know what happened to Jamie, to his uncle, to Carter, even to the Colonel. It seemed wrong that they had been thrust into that scene, made to act in it, and then sent home before it was over.

Miri plopped down again with a sigh. “Maybe we'll find out what happened someday.”

“You don't think it's trying to make us study history, do you?” asked Molly.

Miri shook her fist at the kitchen wall. “This had better not be educational!” she cried.

They returned to their math. For a long time, the quiet was broken only by whispered numbers.

Miri glanced up. Nothing.

Okay. Negative seventy-five divided by point-seven-five. She stared at it blankly.

A rustle.

She glanced up.

A suppressed laugh.

Miri and Molly looked at each other and grinned. The boys. They were up to something. Probably something bad. Probably something that they'd enjoy now and regret later. Probably something Miri and Molly would want to see. Together, the two girls rose from their chairs.

Soft footsteps on the stairs.

A clinking rattle. “Shh,” very soft.

Miri and Molly tiptoed into the hall. “What're you guys doing?” Molly said, and they turned—

Two soldiers in dark blue coats and crumpled caps stared at them. Miri felt the blood drain from her face. They've broken through, she thought, backing away. There's nothing between us and the war.

Then she saw: It was Ray and Robbie, dressed for their reenactment.

“Oh my gosh,” she gasped.

Robbie looked at her fiercely. “So just shut up, okay? If you rat us out, I'll tell Mom about yesterday.”

“But you don't know anything about yester—” she began before she realized he was talking about her absence from school and gulped back her words. “You just surprised me. Wow. You look so old, like real soldiers—”

Ray saluted. “One hundred and sixth New York, at your service!”

Molly took a breath. “You look great,” she said hesitantly. “But—what're you doing? I mean, I thought Dad and Mom said you, um—couldn't go.”

“Yeah, but they can just—”

“Chill, Robbie,” said Ray soothingly. He turned to his sisters. “Look, it's totally not fair, because he
did
it, the paper, I mean. Just 'cause Dad doesn't think it's, like,
worthy
, it's totally not fair to say he didn't do it. And they
said
he could go if he finished, which he did at, like, two a.m. So we're going,” he concluded.