by Edward Eager
And it did, with the entrance of the rock 'n' roll star, whose number was to be the finale of the show. He began his song, and Abbie's father and the three other men danced onto the stage behind him. Abbie waited till her father was right next to the star, so his face would surely show in the camera. Then she looked at the book.
"Now," she told it.
The next moment, on the great stage and in the living rooms of fifty million television fans throughout the country, a surprising scene took place.
The rock 'n' roll star squirmed and writhed, as was his habit, but no sound fell from his lips. The four singers swayed behind him and their mouths made words, but no sound came from three of them, either.
Only Abbie's father's voice rang out over the nation, sounding richer and truer than ever.
"Chickadee tidbit, chickadee tidbit,
Skedaddle skedaddle pow!"
he sang. And again,
"Chickadee tidbit, chickadee tidbit,
Skedaddle skedaddle pow!"
A look of surprise appeared on his face as he realized something unusual was happening, but he went right on, just as he had been rehearsed to do.
"Chickadee tidbit, chickadee tidbit..."
Abbie's heart nearly burst with pride in him and in herself, too. He was her father and he was singing a solo on television at last, and now the whole world would know how wonderful he was, and she had done it!
"Good girl!" breathed Barnaby in her ear, as he realized what her wish had been. Fredericka got the idea only a second later and clutched Abbie's arm. Susan and John, not being musical, needed to be explained to.
As for the studio audience, first it gave a gasp of surprise. Then a wave of delighted laughter swept through it, followed by a burst of applause that grew and grew and kept right on till the end of the program. When the child actors pranced on for their little closing bit, not one word they said could be heard.
And even when the show was over, the audience didn't seem to want to stop clapping.
"That little fellow sang right out!" said the man behind Abbie. "He took his part good!"
"He was better than the star, if you ask me," said the woman next to him.
As for Abbie, she could hold herself back no longer. She left her seat and ran right up the steps onto the stage, and the other four were not far behind her.
Her father stood in the center of the stage, surrounded by the director and the star and what looked like a hundred other people, all talking at once and waving their arms and undoubtedly congratulating him on his success.
And as Abbie looked at his nice puzzled, modest face, she forgot to be proud of what she'd done and just thought what a wonderful father she had, and not too short at all.
And she ran straight toward him.
6. Being Thwarted
Abbie ran straight toward her father. Then she stopped.
The director and the star and all the other people weren't congratulating him. They were angry.
"You sang in the wrong place!" the director was shouting. "You spoiled the whole show!"
"I didn't," said Abbie's father stoutly. "I sang just the way we rehearsed it. Something must have gone wrong with the microphone."
"The nerve of him!" cried another man, who must be the engineer. "Trying to put the blame on me! My microphones are perfect!"
"I'm ruined!" cried the great rock 'n' roll star. "I'll sue the station and the network and you worst of all! You've ruined my career!" He shook his fist in Abbie's father's face. "You'll hear from my lawyers in the morning." And he flounced away.
The five children looked at each other. And while Barnaby did not say "I told you so," Abbie could tell what he was thinking and she knew that he was right. She had thwarted the magic and gone too far, and it had turned.
"I don't think the audience noticed anything," their father was saying now. "They seemed to applaud a lot. I think maybe they liked it."
"Who cares if they liked it or not?" cried the director at screamlike pitch. "They don't matter! You're fired and you'll never work on this program again!"
"Daddy!" Abbie couldn't help crying in tones of utter remorse at these words.
And because when magic goes wrong, it often all goes wrong at once, suddenly she and Barnaby and Fredericka and Susan and John were invisible no longer, and her father and the director and all the others looked at them and saw them.
"You!" cried the director, making as if to tear his hair, only he had little to tear, being bald for the most part. He turned on Abbie's father again. "Are those your kids? This is the last straw! You smuggle your kids in here and ruin the rehearsal, and then you sing in the wrong place and spoil the show! I'll see that you never work on any television network again!"
He went storming off into the wings, and his followers followed him. And now most of the other singers and actors crowded round Abbie's father and patted him on the back and asked him sympathetically what had happened.
"I don't know," he said miserably. "I swear I wasn't wrong, but I guess I must have been."
The other actors departed, shaking their heads and looking sorry, which showed that their father was as well liked at work as he was at home. But Abbie paid small heed to this small comfort. She was clutching the book hard and pleading with it silently in her mind.
Maybe it would relent and they would find themselves back home at the same time it had been when they left, and they could spend the rest of the day right up till showtime wheedling the book and flattering it, and maybe it would unmake the magic and not let the awful thing happen.
But it didn't. She and Barnaby and the others stayed right where they were, and the awful thing was true.
Their father looked up and gave them a shaky smile.
"Hi, kids," he said. "How did you get here?"
Abbie opened her mouth but no words came out.
"We wanted to watch you rehearsing," said Barnaby, "so we clubbed together and came in on the express." Which after all was nearly the truth, for the magic had certainly been quicker than any local. "I'm sorry, Dad," he said. "I guess we all are."
But his father didn't scold them one bit, which somehow made it worse. "That's all right," he said. "If you wanted to watch me work, it's probably a good thing you came today. It may be the last chance you'll ever get. Did you buy roundtrips?"
"No," said Barnaby truthfully.
"Can you take us home?" said John. "I'll mow lawns all week and pay you back." For if Barnaby's father was out of a job, every penny would count.
"So will I," said Barnaby, who hated mowing lawns above all things.
His father took out his commutation railroad ticket and looked at it. "Six rides left," he said. "That'll use that up. The way things look, maybe I won't have to buy another."
Then he seemed to decide that this was self-pitying and unworthy talk. Making a comic face, he threw an arm round Fredericka and an arm round Abbie and grinned at the other three. "Come along," he said. "Home's the best place at a time like this."
Abbie could not repress a sniff, and he gave her a special smile.
"Cheer up," he said. "It's not your fault."
And of course it was, but she could never tell him so because he would never believe it.
Perhaps it would be best to draw a veil over the five children's homeward journey and the rest of the evening that followed.
Except to say that Abbie's father smiled and made jokes and tried to entertain them all the way home, which brought Abbie nearer to crying than ever, and yet she couldn't because if her father was wearing a smile to hide a breaking heart, surely the least she could do was do likewise.
And to say that when Susan and John reached Miss Centennial Peterson's house, Miss Centennial and Grannie were deep in a game of two-handed pinochle and hadn't worried or noticed how late it was at all.
When Abbie was finally alone in her own room and could cry without upsetting her father, she found that her thoughts lay too deep for tears and all she could do was think them
.
Presently Barnaby stole in and sat on the foot of her bed in the dark. (Fredericka was young and heartless enough to be already asleep.)
"Don't feel too bad," he whispered. "I'd have done the same thing if I'd thought of it. You meant it for the best."
"That's no excuse," Abbie whispered back. "Who doesn't mean things for the best? It's the way the things work out that counts. I should have thought."
"I've been thinking now," Barnaby told her. "You keep the book tomorrow and keep on wishing. I'm willing to give up my turn and not have any wish at all, and I think John will be, too. That ought to be enough extra magic left over to fix even this up."
"Thanks," said Abbie.
When he went away, she felt a little better but not better enough. She could hear her father and mother still talking downstairs about what they would do now and how they would make ends meet. After a while she went into the hall and sat on the top step and listened.
"We'll get along," her mother was saying. "Don't worry."
"I won't," said her father, but his voice said that he was.
There was a silence.
"I nearly died when you sang out of turn," her mother said. "But it was good to hear you singing alone again." Then she chuckled. "And it was funny. You should have seen the expression on your face."
Her father laughed, too, and Abbie felt warm inside. That was the kind of people her mother and father were, people who could still laugh when life looked darkest. That was why she was sure they'd come out all right in the end, no matter how poor.
But she would do all she could to help. And she went back into her own room and begged the book to show its nicer side with her last waking thought.
The next morning she woke early, but Barnaby was up and dressed before her. He and Fredericka came running into Abbie's room and handed her the morning paper, folded back at the radio and television page.
"Read that," said Barnaby, pointing at a paragraph in the critic's column. Abbie read:
"Amid the welter of trite-and-true clichés one charming moment occurred when a member of the singing group suddenly trolled forth an absurd solo at the wrong moment. The look of comic surprise on the face of the singer nearly convinced this reviewer that the carefully rehearsed episode was truly spontaneous."
"What does all that mean?" she wondered. "It means," said Barnaby, "that he liked it." "Oh," said Abbie. "Thanks," she added to the book. And she fetched her manicure scissors and cut the clipping out, with a scalloped edge, and put it on the tray with the breakfast that she and Barnaby and Fredericka now prepared and served their father and mother in bed.
"Well," said their father when he had read the clipping, "that's something to put in my scrapbook, anyway."
"Will it make a difference, Roy?" asked their mother.
"I shouldn't think so. I doubt if that director can read. And now," and he attacked his breakfast, "this is what I call luxury. I've been wanting a vacation for years. After we finish this elegant collation, who's for a picnic at Candlewood Lake? You," he told their mother, "are staying home from the office today."
"Roy, I can't afford to," said their mother. "And are you sure we can spare the gas?"
"We aren't going to have any talk like that," said their father. "It's not pretty talk. I'll find some kind of job next week, but right now I'm going to get to know my family. I think they're worth it."
"Can Susan and John come, too?" said Fredericka. "And Grannie?"
"Why not?" said their father. "They seem to be part of the family, too." And an hour later the little car left the driveway with eight people crammed into it somehow.
Candlewood Lake proved all that could be desired, and fish were caught and swimming prevailed and Grannie found what she was sure was a copperhead snake and quelled it with her stern pioneer gaze, so that it slunk away. And altogether no one brooded upon the dead past or thought about last night at all, except that Abbie took the book along with her and ever and anon threw it a meaningful glance.
It was nearly dinnertime when the happy voyagers arrived back at the little white house, and the phone was ringing as they turned into the driveway. Abbie and Barnaby and Fredericka's father ran to answer it at the extension on the porch. Whoever was calling seemed to be talking a blue streak, for their father kept listening and listening and saying nothing but an occasional "Oh," while his face grew more and more surprised every minute. When he finally hung up, he seemed incapable of speech, but merely stared round at them all with an expression of utter stupefaction.
"What was it?" said their mother.
"It's that director. He said they'd been trying to reach me all day. It seems that I was the hit of the show. It seems every critic on every paper said the same thing, and people have been phoning the studio and some even sent telegrams. They want me to let bygones be bygones and come back at twice the salary, and they want to feature me by name as guest star next week and have me sing 'Chickadee Tidbits' all over again. Only the songwriters are turning it into a whole big number."
"What did you say?" said their mother.
"I told him I would," said their father. "Only first I made him admit I didn't make a mistake last night."
"Then everything's going to be all right after all?" said Abbie. And she clasped the book to her breast.
"Of course it won't last," said her father. "Crazy novelties like this never do. But we ought to make a little money while it does."
"Maybe enough to buy that house over in Silvermine that I was telling you about," said their mother. "The one that's a bargain and really big enough."
And then the telephone rang again. It kept on ringing even after dinner. Sometimes it was long distance and sometimes it was telegrams. The Ed Sullivan Show wanted the children's father to be a guest and sing "Chickadee Tidbits." So did the Garry Moore Show and the Perry Como one. A record company wanted him to make a record of "Chickadee Tidbits" right away.
"They say it'll be the biggest thing since 'Mairzy Doats,'" said Abbie's father, in rather a peculiar voice.
"What's the matter?" said Abbie, who happened to be alone in the room with him at the moment.
"Oh, nothing. It's just, I never minded singing trash when I was one of a group. I had to be a good musician to do that, and the harmony made the words sound better. But for a grown man to stand up all by himself in front of a lot of other grown-up people singing,
'Chickadee tidbit, chickadee tidbit,
Skedaddle skedaddle pow!'
for a living all the rest of his days.... Well, when I was young and hopeful and went to the Conservatory, I never thought I'd finally go down in history quite that way, that's all. Not that I'm not grateful."
The telephone rang again.
"What was it?" said Abbie when her father had hung up, his expression more peculiar than ever.
"It was the songwriters from the show. They've written me a new song they want me to introduce after I've sung 'Chickadee Tidbits' a few more times. They even sang it to me over the phone."
"How does it go?" said Abbie.
"It goes,
'Picallili kumquat,
picalilli kumquat, Pedunkle pedunkle eek!'"
said her father.
He caught Abbie's eye. And they both started to laugh.
But that night in bed Abbie thought serious thoughts. When she found she was still thinking them in the morning, she left the house before any of the others were up and went for a walk. And she took the book with her. After all, Barnaby and John had given up their wishes and wouldn't be needing the magic. But maybe she would.
As she walked, she thought about her father and about the wish. Lots of good things were going to happen, in a money way, because of it. And yet Abbie wondered if her father were really going to be as happy as he'd been before she made it.
She had heard of a thing called human dignity, and it seemed to her that her father had always had quite a lot of this, small-part singer or not and too short or not. Something told her that he w
ould always go on having it, but something also told her that singing,
"Chickadee tidbit, chickadee tidbit,
Skedaddle skedaddle pow!"
for a living was going to make it harder for him to keep a firm hold on it.
She thought maybe if she could make a poem about this and tell it to the book, the book might know the answer.
Abbie was a poet who had not made many poems, as yet. The thoughts were there in her mind, but so far she could rarely bring them out of it and onto the paper. A line or two would usually come, and sometimes a whole verse, but that would be all.
There was a particular deserted woods down the road, where she liked to go to think out her poems. There was a sunny clearing at the near end of the woods and a rocky glen beyond, and if she couldn't find a line or two in the one place, she usually could in the other.
Today she perched on a log at the edge of the clearing (for the grass was still dewy), took out the pencil and paper she had brought along with the book, and wrote down,
"Alas, for human dignity!"
Then she sat and looked at the sun climbing higher in the sky and a brown butterfly on some orange butterfly weed and two towhees that were darting near her and shrieking far too loudly (for their nest was nearby and they thought the poem was a magic spell to blight their offspring, only Abbie did not know this), and no words came. Her thought was perfectly clear, but it wouldn't take shape. So she decided to try the rocky glen instead.
There was a big rock at the top of the glen where you could sit and look far down at the little stream below, where bloodroot grew in spring and cardinal flowers in summer, all among the dappled shade. It was a place for thinking vast thoughts.
But today as Abbie approached the rock, she saw that a man was already sitting there. Furthermore, the man had a pencil and paper and was writing. Quite a coincidence, thought Abbie, as she drew nearer. The man was so intent on his work that he didn't look up, even when she came quite near. He was small and untidy, with rather wild gray hair and large horn-rimmed spectacles, and altogether he looked like nothing so much as the pictures of writers you sometimes see on the covers of books. This gave Abbie courage.