The Misadventures of the Magician's Dog

by Frances Sackett

  “So how did you . . . ?”

  “How did I make you take me home? And how come I can talk? That’s a little more complicated. I’m an ordinary dog, but I haven’t had an ordinary life. Up until about a month ago”—The Dog paused for dramatic effect—“I was a magician’s assistant.”

  Peter laughed.

  The Dog looked hurt. “Why are you laughing?”

  Peter would have answered, but he couldn’t stop laughing. It was strange, because he couldn’t remember the last time something had struck him as funny, and he wasn’t even sure this was funny, but it made him laugh anyway. The idea of a talking dog was bad enough. The idea of a dog—of this scruffy, ugly dog!—as a magician’s assistant was ridiculous.

  The Dog watched him for a minute, then growled. “Fine. Don’t believe me.” As Peter’s laughter turned to hiccups, The Dog closed his eyes. And suddenly he wasn’t there anymore.

  Instead, in the middle of Peter’s carpet stood an eight-foot-tall greenish-blue dragon, its wings folded tight against its back so it could fit in the room. A dragon with a wart on the side of its nose. A dragon that stretched its neck toward Peter, put its face right in front of Peter’s face, and roared.

  Peter screamed, but no sound came out.

  He was catching his breath to scream again when the dragon disappeared, replaced once more by The Dog.

  “Peter, did you hear that?” called Peter’s mom from the living room.

  “P . . . P . . . Plane,” Peter answered, but his voice was still too quiet for his mom to hear. He cleared his throat. “I think it was a plane,” he repeated. “Over the house. It roared.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  The Dog was lounging on the floor with a smug look on his long face.

  “You were a magician’s assistant?” Peter asked, his voice quivering only slightly.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you know how to do magic?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Peter rubbed his eyes, then glanced above The Dog to the spot where a moment before the dragon had stood. His heart was racing so fast it felt as if his chest might explode. He ought to be terrified, and he was. But he felt something else, too, something that took him by surprise.

  “How did you do it?” he asked.

  “The magician taught me,” The Dog said.

  Peter wasn’t sure where the words he said next came from. They weren’t the sort of words he would have imagined he would ever say. Maybe it was because this all felt so unreal. Maybe it was because today was his birthday, and if magic things were going to happen, weren’t they more likely to happen on this day than on any other? “Can you teach me?”

  The Dog’s ears shot up. “How did you . . . That was actually what I was planning to do. Teach you magic, I mean. Seeing as it’s your birthday and all.”

  Peter felt a shiver climb his spine. He couldn’t imagine why The Dog was offering such an amazing gift; all he knew was that he wanted The Dog to teach him quickly, before he chickened out or The Dog changed his mind. “You will? Really? When?”

  “Why not now?” said The Dog, standing up and wagging his plumy tail.

  Chapter Four

  Peter told his mother he was going to bed. This was The Dog’s suggestion. He said learning magic might take a while, and it would be better if they were left alone.

  “So early?” said Peter’s mother, glancing at her watch. “It’s not even nine yet.”

  Peter faked a yawn. “I’m pretty tired.”

  Peter’s mother yawned as well, and her yawn wasn’t faked. “I guess I’m tired, too. But I’ve got another twenty papers to grade tonight.” Peter’s mother taught history at a nearby high school; she had been lucky to find a job, she told Peter, but he knew she missed her old school district in New Jersey, where his father’s last base had been. They had spent two years there, the longest Peter had ever lived in one place in his life.

  “Listen, Peter,” his mother said, pushing her reading glasses up so that they rested on top of her head. “I wanted to ask you—was it a good birthday?”

  “It was great,” said Peter. “Thanks for the cake. And the new video game, too.”

  “And the dog?” his mother asked. Thin lines of worry formed between her brows.

  “Thank you especially for The Dog,” said Peter, and he sounded as though he meant it, even to his own ears. He still didn’t quite believe that any of this was real, but if it was a dream, he didn’t think he wanted to wake up—not yet, anyway. “I know he’s . . . well, he’s going to make life more interesting, anyway.”

  “I’m glad,” Peter’s mother said. She leaned forward to kiss Peter lightly on his forehead, and he smelled the citrus scent of her shampoo mixed with the sharp tang of the mint tea she’d been drinking. They were his favorite smells, the ones he’d been breathing all his life. “I know it was hard this year, having your dad gone and all. You were really brave about it.”

  “I’m not brave,” said Peter. “I’m scared of more things than anyone.”

  “You’re brave in the ways that count,” said his mother. “And today—well, today you adopted a dog!”

  “I guess,” said Peter.

  “Sweet dreams,” said Peter’s mother.

  “Thanks,” said Peter, and he headed back to his room.

  The next magic The Dog did was to make three pillows and a stuffed animal look like a sleeping Peter and a sleeping Dog. “Put them there,” The Dog told Peter. “That’s right. Close to each other on the bed.”

  “My mom would never believe I’d let you sleep near me,” Peter objected.

  The Dog snorted. “Don’t worry: when it comes time to actually go to bed, I’ll find a nice spot on the floor. But if the illusions are close together, I can do one spell instead of two, and illusions can be tricky to maintain if you’re not next to them. And your mom will probably think it’s cute that we’re sleeping next to each other.”

  “Was it an illusion when you changed into a dragon?”

  The Dog gave the dog equivalent of a shrug. “Maybe. But I could turn into a real dragon if I wanted to.”

  Peter wanted to ask more about this, but before he could, The Dog focused his attention once again on the bed. Peter wasn’t sure exactly what he expected to happen next: incantations, tail waving, something grandiose. Instead, The Dog closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as if he were taking a poop.

  Peter leaned over to check the carpet, just in case. When he looked back, The Dog was grinning wickedly. And there on the bed was another dog, and next to him another Peter.

  “Wow,” said Peter. He could even see his own chest rising and falling as he breathed.

  The Dog tilted his head at a cocky angle. “Nice work, huh? They won’t last forever, though, so we’d better get going.”

  Peter went to the window and very quietly pulled it open, then lifted out the screen. The Dog immediately leapt through, while Peter followed more slowly. He put the screen back so none of the neighbors would notice. Then he looked around for The Dog.

  “Arrooo!” echoed from down the street. And then again, “Arrooo!”

  Peter started off toward the sound.

  It was a beautiful night. Peter did not in general like the weather in Arizona: the hot days of the previous summer had left him sticky and miserable, and even in September and October, it had been too warm for him to enjoy being outdoors. But nighttime was another story. Once the sun set, the desert cooled off, the darkness seemingly absorbing the heat. Tonight, Peter felt almost cold as he hurried down the sidewalk, and for a moment he wished he had changed out of his shorts and into jeans. The street was empty except for him, and through the windows of the passing houses, each identical to his own, he could see the blue flickers of televisions; it was easy enough to imagine his neighbors parked on their couches, remotes in their hands. They were inside, staring at screens, all of them the same as the others, and he was out here, in the night, following a magic dog. He sucked the cool night air into his lu
ngs, astounded by his own daring.

  “Arrooooo!” The Dog howled again. He stalked out from the shadow of a cactus. “There you are. Finally. What took you so long?”

  Peter didn’t bother to answer. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace private,” The Dog said. He turned right at the end of the block, Peter following. A few houses later, he turned right again.

  “Here,” he said finally, his beard bobbing in satisfaction.

  “The golf course?” Peter asked in confusion.

  “The golf course,” repeated The Dog.

  The first thing The Dog did was pee on the green. His urine ran down the flag and into the hole.

  “Gross,” said Peter.

  “It’s not gross,” said The Dog. “It’s friendly. Like leaving a note when you visit a friend who’s not home. It’s letting them know I was here.”

  “Pee is not the same as a note,” said Peter.

  “It is if you’re a dog,” said The Dog.

  Peter sighed. “I still don’t understand why we’re here. Why the golf course?”

  “It’s private,” answered The Dog. “It’s quiet. It has a lot of open space. And I’ve always wanted to pee in one of those holes. So are you ready to get started?”

  Peter shivered. He didn’t know whether or not it was from the cold. “Yes.”

  “This is the thing about magic,” The Dog said. “It’s really just a question of using your brain in a way that you don’t normally use it. For example, if you weren’t ever taught to read, then that would be a capability of your brain that you weren’t using. Magic is kind of like that.”

  “So anyone can do magic?” Peter asked. “I mean, if they’re taught?”

  “It’s not quite as straightforward as that,” The Dog replied, raising his nose to sniff experimentally at the breeze. “My old master had this theory. You know how some people are able to do incredibly complex math in their heads, without calculators? Or to compose music from a very young age? Well, it’s the same with magic, which comes naturally for some people and doesn’t for others. The only difference is that most people are able to learn to perform math or music to some degree, while only a few people—a very, very few people—are able to learn to do magic at all.”

  This all sounded rather complicated to Peter. But he understood what The Dog was saying clearly enough that his mood immediately plummeted. “So you’re one of the few who are able to use their brains to do magic?”

  “Me? Of course not. I’m a dog, not a human. I can do magic because the magician wished it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why so glum?” The Dog asked after a moment.

  “If only a very, very few people can learn to do magic, what makes you think I can?”

  The Dog wagged his tail. “Let’s just say I’ve got a feeling about you. And it helps that you’re a kid. All good magicians learn when they’re young. After a certain age, inflexibility starts to settle in.”

  “All right,” said Peter. He still felt dubious—he was a good enough student, but he had never thought of himself as particularly adept at using his brain—but it seemed worth trying. “So what do I do?”

  “Bend down,” said The Dog.

  “What?”

  “Bend down,” The Dog growled.

  Peter bent down.

  The Dog’s face was suddenly close to Peter’s. His damp nose nuzzled through Peter’s hair, and Peter couldn’t help envisioning himself minus an ear. “Here,” said The Dog, tapping his nose against Peter’s scalp. The spot was about two inches behind Peter’s right temple. “This is the part of your brain you have to use to do magic. Just think about what you want, but think with that part.”

  “How do you think with a particular part of your brain? Don’t people just, well, think?”

  The Dog snorted, his warm, stinky breath ruffling Peter’s hair. “Are we going to do this or not?”

  “We’re going to do this,” said Peter.

  “Well, then, I’m telling you—think about what you want, but with that part of your brain!”

  Peter didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “What are you waiting for now?” asked The Dog.

  “It’s just . . . what do you mean, what I want?”

  The Dog sighed. “If you’re going to do magic, Peter, you have to want something. To be rich. To be invisible. To be able to fly.” He stared at Peter, really stared at him, hard. “You must know what you want, right? That’s why you asked me to teach you.”

  As the breeze whispered through the orange trees surrounding them, Peter thought about The Dog’s question. It wasn’t something anyone normally asked him. But here it was, his birthday, and he was being granted a wish. Flying, he thought. Once, when Peter was eight, his father had borrowed a friend’s Cessna and taken Peter for what he’d called a spin. Peter had loved diving through the sky as the clouds parted in wisps before them, his father next to him. Imagine how it would feel without the plane! Now Peter tried to think about flying with that particular spot on his head. He tried and tried. Nothing happened.

  “Try again,” ordered The Dog.

  “Maybe it would help if you showed me,” said Peter. “I wasn’t really watching when you did it before.”

  Staring downward, The Dog gritted his teeth, and Peter thought he was going to refuse. Instead, one moment there was a twig on the ground, and the next the twig was gone and in its place was a bone. A bone that The Dog immediately began to gnaw.

  “Wow,” said Peter. “That’s so cool. Does it taste like a real . . . ?”

  The Dog put the bone down on the green. “Your turn. If you think you’ve had enough show-and-tell, I mean.” He cocked his head. “Or maybe you’re too scared to learn it after all.”

  In general, Peter was a pretty easygoing kid. He knew, for instance, that Celia was embarrassed by him: by his shyness, by his love of computers and space and books, by his outcast status in the seventh grade. Celia was, well, Celia: after only two months at their new school, she was already the girl everyone wanted to sit next to at lunch. Merely by existing, Peter disappointed Celia, and he couldn’t blame her for not letting him forget it. If Celia made fun of him, so be it. But The Dog was another story. Peter hadn’t chosen to be with The Dog; The Dog had, in fact, forced himself upon Peter. And now The Dog was insulting him.

  It made Peter mad. Mad enough that, staring at The Dog’s snarky face, he made up his mind that he was going to do magic, if only to show The Dog: not only was he going to do magic, he would do magic to The Dog.

  So Peter thought. He thought as hard as he could with that particular spot on his head that The Dog had showed him.

  When he looked down, The Dog was gone. On the ground in front of Peter was the bone, looking particularly savage against the civilized green of the golf course’s grass. And sure enough, when he knelt next to the bone, there, growing in that perfect grass, was a small gray mushroom. Elongated so that it looked just a bit like a dog, with a hint of a plumy tail. Triumph flooded through Peter. He had done it! Done magic! All he had to do was think with that one spot and anything was possible: wasn’t that the sort of power every kid dreamed of? Magic even had a taste, he realized; it was a little like chocolate, a little like cherries, and a little like something rich and old that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  Maybe, he thought, power tasted like a sort of mushroom.

  Ha ha.

  So now he knew how to do magic: what next? He was eager to try it again. Something simple, he thought. The Dog had turned a twig into a bone. What if Peter turned a leaf into a cheeseburger? He picked up a leaf from the ground, held it in his hand, and thought with that particular part of his brain.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again.

  Nothing happened.

  He felt the first cold edge of panic but pushed the feeling down. He would just have to turn The Dog back so that The Dog could show him what he was doing wrong. He had been planning to turn The Dog b
ack, anyway; he shouldn’t have lost his temper.

  And that was when the panic turned into a sinking feeling that started someplace in his throat and ended in his stomach. If he couldn’t turn a leaf into a cheeseburger, would he be able to turn the mushroom back into The Dog? He had turned The Dog into a plant. No, worse than a plant: a fungus. And he might not be able to change him back.

  “Umm, Dog? Are you . . . are you in there?”

  If The Dog was in there, he chose not to answer. Of course, Peter reminded himself, mushrooms don’t have mouths.

  “I’m sorry,” Peter said, a little bit lamely, just in case The Dog could hear him. “I’ll turn you back in just a minute. Really. I just need to . . .” What he needed to do was figure out what he had done so he could undo it. But how? There was no room for screwing up now. If Peter didn’t figure out how to fix this, he would end up, in effect, having taken a life, because there was no doubt in his mind that come tomorrow morning, this little mushroom growing on the putting green would be efficiently removed by whoever was in charge of mowing, trimming, and beautifying the base’s golf course.

  Above Peter, the sky sparkled with stars, but now that he was alone, the golf course seemed dark and strangely silent. In the distance, he could still hear the occasional sounds of cars, but they felt as far away from him now as yesterday seemed from today—yesterday, when he was eleven, before he had known about magicians or talking dogs or that special part of his brain. That spot. Peter tried to remember the feeling of The Dog’s muzzle against his head. There. No, there. Pressing his finger to his scalp, he squinted down at the mushroom. Turn into a dog, he thought as fiercely as he could. That wasn’t quite right. Turn into The Dog. Turn into The Dog. Turn into The Dog!

  Please turn into The Dog?

  But it was no good. The mushroom was nothing but a mushroom.

  Peter moved his finger a little to the left and tried again. And again. And again.

  Peter didn’t wear a watch, so he had no idea how long he had been crouching on the golf course when he finally gave up. All he knew was that he’d poked himself in the head so many times his scalp felt like a pincushion. He was exhausted, and everything was blurring. A cold breeze blew in from the desert. Goose bumps climbed his arms.