The Misadventures of the Magician's Dog

by Frances Sackett

  And that was when Peter got mad. Mad because whatever his father said, it wasn’t life, it was just Peter’s life. Mad because other kids didn’t have to say good-bye to their fathers. Mad because this might be the last time he ever got to be with his dad alone. Mad because he didn’t want to wake up tomorrow wondering if it would be the day his father would die.

  Despite his words, Peter’s father was still sitting there, waiting. What for? Peter wondered. For Peter to hug him? Tell him he loved him? Tell him good-bye?

  Peter did something awful then. Something he’d remembered every day these past two months. He pulled the blankets to his chin and rolled over so he faced the wall. “I’m tired,” he said in a cold voice. “I want to go back to sleep.”

  In the bleak light of dawn, Peter’s father reached out a hand to touch Peter’s shoulder; then, as if thinking better of it, he pulled it back. “Okay, kiddo,” he said, and stood up and left the room.

  When Peter came back to his house, he found The Dog waiting for him on the front steps.

  “Let’s go, then,” said Peter. He was in no mood to be pleasant.

  “Go where?” asked The Dog, panting. He’d clearly run all the way around the block.

  “You know where. Go help your magician. The one who’s going to obliterate me.”

  The Dog yawned. “Oh, that. We can’t actually do anything until tonight. It’s generally better to do everything magical in the dark, when people are less likely to notice.”

  Peter’s mother and sisters weren’t going to be home for hours, and now that Peter had decided to help The Dog, he was impatient to get started. But The Dog’s expression suggested that he did not intend to discuss his decision. “What are we going to do until then?” asked Peter.

  “I could use some kibble,” said The Dog, licking his lips. “And then . . . well, then I suggest we sleep.”

  Yeah, right, thought Peter as he went into the house. As if he could possibly sleep when he was this worried. He fed The Dog, then went into his room and shut the door to make clear that The Dog was unwelcome. He picked up a book and began to read, but the words kept blurring on the page no matter how he struggled to focus.

  He didn’t know at first that he was dreaming. What he knew was that he was walking through a desert, the sand thick and yellow; not like the desert in Arizona, with its saguaros and sagebrush, but like a sandbox desert, empty and bare. The sand dragged down his feet so that he had to fight to take each step, but he was too frightened to stop walking; if he stood still, he might sink.

  He was in a hurry, he realized, to get someplace, but he didn’t know where.

  And then he saw his father. He was standing on the top of a ridge, waving excitedly, and that was when Peter knew he was dreaming, because even asleep, he could not forget that his father was deployed. All the same, Peter tried to run forward; he took one step, then another, but the sand was getting thicker and moving was getting harder.

  His father kept waving, but something about his posture changed: instead of looking eager, he looked sad. As if he were waving good-bye, Peter thought, and his eyes filled with tears. Then he looked down, and his legs had turned to rock, and he knew he would never see his father again.

  Peter woke to Celia shaking his shoulder.

  “Wake up, lazybones. I mean it, wake up.”

  “Huh?” said Peter, rubbing his eyes, which felt unaccountably wet. He couldn’t quite remember what he had been dreaming or where he was.

  “I said you need to wake up! It’s three in the afternoon, Mom and Izzy and I have been home for ages, and Mom can’t figure out why you’re napping. As far as she knows, you went to bed early last night and slept in today. She’s starting to wonder if you’re getting sick.”

  “Oh.” The events of the last forty-eight hours came crashing back into Peter’s memory. Tonight. He had promised to help The Dog tonight.

  He glanced around the room.

  “The Dog isn’t here,” said Celia impatiently. “He’s out playing fetch with Izzy. For a dog who talks and does magic, he’s pretty happy to chase sticks.”

  Peter closed his eyes. He didn’t really want to think about The Dog.

  “Listen,” said Celia, “in a minute, we’ve got to go out so Mom can see you’re awake. But before we do, will you tell me what you’re planning?”

  “What do you mean, what I’m planning?” asked Peter, playing for time.

  Celia frowned. “I mean, what’s going on between you and The Dog? What did you talk about on your walk this morning?”

  “We didn’t talk about anything,” said Peter, crossing his fingers behind his back. He hated lying, and it seemed as if he had done nothing but that these last two days. “We just took a walk, like I told you.”

  “Peter Lubinsky! I know you’re going to do more magic, and I know you’re going to do something to bring Dad home. You have to tell me right now! This isn’t fair!”

  “I promised Izzy I wouldn’t do more magic,” Peter reminded Celia.

  “That was a lie and you know it. And now you’re lying again.”

  “I’m not lying,” lied Peter.

  Celia’s lips tightened into a quivering sort of grimace. She looked betrayed, Peter realized in amazement. Hurt, even. Which was strange, because Peter would have said that nothing he could do could hurt Celia. Hurt was an emotion Celia saved for when she fought with her friends, or when another girl was picked for the lead in the school play. Peter would have said she didn’t care enough about him to be hurt by his actions one way or another.

  He couldn’t involve Celia in The Dog’s task. Not with that word, obliterate, hanging in the air. But he couldn’t exclude her, either.

  “You’re right,” he mumbled. “I wasn’t telling you the truth before. I am going to try to help Dad, it’s just . . . It’s just that I’ve got to do some stuff with The Dog first.”

  “What stuff?” asked Celia.

  “I can’t talk about it,” said Peter miserably. “Really, I can’t. I’m sorry. But I’ll tell you what’s going on as soon as I can, okay? And I’ll tell you as soon as I figure out a way to make Dad safe, too.”

  Celia reached out to grab his hand. “Peter, you can’t leave me out of this. I’ll help you. You can’t do everything all by yourself.”

  “I have to,” said Peter. “I’m sorry, but I really do.”

  Celia dropped his hand abruptly. “Fine. Don’t include me, then. You don’t need me? Well, I don’t need you, either.” And with that, she disappeared down the hallway.

  Peter sighed, smoothed his hair with the flat of his hand, and went out to find his mother.

  That evening, things proceeded pretty much as they had the night before. Around ten o’clock, Peter announced he was going to bed. His mother kissed his cheek and told him to sleep well. Once Peter and The Dog were in his room, The Dog performed the same magic with the pillows, and then he and Peter slipped out the window and into the night. This time, though, The Dog did not take off down the sidewalk.

  “So what are we doing now?” Peter whispered as they stood in his front yard.

  “The rock is at the magician’s house,” said The Dog. “So we’ll go there.”

  “Where does he live?” asked Peter. “Is it close by?”

  “Not exactly,” said The Dog. “It’s about thirty miles away, at the edge of the city. Magicians like solitude.”

  “Umm . . . should I call us a taxi?” Peter asked. He tried to envision explaining to a taxi driver that he and his dog wanted to go to the middle of the desert at ten o’clock at night.

  “Oh, we’re not driving,” said The Dog.

  “How are we getting there?”

  “Well,” said The Dog, “I was thinking we would fly.” Magic. Of course.

  “So. Let’s get to it,” said The Dog. “How do you suggest we approach this?”

  “Approach what?”

  “Making you angry, obviously. Or would you rather channel your magic through hate?”


  Peter shuddered. “No. I don’t hate anyone that much. Anger is fine.”

  “So how are we going to make you angry?” said The Dog.

  “Isn’t that what you do?” Peter asked.

  “Look,” said The Dog. “It’s about time for you to start taking some responsibility for yourself. It’s your magic, and it’s your anger. You do it.” As Peter watched, The Dog rose effortlessly into the air, then—floating about five feet above Peter’s head—started to lick his tail.

  Standing there in his front yard, the sky black and full of stars above him, Peter tried to focus his mind. He started by thinking about how it had felt to do magic earlier that day. He tried to summon power to that spot in his head, the same electricity that had traveled through him that morning, but nothing came. Now that he knew what to look for, he could feel that the electricity was present, that it was always present, but at the moment it was spread out around him, a soft mist that touched every inch of his skin, plus the rocks and the cactuses and the sidewalk and the house. If he wanted to do magic, he needed to pull that mist into himself. Anger, he thought. The Dog was right.

  But how do you make yourself angry on demand? He thought of Celia, but he knew immediately that wouldn’t work; he felt too guilty about the way she had avoided him all afternoon. The kids at his new school might tease him sometimes, but mostly they ignored him. How could he feel angry about that? What else did Peter have to be angry about?

  Then he remembered his dream.

  It returned to him in a flood: his father standing on the hill, his joyous wave slowing, turning increasingly despairing. Good-bye, he could see his father mouthing, although Peter was too far away to hear the words, good-bye, kiddo, good-bye.

  In the dream, Peter had known that he would never see his father again, and that had made him incredibly sad. Now, though, he realized that another emotion had been under the sadness all along. It was unfocused and raw, but it was anger.

  And with that anger came the buildup of electricity and the taste of power in Peter’s mouth. He could do anything, anything at all, and no one in the world could stop him. Fly, he commanded the electricity, closing his eyes to focus on that spot on his head. Fly, he thought.

  He felt his body rising, the ground no longer supporting his feet. For a moment, he was a child being picked up by his mother. Then he opened his eyes and looked around. His feet were inches above the rocks, his head as high as the top of his bedroom window. Peter Lubinsky was flying.

  Chapter Nine

  “Do it like this,” The Dog said, arms and legs paddling through the air. “You’re not Superman, you know. The magic made you weightless, but the actual motion has to come from you.”

  Peter glared at him. It didn’t help that he had envisioned gliding effortlessly through the sky, whereas in reality he found himself hovering helplessly a few inches off the ground. I could turn you into mush, he thought but didn’t say.

  The Dog must have seen the threat in his stare; either that, or years of dealing with a magician had taught him caution. “It’s a little like swimming,” he continued, in a deflated tone.

  Peter, who had never liked swimming, cautiously raised his hands above his head, then brought them down again in an approximation of a breaststroke. His body pushed upward in response, almost as if he really were in water, not air. He tried again, adding a kick this time. Up he zoomed; by the time he stopped moving, he was ten feet above his house. It was easier than swimming, he thought, in the sense that small motions moved you farther. He looked down with wonder at his gray gravel roof, marked by veins of black tar. He was flying! Really flying! The anger that filled him in no way diminished his amazement that he was staring at his house from above.

  “Now you’re getting it,” said The Dog, flying up beside him. “Next try going forward and not just up. The key is to learn to control your speed and direction at the same time.”

  Peter couldn’t help himself: every time The Dog spoke, he wanted to smash him with the electricity that still tingled through him, sending that furry body whirling across time and space. It was such a strong impulse that it was all Peter could do to keep from acting on it. “I can figure this out by myself,” he grunted instead.

  The Dog sighed and obediently moved away.

  For the next twenty minutes, Peter practiced his kicks and strokes and dives. It was trickier than he had initially thought: if you pushed too hard in one direction (say, toward a cactus or a chimney), it was almost impossible to stop in midair or turn around. Flying wasn’t like running on the ground, where you had some traction to work with. In the air there was no resistance, so Peter had to figure out how to make corrections in his flight path by changing the way he curved his body or moved his arms.

  “There, is that good enough?” Peter demanded after maybe twenty minutes of tumbling into trees and slamming into the ground. His whole body felt sore, and they still were no more than a block from his house.

  “It’ll do,” grunted The Dog, who had been silently watching the whole time, only commenting when a car drove near or Peter got too close to a window.

  “Well, let’s get it over with, then,” said Peter. Irritation had taken the place of his earlier dread; what could some old man stupid enough to turn himself into a rock do to someone as powerful as Peter, anyway?

  The Dog gave him the strangest look; if Peter had had to describe it, he would have said it was pitying, but that didn’t make sense. Not at this moment, when for perhaps the first time in his life, Peter felt not the least bit pitiable. “Whatever you say,” said The Dog, taking off into the night sky, and then he was out of earshot, a streak of dirty fur racing through the stars.

  From then on, no matter how fast Peter flew or how much he dawdled, that plumy tail always seemed to be exactly at the edge of his sight, no closer and no farther away than before. This suited Peter perfectly. Away from The Dog’s annoying presence, Peter started to actually enjoy himself. It was like flying with his father in the Cessna, but better. Peter dove down to let his fingers skim the top of a palo verde; then swooped up, up, up, until he was shaking with cold and the air was so thin it was hard to breathe. What he liked best was the feeling of the wind wrapping itself around his body. If he moved his arms and legs correctly, he could travel amazingly fast, and the air responded by curling around him, almost as if it were racing him, or better yet, racing with him, his partner as he flew through the night.

  In the blackness beneath him, swimming pools glinted like gems, and rooftops hid houses as though they were secrets. It was hard not to feel superior to all those people huddled so helplessly below. Theirs was the world of interiors, of small rooms lit by even smaller lights. Peter’s was the boundless world of the night sky. He owned it all: the stars, the wind, the desert below and the planets above. He could hold out his hand, he thought, and encompass the hopes and dreams of the whole universe.

  He let himself dwell on that idea for a while as he flew, following The Dog’s tail. It was a satisfyingly powerful thought.

  And then something strange happened. Peter was flying along, thinking how much better he was than everyone else, when out of nowhere, he heard Izzy’s voice asking him for a glass of water. Logically, Peter knew this couldn’t be real. Still, her voice was so clear that when Peter heard it, he turned his head to answer and was surprised to find only empty sky. Izzy isn’t here, he reminded himself, and then tried to return his mind to the subject of his own superiority. But it was a little like waking up from a dream that makes perfect sense one moment and none at all the next. You can’t just shut your eyes and go back into a vision that daylight has revealed to be ridiculous. How could he be superior to Izzy? That couldn’t be right. . . . And then one thing after another stopped being right: first his sense of being better than everyone; then his anger at The Dog; then his own fearlessness, which now struck him as laughable.

  Below him, the houses had grown fewer and fewer as they flew deeper into the desert. At the same time, the darkn
ess had grown larger, seeping like spilled ink into every corner of the earth and sky. Above him, the crescent moon seemed to smile mockingly. It was all so empty, Peter thought. How could he have failed to notice that before? How could he not have realized how lonely flying was, up here so far above the rest of the world?

  With a kind of relief, he saw that in front of him, The Dog had finally slowed down and was in effect treading water in midair.

  The Dog raised his nose as Peter came near, as if he were sniffing him.

  “Hey,” said Peter when he got close enough that The Dog could hear him.

  The Dog laughed his snorty laugh. “Feeling better, are you?”

  “I don’t know about better. . . . More like myself, anyway.”

  “How long did it last?”

  Peter didn’t need to ask what it was. “Until a few minutes ago.”

  “Longer this time, huh?”

  Peter just shrugged in answer. What could he say? The strangest part, the thing that he was too embarrassed to tell The Dog, was that he could still feel that person, the angry one who was both him and not him, inside his mind, pushing to get out. Peter shivered at the thought.

  “So that’s the magician’s house,” said The Dog, pointing downward with his nose.

  They had reached the outer rim of lights. This was the spot where human habitation ended; beyond was the endless dark of the empty desert, interrupted only by jutting fists of even blacker rock. The houses out here were all expensive, and most were enormous complexes centered on two or three or four acres of land. From where Peter hovered, he could see the curved tiles of some roofs, the flat silver surfaces of others.

  And then there was the magician’s house.

  It was less house than palace. As Peter and The Dog dropped down to the path that led to the entrance, Peter could feel all his earlier fear returning. What sort of power would it take to build a house like this? The front door alone was easily three times Peter’s height and made entirely of copper. On either side of the door stood massive pillars, and next to the pillars were matching spiral staircases that led to a gigantic balcony above. There were windows everywhere, as tall as the door, but nothing was visible behind them: they were windows that were meant to be looked out of, not into.