The Misadventures of the Magician's Dog

by Frances Sackett

  Unmoving, the monster stared down at Peter, a million years of hunger in its pale eyes. For a moment, Peter felt sure that the magic had worked.

  Then, as though helping itself at a buffet, the dinosaur bent its massive head toward Izzy.

  “Peter!” Izzy screamed. “Help!”

  Peter’s magic wasn’t enough. The monster’s jaws were opening to devour his sister.

  Panic coiled into a hard knot at the center of Peter’s stomach. Think. Think. He hadn’t been able to freeze the dinosaur, he told himself, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use magic at all. If he couldn’t stop the dinosaur, was there something else he could do to save Izzy?

  Cage! he thought as the Tyrannosaurus’s teeth began to close on Izzy’s shoulder.

  This time, the magic worked. As Peter watched, bars formed out of nothing, crisscrossing the air around Izzy’s curled-up form, creating an iron box that contained her and nothing else. The Tyrannosaurus was left with a scrap of striped pajama in its mouth. At first, it didn’t understand. It snapped at the bars with its gigantic teeth; then, to Peter’s horror, it picked up the cage in its mouth, shaking it from side to side while Izzy rattled violently within. When that didn’t free its meal, the dinosaur roared and tossed the cage to the ground twenty feet from where Peter stood, Izzy still as a rag doll inside it.

  Still hungry, the dinosaur turned toward the other children. Hunting like a snake, it lunged at them with its whole body, but this time, Peter was prepared. Cage! he thought again, and a cage appeared around Peter, Celia, and The Dog. The Tyrannosaurus’s jaws opened wide: it looked as though it was going to try to swallow them cage and all, and Peter, staring up the enormous tunnel of its throat, wondered if it might succeed. As the beast fastened its teeth onto the metal bars, Peter realized that it could toss the three of them as easily as tiny Izzy. Heavy, Peter thought, and when the monster pulled its head up a moment later, the cage didn’t move.

  The Tyrannosaurus rattled the bars, roaring its frustration. Then it rocked back on its haunches to stare malevolently at them, a cat watching a mouse-hole, just daring the mice to try to escape.

  They were, for the moment, safe. Inside the cage, Peter felt his legs give out beneath him; shuddering, he fell to the dirt floor.

  “Well,” The Dog said, “that wasn’t perhaps the tidiest solution, but still, I’m impressed. Wish I’d thought of it.”

  “What . . .” Peter’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth; he was so tired he could barely speak. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Too much magic,” said The Dog. “It’s exhausted you.”

  “Izzy . . . ,” said Peter, too tired to say more.

  The Dog looked over to where Izzy lay. Worry flickered across his face. Like Peter, he must have noticed that Izzy hadn’t moved since being thrown by the dinosaur. “Izzy?” The Dog called out. “Are you okay?”

  For a moment, everything was silent, and Peter’s breath caught in his chest. Then Izzy’s small blond head popped up. “Is it safe to move?”

  “Yes, it’s safe to move,” said The Dog. “For now, anyway.”

  “Oh, good,” said Izzy. “I was playing dead. I know that works with bears. I saw it once on the Discovery Channel.”

  “Are you hurt?” asked The Dog.

  “My head got banged,” said Izzy. “But I’m okay. Are Petey and Celia all right?”

  “Peter’s good,” said The Dog. “He’s just tired. And Celia’s still frozen, but otherwise she’s fine.”

  Peter turned to The Dog. “Can’t you bring her here?” he said, too quietly for Izzy to hear.

  “I could if I had to,” said The Dog, “but I think I should conserve any power I have left until we come up with a plan. That’s why I haven’t unfrozen Celia, either. We’re not out of this mess yet.”

  “No, not yet,” said Peter. The Tyrannosaurus might be as still as the fossilized bones surrounding them, but there was no ignoring its relentless gaze. “Why couldn’t I stop it?” Peter asked. Of everything that had happened, this was the thing that bothered him most. He had felt that magic travel through him. It should’ve worked, and it hadn’t.

  The Dog frowned. “I don’t know why. If the magician were here, he’d be more powerful than you are by far, but that must have been an old spell, a trap—it should have been weaker.”

  Peter looked at the rock, which had fallen to the ground when The Dog had pushed him and now lay inside the cage. Peter remembered how he had felt when he had touched it; how, for those moments, he had believed that the rock was only thing in the world that mattered. He remembered, too, his sense of the magician calling him. Had there really been a voice?

  “Do you have enough power to get us all out of here?” he asked The Dog. “I mean, could you transport us? Just out of the house, maybe?”

  The Dog shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve done too much magic already. It would be dangerous for me to move three people.”

  “So what are we going to do?” said Peter.

  “Wait, I guess,” said The Dog. “We’re safe enough in here, and if I can get some sleep, I’ll be able to move us tomorrow.”

  “But my mother!” cried Peter. “She won’t know where we are! She’ll be worried sick!”

  “Not much we can do about that,” said The Dog.

  “Peter?” Izzy called out now from where she sat cross-legged in her own cage.

  “Yes?”

  “I know you like dinosaurs a lot. But I don’t think I like them so much. I’m sorry.”

  Izzy was apologizing to him. Izzy, whom Peter had brought into this danger; Izzy, who would have waited in the hallway if Peter had told her to. Peter stared down once more at the rock that had caused all this trouble. It was just a plain rock now: no glinting diamond speckles, no frozen oceans caught within it. How strange that it had looked so different when he was touching it! It had felt almost as if the magician had really been there! But of course the rock was the magician, he reminded himself.

  And suddenly he understood what he had to do.

  “Listen,” Peter said to The Dog, “you may need to remind me.”

  The Dog’s ears flattened. “Remind you of what?”

  “Remind me of who I am.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Peter didn’t answer. He had a plan, and the plan required that he do something that terrified him to his core. No point in thinking about it, he told himself. That was what his father would say, if he were here. Everyone feels fear, kid, his father had said when Peter had once asked him how it felt to fly planes into a war. But the fear isn’t what matters. It’s the choices you make when you’re afraid that matter; that’s what you can control.

  Peter made a choice. He reached out and touched the rock. And this time, when he sensed the magician calling, he let the sound carry him where it wanted him to go.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Peter was lying on his back, and his eyes were open. He was sure of that last fact because when he blinked, darkness descended like a curtain over a stage. Yes, he thought, his eyes must be open, but how was he to make sense of the dull gray surface in front of him, a surface like nothing he had ever seen? When he breathed, the air tasted metallic and stale; and the silence that surrounded him was so absolute that he thought if he listened hard enough, he might even hear the nervous thud of his heart in his chest. He couldn’t remember where he was or how he had gotten here. In fact, he could remember very little. Still. He might not remember much, but there were things he knew, and one thing he knew was that he ought to feel afraid. And he did.

  He sat up slowly, but the view didn’t change: more gray, as what had been ceiling curved down to become the walls and then the floor. It was both like a cave and not like a cave, because even in caves, you could tell what was up and what was down. Here everything was the same, so that if the room rolled one way or another, you would never notice. Peter felt as if he were in a cold gray egg.

  As if reading his thoughts, a voice aske
d, “Do you like it here, Peter?” The sound bounced hollowly from the surrounding walls.

  Peter jumped to his feet and whirled around. There, behind him, was a boy with dark hair and a thin, clever face. The boy was smiling at him, but the smile made Peter shiver.

  “I didn’t hear you,” Peter said.

  “That’s because there was nothing to hear,” said the boy. “I didn’t feel like breathing, and I only do things I feel like doing when I’m here.”

  “Huh?”

  The boy laughed. “You’ll understand soon enough, Peter.”

  That was twice now the boy had said Peter’s name. “Umm . . . do I know you? I can’t quite remember . . . do you know where I am?” Or who I am, he wanted to add, but instinct warned him against revealing how little he knew.

  “Sure you know me,” the boy said. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”

  “Are we friends?” asked Peter doubtfully.

  “Oh, yes,” said the boy. “You’re my best friend.” And he put his arm around Peter’s shoulders and squeezed.

  It hurt a bit, that hug, but Peter didn’t complain. “I think . . . I think I’d like to go home,” he said instead, even though he couldn’t remember exactly where home was.

  “Oh, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” The boy sounded sympathetic, but laughter curled the corners of his mouth. Peter looked around once more for a way out, but the walls of the stone egg were smooth, unbroken by crack or crevice. How on earth had he gotten in here in the first place? How had either of them gotten in here? An answer arrived in his head, like a letter dropping into a mail slot: he had gotten here by making a decision.

  “I’m supposed to be doing something,” Peter said to the boy. “I’m sure of it. Do you know what it is?”

  “You’re supposed to be here with me.”

  “No, I—”

  “Let me show what I can do,” the boy interrupted. “You’ll think this fun.” And then an amazing thing happened. Though the boy did not move, a remote control appeared in his hand, and when Peter looked down, he found one clenched in his palm as well. A whirring noise began to echo against the walls: at Peter’s feet were parked two small race cars, one red, one blue. “Ready, set, go!” shouted the boy, and the blue car drove off with a roar. It zoomed across the floor, went straight up the wall, and, to Peter’s astonishment, sped across the ceiling. In less time than it would take to count to ten, it had circled the cave and was back at Peter’s feet.

  “I won!” crowed the boy. “Although that was far too easy. You never even touched a button on your remote.”

  “How did it drive on the ceiling?” asked Peter.

  “I told you. I make the rules in here, and one of my rules is that cars can race on the ceiling. Now, focus this time. I haven’t had anyone to race before today, and racing by yourself is boring, boring, boring. Ready, set—”

  “I don’t want to race,” said Peter. He dropped his remote to the ground, where it clanged against the rock.

  The boy’s eyes flashed, and all pretense of niceness disappeared. “I don’t remember asking what you wanted.”

  “I thought we were friends,” said Peter.

  “Oh, yes,” said the boy. “We’re friends. And that’s why you have to do what I tell you. That’s one of my rules, too.”

  He had come here by choice, Peter reminded himself. He might not know who he was or why he had chosen this, but nonetheless the decision had been his own. “No,” he said.

  “Listen here,” said the boy, “this is my place. . . .”

  Listen. The moment Peter heard that word, he knew it was the thing he was supposed to be doing. Listen. Listen. Next to him, the boy kept talking, but Peter shut out his voice, struggling to hear what might be behind it, outside these enclosing gray walls. At first, he heard only that muffling silence. Then he listened harder.

  Peter! Peter!

  Was it his imagination? Or was someone calling his name?

  Can you hear me? We’re here, Petey!

  Petey. Someone called him Petey. Someone he loved.

  “Izzy,” he said, under his breath, and he remembered everything. The Dog must have transported her to the bigger cage if Peter could hear her through the rock, he realized.

  The boy was still talking.

  “You’re the magician,” Peter said. “I’m in the rock with you, aren’t I?”

  The cars and remotes disappeared, and a change came over the boy, too. He seemed to grow, three or four inches at least; his eyes darkened, and his expression became fierce and cold. He didn’t look like a boy anymore: whatever had been young in his face disappeared.

  “Yes,” said the boy, and even his voice was more dangerous somehow. “I’m the magician. And I’d like very much to know what you’re doing in my house.”

  Peter tried to speak, but all that came out was a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I want to help you,” he choked out. “To make you human. That’s why I touched the rock again. I could feel you the first time I touched it, and I wanted to explain why I was here so you would tell me how to stop the Tyrannosaurus.”

  “You’re here to make me human again?” The magician’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes.”

  “Because . . . ? Hmm. Let me think. Because you’re just a nice kid who spends his time rescuing his fellow magicians in their moments of need? That’s it, right?”

  Peter thought frantically. When he had decided to touch the rock, he had imagined bargaining with the magician, explaining that he would make the magician human again only if the magician would bring his father back. It had seemed like a logical plan at the time, but here, under the magician’s cold gaze, Peter felt less sure. Still, he had to try.

  “My father . . . He’s at war. I don’t have enough power to bring him home.” Peter stumbled over his words. “I thought maybe you—”

  “That’s what I thought,” said the magician. “You’re here to steal my magic. I may be a rock at the moment, but I’m not going to allow that.”

  Remembering that the magician was a rock gave Peter a trickle of courage. “I’m not here to steal your magic. I’m here to help you. You’re powerless right now, and you need me if you want to change back.”

  The magician snarled in fury, the sound echoing off the cave’s walls until Peter had to cover his ears and drop to his knees. “I’m powerless, huh? Just see what I can do.” The magician smiled, and electricity began to gather in Peter’s head, just as it had when he had first touched the rock: he had the same sense of enormous power rushing through his body, his brain nothing but a pain-filled conduit. In the distance, he could hear the muffled sounds of The Dog barking, his sisters screaming. And another sound . . . it was his own voice, shrieking.

  And then the power shot out of him.

  “What . . . what did you do?” Peter asked as soon as he could speak again.

  “Woke up the rest of the dinosaurs,” the magician said smugly.

  “I don’t understand,” said Peter.

  “You’re not supposed to understand,” said the magician. “Instead of trying, why don’t you just listen to your little sisters cry for help while a hundred or more predators attack them? Your cage was very clever. But the Dromaeosauruses, for instance, are small enough to fit between the bars.”

  A moment before, Peter had been able to hear his sisters only when he concentrated fully on listening, and even then the sounds he’d heard had been muffled. Now, though, their voices filled the cave, as if they were standing next to him.

  “Do something, Dog!” Celia cried. “Oh, please, can’t you do something?”

  The Dog grunted. “I’m trying. There’s just so many! A net over the cage . . . that might—but—”

  Izzy screamed, “It’s over your head, Celia!”

  “Use the stick!” The Dog shouted. “Izzy, get behind me!”

  Peter couldn’t bear it. He launched himself against the cave’s walls, pounding so hard his knuckl
es began to bleed.

  The magician laughed.

  Peter turned, his fists still raised.

  “That won’t do,” said the magician. “No violence in my rock.” Like that, Peter’s body froze. The magician’s eyes narrowed, and the voices of Peter’s sisters disappeared. “So do you still think I’m powerless? How do you feel now, paralyzed and at my mercy? Would you like to see what else I can do?”

  Though Peter didn’t close his eyes, though he did nothing at all, everything changed. He was no longer in the cave. Instead, he was standing on a dusty road in a strange brown land, a road lined with dilapidated houses, most of which had broken windows. It was so hot that the air rippled. In front of Peter, a cluster of dark-haired men bent over something. Peter didn’t remember deciding to move, yet he found himself walking toward them. He couldn’t understand the words floating back to him; not English, he thought in the corner of his mind still capable of logic.

  Then he heard the thrum of an approaching plane. And because in the dark hours of the night he had imagined this moment so many times, he knew what would happen next.

  The men shifted, and a large rocket launcher became visible on the ground. Run, Peter told his legs, though he didn’t know whether he meant to run toward the men, to try to stop them, or run away, so he wouldn’t have to see what was about to occur. Either way, his legs didn’t listen, just continued their calm walk forward, even as tears began to streak down his cheeks.

  I’m about to watch my father die, Peter thought. Because there was no question in his mind that his father was piloting the F-16 growing larger by the second on the horizon.

  But why? Despite the men, the heat, the deafening roar of the airplane, Peter tried to shut out everything going on around him and instead replay what had happened since he had woken up in the cave. The magician had pretended to be his friend. He had wanted to race cars. He had awakened the dinosaurs to attack Peter’s sisters. And now he was killing Peter’s father. Why?

  Based on the sound, the plane was almost directly above him. The men with the rocket were shouting now, their excitement and fear audible despite the harsh foreign words. Peter’s feet stopped. That must mean he was perfectly positioned to witness his father’s death.