Any Which Wall

by Laurel Snyder

  “I think the magic is being mean!” said Henry, standing back up. “I bet it could let us do whatever we want, only it doesn’t want to. It’s messing with us.”

  “No.” Roy thought for a minute. “I really don’t think that’s it. I still think there are rules, and we’re wishing wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Susan. “You mean like the wish has to be a good deed or something? Boy Scout magic?” She pointed to Roy’s tan uniform.

  “No,” he said, “because root beer floats aren’t exactly what you’d call good deeds.” He adjusted his bandanna and added, “And for your information, I’m not a Boy Scout. I’m an explorer.”

  “Let’s think,” said Susan. “What’ve we wished for so far?”

  “An adventure with pirates,” said Henry, “and the ability to fly. But we haven’t gotten either of those wishes. The magic’s only happened twice, and both times that it’s worked, we were wishing for something dumb.”

  “Not dumb,” said Susan. “Just regular. Root beer floats. Movies.”

  Everyone thought about this for a minute.

  “Huh,” said Roy, “I wonder if that’s it. I wonder if it’s only normal stuff the wall can give us. Maybe, instead of wishing for a big thing like flying, we should be wishing for something smaller. Something—”

  “Boring?” suggested Henry, making a sour face. “How about soup? You want to wish for some soup? Or maybe we should wish for a newspaper, or a chance to clean out the basement.”

  But Emma, who had been listening quietly, shook her head and said, “But we didn’t wish for root beer floats. We didn’t wish for movies either.”

  “What’s that, Em?” asked Susan.

  “We didn’t,” said Emma. “We didn’t wish for ice cream or movies. We wished to be at the CineSix and at Annabelle’s Diner.”

  “We did?” Roy scratched his ear and tried to remember.

  “Emma’s right,” said Susan. “We all were thinking about root beer floats, but that wasn’t what I said. What I said was that I wanted to be at Annabelle’s.”

  “That’s true,” said Roy. “And today, we wished to be at the CineSix. Both times that the magic worked, someone was wishing to be in a different place.”

  “A different place,” echoed Emma.

  “That makes sense!” Susan burst out. “Tons of sense. It’s a wall, after all. And a wall is a place. Maybe it’s like that book Emma just read, Magic by the Lake. Remember that? How they have to wish watery wishes because the magic is watery magic. Since this is a wall, maybe we have to wish wall-ish wishes.”

  Roy nodded. “Right … okay … then maybe the wall isn’t a magic talisman, exactly. Maybe it doesn’t grant wishes, so much as it can become a different wall.”

  Emma was struggling to understand. “So, we have to turn on the wall, and then when it’s on, it can change into other walls—any other wall we want—and it can take us with it?”

  “I think so,” said Roy excitedly.

  “If I’d gotten to wish to be in a castle today, instead of Henry wishing for pirates, it would have worked?” asked Emma.

  “Maybe,” said Roy. “Maybe so.”

  They all thought about this, and it did seem to make sense, so they were all feeling hopeful again when they stopped by Roy and Susan’s house to get a quick lunch before the long walk back to the wall.

  Unfortunately, they weren’t counting on Mr. Levy being home, which he was. This was something that happened from time to time because he was a college professor and had what he called “flexibility.” His flexibility came in handy when Roy had chicken pox and had to stay home from school, but sometimes it was a pain. Like now.

  “How about a treat, gang?” he called out through the screen door as they walked up the steps of the front porch. “My committee meeting got canceled, so I thought I’d play hooky and take you all to the movies! Yay!”

  The kids paused, each counting on someone else to dream up a good excuse. When nobody did, there was really no way they could turn down a trip to the movies without letting Mr. Levy know that something fishy was going on. Roy tried his best, saying, “The early show doesn’t start for an hour or two, Dad.”

  “I know!” Mr. Levy smacked his hands together. “That’s why I thought we’d go get an early lunch first! I thought we’d go to the Hot Dog Shack! For footlongs and slaw! How’s that sound? Yeah!”

  Susan couldn’t see any way around spending the afternoon with her very generous and boisterous father. She sighed, “I guess so.” And the others agreed.

  Mr. Levy had no idea why the kids all seemed so downhearted at a surprise trip to the movies, but he tried in vain to fire them up. “Maybe I’ll buy ice cream after? Wouldn’t that be cool? Don’t tell your mom.”

  “That’d be great, Dad,” said Roy, trying to sound excited but not really succeeding.

  “Woo hoo?” Mr. Levy looked puzzled.

  “Woo,” said Susan as she climbed into the car, “hoo.”

  As he drove, Mr. Levy shook his head. “You kids today sure are spoiled. Why, back when I was a boy, I would’ve loved a trip to the movies. And hot dogs? And ice cream? I would’ve been over the moon!”

  Although nobody was exactly over the moon at the thought of another afternoon without magic, when they saw that there was a good movie starting at just the right time (a swashbuckling adventure about a pirate princess), it wasn’t so terrible, and they did manage to eat a large banana split with extra marshmallow sauce, for Mr. Levy’s sake. It was very gracious of them.

  And the marshmallow helped to ease the pain—the terrible pain of knowing that the day was pretty much shot and that they’d have to wait yet another day to see if they were right about the magic.

  BACK AT HOME an hour before dinner, the kids were sticky-faced and decidedly unhungry. In fact, all of them felt faintly sick, so they headed for the back porch of the Levy house, which was screened in and a nice place to be when the mosquitoes came out.

  Everyone found a good sprawling spot and settled in to rest. Susan took up residence on a white wicker couch, Henry fell into a beanbag, Emma eased herself into an aging Adirondack chair, and Roy found himself a particularly nice lying-down spot under the coffee table. They all sipped cool glasses of water and rested.

  After a bit, Henry raised his head. “Hey, Roy, do you think we could eat dinner here tonight?”

  “Ugh,” Susan moaned. “How can you be thinking of food?”

  “I’m not!” Henry insisted. “Just the opposite. I figure our mom will make us clean our plates if we go home, and your parents won’t, because we’ll be guests and all. Also, tonight is tuna noodle casserole at our house.”

  Susan thought about tuna noodle casserole, groaned in sympathy, and yelled over one shoulder and into the house, “Mo-oooom? Mom! Can Henry and Emma stay for dinner?”

  None of the kids could make out the garbled response that came echoing back through the house, but it had the tone of yes.

  Henry gave Emma a poke in the ribs, tickled her so that she gave a giggle and slid onto the floor. “Hey, Emma,” he said. “Run next door and see if it’s cool with Mom and Dad.”

  Emma, a tangle of legs and arms on the floor, looked up at her brother and frowned. “Why should I? Why can’t you go? You always make me do stuff.” Emma’s tight tummy had turned her obstinate.

  “Because,” he said.

  “Because why?”

  Henry thought for a minute. “Because you’re tiny and cute, and people like to say yes to you.”

  Emma considered this idea. She hadn’t realized that it was true, but if it was, it had distinct possibilities. “If I do, can I make the next wish?”

  Henry looked over at Susan and Roy, who both nodded at Emma. Susan waved a limp, tired hand that said “Sure. Sure. I’m too stuffed to care.”

  Emma, thinking she might want to be obstinate more often, walked next door to ask for permission and came back to tell everyone that Dad had said, “For Pete’s sake! Why
didn’t you ask before I snapped these beans?” Which meant “Okay, okay.”

  Emma slid into her chair again but found she didn’t feel quite as tired as before. “Can we go soon?” she asked, swinging her legs. “For my wish? Can we?”

  “First thing in the morning,” Henry said, slumping deeper into his beanbag and closing his eyes.

  “No,” she said. “I mean tonight! Can we go tonight?”

  “Tonight?” Roy sat up and slid from under the coffee table, bonking his head slightly. “Does it work at night? In the books, kids always wait until morning to make the next wish. One wish a day. Right?”

  “Yeah,” said Susan, pushing herself awkwardly to an upright position. “Maybe because those kids weren’t supposed to go running around after dark any more than we are.”

  “Maybe the wall would let us,” said Emma. “All our wishes so far have been itsy-bitsy ones.”

  “She’s got a point,” said Henry, “and maybe the kids in the books were just dumb. Maybe they could have been magic-ing all night long and they just didn’t realize it.”

  “Or maybe,” said Susan, “they just didn’t like to get in trouble. Do you guys know what my mom will do to me if I lead the three of you out into the fields at midnight?”

  Henry dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Then you don’t have to come,” he said, “but you can’t stop us from trying.”

  “In that case, I better come,” said Susan. “Who knows what trouble you kids will get into if I’m not there.”

  With that decided, everyone fell silent, thinking about the nighttime adventure that lay in wait. A little later, Mrs. Levy called them in to dinner, which turned out to be barbecued chicken and corn on the cob dripping with butter, so everyone managed to eat more than expected, despite their marshy and mallowy stomachs.

  After dinner, they assembled in the Levys’ downstairs bathroom, locked the door, perched on the rim of the bathtub, and in hushed tones discussed their plans, which were greatly complicated by the fact that without their bikes, they were going to have to walk to the wall in what Emma referred to with a shiver as “the darkest dark of night.” They agreed to meet as soon as their parents went to sleep.

  Although their plan was thrilling, it was also imprecise. Henry and Emma’s parents turned in early because they had to open up the pharmacy at seven o’clock in the morning, while Susan and Roy’s parents stayed up late playing a card game in the kitchen. As a result, Emma and Henry found themselves itchy in the bushes, watching for the lights to go off at the Levy house. For distraction, they busied themselves with slapping at the bugs (real and imagined) that landed on their arms and legs and playing Twenty Questions, which was no fun for Henry since Emma only thought of characters from fairy tales, so Henry always won.

  Finally Susan and Roy emerged from their house. Bathed in thin moonlight, the kids set off walking and alternately running as fast as they could toward the cornfields. They were in a hurry, but not in too big a hurry to be thrilled by the experience of running at midnight. The darkness felt like a disguise, and the streets resembled old movie sets in the yellow lamplight. Not a single car passed them as they ran (as though the magic had somehow put everyone else in the world to sleep), and most of the windows they passed were dark and full of sheer blowing curtains. It was kind of spooky, with the trees casting strange shadows on the deserted sidewalks, but it was a good kind of spooky. Nothing seemed quite real. There were bats above and scuttling noises in the gutters that might have been leaves or bugs or—

  “Gosh, this is cool,” said Henry in the dim light.

  “Like a mission,” said Roy. “Top-secret.”

  “It really is,” said Susan. “I haven’t had this much fun in forever,” she laughed. “Not since—”

  “Since what?” asked Emma.

  But Susan had already run on ahead, so Emma followed.

  With their feet pounding a steady rhythm on the asphalt, they sped along in the moonlight, but when their sneakers hit gravel and they left the streetlights behind them and cut into the corn, the moon ducked behind a cloud and disappeared. They all gasped into the darkness, their faces lit only by the greenish blinking of a million fireflies. It was breathtaking, mesmerizing, and as the fireflies began to blink in unison, the kids stopped to stare. All around them, the greenish light from the bugs pulsed like a dream. Was this really happening? Was every night like this—this magical? Why did anyone ever go to bed?

  The corn rustled, a faint breeze wafted past them, and things buzzed everywhere in the velvet darkness. With no way to see the ground ahead or gauge the distance they’d already traveled, the kids tried hard to stay on the path and trusted that the wall was somewhere ahead. They trusted, and despite the tricky terrain, they arrived just as the moon reappeared, bringing visibility with it.

  The scattered bikes gleamed in the silvery light. Everyone felt jittery. The dark, fast run had been an adventure of its own, and if anything, they were more excited about the magic than before.

  “You ready, Em?” asked Roy.

  “I think so,” she said. “I want to wish for Merlin’s castle. Is that an okay wish? Will it work? It’s got walls in it, right?”

  “Merlin’s castle?” Henry asked. “Camelot? Awesome!”

  “Really, Em?” Susan said. “You don’t want princesses?”

  “Well,” said Emma, thinking, “I do, but I don’t actually know any real princesses, just Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and stuff. Roy and Henry said that it needs to be a real building instead of make-believe, so I thought of Merlin because Merlin’s castle was real. I know it’s real because I saw it on the History Channel.”

  Susan managed to restrain a giggle. “Maybe,” she said. “Anyway, you can try.”

  “Besides,” added Emma practically, “if it’s a castle, you never know. There might be an extra princess hanging around.”

  Susan let out her giggle, but it turned out to be a friendly chuckle and not a snarky snicker. She smiled warmly at Emma. “Anything’s possible, Em, but I suppose we won’t know for sure until you wish.” She set her hand on Emma’s shoulder and looked around at her friends. “Is everyone touching the wall? Henry, you’ve got the key? Do we need to turn it again?”

  Henry fitted the key into the lock and turned it until it made a satisfying clicking noise. Emma took a deep, deep breath and, glancing around at the others for support, she squeaked excitedly, “I wish you would turn into Merlin’s castle, Mister Wall!”

  And then …

  It happened!

  Suddenly they were touching a new wall, a different wall, a rounded wall in an empty room. There was a single square window, and together, the kids gathered to peer out over a dark land full of shadows. Under a half-moon, the world glittered like ice. Henry, Emma, Susan, and Roy could just make out a forest of very tall trees, their branches tangled against the sky.

  “Yeah!” shouted Henry.

  They all beamed, thrilled at finally having wished correctly, but then the gloom of the empty round room descended on them.

  “This is a castle?” asked Emma. “Really? It’s not like I pictured it at all. Where’s the stained glass? Where’s the jester? Where are all the servants? Nobody’s dancing—”

  “I guess this is the real Camelot,” said Susan, looking at the empty fields beyond the trees. When she stepped away from the sill, her hands were gritty. She wiped them on her shorts and said, “What a weird room. I think we must be in a tower of some kind. It’s pretty dirty, whatever it is.”

  “Who cares?” Henry shouted, jumping from foot to foot. “Who cares how dirty it is? It worked! The magic worked! Even if this is the crummiest castle in the universe, we finally, finally figured out the magic!”

  This was true, so they all, even Emma in her jester-less chagrin, ignored the chill and the smell and rejoiced instead. Henry and Roy high-fived, while Susan spun in a circle and Emma did a giddy dance for joy that made her look as though she’d rolled in an anthill and was now ve
ry itchy. Then they headed—excitedly, hurriedly—out into the stone staircase beyond the round room.

  Shivering, they crept slowly and carefully down, down, down the cold spiral staircase for what felt like a long time, alert and watching for adventure. When the staircase ended, Henry, Emma, Susan, and Roy found themselves in yet another stone room, a kind of foyer, considerably larger, with six doorways leading off in different directions. Somehow, the ominous darkness beyond those openings seemed worse than the ominous darkness in the staircase they’d come from.

  The room in which they now stood was at least more interesting than the round room they’d arrived in. Besides the doorways, there were jagged-looking spears decorating the walls and a row of small high windows letting in sharp rays of moonlight. Below the windows, in the one wall devoid of ominous dark doorways, stood a massive wooden door covered in spikes and rusty hinges. Roy went up for a closer inspection and found a kind of leather door pull, but when he tugged on it, the door didn’t budge.

  It took all of them heaving and huffing and pushing, but finally the door swung open and they burst out into the moonlight, into a muddy, weedy yard surrounded by more stone walls. There was stone on every side.

  “They sure like stone here,” said Henry, slapping a hand against a wall. “I wonder how long it took to build this castle. I mean, it’s not like they have cranes and bulldozers.”

  “Probably they have servants or serfs to lug the stones around instead,” Roy said.

  Emma felt her sneakers sinking into the mud. She pulled them out and tried to scrape them clean on a fallen branch. “Can I maybe have a different wish?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Can I try again? It’s stinky here.”

  “Not tonight,” said Henry, “but eventually, after the rest of us have had a turn. And yeah, it is stinky here.”

  “Kind of caveman-ish too.” Susan nudged at a stray bone lying on the ground with her foot and wondered what kind of bone it was. “I thought it’d be less Neanderthal and more … I don’t know … purple and silver.”

  They all stared at the bone, then up at the thick walls around the courtyard, which were impossibly thick and about twenty feet high.