Any Which Wall

by Laurel Snyder

  As the guards filed into the room, Emma stood up. She stared the leather-clad brutes in the eyes and placed her palm flat against the wall. Quickly, but without any fear of their spears, she said in a whisper so that the men only heard a ssssssss sound, “Home, Mister Wall? Please?”

  Then Emma was in the cornfield, and dawn was breaking rosy, leaking into the sky. Without missing a beat, she wished again, “Now can we go back? To the dungeon this time? To Susan? And Henry and Roy?”

  The wall obeyed, and there she was, in the dungeon!

  Emma stood at the very bottom of the deep spiral of stone, in the first cell in a long chain of cells, but she couldn’t see the stairs or the cell because there was no light. Not a single speck.

  Have you ever been in absolute darkness?

  Really?

  I don’t believe you, because it doesn’t happen often. Even deep in the back of your closet, there is a sliver of light under the door. Even at midnight, there are a few stars. This was total, complete darkness. It looked like a piece of black paper. It looked like—Emma’s vision! In fact, it was Emma’s vision.

  “But that’s no fun!” said Emma to herself when she realized this.

  As her voice echoed, she heard Susan say in a startled, scared voice, “Who’s there?”

  Emma, now glad that the dungeon guards had all followed her to the tower, said, “It’s me, me Emma. Don’t worry, I’m here!” It felt good to say that. Emma felt like an ambulance, like a superhero, flying to the rescue.

  She heard Susan’s disbelieving voice. “Emma?”

  “Yep,” she said as casually as she could. “Yep, it’s me.”

  “Emma?” Susan’s voice jumped in the dark. “How’d you get here?”

  “I don’t have time to explain,” said Emma. “Give me your hand.”

  As Susan’s hand flailed in the darkness and finally found her own, it occurred to Emma that she’d never had anything to explain before or anyone to explain things to. She was always asking questions. It felt good having the answer, for once. She beamed in the darkness, and with one hand on the wall and the other holding Susan’s fingers tightly, she stretched out Susan’s arm so that Susan cried, “Yow, Em! What’re you doing?”

  But Emma, ignoring Susan’s cries, just brushed her friend’s fingers roughly against the wall and said, “Please, Mister Wall, take us home?”

  The wall did exactly as she asked. Emma and Susan blinked quickly into the field and then out again at Emma’s soft request to be with Henry and Roy. Before Susan even figured out what was happening, they were deep within the dark maze of cells where the boys were being held captive.

  Emma chirped, “Hey, Hen. Hey, Roy!” “What? Huh?” said Henry. “How’d you get here?” Again, with no explanation, Emma grabbed at her brother and Roy. She pulled them to her and pushed them against her wall. Joyfully, proudly, she turned to make her wish.

  Except that this time, Susan beat her to it, and although Emma never quite forgave Susan for stealing her moment, it should be explained that Susan wasn’t really trying to be bossy. She just was an older sister doing what older sisters do. She almost couldn’t help it when she whispered into the darkness, “Wall, I think we’re ready to go home.”

  Then they were back in the cornfield beyond Quiet Falls, home for good, or at least for the night (or rather the morning).

  And then they were turning the key in the wall to lock it.

  And then they were gathering their bikes, wet with dew, and riding home through the early light of an Iowa dawn.

  And then Emma and Henry were at their home, safe in their beds, just in time for their dad to shout out, “Up and at ’em! Who wants the first shower?”

  But Susan and Roy were not quite so lucky. They arrived in their kitchen and were still panting from the ride when their mother wandered in wearing a bright red bathrobe. They froze, and Susan said, “Hey, Mom, we were just—”

  But they didn’t need to worry because (thank goodness) most grown-ups are no good in the morning.

  “I do not want to know,” Mrs. Levy murmured, holding up a hand. “I have a long day ahead of me, and I just want my coffee.” She reached for a mug, groaned, and mumbled something about summer vacation being anything but.

  HOW EMMA AND HENRY managed to stagger through breakfast without their parents noticing their utter exhaustion is anyone’s guess, but they did so with droopy eyes. As soon as their parents left for work, each of them fell fast asleep, and it wasn’t until well after lunchtime that Roy and Susan (who’d had a similar morning) thumped up the porch steps to rouse their friends.

  At the sound of the doorbell, Emma and Henry rolled out of their beds. They splashed water on their faces, brushed the fuzzy sweaters from their teeth, pulled on their clothes, and wolfed down a quick lunch of potato chips and chocolate milk, which would have horrified their parents but tasted just right. Then they headed out into the hot afternoon, vague and cloudy-headed.

  It’s always strange, waking late in the day, but when you have just returned from a magical adventure to fifth-century England, where you have spent several hours visiting with a world-famous wizard, well, when that is the case, waking late in the day is really disorienting. Especially when you still have magical visions to figure out and rules you don’t understand.

  Once they were outside sitting on the porch steps, and the afternoon sun had helped to burn off some of their confusion as though it were the morning haze on a field, Roy turned to Susan.

  “Wow,” he said. “That was pretty amazing, what you guys did last night, rescuing us from the dungeon like that. How did you know you didn’t need the key to go back and forth with the wall?”

  “I didn’t,” said Susan with a note of apology in her voice. “It was all Emma. I got caught too, walked right into the guards after they grabbed you guys. Emma rescued me right before she came for you.”

  “Really?” Roy looked impressed. “I just assumed you were the commander of the mission, but wow, Emma!” He turned his attention to the younger girl. “Good job! How’d you figure it out?”

  Emma rubbed her eyes, which were still itchy with sleep, and answered slowly. “I—I didn’t figure anything out. I didn’t even think of the key until now. I just—just wished. The queen was coming after me and I got scared and it just felt like it would work.”

  “Well, however you did it,” Roy continued, “we all owe you a big thank-you.”

  Emma turned red, which looked funny against her white-blond hair. “Sure thing,” said Emma. “I mean, you too. I mean, you’re welcome.”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” chimed in Henry. “I don’t think I could have handled it by myself. We’d probably still be stuck in Camelot if it was up to me.” He bumped Emma, who was sitting on the step beside him, with his elbow. “Good job, Em!”

  Emma beamed at her brother.

  “It’s important that we know we can do that, blink back and forth without having to use the key,” said Roy, “but it makes me a little confused. Why do we need the key sometimes, but not others?”

  “You’re overthinking again,” Henry said wearily. “Obviously, we need the key at the beginning of each adventure to kind of rev up the wall, but then once it’s running, it just keeps on.”

  “How do you know that for sure?” asked Roy. “When is the adventure officially over?”

  Henry didn’t answer, which meant that he didn’t know, though it might also have meant that he considered “officially” to be in the same category as “technically.” That is to say, in the category of “Things Roy should stop worrying so much about.”

  “Hey, guys?” Emma stood up and turned around to face the others on the steps. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

  “What’s that?” asked Susan.

  “Well, when I first showed up in the dungeon, it was really dark,” said Emma.

  “Yeah,” said Henry. “We know, we were there too, but don’t worry, there’s nothing to be scared about now. We’re home safe
.”

  Emma furrowed her brow and said, “No, you don’t understand. I’m not saying I was scared. I’m saying that it was dark, that it looked like my vision, dark like the color black. I think it was my vision. My glimpse.”

  “Ah,” said Henry. “I get it now!”

  “That’s interesting,” said Roy, “and it makes sense because Emma’s word was ‘friends,’ and we were all there in the darkness. Maybe each of our visions is a glimpse of something that will happen when we use the magic. That’d be neat. We’d kind of know what to look for.”

  “But,” said Susan, thinking back to her own vision, “nobody else has run into their vision, have they?”

  “That makes sense too,” said Roy, “because Camelot was Emma’s wish.”

  Everybody pondered this.

  “I don’t understand, though,” said Emma. “Does this mean that no matter what we wish for, no matter where we go, we’ll see the same thing? I don’t understand.”

  “I doubt it,” said Roy. “I mean, it doesn’t seem likely that the big ugly guy from my glimpse is capable of just popping up anywhere. Maybe we’re just kind of fated to choose the wishes we’ll choose.”

  “No way!” said Henry. “That can’t be true. I haven’t even decided what my wish is yet. I know I’ve been saying I’d pick pirates, but what if I don’t? I could always change my mind at the last second. How could the wall know, or Merlin know, or a bunch of steaming weeds know what I’m going to wish for? I’m not stuck! I refuse to be stuck. I’ll change my mind. I’ll change it twice! How could I possibly be stuck?” He looked at Roy.

  But even Roy had no answer for this. None of them did. After all, wise old philosophers have been struggling with the idea of fate for thousands of years, and it’s unlikely (although not entirely impossible) that four kids would be able to work it out in a matter of minutes.

  Susan tried, though, saying simply, “Maybe it doesn’t exactly make sense. Maybe that’s why it’s magic. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, though, because Merlin only said that some of what we’d bump into was fated. He didn’t say what we’d do was fated. Right?”

  “Let’s hope so, for your sake!” hooted Henry, who felt a little better on hearing this. “I can’t wait to see what you decide to do with that blond boy you’re going to bump into. You going to ask him on a date?” Henry made a romantic kissy face, or what he imagined to be a romantic kissy face, though he actually looked more like a nearsighted goldfish.

  Susan decided to change the subject. “However it works,” she said, “can we please get started already? We have a lot to do today, and we’re getting a late start.”

  So they hopped on their bikes and got moving, and kept moving. In about twenty minutes, they were at the wall, and Henry was brandishing the key with a grin.

  “My turn!” he said. “Arrr, mateys?”

  “How,” asked Susan, “do you plan to accomplish this, being that pirates hang out on ships all the time?”

  “Yeah,” said Henry, “but ships have walls too.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Susan. “They aren’t buildings, at least not the way everything else has been so far. Why don’t you wish for something else? Let’s go to China—there’s a great big wall there!”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “Could you possibly be any more boring? Why don’t we just stay home and watch public television.”

  “Okay, then what about American history?” asked Roy, who liked public television. “We could meet George Washington!”

  Henry fell heavily to the ground, groaning. “Ugh,” he said, “I am dying of boredom at the mere thought! Gah, the boring genes must run in your family.”

  Emma piped up, “Pirates must go somewhere when their ships are getting fixed. We could visit a pirate at home, when he’s on break.”

  Henry looked up from his spot on the ground. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea,” he said. “You’re right. Just because pirates spend most of their time on the high seas doesn’t mean they don’t sometimes set foot in buildings. They must have someplace they go when they’re on land, a pirate hotel or something. We just need to wish to be in a building with a pirate.” He stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants. “Everyone get into position. No time to waste!”

  Everyone lined up at the wall and held a hand out to the rough stone. Henry turned the key and wished.

  “I wish we were in a pirate house,” he said, “where we could meet a pirate—a really bad pirate, the worst pirate in the world!” He added an extra “Arrr!” to set the tone.

  In the blink of an eye, the scenery shifted, and they were all standing on plank floors, surrounded by old-looking furniture. Through the one front window in the room, they could see gray-blue water and sea grasses waving gently on sandy dunes. In another room, they could hear someone rustling about. On the wall across from them were all manner of interesting trinkets hung in an old fishing net, and on either side of the net, tall bookshelves were filled to bursting.

  Emma kept her hand on the wall nervously, just in case they should need to make a speedy getaway, but after a minute, when nothing terrible had happened, she let it fall to her side.

  After looking around, Henry called out, “Hello? Is there a pirate here?”

  Whoever was rustling in the next room dropped something heavy and called out in a deep, quiet voice, “Who’s there?”

  A man came and stood in the door between the two rooms. “Yes, hello?” said the man. “Can I help you?”

  The man did not look like a pirate in the least. He was clean-shaven and neat as a pin, as well washed as Merlin had been filthy. He wore old-fashioned breeches that buckled at the knee and a billowy white shirt—a clean one. There wasn’t a rat or a spot of bird poop in sight. His pants were old but nicely mended, and he had a book in one hand. He stared at them.

  The stare was awkward. Finally Henry said, “We, um. We were hoping to see a pirate. We thought we were coming to a pirate house. Are there any around?”

  The man cleared his throat and smiled. He set his book on a little table and said proudly, “As a matter of fact, you did come to a pirate house. Perhaps the most famous pirate house in the history of pirate houses. Many a ferocious fellow has trod these planks. They were ripped mercilessly from a number of unfortunate ships.”

  “Really?” asked Henry, staring down at the planks.

  “Indeed, though I’m afraid I’m not a very good example of a pirate, myself. Truly, I’m the worst pirate in the world.” It was clear from the way he said this that he didn’t mean what Henry had meant when he’d uttered the same phrase. The man sighed, “I suppose by the standards of some bloodthirsty seamen, I’m hardly a pirate at all.”

  The kids all stared at him blankly.

  “But,” said Roy, “you said this was the home of a famous pirate.”

  “Oh, it was,” said the man, looking back up and nodding emphatically.

  “And it’s also your house,” continued Roy. “So that would suggest—”

  The man cut Roy off with a nod. “It’s mine now, but these walls have known better buccaneers than yours truly. It was my father’s before me.”

  “Your father?” asked Susan.

  “Yes, my papa, Blackbeard, the scourge of the seas. This was his house.”

  “Blackbeard lived on land?” Henry sounded skeptical.

  “Not for long, but for a few years. He ran his ship aground one day, not far from here, just down the Carolina coast. While he was on shore buying rum, he met my mom.”

  “Your mom?” asked Susan. “I’ve never heard of Mrs. Blackbeard.”

  “Thank goodness she didn’t hear you say that!” the man laughed. “How she hated it when people called Papa Blackbeard. Her married name was Mrs. Edward Teach, but her friends called her Charlotte.” The man spoke these words with a fond and slightly wistful look in his eye. “She was a lovely woman. She was shy but oh, could she dance. And sometimes she let me win at cards!”

  “Why are you such a bad
pirate?” asked Emma. “I think you seem nice.”

  “That’s just it,” said the man with a despairing look. “I am nice. I haven’t been able to live up to my father’s legend, not at all. My name is Sam,” he said, sticking out a hand for shaking. “But it was supposed to be”—he choked on the next word—“Junior.”

  Emma shook his hand. She felt very sorry for Sam.

  Henry, who didn’t want the pirate part of the story derailed, prodded. “You were saying your dad lived here—”

  “Yes, he tried to settle down and lead a different kind of life. He fixed up the place, painted the roof, and worked in the garden when he wasn’t drinking, but life on land didn’t agree with him at all. He kept getting drunk and shooting holes in the roof, and then it would rain and we’d all get wet. Eventually he went back to his ship and left us behind, here, in this house.” Sam looked like he might cry.

  “I’m sorry,” said Susan.

  “That’s so nice of you to say,” Sam said, brightening. “It wasn’t all bad. He did stop in to visit from time to time and bring me presents.” He gestured to the wall hung with the net. Tucked up in it were shrunken heads, monkey paws, strands of black pearls, and dried seaweed. “He always remembered my birthday,” Sam added fondly.

  “What happened after that?” asked Roy curiously.

  “Eventually some farmers got fed up with his raiding and marauding and cut off his head. And thank goodness too. Though he was my father, and I loved him, he was a mean, mean man, birthday presents aside. He used to set lit matches into the brim of his hat and make scary faces when he was supposed to be reading me bedtime stories.”

  Emma gave a shiver at the thought.

  “It sounds exciting to me!” said Henry.

  “Parents aren’t supposed to be exciting,” said Sam. “Parents are supposed to love you unconditionally, feed you, and occasionally bounce you on their knee, though that doesn’t work so well when your father has a peg leg. Parents are supposed to be trustworthy, dependable—”