27 Magic Words

by Sharelle Byars Moranville

  “Do you think we should give Daddy’s stuff to Uncle Wim?”

  “But he’s not a magician,” Brook said, going back across the hall to help unpack.

  Uncle Wim didn’t do tricks like the Great Alighieri, but he did make Kobi feel safe and loved.

  Kobi settled the top hat on her head. It fell down over her ears. When she took it off, she noticed a folded piece of paper tucked into the inner band. She unfolded the paper. It was a Post-it with a childish drawing of two bunnies. Her name, printed with the B backward, was on the bottom. She must have been about four when she did that. Somehow she felt like it was a sign from her dad that Uncle Wim was deserving of the cape and top hat and wand.

  “Aren’t you going to help?” Brook said, sticking her head in the door.

  That night when Kobi took her bath, she used her mother’s orange shampoo. She and Brook could use it every day while it lasted.

  She found Brook in the bedroom, on her bed, staring at the jumble on the floor.

  “Tell me I can live with a lack of organization,” Brook said. “Tell me bad things won’t happen because there are five suitcases in your half of the room and only three in mine.”

  “Bad things may happen,” Kobi said. She knew that now. “They will happen whether or not you have everything perfectly organized.”

  Brook lay back and shut her eyes. “I’m going to try deep breathing. Isabel does deep breathing when she’s stressed.” She opened her eyes and looked at Kobi. “What do you think about seeing the therapist Uncle Wim knows after we get home from the holidays?”

  Kobi nodded. She had some things she needed to talk about, and Ms. Lake was sometimes too busy to help her with her “math.”

  She took Mr. Popper’s Penguins out of the footlocker. She removed the dog-eared Post-it that marked the Great Alighieri’s place. She kissed it. She knew in her heart it was a goodbye kiss. Her dad would not touch the Post-it ever again. She closed the book and put it on her desk. She put the Post-it in her keepsake box.

  Except for the drawstring bag, the footlocker was empty. She opened the bag and drew out a word. Parsimonious. She didn’t know what it meant, and she’d never figured out how its magic worked. So why didn’t she throw it away?

  She held it to her nose. After all this time, she could smell her mother’s touch on the paper. Or thought she could. She dropped the word back into the bag, closed it, and laid it on her desk.

  She didn’t need the footlocker anymore.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE day before they were to leave for Paris, Norman called and asked if he could bring something over.

  “What is it?” She hoped it wasn’t a Christmas present because she hadn’t gotten him one.

  “Something you should have. In case you don’t come back.”

  Kobi was planning to come back. She wanted to be here when Uncle Wim and Sally got married. She wanted to get up every morning and see Sally’s face. She wanted to eat Uncle Wim’s scrambled pancakes. She even wanted to go to a real American school. But once she got to Paris and wrapped her arms around Grandmamma, she didn’t know if she could let go.

  When she opened the door an hour and a half later, there was Norman with his cheeks flushed from the cold and his blue eyes gleaming. He pulled off his stocking cap, sending sparkles of snow into the air.

  Kobi didn’t see a car. “How did you get here?”

  “Walked.” He showed her a shiny new cell phone. “I found you with my GPS.”

  Uncle Wim was passing through from the basement with a load of laundry. “You walked all the way?”

  Norman nodded, grinning. “Great GPS!”

  “Well, stay until you thaw out, and then I’ll drive you home.”

  “Wow,” Norman said, looking around. “This is a bright place.”

  Kobi realized that Marigold Moonrise was the color of Norman’s hair, which was sticking up as if he’d kissed an electrical socket.

  “Kobi, offer Norman cookies,” Uncle Wim called down the stairwell.

  “Would you like cookies?”

  “Sure,” Norman said, working off his boots.

  On the way through the dining room he stopped in front of one of Ms. Hancock’s paintings. “This makes me think of your painted arm.” He looked at the signature. “It should. Both were painted by the famous artist Patricia Hancock. Cool.”

  “She did all this,” Kobi said, waving her arm. She told him about Uncle Wim and Sally getting married soon.

  “So will Patricia Hancock live here?” he asked, awe in his voice.

  “No,” Kobi said, putting cookies on the table. “Can I tell you something private?”

  “Yes.”

  “She just moved to a special place for dotty people.”

  “What are dotty people?”

  Kobi circled her finger beside her head.

  “Oh.” Then he said, “My great-grandmother is that way.”

  Norman took something out of his shirt pocket. “Shut your eyes and hold out your hand, please.”

  “It’s not alive, is it?”

  “No.”

  When Kobi opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful metal and iridescent glass beetle about the size of a nickel. It reminded her of the one Norman had given her the second day at Horace Mann Elementary.

  “You had to set the real one free,” Norman said. “But this one you can keep to remember.”

  It was hard to read Norman’s face. Maybe he was talking about more than beetles.

  “Do you think kids are ever dotty?” Kobi asked.

  “I don’t know any who are,” Norman said. “Why?”

  She explained about the magic words. “I could see my parents. I could watch what they were doing. Sometimes my dad was fishing, sometimes he was making things they needed like nets and traps and a whole entire tree house that it took him forever to build. I could see my mom doing laundry in the surf and combing her hair. I could hear the waves and the rustling of the trees in the wind. I could smell the flowers. I could see them sleeping under the stars. I saw them every single day. A lot.”

  Norman gazed at her.

  “Remember the day you said it was almost like I’d been there?”

  He nodded.

  “And now I know they weren’t there,” Kobi said, her voice catching. “But they were real to me.” She swallowed. “So am I dotty?” Ms. Lake had said she wasn’t, but teachers didn’t know everything.

  “I’m a kid, okay? Not like a doctor or something. But I think you just have a wonderful imagination. Think what you created, Kobi! Remember, you’re the daughter of a famous writer.”

  Kobi felt herself smiling. “And a magician. Do you believe in magic?”

  “I believe in real magic. What you just told me was pretty magical. Every time I write a story I feel like I’ve done serious magic.”

  After a while, she and Uncle Wim took Norman home.

  “Goodbye,” he said. “I hope you come back.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  When she got home, she went into the room that was becoming Sally’s office. In an open box, she saw Post-its. She wrote I you on two of them. One she stuck on Sally’s purse, which was on the floor in the foyer in front of the bookshelf holding Beatrice Bonnard’s books. One she stuck on the mirror over the sink in the little bathroom off the kitchen where Uncle Wim shaved every day.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ON the way across the ocean, Kobi held Uncle Wim’s hand when the plane experienced turbulence. He was pale and clammy, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the cabin and safely on the ground. He grumbled about how Grandmamma had moved to Paris when she knew he couldn’t stand to fly.

  When they finally landed, Grandmamma and Mr. Gyver were waiting outside the security gates. Grandmamma was waving like a windmill and Mr. Gyver was beaming. Kobi and Brook bolted, leaving Uncle Wim and Sally behind.

  Both Kobi and Brook managed to get their arms around her at once, and Grandmamma’s happy tears fell first on one and then on the o
ther. And then Mr. Gyver was hugging them, and he smelled like toothpaste and the little brown cigarettes he wasn’t supposed to smoke.

  Kobi’s heart danced when Grandmamma opened her arms to Sally and said, “I’m so pleased for you and Wim, Sally.”

  Then Mr. Gyver kissed Sally on the cheek and said, “I’m sorry to hear Patricia is ill.”

  Sally flushed. “Thank you.”

  Uncle Wim, seeming to feel much better, hugged Grandmamma, rocking her from side to side. “You’re looking good, Mom,” he said. Then he shook hands with Mr. Gyver. And then he hugged him, too.

  At the apartment, which smelled so heavenly Kobi nearly floated off the floor, Madame Louise greeted them in French, which was what she did when she was emotional, calling them her precious little mesdemoiselles and pulling them down the hallway into the kitchen.

  Everything was exactly as Kobi remembered it except a million times more wonderful. She was home. And there were the coconut kisses on a plate waiting for them. “But not the madeleines,” Madame Louise said. “Tonight!”

  Under the tree in the living room, when Kobi finally got there, were about a million presents. In the late-afternoon light, the tree twinkled with silver.

  Kobi sat on the floor beside Grandmamma and leaned against Grandmamma’s legs. Grandmamma stroked her hair. “You got a haircut,” she said.

  “Yes,” Kobi said, skipping over her cooking adventure and to the amazing part. “I started a new fashion at my school.” Maybe by spring break, which was the next time Kobi would be returning to Paris, even Lily would have short hair.

  “How are you feeling?” Kobi asked, looking into Grandmamma’s face. Grandmamma looked older, but very pretty.

  Grandmamma shrugged. “I rest a lot. But life is good.” She smiled at Mr. Gyver. “Leonard sees to that.”

  Mr. Gyver looked at Uncle Wim and Sally. “Do you two have a wedding date?”

  “January tenth,” Uncle Wim said.

  “I’m going to be a bridesmaid,” Brook said.

  Sally laughed. “Of sorts.” She explained how they’d be married in a judge’s chambers, but Kobi and Brook would stand before the judge with them.

  “I’m so happy for you,” Grandmamma said. “It’s a blessing to my babies.” She touched Kobi’s and Brook’s heads. “And they will be blessings to you.”

  Even Uncle Wim got tears in his eyes. And then Madame Louise said dinner was ready and they all went into the dining room, where candles sparkled everywhere and Brook and Kobi snuck each other satisfied looks as they ate real food.

  After dinner, when they were buttering and flouring the madeleine tins, Kobi asked Madame Louise if Grandmamma felt well most of the time.

  “She is her old self some days. Other days, the medicine makes her need lots of naps.” Madame Louise shrugged. “You girls are the best medicine for her.”

  “We’ll be back in March,” Kobi said.

  “And we’ll be back again this summer,” Brook said, “for a month.”

  “Good,” Madame Louise said.

  After the madeleines were out of the oven and cooling, they opened the mountain of presents, which took a long time. On one side of Kobi, books, games, stuffed animals, pretty bracelets and necklaces, soft sweaters and robes and cozy slippers grew into a pile. On the other side, cast-off paper, satin ribbons, and torn boxes grew even higher. Kobi could read Uncle Wim’s eyebrows saying Too much, too much. But Grandmamma put her hand on his knee. And when Grandmamma wasn’t looking, Uncle Wim winked at Kobi.

  When Grandmamma opened her gift from Kobi and saw the wide, colorful friendship bracelet Kobi had learned to make in art class, Grandmamma asked Kobi to tie it on her wrist. Kobi had knotted one for every single person in the room: Madame Louise, Grandmamma, Mr. Gyver, Uncle Wim, Sally, and Brook. Kobi had thought her fingers would fall off and she would go blind before she was done with them all. And although nobody knew, she had given the most perfect one to Ms. Hancock.

  Everyone was quiet after the last of the presents were opened.

  Madame Louise stood and asked Kobi and Brook if they’d like to help serve. Even with the clatter of plates, cups, glasses, and trays, the house seemed hushed.

  When the madeleines and tea were on the low table in front of the fireplace, Mr. Gyver poured champagne for the grown-ups and sparkling cranberry juice for Brook and Kobi.

  Looking around the room at all of them, he gave his usual toast, “L’chaim!,” which Kobi knew meant “to life.”

  At bedtime, while Brook was taking a bath, Kobi went to the kitchen for a coconut kiss and found Grandmamma making tea.

  “I know it’s bedtime,” Grandmamma said, “but I’m too happy to sleep. How about you?”

  Kobi nodded and gave Grandmamma a huge hug just because she could.

  “Sally seems so good to you girls,” Grandmamma said, sitting down at the table.

  “She is.” Kobi got a cookie and sat across from her. “Why didn’t you like Sally?” Kobi asked. “Why did you always call her Sally Hancock?”

  “Oh, sweetie, there’s not a mother alive who thinks a girl is good enough for her son. It’s the way of the world,” Grandmamma said.

  “But you said Sally wasn’t Uncle Wim’s girlfriend,” Kobi reminded her.

  Grandmamma sighed. “A mother can dream. And hide her head in the sand. The real truth is that Patricia and I have a history. She stole my boyfriend.”

  Kobi tried not to laugh. But it was hard to imagine Grandmamma and Ms. Hancock fighting over boys. “What happened?”

  Grandmamma’s face had a really-shouldn’t-talk-about-it look.

  “It can be a bedtime story,” Kobi said. “Tell me.”

  “It will put us both to sleep, that’s for sure.”

  As Grandmamma sipped her tea, she talked about living in a sorority house, about parties and boyfriends. She talked about meeting this special boy, Leonard Gyver, who rang her bells. And her dear friend, a sorority sister, luring him away.

  “I could never forgive her,” Grandmamma said. “But I acted like I did and was in their wedding party. And then Patricia refused to take Leonard’s name—that precious name that I would have given anything for! I couldn’t have it, and she didn’t want it. The irony!” After all these years, Grandmamma still looked upset. She drew her robe around her. “And then there was all that fuss about her art. Everybody always talking . . . Patricia Hancock this and Patricia Hancock that.” Grandmamma shook her head. “But I caught up with her after my first husband’s death, dear man.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Married well,” Grandmamma said, beaming. “Mallory is a much bigger name than Hancock.”

  “So were you famous?” Kobi asked.

  Grandmamma shrugged. “In my way, I guess. For a few years.” She stifled a yawn. “I shouldn’t have let you get me started on this old stuff. I’m blessed beyond measure that Sally loves you girls. I wish I could undo the way I treated Patricia and Sally.”

  It was kind of the way Lily had treated Kobi.

  “You’re treating Sally nicely now,” Kobi said. “And Ms. Hancock doesn’t care anymore.”

  Grandmamma rinsed her cup and put it in the sink. “I’m glad you’re kind to Patricia. For my sake.” She gave Kobi a kiss. “Sleep tight.”

  “You too.”

  But Kobi couldn’t sleep. It was so quiet inside Grandmamma’s thick-walled, deeply carpeted apartment. All she could hear was Brook’s breathing and the clock on the dresser ticking. Kobi missed the barking of the dog across the street and the tolling of the bells in the carillon tower. She missed the sounds of Uncle Wim moving around. Although she was happy and cozy, she was eager to get back. She was eager for spring to come and the vacant lot that Uncle Wim had bought to become an amazing, beautiful garden that all kinds of people could enjoy.

  She got up, stepped into her slippers, wrapped herself in a blanket, and stepped out onto the terrace. The stars were so brilliant, and the lights of Paris sprinkled the sky
line with colors. The word iridescence came into her mind unbidden.

  The floor of the balcony was the floor of the tree house. The shush of the light midnight Paris traffic was the sound of the sea when the tide was out. The blanket warming her was her parents’ arms.

  She opened her eyes. She could never go to the island again, but her parents were there, together, and they loved her and Brook. Her mother was not a liar and the Great Alighieri wasn’t a trickster. Real magic was as real as the stars.

  Magic Words

  Magic word, alphabetized

  Use of magic word

  Avanti!

  Lets Kobi see her parents going about their lives on the island.

  Buoy

  Makes people understand you really are sorry.

  Caribou

  Lets a person know you love her and she can go away but that she must come back.

  Carillon

  Lets a person know she’s been forgiven.

  Dilettante

  Protects people from finding out things they shouldn’t know.

  Dimpling

  Safeguards tiny things like keys and beetles.

  Fiddlesticks

  Helps with dilemmas.

  Freesia

  Makes people want to purr.

  Frippery

  Does not make hair grow.

  Hogwash

  Sometimes takes care of mean people.

  Honeysuckle

  Helps find things.

  Iridescence

  Brings moments and memories alive in fine, glowing detail.

  Lingua franca

  unknown

  Malleable

  Helps people decide to do the right thing.

  Mayfly

  Stops rain.

  Montpellier

  Works to make good things of all kinds happen in large, cavernous places like cathedrals, museums, stadiums, gymnasiums, and airports.