The King of the Hummingbirds and Other Tales

by John Gardner

The door opened about ten inches, and there stood the horrible, horrible queen of the witches.

  The old witch reeled at the sight, but, bracing herself, she looked the queen in the eye. “I’ve come to ask if you would mind if I stopped being a witch,” she asked. “Tonight I went to burn down a church and, I’m sorry to say, I was converted.”

  “Zam booey!” exclaimed the queen, throwing the door wide open. “Come on in and tell me all about it!”

  “There’s nothing to tell, really,” said the witch, entering the queen’s modestly furnished apartment. “I just want to stop being a witch.”

  The queen took the witch’s hand and led her to a chair near the fireplace where a huge cauldron was steaming and bubbling. When the witch’s knock came, the queen had been preparing a brew that would turn people’s pet parakeets into bats.

  “What kind of church was it?” asked the queen, lowering her grizzly eyebrows. “Was it a Presbyterian church? A Baptist church? A Jewish Orthodox synagogue? Was it Lutheran? Episcopalian? Buddhist? Islamic?”

  “I didn’t notice,” said the witch, glancing about her in confusion.

  “You didn’t notice!” the queen of the witches exclaimed. She bit her lips and squinted, calming herself. Gently she prodded, “Was it a Christ Brethren church, perhaps?” She leaned closer. “Was it a Russian Greek Friends’ church? A Hungarian Emmanuel Baptist church? Was it the African Methodist church?”

  “I don’t know! I didn’t pay attention!” cried the witch. “I had no idea it was important.”

  “It makes all the difference in the world,” the queen said soberly, her eyes mere slits. She studied a spider’s web she’d been working on all day, for in the daytime the queen of the witches was a spider. “I’ve been converted sixty-seven times, myself,” said the queen. “I must say, it never made me want to stop being a witch. In fact, rather the opposite. I suppose it hits some people differently from the way it hits others.” Then she drew up a great plush chair which had a canopy over it like a four-poster bed and heavy side curtains of wine-black velvet, and sat down beside her visitor. “Well, well, well,” she said, “so you want to stop being a witch!” She frowned, weighing the matter. Then she shook her head and reached out absently to stir the brew in the cauldron. Small, grotesque creatures of a kind not normally seen in the world were jumping around in it, happy as lizards, for broiling heat was their element. “Really, you know, it’s impossible,” said the queen of the witches. “If I did know a way out, how could I in good conscience tell you? Think of the confusion if Satanists should turn ecumenical!”

  They sat in silence for a time, gazing without interest at the two skeletons seated on the chesterfield reading through the evening news.

  Then the witch said tentatively, “I did wish I might sell paper flowers and give my money to the poor.”

  “It would be a pleasant life, all right,” said the queen with a sigh. “I’ve thought of it myself. Still, you must look at it this way: we witches have our pleasures too. Can sweet old ladies put hexes on television aerials so that people’s pictures come in sideways? Can sweet old ladies put tree toads in candy machines so that the kid puts in his fifteen cents and—Yipes!!? Or put cats in front of blind men’s seeing-eye dogs, heh heh? Or put wads of gum on the bottoms of bankers’ canes?”

  “All that’s very pleasant, I’ll admit,” said the witch, and couldn’t help but smile, “but it’s nothing compared to stretching out a helping hand to the sick and needy, or giving money to the poor.”

  “Perhaps not,” said the queen of witches irritably, for her visitor had her and she knew it, “but you can’t have everything. Anyway, you can’t stop being a witch just because you want to. It’s against the rules, like trying to stop being a Mormon.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” said the witch. “I suppose I’ll just have to go on burning down synagogues and churches. But my heart won’t be in it.” So saying, she got up to leave.

  “My dear,” said the queen as the witch was about to go, “if I were you I’d take the shortcut home.” She smiled slyly and gave her friend a wink.

  “Whatever you think best,” said the witch, rather puzzled, and she left.

  As the witch was walking home through the forest, taking the shortcut as the queen had suggested, she came to a great, dark pool. The water in the pool lay perfectly still, covered over with dark green like a great, slimy carpet, and you would have thought nothing had stirred the surface of that pool for a hundred years. All around the pool there were gnarled old roots and dreadful looking flowers that mysteriously glowed in the dark like deep-toned jewels.

  Looking into the pool, the witch said to herself morosely, “I wish—”

  “Watch out!” cried a voice.

  “I beg your pardon?” the witch exclaimed with a jump, for the voice had startled her half out of her wits. She looked all around, but she couldn’t make out who had spoken to her.

  “I said ‘Watch out,’” said the voice. It was a large old toad with a tiny, elegant silver crown, sitting on a root at the opposite side of the pool. The toad continued, speaking very slowly—for the truth is he was stupid—“You have to be careful what you wish around here. This is a wishing pool. See all those tombstones over there?”

  The witch looked, and there among the trees, sure enough, were a number of tombstones.

  “Those are the graves of people who happened to stand near the pool and say, QUOTE, I wish I were dead, END QUOTE.”

  “Why do you shout so?” asked the witch, her hands over her ears.

  “I only shouted QUOTE and END QUOTE,” said the toad. “I didn’t want the pool to think I was making the wish myself. A person can’t be too careful.”

  “I see,” said the witch. Then she said, “Excuse my curiosity, but do you ever make any wishes of your own?”

  “Only once,” said the toad, rolling his eyes heavenward. “I used to be a handsome prince, but I hated it. I was lousy at it, to tell you the truth. One day as I was walking past the wishing pool, I said to myself, ‘I wish I were a toad,’ and zam, it happened.”

  “Zam booey you mean,” the witch said.

  “Yes, zam booey,” the toad corrected himself, looking terribly embarrassed. “That’s the expression.” He sighed. “I always get it wrong.”

  “Don’t you like being a toad?” the witch asked, for they were straying, she felt, from the subject.

  “It’s awful, I assure you. You should see the things toads eat!”

  “How unpleasant for you,” said the witch. “But if you don’t like being a toad, why don’t you wish yourself back into a handsome prince?”

  “Well,” said the toad, scratching his ear thoughtfully, “I didn’t like being a prince either, you see. I was always falling off my horse, or knocking my crown off by not bending low enough when I walked through doors. Every time I ran I’d trip over my sword, and when the royal fool told jokes, I could never get them.”

  The witch sighed sympathetically. “It’s a sad predicament,” she said.

  “Yes, it is,” said the toad with a look of surprise. He hadn’t thought of it before. “But tell me, what were you about to wish?”

  “Well, I was about to wish—”

  “SHE WAS ABOUT TO WISH BUT SHE DOESN’T WISH NOW!” the toad broke in loudly, making sure it was clear to the pool, which was even stupider than he was.

  “Yes, I was about to wish that I had never been born.”

  “Oh my! How distressing! That’s the worst of all possible things to wish!” cried the toad, breaking into a sweat. “What on earth can have driven you to that?”

  The witch told him the whole story, and the toad listened politely and attentively, head cocked. When the story was over the toad said, “Why it’s perfectly simple: all you have to do is wish you were a sweet old lady selling flowers and giving all her money to the poor.” Then the toad fell into a brown study. “However,” he said at last, lifting one long, webbed finger, “you must be sure it’s what
you really want. There’s something to be said, of course, for being a sweet old lady; but on the other hand, surely there’s something to be said for your present occupation. What is the life of a witch like, exactly?”

  “We occasionally burn down synagogues and churches,” the witch said.

  “Hmm,” said the toad and winced, barely hiding his disgust.

  “And we mix up babies in their cradles, so they grow up in the wrong families, and the rich ones feel foolishly good about themselves, and the poor ones that were supposed to be rich grow up feeling inferior.”

  “Hmm,” said the toad once again, this time smiling to himself.

  “And we change the signs on city busses and trains so that people get on and ride and ride for hours. And we put salt in people’s sugar bowls and sugar in people’s salt cellars. And we buy things on people’s credit cards, and drop pencils down into people’s pianos, and make holes in people’s change pockets and—”

  “Really?” said the toad excitedly. “Really? Really? What else?”

  “Well, let me see,” said the witch. “Sometimes we put sand in people’s gas tanks. And sometimes, on Halloween, we put cherry bombs in people’s fireplaces.”

  “Good heavens!” cried the toad. “Isn’t that rather likely to damage the flue?”

  “We only do it on Halloween,” said the witch. “But you can see why I want to get into some other line.”

  “Hmm,” said the toad, looking up at the sky and smiling from ear to ear, scratching his elbow. “Hmmmmm.”

  “Yes, I’ve definitely decided,” said the witch, and she stepped to the edge of the wishing pool. “I wish,” she said, shutting her eyes and folding her hands tightly, “I wish I were a sweet old lady selling flowers in the city and giving away my money to the poor!”

  That very instant the witch vanished. She reappeared standing on a corner in the city selling yellow paper flowers and giving away all her money to the poor. Snow fell dismally all around her and the cold made her fingers blue; she shivered and coughed and hugged herself in her shawl and she cried out, “Paper flowers” in a feeble little voice. Nevertheless, she was serenely happy, for doing good nearly always makes people happy.

  Meanwhile, back at the wishing pool, the toad sat looking up at the sky thoughtfully and scratching his chin. He scratched and thought, and thought and scratched, for a long, long time. At last, in a loud, clear voice he said to the pool, “I WISH I WERE A WITCH!”

  Instantly, with a great, glorious smile, the toad vanished. And ever after that day, the toad was the happiest witch in all the kingdom.

  The Pear Tree

  The most beautiful pear tree in the world,” said the king of the elves.

  “The most beautiful, yes,” said the queen. Her eyes shone.

  “Ah!” said all the elves.

  Then they turned it into a dewdrop and hid it in a rose and laughed with glee, and they sat down to watch.

  Along came a knight all in armor of yellow gold, and drew up his horse where he knew by experience the pear tree stood, and tied up his horse and got down. He looked where he knew the pear tree was, but the pear tree was gone. He scowled and tipped up his helmet and reconsidered and looked to the left, but still it was not there, nor was it to the right. It was nowhere. “Ruined,” said the knight, looking up toward heaven. Then he noticed the rose and went over to it and said to himself, “Since I can’t take the princess the perfect pear, maybe I should take her this rose, and maybe she’ll be so touched she’ll ask her father the king of the people to stop and reconsider.”

  He reached out toward the rose, his forehead thoughtful, and the elves waited tensely, for it seemed unnatural that a knight should pass their test; but then, sure enough, the knight drew back his hand. “Ha,” he said. “She’d laugh in my face.” He went back to his horse and rode away, and the elves laughed till their faces were wet with tears.

  “Hush!” said the king of the elves.

  “Hush!” said the queen.

  Along came a rich merchant, riding in a carriage of yellow gold, and he stopped where he knew the pear tree was. He pointed, and two of his servants got out to look for the pear tree, but it was nowhere.

  The merchant scowled, banged the dottle from his pipe, then got down, huffing and puffing, to see for himself. But still no pear tree. “Blast,” said the merchant. One of the servants said, “Shall I cut you a rose, sir?” He stood prepared to cut off the rose with some scissors.

  The merchant waved it away in disgust. “Let’s go home.”

  Again the elves laughed merrily, but only for a moment. For hardly was the merchant out of sight when who should come along but a well-known poet with a solid gold walking stick. The poet saw that the pear tree was gone, which was more or less what he’d expected, and noticed the rose and went over to stand by it, hands on hips. He shook his head sadly and extemporized, making as original a poem as he knew how:

  O Rose, thou art sick!

  The invisible bug

  That flies in the whirlwind

  To give you a hug,

  Has found out your bed

  Of red, red light,

  And his dark, secret love

  Has given you blight.

  He snapped the rose from the stem, considered it a moment, then dropped it to the ground. The elves all dashed out to put the dewdrop back in.

  The poet looked up at the clouds and frowned, then thought about the rose. “I should take it back to the princess,” he said to himself, “as a metaphor of the shortness of life and the certainty of failure.” But on second thought he said, “She’d never get it.” So he went his way.

  The elves laughed nervously, not certain they got it either.

  Then came Eddie.

  Eddie was the only son of a poor Jewish blacksmith. He was a quiet, soft-spoken boy who was fat and wore spectacles and had read, in perfect innocence, many books. Every night before he went to bed he put out a saucer of milk for the elves, under the misapprehension (from something he’d read) that elves like milk. The elves were touched by this, and they drank the milk, winter and summer, though milk made them gag. When the king of the people said, “My daughter is old enough to marry, so I will give her hand to whoever brings her a single perfect pear,” Eddie’s old father and mother said, “Eddie, why don’t you see can you marry the princess? You’re a good boy, you ought to be a prince.”

  He didn’t believe he had a chance, but he said, “I’ll give it a try.” So now he had come to where the pear tree was, and he looked and saw, as the others had seen, no pear tree.

  He put his fists on his hips.

  Although he had never believed he had a chance, he was more disappointed than he’d imagined he would be, for the princess was beautiful and gentle and they liked the same things, and it’s royal marriages like that that make kingdoms safe and happy. In fact he was so sad he had to take off his glasses and wipe them. The elves crossed their fingers and began to worry that the test was unreasonably hard.

  But when Eddie had wiped his glasses, he noticed the rose, and immediately, without thinking, he picked it up and carried it away with him. And the elves danced with glee.

  As luck would have it, it began to rain, and Eddie had to run, his stomach bouncing up and down and his cheeks puffing out and in. Twice the dewdrop fell out of the rose and the elves had to sort through the raindrops for it and sneak it back into the rose in Eddie’s hand. Then at last he was home.

  “So where’s the pear?” Eddie’s mama said.

  “The tree’s disappeared,” said Eddie, and sighed.

  “Disappeared?” she said. “It was there this morning. I saw it with these two eyes!”

  Eddie shrugged. “Well, now it’s gone, Mama.” He put out milk for the elves, with an umbrella to keep the rain off, and he went up to his bed with a book.

  Weeks passed. All he did with the rose was look at it sometimes in the morning and sigh a little, thinking how he’d missed out on marrying the nicest girl in all the k
ingdom. The elves shook their heads.

  “I’d have sworn he’d take it to the princess,” said the king of the elves.

  “Well, you were wrong,” said the queen. “You and your ideas.”

  “Well, you went along with it,” said the king. “You didn’t believe me you should have said no. You think I’m God, maybe?”

  “Oy vay,” said the queen. “Always God. All he can talk about is God. He should have been a rabbi.”

  For two weeks after that they didn’t speak.

  But the rose never withered, because of the magical dewdrop, which was really the pear tree, the most beautiful pear tree in the world. Eventually Eddie noticed this. “Funny rose,” he said to himself, and interlaced his fingers. The next morning he looked again, and still no withering. He decided to give it to the princess, for no special reason. He was in love.

  He said, “Hey, Papa, I have to run over to the castle.”

  “Castle, Eddie?” his papa said.

  “Oh, I got this funny rose,” Eddie said. “I thought I’d give it to the princess.”

  “That’s a good boy,” Eddie’s papa said. “She’ll like it.”

  So he went to the castle, and the elves all rode in his hair, as light as feathers.

  The guards said, “You want something, man?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Eddie said, removing his glasses. “I picked up this funny rose somewhere. What’s interesting about it is, it never seems to wither. Funny?”

  “Funny, sure,” the guards said. “How we know you telling the truth?”

  Eddie thought about it, then he shrugged. “So keep it awhile,” he said. And he gave it to the guards at the gate and walked back home.

  The queen of the elves said, “This kid’s a loser. Why didn’t we leave her have the knight with the yellow-gold clothes?”

  “Pah,” said the king of the elves, “better the merchant. Security. What do you think it would be like, living with a knight. Always away on the road someplace. No, better a good, steady merchant.”

  “Ech,” said the queen. “He was too old. Better the poet, except he was a string bean.”