by Edward Eager
So it was with feelings of crusader-like righteousness that, five minutes later, the four children got off a streetcar in a part of town they didn't know at all, and stood looking around them.
Lots of people walked past, but they were all grown-ups.
"And I think it has to be a child," said Mark. "Most grown-ups wouldn't understand, unless they're wonderful ones like Mr. Smith, and you don't find types like him on every street corner."
At last they saw a little girl heading their way. The little girl had a baby with her. The baby was very young and fat, and just learning to walk, and was exceedingly slow about it. As the little girl came nearer, the four children could see that her face, while pleasant, was tired and pale.
"She looks as if she could do with some happiness," said Katharine.
The others nodded.
So Jane dropped the charm on the sidewalk, in a place where it would glint in the sun and attract attention, and she and Mark and Katharine and Martha hid behind a rather scraggly privet hedge nearby, and waited.
"Oh, come along, Baby. Hurry up!" they heard the little girl saying. But Baby wouldn't be hurried. It walked even slower, putting each foot down carefully and then looking at it to be sure that it landed on solid ground. And the third time it looked down it saw the glint of the charm.
Before the horrified gaze of the four children, the baby picked the charm up clumsily, and looked at it. Then the worst happened. It put the charm in its mouth and swallowed.
Behind the hedge everyone gasped.
"Is it lost forever, do you think, or will it come up again?" asked Martha.
"It's a long red lane that has no turning," remarked Katharine.
"Now I suppose the baby'll get a wish," said Martha. "What do you suppose it'll be?"
"Probably something horrible," said Jane, "and nobody'll know or be able to help it because it can't talk and tell them!"
"Don't worry," said Mark. "It'll probably just be about Pablum or something."
And it wasn't the baby who got the wish, after all. For now the weary little girl, growing tired of walking so slowly, picked the baby up and began to carry it.
"Oh dear, Baby," she said. "I wish you didn't weigh so much. I wish you didn't weigh anything at all."
And because she was holding the baby who held the charm, right away the magic began to begin again.
Of course if she'd got her wish whole, the baby would have left the earth and gone shooting off into space. As it was, the charm did its usual trick, and immediately the baby weighed half as little as nothing at all, which is still very little. It left the girl's arms, bounced up toward the sky, then floated gently earthward like a piece of thistledown.
The little girl caught it, but it went bouncing up again. The little girl began to cry.
"Shall we tell her?" said Katharine.
"Wait," said Mark.
They waited. And the bouncing did its work. The third time the little girl caught the baby, something shiny flew out of its mouth and landed clinking on the sidewalk. The little girl saw the shine and heard the clink. She put the baby down, and ran to pick up the charm.
She stood looking at it. Then she looked back at the baby, who had ceased to bounce and was sitting on the sidewalk with its thumb in its mouth.
And then, plain as day, the four children could see the little girl beginning to think, and to put two and two together. A look of wild wonder and excitement came over her face, the look of one who is about to make a magic wish.
And it was then that Mark, ever strong-minded, dragged the others away.
"Oughtn't we to tell her the secret?" said Jane. "About saying two times everything?"
"Nobody told us, did they?" said Mark. "I don't think anyone's supposed to."
He wouldn't even let the others look back as they boarded the street car.
"You never know—we might be turned into pillars of salt or something," he said. "I don't think we're supposed to know anything about it. Something tells me."
"At least we know she'll be happy in the end," said Katharine.
But Martha couldn't help wanting to know what was happening right now. When Mark wasn't watching her, she turned and looked.
The little girl and the baby had vanished, on what wild errand of adventure Martha could only guess. But she would never know. She would be left to wonder all the rest of her life.
And she wondered something else, too. After they'd ridden a few blocks, she put it into words.
"Do you suppose we'll ever have any more magic adventures?" she said. "Oh, maybe not big ones like these, but any at all? Just nice little safe ones, maybe?"
"I wonder," said Jane.
Mark and Katharine didn't say anything, but they were wondering, too.
But it was a long time before the four children knew the answer.
Edward Eager (1911–1964) worked primarily as a playwright and lyricist. It wasn't until 1951, while searching for books to read to his young son, Fritz, that he began writing children's stories. In each of his books he carefully acknowledges his indebtedness to E. Nesbit, whom he considered the best children's writer of all time—"so that any child who likes my books and doesn't know hers may be led back to the master of us all."
Look for more of Edward Eager's tales of magic in Odyssey Classics editions
KNIGHT'S CASTLE
$6.99 (978-0-15-202073-6)
The toy soldier appears to be simply an old lead knight ... until someone wishes long and hard enough to call the soldier to life—and to transport four children to the heroic time of knights and castles and sorcery.
MAGIC BY THE LAKE
$6.99 (978-0-15-202076-7)
What do you do with a lakeful of magic? If you're like the kids from Half Magic, you use the magic not only for fun, but—with the help of a talking turtle—to help save your stepfather's ailing bookstore.
THE TIME GARDEN
$6.99 (978-0-15-202070-5)
In the thyme garden, traveling into the past is easy. What's hard is keeping out of trouble. The cousins from Knight's Castle find themselves caught up in one adventure after another when they are given all the time in the world.
MAGIC OR NOT?
$6.99 (978-0-15-202080-4)
A wishing well sets Laura, James, and two neighbors on a series of adventures. But are their wishes coming true because of the magic of the well? Or because of something else?
THE WELL-WISHERS
$6.99 (978-0-15-202072-9)
Just when the children from Magic or Not? think the well is all magicked out, an annoying schoolmate—in a reckless moment—tells the well to get going with its magic or else! No one is prepared for what happens next....
SEVEN-DAY MAGIC
$6.99 (978-0-15-202078-1)
It looks like an ordinary book, but when the five children open it, the story is about themselves! The rest of the book is shut tight—until the children wish for adventures and help the story finish itself.