Any Which Wall (4 page)

“Or better yet—some pop!” said Roy.

“Or a slushy?” said Emma. “A cherry-lime one.”

“Or a root beer float!” said Henry.

Which caused everyone to make the same sound at once—the sound you make when someone else is enjoying something yummy and they don’t offer to share.

“Mmm,” said Susan wistfully. “A root beer float would be perfect. I
sooo
wish we were at Annabelle’s Diner right now.”

Then—in the space of a breath, a moment—they
were
at Annabelle’s!

They were lined up in exactly the same formation, sitting in a row against a wall, only now the wall was made of slick, smooth tile instead of rough dark stone. Instead of the summer heat, they breathed in chilly air scented with frying hamburgers. Instead of the cornfields, they looked up and saw a bustling room full of lunchtime diners and harried waitresses darting to and fro. Their bikes were there too, leaning against the wall beside them.

They all blinked. They all gasped. They all stared openmouthed at each other, but then a big voice boomed at them from above, from behind a cash register. “You kids know you can’t bring them bikes in here. You better get ’em out fast. Before Annabelle sees ya. Now SCRAM!”

What else could they do? They scrammed! They hopped up and wheeled their bikes through the swinging doors that led to the street. They propped them up and sat down on a bench, stunned.

Finally Susan spoke. “What—just—happened?” she asked.

“No clue,” said Henry.

Roy and Emma shrugged.

“Do you think anybody saw us?” asked Susan. “I mean, inside the diner. I mean, did they see us
appear
?”

“I don’t
think
so,” said Henry.

“It was loud and busy, and it’s not the kind of place where people pay attention,” explained Roy. “I guess.”

At last Emma asked
the
question. “Was it … magic?”

Nobody answered her, so Emma tried again, a little louder. “I
said
, was it MAGIC?”

“It couldn’t be, could it?!” said Susan. “Maybe it was an unexplained phenomenon, an optical illusion?” She spoke these words, but her face said something else. Her face, bright and flushed, said
Magic!

“A what?” asked Emma.

Roy explained. “Susan means it’s a kind of trick, Em. ‘Illusion’ is a word people use to explain things they can’t figure out.”

“But she doesn’t mean it. Do you, Susan?” asked Henry.

“You really think this is magic, Roy?” asked Susan, turning to face him. “Actual magic?”

Roy pushed his bangs from his eyes and thought about this. “Like I said earlier, anything’s possible. I don’t know what we found, but I know we found something, and this feels like one time when thinking won’t help. I have no idea what happened, but I’m not about to let this chance slip away. It wouldn’t make any sense to waste it just because we don’t
understand
it. Right?”

“Yeah!” said Henry excitedly. “Why not? What do we have to lose by trying?”

Emma bounced up and down on the bench beside him.

“Oh—my—gosh!” Susan was smiling broadly now, but then she bit her lip and added, “If any of you ever tell anyone else that I went along with this, that I
believed
—”

“What do you mean,” asked Emma. “What’s wrong with
believing
?”

Henry had another thought. “Of
course
I won’t tell anyone. Jeez! In fact,
nobody
can, or it’ll be ruined. That’s, like, the first rule of magic, isn’t it? In all the
books when you find a magic talisman, you don’t tell
anyone
. Magic
has
to stay a secret.” He was very serious about this.

Emma, who was just beginning to discover such wonderful books as
Magic by the Lake
, nodded solemnly.

“Now everyone swear,” Henry said. “Swear that you won’t tell a soul.” Henry looked at each of them one by one. “Swear!”

Susan swore quickly, with a giggle.

Emma’s eyes were gigantic as she repeated after Susan. Sacrifices and swearing all in one day!

Roy appeared cool and thoughtful. “I solemnly swear,” he said, “though I reserve the right to revisit this issue at a later time, since we just don’t know what’ll happen. Okay?”

Henry gave a brief head shake that meant “Yes, okay, sure, whatever you say, Roy” and also “That won’t happen, goofball” before he went on in a rush of excitement. “And I swear too. Okay! Now, do you realize what we have? We have a
wishing wall
! We can wish anything we want! We can wish for wings and to fly, or we can wish for piles of money and then buy a baseball team, or we can wish ourselves right onto the moon, or … or … or … pirates!”

“And I can be a princess?” Emma was shivering with
excitement. The pale blond curls danced on top of her head.

“Sure!” said Henry. “As soon as we get back to that field, you can—”

“Now wait a minute,” Susan cut in. “Even if it
is
magic and it’s ours, I think it’s too late to ride back there today. We’ll miss dinner.”

“What?” Henry yelped. “You’re
nuts
! It’s just a little after four o’clock right now, and we don’t have to be home until the streetlights come on at six!”

Susan shook her head. “Think! By the time we get all the way out there, it will be nearly five, and we’ll just have to turn around and come home again. There won’t be any time for wishing at all, and I don’t want to get home late and end up grounded. Then we won’t be doing any wishing for at least a week!”

“Gah!” Henry was scornful of “thinking ahead,” in general. As a rule, it ruined fun, but in this case, it felt like sheer madness.

“Besides,” Susan said, ignoring him, “there’s something else that has to happen first anyway.”

“What, you want to call your mom and check in? You need to return your library books? You have to call Alexandria?” Henry asked in disbelief.

“No, you bonehead.” Susan smiled. “What I
need
—
is to drink a delicious—frosty—frothy—creamy—scrumptious—root beer float! An icy beverage to sustain me for the arduous ride home. And since I happen to have ten dollars in my pocket, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

With a decided flounce, she got up from the bench, stuck out her tongue at Henry, turned sharply, and pushed her way through the swinging doors.

The others followed close behind, because Susan had ten dollars in her pocket and they did not, and also because, as even Henry had to admit, root beer floats are just another kind of magic.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Henry and Emma woke up early, raced through breakfast (Henry almost choked on a piece of too-dry rye toast), and began rummaging through the pantry shelves.

“What? Where on earth are you going?” sputtered their father through his coffee and his mustache as Emma and Henry ran from the kitchen, his newspaper fluttering in their wake.

“Aren’t you even going to watch your cartoons?” called out their mom as they tore down the hall with granola bars spilling from their pockets. By the time she’d finished her sentence, the screen door was already slamming shut.

When they got to the yard, Emma and Henry found Susan and Roy cutting through the thick hedge that divided the two houses. They could make out arms,
feet, and the shiny gleam of handlebars struggling through the thick foliage. Roy’s head popped through, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, guys,” he said, pulling his body and bike into their yard and brushing off a few loose twigs. “We found a shortcut.”

Roy was wearing his explorer uniform: khaki shorts and a matching shirt. Around his neck was a red bandanna. He appeared to be ready for a safari.

“Will there be tigers?” asked Emma faintly.

Susan, a few seconds behind her brother, pushed her way through the brambles with more than a few loud “oofs” and “ouches.” She looked back at the mess of bent and broken branches, spit out a leaf, and crouched to retie a shoelace as she said, “More like we made a shortcut.” But she straightened up and smiled as she continued. “Good deal that you guys aren’t still sleeping. I was afraid we were going to have to wake you up.”

“Ha! I bet we were up before you were,” said Henry, folding his arms and waiting for Susan to finish pulling her bike through behind her. “We’ve been up forever. We would’ve been out sooner, but Mom and Dad made us eat breakfast.”

“Ours too, which is totally unfair,” grumped Susan. “It was just cold cereal. I mean, I would’ve been happy to wait
for blueberry waffles or something—but raisin bran?”

“Let’s GO!” shouted Emma.

About fourteen seconds later, they were on their bikes and moving fast, with their heads down and their eyes on the road before them. There was none of the previous day’s singing, hollering, wheelie popping, or swerving. They barely took note of the traffic lights, much less the summer leaves rustling in the cool morning air. This was unfortunate, since it was a perfect morning for a bike ride: slightly damp, with a bright sun just beginning to make its way into the sky.

Periodically, Emma, who could not go quite so fast, would shout, “Hey, hey! Wait for meeee!” and the older kids would slow down so that she had a chance to catch up. But even so, in a short twenty minutes, they were back in the cornfields and rumbling down the rough dirt path.

Then, as if it were a ship on the ocean, the wall rose up slowly from the field, as it had the day before.

When they saw it, they sped up, but as each of them came close to the wall, they braked fast, planted their feet on the ground, and stared upward. First Susan stopped, then Henry, then Roy, and finally Emma—so that they stood in a line, each of them straddling their bike, each of them staring.

“What are we waiting for?” asked Henry. And since nobody had an answer, they got off their bikes (which toppled to the ground in a haphazard clatter) and made their way to the keyhole.

“Did you bring the key?” Susan asked Henry.

“What do you
think
?” said Henry.

Susan held out a hand and gestured. Her fingers said “Give it here.”

Henry pulled the key from his pocket but did not pass it over. Instead, he polished it on his shirt, held it out before him, and admired the shine. He’d cleaned it with his mother’s toothbrush the night before.

Susan stared him down. “Come on, Henry. Let me have it,” she said. “Everyone else, line up and put a hand on the wall!”

Henry was unmoved. “It’s still my key,” he said, “and anyway, how do you even know we have to be
touching
the wall? Maybe we just have to be near it.”

“Do you want to try
not
touching the wall and see what happens?” said Susan. “The rest of us will tell you all about our adventure when we get back.”

Roy sighed. “I think you two are going to have to learn to take turns being bossy. I’m not sure we have room in this adventure for an oldest brother and an oldest sister too.”

It should be explained that Henry and Susan weren’t really fighting. For ten years, they had been tussling this way, ever since two-year-old Susan had first tried to fit baby Henry into her pink doll bed.

“Well,
someone
needs to turn it,” Susan said to her brother. “He’s wasting time.”

“But
I
found the key,” Henry insisted.

“Yes, but I’m the oldest,” Susan said, planting her hands on her hips.

Henry planted his hands on his hips and did a pretty fair imitation of Susan, wiggling his head on his shoulders and flipping an imaginary head of hair. “And
I’m
the one holding the key. Anyway, Roy got to turn the key yesterday, and you made the wish for the root beer floats, so it’s only fair that I take a turn today. Or Emma,” he added generously.

Emma shook her head wordlessly at that suggestion. She didn’t want to go first. She
never
went first. She wouldn’t know how.

“Fine.” Susan relented in the name of speeding things along. “Fine, but let’s go! What are we wishing for? Magic awaits!”

So Henry turned the key until they all heard the satisfying click, and he shouted out fiercely, in his best pirate voice, “Arrrrrrr! Pirates! I wish we were pirates!”