Black and Blue Magic (18 page)

Authors: Zilpha Keatley Snyder

BOOK: Black and Blue Magic

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Mike was anxious to show Harry the new pitch he’d developed during the summer, so right after lunch they collected their baseball stuff and headed for the bus stop and Golden Gate Park.

When Harry got home from the park that night, it was almost dinner time. He stuck his head in the kitchen and yelled “Hi!” at Mom to let her know he was home, and ran upstairs. Four flights, three stairs at a step, without a stop or a stumble.

He wasn’t even out of breath when he got to his room but he threw himself down on his bed anyway. He just lay there on his back for a while, thudding his fist into his mitt and grinning to himself, while he let his mind go back over the afternoon.

There’d been that long hard run to make a scooping shoestring catch of one of Mike’s best hits. And then there was the way he’d clobbered half a dozen of Mike’s fast balls, and even a couple of his fancy new sleeper pitches. Mike had almost gotten mad for a minute, but then he’d gotten into the spirit of the thing, and he ended up being almost as tickled as Harry was himself. “Holy Toledo, Harry,” he kept on saying, “What have you been having for breakfast lately?” or “Are you sure you’re the same Harry Marco I used to know?” and other remarks like that. Finally Mike said, “Pretty sneaky, I call it. Keeping all this a secret until we got to the park. Boy, if I’d improved the way you have, I’d have been bragging before you had a chance to say hello.”

Harry just grinned and said, “Yeah, I’m the sneaky one, all right.”

But actually, it wasn’t that at all. Actually, it wasn’t until that afternoon in Golden Gate Park that Harry realized what a difference a summer of flying—and growing, too—could make.

His Black and Blue Magic was over; gone with the summer. But it wasn’t going to be nearly so hard to give it up now. It wasn’t nearly so hard now that he was saying good-by to his everyday black and blue at the same time.

That night Harry went to bed with his mind full of great things to think about. There was moving to the country, no more worry about Mom working too hard, and how neat it would be to be one of the good athletes at his new school in Marin County. He was just at the edge of sleep, and his daydreams were getting a little mixed up with real dreams, when a face appeared in front of him. The face took shape gradually, out of a school scene Harry had been imagining. It grew plainer and clearer until it entirely blotted out the dreamed-up picture of Harry making a home run while his new classmates cheered wildly in the background.

Just about the time Harry recognized the face as Mr. Mazzeeck’s, it began to change. Mr. Mazzeeck’s chubby wrinkled cheeks faded and melted and flowed into a different face entirely—a thin keen face with high cheek bones beneath dark burning eyes.

The eyes seemed to be looking directly at Harry, and suddenly some words popped into his mind right out of nowhere. Some words that sounded vaguely familiar:

Mog will not remove a curse,

Till Better Triumphs over Worst.

Till Bad-to-Worse

Has been Reversed

And out of Error—Good has Burst.

Harry was pretty sure it was the verse that Mr. Mazzeeck said explained the cure for enchantment, but the words hadn’t made any sense to Harry then, and he was too tired to figure them out now. He certainly hadn’t realized that he’d memorized them from reading them just that one time.

That’s funny, Harry thought. He sat up and looked around expectantly, but the face was gone and everything was dark and quiet. He waited like that for quite a while, but nothing more happened, so at last Harry lay back down and finished going to sleep.

A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is the three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of classic children’s novels such as
The Egypt Game
,
The Headless Cupid
, and
The Witches of Worm
. Her adventure and fantasy stories are beloved by many generations.

Snyder was born in Lemoore, California, in 1927. Her father, William Keatley, worked for Shell Oil, but as a would-be rancher he and his family always lived on a small farm. Snyder’s parents were both storytellers, and their tales often kept their children entertained during quiet evenings at home.

Snyder began reading and telling stories of her own at an early age. By the time she was four years old she was able to read novels and newspapers intended for adults. When she wasn’t reading, she was making up and embellishing stories. When she was eight, Snyder decided that she would be a writer—a profession in which embellishment and imagination were accepted and rewarded.

Snyder’s adolescent years were made more difficult by her studious country upbringing and by the fact that she had been advanced a grade when she started school. As other girls were going to dances and discovering boys, Snyder retreated into books. The stories transported her from her small room to a larger, remarkable universe.

At Whittier College, Zilpha Keatley Snyder met her future husband, Larry Snyder. After graduation, she began teaching upper-level elementary classes. Snyder taught for nine years, including three years as a master teacher for the University of California, Berkeley. The classroom experience gave Snyder a fresh appreciation of the interests and capabilities of preteens.

As she continued her teaching career, Snyder gained more free time. She began writing at night, after teaching during the day; her husband helped by typing out her manuscripts. After finishing her first novel, she sent it to a publisher. It was accepted on her first try. That book,
Season of Ponies
, was published in 1964.

In 1967, her fourth novel,
The Egypt Game
, won the Newbery Honor for excellence in children’s literature. Snyder went on to win that honor two more times, for her novels
The Headless Cupid
and
The Witches of Worm. The Headless Cupid
introduced the Stanley family, a clan she revisited three more times over her career.

Snyder’s
The Changeling
(1970), in which two young girls invent a fantasy world dominated by trees, became the inspiration for her 1974 fantasy series, the Green Sky Trilogy. Snyder completed that series by writing a computer game sequel called Below the Root. The game went on to earn cult classic status.

Over the almost fifty years of her career, Snyder has written about topics as diverse as time-traveling ghosts, serenading gargoyles, and adoption at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, she lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. When not writing, Snyder enjoys reading and traveling.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4532-7188-9

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com