Magic Street (12 page)

"I'll do my homework the minute I get home."

"Don't wait dinner for me, what I'm saying."

"I won't."

She got in the car and backed out of the driveway and pulled out into the street. He watched her out of sight, then went into the house and took a shower.

When he came out, he heard a voice from the kitchen. "Mack Street, when you get dressed, would you mind coming in here and talking to me?" It was Mrs. Tucker, Ceese's mom. It was plain she knew that Miz Smitcher was gone, so it was Mack she wanted to talk to. She didn't sound agitated—in fact, she sounded downright perky. But it wasn't like adults came calling on him every day. Had to be something wrong, and had to be she thought he had something to do with it or knew something about it, so whatever it was, Mack was probably going to wish it wasn't happening.

Didn't make him dress any faster; didn't make him dress any slower. He'd find out what it was, deal with it as best he could. Mack wasn't one to worry, or at least he didn't go to great lengths to avoid facing whatever was coming at him.

Once he had his briefs on, he paused for a moment before putting on his pants. They weren't too dirty to wear—though they did look as though they had made the passage through the woods. Thing is, he wasn't sure he could trust them. He'd read plenty of stories about magic stuff that disappeared at midnight or some other inconvenient time. But at least he'd have his briefs on, if the pants vanished off his butt. So he pulled on the pants and padded into the kitchen where Mrs. Tucker was sipping tea and looking a little tense.

Ceese was sitting in the chair next to her. Well, that was no big deal, Ceese probably didn't have a morning class.

"It's just a little thing," she said. "Hardly worth mentioning, but it's been bothering me since it happened last night." And then she stopped.

Mack looked at Ceese, who was staring at the table looking solemn.

"I brought Ceese along because he's going to be a policeman now," said Mrs. Tucker. "Not that I think any crime has been committed!"

"And not that I know a thing about police work yet," said Ceese. "I just signed up to train for the test."

"You're going to be a cop?" asked Mack, fascinated. "You never hit anybody in your life."

"I did so," said Ceese, "but that ain't what decides you on being a cop. The idea is you try not to hit anybody, but if you have to, then you know how. Same thing with guns. You hope to be a cop who never has to fire a gun at a person, but if the time comes when you got no choice, then you know how to do it right."

"So why you doing it, Ceese?" asked Mack. "I thought you were going to build bridges."

"I was going to design electronics," said Ceese. "Lots of different kinds of engineering, Mack.

But I was bored. Didn't feel like anything I was doing mattered to anybody. Being a cop, now, that matters. You make a difference. You keep people safe."

"Like you looked after me," said Mack.

"Like that."

"So what do you think I done wrong?"

"No," protested Mrs. Tucker. "We don't think you did a thing that's wrong. In fact, if you did it, then it definitely wasn't wrong, but I just have to know."

"Know what?" asked Mack.

"What happened to the leftover chili I was heating up for Winston and me for supper last night."

Mack knew at once what happened to it, and it pissed him off. If the magic at Skinny House could arrange for half a dozen copies of his pants to hang from hooks in a closet, why couldn't it simply copy Mrs. Tucker's chili out of her fridge instead of stealing it?

But he couldn't very well say so. He could just imagine how they'd react if he said, I ate it, but not from your fridge, it got magically transported to the fridge at an invisible house down the street, so when I ate it I didn't know I was eating yours. But it sure was delicious. I did my hot-mouth dance when I ate it.

"That's what we don't know," said Ceese patiently.

Mack just sat there, looking back and forth between them.

"I was preparing dinner," said Mrs. Tucker. "I checked in the fridge to make sure there was enough chili for the two of us, and there was. And then I went to the sink and washed the corn on the cob and cut up some bananas to put with a can of mandarin oranges to make a little fruit salad. And when I came back from the can opener with the oranges to drain off the liquid into the sink, there was the chili dish, freshly washed and still wet, in the drain-dry beside the sink. And a spoon."

"Somebody snuck in and ate your chili and washed the dish while you were opening the mandarin oranges?" asked Mack.

Ceese gave the tiniest sigh.

"I'm just so afraid I'm losing my mind," said Mrs. Tucker. "I was hoping you'd tell me that... that you perhaps did it as a prank. Meaning no harm. I'd be so relieved to know that it was you, and that I'm not crazy."

"You not crazy," said Mack.

"Then you did it?" said Ceese, sounding calm but also just the tiniest bit incredulous.

Mack shrugged. "I was not in your kitchen yesterday or last night, Mrs. Tucker."

"Where were you?" asked Ceese.

Mack looked at him calmly. "You asking for my alibi, Officer?"

Ceese got a small smile. "I guess so, Mack Street."

"Got no alibi," said Mack. "I was walking around in the neighborhood and in the woods and I slept under a tree last night with a big black cat. I reckon that cat ain't much of an alibi."

"But you didn't eat Mom's chili," said Ceese.

"I was not in your kitchen yesterday."

"I just can't imagine," said Mrs. Tucker, "why somebody would eat my chili and then wash the dishes."

"I think," said Ceese, "we're not quite ready to start an urban legend about a sneak thief called

'Tidy Boy' who steals food from fridges while the cook is in the kitchen, and washes up without a soul noticing he's even there."

Magic always found a way to be cruel. Mack couldn't even have a chili supper without hurting somebody.

"Mrs. Tucker," said Mack, "I can't tell you what happened to your chili, but I can promise you this. You're not going crazy, you're not getting old, something really happened, but if you keep talking about it people going to think you crazy. So maybe you better let it go."

For the first time, Ceese got real alert. He didn't say anything, but now he was looking at Mack real steady, and the amusement was gone.

"Do you think so, Mack?" asked Mrs. Tucker. "I know it's silly, you're only a boy, what would you know?"

"I know that the chili was really in your fridge when you saw it. I know you didn't accidently eat it and wash up afterward and then forget you did."

"How do you know, Mack?" she said plaintively. "How can I know you really know?"

"Doubt me if you want, but I know everything happened just the way it seemed to you, and you didn't forget anything. That's the best I can do."

She looked at him searchingly, then reached out and clutched at his hands, there on the table.

"Mack, you're an angel to say that to me. I know Ceese doesn't believe me, though he's too kind ever to say so. I just needed somebody to believe me."

"I do, Mrs. Tucker."

"Well then," she said. "I'll just wash up my cup..."

She stood up.

"I'll do that, Mrs. Tucker," said Mack. "I like washing dishes."

"You do? That's very strange of you," she said, and then laughed. It sounded only a little hysterical. "But very nice."

Ceese left with her out the back door, but as Mack expected, he was back before Mack finished drying the cup and saucer and spoon and putting them away.

"All right, Mack, what was all that about?"

"Ceese, why should I tell you?" said Mack.

"Cause I think my mother is losing her mind and if you know some reason I shouldn't think that, you better tell me."

"That's not good enough," said Ceese. "Just your word like that?"

"I ever lie to you, Ceese?" asked Mack.

"Not telling me the whole story, that's the same as a lie."

"Not if I don't pretend that it's the whole story when it's not."

"So you're going to keep it a secret."

Mack laughed. "All right, Ceese, I'll tell you. I went into an invisible house four doors up from Coliseum on Cloverdale, between Chandresses' and Snipes', and in that house I got hungry and opened the fridge and there was your mama's chili in a glass dish. I nuked it for two minutes, ate it, did the warpath dance cause it was so spicy, then I washed the dish and spoon and put them in the dish drain in that house."

Ceese shook his head. "So you're not going to tell me."

"I suppose it's better you think I'm a liar than you think I'm wacked out," said Mack. "Except that if I'm a liar, you're going to think your mama losing it when she ain't. And you also won't trust my word, but I never lied to you, Ceese, and I didn't start now."

"An invisible house."

"It's only invisible from the street," said Mack. "You get closer, it gets bigger."

"Show me."

"I don't know if I can," said Mack. "Maybe I'm the only one can see it."

Ceese shook his head. "Mack Street, I'm going to hold you to this. You going to show me."

"I can try. I just... maybe you'll see it, maybe you won't. I see a lot of things I don't tell people about," said Mack. "They just think I'm crazy. Miz Smitcher, she showed me early on that I better not tell what I see. It just makes folks upset."

Ceese's face looked cold and distant. "Let's go now," he said.

Mack led him down to the place and all the time he was half afraid that it wouldn't be there anymore, that weird spot in the sidewalk where you could see Skinny House out of the corner of your eye. But it was there.

"You see that?" asked Mack.

"See what?" straight up Cloverdale and then step backward and forward.

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to see."

Mack shook his head. "It's there. But like I thought, you can't see it."

Ceese sighed. "Mack, I don't even know why you doing this. It's one thing to make my mama feel better, I don't blame you for that, but telling this stuff to me when it's just us two—"

Mack didn't hear him finish the sentence, because he figured the only proof he had was to have Ceese watch him disappear. That must be what happened when Mack went into Skinny House, so he'd do it when Ceese was watching.

So Mack lined himself up with the thin vertical line of Skinny House and then strode right toward it. As before, it grew wider until it was the full width of a house. He reached out far enough to touch the front door, then turned around.

There was Ceese on the sidewalk, looking around every which way, trying to see where Mack went.

Mack opened the front door and went inside.

There was nobody there. And not a stick of furniture. Nothing in the kitchen, either. No fridge, no dishes in the cupboard, nothing.

But there were five pairs of pants in the closet, hanging from hooks. And when he checked the pockets, five dollars in each of them. Mack took all the bills and put them in different pockets of his pants. Then he went back out the front door and jogged toward the sidewalk.

Ceese was a few paces away, and partly out in the street, still looking for him. Mack called to him, but Ceese couldn't hear him. Not till Mack actually set foot on the sidewalk. Then he whirled around.

"Where were you?" Ceese demanded.

"Watch me carefully," said Mack. "Your eyes right on me."

Ceese watched. Mack stepped off the sidewalk. Skinny House disappeared and Mack clearly did not.

"Shit," said Mack. "All right, look away, but keep me visible in the corner of your eye."

Ceese rolled his eyes, but did as Mack had ordered.

This time when Mack stepped off the sidewalk, Skinny House grew larger and Ceese whirled around to see what had happened to Mack. Mack walked right back to the sidewalk and reappeared right in front of Ceese's eyes.

"Of course I can't disappear," said Mack. "It's not my magic, it's the magic of Skinny House. It's not like I can disappear by stepping off the sidewalk anywhere else in Baldwin Hills."

"You been magic the whole time I looked after you?"

"I'm not magic!" said Mack, and now he was getting a little angry. "Or can't you hear me?"

"I hear you, I just don't—I never saw anything like that before."

"You seen it all the time," said Mack. "In movies and on TV"

"Yeah, but they fake it."

"But do you know how they fake it?"

"Not exactly, but it has something to do with... hell, I don't know."

"You don't know how to do it, it's magic to you." Mack held out his hand.

"What," asked Ceese.

"Take my hand and look up the street. Don't look toward the houses at all. Stand right... right there."

Ceese obeyed.

"Now, when I pull you, you just follow, but don't look where we're going." When he could see that Ceese was following orders, Mack stepped off the sidewalk and headed toward Skinny House.

He half expected to feel Ceese's hand vanish from his, or to have the grass just be the grass between the two visible houses.

But no, Skinny House loomed, and Ceese's hand stayed in Mack's, and in a moment they were standing on the front porch and Ceese was looking back and forth between the neighboring houses and touching the door and the walls, saying, "Good Lord."

"Ceese, I know the Lord got nothing to do with this, and I'm pretty sure that it ain't good."

WORD Mack and Ceese stood on the back porch of Skinny House, looking at the orange trees and the rusty barbecue and the umbrella-style clothesline.

"We're standing on the back porch of an invisible house, and you still don't believe me?" said Mack.

"Well, there wasn't a fridge in the kitchen, either," said Ceese.

"Because it was your mama's fridge. It was probably all your mama's stuff. I showed you the pants. I showed you the claw marks and the bloodstains. I showed you the five-dollar bills I took out of all the pockets."

"That doesn't prove anything. Lots of people got more five-dollar bills than that."

"But not me," said Mack.

"Miz Smitcher didn't up your allowance?"

"Ceese, you gave me the original five dollars."

Ceese hooted. "That was three years ago!"

"I don't spend much."

"Mack, I believe you, of course I do. But it takes getting used to."

"What's to get used to? Either it's in front of your face or it isn't. This is, so you got to believe it."

"And if it isn't in front of my face?"

"Then you got to have faith."

"When you have faith in something a lot of other people believe, then you a member of the church," said Ceese. "When you have faith in something nobody believes, then you a complete wacko."

"Well, I believe it and so do you, so between us, we half a wacko each."

"And you been keeping secrets like this your whole life?"

"Nothing like this. I only found this place yesterday."

"And there was a man in the house."

"I call him Mr. Christmas." For right now, Mack wasn't interested in bringing Puck's real name into the conversation. He had a feeling that might make things too strange for Ceese.

"Cause he looks like Santa Claus?"

"Well, then, the name 'Mr. Christmas' make perfect sense. I always think of Bob Marley at Christmastime."

"I wish I knew where he was," said Mack. "He could explain things to you a lot better than me.

Except that he lies all the time."

"All the time?"

"No. He tells the truth just enough to keep you from knowing what's what."

"Well, then, I can't wait to meet him. I don't have half enough liars in my life."

"Come on out into the woods with me. Just a little way," said Mack.

"Why?"

"For one thing, so you can see that I'm not making it up."

"I really do believe you now, Mack. I really do."

"You scared of the woods?"

"I'm scared of that panther. He likes you fine, but I don't want to test to see if my pistol can kill a magic cat. Besides, a cop shooting a Black Panther is such a stereotype."

"Ha ha," said Mack. "It ain't that kind of panther, and you no kind of cop at all, yet."

"I don't even have a gun yet," said Ceese.

"Then why you worried about whether you can shoot a panther?"

"Thinking ahead."

Mack took him by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the patio. But the cement didn't turn to brick under their feet, and when they stepped off into the grass they squished rotting oranges, which was fine for Ceese, wearing shoes as he was, but pretty icky for Mack, whose feet were bare.

"I guess I don't have permission to enter Fairyland," said Ceese.

"Then why were you able to get into the house?"

"Maybe halfway is as far as I can go."

"No, let's try getting you in sideways."

They tried crossing the patio with Ceese's eyes closed, and with Ceese walking backward, but there was no woods and no brick path and finally it occurred to Mack that maybe the problem wasn't Ceese.

Where Puck had turned small and slender and green-clad, Ceese had changed in an entirely different way. It was as if the house had shrunk behind him. Ceese was at least twice as tall as the house, and he looked massively strong, with hands that could crush boulders.

Now I know where all those stories about giants come from, thought Mack. Giants are just regular people, when they come into Fairyland.

Except Ceese can't get in. And what about me? I'm regular people, and I'm just the same size I always am.

"Mack!"

The voice was faint and small, and for a moment Mack thought it was Ceese calling him. But no, Ceese was looking off in another direction and anyway, a man that big couldn't possibly make a sound that thin and high.

Mack looked around him there in the woods, and finally found what he was looking for. Down among the fallen leaves, the grass, the moss, the mushrooms, with butterflies soaring overhead, was Puck. Not the big man with the rasta do, but the slender green-clad fairy he had glimpsed last evening on the porch of Skinny House.

He looked dead. Though he must have been alive a moment ago to call to him. Maybe it took the last of his strength. Maybe his last breath.

Puck was bloody, and his wings were torn. His chest looked crushed. One leg was bent at a terrible angle where there wasn't supposed to be a knee.

Mack gently scooped him up and started carrying him toward the house.

Trouble was, Puck grew larger in his hands. Heavier. More like his human Rastafarian self. Too big for Mack to carry safely.

At first he tried to carry him over his shoulder, but that worked for only a few steps before Mack collapsed under the weight of him. Then he got his hands under the man's armpits and dragged him. But it was hard work. His shoes kept snagging on stones and roots. Mack's heart was beating so fast he could hear it pounding in his ears. He had to stop and rest. And in the meantime, he knew Puck was still bleeding and probably dying even deader with every jostle and every minute of delay.

If only Ceese could enter the forest of Fairyland, he could pick Puck up like a baby and carry him.

And then it dawned on Mack why it was Ceese couldn't get in.

"What?"

"Mr. Christmas is in there, hurt bad, and I can't drag him out."

"Well I can't get in."

"I think maybe the reason you can't is that the passageway into Fairyland isn't tall enough for you."

"I'm not all that tall," said Ceese.

"In Fairyland you are. I saw you from inside the woods, and you're a giant, Ceese."

Ceese laughed at that—he wasn't all that tall a man, just average—but soon he was doing as Mack suggested, crawling on hands and knees while holding on to Mack's ankle and looking off to the side, and whether all of that was needed or it was just the crawling, he made it onto the brick path—which was no pleasure, on his knees like that—and then onto the mossy path.

"Open your eyes," said Mack.

Ceese did, and he truly was a giant, looking down at Mack like he was a Cabbage Patch doll.

And there, two strides away, was a grown black man in a rasta do, just like Mack described him.

"How come I'm a full-grown giant and he's not a tiny fairy, this far into the woods?"

"How do you know you're full-grown?" asked Mack.

He didn't, and he wasn't. In the two strides it took him to reach Mr. Christmas, Ceese grew so tall that his head was in the branches of the trees and he had to kneel back down just to see the path.

He scooped up Mr. Christmas just the way Mack had done and then, a few steps later, he had shrunk enough he had to set him down again and carry him in a fireman's carry. By the time they got to the back door, with Mack holding the screen open so Ceese could get inside, the man was so heavy and huge that Ceese was panting and staggering.

But he remembered how it felt to be so huge, and he kind of liked it.

Now the house was full of furniture again. Ceese took this in stride and laid Mr. Christmas out on the sofa. Now he was able to check his vital signs. "He's got a pulse. I don't suppose there's a phone."

"I wouldn't count on it," said Mack.

"Let's get him outside then, out to the street where somebody can see us, and try to get him to a hospital."

"I was hoping his own magic could heal him."

Mack helped Ceese get him up onto his back again, the old man's arms dangling over Ceese's shoulders. "Get the door open, Mack, and then run out into the street and flag somebody down."

Mack obeyed. First car that came was a nice big one, driven by Professor Williams from up the hill. He pulled right over when Mack flagged him.

"We got a man needs to get to the hospital!"

"I'm not that kind of a doctor," said Professor Williams. "I'm a doctor of literature."

"You the driver of a big car," said Mack, "and you can get this man to the hospital."

By now, Ceese had staggered to the curb, so he was visible.

"That man looks hurt," said Professor Williams.

"That be my guess, too," said Mack.

"He'll bleed all over my upholstery."

"That going to stop you from helping a man in need?" asked Mack.

Professor Williams was embarrassed. "No, of course not." A moment later, he had the back door open and then helped Ceese get the man into the car without dropping him or banging his head against the door or the car roof. It wasn't easy.

And at the end, when Mr. Christmas was laid out on the seat, Professor Williams took a good long look at his face. "Bag Man," he whispered.

"You know this guy?" said Ceese.

Professor Williams handed his keys to Ceese. "You take my car to the hospital. I'll walk back home and get my son Word to drive me to work."

"You sure you trust me with a car this nice?" said Ceese.

Professor Williams looked from Mr. Christmas to Mack and then back to Ceese. "I'm never riding in a car with that man again," he said. "If you're determined to save his life, then go, I won't stop you."

"I just hope I can get to the hospital in time. Unless you got a siren in your car."

Professor Williams gave a bitter little laugh. "I have a feeling you'll have green lights all the way, son."

Mr. Christmas didn't wake up at all, not on the way to the hospital, and not when the orderlies came out and hauled him out of the car and laid him on a gurney and rolled him into the emergency room.

That caused some raised eyebrows, and when they signed Mr. Christmas in as a John Doe, Ceese turned to Mack and said, "You watch, they'll have a cop coming by here to ask us if we the ones who beat this man up."

"Why would they do that?"

"Take a look at the color of your skin."

Mack grinned. "This just a suntan, Ceese. You know I spend all day outdoors in the summer."

"What I'm saying, Mack, is, let's go home. Let's not be here when the cop shows up."

"I can't do that," said Mack.

Ceese shook his head. "What is this man to you?"

"He's the man in Skinny House," said Mack. "He's the man who led me into—"

"Don't say it."

"Don't say what?"

Ceese lowered his voice. "Fairyland. Makes you sound two years old."

"He's more than two years old, that's what he called it."

"So don't you wonder how he got so beat up?"

"It could have been anything, he was so small."

"How small was he?" asked Ceese.

"You know how small he was in your hands when you picked him up?"

"Yeah, but that's because I was..." Ceese looked around at the other people in the emergency waiting area. "Well, I was what I was right then."

"That's how big he was to me, and I was normal size."

Ceese turned himself on the couch and leaned close to Mack's ear. "That's something I want to know. I got big, and that old bum got small, but nothing happened to you at all."

"So, why?"

"I didn't read the instruction manual, I guess."

"I'm just trying to think it out and make some sense out of it."

"It don't make sense, Ceese."

"I mean, if humans turn into giants, and... whatever he is... gets small, what are you?"

"I wish I knew," said Mack. "I never met my mother. Maybe she was regular size, too."

Ceese looked away, then turned to face front. "I wasn't saying about your parentage. Don't get sensitive on me all of a sudden."

"I'm not," said Mack. "I just don't know. I could be anything. I mean, if a regular-looking homeless person with a rasta do can be a fairy."

A new voice came out of nowhere. "Is that why you boys beat him up? Cause you thought he was gay?"

It was a cop standing ten feet away, so his voice carried through the whole room. Mack had never been rousted by a cop, though he'd heard plenty of tales and he knew the rules—always say sir and answer polite and don't ever, ever get mad, no matter what stupid thing they say. Did it make a difference that this cop was black?

"We didn't beat him up, sir," said Ceese. "And we were honestly not referring to anyone's sexual orientation, sir."

"Oh, so you were telling fairy stories to your little friend here?"

Mack didn't think he was so little anymore. Then he realized the cop was being sarcastic.

"As it happens, sir, I used to tend this boy when he was little. I was his daycare while his mother, who is a nurse in this very hospital, worked the evening shift. So I've read him a lot of fairy tales in my time."

The cop squinted, not sure if he was being had. "I've heard a lot of fairy tales, too."

"Not from me, sir."

"So you really did just find that unconscious man by the side of the road," said the cop, "and you happened to flag down the only man in the universe who would hand you his car keys and let you drive his fancy car to the hospital with a dirty bleeding old bum with a broken leg and five broken ribs and all kinds of contusions and abrasions bleeding all over the nice leather interior."

"Except," said Mack.

Ceese turned to him, looking as casual and politely interested as could be, but Mack knew his look really meant, Don't touch my story, boy, it's the best one we got.

"He wasn't unconscious when we found him," said Mack. "When I found him, I guess I mean. I heard him. Calling out for help. That's why we found him in the bushes and we dragged him to the street and that's how we knew we couldn't carry him, and maybe we caused him more pain because he was unconscious after that. But we didn't know what else to do."

"Could have called 911," said the cop, "and not moved him."